Systems of Nature. Venus into Taurus 3/16/23

Mother nature is a natural system who makes  more natural systems. You are such a natural system; individual and unique yet a part of the enormous system of nature. The more you can sense your uniqueness the more strength you can draw from the whole of nature. 

She is pregnant, so to speak, with all of us. We are still inside of nature’s unity. The only chance to be born is to become increasingly aware of our dualistic nature. We are part separate and free and part connected and bound.

She would never dream of taking away our power to make choices, that is why we are free. But she would never turn her back on us either, that is why when we make choices that are true to our unique natures, she sends up surges of new strength and energy. We are free to create yet bound to respond. 

Natural systems have parts or aspects that use a set of laws to make up a coherent whole. 

In our freedom to create, we can create our own laws. But these laws must be real to us so that we can respond truthfully by our bound-nature.

Mother nature doesn’t turn her back. She produces bounty and she supports you, whether you are aware of it or not, in your own productive living.

Taurus is the second sign and it represents the ultimate duality in a world that also has unity. The unity is made of love, and love never forces or coerces. The only way for love to grow in a world of individuals is in granting the freedom of choice. When choice aligns with love then the unity reveals itself. When choices have no footing in one’s nature and no regard for the nature of others, not only does unity not present itself, but fragmented reality keeps splintering like a house of mirrors in the end of Orson Welles’ Lady from Shanghai. 

Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles in The Lady From Shanghai, 1948

Unity, love and a homecoming is always right around the corner, like the bounty of springtime. All that is needed is to feel your freedom of choice within a world that waits for you to choose well, a world that cares about your choices and communicates directly back to you.

Abandoning this freedom, or giving it up to someone else cuts you off from the richest dialogue; that of you and nature, or your nature within all of nature.

The torus (aka Taurus) is a self organizing system that creates more systems. The cells, organs and nerves that comprise your body are little systems within a bigger one. You are a little system within a bigger one. Just as your liver or brain is not truly separate from you, you are not truly separate from all of nature, i.e. the universe.

Your brain and liver serve a purpose in your body. You also serve a purpose within this greater tapestry of the universe. What purpose? Only you can know. Only you can listen to the feedback of mother nature in response to every free choice you make. Only you can know if you are allowing her to raise you right. 

Connection is where we are bound as seen in the lock of a good hug. Connection is where the earth currents run through our bodies and bathe our nervous systems in the same substance of a sunset or a field of lilies. 

Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, 1907-1908

The solid ground is that of your own fortitude. In your choices, in your knowledge of what binds you, in your new discoveries of what calls or speaks to you, in the new laws that you create for your system, you stand on solid ground. You stand in nature as a smaller nature with access to all of the bigness through the power of choice. This is how the universe lovingly supports us and helps us grow.

Living systems grow and sustain themselves by extracting energy from their environment; like food, sunlight and water. But there are other sources of energy for the human species: art, books, ideas, other people, rituals and so on. The environment is large and full of possibilities. The potential for new energy is endless. In the quality of the connection to these energy sources, lies the potency of the energy. 

Someone who doesn’t really like art museums will not be as ‘charged’ after a day at the Met than someone who does (unless of course the person surprises themselves by realizing “I really did enjoy myself). The enjoyment, the satisfaction of connecting with the source of potential energy is personal. There are so many things that can get in the way of this sacred energy transfer, a bad mood, for example.

Archetypes are symbols that carry charges of meaning. The zodiac consists of twelve supercharged archetypes. They won’t barricade down your door seeking connection, they are part of nature, and in being part of nature they answer to the loving principles of nature that exists in a world of free choice.  As Venus moves into Taurus on Thursday, 3/16/23, you may stumble upon the archetype in your enjoyment (Venus) of an aromatic cup of tea (Taurus). Depending on the richness of your connection, you will receive new energy. This new energy that streams in from your environment works to organize your system, as new energy does with all living systems. 

In a fast paced digital society, the options for energy sources are increasing but the seriousness and personalness of connecting tangibly to something so that the real earth currents move through us is lessening. 

Allow this deluxe transit of Venus through Taurus to bring you back to your system, within the big system; back to your access to bigness through the richness and realness of true connection.

Venus will be travelling through Taurus until April 10, 2023 when she sets off in Gemini.

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Love As Metaphysical Gravity

Why do we fall in love? Why don’t we climb in love or sprint? Is love something below us that we fall into? And then why can it make us feel like we walk on clouds? 

When planets fall they fall towards the sun; a central and most luminous source. In their orbits they are perpetually falling. We are perpetually falling too. We are pushed up by the floors that we stand on and the chairs that we sit upon.

Gravity is the mysterious force of attraction by which terrestrial bodies tend to fall towards the center of the earth. In the center of the Earth fire burns like a second Sun. 

