7) Libra
Direction: south-south-west
Period: September 24 – October 24
Element: Cardinal Air
Planet: Venus
It’s the autumn equinox. The sun already shines less than in the past weeks. The Day and Night are of equal length. In plants the supply of juices has stopped and their bodies are in a state of active quiet but full of expectations. Nature is colorful again, but not by the flowers as in spring but with fruits. What hasn’t been gathered and reaped yet will become ripe and mature in the mild sunshine of autumn.
The balance of Day and Night the 7th sign starts with is an analogous situation to Aries. The difference, however, is that here it’s the Night that gets longer after this balance vanishes. Libra then represents a passionate support of collective values, not individual. The personality of Libra is an individual who longs to become a perfect social being. The personality of Libra is devoted to society, to the collective, and struggles for this devotion. It’s a fight for survival of collective values. Libra is a Sparkle of social life, gathering people together, bringing a vision of an ideal community. But like Aries, it’s also unstable: full of fear of a possible “fall to one’s own individualistic desires”, namely that the socialization process can become upset by one’s “egoistic” residues. Which can lead to an exaggeration of the social values that can overshadow the cosmic value of individuality.
In Prague, the borderline between Libra and Virgo sectors goes through the southwest corner of Café Slavia or through the hotel Moevenpick (whose two buildings connected by a funicular are stretched between Virgo and Libra like giant scales – one at Bertramka in Virgo, the other at Santoska in Libra), while the boundary between Libra and Scorpio goes through the “New Scene” of the National Theatre or through the Smichov Train Station. The former line is the equinox line, and thus it also comes through the southern corner-piece of Arbes Square in Smichov where a former church of Sts. Phillip and James would have stood.
Two places in the color of Libra will be presented in the Prague Zodiac Walk 1 (The Walk Around The Mystical Wheel):
Café Slavia – a place of meetings of social and political dreamers including the persecuted dissident and later celebrated president Václav Havel whose Sun and Mercury are in Libra while Mercury is going right through the Café Slavia where he used to write sometimes, along other artists of pen.
The National Theater – a materialized vision of an ideal of the independent Czech state, which was built at the end of 19th century thanks to donations of money from ordinary people too. The slogan “The Nation To Itself” (Národ Sobě) over the theater curtain as well as a strong exaggeration of the values connected with this social theater sing simultaneously in a grandiose choir of Libra.
Further, we should mention a famous crossroads Andel and a hill Santoska (located above the Mozart’s Bertramka), two neighborhoods in the borough of Smichov on the other riverside. “Andel” means “Angel” and it hints at the Initiation that comes true in Libra – the symbol of the Pyramid (while Virgo represents the Sphinx – the challenge for the searchers to get clean and find the right answer inside themselves - Libra means the next step: entering the Pyramid where the searcher meets the Messenger – the Angel, the Initiator to the Secret of the Night.)
At the crossroads of Andel, you can see an interesting modern (but truly mysterious) building by George Nouveau the glass façade of which (besides mysterious excerpts from poems) bears a painting of the angel from the cult Wim Wender’s movie Der Himmel über Berlin (also known as The Sky Over Berlin or The Wings of Desire with Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk or Nick Cave, which reverberated in some clips of U2 for example. (CHECK: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpDwy_E8OfQ OR http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093191// OR you-tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic8iGIdv80o).
(What is also interesting and rather mysterious is that Lou Reed appears in this film’s sequel from 1993 Faraway, So Close (CHECK: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107209/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_27) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7uMY3NmDG4) - because Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground played an angelically inspiring role in the process of the “Prague Awakening”, the upheaval of the Prague dissidents’ underground around Vaclav Havel – who was known to be friends with Lou Reed – which climaxed in the so called “Velvet Revolution” in 1989, mere two years after the first Wender’s film had been filmed.)
The name Santoska is derived from “Santos” or “Sanctus”, e.g. saint, holy, sacred. We can translate it as a “Saints place” or “Sacred place”. The meanings of both Andel and Santoska hint a communication between man and the divine. If you are sensitive you can explore this “saintness” on Santoska hill (the place is called “Paví vrch” or The Peacock top) – and find one of the strongest sources of telluric energy emanated from the Prague’s ground according to a leading Bohemian diviner. (And you can try and “charge your batteries” there. According to my own experience, the energy gives a sensation of light but pleasant tingling which grows with the length of your stay there and which gradually spreads an energizing feeling from your feet and calves up all over your body from which it removes fatigue simultaneously, bringing thus relieve to places tightened with stress. It ‘s an overall uplifting sensation – as if you were given wings.
