Sunday, April 04, 2010

Emerson on Equilibrium

Something to ponder upon from Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet, essayist, and founder of the Trancendentalist movement in the USA.

He was born on 25 May 1803 at 3:15PM in Boston, Ma. (Astrodatabank).

His is a nicely balanced natal chart element, mode and polarity-wise, so it's appropriate that he sensed the equilibrium of nature, as expressed in the following extract. (Click on the chart to enlarge)

His Mercury ruled Sun & Mercury (in Gemini) and Jupiter & Saturn (in Virgo) reflect a deep-thinking writer's credentials. Gemini Sun in trine to Libra Uranus connects to an avant garde (for his times) mode of thinking.

From CONDUCT OF LIFE by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a collection of lectures first delivered between 1851 and 1852 reiterating Emerson's beliefs about fate, power, wealth, and worship, among other topics.
Beautiful as is the symmetry of any form, if the form can move we seek a more excellent symmetry. The interruption of equilibrium stimulates the eye to desire the restoration of symmetry, and to watch the steps through which it is attained. This is the charm of running water, sea waves, the flight of birds and the locomotion of animals. This is the theory of dancing, to recover continually in changes the lost equilibrium, not by abrupt and angular but by gradual and curving movements....This fact suggests the reason of all mistakes and offence in our own modes. It is necessary in music, when you strike a discord, to let down the ear by an intermediate note or two to the accord again: and many a good experiment, born of good sense and destined to succeed, fails only because it is offensively sudden....To this streaming or flowing belongs the beauty that all circular movement has; as the circulation of waters, the circulation of the blood, the periodical motion of planets, the annual wave of vegetation, the action and reaction of nature; and if we follow it out, this demand in our thought for an ever onward action is the argument for the immortality.

AND, by way of decor:
Equilibrium by Jia Lu at Visions Fine Art


2 comments:

anthonynorth said...

Emerson is another one I've studied in the past. So ahead of his time.

Twilight said...

anthonynorth ~~ Yes, AN - so many of his, and the next, generation seemed to be, too.