Astrological Reflections
The Saturn Neptune square is one of the significant transits of the year. Their cyclical meetings combine somewhat opposing needs of individual form and union through dissolution. So we find that together they have much to say about the relationship between our dreams, idealizations and reality. The myth of Ariadne, the Cretan princess, gives us a powerful way of imagining into this archetypal dynamic and how it moves through us.
Where Saturn keeps us toe to toe with the reality of things, our have to’s, Neptune draws us into the dream (or illusion), ideals, possibilities. When these two meet in the tense angular square it can get tricky because both energies want to express themselves fully.
On August 11th Jupiter moves into Virgo, illuminating this sign until next September*. You may be feeling the shift already because whenever a planet changes signs their mode of expression takes on those particular qualities. Jupiter is the god who personifies the archetypal principles that have to do with expansion and growth, success and abundance. His is present in the ways we think beyond ourselves as in our philosophies about life, our curiosity about foreign places. Jupiter is the movement of energy that has us feel uplifted and elevated – imagine Zeus on Olympus amidst gorgeous cumulus clouds. On this theme Rick Tarnas says Jupiter is a “striving for breadth of experience”; so imagine into this as the desire to reach out and embrace the world so to incorporate more of it into ourselves. Growing, expanding, improving….And note the shadow expressions such as inflation, excess and extravagance, you know - too muchness, too big.
This Sunday, June 14th, Saturn will step back into Scorpio and float in the tail end of the scorpionic waters until mid-September. Clearly there is something that Saturn needs to return to in Scorpio, something has to be revisited and integrated into our reality from the point of view of the underworld. Only then will Saturn step into the Sagittarian long-view. Saturn was in Scorpio from October of 2012 to this past December, spanning over 2 years of deep work. We were confronted with deep fears, our shadows, furies and frustrations. Many experienced loss, and the restructuring of areas of our life we thought was solid. We were also called out to name our desires, to get real about our truth. This all went down in Saturnian fashion which can feel like a grinding, a slow pressure that makes spaces, interior and exterior, feel constricted, too small. Saturn is the god who helps us create the diamond body, that treasure in and of our soul that only comes into being through enormous pressure.
