Libra symbolises the fall of man into the cycle of birth and death. Through the development of sex consciousness, we have lost the awareness of our original state of immortality. This is represented as a fall from the Sahasrara, the head centre, to the Muladhara, the base center. By directing the consciousness towards the higher centres, the lower centres are slowly neutralised and the polarity of sex is transcended. This is called the reversal of the wheel. The path from Libra to Aries in the reversed direction completes the journey. The opposition between Mars and Venus, between the male and the female, is transformed into a marriage; they unite and find their harmony. It is the marriage of the lamb, Aries, with the bride, Libra.
The image shows the stylised wheel of the zodiac with the central axis of Aries at the top and Libra at the bottom. In the central axis you see the figure of Venus, the symbol of the soul linking the opposite poles. Venus helps us to rise from the mundane identity to the awareness of being the soul. The figure is wearing a veil, the veil of nature. She is surrounded by colours of light blue and rose, colours related to Venus. For this, I used a painting of Venus from an unknown painter of the British School.
Libra represents the experience of dense matter and the death of consciousness. I illustrated this density through rock faces on the left and right side. The figure embedded in the rock at the bottom left symbolises the past, the one on the right stands for the future. Venus in the center is the experience of the presence.
At the top on the left side you see the constellation of Libra and on the right side you find Venus designed with a NASA photo from the space probe Magellan.
The symbolism of Libra is visualised in the eleven Libra paintings done between 2010 and 2020. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.