On Saturn

It is only fair, I believe, to historically contextualize any piece of writing with a bit of astrology, or at least my writing, as if one were to describe the social-historical landscape. To me, beyond politics, astrology is that tapestry.

We have commenced upon a journey of Saturn, where the planet of structure at home in Capricorn confronts the raw, unregulated power of Pluto. This is a once in 35-year event; the last meeting of these heavy-hitters having been the year of my birth, 1983. The last time Saturn met Pluto in Capricorn was the Middle Ages. The simple narrative is that wherever Saturn and Pluto meet in each individual’s natal chart, there is one storyline ending and another beginning. But in a major way, like a level shift. A chapter if you will. The page turns. The movie is ending and we are visioning the sequel.

We are in fact pressure-testing and building the foundation we will use to launch into an “Age of Aquarius” when in 2022 Saturn, Pluto, and Jupiter are flinging us into outer space, i.e. moving slowly (as they do) through the sign of Aquarius.

Back to the pressure-cooker: the temperature has been rising for almost a year and will continue to play out months after the fated day, January 12th, 2020 when Saturn meets Pluto in exact mathematical conjunction…in Capricorn. Probably don’t expect lightning or freak things that day. Great change is slow, and the day of the exact conjunction is like the eye of the storm: calm. September 11th happened when Pluto opposed Saturn, but not when the opposition was exact. More precisely it was between two exactions: August 5th and November 2nd, 2001. With this much energy, we are dealing with broad windows.

Expect that for the past year and well into the next, long-standing things are evolving. What is solid will become more solid, what is built on air will evaporate, what we were not meant for in this lifetime will be removed from our path. For our intimate relationships, it’s like the thing between us is looking at its shadow and saying “do I really need this? Do I even want it?” Similarly with other supporting structures in our lives—our homes, our money, our careers, et cetera: “How long can this dynamic last?”

Here is where I mention, if you haven’t planned for the sequel, probably you should get on that. To the extent that any of us can see change while we are experiencing it, many of us can see what is shifting. This can be in any area of your natal chart: a sense of your own self-worth; a way you present yourself to the world; a way of communication; where home is found and who is family; a romantic sensibility; a work habit or your relationship to your own health; a lifelong partnership (or enemy); a way of intimacy (a really, really deep knowledge of inter-relations which can take the form of shared money with family or institutions, including debts); a higher learning or view of the world; a career or professional branding; a wish or friendship; or a deep, subconscious dream which affects our soul.

And yet, we exist in a cycle of birth as well as death. Where void is created, growth begins. What is removed will be reborn.

There is something at play, and a grand new horizon to be embraced. If barren is your preference, go for it! If you wish to be swept in the current, god bless you! But know that things will end and if you are too attached as “it” is dying—whether “it” be literal or metaphorical, when it passes it will rip out your heart and your soul in a cruel way. As my kitchen magnet says, “let go or be dragged.”

As a group we can see in our own lives and the lives of those around us that these changes are happening at a rate that probably reminds us of the 60s or a “turbulent time in history”; a time of great uncertainty. And this is the case! We should be empathetic and forgiving. Each of us is moving to where we need to be right now to truly let our heart sing—however painful that process is now. Concurrently, this is the opportunity to remove the parts of our lives that consistently make us cry, to make room for what breathes that highest frequency air into us. We can re-form our relationships into new balances for the new chapter. We need to release the past. Now, in fact, is a great moment of poetry. I don’t mean the creation of it per se but more specifically, a time of poetry’s wisdom: in any of poetry’s forms, we need the philosophical of the personal right now.

So why write a series of essays themed “On Saturn” and not “On Pluto”? Pluto is the more powerful planet. Pluto is the planet of power, rebirth, hellfire, and regeneration. It’s like the black hole of astrological symbolism. Anything it touches it can disintegrate; anything it touches it can control, anything it touches it can elevate to the highest form by rocketing it into another dimension. Pluto is unmitigated power. Pluto is the unnamable; if you speak its name, it destroys you so you cannot speak it. Pluto rules the sign of Scorpio; it will bring you to your knees and also re-teach you to fly. (Yes, I am a Scorpio and here is my self-sun-sign-titled book, shameless self-plug).

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Oh Saturn. I took what seemed like a three-hour break to dream and organize all my stray thoughts which have nothing to do with this essay. That’s sorta like Saturn right now, we aren’t stopping to “wheeew thoughts, haha. Cute.” We’re more like, “I have this thought and it leads to these potential conclusions and then from there I see likely outcomes, therefore I should XYZ so I can now execute the optimal situation.” Fucking Capricorn. Fuck you fucking boring Capricorn. And yet, I looove Saturn. Saturn is structure, it’s commitment, it’s consistency, it is steel, it is concrete, it is the faithful weight of the ocean—and when leveraged towards our goals, Saturn is the perfectly plowed field ready to support the birth of a thousand grains. So I’m open to you, Capricorn. I’m open to the successful organization you bring to everything. I like that word: structure. It feels fuckin’ great.

Saturn in Capricorn, the sign where it is exalted, or at home, or at full strength, is a weird journey in that it is a blessing in and of itself. We feel that energy. Nothing we build is lost during Saturn in Capricorn.

And there, in Capricorn, Saturn will meet Pluto. Every single ounce of our semi-formed or untethered structures is moving on, no matter the Plutonic destruction it leaves in its wake. What was not 100% sure-fire, will fail. That thing that always bugged you about that friend but you just ignored it and never really discussed it? KABOOM. The material obliterations are the low-hanging fruit so to speak; the greater opportunity is the self-work, the opportunity to toss whatever burdens our souls carry uselessly into that cleansing fire: our guilt, our rage, our loneliness, our beliefs that this is how it has to be. Oh yea Pluto, you want some of my baggage? Here. You. Go!

What we build now will grow stronger than ever. It will be strong for a million centuries, like concrete, or until Pluto meets Saturn in Capricorn again. Until the next Middle Ages.

So where do you want to be? More precisely, what do you want to be standing on when in two years all that Aquarius energy rolls in and we get individualistic, flying, don’t-give-a fuck into outer space? When we truly enter this “digital automation” age we can almost barely conceive? Personally, I get anxious about where I will be, but I know I will be with love, and that will be what matters, to me. The end may be untimely, or it may be catastrophic, or it may be peaceful. But it will always end—and until then I wish you the bluest skies and the greatest of thunderstorms. May it be worth that for which you fight.