Hi Rad,
A question often comes up in my classes about the actual difference between feelings and emotions as it relates to the Venusian and Cancerian archetypes. I know this is something JWG taught about.
Culturally, these two words are often used as synonyms for one another. I want to clarify if I understand the proper use of these two words from an EA lens. I've organized my questions into 4 parts so it's easy for you to follow and offer your response.
Question 1: Is this explanation accurate?
Feelings corresponds to the entirety of the Venus archetype: Libra/7th house, Taurus/2nd house. From a Libra POV, feelings correspond to the inner instinctual feedback we get relative to our relationships. How we feel about something. It points to the dynamic of inner and outer listening. How does this feel for you. How does it feel for me?
From a Taurus POV: feelings correspond to how we feel about our sensual reality. Literally that which we feel on a sensual level, but also how we feel on the inside; how we listen to and supply our own needs. Feelings seem to be relational in their nature (feeling is always relative to something, someone or an experience i.e. we "feel something)".
Whereas emotions corresponding to Moon/Cancer/4th house are more about how we assimilate and integrate human experience to inform our sense of identity. Emotions by their nature require movement and some level of discharge or space to be processed and fully integrated. As per the core EA teaching: evolution occurs through the emotional body. Emotions are how we as souls integrate our human experiences so we can evolve.
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Question 2: about self-intimacy and self-reliance
Moon also corresponds to a sort of self-intimacy: the ability for the soul to nurture and care for it's present moment experience in the necessary ways. Similarly, Venus also corresponds to self-reliance and requires an inner listening. Both feel very similar and I think this is where a lot of people get confused.
Is it accurate to say that the difference is, the Venus inner listening is about adjusting to be able to live here in a livable way, to survive, to feel stable and healthy in one's biological and sensual experience; living in alignment with one's values. Whereas the Moon self-intimacy is a tending to and caring for that which needs nurturing and support for complete integration of experience.
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Question 3: understanding needs
Both Venus and Moon have something to do with "needs". Our essential inner/outer relationship needs is Venus. But Moon is also needs on a very basic level: we need to care for ourselves and develop emotional health in our lives, just like a baby needs to be picked up when it cries.
So is the difference between the two a the difference "supplying for a need" in a sort of transactional give/receive kind of way be it with others in the context of a Libra transactional relationship or between oneself and one's body/ physical environment vs "being nurtured in necessary ways" which again is more like the need of a soul to know they are safe and are able to receive the care they need, moment to moment.
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Question 4: practical difference between feelings and emotions
I think where a lot of people get confused is that we have terms like "I feel sadness". So is sadness and emotion or a feeling? I think I might understand the difference between feelings and emotions in this regard: Is it correct to say that feelings are a more superficial and instinctual reaction to experience, whereas emotion is a deeper more seated inner state that needs to be fully integrated in a safe way?
In the DVD course, JWG gave the example of Venus in Libra and Moon in Scorpio (thanks btw, that's what I got!) I'd like to see if I understand this accurately by flipping the two.
So a soul has Venus in Scorpio and the Moon in Libra and their partner comes home and says "honey I want to open up the relationship and sleep with someone else". The Venus in Scorpio has the initial response of feeling hurt, distrust, betrayal, abandonment. Why do you want this? Who did you meet? Our agreement was monogamy, do you not want me anymore? Things like that. The initial feelings are of a Scorpio nature.
As per all feelings, they need to be heard, acknowledged. Ultimately, they need to be heard from within the soul itself. The inner emotional nature of this soul however is to want to nurture and accept their relationships according to what each individual needs (Libra Moon0, so with some emotional integration this soul will ultimately want to come into a Libra conversation to talk about needs and how each person can support and care for one another within the relationship. Relative to the Venus in Scorpio this may or may not mean that they get what they want from their partner, but the Moon in Libra will need to establish a ground of mutuality and balance as a foundation.
Thank you so much for taking the time to clarify these matters for me and my students.
Hi Ari,
The most simple way to understand the difference between feeling and emotions is exactly what JWG taught: feelings are an immediate response/ reaction to stimulus of any kind whereas emotions are a reaction to those immediate feelings In essence deeper and more complex that the immediacy of a feeling. That why he typically used that example that you site between having Venus in Libra, and the Moon in Scorpio.
Feelings, in essence, are emotions. We all FEEL are emotions and feelings in our bodies and Souls.
Every Soul has a complex of all kinds of experiences that it has created for itself in order to evolve throughout its evolutionary history. The interaction of all those experiences within themselves is distilled. The distillation of all those experiences is that which generates what humans call emotions. These emotions permeate the entire cellular structures of the human organism. Feelings can react to emotions and emotions can react to feelings.
The beauty of EA and the core evolutionary paradigm within it is that it symbolizes and reflects the totality of a Soul's evolutionary past that has brought it into the current life. The EA astrologer than has the inherent tools necessary in order to understand this. It is the evolutionary past, all the experiences the Soul has created for itself, that is then distilled coming into the current life that correlates with the TYPES OF EMOTIONS THAT IT HAS, AND FOR WHAT REASONS.
