Malvin Artley has been a practising astrologer for more than a decade. He is an accredited member of the American Federation of Astrologers.
Malvin is the author of Bodies of Fire: An Exploration of the Lesser Chakra System. He has authored numerous articles and was a member of the faculty of the University of the Seven Rays, a non-profit organization dedicated to the teaching of the Trans-Himalayan tradition as expressed through the books of Alice Bailey, Helena Blavatsky and others.
His primary focus over the past 25 years has been on the sciences as they express occultism and with bridging work between the two. His special interests are the human subtle energy system and all the chakras, or energy centres, physics and technology, astronomy and all aspects of Chinese occultism. He has done extensive work with Chinese astrology and the cycles they use and seeks to synthesize the great Western and Oriental systems on such matters.
Malvin lives in Adelaide, South Australia. He also works in the engineering trades and sends out periodic emails about astrological happenings and developments. Click here to subscribe to Malvin's periodic letters.

The Festival of the Law [part two]
subtle meanings of the Full Moon in Aries 2004

In the second part of this article on the Festival of the Law, Malvin looks at conscious choice and the alignment of the energies of Venus, Saturn and Uranus, the three planetary rulers of the sign Libra. The reasoning mind is the developing or ruling factor in a person's life. The satisfaction of one's sense of reason and propriety is an end in and of itself. Malvin argues that “Choice” is then made according to the necessities of planetary karma and the services that can be rendered, and all is done according to Law.

Conscious choice is Soul choice. It is beyond thinking. It can only be had when the connection with the higher Self is secure and functioning with clarity and regularity, or it comes in moments of the most intense focus, and nothing better focuses a person than a good crisis, as has been stated in previous articles. Uranus brings on such crises to force open the channel and connection with the higher Self. Once the channel is functioning then the crises get less frequent since that intensity is no longer needed. Perhaps another way of stating the fact is “Nothing brings us closer to God than catastrophe.” But, it is the nature of the divine to operate in a steady, rhythmic manner. We simply see that as catastrophe because we are not in timing with it. Always in the life of the person on the Path, the personal must give way more and more to the universal and to greater planetary need. In the early stages the Libran type needs to be shocked out of their comfort zone at times and learns to see the world outside of them as a result. The spiritual life is one of constant change and movement forward, a life given over to sacrifice and for service to a greater need and it demands an ability to be able to sense the essence of a situation and to act therefrom, aside from any personal opinions or sentiments. This is not the sort of life orthodox astrology normally associates with Venus or Libra, although Venus is associated with universal love.

Unique Combination of Energies

Venus and Uranus in concert form a rather unique pairing of energies. It is a very hard-line type of force, and the effect upon a person's life, even in orthodox astrological terms, lends itself to emotional austerity, to independence of spirit, to strong adherence to the ideals of love and toward a universality of interest and dispassion. A life full of incessant change eventually leads either to an ability to live by one's wits (the root of the word “witch”) or to a life of hermitage, withdrawn from the helter-skelter of life among humanity. The latter path is not the most desirable for the demands of the world today, unless one spends the entire time on the inner planes and works only from there. For the Libran, though, life amongst people is the norm and the changes wrought by the interactions within relationships-especially close partnerships-offer fertile ground for the one who has to learn the attitude of the detached observer and the “worker from the point of stillness”.

We have looked at the relationship between Venus, Uranus and Saturn before in their linking on the mental plane. In Libra we have all three of those planets as rulers, so we again see the great importance of the Libran experience and interlude in the life of humanity. Libra is an air sign, which places it firmly in the mental astrological quadruplicity. All of the signs confer some aspect of mind, but in Libra we see it demonstrated in fullness and to its sharpest measure. Libra is the stepping stone to the intuition (buddhic-plane consciousness) and it shows us the way there. It is the sign that most effectively shows us how meditation works in life, or how it is supposed to work. It is the sign wherein we begin to see the constructive response to and use of crises in human life. That it lacks any spectacular emphasis is true, but that statement is only true in the outer world. On the inner planes, the experience of Libra is one of great importance because it shows the measure of one's thinking and the weighting of one's outlook, either toward the material or the spiritual. Hence, we have the symbolism of the scales for Libra. The person's life is hung in the balance in the Libra experience. The life of the human spirit is always measured by the connection of the three minds, of the quality of the causal energy field (body) and by one's ability to use those in service. Venus, Saturn and Uranus are instrumental in all of those areas.

