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.

What the Gemini man or woman sees through the window is a forbidden Eden where all longings lie in mystery...

The Gemini Love Mystery

In the Gemini soul experience, the symbolic Taurus “Baby” enters into the world of the toddler-Child, and feels again, as on the Aries Infancy level, the positive, masculine Day Forces.  For the first time, the soul arrives at the stage of the Mutable Communicator, becoming conscious of its own mentality, aware that it is not alone in the Universe.  The Child soul of Gemini learns to communicate needs by speaking, by learning to form words and string them together, while the parents and others listen attentively, rejoicing at each new sound.  Talking is fun because it centers all the interest on him (or her).  There’s a new ability to crawl or toddle over to the cookie jar, without either the Aries yelling or the Taurus waiting, and this new-found independence is intoxicating.  Geminis are thrilled by the knowledge now within grasp, and so “I THINK!” cries Gemini to the world-at-large, in great excitement.

The symbolic Child level of consciousness teaches the Gemini soul that there are two sides to the character – a duality or polarity that must be brought into harmony before one can successfully relate to others.  The first twinge of unhappiness pulls as he or she bumps hard into discipline, while trying to blend the walking and sleeping Twin Selves.  Because Gemini suddenly longs for pleasures outside home and family, the Child soul is often punished for symbolically attempting to run out into dangers not yet suspected.  Likewise, the world invites Gemini men and women to explore it, and who knows what they may find out there!  With the new mental ability to reason and deduce – to relate – Gemini begins to wish for and to dream of things beyond what has already been seen.

Half the Gemini Soul is still an insecure baby, needing the familiar.  Half is a yearning child, curious about the many undiscovered marvels just out of tangible reach.  The Geminian soul has already experienced Fire and Earth and it learning to cope with the Air Element for the first time.  And so this twinned personality experiments, with bright eyes and a hopeful heart.  Each new day stirs Gemini’s mind with its hidden magic, more enticing now than discarded toys and the warm circle of parental affection.  What the Gemini man or woman sees through the window is a forbidden Eden where all longings lie in mystery, as the ruling planet Mercury (the magician) beckons toward the seductive road beyond.

Gemini positive qualities are versatility, mental alertness, quickness of perception, deductive reasoning and flexibility.  Expressed in their negative form they become restlessness, glibness, shallowness, double-talk, unreliability and self-deception.

To the Gemini “Child”, love has lost some of its early wonder.  It is still needed on this level, more than is realized, but there’s something more thrilling than love to seek now.  Is it love that holds you back, tugs on one and keeps one from rushing out the front door into Life?  Love, then, is perhaps enjoyable, but it is also restrictive.  Gemini men and women have not stopped needing it or desiring it, but when love becomes a barrier to their freedom, they rashly discard it, forgetting its warmth and safety – not caring that they may get lost and unable to find their way home.

Seduction is Art and should be taken seriously

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/ae0dcd051ae6493b3b85fe34edc699f4/

From Robert Greene “The 48 Laws of Power”.

Preface, page xvii

The feeling of having no power over people and events is generally unbearable to us – when we feel helpless we feel miserable.  No one wants less power; everyone wants more.  In the world today, however, it is dangerous to seem too power hungry, to be overt with your power moves.  We have to seem fair and decent.  So we need to be subtle – congenial yet cunning, democratic yet devious.

This game of constant duplicity most resembles the power dynamic that existed in the scheming world of the old aristocratic court.

[…]

The successful courtier learned over time to make all of his moves indirect; if he stabbed an opponent in the back, it was with a velvet glove on his hand and the sweetest of smiles on his face.  Instead of using coercion or outright treachery, the perfect courtier got his way though seduction, charm, deception, and subtle strategy, always planning several moves ahead.  Life in the court was a never-ending game that required constant vigilance and tactical thinking.  It was civilized war.

Today we face a peculiarly similar paradox to that of the courtier: Everything must appear civilized, decent, democratic, and fair.  But if we play by those rules too strictly, if we take them too literally, we are crushed by those around us who are not so foolish.  As the great Renaissance diplomat and courtier Niccolo Machiavelli wrote, “Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.”  The court imagined itself the pinnacle of refinement, but underneath its glittering surface a cauldron of dark emotions – greed, envy, lust, hatred – boiled and simmered.  Our world similarly imagines itself the pinnacle of fairness, yet the same ugly emotions still stir within us, as they have forever.  The game is the same.  Outwardly, you must seem to respect the niceties, but inwardly, unless you are a fool, you learn quickly to be prudent, and to do as Napoleon advised: Place your iron hand inside a velvet glove.  If, like the courtier of times gone by, you can master the arts o indirection, learning to seduce, charm, deceive, and subtly outmaneuver your opponents, you will attain the heights of power.  You will be able to make people bend to your will without their realizing what you have done.  And if they do not realize what you have done, they will never resent nor resist you.

Boris Pasternak (1890 – 1960)

I have only “published” insane conversations so far.  But this one was a good one.  It would be even better if we actually met.  We did not.  But, I enjoyed talking to this man.  So, here it goes:

He: nice top

She: the best part is actually my brain

He: that’s what meant

She: yeah, right!!!!!!!!!!!

He: cross my heart

He: (didn’t mind your outfit though

She: Let me pretend I believe you. I love playing a moron – it is so much fun!

He: your far too witty for that

He: (and sexy)

She: you have no idea!

He: about your wit or your sexuality?

She: I am afraid – both, men routinely run away from me – it is not funny anymore

He: I’ve never been much of a runner – more of a cyclist

He: and I do love to “ride”

He: so why do men run from you

She: Oh?

