Libra: The Divine Lessons of balance

How do we describe Libra?

The divine lessons of Libra invite us to collaborate and cooperate. The trick is to avoid conjoining, losing the tension that creates the limitations required for creative success. In any good collaboration, there is true divinity in asserting individuality as much as making room for commonality. Harmony is not made beautiful simply by similarity, but through the divine tension between alignment and variance. The best collaborations allow both voices to be heard, both messages to be sent and received, both creators to be challenged, inspired, and admired in connection to a whole that is greater than the sum of either of its parts.

Libra is a love scholar that teaches us through the spectrum of individuation and cooperation. She is the most magickal when she can embody mutuality and independence in one breath.

Libra teaches us lessons of balance.

Very often we learn through the inverse; we may be taught to be gentle through experiences with roughness, we may be taught generosity through selfishness, and we may learn to value connection through lessons of isolation. Libra lessons often come from moving too far in one direction only to have the pendulum return so quickly it’s momentum carries it again, too far in the other direction.

I often witness and experience the lessons of codependency and interdependence in this same swing of the pendulum or struggle to balance scales, to add a new metaphor. For those who were challenged with parentification, who became care takers far too young, the urge to take care is now likely just as strong and the urge to reject care for ourselves. Then, as awareness and healing repair the wound, both the urgency around caring for other and the readiness to be cared for become easier, more available, and less likely to generate activation and reactivity. As things become even more balanced in the healing process, the willingness to allow others to suffer the consequences of their actions begins to expand, and new cycles in the spiral that is healing and balancing are discovered.

What does Libra look like?

She is a gallery, refined, thoughtful, full of tasteful art and reflections of aesthetic symmetry and creativity of the highest value. She is the mark of civilization, of things made legible, clarified, defined and named beautiful for their purity.

What does Libra feel like?

She is most empowered with clear and healthy boundaries. She is most exalted with structure, discipline, limitations, and a clear ethical code. She is dignified in devotion to diplomacy, cooperation, and collaboration. She if soft to the touch but cool and balanced by her careful restraint. Libra feels like the satisfaction of justice.

What does Libra taste like?

She is mild, likeable, even, and appealing. She is a well-balanced wine, refined with time. She is a perfectly ripe fruit at the balance of the equinox.

What does Libra smell like?

If Libra were a perfume she would be gentle, soothing but heady. She would be a scent that is hard to forget but never challenging. She would be clean, pure, and decisively ripe without ever becoming overpowering or unfairly assertive.

The Mythology Connected to the Libra Constellation

The constellation of Libra is considered to be the Titan Goddess Themis who was sister to Nemesis and second wife to Zeus. She is the goddess of justice, legislation, divine law, and harmony with nature. She carries a sword to cut the truth from the lies, and her scales are the symbol of the justice she upholds. Themis is the Goddess of peacemaking, balance, seeing other’s point of view, along with divine awareness, and social graces. If disregarded, it is her sister, Nemesis, who punishes. Nemesis is the consequence of failure to regard Themis and her Libra qualities.

This narrative again conjures the awareness of collaboration and balance. The Libra Titan herself does not operate alone, but she is still quite individual. She is interdependent, offering her magick in divine cooperation with her sister.

The same could be said of her relationship to Zeus. Through this collaboration she birthed the three Horai and the three Morai. While the Horai governed the measure of time, the orderliness of divine law, the Morai determined the path of fate, the purpose and the process of divine law. Even her offspring cooperate to create a sense of order, of fairness, and of divine balance.

Higher Power + Natal Charts

A professor of genetics once taught me that evolution does not behave linearly.

That is to say, while there is something to the concept of survival of the fittest, genetic mutations or the causes and effects within a sequence of genes are not exclusively ruled by this concept of survival of the fittest. Instead, there is a fifty percent chance that the fittest or ‘more favorable’ genetic outcome occurs and a fifty percent chance the outcome is random, something totally unexpected or even expected and feared. So it’s just as likely all goes according to a positivist evolutionary trajectory and as it is something beyond our understanding occurs, something seemingly random. This served to completely challenge my understanding of the matrix and all her processes. While I had once felt a type of certainty that there was a direction to it all, “an arc to the moral universe [... one that] bends toward justice” as Mart Luther King Jr. said, I was now forced to move my conceptualization of the Universe into a new dimension. I would later find it was not just a new dimension but more dimensions, that must be contended with in order to gain a satisfactory perspective on whatever the Universe is and what we’re all doing here. 

I don’t claim to have all the answers by any means. However, I have a take that allows me a sense of peace I have never accessed before.