The types of emotions of course are determined by archetypes of the signs and houses themselves: a Moon, emotion, in Scorpio in the 3rd house are different that say a Moon in Aries in the 10th house. And so on.
Feelings, again, are emotions that are ignited as an immediate reaction to some any kind of stimulus even if that stimulus is an emotion within itself. Our Souls create feelings as a vehicle of self knowledge as well as a vehicle to help the Soul evolve in general, Feelings, for example, can be used by the Soul to evolve its emotions. The 2nd house and Taurus, ruled by Venus, or in opposition to the 8th House and Scorpio, ruled by Pluto. One of the archetypes of oppositions is the throw off something that is preventing growth or evolution.
In EA our feelings correlates to the 2nd House, Taurus, Libra and the 7th House, and the planet Venus.
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Question 1: Is this explanation accurate?
Feelings corresponds to the entirety of the Venus archetype: Libra/7th house, Taurus/2nd house. From a Libra POV, feelings correspond to the inner instinctual feedback we get relative to our relationships. How we feel about something. It points to the dynamic of inner and outer listening. How does this feel for you. How does it feel for me?
From a Taurus POV: feelings correspond to how we feel about our sensual reality. Literally that which we feel on a sensual level, but also how we feel on the inside; how we listen to and supply our own needs. Feelings seem to be relational in their nature (feeling is always relative to something, someone or an experience i.e. we "feel something)".
Whereas emotions corresponding to Moon/Cancer/4th house are more about how we assimilate and integrate human experience to inform our sense of identity. Emotions by their nature require movement and some level of discharge or space to be processed and fully integrated. As per the core EA teaching: evolution occurs through the emotional body. Emotions are how we as souls integrate our human experiences so we can evolve.
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Yes.
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Question 2: about self-intimacy and self-reliance
Moon also corresponds to a sort of self-intimacy: the ability for the soul to nurture and care for it's present moment experience in the necessary ways. Similarly, Venus also corresponds to self-reliance and requires an inner listening. Both feel very similar and I think this is where a lot of people get confused.
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No. Self intimacy would correlate to Venus, Taurus, and the 2nd House.
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Is it accurate to say that the difference is, the Venus inner listening is about adjusting to be able to live here in a livable way, to survive, to feel stable and healthy in one's biological and sensual experience; living in alignment with one's values. Whereas the Moon self-intimacy is a tending to and caring for that which needs nurturing and support for complete integration of experience.
************
The Moon would correlate to tending to one's emotional reality and it's needs: The Soul nurturing itself in this way.
**************
Question 3: understanding needs
Both Venus and Moon have something to do with "needs". Our essential inner/outer relationship needs is Venus. But Moon is also needs on a very basic level: we need to care for ourselves and develop emotional health in our lives, just like a baby needs to be picked up when it cries.
So is the difference between the two a the difference "supplying for a need" in a sort of transactional give/receive kind of way be it with others in the context of a Libra transactional relationship or between oneself and one's body/ physical environment vs "being nurtured in necessary ways" which again is more like the need of a soul to know they are safe and are able to receive the care they need, moment to moment.
***********
Yes.
************
Question 4: practical difference between feelings and emotions
I think where a lot of people get confused is that we have terms like "I feel sadness". So is sadness and emotion or a feeling? I think I might understand the difference between feelings and emotions in this regard: Is it correct to say that feelings are a more superficial and instinctual reaction to experience, whereas emotion is a deeper more seated inner state that needs to be fully integrated in a safe way?
******
Again, feelings are emotions as explained above.
*************
In the DVD course, JWG gave the example of Venus in Libra and Moon in Scorpio (thanks btw, that's what I got!) I'd like to see if I understand this accurately by flipping the two.
So a soul has Venus in Scorpio and the Moon in Libra and their partner comes home and says "honey I want to open up the relationship and sleep with someone else". The Venus in Scorpio has the initial response of feeling hurt, distrust, betrayal, abandonment. Why do you want this? Who did you meet? Our agreement was monogamy, do you not want me anymore? Things like that. The initial feelings are of a Scorpio nature.
As per all feelings, they need to be heard, acknowledged. Ultimately, they need to be heard from within the soul itself. The inner emotional nature of this soul however is to want to nurture and accept their relationships according to what each individual needs (Libra Moon0, so with some emotional integration this soul will ultimately want to come into a Libra conversation to talk about needs and how each person can support and care for one another within the relationship. Relative to the Venus in Scorpio this may or may not mean that they get what they want from their partner, but the Moon in Libra will need to establish a ground of mutuality and balance as a foundation.
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Yes it could manifest this way.
God Bless, Rad
This is really helpful and thorough. Thanks so much for your explanation and clarification Rad.