The Moon is in Aquarius today making trines to Mercury and Jupiter in Libra.
As the Mercury/Jupiter conjunction perfects here a few simple ideas to keep in mind:
* Lao Tzu once wrote that, “The great Tao flows everywhere. It fills everything to the left and to the right. All things owe their existence to it and it cannot deny any one of them.”
Isn’t it tempting to look at the state of the world sometimes and wonder why corrupt people succeed or why evil or darkness is allowed to flourish? More than anything with Mercury and Jupiter in Libra we may be feeling offended by injustices around us, and yet, justice has frequently been depicted as a blind woman holding the scales.
* Lao Tzu also wrote, “Tao is eternal. It does not favor one over the other. It brings all things to completion without their even knowing it.”
Isn’t it tempting to blame ourselves when we’re down and out? We think, “I’ve gotten what I deserve here,” or “I did this to myself,” or even, “I wasn’t conscious of xyz and now that I am things will change.” On the other hand, isn’t it easy to blame someone or something else when we’re down and out? Something doesn’t go our way and we feel that an injustice has been done somewhere, somehow. And yet, again, justice is blind. While it’s tempting to think of that blindness as a kind of rationalistic objectivity (a fair weighing of the evidence on both sides of an issue), we should also consider the idea that WE are blind to the way in which the Tao completes all processes and all changes without ever demonstrating favoritism.
* Lao Tzu wrote, “Tao nourishes and protects all creatures yet does not claim lordship over them. So we class it with the most humble. Tao is the home to which all things return yet it wants nothing in return, so we call it “the greatest. The sage is the same way–he does not claim greatness over anything. He’s not even aware of his own greatness. Tell me, what could be greater than this?”
It’s curious to think that Libra, the sign of the scales of justice, is ruled by Venus and yet is the exaltation of Saturn and the fall of the Sun. What deeper lessons might be at work in these designations? First, let’s consider the idea that usually the scales only come out in order to settle a contest where there are opposing desired outcomes or forces at work. One traditional meaning of the planet Venus has to do with the objects of our desire. What rationale can we possibly provide for much of our attraction and repulsion in life? But there is a curious sense in which our sense of reason, sanity, fairness, ethics, and even justice are wrapped up with what we desire. Taking Saturn into consideration, there is perhaps no planet more prepared to take credit or receive blame, to dole out praise and punishments alike, for results. At the same time, when the Saturnine mystic contemplates the limitations of reason and rationality itself, there is perhaps no planet as prepared to understand the deeper blindness of the scales and the absurdity of how desire shapes reason. Saturn’s exaltation in Libra is thus a matter of greatest vanity or possibly the height of truest wisdom. Similarly, the Sun, a source of wisdom, life, and clarity, has a hard time understanding the invisible knowledge of the scales. The autumn season that Libra initiates brings the death of the light and life, and in a sense all conventional wisdom related to how and why things “ought” to work in the world. The heroic Sun finds the wisdom of Libra tremendously difficult to understand, but at the same time the depression of the Sun in Libra is intimately linked to the exaltation of Saturn in the same sign. The Sun comes to know the limits of reason, clarity, heroism, life, vitality, and visibility in its fall, and hence the Sun in Libra is also capable of a deeper autumnal wisdom…like the classic image of the blind prophet or sage…as Lao Tzu wrote, “he is great without knowing it.
Prayer: Help us to see through a glass darkly. Help us to perceive the invisible ordering of the world, always just but never favoring, always completing but without desire.
As the Mercury/Jupiter conjunction perfects here a few simple ideas to keep in mind:
* Lao Tzu once wrote that, “The great Tao flows everywhere. It fills everything to the left and to the right. All things owe their existence to it and it cannot deny any one of them.”
Isn’t it tempting to look at the state of the world sometimes and wonder why corrupt people succeed or why evil or darkness is allowed to flourish? More than anything with Mercury and Jupiter in Libra we may be feeling offended by injustices around us, and yet, justice has frequently been depicted as a blind woman holding the scales.
* Lao Tzu also wrote, “Tao is eternal. It does not favor one over the other. It brings all things to completion without their even knowing it.”
Isn’t it tempting to blame ourselves when we’re down and out? We think, “I’ve gotten what I deserve here,” or “I did this to myself,” or even, “I wasn’t conscious of xyz and now that I am things will change.” On the other hand, isn’t it easy to blame someone or something else when we’re down and out? Something doesn’t go our way and we feel that an injustice has been done somewhere, somehow. And yet, again, justice is blind. While it’s tempting to think of that blindness as a kind of rationalistic objectivity (a fair weighing of the evidence on both sides of an issue), we should also consider the idea that WE are blind to the way in which the Tao completes all processes and all changes without ever demonstrating favoritism.
* Lao Tzu wrote, “Tao nourishes and protects all creatures yet does not claim lordship over them. So we class it with the most humble. Tao is the home to which all things return yet it wants nothing in return, so we call it “the greatest. The sage is the same way–he does not claim greatness over anything. He’s not even aware of his own greatness. Tell me, what could be greater than this?”
It’s curious to think that Libra, the sign of the scales of justice, is ruled by Venus and yet is the exaltation of Saturn and the fall of the Sun. What deeper lessons might be at work in these designations? First, let’s consider the idea that usually the scales only come out in order to settle a contest where there are opposing desired outcomes or forces at work. One traditional meaning of the planet Venus has to do with the objects of our desire. What rationale can we possibly provide for much of our attraction and repulsion in life? But there is a curious sense in which our sense of reason, sanity, fairness, ethics, and even justice are wrapped up with what we desire. Taking Saturn into consideration, there is perhaps no planet more prepared to take credit or receive blame, to dole out praise and punishments alike, for results. At the same time, when the Saturnine mystic contemplates the limitations of reason and rationality itself, there is perhaps no planet as prepared to understand the deeper blindness of the scales and the absurdity of how desire shapes reason. Saturn’s exaltation in Libra is thus a matter of greatest vanity or possibly the height of truest wisdom. Similarly, the Sun, a source of wisdom, life, and clarity, has a hard time understanding the invisible knowledge of the scales. The autumn season that Libra initiates brings the death of the light and life, and in a sense all conventional wisdom related to how and why things “ought” to work in the world. The heroic Sun finds the wisdom of Libra tremendously difficult to understand, but at the same time the depression of the Sun in Libra is intimately linked to the exaltation of Saturn in the same sign. The Sun comes to know the limits of reason, clarity, heroism, life, vitality, and visibility in its fall, and hence the Sun in Libra is also capable of a deeper autumnal wisdom…like the classic image of the blind prophet or sage…as Lao Tzu wrote, “he is great without knowing it.
Prayer: Help us to see through a glass darkly. Help us to perceive the invisible ordering of the world, always just but never favoring, always completing but without desire.
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