R. Buckmister Fuller called love “metaphysical gravity”.

The center of the earth in a psychological sense points to the center of your earth; an elusive Self that is born of nature and is nature. Is this where we fall towards when we fall in love? Are we put into an orbit that pivots around something bright and brilliant and born from within? 

Light makes vision possible. Light born from love extends vision farther; both outwardly and inwardly. Out to the day and into the night, behind one’s eyes and back into the next day. Love can extend and deepen another’s worldview.

Valentine’s Day always falls in the far-out season of Aquarius.

Serious Saturn will join the Sun. Seriousness is like gravity, a force that anchors. Towards what does this force make you fall?

The star-player, Venus will be in her best gown; floating in Pisces near the divine planet of Neptune. Whatever your plans, add some ruffles and a string section.

The Bal Mabille by Jean Béraud

The Pages Turn, The Fire Burns

“My World” is a children’s book by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd. My son and I read this at night under a cactus light with a symphony of crickets out our window. The opening page shows a mother reading to her child by a fire. The words are “The pages turn, the fire burns.”

Maybe this is what got me thinking about the nature of time. Some time seems to turn, but some time seems to burn. Some time comes back around and some time trailblazes the future and celebrates the spirit. These two kinds of times blend together yet they are inherently different. One is bound to law and one is free. One is used to gain more control and one is lived to live as lively as possible. One is a clock and one is a flower. One is a wheel. What is the shape of the other? What is the shape of the spirited time that burns meaning deep into one’s soul? What is the shape of living?

The wheel of the zodiac turns. Its twelve archetypes carry the meaning of the seasons that turn. The meaning of the seasons is so charged that it goes beyond the snow and heat. It extends into the mystery of the seasons of life, and all the relations of living. The wheel turns and time folds in on itself. What emerges from this motion is the potential for more and more meaning. New meaning. Fresh meaning. Fresh light.

The wheel is really a generator. A maker of more light. The pages turn but the fire burns.

I began to think about the existential side of time. Some time is “heights” and some time is “depths”. Some time is more middle ground. The heights of time are the joys, the unbridled laughter, the perfection of a day. This time rushes over the body like a shower of effervescence. There is no possible way to deny the body’s ownership of such time. It is embedded. It isn’t turning on an abstract clock. It is burning in the heights of one’s heart.

“Depth” time carries a force of memory and a sense of belonging. Depth time can anchor you “home” or polarize you to “true north”. It can also sink you with despair. Depth time carries the echoes of your ancestors, and the echoes of your most desired dreams. Its gravity is also undeniably in the body. It can easily smolder with the blend of heights. It can threaten to dampen the fires of joy. It does best when feelings are interpreted truthfully, and handed off to the logic of the middle ground.

“Middle ground” time is for managing the business of living. Our bodies are blessed with the genius of nervous systems. All of the information and interaction that we encounter gets integrated into the “system” of the body. The world is wide and full of information. The body is deep and full of mystery. The middle ground is where these places meet. Biofeedback has evolved for centuries. Our systems are cutting edge. The middle ground time is the coolness of logic, the sureness of morality, the sensations of physicality.

My new question was: if time is a wheel that turns, how does this other “time” move? Is there any order to it? My instinct said yes.

The (Active) Art of Loving. Venus enters Aries

In the previous post, the very verdant verity of an inner spring was examined via Erich Fromm’s two existential modes of “having” and “being”.  It seems natural to stick with Fromm for this next transit on Sunday March 21st, as Venus, the Love Goddess goes into action-oriented Aries.

Fromm begins his very popular book, The Art of Loving (1956), with this question:

“Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one “falls into” if one is lucky?”

As the title suggests, he believes it is an art.  A “faculty” rather than a “feeling”.  A verb rather than a noun.  He sees love as an “activity” rather than a “passivity”, centering primarily on giving rather than receiving.  

For Fromm, we have it all wrong when we try to make ourselves more lovable to attract love.  Thinking this way turns ourselves into self-made commodities, looking for the commodity in others that fit the bill.  The problem becomes a passive problem of being loved, rather than an active affirmation of our capacity to love.  

Fromm himself was an Aries, born right around the time of the vernal equinox.  Spring is a clear display of life, and for Fromm, so is the art of loving.  The name of his book is The Art of Loving, not The Art of Love.  Love, like life, is not a noun, but a verb.

And what does the dedicated artist of love give to others, and to the world?

Fromm says, “he gives his life”.  This, however, is not a sacrifice. He further explains,

“he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness—of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in him. In thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enhances the other’s sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness. He does not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy. But in giving he cannot help bringing something to life in the other person, and this which is brought to life reflects back to him.”

Maybe this is why springtime birds sing so much.  They are skilled and knowing artists practicing the liveliest art.  The art of loving.  

How can you turn love into a verb?  Venus will delight in Aries until April 14th, when it will cozy up in Taurus.

Happy Astro Pondering!

Astro Art by Johhnie Day Durand

https://www.happyastropondering.com/