Beauty and The Dog Rescuers in Ukraine
“May you see in what you do the beauty of your soul.
May the sacredness of your work bring light and renewal to those who work with you and to those who see and receive your work.”
As an astrologer, I sometimes get caught racing off with notions of beauty and associate, too linearly, beauty with glamour, style, vanity, pleasure-seeking, etc. Largely, this is the limited view of the qualities of the exoteric and lower level, the idea of Venus as we relate her to the surface qualities of beauty.
Beauty, though, is far more encompassing and ‘beautiful’ when we place it beyond the exoteric and into the larger expression of beauty as the late poet John O’Donohue so beautifully elaborated; that beauty has a more rounded benevolent sense of perfectionism and becoming. It’s a spiritual task, moving from exoteric qualities to esoteric becoming.
In one of his last interviews John O’Donohue speaks about beauty in these words, “ I mean, I think that — and it’s the question of beauty, I mean, you’re asking, essentially — as we are speaking, that there are individuals holding out on frontlines, holding the humane tissue alive in areas of ultimate barbarity, where things are visible that the human eye should never see. And they’re able to sustain it because there is in them some kind of sense of beauty that knows the horizon that we are really called to in some way.”
“ I mean, I think that — and it’s the question of beauty, I mean, you’re asking, essentially — as we are speaking, that there are individuals holding out on frontlines, holding the humane tissue alive in areas of ultimate barbarity, where things are visible that the human eye should never see. And they’re able to sustain it because there is in them some kind of sense of beauty that knows the horizon that we are really called to in some way.”
https://onbeing.org/programs/john-odonohue-the-inner-landscape-of-beauty/
The war and suffering in Ukraine have shown us, in many ways, the true ideals of John’s notion of beauty: Those people on the front lines suffering and being knuckled into reality. A few stories popped up in my feed that gives us a window into these perfections. There’s Nastya Tikhaya who runs an animal shelter and turned to helping elderly and disabled dogs into safer zones, rescuing them from the war zones and destruction.
“Most of the dogs were either disabled or seniors and exhausted by the journey. They needed to be carried across the river after walking several miles. Some of the senior pets were abandoned by their families as they fled, but Nastya and her husband refused to leave them behind.”
When Nastya was asked why she decided to save the “sick” dogs she told Newsflare, “These are my bunnies [lovelies]. Well, shall I leave them? What is the difference – sick or healthy? Their lives are no less valuable. They are all very good. By the way, these invalids have suffered very much at the hands of man.”
“Most of the dogs were either disabled or seniors and exhausted by the journey. They needed to be carried across the river after walking several miles. Some of the senior pets were abandoned by their families as they fled, but Nastya and her husband refused to leave them behind.
Another story popped up about the woman who carried her elderly german shepherd 10 miles (16 km) across the border to Poland.
Of course, the stores extend beyond pets, and reach into the grossness of this war and into dark, challenging corners of all our lives.
We can all be beautiful, of course. Leaving the glamour of Instagram selfies and exoteric qualities of Venus, we can engage the higher spiritual esoteric ruler of Venus, our spiritual will, which is associated with the not-yet discovered, hypothetical planet Vulcan. Vulcan is the esoteric ruler of Venus, the spiritual will. The spiritual task of Taurus (ruled by Venus) is to make this jump, to dedicate oneself to something higher in the joyful renunciation of personal glamour and goals, for the benefit of the whole.
What areas nf your life, in your community, have you witnessed such forms of devotion, of beauty? What are your thoughts on beauty in this larger context of becoming?