That'll Do, Pig

Babe, Demeter's sacred pigs, and a Virgo eclipse invitation

Eleven years ago, before I was blogging about things like Demeter’s sacred pigs and depth psychology books, I wrote about the movie Babe as a business parable.

I saw it as a story about using your strengths, building relationships, and challenging alpha-dog hierarchies.

I see now what I was really tracking: the return of the pig to dignity. Or, the rehabilitation of what patriarchal consciousness cast out as unclean.

So how did pigs become unclean in the first place? Nor Hall writes in The Moon and the Virgin about how pigs were Demeter’s fertiity. Demeter is the Greek goddess of the harvest and therefore associated with the sign of Virgo.

The word “pig” was considered sacred in Greek and Latin and pigs were not to be eaten during the rites. “But pork becomes unclean and pigs become ‘disgusting’ when the mother functions of the feminine, and the goddess of rotting and rutting and springing-to-life, are no longer revered” (p. 81).

But the stories persist. Children still love pigs.

A core book during my childhood was Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. The main characters are Wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider. To this day I try to carefully avoid harming daddy longleg spiders if I come across one while cleaning, in honor of Charlotte’s “Some Pig,” “Terrific,” and “Radiant” messages she wove into her web to encourage Wilbur; moreover, these messages encouraged the Zuckermans to spare Wilbur’s life and see him as a valuable animal.

The book quietly chipped away at restoring what two thousand years of patriarchy had degraded. More than forty years later, the movie Babe would do it again.

Full Moons are our monthly reminder about holding the tension of opposites. There was one in Virgo this past week, which was also an eclipse, adding to the intensity, with Mars added to the mix.

Which brings me back to Babe, and what this pig has to teach us about the Virgo eclipse.

Babe is a pig who finds success doing the work of a sheep dog. However, he doesn’t dominate (masculine/solar/patriarchal) by yelling and nipping like the sheep dogs; he kindly asks (feminine/lunar/relational) the sheep to follow his instructions: “If the three ladies with collars would kindly walk out of the ring I would be very much obliged.”

This makes Babe a sheep-pig. He is virginal in that sense because he stays true to his pig nature (kind, asks permission, builds relationships) while doing sheep dog work. He is Virgo energy incarnate: useful, humble, excellent at his craft, serving the whole.

And just to clarify: the alpha (Mars) energy isn’t all bad and Babe works with it. Alpha dog Rex, who marinated in resentment over Babe’s success during most of the movie, ended up removing a significant barrier for Babe so that he could learn a password of a different group of sheep and communicate with them.

Eclipses are culminations and also help reveal what’s been hidden. Virgo is discernment, seeing clearly, and separating wheat from chaff. What if this eclipse is asking:

What did you cast out as “unclean” that actually carries fertility and wisdom?

Where have you been trying to be a sheep dog (dominating, nipping) when your actual gift is to be the sheep-pig (asking, befriending, serving excellently from your own nature)?

So, yes, be discerning. But let’s also call to mind what Farmer Hoggett says to Babe after his big accomplishment, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

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