Manifestation of New Forms

Libra as expressed through Uranus also produces some of the most powerful manifestors in the zodiac. These are not my words. This has been given as occult fact. Uranus gives the impulse toward creation of the new. Venus gives the conduit through which the energies of Uranus can flow. Saturn provides those conditions whereby the new Uranian energies can be expressed. It works from the other direction, too. Saturn defines the karmic necessities that confirm the need for a new rhythm and structure in life to be introduced. Venus provides the connections with people and with the higher Self in order to bring that about and then Uranus steps in and provides that energetic impulse which is needed. It supplies the electricity that gets the whole motor to run, in a manner of speaking. It takes a powerfully focused, clear and rightly directed mind to work magic in the world, and that is essentially what creative work is. All work that leads to the manifestation of new forms on earth is essentially magical work, used in the esoteric sense of the term, rather than the popular sense. We could go on and on with this, but hopefully the point is somewhat clearer in people's minds.

To sum this up, then, with the higher expression of Libra we see the activities of its three rulers linked. In the Venus phase, Libra is marked by the saying “Let choice be made”. The reasoning mind is the developing or ruling factor in the person's life. The satisfaction of one's sense of reason and propriety is an end in and of itself. The status quo is pretty well adhered to and choice is made based upon what one knows already. We see in this phase the satisfaction of desires in their myriad forms. In the Uranus phase, though, choice is made because of external factors forced upon the native, usually by one's own higher Self, at which point such choice is made according to greater need instead of personal want. Eventually, the Libran type comes to know the ultimate in choosing-that there actually is no choice, only knowing. When this dynamic is realized then all the person has to do is to stand steady as a conduit of Light and Love, and they stand poised on “the way which leads between the two great lines of force” (materiality and the divine). With the highest type of Libran we enter into the final phase of development, the Saturn phase. In that stage all lower mind and even higher mind has been superceded by the Light of buddhi and all things are then known directly and without thought. “Choice” is then made according to the necessities of planetary karma and the services that can be rendered, and all is done according to Law (Saturn).

The Venus Libran can be maddening in the extreme when they have to choose because they often take a long time and they choose according to their own loves and vanities. Choice is very personal to the Venus Libran and a lot of time and energy gets wasted in comparing themselves to others and in seeking to better appearances. The Uranus Libran can be maddening in the extreme as well, but for other reasons. Their choices are often made in an instant and without consulting anyone. They often act contrary to what people would normally expect them to choose and the choices made sometimes fly in the face of the ones who asked them to choose. Uranus has that effect upon people as well. There is often a twist with the Uranian Libran's choices, but once the mind is made up, there is no changing it. With the Venus Libran, though, the mind can change like a weather vane according to style, fashion, weather, the color of the sunset or for thousands of other reasons, none of which have to do with anything of real substance. So, hopefully we understand a little more of what Libra is all about and we can move on to the consideration of this full moon.

This Libra full moon occurs on the 28th of September 2004 at 11:10 PM AEST (8:40 AM GMT). It is a most unusual chart, mostly because it is dominated by 10th harmonic aspects-quintiles and biquintiles. The basis of the Grand Quintile pattern is already in place and forms a bowl outlined by Saturn, the Sun, Pluto and Uranus, in that order. The full biquintile patterning is not in place yet, though, since the Sun is not biquintile to Uranus. That only occurs on the day of the Grand Quintile, the day after the full moon. The 10th harmonic pattern in place at the full moon is of great interest to us, however, given what we have been examining regarding choice. This figure shows us that, if we can attain the necessary point of focus in our lives or during the full moon then some most unusual energies can be accessed and much that is unique within us presents the opportunity to be opened. The symbol for the degree of the Sun is most amazing in this regard, and it reads thus:

