Libra knows: he -- or she -- must not be alone when winter comes

The Libra Love Mystery

Turning from the lonely Virgo path of self-discipline, the evolving soul reaches out once again to the positive Day Forces, as the Libra vibration seductively beckons to it to accept, for the third time, the challenge of Cardinal leadership.  In the Libra consciousness, the soul is fully grown, aware now of both sunshine and shadow.  During the struggle for maturity which culminated in Virgo, it has learned that there is in the world (and in people) both night and day – good and evil – dark and light.  Beyond that, Libra is consumed with the intriguing polarity of male and female.

Experience has taught Libra men and women to judge their fellows fairly.  Until the Libra level, the soul’s interest has been centered primarily on itself.  Now it expands to include, for the first time, an awareness of the necessity to relate to other human beings.  The soul is now equipped with the lessons of five previous levels, capable of leading with both logic and force.  Libra acts with a blend of wisdom composed of knowledge gained through one excursion into WATER and from twice experiencing FIRE, EARTH and AIR.  “I BALANCE”, says Libra, priding himself or herself on seeing both sides.  Because it shatters Libra’s conscience to be unfair, decisions are difficult and painful.  A sense of social justice is emerging, and in the face of prejudice or intolerance, Libra often turns to endless argument, using the cold logic learned through Gemini and sharpened through Virgo.  But this approach is softened by a new sense of the value of persuasion.  Libra has acquired the quality of charm, which he has discovered is a sure way to win, so he artfully uses a mellow voice and dazzling smile to cajole and get his way with others.

Libra feels a growing awareness of beauty of harmony – in music, art and romance.  As Librans subconsciously recall their Virgo loneliness, they experience the stirring of a deep and primal urge to find a mate.  Sentimental, yet practical, the Libra soul instinctively knows the need for someone to walk nearby, in both love and business, in order to balance Life and satisfy the desire for harmony of Libra’s ruler, Venus.  In the Libran Air Element, however, a love partner is not easy to find.  When the vices and virtues of prospective mates are weighed and balanced on the Libra Scales, they often are found wanting, bringing on the anguish of emotional indecision.  But through it all, this man or woman continues the relentless search for someone to share life’s joys and sorrows.  The autumn season so loved will someday fade, the spring so fondly remembered is long past, and there is one thing Libra knows: he – or she – must not be alone when winter comes.  And so Librans respond to sunset’s beauty, sadly sensing simultaneously that for all is crimson-gold glory, it nevertheless announces another approaching night of the soul.

Libra’s positive qualities are justice, intelligence, charm, gentleness and emotional balance.  Expressed in their negative form they become laziness, procrastination, indecision, argumentativeness, pleasure-seeking and temperament.

To Libra, love is a mating of the minds and hearts – not too passionate, not too detached – a happy medium, to be equally shared.  But these souls are too infatuated with love’s surface beauty to penetrate completely its deeper implications.  They recognize only that they love.  It has not occurred to them to wonder why.

Love may be blind but marriage is a real eye-opener.

It is a Saturday, a sunny and cold day in Toronto.  In 1993, February 6^th was a Saturday, it was sunny in the morning and cold, the roads were slippery (talk about signs!!!), but then it warmed up enough for a real snow storm in the night.

So, today is my wedding anniversary with my first husband to whom I am no longer married.  I am not divorced from him either.  The divorce is still in the process…

I often wonder when the break up really happened and who broke what… and honestly I don’t know.  The saddest part is that I still care.  The best part is… well, the best part remains to be discovered.

Another chapter in my journey.  As much as I am unable to do anything these days or write anything, I could not miss this day.  I should make a post.  And, surprisingly enough it turns out to be the post # 342 (here it comes again, my number 42).  Madness?  Eccentricity? 

“Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Remarriage is the triumph of hope over experience…”

 

“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.” – Henny Youngman.

 

 

“I never knew what real happiness was until I got married; and then it was too late.”

 

 

“I think weddings are sadder than funerals, because they remind you of your own wedding. You can’t be reminded of your own funeral because it hasn’t happened. But weddings always make me cry.” – Brendan Behan (1923-64) Irish playwright.

 

 

“Three rings of marriage: The engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering.”

 

 

“I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.” – George Burns.

 

 

“Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.” – Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher, Marriage and Morals.

 

 

“Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.” – Jim Backus.

 

 

“By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” – Socrates.

