Here we are in another week connected to the Mental plane. The Pillar of Values & Ideals takes center stage. Our Raw Material (ORM) asks in Week One (Mentors) to make a list of those who’ve influenced you (including parents). Six weeks later Values & Ideals (V&I) asks you to make a list of your values. Values are defined as how you spend your time. Ideals lean toward how you think you should use your time. ORM has illuminated a concept called the ‘Ideal Playground’. This ideal playground supports our expectations and provides a transformative space for fear, anxiety and shame. You can research within your mind (lead by your ego’s voice) how to ‘have it all’. What’s wrong with seeing a space where you can have your cake and eat it too or those two birds are not assaulted with one stone. Or one of my favorites is that you don’t immediately think of resources as limited---who wants to have a budget? There is no guilt, shame or self-blame in the Ideal Playground. You have acceptance of the divergent between your values and ideals. You eat that piece of cake.
The other two pillars are Food and Aligning with Intention (Weeks Three and Eleven). Our minds are our biggest ego supporters. Sourced in our left hemisphere of our rational thought, we separate through our intellects. We read and feed ourselves with knowledge. We worship science. We have a need to be right. From ‘corporations are people too’ to ‘I gave my only begotten son’, our minds definitely follow the axiom of ‘energy follows thought’. In a very real sense our minds are easiest to reframe, but paradoxically hardest to control. Through reframing with a willingness to suspend our cynicism in the Ideal Playground, we find our equilibrium. Our balance becomes inherent, knowledge (ideals) is applied consciously (wisdom as values).
As AstrORM combines Astrology and Our Raw Material, this seventh week simmers with the essential energy of Libra, our inanimate object on the circle of animals--the scales (of Justice). Libra represents the return arc of our egos to oneness, source, or in ORM ‘Wholeness’. Our egos become aware of an ‘other’. Yes, Libra is relative and relational. However, it seeks to balance the ego with the soul. From the soul’s point of view, there is no separation. From the ego’s point of view, there’s only separation, right and left hemispheres, respectively.
To continue our connection each week to Music for this Fall, 2023 (specifically by James Ingram), I’ve chosen Somewhere Out There--of course to honor Libra’s penchant for partnering, a duet was in order! Our souls thrive in paradox, therefore, there is no ‘out there’, it is all inside. If your mind cannot understand this, then wait til Conflict Week (Scorpio/Pillar Eight).
Our egos want to belong, even more so when we have little to no inner life. In Our Raw Material (ORM), the phrase ‘awaring’ is of particular note to grasp how our living our values naturally moves us to align with our ideals. Please contemplate the following:
‘Awaring’, is what we call the process or state of perpetually seeking/being in Wholeness
How does each Sign/Pillar seek Wholeness through their own Values & Ideals (V&I). Acknowledging their individual blind spots (aka Shadows).Our sign at our half birthday (yes, that’s becoming a thing). Count six months (in either direction, we are on a circle) and that’s your reflector of your blind spot. Ask them to sit down. What would be their Yelp review of you and your alignment of your Values and Ideals?
Libra/V&I gets reflected on through Aries/Mentors. Hot damn! ‘Someone’s thinking of me/and loving me tonight’. How did your Mentors handle love and loss? What became of your first triangle, mom and dad? How indirect is your communication? Do you spend your time idealizing others only to be disappointed? An Aries shadow demands directness, action and conflict resolution. Writing out your values can elucidate where there is common ground with those closest to you (or not).
Scorpio’s emotional security needs can easily become intertwined with the need for financial security. A keyphrase of Taurus is ‘I have’ beautifully worded in the blues tune ‘God Bless The Child Who Has His Own’. Our chosen song’s lyrics: Somewhere out there, if love can see us through/Then we’ll be together/somewhere out there. Shadow for Scorpio is providing for your needs, emotionally and physically. Knowing when to be vulnerable and share (or not). However, once the values are recognized, your magnetism brings options of merging your life with others and to what negotiated depths (or not).
Sagittarius’s V&I are communicated from the silence of Gemini, their seemingly fickle shadow.teaches you how to be flexible in setting your intentions to give your opinion, ahem, counsel. Your basic question is to ask yourself---were you asked to offer your insights or were they unsolicited? Value your time while simultaneously allowing your ego to roam free in seeing all possibilities. Make the intention that love is expansion. Love is inclusion. Wherever there is dogma, there is ego that can easily become mean spirited and superior--espousing a ‘my truth is better than your truth’. The voice of our souls sets intentions that emanates from our inner child.
Capricorn’s V&I are deeply sourced through the emotional security provided by Cancer. Any weakness happens when time has been overly taxing the resources that the goat protects. Yup, Cap can be the GOAT---the greatest of all time---especially when they shine a light on how we can effectively share all our resources. Whether credit is given is rarely, if ever, the point. Cancer balances the ambitions of the sea-goat. It is important to realize that the earthy Cap is pragmatic, but not cruel when they treat everyone as a family member---accepting dysfunction as a precursor to recognizing every soul’s propensity to embody Wholeness.