She: intimidated

He: really – I love a confident woman – very sexy

She: you will be put to test

He: really – how so

He: I’m getting excited already

She: that is only face to face

She: tet a tet

He: sounds like fun – sort of like close personal contact

He: (did I tell you I love to be teased)

She: really? why?

He: it’s fun. Love the sensation of excitement. Love to please. Love to make things last

He: for both me and my partner

Yes, I need a man to explore my passions, desires, fantasies and I want to let go, I want to be myself, I want PASSIONATE LOVE

He: ok – I’m assuming that a confident woman like yourself enjoys the effect you have on a man

She: no, not really, I am still looking for someone equal or someone who can challenge me

He: intellectually, I assume

She: both

He: something tells me we just might get along

She: would be nice

She: tell me more about yourself

He: single, never married, bit of a solitary creature but gregarious at times

He: looking for a friend and a lover

She: how come you have not found one yet?

He: good question. Not sure. Maybe I’m looking for a mistress

He: a confident – a friend and a lover

He: with whom to explore

He: a woman who is confident in herself and her sexuality

She: I am not sure I am the ONE

He: why do you say that – what are you looking for

She: a friend and a lover to go steady for a while

She: tired of looking and not finding the ONE

She: I was married for 16 years

He: I think we may have much in common – what do you enjoy

She: dancing

He: tell me about you

He: I’d love to watch you dance

He: that would be very sexy

She: maybe

He: maybe you would dance for me or maybe it would be sexy

She: it is always sexy

He: I’m starting to think you need a man who would help you unleash yourself, your passions and your fantasies

She: you are close

He: you need a man with whom you could be yourself

She: true

He: and a man with whom you could explore your passions

He: your fantasies

He: and your desires

She: are you trying to seduce me?

He: yes

She: keep going

He: how am I doing?

He: you need a man with whom you feel comfortable enough to be sexually free, with whom you could explore your passions and “let go”

She: what is your sign?

He: Libra

She: ok

He: ok?

She: as long as you are not a Taurus

He: that would be a lot of bull – I’m apparently well balanced – and you

He: what brings you here – what are you looking for

She: I am a Halloween Girl

She: All my significant men were Tauruses – too many to be a mere coincidence

He: and you are no longer looking for a Taurus – what are you looking for

He: do you know

She: The best match (they say should be a Virgo), but I assume that I need a transitional relationship

She: I am too intense – Scorpio – quite unlike normal women

He: I applaud your honesty – I think that is exactly what you are looking for – and nothing wrong with that at all

She: I know – there is one man who is trying to seduce me, but it takes him forever

He: I see. Tell me, would you let m seduce you – make love to you, please you, entice you explore with you

He: let you explore, let you be yourself

He: let you be whoever you want to be

She: but I have to see you first

He: so perhaps you would allow me to buy you a drink

She: Deal

He: that would be very nice -

it is also the perfect tool for deception: When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your strategy.  The Mirror Effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact.  By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share their values; by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson.  Few can resist the power of the Mirror Effect.

“48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene

A lesson in Seduction

In 1652 the recently widowed Baroness Mancini moved her family from Rome to Paris, where she could count on the influence and protection of her brother Cardinal Mazarin, the French Prime Minister.  Of the baroness’s five daughters, four dazzled the court with their beauty and high spirits.  These infamously charming nieces of Cardinal Mazarin became known as the Mazarinettes, and soon found themselves invited to all the most important court functions.

One daughter, Marie Mancini, did not share this good fortune, for she lacked the beauty and grace of her sisters – who, along with her mother and even Cardinal Mazarin, eventually came to dislike her, for they felt she spoiled the family image.  They tried to persuade her to enter a convent, where she would be less of an embarrassment, but she refused.  Instead she applied herself to her studies, learning Latin and Greek, perfecting her French, and practicing her musical skills. On the rare occasions when her family would let her attend court affairs, she trained herself to be an artful listener, sizing people up for their weaknesses and hidden desires.  And when she finally met the future King Louis XIV, in 1657 (Louis was seventeen years old, Marie eighteen), she decided that to spite her family and uncle, she would find a way to make this young man fall in love with her.

This was a seemingly impossible task for such a plain-looking girl, but Marie studied the future king closely.  She noticed that her sisters’ frivolity did not please him, and she sensed that he loathed the scheming and petty politicking that went on all around him.  She saw that he had a romantic nature – he read adventure novels, insisted on marching at the head of his armies, and had high ideals and a passion for glory.  The court did not feed these fantasies of his; it was a banal, superficial world that bored him.

The key to Louis’s heart, Marie saw, would be to construct a mirror reflecting his fantasies and his youthful yearnings for glory and romance.  To begin with she immersed herself in the romantic novels, poems, and plays that she knew the young king read voraciously.  When Louis began to engage her in conversation, to his delight she would talk of the things that stirred his soul – not this fashion or that piece of gossip, but rather courtly love, the deeds of great knights, the nobility of past kings and heroes.  She fed his thirst for glory by creating an image of an august, superior king whom he could aspire to become.  She stirred his imagination.

As the future Sun King spent more and more time in Marie’s presence, it eventually became clear that he had fallen in love with the least likely young woman of the court.  To the horror of her sisters and mother, he showered Marie Mancini with attention.  He brought her along on his military campaigns, and made a show of stationing her where she could watch as he marched into battle.  He even promised that he would marry her and make her queen.

Mazarin, however, would never allow the king to marry his niece, a woman who could bring France no diplomatic or royal alliances.  Louis had to marry a princess of Spain or Austria.  In 1658 Louis succumbed to the pressure and agreed to break off the first romantic involvement of his life.  He did so with much regret, and at the end of his life he acknowledged that he never loved anyone as much as Marie Mancini.