Happy Birthday Libra
John Jocelyn 'Meditations On The Signs Of The Zodiac'
Libra – The Balance
LIBRA, the Balance, or Scales, is the seventh sign of the Zodiac, of the airy element, and cardinal in quality. Its archetype evokes balance, and thus persons strong in Libra ever strive to realize in themselves the maintenance of balance, from the tightrope walker to the judge dispending justice. The scales must always be balanced. Constantly are Libra souls weighed and ever do they weigh themselves, to see what is lacking, in order to maintain harmony and poise. No harmony can exist in man without constantly producing balance, nor could the physical organism exist without the kidneys, which are ruled by Libra, along with the waist or loins, the central portion of the body.
Inner and outer balance results in wholesome – the union of the threefold being of man, made up of body, soul, and spirit. As love is the secret of life, so is this process of integration within man the secret of God, who is love. And, as God is impartial power, giving to all creation his exquisite equilibrium that sustains the cosmos, with worlds and systems self-ordered and self-acting, so does man work and at last win this power and realize his divine estate as a Son of God; and thus experiencing the Christ in himself, he achieves balance and harmony.
Figuratively, we may speak of Libra, this central, sacred, sabbatical sign, as the flywheel of the Zodiac, for as power and motion are maintained on an appointed course in proportion to the balance supplied, stability being given by the gyroscopic balancing force, so does man elevate himself on the spiraling course of evolution as he acquires an increasing harmony of balance. To become balanced is to become whole, and wholeness results only from a union or integration of forces. This wholeness is secured through the Christ working in the soul, relating the soul to the spirit in Full Ego-consciousness.
No proper comprehension of the signs of the Zodiac is possible without a growing working knowledge of the meaning of the Christ. This fact becomes vital when we examine the seventh sign, for this sign has for its office the power of crucifixion. When the Sun enters Libra, it changes its course from the northern to the southern hemisphere; there is a crossing over the equator. Day and night are equal in length, light and darkness are balanced. Thus the quality of balance is realized when the Sun reaches the equator, midway between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
When Libra is dominant at birth, there manifests in the life a change-over, a cross-ification or crucifixion of the man and, through this crucifixion in Libra, man achieves a true balance and finds the peace which ‘passeth understanding’, the unconditioned joy which only the Christ can give. Venus, the ruler of Libra, rules not only the venous blood circulation, but also Friday; and the Crucifixion occurred on Friday. The esoteric student will note that natives of this sign pass through the Good Friday spell as an actual experience. St. Paul says, ‘They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts’ (Galatians 5:24) The degree and power of such a crucifixion will accord with the status of the soul. Libra persons, especially must sacrifice the flesh to the Spirit, so that the soul may be refined. Thus do they rise out of sufferings and sorrow, which occasion intense thought about their experiences in feeling, until a balance of the head and heart is achieved through the will. Only in this wise is that wholeness acquired that makes for wholesomeness and equanimity.
‘What crucifixions are in love,’ says Herrick. Love is literally the life of Libra; those born in or under this Venus sign are crucified in the flesh through their desires and feelings, until purification thoroughly refines the soul and brings it to a state of poise and peace. All earthly marriages are but a shadow of the heavenly pattern. After one has experienced the divine marriage conjoining the lower self to the higher, this sign with all its sufferings leads at last, by way of Golgotha, to the crown of Christ. Then is heard the voice which removes the last sting of pain with the words, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid’ (St John 14:27)
As we mediate further upon Libra as the central sign of the Zodiac, we gain a clearer idea of its flywheel, balancing force and thus of its power to coordinate the threefold soul forces of thinking, feeling and willing, resulting in greater equilibrium. Only those who have lived in Libra intensely can say much about its force, and then it has warrant only if they have lived in all the other signs of the Zodiac so positively that they are now illuminated by the higher intuitional consciousness. It is spiritual work, along with suffering in the flesh, that awakens man and brings him into contact with the Christ within.