 

 

“The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing — and then marry him.” –Cher

“Our imagination flies — we are its shadow on the earth.” (Vladimir Nabokov)

 

 

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

 

 

“Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

 

 

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge — myth is more potent than history — dreams are more powerful than facts — hope always triumphs over experience — laughter is the cure for grief — love is stronger than death.” (Robert Fulghum)

 

 

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” (Gloria Steinem)

 

 

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the source of all true art and science.  He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” (Albert Einstein)

 

 

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942)

 

 

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.  Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.  Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” (Theodore Geisel)

 

 

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.” (William Shakespeare, Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, 1595)

 

 

 This image is taken from www.allposters.com, http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Imagination-Posters_i2548950_.htm,

I do not have the rights, but then again, I don’t sell them, I just use them as illustrations.  I might some day buy something from either www.allposters.com or www.webshots.com, because pictures are just breathtaking.

Victor Pelevin “The Sacred Book of Werewolf”

In speaking of intelligentsia’s debt of guilt to the nation, he kept using two terms that I thought were synonyms – ‘intelligentsia’ and ‘intellectuals’.  After a while I just had to ask:

‘But what difference is there between a member of the intelligentsia and an intellectual?”

‘There’s a very big difference,’ – he replied.  ‘I can only try to explain it allegorically.  Do you understand what that means?’

I nodded.

‘When you were still very little, there were a hundred thousand people living in this city who were paid for kissing the ass of a loathsome red dragon – which you probably don’t even remember…’

I shook my head.  Once in my young days I really had seen a red dragon, but I’d already forgotten what it looked like – the only thing I could remember was my own fear.  It was unlikely that Pavel Ivanovich had that incident in mind.

‘Of course, those hundred thousand people hated the dragon, and they dreamed of being ruled by the green toad who fought against the dragon.  So, anyway, they came to an arrangement with the toad, poisoned the dragon with lipstick that they got from the CIA and started living a new life.’

‘But what have the intell – ‘

‘Wait,’ he said, raising his hand.  ‘At first they thought that under the toad they would be doing exactly the same as before, only they’d get ten times as much money for it.  But it turned out that instead of a hundred thousand ass-kissers there was only demand for three professionals working in three eight-hour shifts to give the toad a never-ending blowjob.  And which of the hundred thousand those three would be, would be decided by an open competition, in which candidates would not only have to demonstrate their advanced professional skills, but also the ability to smile optimistically with the corners of their mouths while they were at work…’

‘I’m afraid I’ve lost the thread.’

‘Well, this is the thread.  Those hundred thousand people were called the intelligentsia.  And those three are called intellectuals.’

from “Monumental Propaganda” by Vladimir Voinovich

They say that an individual’s mental capabilities are determined by the weight of his brain.  But a big brain can only be contained in a beg head.  Turgenev had a big head.  And his brain, accordingly, weighed as much as two loaves of bread.  Lenin had an even bigger head, and naturally no one in the world had a bigger brain than him, and in Soviet times it was dangerous even to doubt it.  You could lose your own head, whatever size it was.

[…] then went back to the Admiral and said in Shubkin’s defense: “You tell me that he’s a fool, but he’s got such a huge head, it must be full of something.”

“Yes, it’s full of foolishness,” the Admiral said ruthlessly.  Let me tell you something.  You’ve probably been out in the country.  You may have noticed that every village has one idiot and one wise man.  Some simple peasant.  With a head the size of your fist and a brain that’s probably not very big.  But he thinks simply, clearly and soundly on the basis of his own knowledge of life and personal experience.  So what I’d advise you to learn is this.  The human brain is distinguished not only by its dimensions, but by its ability to assimilate input.  The brain, crudely speaking, can be a warehouse, a mill or a chemical laboratory.  A warehouse can be really vast and stocked with various kinds of items, but the more items there are, the harder it is to make sense of them.  A mill can only grind up whatever is poured into it.  It may be small and primitive, but it will still grind good grain into pretty good flour.  But even if you take a big, modern mill, the very finest, with good grindstones and ideal sieves and load it up with bad grain, it won’t turn out anything, that’s any good.  The creative brain is the highest type, a chemical laboratory – load anything you like into it and it produces something fundamentally new, a synthesis.  Everything in it works: knowledge, memory, the capacity for independent thought.  That kind of brain is very rare, even among people with big heads.”

“I suppose Lenin must have had that kind of brain?” I suggested.

“Lenin?” the Admiral repeated in amazement.  Oh, come one!  Lenin had an ideological brain.  Yet another type that’s not very common.  Not a warehouse, not a mill, not a laboratory, but a kind of stomach in the head.  Put in all sorts of high-quality foodstuffs and they’re all digested and transformed into shit.”

“Well, then,” I exclaimed, delighted to have discovered this definition, “that means Shubkin has a stomach-brain too.”

“No, no,” the Admiral protested.  “What Shubkin has is a mill-brain.  If you poured good grain into it, you might get good flour.  But he’s loaded up his mill with Lenin’s shit, so what comes out is shit too.”

[…] “So you believe a man can be very learned, know a great deal, possess a phenomenal memory and an exceptional talent for languages, and still be no more than a fool?”