In a small college dorm room, several hours into a psychedelic trip and sprawling on any surface that could support our languid and extraterrestrial bodies, I once asked a friend what his definition of God was. He answered more succinctly than I could have ever anticipated.

“God is omnipotent and omniscient.”

…I’ve been chewing on this premium definition ever since. 

If God is omnipotent and omniscient which I feel is the most all-encompassing definition of God and therefore the most appealing and accessible definition of god I have ever found… then God cannot be an entity but instead a process. The only way, at least according to my lil human mind, God could know everything and be everything is for God to be happening over time. Of course, time is one of those mystifying constructs that proves increasingly difficult to understand; linear or otherwise, from our human perspective, time certainly appears to be a process, to have a trajectory, to have some version of a direction even if that is in a multidimensional weblike context. God cannot be omnipotent and omniscient in a static or singular way, it must span time as well, stretching across all dimensions.

The God of the Hebrew Bible (the oldest definition of God I have a relationship with) is in everything, is of everything, and created all. This God is the creator of everything at the same time it is everything. We (Jews) owe our gratitude, awe, and respect to everything, from the smallest stone to the greatest mountain range, from the most brilliant invention to the most humble craft, because it is all God. These two definitions fit quite nicely together, in order for this God to be both omnipotent and omniscient, we must all be God, everything must be God. In fact, in order for God to know everything and be everything, we all must live out our experiences, embody our realities, and be ourselves. All entities from events to animal bodies, constructs to political movements, geological periods to ideas and equations, are God.

It was through this line of thinking that I came to consider natal charts as the most divine filing system, keeping track of every iteration of God. Everything, from a question to an entity, to an event, can have an astrological chart cast for it. Every entity, animal, mineral, and temporal, has a chart that marks its identity as well as trajectory. It’s like a map to that iteration of God; it is the responsibility of that entity to embody those lessons, that vantage point, those coordinates, characteristics, and context. Each natal chart is a depiction of a particular time and space in the galaxy that is interpreted through the multicultural archetypes that have developed over millennia.  A natal chart might just be our contract with the Universe to embody our context in order to participate in the multi-dimensional project that is God. Each of us and everything in between has a chart that acts as a key or blueprint to our nature, our highest self, and the lessons we must learn in our specific timescape.

As we embrace our most connected and aware selves, we contribute to the omniscience and omnipotence that is God.

Finally, to bring this concept into the realm of wellness and mental health. For me, this conceptualization of the Universe and God has allowed the kind of acceptance and humor I have often sought in my most embittered and disillusioned states. If we conceive of ourselves as a version of God, tasked with the lessons we must learn and opportunities that we must take in order for God to know what that reality is like, we may find some grace on our path. Not only are we divine in our own right, but we are living with the purpose of a sacred mission, as part of a numinous collective, not simply aware of a higher power but living as our most empowered and highest self.  

From my perspective, I am but a product of my context. I exist only as an expression of the heritage of causes and effects that have created this particular timespace. My joy, my trauma, my power, are all contained within the context that I occupy, and that context is perfectly articulated by my natal chart. I then have the opportunity to play with this context, test its bounds and challenge its assumptions, all in an effort to engage in the games of the Universe, in the omnipotence and omniscience of God.

The Meaning of Life

Y’all heard the new social media mantra? 

“What is the meaning of life? I’ll answer in five words. Enjoying the passage of time.” 

I believe the phrase went viral because of its truth and simplicity. It makes perhaps the most significantly confrontational question of life into an accessible, albeit challenging daily practice of devotion to the art of enjoyment and pleasure. It flies in the face of generations of living for the sake of production and labor.  

When I was traveling in Europe with my best friend, I spent a lot of time ‘waiting.’ There were lines and layovers that required a certain amount of patience I don’t relate to. In my frustration, I offered myself a reframe in the form of a promise. 

I promised myself I would never waste time in my life.

I devoted myself to a lifestyle of enjoying time spent, valuing it, and creating intentional presence. Practically, this just means I usually bring a book with me or read from my phone, I strike up conversations with strangers with the intention of learning from them, I complete little tasks when I have ‘time to kill’ and I consider taking a nap or watching a fun show a task I must complete. 

Everything on my to-do list on paper or in my head holds equal importance. Some things may be more urgent, more time-sensitive but no chore is more important than rest, no job is more important than play. By allowing everything to be equally valuable I can avoid the traps of finance capitalism's productivity-oriented version of success. I can orient myself toward the lifestyle I wish to lead which is governed by the premise that a successful life is one in which I have fully enjoyed the passage of time. 

A ritual in intentionality…

I often ask therapy clients to try a mindfulness technique. It’s a simple question with a big purpose. When passing time and not feeling the best, check-in with yourself and ask

“is this actually what I want to be doing?”