The V&I of Aquarians can seem oblique or murky to those who have loyalties based upon our past relationships with others. So what that we’ve known the criminal since childhood? Leo illuminates the shadow of feeling without thinking. These two signs must choose to ‘Align With Intention’---too much ‘I am the way I am’ without a corresponding awareness of the consequences of these feelings can keep their egos stuck and repelling to any quality folx. However, when the ego and soul seek protective equalizing forces, there’s an undeniable brilliance---it’s as if the Water Bearer aka Aquarian has dropped in from another planet or star system--cause they have.
Pisces swims in their V&I all the time. It is said that there’s an invisible cord that connects the two fish of the last sign of the zodiac. The Wholeness Pillar is where this adaptable water (read soulful) sign gets its juice. Virgo’s Listening Pillar offers a discerning ear. Through this discernment, they can feel when to apply what they hear and when to ignore it. No energy is better suited for denial or escapism than the sign of the fishes. Our trick when dealing with them---take nothing personally. If you feel judged by them, realize you are surrogate to how they are judging themselves. Bliss transcends ego.
As a pioneering sign associated with the Pillar of Mentors, Aries adds its own individual flair to the Values & Ideals located in their complimentary sign of Libra. These two signs, when flowing in a balanced fashion, know precisely when to follow what’s worked in their pasts and when to move on. For sure, Aries is more impulsive. But, just because Libra is known for their judgy ways of taking life under advisement do not mistake their open minded kindness for weakness. Their awareness of how to spend their time (Values) may not include you in their long game (Ideals). It’s simply more apparent in the soulful energy field of Aries folx. If your pride is wounded, then you were trying project a long game of transactional expectations, Aries/Mentors will have none of it…
The quiet and sturdy love is often overlooked from Taurus people. No matter what is done for a living, these are some musical souls (that’s their associated Pillar--Music). They thrive on ease and peace, but their energy that highlights a path to healthy Values and Ideals is Scorpio/Conflict. If there’s an exacting alignment of action and feeling to be rivaled with Aquarius/Aligning with Intention, it comes through Conflict. Once the Taurus hears the call from their own inner truth, Conflict is not welcomed, but it is accepted. Buddhist principles emanate within their souls, for sure! Life is suffering (via our ego’s voice). Life is joy (via our soul’s voice). It is a matter of perspective based upon profound self-acceptance.
Gemini’s Values and Ideals (V&I) seeks to expand its understanding through Sagittarius/Intention. Being the sign in AstrORM of Nourishing---here are the lyrics to remind us how our minds are being fed---
Value is ‘very far apart’/Ideal ‘helps to think we might be wishin’ on the same bright star. What happened to be living apart, but wanting to be together? How do our values intersect with our ideals? What do we feel as they are incongruent? Our souls have our basic lesson plan for our continued evolution. The more we feed our thoughts on Wholeness (the lessons to be learned in every moment) it helps to think we’re sleeping underneath the same big sky---because we are. We are rooted all together, evolving all together---eight billion or so separate experiences learning from each other.
And even though I know how very far apart we are/It helps to think we might be wishin' on the same bright star/And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby/It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky
The V&I of Cancer/Ignorance can be immensely complex to illuminate. Their Resources/Capricorn can seem at odds with their gut awareness sourced through their souls’ voice. Know that in ORM there is an ability at all times to surrender to the Wholeness within. It’s like the story of an epiphany of Buddha. He realized that he was an ordinary man searching for the wisdom that was always within. Our soul speaks through paradoxes. Once our egos admit to what we do not know, we then know. We have inherent wisdom as a resource to be tapped constantly. There’s no scarcity of our resource of wisdom. But, we need to choose to let go of ‘saving face’ or ‘being in control’ or ‘reacting from fear’, each of these statements are based upon the half-truths that our collective institutions want you to believe. Pausing, breathing and reflecting upon how truth feels to you is a Capricorn/Resource that becomes a value every time you focus upon it. In an ideal world, you wouldn’t ever need to question. Or is it shouldn’t question?
Leo blazes through their lives in direct proportion to trusting that their feelings (their associated pillar) are Aligned With Intention (Aquarius). Their Values must include their self-worth. Even when their Ideals are not jiving with early childhood or current reality. If not, why not? Allowing the star child aka Water Bearer to give them the time to search for these answers is an excellent start. Hell, it’s not the answers, it is the feelings (and their lack of fulfillment) that inspires questioning. It is through inquiry about how far their Intentions have taken them off the path of gratitude and joy that matters. Questions offer the opportunity for re-Alignment. It takes Aquarius bringing the detachment from the drama of emotional games played by an unreflective ego.
The Values of Virgo often include a process of self-improvement of body and soul. Ideals include often (or always) having an answer or a fix for every problem. Once they access the Pillar of Wholeness carried intuitively by Pisces, they can chillax. Ideals should include acceptance. Ideals demonstrate themselves every time the word ‘should’ is used. Tolerating other people’s values is no bueno. It’s infinitely better for Virgo’s evolutionary awareness of Wholeness to accept without any judgement on how lives differ. Once their ego’s bruised enough, these service oriented individuals live the difference of self-love and selfishness.
Compentalization is lessened as evidenced by these lyrics of Somewhere Out There--
Somewhere out there, if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true
Major hint to clearly connect and align our Values and Ideals---realize that there is no ‘out there’ from our soul’s perspective---it is all inside and Wholeness is all.