A man watches his ideals form before his inner vision — 6° Libra

There is a promise and a challenge here for all who would embark upon a journey for the discovery of hidden gifts with this full moon. The promise is that there will be things presented for our consideration of which we have never thought before. The mundane activities in our lives stand to be transformed into something of rare value. There are jewels of creativity and wisdom in this full moon figure. Our imaginations must be awakened and given full flight if we are to realize those gifts, though. The concrete and the known must give way to the meaningful, the symbolic and the unusual. The Soul is definitely waiting to speak to us this time around. The challenge is to 1) hold the point of focus for long enough and 2) to follow through with what we are given. Too many projects and grand visions fail because of our lack of focus and our lack of persistence. It is the same in meditation. All that is needed in mediation is right orientation, clear enough focus and persistence. Then magic is wrought in one's life and in the lives of others. The symbol for the degree of the moon is quite surprising regarding these quintiles as well, though it is not involved by aspect. It reads thus:

A square, with one of its sides brightly illumined — 6° Aries

One thing that becomes clear in any study of quintiles is that people who possess them in their charts have an ability to “think outside of the square”, that is, they have abilities with lateral thinking, depending upon the planets involved. With this lunar degree we see the necessity to take aspects of our past patterns and to look at them differently, perhaps looking at sides of them that we normally would not. This symbol can also mean that we may need to pick out one aspect of ourselves or society that we have examined in the past and bring more Light to bear on it-the Light that moves to rest. Dane Rudhyar called this symbol “a one-sided urge for inner stability.” Librans can often be painfully aware of this as their own inner dynamic and sometimes exemplify it to the extreme. Therefore, we have in the combination of the two symbols the crux of the energies expressing through the full moon: giving form to our ideals and thinking laterally or one-pointedly in order to do that.

The Sun is trine to Neptune in this figure, which will add fabulously to the ability to sense the inner vision and to bring the intuition to bear on our quandaries. Sun trine Neptune is an aspect that confers intuition of a high order and is known for bringing about a nice blending of emotions and intellect. It also adds greatly to any artistic abilities and the ability to work with symbolism. The Sun is also joined by Mercury, Mars and Jupiter in a stellium at the start of Libra. This is a very powerful stellium and points to either a rapid expansion into the qualities just outlined or a rapid degeneration into the insanity and compulsions that quintiles can so often bring to the unstable people of our Earth. Let us keep in mind from previous statements that Libra also governs war as much as it does balance. The key point here is that we all have a choice and that, for many, choice will be forced upon them, either by their own higher Selves or via the higher Selves of others. In some ways this is a very extreme sort of configuration for those who are already unstable and many could be pushed over the edge by it. No matter what happens, this is no time for half-measures. The full strength of our focus needs to be brought to bear upon whatever we have been given care over at this period of time.

In part three of this article, Malvin Artley examines the effects of the current aspects on our faculties of choice and responsibility. He argues that we all live under some kind of tyranny, whether political, religious, economic or otherwise, and the forces of liberation are strong on the planet as we speak. The choices we make now will carry over for at least the next 20 years until a new creative cycle of releasing comes around.

Read part three of The Grand Quintile 2004

Malvin Artley is an accredited member of the American Federation of Astrologers. His primary focus over the past 25 years has been on the sciences as they express occultism and with bridging work between the two. His special interests in those fields are the human subtle energy system and all the chakras, or energy centres, physics and technology, astronomy and all aspects of Chinese occultism.
He sends out periodic emails about astrological happenings and developments. These letters are sent out as a gift and a service. If you wish to be added to or deleted from the mailing list please let me know. If you feel inspired to pass them on please do so, but do so without alteration or charge. They are sent to people of many persuasions, not just astrologers. Blessings. Click here to subscribe to Malvin's periodic letters.

The Festival of the Law [part two]subtle meanings of the Full Moon in Aries 2004

Unique Combination of Energies

Manifestation of New Forms

The Festival of the Law [part two]
subtle meanings of the Full Moon in Aries 2004