Of the three signs, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio, the central sign. Libra, seeks to distill the qualities of the three, taking the pure essence of each and bringing all three, taking the pure essence of each and bringing all three into harmony, creating a true balance and thus peace. When this harmony is won by overcoming the fierce onslaught of inner conflict and suffering trials in the flesh, the riot of desires finally having been brought under full control, then do we behold a man filled with true compassion for humanity. Libra evokes a passion for peace and brings peace through passion, for in this sign harmony is achieved through conflict. This sounds paradoxical, but how else could peace be attained, except through that mighty war that engages the flesh with the Spirit! In Libra, illumination comes through the intuition as the soul refines the desires and mediates between the lower and the higher self. In Virgo, the soul must achieve discrimination through a process of dissection and elimination, thus learning right discernment in thinking and in feeling that undergoes purification in this psychic-mental sign. This process is further intensified by the sublimation of feelings and desires in the sign Scorpio. The result is a distillate of pure consciousness which attunes the soul to the world of harmony and unity.
So do we see all souls at some time, in some life, become refined in this sign of crucifixion, until the lower self of the senses is brought into equilibrium with the higher self by balancing the heart and the head through the sovereign will. Thus re-formed, man gains that refinement which creates positive soul forces, and this is important to know, for it is this Christ-consciousness that we come to the Earth to secure. In examining Libra, it is helpful to look at a pair of scales, for Libra is the sign of the Scales, the Balance. The scale pans stand for thought and feeling, the head and the heart. The two pans should have exactly equal weight and thus be balanced. The point of suspension of the scale beam, the fulcrum, symbolizes the will. Meditation on this symbol of Libra soon shows that it is a triad related to the Trinity.
Libra souls desire perfect harmony arising from the balanced threefold man whose thinking, feeling, and willing here become separate, free, and independent, yet are harmonized and are under the control of the Ego. Christ-concord in the human personality until the progress in concentration and meditation releases equally and independently the forces of thinking, feeling, and willing. Christ-concord is true peace, but this peace cannot possibly be established in the human personality until the progress in concentration and meditation releases equally and independently the forces of thinking, feeling, and willing. Christ-concord, that brings surcease to troubled hearts filled with fear, comes to man as he uses his will in spiritual activity, to exact in himself a just balance, a perfect equilibrium.
He who would attain to this state of Sabbath rest, which makes the soul ever more active consciously, must achieve this inner balanced power. The threefold forces of thinking, feeling, and willing must be equalized as the triune symbol of Libra, the Scales, indicates. Mankind is in the process of developing into a Hierarchy known as ‘The Spirits of Freedom and Love’. Freedom and love are qualities that we must evolve here in the flesh on Earth. As our conscious Ego becomes spiritually active by willed thinking, we become increasingly free. And as we bring thinking into our life of will, we perfect our actions and attain to greater deeds of love. In Libra, we see how souls are given opportunities to test their soul quality and so secure balance, sometimes bringing to resolution a series of past earthly lives. This sign of rest, this sabbatical sign, comes to mind with the invitation, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28) No one can achieve this rest, this Christ-concord consciousness, the balance that brings peace, until equilibrium is secured, for this is the one thing needful if man would rid himself of fear, earthly errors, and worries.
Just as the scales ever strive toward equilibrium, so do Libra-lighted souls always long for and cherish the attainment of inner balance. They know that such a state of poised power, effected by equilibrium, would free them from all anxiety. With such balance acquired, the light of a higher world would shine down into the earthly man. Intuitively do Librans find the way to the higher consciousness. In Libra, souls can achieve success in all spheres of life as they realize the inner peace and ‘rest’ which this balancing sign confers.
Creative balancing power manifests in the free forces of cooperation in the cosmos, without which the planets and the constellations would never maintain their courses. The planets turn on their axes, move on their orbits, and maintain all their other motions in virtue of the investing grace of God, thus creating the harmony of the spheres, the symphony of sounding balance and concord of the cosmos which, being true music, is the voice of God. Likewise, man, the microcosm within the macrocosm, must seek in Libra to approach the Christ Mystery which will harmonise him and make him a cosmic cooperator, enabling him to keep his course forever ascending on the solar spiral of evolution toward the revelation of new truth.
