Saturn has been hanging out at roughly the same degree of Sagittarius since all the way back in July. What does it mean now that Saturn is starting to pick up speed again?
* Today Saturn is at 22 degrees Sagittarius and some change. Saturn first entered the 22nd degree of Sagittarius around July 7th, via retrograde. Saturn always turns retrograde or direct when the Sun approaches a trine to it. So, as the Sun entered Leo Saturn started slowing down and finally stationed around August 25th, just after the Sun entered Virgo. It was then at 21 degrees Sagittarius. So, from early July to late August, Saturn had moved from the 22nd degree of Sagittarius to the 21st degree. That’s it!
* Since it’s station, Saturn has slowly started to pick up speed in its direct movement again. It grows faster and faster in its daily average speed as the Sun comes closer and closer to its conjunction with Saturn. Today is the 1st of October and Saturn is still just moving through that 22nd degree of Sagittarius, where it first entered back in early July.
* Saturn is meanwhile making a trine and sextile to Jupiter and Uranus as they oppose and now separate from each other.
* Perhaps one of the most silent players of this historic Jupiter/Uranus/Pluto dynamic is Saturn. As these revolutionary forces churn, Saturn has been focused, hardly moving, and in some ways conservative as ever, resistant or immovable as ever, saying, “not yet,” or “not so fast,” to every change we try to implement.
* Saturn has more to say than just the word, “no,” of course. Saturn’s engagement by trine and sextile with Uranus and Jupiter suggests, for example, that the kind of growth, expansion, and revolution that’s occurring right now involves a long and slow process of structural change, structural disintegration, and reintegration.
* Have you ever sat back and watched as some karma, some behavior, some pattern in your life is slowly dismantled, one slow and agonizing piece at a time? You recognize the changes that need to be made, but you also recognize that these changes can’t be forced. The changes will come as one consequence after another mount until there is no other choice. The change has become necessary.
* Saturn is the necessity of change. The long, slow, hard necessity of loss, or a decision, or a change of approach. Saturn in the mix of what’s going on right now invites us to zoom out and watch as the patterns are dismantled one after another, or as the healthy new you is built one painful brick at a time.
* Isn’t it amazing that we can sometimes watch something in our lives fall apart, one day at a time, one month at a time, one year at a time, knowing we are somewhat powerless to do anything other than live through the slow, structural decay? But then other times it’s as though we’re given kindling and a match and invited to burn it all down, quickly and almost effortlessly, maybe even gloriously?
* One of the main reasons I study astrology, one of the reasons it called to me intially, is that astrology isn’t just a study of fate or destiny. It’s a study of the language of time. If we study the way in which changes take place, across different seasons of time, then we recognize that time is multi-faceted. There are different kinds of time, different seasons of time, different aesthetic qualities enfolded into the rivers of time. Saturn as one of the planets of time invites us to zoom out and see the slowness that built the structure and the slowness that takes it apart, one necessary brick after necessary brick.
* I’m struck by the way that time also plays with our sense of identity. For example, sometimes we say to ourselves, “I won’t be my best self until this or that era of my life is over. Until I’m out of this job or out of this relationship, or until I’m old, or until I’ve accomplished this thing I’m working on.” We are constantly aware of ourselves as something completely other than whatever we’re entangled with, and yet we will not allow ourselves to arrive at our own otherness until the work of time has earned us the right to say that we’ve arrived at otherness. The problem here is that we think that time is linear. We think there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. But what happens when we consider that time itself is never ending? What happens when we consider that all events in time are simply building structures whose natural destiny it is to eventually fall apart? Our waiting becomes eternal…. or eternity shines through the waiting….
Prayer: Shine your eternal light, hope, peace, knowledge, and love, through the valleys of time. May we arrive at our otherness, even as we watch empires build and empires decline.
* Today Saturn is at 22 degrees Sagittarius and some change. Saturn first entered the 22nd degree of Sagittarius around July 7th, via retrograde. Saturn always turns retrograde or direct when the Sun approaches a trine to it. So, as the Sun entered Leo Saturn started slowing down and finally stationed around August 25th, just after the Sun entered Virgo. It was then at 21 degrees Sagittarius. So, from early July to late August, Saturn had moved from the 22nd degree of Sagittarius to the 21st degree. That’s it!
* Since it’s station, Saturn has slowly started to pick up speed in its direct movement again. It grows faster and faster in its daily average speed as the Sun comes closer and closer to its conjunction with Saturn. Today is the 1st of October and Saturn is still just moving through that 22nd degree of Sagittarius, where it first entered back in early July.
* Saturn is meanwhile making a trine and sextile to Jupiter and Uranus as they oppose and now separate from each other.
* Perhaps one of the most silent players of this historic Jupiter/Uranus/Pluto dynamic is Saturn. As these revolutionary forces churn, Saturn has been focused, hardly moving, and in some ways conservative as ever, resistant or immovable as ever, saying, “not yet,” or “not so fast,” to every change we try to implement.
* Saturn has more to say than just the word, “no,” of course. Saturn’s engagement by trine and sextile with Uranus and Jupiter suggests, for example, that the kind of growth, expansion, and revolution that’s occurring right now involves a long and slow process of structural change, structural disintegration, and reintegration.
* Have you ever sat back and watched as some karma, some behavior, some pattern in your life is slowly dismantled, one slow and agonizing piece at a time? You recognize the changes that need to be made, but you also recognize that these changes can’t be forced. The changes will come as one consequence after another mount until there is no other choice. The change has become necessary.
* Saturn is the necessity of change. The long, slow, hard necessity of loss, or a decision, or a change of approach. Saturn in the mix of what’s going on right now invites us to zoom out and watch as the patterns are dismantled one after another, or as the healthy new you is built one painful brick at a time.
* Isn’t it amazing that we can sometimes watch something in our lives fall apart, one day at a time, one month at a time, one year at a time, knowing we are somewhat powerless to do anything other than live through the slow, structural decay? But then other times it’s as though we’re given kindling and a match and invited to burn it all down, quickly and almost effortlessly, maybe even gloriously?
* One of the main reasons I study astrology, one of the reasons it called to me intially, is that astrology isn’t just a study of fate or destiny. It’s a study of the language of time. If we study the way in which changes take place, across different seasons of time, then we recognize that time is multi-faceted. There are different kinds of time, different seasons of time, different aesthetic qualities enfolded into the rivers of time. Saturn as one of the planets of time invites us to zoom out and see the slowness that built the structure and the slowness that takes it apart, one necessary brick after necessary brick.
* I’m struck by the way that time also plays with our sense of identity. For example, sometimes we say to ourselves, “I won’t be my best self until this or that era of my life is over. Until I’m out of this job or out of this relationship, or until I’m old, or until I’ve accomplished this thing I’m working on.” We are constantly aware of ourselves as something completely other than whatever we’re entangled with, and yet we will not allow ourselves to arrive at our own otherness until the work of time has earned us the right to say that we’ve arrived at otherness. The problem here is that we think that time is linear. We think there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. But what happens when we consider that time itself is never ending? What happens when we consider that all events in time are simply building structures whose natural destiny it is to eventually fall apart? Our waiting becomes eternal…. or eternity shines through the waiting….
Prayer: Shine your eternal light, hope, peace, knowledge, and love, through the valleys of time. May we arrive at our otherness, even as we watch empires build and empires decline.
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