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innate contradiction in all this is very elusive to the Aquarian mind. The worker for whom the revolution is fought is coerced into a behaviour pattern and a life which he has not a jot of freedom - to pursue his own religious inclinations, his own creative enterprise, or his own freedom of speech. Yet the battle was fought for his freedom. It is pretty difficult to refrain from commenting on the hypocrisy of this attitude.
Now, the hypocrisy of the Aquarian shadow isn't deliberate. He genuinely doesn't see it, doesn't know about it. If he did, he would be abjectly shocked - because he doesn't mean to be unfair. You might say that this strange shadow side appears because he's so rigid in his expectations of himself and of others. His attempts to reform human nature are, in many ways, a projection onto others of his belief that he should reform his own. But he often doesn't realize that all such attempts, like charity, must begin at home.
Another facet to this is the practise-what-you-preach exercise. Aquarius usually doesn't. This type of Aquarian is most in evidence in the learned professions. He knows a great deal about the maps, models, techniques, mechanisms and behaviour patterns of his favorite subject of study: man. But he often can't learn these in application to his own behaviour patterns. Because he's so often out of touch with his own emotions, they sneak up on him, and make him do things he doesn't see or understand. Anger, resentment, jealousy, longing, need, helplessness, fear - the ordinary gamut of human foibles - are often things he will simply not acknowledge, because they make him nervous. He has them, the same as anybody else. He just doesn't see them. But then, it's typical of the shadow of every sign. You don't always see the shadow you cast behind you, because the light is in front of you, and you're busy looking at the light.
Nobody has any testimony about what Mrs. Lincoln thought of her husband. Or what Mrs. Edison thought. We can only conjecture. But you can see the Aquarian shadow in a lot of places: the Aquarian politician campaigning for equality which he can't be bothered to give the time of day (or any freedom) to his family, the Aquarian psychologist who knows all the theories but hasn't spotted his own emotional needs, the Aquarian doctor who devotes his time and energy to his patients while his loved ones must find a clinic for treatment. The list is long. The solution? Like the shadow problems of all the signs, this one needs awareness. It also means that ideals, in order to be worth anything at all, have to be tempered with not only compassion, but with realism. Human nature just isn't perfect yet - certainly not perfect enough to behave in the fashion in which many Aquarians demand. Total selflessness is simply an impossibility. Like the other airy signs, Aquarius often doesn't remember that though we have our heads in heaven, our feet are on the earth and our bodies have evolved up through the animal kingdom. To Aquarius, man is not a dual creature; he is a son of the gods. As Menande said, 'the intellect in every man is God.' When Aquarius understands that the feelings and the visions and the body of every man are god as well, then he can become what he truly is at heart: the visionary and the prophet, the server of the race, the contributor to the welfare of humanity in great ways or small.
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