In Libra, the light of the world moves man to find the harbour of heavenly harmony, through whose sounding tone the soul perfects its balance and acquires the equilibrium of love and peace. Libra says, ‘I AM the soul of peace and love, the embodiment of music, the ecstatic essence of fair thoughts wedded to fine feelings expressive of courageous deed”. This is the essence of blended thought, feeling, and will, yet with these soul forces rendered independent of each other. The perfected symphony of the man become supra-personal, the soul mediating between the personality and the spiritual Ego in true poise, is effected in this sign of music, which leads to the octave; then all life is known to be set to music and is essentially musical, no matter how dull and drab the world may have become.
The stars all cycle and spiral in their courses to the accompaniment of the music they create; every force in the universe, be it the most minute or the very mightiest, sounds forth a sacred song, and this is the Word, which was ‘in the beginning’. Were not the Word of the Christ-life still sounding, only a void would exist and not life. Man is made creative and active through the sounding tone and word in the world, even though he knows it not.
Yet man’s life today is rendered colourless, abstract, empty, and even disastrous because he is no longer conscious of the world of the Word, because of his ignorant intellectual opposition to and rejection of the spiritual worlds and beings. The madness of materialism has made man deaf to the Word. Although it was necessary that man be plunged into materialism, in order to achieve Ego-consciousness. To do so, man must conquer the dragon of materialism. In this sign of justice and balance, Libra, man meets this satanic dragon opposed to the Christ, for this is the foil of evil set against the Christ, and some time, in some life, a choice of paths must be made here. Wise is he who chooses the Michael Path to the Christ, for he who would correlate and communicate with the Christ can do so through Michael, who is the Countenance of the Christ now. In 1879, Michael entered the Earth sphere of spiritual activity and became regent of all those who seek beneficial forces essential for their right development and healthy progress. The time of Libra is the time of Michaelmas, September 29th. The Sun’s passage through Libra each autumn is the season of Michael, who slays the dragon of the Ahrimanic death-dealing forces of earthly intellectualism that seeks to negate the Spirit. Now man has the choice of becoming either the helper of Michael or the servant of the Ahrimanic hosts.
Man, at this time, cannot yet discern the divine design nor hear the Christing-tones sounding in the heavenly harmonies, even though day and night he himself is giving forth his own sound, good or evil, delightful or discordant, according with his state and quality in evolution. In short, musical sound underlies all life, and it is in the equalizing measures of Libra that man is ever refined and raised to higher harmony, for in Libra, balance is to be attained, and the divine beings who made man in their image brood over his destiny, seeking to perfect man in poise of true peace, the balancing of the scales. Until this ability finding balance is gained, the Comforter is not found, nor will that peace come which is the Christ gives, a power not of this world. Man is filled with fear and troubled much until he finds his balance in the sign of the heavenly harmonies and music, the sign of justice and concord, in which all men are weighed, life after life, until they achieve a true and effective equilibrium and equanimity.
There is much more to music than its earthly tones, for behind the sounding element conveyed by the chemical ether there is its spiritual essence, whether man knows it or not. This spiritual essence, the heavenly soul of the tone, is separated by the ear from the earthly sound. Likewise, there is much more to man than the physical body that stands before us, for concealed within man and beyond the gaze of physical eyes, there live the soul and the spirit, although men who identify themselves with the physical body are not conscious today of their existence. By the power of Libra’s light we can grow to envisage this part of man, his soul-spiritual life now veiled from our gaze. The power of sounding music surges through Libra, relating sensitive souls to the Divine Musician. When great symphonies are being played by orchestras, the musicians are inspired by the heavenly lords of music through this sounding seventh sign of the Zodiac, Libra. If one could truly see with spiritual eyes, there above the performers could be seen the surging, serried ranks of music-creating beings who sound out the tone and colour in pure complementation.
