SATURN-PLUTO and THE ENDING OF THE PANDEMIC

The lockdown restrictions started easing as Saturn changed direction in early May: it is the nature of retrograde motion to undertake a review. This phase will conclude at the end of September, when Saturn goes Direct. There may well be restrictions left at that point, but they are likely to be ongoing, such as a restriction on large gatherings of people where there is little space between them; and a requirement to wear masks on eg public transport.

Since the pandemic started under the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, we may not see 'normality' return until Saturn starts to put some serious distance between himself and Pluto. That will be mid-December this year, when Saturn will be 7 degrees from Pluto, and in a different sign. That, at any rate, seems like the earliest point at which Covid will no longer be the main point around which the world is revolving.

Indeed, with the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction occurring in Aquarius a few days later, on the 21st Dec, 12 hours after the winter solstice, that is likely to be the time when we seriously begin to discover, or re-imagine, what world we are living in post-Covid. This excites me :) Aquarius is the sign of the future, moving beyond the outworn traditions of Capricorn.

It is interesting that the 2 solstices this year are so powerful: the summer solstice on 21st June occurring on a solar eclipse, and the winter solstice so close to the new 20-year age of the Saturn-Jupiter cycle. This really is a year of turning points.

Shamanism: Being vs Doing

(Also published at my other blog www.shamanicfreestate.blogspot.com) In the early 80s, after university, I decided to live in a Buddhist community. This was a great disappointment to my father, who had assumed I would have a stellar career that he could be proud of. On

one visit back home, he got a bee in his bonnet about what Buddhists ‘do’. I didn’t really have an answer, as it hadn’t occurred to me to think like that. And the more I couldn’t answer him, the more incensed he got, because for him it was a simple matter, with what should be a simple answer. He kept repeating along the lines of well plumbers fix pipes, poets write poetry, what do Buddhists do? I tried saying stuff about meditation and ethics and enlightenment and all that, but it was nothing he could understand in terms of doing. I was, as it happens, working in a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant, but that, of course, wasn’t a general activity of Buddhists that I could invoke.

Black Elk

Buddhism, like any spiritual path, is essentially an attitude to life, on the basis of which the ‘doing’ happens. For us shamanistas, this attitude is well-expressed by Black Elk:

“Hear me, four quarters of the world - a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.

Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, all over the earth the faces of living things are all alike. With tenderness have these come up out of the ground. Look upon these faces of children without number and with children in their arms, that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet.

This is my prayer; hear me! The voice I have sent is weak, yet with earnestness I have sent it. Hear me!”

I haven’t found this attitude so fully expressed anywhere else but in what we in the West have come to term ‘shamanism’. Attitude is the wrong word, because it is not something added on. It is a way of being, a beautiful and loving way to relate to the earth, that is also true and real. It is based on how things are. And in bringing humans ‘down’, as we might see it, to the level of the elements and other forms of life, it elevates us, it shows us how to be noble human beings.

And for me, this is the essence of shamanism.

The Wikipedia definition reads: “Shamanism is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with a spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world.”

This is a definition in terms of doing rather than being, and it is typical of us westerners to come up with such a definition. It is like saying a Christian is someone who performs miracles. OK, technically the shaman is a special type of person who can do the healing stuff, or rather his spirits can. But shamanism has come to mean our western re-interpretation of indigenous spirituality: the healing work is just a special instance of that broader engagement. And for the traditional shaman him/herself, the healing work takes place in the prior context of this sacred but natural connection to the world, without which the healing would be unthinkable.

So I think that shamanism is not to do with whether you can do healing work or lead ceremonies. Shamanism is a context, a context of profound gratitude and relatedness to the natural world. These days, the world is something we take from. But the traditional (and more adult) attitude is that it gives to us. That is the basis. And it’s not the natural world in just the modern, material sense: it is that, but more, it gives us the power to live, and it is the spirit world. Spirit and matter are the 2 poles of life, inner and outer, if you like.

But it is hard to get away from doing definitions. Maybe it always has been. Material existence presses hard upon us, it can seem like it is all there is. One of the main functions of the shaman is simply to remind people about spirit. In my mid-30s I realised that the power to live was not a given, it was something that could be taken away from me. And it had been taken away from me because I had not listened to the call of my spirit. It was a deep turning around for me, my eyes turned inward to a place that was alive and beyond any words or dogma. And at that point I had very little definition of myself in terms of doing. I was being dragged through a deep lesson in being.

So it is this way of being, which is sometimes just an attitude because it’s the best we can do, that matters. That sense of profound connection to the natural world, for me, is occasional, if at all. I enjoy the natural beauty of the beech trees outside my caravan, and I enjoy watching the sheep eat, and sometimes my breath is taken away by the sight of the horses in the field beyond. But when I read other people writing about the importance of feeling our identity with the natural world, I easily feel wrong-footed, like I only have a faint glimpse of it. I also feel wrong-footed when people write (usually in their intros to their healing services) about how they’ve been seers, or something like that, since childhood. I know I certainly wasn’t. (Though I confess I’m slightly suspicious when people do that.) And then of course there are indigenous people, and I’m certainly not the real thing in comparison to them. Maybe I’m just human, and need to forgive myself, and remember that others probably feel, and have always felt, the same way.
 