“Why yes,” said the Admiral with a nod.  “Your Shubkin’s an example/”

“And Lenin?”

“Lenin’s a fool too,” the Admiral said calmly.

I couldn’t restrain myself at that.

“Look here,” I said, “of course, you’re an original character and a paradoxical thinker, and I regard Lenin critically myself, but calling him fool is going too far.  He turned the whole world upside down.”

“For what purpose?”

“The purpose is a different matter.”

“No,” said the Admiral, finally growing heated.  “It’s not a different matter.  I’ve already explained that to your Shubkin.  An intelligent man is a man who sets himself a goal and achieves it.  But a man who sets himself an unachievable goal and doesn’t understand that it’s unachievable cannot be regarded as intelligent.”

“Well, let’s assume that in terms of everyday life you’re right.  But Lenin didn’t just set himself a simple goal; he set himself a grandiose one.”

“Because he’s not just a simple fool,” said the Admiral.  “He’s a grandiose fool.  Put that down in your notebook too: Lenin is a grandiose fool.”

The Admiral paused for a moment; then he must have decided that he ought to offer some arguments for his idea after all.

“I…” he began, “unlike you, I have had the time… I’ve read him from cover to cover.  And he, begging your pardon, made a total asshole of himself.  In every sense.  He made a revolution and seized power and turned Russia upside down, but what for?  Where are the things that he predicted?  Where is communism?  Why is capitalism still alive today if it had reached its final stage in his lifetime?  Shubkin tried to prove Lenin’s intelligence by saying that after the revolution he realized they gone too far and decided to make a partial return to capitalism and declared the New Economic Policy.  But isn’t it stupid to destroy something that existed in complete form in order to go back to it in partial form?  In general, I repeat, your Lenin was a grandiose fool, or a brilliant fool, I can’t even be bothered to argue about it.”

It was already late, but I took the risk of missing the last bus and asked the Admiral what he thought about Stalin.  Was he a fool too?

“No,” said the Admiral, bundling himself up in the blanket.  “Stalin was by no means a fool.  He set goals that were clear to him and achieved them very precisely.”

“But in doing so that he said – “”

“What difference does it make what he said?” the Admiral asked with a tired yawn.  “What matters is what he did.  And he always did exactly what he wanted.”

from “Monumental Propaganda” by Vladimir Voinovich

[…] I told the Admiral about my conversations with Shubkin.  I told him honestly that when I argued with Shubkin I sometimes felt that I was right, but I couldn’t prove it because he crushed me with his authority.  And the fact that he was older, and that he’d been in the camps for so long, and he knew everything.  I’d express some thought, and he’d come back with a quotation from Lenin or from Marx, or even from Hegel or Descartes.

“Tell me, the Admiral asked, breaking a single cake, “does it not seem to you that this Shubkin of yours is an absolute fool?”

“But how,” I objected in confusion, “how can I consider him a fool when he’s so learned?”

“Why, do you think learning and intelligence are the same thing?”

“Well…” I thought about it.  “Of course, if a man is learned, he has a lot of learning in his head – when he’s thinking something over, he can operate with a large quantity of data – “

“There you go!”  the Admiral broke in cheerfully.  “He can operate!  But what if he can’t?  You talk about quotations.  But has he ever told you a single idea of his own that he personally devised?”

“Why would he?” I asked.  “If he has so many good ideas invented by other people in his head, why would he need to think up his own?”

“Ah, I see, you’re also… how can I put it…?”

“You’re trying to tell me I’m a fool as well?” I put in, offended.

“No, no,” said the Admiral.  “I’m a polite person and I wouldn’t express myself so harshly in the present case, but you think it over for yourself.  The human race has already expressed so many extremely clever ideas, but does that mean we don’t need anything else?  Why are you and I sitting here thinking, and not just firing quotations at each other?  Although, believe me, I’ve got plenty of them in my head too.  And some of them are quite brilliant.  I can use some of them to corroborate my line of thought.  But it’s not possible to replace original thought with quotations.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because no thought is worth a damn unless it’s born in the head of a concrete person in concrete circumstances on the basis of his own experience as a result of is own thinking.  Perhaps,” he said with a condescending chuckle, “you should note that down as a quotation and then use it in an argument with Shubkin […]

“Everything is perfect in the universe – even your desire to improve it.”

Wayne Dyer (American motivational Speaker and Author of self-help best selling books. b.1940)

“The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms”

Lao Tzu (Philosopher, founder of Taoism, wrote “Tao Te Ching” (also “The Book of the Way”). 600 BC-531 BC)

“It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

Dr. Carl Sagan (American Astronomer, Writer and Scientist, 1934-1996)

“… the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.”

Dr. Carl Sagan (American Astronomer, Writer and Scientist, 1934-1996)