Feel into the question and answer honestly and without judgment.  The only correct answer is the truthful one. Proceed from this place if affirmation. You have not confirmed this is how you’d like to spend your time or empower yourself to change your dynamic.

Trust + Purpose

Hungry and restless, just a month into the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself urgently seeking. I was seeking what it seems we all strive for, purpose and direction or more dogmatically speaking, faith. I looked to the traditions of my family and was drawn to honoring my Grandma Doris by journeying into the traditions of keeping a Jewish household. My Grandma, Doris, has always offered me guidance. She died at what I morbidly consider an ideal age in my life course, as my 6-year-old brain refused to let her go in any spiritual or philosophical sense. She has always been just over my shoulder, sometimes offering a soft touch, other times guiding me with a firm crab-like pinch that is surprisingly strong and pointed. She has never interfered but comes to me when I ask her for guidance, using her strength only when I ask without truly listening. 

It took less than six hour-long zoom calls with a Rabbi for me to experience the significant benefits of what it means to have faith. For years I have repeated my father’s words, “faith, is simply a gift I haven’t been granted.” But a look into Jewish traditions and how they are reflected in my own beliefs directly challenged that spell I had unintentionally cast by repeating my father’s words. Firstly, I don’t believe my father means this in any kind of absolutist way. He is a man who believes and has taught me to believe strongly in the unknowable magick of the cosmos, in the divinity that is nature. Second, what my father taught me to have faith in, is to me, the gift of faith itself, though it doesn’t quite fit the culturally Christian orientation of the English language. Thirdly, and most importantly for me, faith in the magic of the universe is perhaps the most foundational faith expressed in Judaism.

There is a requirement to recognize the value in absolutely everything in and of the universe in Judaism that rests on the idea that G-d is and creates everything. In a fundamental sense, reverence for G-d applies to everything and everyone, quite literally as it is all G-d.

I believe I was taught this subliminally through my father’s ancestral traditions, likely without him realizing the significance of this messaging in his life or his children’s. 

Despite the devastation of a global pandemic, increasingly abhorent social inequality, and environmental collapse, my faith and my sense of purpose have been growing. As I embrace myself within the belief that all things, all beings are owed the love and respect with which I regard the divine, I watched my mental health begin to improve, and with that came the desire to engage more deeply with my life in order to craft an existence that I consider a work of art. I began to care for myself not with routines that ‘I had to complete,’ marked by obligation, but with rituals that I cherish and look forward to practicing. Simply, I reminded myself to look forward to grooming myself, practicing yoga asanas, consuming intentionally, doing my morning pages (The Artist's Way, 1992), cooking; whatever the practice, I ritualize it to stay present with the gifts that are the ability to enact these rituals, the time, the knowledge, the work of the ancestors that brought me to this sacred moment I am in.

This practice gave me trust in myself.

It has also supported a sense of purpose giving me the confidence to invest in a master's program to study Social Work. I thought I chose Social Work because my Grandma Doris was a Social Worker but I believe the part of me that knew to do my research, to investigate the distinctions between the many mental health practices and degrees, saw that there is something bigger to why and how Social Work became my path. The field takes a highly practical (and hopefully accessible) approach to mental health by including the many facets of the individual human experience. For example, a social worker is called to recognize the interconnected nature of mental illness and homelessness as part of the wellness of a client experiencing both, rather than attempting to treat for one or the other. Later, through my studies, I would learn that the code of ethics at the foundation of Social Work played a powerful part in my decision as they seem informed by Jewish values, though potentially a subconscious reflection of Jewish values. This idea clicked into place for me when I studied Frances Perkins, appointed by FDR as the first female to a cabinet seat in the role of crafting social security policy in its nascent form. Since then, it seems Jewish people have continued to play a pivotal role in crafting and practicing in the field of Social Work.   

As it was with my undergraduate education in linguistics and photography, the connections were all so potent I couldn’t stop noticing them. That’s when astrology, a modality that has always fascinated me, was offered to me as the second field of study that would influence me in this phase of life. A mentor of my father’s introduced me to Debra Silverman, a giant in the astrology world and a former psychotherapist. As I dove into the wisdom of the cosmos and what astrology can offer the individual and the collective, I began to see the potential of astrology as a practice to support people’s sense of faith and purpose. Every interpretation I made for myself or reading I have offered has tapped into these two pillars. Meanwhile, many of the texts (here’s another) I read in my Social Work studies suggest purpose and faith or trust to be protective factors against depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges including addiction. The field of Social Work requires practitioners to abide by a code of ethics, one that preserves social justice and human dignity. The ethical compass of Social Work also reminds practitioners that no method of treatment that offers healing, *ideally* without harm, should be excluded particularly according to social, political, or spiritual bias. Over and over, astrology has presented itself to me as a tool that supports a sense of purpose and trust in self and/or the universe. The principles of Social Work seem to require the respect of the tradition of astrology despite it being culturally regarded as ‘the most woo of all things woo’ to quote Jessica Lanyadoo. At the end of the day, no matter how ‘woo’ one regards the modality, astrology can help people find a sense of trust or faith and purpose, and that is worth doing for the individual and collective sense of well-being. 