There is no finer road into the spiritual worlds than that by way of the musical sounding tone through Libra. Here we find shapes of joyous beauty, the consonance of myriad colours blending into a symphony of sound upon the wings of which we raise our souls to the heights of sublimest rapture, transported into the ecstasy of the Christ-life. It is in this sounding power so mighty that we attune ourselves to the love that pervades the entire Earth. Love is the secret of life, and its power manifests in music, in the sounding song of God. What once the priesthood accomplished in the temple rites now is achieved through music. Today the true musician is the hierophant of the Mysteries, seeking to raise humanity through tone to the heightened power of the Spirit.
True beauty of love comes into being through the harmony which the love of God imparts through his Christ. The essence of the Christ is found in all forms which love creates, and there lives the light of Libra, as it does in all those souls who seek to serve the souls of men, to protect the weak, the insulted, the injured races, the ailing and the pitiful, whose light is dim or dulled by the sweat of cruel cadences of pain. Out of the harmony which is love, all things are made, and in the same mighty music shall all be refined and at last resolved. This love is not sentiment, but a dynamic power that weaves through all things and provides everything needed by all the perfect unfoldment of consciousness.
Man’s task on Earth is not only to become aware of the law of love but also to realize himself as this very love and to outstream its radiance. Then will the lower nature become spiritualised by the higher man, the Lord from heaven. As man comes into this higher consciousness, all his creations, on all planes, and in all realms, take on growing beauty and perfection. The Ego uses the forces of the soul to create, be it in the making of a dress, house, ship, song, or poem. Librans often express love and harmony in colour and in tone. Even if one is not creative, Libra gives an intensified feeling for, and appreciation of, beauty, especially in art and music. He who would find the beauty of love and achieve peace, must realize the light that leads to union through the operative wholeness of the sign Libra. The Christ says he came to those who needed a physician, for he would make men whole. To be made whole is to be healed by him who redeems the earthly man immersed in matter. Libra represents the supra-personal, the spiritual self that is the opposite of the personal self, the earthly Ego, represented by Aries, its complementary sign. Those who open their hearts to love align their souls with the pure light of Libra, the air sign which unites, as in one atmosphere, the soul forces of all it contacts. The marked power of Libra is union, its characteristic is conjugality and true marriage.
So it is that the quality of fusion, the longing for union with others inheres in Libra, for this is the sign of association, soul assimilation, and amalgamation, the sign not only of marriage but also of attraction in a social and associative manner. He who is strong in Libra and holds aloof from others denies himself his best evolutionary development and negates the very purpose of this airy sign, which fosters companionship with others, partnerships, but in particular marriage. Libra leads to marriage, but when severely afflicted, it may cause annulment or denial of marriage. It brings people together or it separates them, depending on their bent or stage of evolution. The vice of Libra is to hold aloof, not realizing the sense of wholeness which it could attain through companionship. Only the negative response to Libra leads one to avoid people, and if an isolation from others is maintained, one nullifies opportunities for expanded life and growth.
Human relationships may be brought to the point of a fine art in Libra. The quality of conjugality, or the power to fuse in true union, manifests on the personal plane as the desire to please others or even to sacrifice for them; in its inner, higher aspect it manifests as spiritual devotion. The power of sex manifests the universal, cosmic urge that ever seeks to balance the pairs of opposites in every field and phase of life. To blend and merge, to unify the twain into one perfection, achieving true marriage and union, is the ideal of Libra. In the welding power of wedded association can the higher Christ-life be made animate, and such true marriage may be achieved in Libra, for it is in Libra that balance and harmony become consummate. Those who remain isolated and refuse to associate themselves never approach the union of true marriage which is companionship with the Christ-life.
