When Change Is The Only Constant.

VENUS IN LIBRA (DIGNITY).Appearances are important and these people rely on making a good impression through pleasant behaviour and attractive clothes. They need to be liked and fear arguments and disagreements. Dependence on the latest fashions can result from a lack of emotional confidence. Their expectations of relationships can be too high. These people are often shy socially. They make few close friends because most people do not match up to their high standards. Their criticism of other people can be unjustified and result from their own lack of self-confidence. They should learn to trust their own feelings.
VENUS in Libra is in her own house and, on the whole, stronger even than she is in Taurus. The only drawback to her excellence comes from the airy nature of the sign, which, conflicting with her earthy disposition tends to diminish her domesticity. It is also important to note that Saturn is exalted in Libra, and in dealing with the aspects of Saturn and Venus it is shown how generally sinister is his effect upon her. In this sign, the Venus quality tends to be {283} mysterious and bizarre, and suffers dark and inexplicable perversions. The ordinary bourgeois is usually very afraid of people having her in this position. She is too fine and subtle for the average man. The amatory side of Venus is not obvious; the feeling is refined into aestheticism. People with this position, however, often possess sincere affection, but it is important to express such affection more on the mental and spiritual planes than on others. The limitations of marriage are keenly felt. On the artistic side this is the best sign for Venus. She gives a magnificent sense of proportion, harmony and color, which can amount to genius. Vulgarity and blatancy are very distasteful, and uncongenial surroundings cause extreme unhappiness,and upset the nervous system. With all this there is a great love of simplicity in art. The Egyptian, Grecian and Chinese styles are preferred to the flamboyant and rococo.
Thus we see that, when Venus is in Libra, love is nearly always more and less than love, as understood by the average man. It is, to some extent, a religion, possessing its own ritual. Where disappointment occurs, the feeling is not that of a wounded heart, but rather as if a blasphemy had been uttered, or a crime against God committed. At times, the religious feeling in connection with this matter amounts almost to fetichism. This attitude often causes the native to dread the commonplace exceedingly, and, endeavoring to avoid that Scylla, he may be devoured by the Charybdis of the abnormal. Perversity of one sort or another is consequently common. This may not be actual vice -- it results from refinement, delicacy and imagination.
Venus in this sign is released from earthy bondage. She takes wings and flies. She dwells in realms of air and the worst torture which she can suffer is her enchainment by bodily expression or material condition. Not only is "mariage de convenance" impossible to her, but even true love may be revolting as soon as it takes physical form. It is in some ways not altogether fortunate that so important a branch of life should be thus divorced from what Nature evidently intended as its limitation. Love was originally intended as a mere physical appetite. Its exaltation as amorism, romanticism, mysticism, aestheticism and the rest are super-structured, built upon that basis by the idealism of the Great Architect and His fellow-builders on the aspiring human plane. {284}
The reader must not forget that Saturn is exalted in Libra, and, for this reason, there is much melancholy in the sign, which therefore transforms Venus from her simplicity, frankness and laughter into a subtle, secret, and somewhat austere Goddess, to be worshipped in secret shrines, rather than in the meadows. She is not content with offerings of flowers; she demands human sacrifice.
Of course, this is only a description of the action of this position on a single plane. The escape from flesh may be into many different fallacies. The effect of air, to which element Libra belongs, connects it with intellectuality; not only is it the ideal which is adored, even on the material plane, but the ideal frequently roots itself in devotion to causes of a religious, artistic or humanitarian character. In this connection we may mention the names of Madame Blavatsky, Frances Willard and Christabel Pankhurst.
The attitude of Savonarola towards love has Venus in Libra for its foundation, but, in his case, the planet is afflicted by the conjunction of Saturn within three degrees, while the Moon is square to her. Erasmus, with Jupiter trine, was rendered practically normal by this aid.
We have more characteristic examples still in Edward VII, and Queen Elizabeth. Here the influence of Libra as the judicial sign is very evident. These two monarchs were unquestionably the greatest diplomatists that ever occupied the throne of England. One sees a similar subtlety of judgment in Lord Brougham and Annie Besant. The position has a more obviously physical influence in the careers of Marie Bashkirtseff, Cleo de Merode and Oscar Wilde. But the most powerful illustration of all is afforded by Martin Luther. Here it reached an extraordinarily powerful development, owing to the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter.
Venus is not sufficiently big to bear the whole weight of destiny. No amount of support can make her anything but yielding. Even in the most favorable cases, therefore, there is an element of possible disaster. Sooner or later, the clay pot bumps against the brass pot and is smashed. Louis XVI is a particularly striking instance. All his tact and sympathy failed to meet the situation which confronted him.
Those born with Venus in Libra are extremely careful about their surroundings. Harmony and beauty are as necessary to them {285} as the air they breathe. They are much more particular about the manners of their friends than about their moral standards. They possess great personal dignity and a certain seriousness of attitude toward life which makes them almost pontifical. They possess charm, tact, a gravely sympathetic manner and much real kindness of heart. But they never allow this to degenerate into geniality. They dislike familiarity and do not allow anyone to take liberties with them.
There is a certain gaiety in the disposition, but it is kept below the surface. Frederick MacMonnies had Venus in Libra and his famous "Bacchante" might almost do for an astrological picture of this position at its brightest. There is always the feeling of the dance in Libra, but it is not the vulgar dance which is a mere expression of animal spirits. These exist, and exist strongly, but they are veiled by the religious instinct. The dance is, therefore, a religious dance, a subtle and esoteric ritual "inscrutable to the profane." In its highest expression, therefore, this position of Libra becomes almost divine. The perversities which have already been described may be considered as the trials of a pilgrim. At the end of the journey is the palace of that truth and beauty which are one.