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Venus and the scales of Libra: this week on The Storyteller's Dark Sky

On October 5th, Venus is closest to the star Zubenelgenubi, the "alpha" or brightest star in the constellation Libra.
 

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In ancient astrological tradition, the constellation Libra is ruled by the planet Venus, goddess of love and beauty. Venus is our evening star right now, and this week it will pass very close to the brightest star in Libra, triggering the Sicilian fable “Catherine and Her Destiny.”

The constellation Libra represents the scales that are used for weighing and measuring, and the brightest star there has the name Zubenelgenubi, which means the southern tray of the scales.

This week Venus going to step into this “southern scale”, and here’s the tale to go with it:

Young Catherine was a princess and a merchant’s daughter who was cast out on her own in the world after she told her Destiny she would rather have a happy old age than a happy youth. Catherine’s destiny was a beautiful woman who then chased Catherine through the years, forcing her ever on into new and harder experiences.

Eventually, her destiny left her alone, and Catherine came into the service of a woman who required it as part of her daily work that Catherine walk to a mountain that over-shadowed the town, and, climbing to the top, she was to lay on the ground some loaves of freshly baked bread, and cry with a loud voice “O destiny, my mistress!” three times. Then the lady’s Destiny would come and take away the offering.

This went on for awhile until eventually Catherine’s mistress noticed that she was always sad, so Catherine explained how she had lost her station in life, though her destiny had promised long ago that she would have a happy old age.

The tale completes when Catherine’s destiny is awakened from her sleep under seven coverlids, and Catherine is given a ball of silken thread that leads her into the presence of the King, who weighs the thread in his mighty scales, only to find that all the treasures in the kingdom cannot tip the scales to balance. The only thing to balance the scales is his own crown, at which point Catherine’s true station in life is restored and she lives happily ever after.

Find the tale in the sky this week when Venus steps into the southern scale of Libra at the star Zubenelgenubi. 

Find the tale "Catherine and her Destiny" by clicking here.