The “power of detachment, this psychic freedom, this capacity to feel deeply interested in the fate of others even at a moment when the sense of union with the beloved is present in great intensity, is characteristic of human love in its most spiritual aspect. Love may vary infinitely in degree, range, and intensity: but the quality of love, whether the tension be high or low, is always ‘rest’. This is what distinguishes it from passion, straining perpetually in unrest,” writes D.E. Faulkner Jones in the remarkable book, The English Spirit (Anthroposophical Publishing company, 1935) The further description of love applies perfectly to Libra: ‘Love between two human beings reaches its highest perfection when they are equal, though different, in power, for then is achieved that perfect equipoise born of two equal forces, mutually supporting each other in space: the image of the material earth itself. Spencer describes it thus:
For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts, composed of stars’ concent,
Which join together in sweet sympathy,
To work each other’s joy and true content,
Which they have harboured since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see
And know each other here beloved be.
Gray’s description of Venus, the ruler of Libra, suggests a being whose essence is ‘poise’, who moves freely in space because she has achieved perfect balance.
Slow, melting strains their queen’s approach declare:
Where’er she turns, the Graces homage pay;
With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way.
Power to move freely in space comes only from a perfect balance of physical forces, whether these are in a human body, or incorporated into the principles of a machine. Human love, at its highest, gives to those who achieve it the same kind of freedom in the psychic and spiritual planes of existence that physical balance gives in the material universe. It gives spiritual and psychic ‘poise’, and a sense of inner power akin to that which fills the athlete when he feels body and mind working in perfect harmony.
Rudolf Steiner speaks of ‘Two’ as the number of manifestation on the material plane. Human love comes into being subjectively whenever a man or woman brings thought, feeling and will into a state of balance, and directs them outwards in devotion, but it can only become manifest in creative earth-activity when two such outpouring forces meet and bring each other to rest in mutual balance.
“Christ himself cannot work creatively on earth except so far as the outpouring of his Divine Love can be ‘held’ and made manifest by an outpouring force of love from man towards Him. The extent to which Christ can work with power on earth depends on the extent to which human beings can love. When the isolated individual turns in love to Christ. He can work subjectively in that man’s being, but the full power of earth-love only becomes manifest from the inter-action of human beings in mutual love. When the inter-locked love-force of two or more human beings can flow towards the Christ, then can begin not only a subjective working of Christ in the individual, but an objective manifestation of his power on earth. ‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.’ ”
Although Libra is the sign of equilibrium, poise, peace, and rest, it is none the less intensely mobile and all-permeating, taking on the quality of fullness, filling all things. In this sign, we find a force that is volatile and so all-pervasive as to diffuse itself as the very air, to permeate the whole soul of man and not just a part of his consciousness. Through this power to permeate, forces are engendered that impart the radiance of a still higher consciousness, which descends as it were from heaven. In the evolved Libra individual, forces of the soul are used, not just the brain, as in most, and it is in virtue of this power to discern and unify that there arise such perfect perceptions and intuition. The thinking is separated from the senses, and brain-free messages come by way of the mediating soul. Thus we see why Libra-lighted individuals have such innate, instant intuition, a teaching from within.
All air signs impart the quality of intuition as well as the power of reasoning. They develop spiritual cognition that transcends the physical forces of the brain. In Libra, the sign of soul, man is individualized and brought to a state of poise and harmony through the illumination bestowed on him by the super-conscious Christ-contact. As the fire signs impart directive dynamic action and energy, and the water signs incessant change and the transforming force of feeling and sensation, so the air signs merge man with the world of thought and mental-life experience.
