Follow the Sun
Living Spiritualized Values
by Jef Bartow
Another key part of our personality beyond our unconscious habit patterns (the Moon) and our intellect (Mercury) which tends to control our behavior and especially our relationships is our emotional nature. It's fairly easy for most of us to understand our watery emotions like sympathy, joy, in-love, envy, grief and sadness. But our emotional nature is also made up of our feelings which include empathy, pleasure/pain, desire, passion and appreciation. The function of our feelings and emotional nature is to help us place value on our life experiences. Based on how we place or assign value is how we attract and appreciate people and things, how we give and take, how we love and how we assign beauty to life. All of these aspects of how we value, feel and emotionally experience life are represented by Venus astrologically. Another valuable part of Venus to all of us is that it provides us the urge to balance, harmonize and merge with something outside of ourselves.We are all conditioned to assign value based on "conventional wisdom," fads, those we look up to and what we were taught in school and our community. Unfortunately, many of these condition values are part of talking the talk and not walking the walk. A perfect example is honesty. We are all taught that honesty is of value in life. But as we grow up, we quickly learn that honesty is not always the best policy. It certainly is something that people live inconsistently or only when convenient.A simple spiritual practice is to take an inventory of your values by writing them on a piece of paper. Then assess to what degree you not only value the value, but live the value. With most people I've encountered, they have difficulty in even defining their values, much less assessing their performance in consistently living a set of values. This is why a major part of spiritual transformation includes defining a spiritual set of values to live by.Our articles are available for reproduction for all members. Please give credit to the author.
For non-members, please contact us for permission to reproduce articles.
To begin with, we can use Venus in our natal chart to get a handle on what and how we naturally assign value to experiences. The birth house position of Venus will highlight certain activities or areas of life in which we naturally assign value to. For example, let's say that Venus is in the six house at birth. Since the six house represents our vocation/work, daily routine, how we serve others and how we make self-adjustments to be useful, each of these activities will be naturally important to this individual. This person's feelings including desire, passion and appreciation will all be highly sensitized to experiences in these life activities.Images provided by NASA
NASA does not promate this web site
Check out other astrology articles
In our example, let's say this Venus in the six house is in Virgo natally. The natural tendencies of Virgo include being practical, material oriented, patient, detailed, responsible and persistent (the Earth element). The needs of Virgo (mutable sign) in the six house qualifies these experiences with the need to be versatile, responsive, adaptable, observant and flexible. Venus in Virgo indicates that this person’s feeling nature will tend to be modest, analytical and discriminating with a tendency to be critical, picky and a perfectionist in the work environment, in serving others and generally in their daily routine. This person values practically perfecting techniques in applying their knowledge in daily activities.As we have learned before, looking to the natural sign and house that Venus rules in the chart will also provide significant help in fulfilling the needs of our Venus. Venus is the natural ruler of Taurus and Libra and therefore also the second and seventh houses astrologically. To help assess and determine our values and work on spiritualizing them is accelerated by fulfilling the needs of these two signs and houses in the birth chart.With Venus in Virgo in the six house, normally Libra will be on the seventh house cusp and Taurus on the second house cusp. Therefore, being progressive, resourceful, active, and dynamic (Libra's cardinal quality) in one-on-one relationships, working cooperatively with others in the public (seventh house activities) will significantly help internalizing values in life for this person. In addition, being dependable, determined, reliable, patient and consistent (Taurus's fixed qualities) in dealing with one's resources, talents and in building self-esteem (second house activities in life) was also contribute to understanding this person values in life.Another major factor in pinpointing our values and to help focus on spiritualizing them comes from the ruler of the sign that our Venus resides in at birth. Let's say Venus is in Sagittarius in the 11th house in your birth chart. Naturally, living the needs of Sagittarius in the 11th house will contribute greatly in understanding one's values. In this example it is by being adaptable, versatile, responsive, observant and sociable (mutable qualities) while socializing with friends and groups, in developing contributions to groups with shared life goals and fulfilling hopes and wishes (all 11th house activities or goals).Almost as important is fulfilling the needs of Jupiter (ruler of Sagittarius) where it resides in the birth chart. If, in our example Jupiter resides in Aquarius in the 12 house, then living our means of socialization, social integration, and assumed ethical standards and beliefs (functions of Jupiter) in a stable, determined, reliable, consistent and methodical way (Jupiter's fixed qualities) will bring substantial insight into your values and the need to spiritualize them.
Understanding my values was helped by both Sagittarius on my second house cusp and Taurus on my seventh house cusp. My being optimistic, philosophical and freedom loving (characteristics of Sagittarius) in developing my self-esteem, talents and resources (second house activities) greatly contributed to my establishing a set of values for life. I accomplished this through my participation and leadership in my college fraternity and immediately leaving my entire past behind, including my education, to become a pastoral counselor after college in another part of the country.This entire new phase and value in life was greatly assisted by my Mercury in Taurus in the sixth house. I accomplished this through being fixed (stable, determined, reliable and consistent) in my day-to-day routine, work and how I helped serve others. As the youngest new minister in a New Age Christian church, I was quickly able to become an integral part of its leadership in defining the future of the organization and its mission. My conditioned values of getting a good education, a good job and making a lot of money was transformed into making my whole life about spiritual service to others and key one-on-one relationships. These relationships included my partner, my teacher and the Christ as the representative of Spirit on Earth.Later, my Mercury in Taurus in the six house further helped me in defining a practical step-by-step technique in defining spiritual values and making the necessary changes in life to live them. Our astrology chart is a meaningful way of learning the major influences on our values and also various ways we can individualize our values and live a transformed To help anchor this better let's again use my life as an example. My natal Venus is in Gemini in the seventh house. Therefore my values were conditioned by being aspiring, detached, versatile and thoughtful (Gemini’s air element) in one-on-one relationships, working cooperatively with others and in the public. My needs in developing spiritual values included being willing to be changeable, adaptable, versatile and responsive in the same relationships (qualities of Gemini).Growing up as a child I tended to move from one friendship to another rather easily while generally wanting to help those around me get what they needed. Each time I changed schools or where I lived, I let past friendships go easily and moved on to new ones based on my new environment. 