Protestant Work Ethic

But the main point here is that more than ever, we live in a 'doing' culture, and we easily define shamanism in those terms, and when we do that we have missed the point. The term 'shamanic practitioner' seems to me to carry some of this bias. 'Doing' is easily the enemy of being, as it devalues being, says that if I can’t measure you, then you are nothing. Astrologically, I call it the western negative Saturn (see my astrology blog). It’s deeply rooted in western culture, I don’t think we can help but do it. It’s a dark spirit we carry with us. Being able to take a holiday from it sometimes is itself an achievement.

What matters is the sense of appreciative connection, firstly to ourselves and then to the natural world and its people and to that thing beyond, however we experience it. If a calling to do healing work, or whatever, comes in as well, let it come to you, don’t seek it out. I don’t think it likes being a day-job.

Success and Failure

I've written regularly about Saturn, and his ability to deny our inner reality, so that only that which is observable and measurable has value. Often during a major transition, people can't carry on as they did before, so they can't measure and value themselves as they did previously. So you have to look deeper during those times to find value and meaning. This is Saturn as crucible for inner transformation.

I like Botton's point (see video below) that in a meritocracy, you only get to the top if you deserve it. The inevitable implication is that those at the bottom are also there because they deserve it. Saturn again.

My way out of this mess is to take people as they come, get a sense of who they are and what they're like and don't be dazzled by their income or lack of it or what they have or haven't done. Saturn softened by Neptune, maybe.

The Two Faces of Saturn

I read on the BBC News site that the kids of rich parents in the USA are more than twice as likely to have mental health problems compared to the national average. For reasons of pressure to excel academically, as well as in sports and socially. The US has Sun square Saturn - Sun in Cancer, Saturn in the 10th. That square seems to me to describe much of how the West works - and China too, now, where 3 year-olds are being sent to boarding school.

What astrological signatures run through your family? Everyone in mine has a hard aspect from Saturn to either the Sun or the Moon. It's textbook - they are capable, hard-working, and over-invested in wealth and social position. I'm the white sheep, and I've spent my life living the shadow side of that Saturn, working through his denial of inner values, turning him into the crucible for inner work that is also one of Saturn's meanings. Interestingly, only one out of 6 children in the next generation has that signature - something is changing, a shadow is lifting.

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The outer planets have become the sexy ones in modern astrology. Saturn used to be the big cheese before they were discovered. He had, for example, the meaning of Death that Pluto now has.

But Saturn we can actually do something with. The outer planets are much harder to ‘work’ with – if you even try to do that, you have in a sense got them wrong.

The outer planets are your fate, mediated by Saturn. They are the necessary outer and inner events that move your life on in some way, but which you have no control over. The outer planets were discovered because of scientific advance, and at the same time they are a remedy to the hubris of that advance, which can make it seem like us tiny human beings are all-powerful.

So they were discovered synchronistically – a psychic imbalance was building up, and in different ways people started rediscovering those enduring powers that provide the backdrop to human consciousness. For psychology, it was the Unconscious. For astrology, it was the outer planets.

But Saturn is key when it comes to taking charge of our lives. And he is also key, because he can see the outer planets, to knowing the limits of being in charge. And those limits really are quite narrow in the larger scheme of things.

At the same time, Saturn can get carried away when he only looks one way, earthwards instead of back out to Uranus and beyond. Saturn has 2 faces, expressed by the 2 signs he rules: Capricorn and Aquarius. And Aquarius is now co-ruled by Uranus.

So it’s kind of all in there. In Aquarius, he is in partnership with freedom-loving, rule-breaking, progressive, creative Uranus.

We need both. We need Saturn as Capricorn, the ability to find our place within the world, to build our lives. But we also need one eye looking elsewhere, the ability not to take all that too seriously, to see it as contingent, and to see new possibilities. Saturn is responsibility, and in Aquarius that responsibility is to the future rather than to the past.

The 2 Saturns split in our culture in the 60s. The counter-culture arose, that took pride in rejecting the values of a one-sidedly materialistic Saturn in Capricorn. It was necessary, and it was polarised, and that is the way things often happen. But those 2 cultures are still part of one whole, they are not complete in themselves, and they need to be able to speak to each other. And they find that hard, Aquarius and Capricorn can find each other ridiculous. Government and its protesters are often miles apart.

It has to start within ourselves. Unless we have both faces of Saturn up and running, what hope have we of changing the world? Protesting, for however worthy a cause, becomes a way of disowning ourselves, fighting that within us which we do not find acceptable. I see it in the ‘alternative’ culture all the time – these rigid oppositions to mainstream currents and particularly to government, and I think I wouldn’t want you guys in charge. 