Like all cardinal signs, Libra marks the beginning of a new mode of motion, a movement that separates thinking from the senses, holding the respective expressions of consciousness – the lower man over against the higher self – in exact equilibrium, the subjective and objective being balanced. Such a balance causes one to become effectively creative by comparing and weighing of things, ideas, men, and everything else, bringing to manifestation the quality of justice. Only if we still sense perceptions can we become aware of and unite with those realms of rarefied thought wherein all ideas exist that find expression in the physical world. This is the archetypal region where all originating elemental forces are found as living centers and here is the true source of life. Therefore, as we deliberately control our feeling forces and our thinking forces through our will, we can come to the harmony of balance, and this Libra brings about when the physical is shut out and we behold the heavenly facts and forces; hence the intuitive, perception power of Libra natives. Without this sense-free power of controlled detachment from the body and brain in utter calm, with feeling and thought balancing the scales, there cannot be heard those messages from the soul which are the true tuition from within. This is a marked power of all air signs, for they are intuitional.
Man has a brain and a sensory system; he has also a mind-soul of a still higher degree, yet beyond these, there stands his spirit. Most persons use only the brain; they are intellectual and remain spiritually ignorant. But man becomes aware of his higher being as a soul and spirit only as he directs his soul-forces to the supersensible. Man’s spiritual ignorance today is the result of this lack of balance. It was a wise man who said, ‘A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight’ (Proverbs 11:1), and again, ‘Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord, and a false balance is not good’ (Proverbs 20:23). Although this may refer to balance in commercial dealings, the principle applies equally well to man’s consciousness, as is obvious in ‘The Lord weigheth the spirits’ (Proverbs 16:2). At the present long removal from these timely utterances, it is evident that most people cheat themselves by their unknowing lack of balance. The air signs brings about a restoration, Libra providing the pivotal power of balance. Libra stands essentially for the union of the soul with the higher self as well as with the personality.
Individualisation through the Christ in man is to be achieved in earthly life, and this divine force is at work within all men, to spiritualise the personality. Man’s personality is merely what the name says, for persona, meaning mask, and most men believe they are well hidden behind such masks; but they are not hidden from those who have evolved that spiritual intelligence that confers the faculty of intuition instantly distinguishes the false from the true with unfailing precision. If the light of Libra can so see the real man – and if it will – what is this faculty if not the pure power of the supra-personality, and what is this supra-personality if not another guise for that name and power which is the Christ. Thus the Libra soul knows without resorting to ordinary thinking once it has become aware of the soul-spiritual and of that ocean of the all-pervasive, all-permeating Christ-current flowing through all life.
And, speaking of this intuitive power, let us distinguish it from that other faculty that is psychic and of the astral feelings, for intuition, while not identical with ordinary thinking is derived with the help of thinking by the permeation of thinking with supersensible reality, with the higher, spiritual realms. Facts are often faculty in psychic perception, due to illusion and distortion, and because of the impurity of the seer; but facts perceived by the intuition of a purified soul are never faulty – they are true and are gained in virtue of purity and balance. This intuition is a cognitive faculty akin to clairvoyant thought, for the perception of Libra is not merely the ability to apprehend objects by means of the senses; rather, it is that forte possessed by all true poets, that facile force which indicates and declares, nay, which speaks of the spiritual fact, idea, or being behind the thing, thought, or person. This faculty is thus more than just cognition of sense phenomena, for joined to this power to perceive there is the ability to conceive; thus, percept and concept – the object and the idea back of the object – become linked, providing an immediate understanding of the object perceived, without reflection but solely in virtue of intuition, which Libra imparts as the soul has been made ‘pure as He is pure’. Thus the status in evolution marks off the man or woman having residence in this sign, which plays so large a part in the Christing of the individual.
We are weighed in the balance when we are natives of the sign of the Scales, for Librans have been given much, and much will be required of them. A Libra life is a life of readjustment and new direction, for a series of past lives is now up for correction and consolidation upon new lines, through a balancing that makes for a new departure in life. A higher spiral of life and a heightened consciousness must arise. The lower self and the higher self are being weighed, and the scales must be equalized through the Christ-fulcrum, the pivotal point on the scale beam. This is the source of the power and of the consciousness that is intuitional.
