On the Nature of Libras and the Libra Full Moon 2004

by Malvin Artley		print version
		print version (graphics)

Greetings, my friends, from Adelaide, Australia!

Spring is in full bloom here in the Land of Red Earth. The weather is starting to turn resplendent, the sap has risen in the plants and in things otherwise and a young man’s fancies turn to thoughts of…well….things other than work. I was busy this morning in a small backyard shop repairing a milling machine for a man of Sri Lankan birth. The blossoms in his orange tree had pervaded the yard with their intoxicating and sweet perfume. The chooks were softly chatting to eachother as they scratched for their meal in the pen. The young lad in the shop was engrossed wholly in his task at hand, and I could smell the scent of curry as it wafted in from the man’s kitchen. It is amazing what one can find in people’s back yards. Driving down the road past the rows of non-descript houses, one would never guess that there would be fully equipped engineering shops behind them steadily churning out parts for all and sundry types machinery thatmake our lives so much easier. I enjoy these little jobs, as much for the people I meet as for the break in the routine of the large manufactories. But still, here I was, and spring was doing its work on me as I worked on the man’s mill. I thought to myself, “What am I doing here on such a glorious day when I could be out in a tinnie (a small aluminum fishing boat) with a mate or sitting on a hill looking out over creation, with nature speaking its magic to me?” Ah well, the man needs his machine, and duty calls. Still, all day I pondered on the choices I had made in life that had brought me to that moment in time and I wondered, too, where the results of choices future would take me in even a few year’s time.

The time of the equinoxes are times of equipoise and interlude, where new projects are implemented and questions about direction in life are pondered. In this Libran period the whole idea of choice becomes very strongly activated, for it is our choices that determine our course in life and that course is what leads us to our encounters with others, thus inaugurating and sustaining all of our relationships. The period of the Libran full moon this year will be a particularly loaded one in terms of the issue of choice for reasons that we shall see, and it will set the tone for the first of the Grand Quintiles as outlined in my last letter to you. Libra is a uniquely human festival, too, because the human kingdom is the only one in Nature that has to deal in any large manner with the factor of choice. None of the lower kingdoms have the lower (reasoning) mind so developed or even existent and, for the kingdoms above ours, the lower mind is simply not a factor in evolution at all since it has been transcended by them and is only used as a repository of information. But, for humanity, we have to live with the legacy of our choices and, by choosing, we initially develop our minds and eventually learn to supersede them through the awakening of the intuition. One could say that it is our ability to choose that is both our greatest gift and our profoundest curse. The mind can be both the gateway to and the slayer of the Real (the spiritual realms) and, though we may not realize it, it is through the mind that we become the agents for the working out of God’s love on our little globe. The mind eventually brings us to the feet of true love.

I will need to flesh out a little more information on the Grand Quintiles in this letter, but we need to look at some of the workings of Libra before we get to that. Most people who know a little about astrology know that Venus rules Libra (Perhaps a better way of saying “rules” is “transmits the energy of”. Such a phrase would be more technically correct, anyway.) and that Venus is all about partnerships and balance. That is the more mundane side of Libra, though. As has been pointed out in other letters, there are at least 3 rulers for any sign. The other two rulers of Libra are Uranus (esoterically) and Saturn (Hierarchically). It is through an understanding of the interaction of these three planets that we come to understand the truth of Libra and what it represents and where the actual original impulses for what we understand of mundane Libra have arisen. In the final analysis, Libra is about how we come to arrive at poised, conscious choice (which has nothing whatsoever to do with reason). As such, it is about how we manifest the love of God in every given moment as sensed by the great organ of pure “reason”—the heart--and about how we thus relate ourselves as outposts to the Will of God to each other and the rest of the world. This may seem a bit abstruse now. Hopefully the meaning will become clear as the discussion proceeds.

It has been said that the most spectacular thing about Libra is its lack of any spectacular point of emphasis. This is due to the fact that Libra is supposed to represent a point of balance prior to further action. It is a distinct meditative point within the zodiac. All students of occult meditation know the value of the interlude points in the meditative cycle, as these are when the insights from the higher Self can be most readily accessed. In previous letters Venus has been said to unite the three types of mind, and it is in these meditative interludes when the three minds are most in alignment. There is an at-one-ment between the Soul and persona in those instants and the Light of the higher worlds is allowed to penetrate through into the lower. The Light of Libra is called “The Light that moves to rest.”, and it may well be that people who are born with Sun or ascendant in Libra at some point in their evolution learn the techniques of fusion of the three minds through occult meditative techniques. But, this would only come in the later stages of the spiritual Path, wherein the stage of individualized training between the student and Teacher is instituted. Let’s face it, watching someone meditate is not what most people would call “spectacular emphasis”, although to one who is able to see the movements of energy in the one meditating, the Light show might be fantastic indeed!

To the casual observer, most Librans seem to go about their lives fairly non-plussed about anything. Some have called them “the picture of grace and good taste”, though for people familiar with Librans, they often know better. The best result for the Libran type is said to be “a life where not a strident note is heard” and where the middle path is trodden. But, this belies a more interesting facet of evolution under Libra. As stated, Venus is the orthodox ruler of the sign. This is the ruler of the outer circumstances in the Libran type—the ruler of the outer expression and planes. This yields up the classic Libran type: affectionate, beautiful, companionable, diplomatic, fond of relationships—especially romantic ones, a love of fashion and fine arts, a disdain for clashes and arguments, a high aesthetic sense, and a desire for symmetry in all things. But, Libra—like all the signs—has its darker side, for it also rules litigation and warfare—what we get when all the preceding things don’t work according to plan, as anyone who has gone through an acrimonious divorce can tell you. It is this darker side that leads to “a reversal of the wheel” for the Libran type in most cases, for the spur that leads one to a spiritual life usually comes about as a result of some type of struggle and, for the Libran, relationships are the primary battleground. Once one steps consciously upon the spiritual Path everything changes, and there is no going back. All the old rules—and rulerships—are out the window and a new rhythm comes into play in the person’s life.