Taurus 0° (April 20)

 

We were supposed to shop together today but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it so S. went off on her own and I met her for lunch at our local seafood lunch spot. We had a client in the afternoon and thought we mightn’t want to do the restaurant thing again so we bought some picnic items at Eataly, prepared foods, which turned out to be terrible. So-called roasted sweet potatoes that were absolutely raw. We watched High School Quix Show (my favorite local Massachusetts program) and Beat the Press with Emily Rooney and Antiques Roadshow and an American Masters on Garry Winogrand. I was so tired I fell soon after it began only to awake with a start around two o’clock. So I watched, on mute, a program on flightless birds (which I always associate with the sign of Virgo). It was hosted by David Attenborough. They showed footage of him when he was in his twenties studying them and o.m.g. what a total babe he was—it’s sad to gay crush on an old man when he was a twink but wow he was so hot. I got to thinking: Someone should make a fictionalized bio-program about the Attenboroughs. It would be fascinating. And I’m not doing it. Anyway my mind goes to Libra thoughts today.

The sign of Libra is distinguished by being the only sign in the Zodiac that has an inanimate symbol—all other signs are represented as humans or animals or a combination of both. The word Zodiac means “circle of animals” sharing etymology with the word zoo. There are some straight-forward inferences in regard to Libra’s inanimate symbol Scales and some twisty turny ones as well. For starters, Libra people can be conceptual and they are motivated and edified by their principles. Planet Venus, which rules Taurus on the Earth plane, here rules Libra, the cardinal-air sign. Air symbolizes the invisible world of ideas and also social experience, as e’er the twain shall meet. Names for the goddess of love and beauty, Greek Aphrodite, the planet endows natives of this sign with and aesthetically driven mind and a love a beautiful, starry notions. Cardinal (initiatory, directive) -air translates to light, itself a word that has many conceptual meanings. In Greek mythology, Apollo is the god of light and a slew of abstractions including law, reason, order, harmony, balance, music, poetry, prophesy, all of which are very Libran in nature. All things being equal, the Scales speak to order and justice, of course; they also refer to music, there being seven notes to the scales. Libra is sign number seven—light itself is made up of seven colors—and the day sacred to Apollo  is October 7, which falls into the sign of Libra. In the previous sign of Virgo we emphasized function and the increase of purity, as symbolized by the virgin; now we are focused more fully on design, especially a design for living…and doing so in harmony.  The symbol of the Scales also recalls a horizon line with sun setting or rising, hours when the evening star Venus is visible, although setting is more fitting. Libra begins at the Autumnal Equinox, when the there is equal day and night; but the equinox also signals a midway point where the nights will be getting longer, the sunset, if you will, of the year.

The literal take on evening is not lost on us here, given Libra’s democratic energy. The sign’s two mottos are I Balance (myself with others) and We Are, both pointing to certain equality, just one of related beautiful principles associated with the en-light-en-ing sign of Libra. People born under the sign have delicate sensibilities and they eschew any so-called ugliness in their lives, which can make them activists for change on the one hand or avoidists who remain in ivory towers on the other. We have cited the character Amelie from the French film of the same name as being a modern Libran archetype as she works as an agent of karma, in a sense, the effect of the cause, retibution, as justice would dictate. Libra is all about leveling the playing field and elevating the social discourse and hopefully the conditions in which we all live. The beautiful notion of democracy derives from the energy of the sign, Apollonian order bringing to mind gleaming column-lined temples or the neo-classic halls of justice which emblemize Western civilization. Apollo is no nature god; like Athena, he is an urban deity, but an even more precious one than she. Many a Apollo myth, like that of he and Daphne or Cassandra, end in him being rejected by the objects of his affection. It would seem that his lofty expectations are too much for the earthy nymphs and even the more rarefied goddesses who still like to get down and dirty, something Apollo doesn’t seem capable of doing. Dickens’ Great Expectations is a retelling of the Apollo myth; Pip forever pining for Estelle to return his affections. Rejection and disappointment are major themes in the life lessons of the Libra man, in particular; while all Libra’s grapple with frustration of experience not being up to snuff or second-rate. For the Libra, who often needs a perfectly clean, ordered environment to work in or who will change hotel rooms or restaurant tables until the vibe or feng shui is just right, there is always the sense that things could be that much better.

For the Libra, who often needs a perfectly clean, ordered environment to work in or who will change hotel rooms or restaurant tables until the vibe or feng shui is just right, there is always the sense that things could be that much more soignée, conceptually, beautifully balanced. For these children of lyric Apollo—the very invention of the word stems from the god’s playing of the lyre—all must be poetry as much as it can be. Deterining whether it is or isn’t is a conceptual exercise, art being a battle of opinions waged against would-be abstract absolutes. Art hangs us in the balance, puts us on the Libra scales. And like works of art themselves, Libra people may divide public opinion. For all their understated elegance, Libras, being defacto personifications of principle, come on strong. On the other hand they can suffer from insecurity and tend to take situations, circumstance experience more personally than others. They can be intense in close relationship in that they were born to partner and naturally bond very deeply, synergy being the subconscious goal, to the point that the relationships itself will take on its own, third-party entity. And we’re back to the myth of Daphne and the other of Apollo’s love objects, male and female, who rebuked him whereupon he turned them into trees. He cursed his priestess Cassandra by giving her a certain gift prophecy, an aspect of his divine domain, which, paradoxically, nobody would heed or believe.

 

In the history of the pantheon, Apollo is not an early arrival. Scholars note that much of his artsy estate originally belonged to Aphrodite/Venus, namesake of the sign’s planet ruler. The second half of the Zodiac begins rather ironically. The so-called opposite sign of Aries (self) to Libra (other), Aries is a masculine sign fittingly ruled by Mars, followed by feminine Taurus ruled by female Venus. The second half of the Zodiac begins with Libra a masculine sign ruled by Venus, followed by Scorpio, a feminine sign ruled by Mars and Pluto. And so these feminine attributes of beauty, grace, love are conceptualized via the masculine, mental air sign of Libra into sexless starry notions. Apollo is not warm and cozy, and, despite his gleaming perfections, he is not his father Zeus’ inheritor—in fact Zeus fears Apollo will overthrow him. Thus Apollo is akin to another light bringer, Lucifer or Luke Skywalker (a rather parapetic interpretation of the cardinal-air insignation of the sign!). Apollo’s introduction to the pantheon coincided, too, with the ideal (a very Libran word) of the love between males being a higher form of love than the heterosexual variety in keeping with a cultural shift that now favored patriarchy, particularly in Athens, as opposed to feminist Sparta, where women had far fewer rights.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

 

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
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