The Art of Living
If you’ve been feeling like beautifying your home, having a make-over, improving your relationship or getting a better work-life balance, then you’re enjoying the gifts of Libra. In this month of October, we celebrate the Venusian drive to perfect the art of living by bringing more beauty, harmony, grace and love into our lives.
Libra is ruled by the planet Venus which on the lower level governs desire, attraction of the sexes, sensuality and how we shape our personal values and relationships. It’s the drive in us to find complete relatedness with another through sex or love, or through an object or experience that can transform us. On an esoteric level, Venus channels the soul manifesting as pure love-reason.
Venus shows us the other opportunity that love offers – not just for the physical desires , borne of the demands for excitation of our mind and emotions – but for service and sacrifice to something greater than our personal self, when emotions transform into love, and the mind reacts to illumination and inspiration from the soul .
Libra is love- reason
All things are dual, and pure reason is really Venus’ vibration uniting the duality of our heart and mind so that they now function as one organ of invocation, reception and communication. Then we have a unity of heart-love, which is pure love; and mind, or reason. Desire is now love for transcendence beyond the physical into the etheric realms of matter, where we can experience transformative union with our soul.
The heart invokes the mind-reason to receive illumination from the soul, which is then transferred to our brain. This organ, acting now as an agent for the soul, works out the practical steps we must take; the way of spiritual compromise, demonstrating as inspired activity on the physical plane.
The Libran energy, governed by Venus helps us to express this transcendent love-reason into practical avenues that will benefit our fellow humans and the three kingdoms of nature. Libra shows us the art of ‘spiritual compromise’, as Alice Bailey puts it, and this is love-reason in action. (1)
This means, ‘a recognition of time and evolution, not involving any treachery to the goal’. Dane Rudhyar says that compromise requires the, ‘difficult task of discrimination. To be adaptable, yet to retain the purity and total integrity of one’s vision and one’s ideal; to accept detours, yet not lose the direction of the goal; to be understandable and acceptable to those who need the spiritual arousal, yet not destroy or lower the character of the message; to use the values born of the past, yet not sell short the future to the uncertain present; to be kind to men, yet uncompromisingly true to the spirit.’ When we are able to live in such a harmonious way, we are demonstrating the art of dynamic tension.
The power of the opposites
Dane Rudhyar says that Venus works through Libra in the, ‘Natural growth of inherent potentialities, ease and logic of development, elegance of unfoldment; these are the jewels of the art of living; these are the tests of mastery’. (2) This mastery is only achieved by balancing the opposites in our selves. Aries is the polar opposite to Libra, and it’s the dynamic tension, between these two, that helps us understand the equilibrium at the centre. It’s that place of constant movement demonstrating through us as inner peace and harmony. It’s the paradox and the art of the Zen master – the sound of one hand clapping – unity in duality; silence. Aries is the act of mental creation; of forming plans; of initiating our purpose created from this balanced point of tension, in Libra.
Alice Bailey suggests that in Christ’s life, there is a period of silent interlude, between the ages of 12 and 30, when we hear little about him. He spent this time with the Essenes in Egypt, and working as a humble carpenter. This is the time that Christ was practicing the art of living; learning the gifts of Libra. This was in preparation for the next stage; his out-breathing, when he entered public life to minister to the masses as God incarnate. (3)
We can see this same opportunity for interludes in our own life. There are cycles for going out into the world which are like the out-breath – working, talking, creating, and giving. Then there are times for going within – the in-breath. Then we metaphorically breathe in and hold this breath during the interlude, as we contemplate, regenerate, receive, learn, develop, and work on bettering ourselves. If done with awareness of the Libra/Aries polarity, we can utilise these interludes of silence in Libra to regenerate for the Arian out-breathing into the world. We are refining matter so that we can master ourselves and fulfil our life’s purpose.
The keynote for Libra is, “I choose the way which leads between the two great lines of force”. (4) Libra has been called, ‘the master of no-man’s land’ because its energy urges us to strive for balance. We learn to stand steady at the centre of our lives, being swung neither into decadent materialism, nor mystical transcendence, both of which are self-focussed pursuits. We learn to live a useful life of humble, simple and practical service with all the awesome power of living in that place of dynamic tension, and silent mastery, that this entails.
References:
1. Dane Rudhyar quoted in Bailey, A., ‘The Labours of Hercules’, p. 137
2. Ibid p. 136
3. Ibid p. 138-139
4. Bailey, A. ‘Esoteric Astrology’, p. 251
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Thanks again, Caroline, for your inspired article. I will study it more deeply tonight, and meditate on the good points you made.
Lots of love and beauty for you,
Tania