Balancing is a continuous process. One fails in this sign if he rests on past laurels and refuses to break new ground beyond the acquired powers of the past. And those negative in this sign do so often fail in this respect, even though they are gifted; they waste and scatter their forces, become superficial and smattering, are inconstant in their ideas and relations, postpone their duties and lose precious opportunities. Perseverance pays true dividends here, just as the habit of postponement bankrupts the soul and wastes valuable earthly time. The difficulty consists in attaining self-mastery, that is, becoming one’s own master, avoiding all extremes, maintaining the golden mean, using one’s gifts and talents wisely, arranging times for work, rest, and recuperation, thus becoming an integrated individual. It is the part of wisdom for Librans to be themselves and not to pose in a role. The unevolved Ego, however, fails to make the spiritual contact that wisely directs by means of truth.
Libra souls are keenly perceptive, with marked powers of comparison, and in virtue of this faculty of instant insight and cognition, they have a natural faculty to assess and appraise, to weigh and to judge, and a power to give and take that no other sign possesses. They have this unerring judgment and such a fine power of comparison as a result of an impartiality that stems from their ability to detach themselves from their own person; standing aside as it were, they are open to inspiration from the spiritual realms. It is through this gift that Librans have the inner means of expounding and teaching the occult facts that declare the nature and being of man and of the Christ. It is because they have this inner, higher light that they accept, and work with, the forces of destiny with finer effect. This is the result of their right attitude, for they know the exact justice of destiny and of things as they are, and not as they appear to be. It is not enough to say Librans have a love of justice, but rather that justice is their love, and for this love of balanced being, this harmony of justice, will they work; and they are impelled and accelerated by the very experiences of life to attain that poise which is peace.
When Libra souls are negative, their desire to please degenerates into a docility so plastic as to make them injuriously amenable to the desire of others. Such a state of passive docility makes a man neither hot nor cold, a person without spine, indifferent to the reality and purpose of earthly life and disloyal to the Christ within. The one aim should be to please the Christ within, who speaks as intuition. This higher wisdom or inner voice one possesses in quality and available accuracy only in proportion to one’s power of coordination – Libra’s forte and force – which makes for wholeness, in virtue of coordination of body, soul, and spirit. The positive Libra force welds into oneness. The negative Libra force, on the other hand, disintegrates, scatters, and separates. Negative natives in Libra scatter, or merely to gain and live therein, they crucify Christ the more in this sign of crucifixion. Yet Libra holds the power to unify and make one, so that the soul may be raised from the deadening mood of matter to the life of the Spirit.
In Libra comes consummate knowledge of suffering through love, for this positive sign of Venus is also the exaltation for Saturn; and Venus and Saturn sublimated and merged produce stability in feeling and thought. ‘Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth’ and much purification is wrought in this sign, for the suffering is invariably the fruit of feelings in the marital relation, an agony of soul created by choices that are compelled and successively presented, until escape becomes impossible and the native, out of his very pain, stands free at last from the great illusion which the astral world and the senses present to the brain-bound personality. Thus man finds release from the conventional glamour as he evolves in this sign. Libra, therefore, calls forth experiences engendered by marriage, and no harder lessons are to be found nor worked through than those that eventuate here, nor is there a finer field to refine love and establish the essential poise and the unperturbed equanimity and power that knows and understands.
Generally, the experience of Libra natives is that they are not happy living alone, and so they seek until they find or earn the harmony and balanced life they crave. Their desire for harmony is so great, and the soul’s sensitivity so intensely acute that the slightest disharmony, false or wrong note, is instantly felt and experienced as a wound. In virtue of this same faculty, Librans are not happy listening to many of the special renditions of the great composers’ works as they are given by the various orchestras; each departure from the master’s original version is easily noted and deplored.
When one is evolved in Libra, then a definite effort is made to unify not only himself but also those in his environment or out in the world. Napoleon, with Libra rising, was a classical example, yet he failed as he projected personal ambition into his endeavors. The general destiny of Libra brings free association with others and with the public. It calls for companionship and communion of soul as an inner urgent need and on levels of equality and among peers, for in the intensely ideal sense Librans are seeking union of soul with likeminded kindred souls. Yet, Librans are seldom proud or overbearing; they are kindly and impartial, no matter what one’s station in life. their friendly feeling and affability awakens a friendly feeling in others, loosening tension and tautness in human relationships. Highly evolved Librans are love personified.
