The regretted breakup, which can even be a grieving process for a lost friendship, gives people the insight that friendship is actually something very precious. That it is more than a mutual benevolence, that it is a particularly vital bond of trust. A remarkable connection, which does not pinch and is entered into voluntarily, without contractual obligations. A deep connection, felt like a friendship for life. That may acquire an extra meaning, namely for ‘life’ from a different field of being. Like a life not of this world. And yet in this world. As a value of Aquarius.
In astrology, the house of Aquarius, the eleventh house, is sometimes called the house of friends. In it – in that field out of this world – friendship is an expression of unity and diversity, that is to say, there is also room for autonomous entities in connection with the fellow man who suffers from the current polarizations. John puts it this way:
In my Father’s house are many mansions. [i]
On the road to Aquarius’ friendship, poets and musicians have testified to the existence of the field not-of-this-world, which is the field of the Other. Some have sensed the timeless, the 3D-breaking of that field as being ‘here’ and at the same time being there where time seems to stop. Where eternity seems to break into time. A field where there is not necessarily a romantic unity, a field that allows the personal with the impersonal. A field where the Other is a companion, as in the poem Friend by M. Vasalis [ii] sounds like this:
Friend, companion, who is more and less
then father, mother, lover, child
same as me but different
independent and dedicated
older, younger of the same time.
Comforter who can be comforted
beacon and hanger of signs
brother, but from another mother, without rivalry
with whom I walk and who guides me.
He grants me to live and when I die
would like, he agrees with me.
Sometimes it’s that I care about him alone
endure what seemed unbearable without him.
Without any obligation
I walk and always in his direction.
A field where a connection with the other (the fellow man) on a serene basis also has the right to exist.
Nietzsche sought that field in this world and he saw the cosmic dimension of friendship, he called it Star Friendship, as the only solution to the estrangement from each other that Western culture entails, far before the current polarizations.
He says at the end of the Star Friendship section:
…our life is too short and our sight too dim to be more than friends in the sense of the sublime possibility. So let us believe in star friendship, even if we must be each other’s earthly enemies. [iii]
Anselm Kiefer Sternenfall 1995
As we stand on the threshold of burgeoning Aquarian values, the House of Friends offers a hopeful perspective on that star friendship. Especially when we realize that we don’t have to be each other’s earthly enemies.
One musician who can help us on our way to the creative Aquarian value of non-fighting is the famous pianist Maria João Pires [iv], who recently stated:
Stay away from the feeling that music is a competition.
Develop without a competitive element.
It destroys so much, you can’t be a musician and a warrior.
The idea of competition, rivalry and contest focuses on the fire element as an energy source to be able to ‘win’. A Lucifer. But the victory in the sign of Aquarius is precisely not that of a warrior, but of creative combatlessness, based on the energy of the muses. That energy does not require a sound revenue model that is gaining ground through competition, commerce and the competitive element. With those elements you kill free creativity rather than promote it. Maria Pires:
Whoever doesn’t win a prize is the lucky one. And whoever wins loses his soul.
If you don’t win a prize, you run the risk of remaining poor. The most brilliant composers with their sun in Aquarius have remained poor and have died in poverty (Mozart, Schubert). The relationship with making money is also bad for Maria Pires, but creativity has not suffered as a result. Does the Aquarius, visited by the muses, fight for nothing? The combatlessness is rooted in Aquarius in non-being. So you could say that non-being is the weapon that is ‘fought’ with. This does not require an arms industry, but the soul that has gained no price or profit, the soul that lives from the ineffable non-being. Then creativity can also be free and express itself on the basis of friendship and cooperation. On an even playing field.
Because equality plays a major role in the development towards Aquarius values: subordination or superiority ignores true friendship.
But can you not learn lessons from a superior?
Learning lessons, I don’t like that formulation,
says Maria Pires.
You can’t give or buy a good lesson. I want to create an atmosphere where I am on one level with the student and we can search and find answers together in the music. We are in conversation with the composer, who provides us with his inspiration over the centuries.
That composer is often with her Mozart, to whom she has returned twice.
References:
[i] John 14:2
[ii] M. Vasalis,Friend, in De oude kustlijn, van Oorschot 2004
[iii] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (Die fröhlicheWissenschaft, first published April 1st 1882) , Random House, 1974
[iv] ‘Perfection and Youth are not blissful‘, interview with Maria João Pires, NRC, cultureel supplement, 25 November 2021
