The Myth of “The Middle”

While writing my blog post about the full moon lunar eclipse in Taurus, Naomi Shemer’s classic song Al Kol Eleh popped into my head.

It’s a song I learned as a child in school. I sang it as a part of several choirs, but I hadn’t heard it or thought of it in years.

I searched Spotify to find it, and settled on a version that I liked. Then I listened to it on repeat for most of the day.

The chorus of the song translates roughly as follows:

Over all these things, over all these things

Please guard for me my good God

Over the honey and the [bee] sting

Over the bitter and the sweet

Please don’t uproot what’s been planted

Don’t forget the hope

Return to me and I will return

To the good land

I continued to listen to the song as I followed a calling to head to a local park to to watch the sunset and the moon rise. And somewhere in the many hours of listening to it, I realized this was the perfect song for a full moon in Taurus, when the moon in Taurus is opposing the sun in Scorpio.

The Polarity: Sweet vs Bitter

Taurus, ruled by Venus, planet of love and harmony, is a sign all about pleasure and what’s sweet. It nurtures, it holds space, it seeks to comfort.

Scorpio, ruled by Mars, the warrior planet, is a place where we face what is uncomfortable: death, grief, the taboo. We don’t just face it; we dive deep into it, exploring its every nuance, every twinge, every sharp stab wound of it.

The scorpion stings. Mars severs and cuts.

This full moon pitted the stinger of Scorpio against the sweetness of Taurus: the tendency to cut and sever with the desire to find harmony and connection.

A full moon reminds us that our job is to recognize the illusion of the polarity.

Life is not about one OR the other.

As the song says, we need the honey AND the stinger, the bitter AND the sweet.

For all their differences, Taurus and Scorpio have much in common: they are both fixed signs. They are both persistent, loyal, grounded.

Ultimately, they want the same thing: safety and security.

Finding Harmony in the Dissonance

As without, so within: whatever “sides” we see “out there” in the world exist within us.

As a Libra rising, the planet Venus “steers the ship” of my life.

I was also born in Taurus season, and with my natal Sun in Taurus, the Venusian quest for harmony is even more deeply rooted in my psyche. Adding to that, my natal Sun is in the eighth house — the natural house of Scorpio — the place where we explore death, dying, the painful emotions, and other taboo topics that culture doesn’t like to explore.

I was also born when the moon was in Pisces, which is evident in my desire to seek the oneness of all beings and the spiritual path to healing.

These aspects of my personality lead me to consider “all sides,” to seek harmony where there is dissonance, to attempt to see the humanity even in people who act inhumanely.

Even in situations that may feel to me, on a personal level, like there shouldn’t be “another side.”

This trait, I should note, often annoys many people on all sides of an issue. It especially irritates people on “my” side, who view my attempts to see all sides as a betrayal of my roots and heritage.

Libra risings often get a bad rap for being indecisive, for refusing to take a position, for remaining in the “middle.”

As if the middle were a safe place.

The Myth of the Middle

In our current polarized climate, the extreme positions offer comfort and safety. You can hide among those who harbor the same beliefs. It’s much harder — and less safe — to stand in a place where you’re exposed to all sides.

But seeing all sides doesn’t mean you’re “in the middle.” It doesn’t mean that I don’t have a position, or that I’m disloyal to my heritage.

I can remain loyal to my people and still take a wider perspective.

I can stay true to my heritage and still have compassion.

I can honor my history and still seek the humanity in others.

In fact, my faith, my heritage, and history requires this of me. If I cannot see the humanity in others, then I lose touch with my own humanity.

As a human being, I am capable of holding many emotions at the same time. Even conflicting emotions.

The work here is integration: to recognize the polarities, to see all the parts, and bring them together. This is the path of healing: coming into wholeness.

The Warrior Path

Every polarity can be mediated; sometimes it’s just a matter of sitting with it and moving with it for longer than is comfortable.

This is the work of the spiritual warrior.

Holding space for the discomfort of dissonance, for the inner conflict, is intense work.

This is the heaviest lifting I do in my personal practice. And this is the essence of work I do with my clients, whether I’m helping them grow a business, find a new home, or move on their yoga mat.

I have no magic answers to the current situation.

But as I listened to this song on repeat for over 7 hours (like a Taurus sun is apt to do) one line continued to resonate with me:

אם תשכח את התקווה

Don’t forget the hope.

I would add to that: don’t forget your humanity.

For if we lose our humanity, then what will become of us?

This version of Al Kol Eleh is performed by the Israeli artist Hagit Yaso, who was born and raised in Sderot, Israel.