Libra should lead us to meditate upon and realize fully that all mankind is now weaving, consciously or unconsciously, the ‘wedding garment’. This work must be done on Earth in a body of flesh and form; it is the result of the activity of the Ego in and on the threefold body of man, the interaction producing soul forces. Through Libra balance, the true Christ-correction, man is enabled to fashion the ‘white robe’ spoken of in Revelation. The enquiry of one of the elders, ‘What are these who are arrayed in white robes, and whence come they?’ drew forth the answer, ‘These are they which came out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (Revelation 7:13,14). The robe of the soul is made white by the veritable life of Christ in all. The divine alchemy of the Spirit within man, working out as tribulations in the earth-school, engenders pure harmony, contentment, and equanimity through Christ-correction in the sign of crucifixion, the sign of soul and of balance – Libra.
Contentment and equanimity are our most urgent need in this century of constant crisis. Equanimity is no passive quality; it requires incessant balancing between two opposite tendencies. The one tendency leads to passion, pride, egotism, selfish isolation, and to an other-worldliness of bliss and beauty in a cloud realm apart from the earth. The other tendency plunges us into earthly error, materialism, mechanization, and standardization; it keeps us ignorant of the Spirit and enslaves us to matter. No longer does it suffice to conceive of good and evil as merely two opposite poles; evil itself has two opposing poles and it is the function of the good to maintain the balance between the two extremes. In the first quarter of our century, the eminent spiritual scientist, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, whose Moon was in Libra, not only repeatedly spoke of a Triad, but expressed this concept also in a monumental work of art – a large statue carved in wood, located in Dornach, Switzerland. There is a duality of polar powers: the one, Lucifer, induces spirituality and also beauty, but a spirituality that lives in the clouds, unrelated to practical earthly life; the other Ahriman seeks to chain man to the earth, keeping his thinking brain-bound, unlighted by the Spirit. The Christ, however, a being of cosmic purpose and outstreaming love, stands perfectly poised, his feet firmly on the earth, as the Representative of Man, maintaining the balance between the two powers, one pulling upward and the other downward.
This Triad is present in every human soul. In the West, Ahriman tips the scales, enslaving man to matter and producing a culture that carefully omits, if it does not directly deny, the Spirit. In the East, Lucifer weights the scales – or did so, until the Western influence prevailed – estranging and alienating man from earthly life. However, in the West there are innumerable isms and drugs that draw the souls as into clouds of illusion or other-worldliness undervaluing earth-realities and blinding them to the existence of the darker, the Ahrimanic side of earthly experience, so that they see only the beauty of the illusory light of Lucifer; or else, they hold on to a spirituality that was right for earlier centuries but, lacking spiritual intelligence, is not effective in dealing with modern materialism.
In the midst of the chaos and conflict of our time, we need the Libra light of a higher consciousness, the intuition and the selfless supra-consciousness of the Christ, in order to remain poised and balanced between the false light and lust of Lucifer and the darkness and error of Ahriman – between senseless rapture and rigidity. Thus, Libra may shed light on the resolution of the most relevant present-day problems. It promises no easy peace, but equanimity achieved through a constant process of Christ-balance. And in this process there is flowered the soul of divine love.
The Cosmic Symphony
God’s love, God’s life, eternity,
The light of heaven – Holy Three!
Sweet efflorescence which doth bear
These myriad blossoms everywhere.
Where’er I look I see thy soul,
Thy living essence, ever whole!
Behind, within the core of everything
God’s archetype doth always sing.
Beyond the Earth in finer sphere
There doth thy handiwork appear;
From the Highest Hierarch to the gnome,
Thou art their ‘rest’ thy life their home.
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