In the US particularly, the opposition to and mistrust of government is huge in a way it isn’t over this side of the pond, and it seems to come from across the political spectrum. That is a country that is deeply not at ease with itself. And I think it comes back to the complexities of its Sun square Saturn.

A country is like an individual. They are both made up of 10 planetary powers, and the voices of all those powers have to be heard by the leader Saturn. In a dysfunctional individual or country, some of those voices are being judged negatively and shut out by Saturn. And probably plonked on someone else.

If you become a complete human being, even to some degree, that in itself affects the world. Not just in your immediate relationships, but almost psychically, like a bit of wholeness is put out there in the ether.

THE SATURN-MC RULER CYCLE

I was a bit slow off the mark with my last blog 'The President’s Mars is Missing', because I didn’t spot that George Bush’s Mars rules his Aries MC. What I had spotted was that the cycle of Saturn transits to his natal Mars corresponded to major shifts in his career – from the conjunction in 1978, and his first attempt to enter Congress, right through to the next (2008) conjunction, and the crumbling of his Presidency. But I hadn’t connected it with his MC, which is basic to chart analysis, nor did I particularly connect it with the nature of Saturn itself, which is to advance one’s career. And part of me goes “Well a real astrologer, who had diplomas etc, wouldn’t have missed that!” On the other hand, if I gave my blogging the time it really needs, I would hardly blog!

Looking at it now, the cycle of Saturn transits to GWB’s Mars is a textbook case.

Saturn is the natural ruler of the MC, so the cycle of his transits to the actual ruler of the MC are bound to be interesting, reflecting the development of our career-path. You can’t really do this with any of the other Angles, because their natural rulers – Mars/ASC, Moon/IC and Venus/DESC – are fast-moving planets, so their transits tend to be triggers rather than transformative.

I looked at this cycle with my own chart and it worked very well. I did it with my Virgo rising chart, where Mercury rules the Gemini MC. Trouble is, I also have another chart with Libra Rising and Capricorn MC, and the Saturn transits also worked well, but they would, because it is the Saturn cycle itself.

A couple of months ago I asked my blog readers to comment if they thought I had Virgo or Libra Rising, and I had loads of people saying I’m Virgo, and just one who said I’m Libra Rising. Which was fairly convincing. Then I asked my astrobabble group in Glastonbury, and to a person they were convinced I am Libra Rising. But they only know me as a person, rather than the real me who is to be found in print! So the jury is still out, though I’m favouring Virgo.

SATURN AND WALLS

Astrological symbolism can sometimes work itself out very literally. I have noticed this in the case of Saturn, whose presence can result in the building or demolition of walls (one of Saturn’s meanings is to do with defensive boundaries).

Israel was founded in 1948 with Saturn at 16 Leo. The country has just finished its second Saturn Return, and during this period has been erecting the Israeli West Bank Barrier which, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, has succeeded in reducing terrorist attacks on Israel.

Construction of the Berlin Wall began on Aug 13 1961, with Saturn at 24 Capricorn. Demolition began in November 1989, 5 months short of its 1st Saturn Return. This wall was erected to stop defections from East to West Germany, and was known in the East as “The Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart”.

Glastonbury Festival, now the largest Festival of its kind in the world (and down the road from me) began as Glastonbury Fayre in June 1971. In the year 2000 100,000 tickets were sold and there were a further 150,000 gatecrashers. This caused such public safety concerns that its future was under threat, so the outcome of the Festival’s Saturn Return was the erection of a huge fence in time for the 2002 Festival. It certainly worked, but my experience at the Festival was that while the criminal element was hugely reduced, which was a relief, a lot of the interesting characters were also not there. I guess this is the price of Saturn: he is needed for social order, there is no way round that, but that means rules that edit out whatever doesn’t fit, which can be interesting, wacky and creative as well as criminal. But in myth he did eat his own children, so we have to expect it.

On April 10 this year, the Americans began the construction of a wall around a Sunni district in Baghdad. The chart for America’s efforts in Iraq – the Iraq War – is set for 5.33am, 20/3/2003, Baghdad. This chart has Saturn at 22.45 Gemini closely conjunct the IC. The Moon, being the closest ‘planet’ to the earth, triggers the energy of all the other planets. On April 10, the Progressed Moon of the Iraq War chart was at 21.28 Sag, almost exactly opposing the natal Saturn. So again we have a connection between Saturn and the erection of walls/boundaries.

Will the Baghdad Wall be successful? Saturn in the April 10 Chart is of course opposite Neptune, which must be the stupidest time conceivable to start building a wall. What has become apparent lately is that despite the hugely heightened security in Baghdad as a result of the American ‘surge’, the bombers are still getting through, the most prominent case being the bombing of the Parliament building. This is probably a function of Mars’ present passage through Pisces. Mars was in Pisces in the Baghdad Wall chart, and in this sign is probably very good at flowing through walls if it needs to. So the Baghdad Wall probably won’t work very well.