Everything does not Happens for a Reason

I will never accept that ‘everything happens for a reason,’ but as someone who believes in the power of faith, and someone who desires to assert my own sense of free will, I have chosen to believe that I can make meaning from anything.

That is not to say I can make sense of tragedy or justify the unjust, but in an effort to find peace, I can accept that I become stronger through the endurance of the catastrophe. 

As someone who has survived sexual assault, I can hardly imagine a way I could be convinced that what happened to me, what happens to more than a third of the women in the world, was reasonable or happened for a reason. Neither am I willing to attach to a victim identity. Instead, I have chosen to make meaning of my experiences. This practice of meaning-making is by no means my own innovation, in fact, I imagine it is as ancient a practice as the development of mythology. Just as myth is the creation of a story, the telling of a tale for the understanding and sense-making of an entire culture, so too is meaning-making, the process of creating a story from the fragmented, chaotic, and seemingly meaningless parts of our inner culture. 

Our own narratives are, more often than not, a reflection of the myths of our culture. 

The real challenge comes when we attempt to liberate ourselves from the toxic mythologies of our own cultures. The stories of blame and shame seem to punish us just for being born into a world full of dangerous and violent narratives.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, a book I cannot recommend highly enough, Viktor Frankl recounts the atrocities of surviving the Holocaust and explains the therapeutic technique he developed. He refrains from many of the narratives that depict the incredible violence of this genocide, instead focusing on the opportunities for meaning-making that he would develop into the therapeutic technique called logotherapy, the therapy of making meaning. As with all senseless violence, there is absolutely no justification or reasoning that can be used to address the Holocaust, instead, the author makes meaning of who he is and how he became who he was meant to be. Despite the irreconcilable losses and violence that Frankl endured, he was able to shift his perspective from one of victim of circumstance to one of purpose. His purpose? To survive. To endure the impossible, to go on to make meaningful written works, and to fulfill his sense of purpose as a therapist with a greater understanding of traumatic experiences than most. Not only did he live on to create meaningful therapeutic techniques and texts, but Frankl credits his ability to maintain a sense of meaning as the reason he was able to survive torture and enslavement in the Nazi internment camps. 

Frankl seems to have created an inner narrative that could sustain him even in the face of the murder of his wife, parents, and all of his family. Not only this, he maintained a sense of purpose and trust in his purpose whether he survived the internment camps or not. He continued to provide medical care and relief to his fellow prisoners even as he was tortured and fell terribly ill himself. In the face of senseless violence, he stayed connected to his own reasons for living, his own meaning of it all. Though there was no reason Viktor Frankl should have faced the devastation he endured, from his own sense of free will and belief, he created meaning and purpose, tools that helped him survive spiritually and literally.

In The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté, an infant when he and his mother fled Nazi-occupied Hungary, the renowned physician and author speaks to both the empowering and disempowering qualities of myth. He begins his book with a critique of the modern myth of productivism and the symptoms of ill health we have normalized in the name of work, propped up by certain concerning practices in modern medicine.

He demonstrates the power of myth and how significantly it impacts human behavior and therefore our culture and sense of health and well-being.

Finally, he calls on the power of myth to guide us to more sustainable and regenerative behavior. He points to how, generations ago, people took lessons of moral obligation from mythology, learning how to grow food sustainably and treat one another well from ancient mythological resources. Without regenerative cultural stories to guide us, what meaning do we make of our experience as over-worked and highly traumatized beings, paying handsomely to live in a culture that challenges our health at every turn?

While Nietzsche said “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” he couldn’t have meant that trauma itself makes for stronger stock. Instead, the overcoming of adversity, the growth in spite of violence, and pain is the fire where strength is forged.

No one should have to be so strong as to look assault or any trauma in the face with the determination to go on, yet so many of us are called to this strength training. We face it, hopefully with the support system that reminds us that nothing we have ever done deserves the trauma we have received. The kind of fortitude that we must find within us is our reward granted in the face of a punishing society full of false and toxic narratives.

Not everything happens for a reason and we certainly don’t deserve to be learning the lessons of what it means to live in this violent time. Since we’re here though, what meaning do you make of all the lessons you never should have been responsible for learning?