Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The cycle of Saturn and Neptune

The other day I took my soon to be 5 year old daughter to see the new movie, Inkheart. (Perhaps the only Brendan Frasor movie ever made that didn't completely suck). I bring this up because I feel the movie is a great example of the relationship of Saturn and Neptune.

Brendan Frasor plays a man that has a special gift. When he reads stories, and in this case mostly old fantasy and fairy tales, the creatures and images of the story come to real life. He has the power to manifest instantly from the land of fantasy to the realm of reality. However, given this manifestation, something from this realm always goes to the fantasy realm as well, meaning that there is an unknown sacrifice. In this movie that sacrifice was his wife and mother of his newborn child. The majority of the movie takes place when his daughter is 12 and believes her mother is dead. One day they are confronted with the characters from the fantasy realm, and the truth is revealed to her. Among these truths is the fear that her father has of his gift, for he never learned to use it appropriately. In the end, they eventually come to the realization that the daughter has the gift as well (bringing in this example the concept of karma), and along with the gift of writing, can write her own fantasy tales and reverse the effects (including getting her mother back) through imagining and writing a new reality.

I'm not sure I can come up with a better overall story to illustrate the power of the Saturn/ Neptune cycle. With the planet Neptune, we have the principle of dissolution...the removal of borderlines of distinction. Saturn deals with these borderlines, it is the principle of crystallization. We have the solid form, or in another case the ego (Saturn) versus the very pool or sea from which it came...the collective consciousness (Neptune). With Saturn, we deal with the crystallization of fantasy...the illusions of our dreams becoming real....realizing that this IS the dream world. With Saturn, we usually deal with the father because the father represents the realization of dreams....the masculine drive to achieve through effort which begins with a dream that comes from fantasy. How are the tools given to the individual different than the dream? What do the tools represent within the dream? Or the lack of certain tools? What does this perhaps say about the karma of the soul?

The relationship between these two planets, and any two outer planets for that matter, manifests itself on many different levels and effects individuals and collectives quite differently. We are dealing with somewhat of a generational aspect that, for example in the case of a conjunction, can move back and forth (through retrograde process), and maintain this relationship for an entire year. So, here we are dealing with a karma shared by your peers, if you were born under major aspects between these planets, perhaps even the majority of people you went to school with in your class and that you were close friends with. It is through these aspects that we can really relate to our peers and help each other work out our karma.

Using the example I gave from the movie, ultimately what can come out of the Saturn/ Neptune relationship is the realization that we are masters of our destiny....that we create our own reality. Out of the sea of the undifferentiated come the tools with which we weave the tapestry of our lives.

At the conjunction we find people with great charisma. They are able to draw upon the appropriate archetypes in order to relate to an individual....so they also have the ability to easily exploit. They are also sensitive psychically. They have a need to stay grounded so that they do not suddenly lose control of their reality through what they are able to tap into psychically....but they are sensitive to what is hidden underneath the surface, and because of this can make excellent investigators or private eyes. A scientist, such as a chemist, is another great field for the native.
Given that we are dealing with the crystallization of substance from that which as of yet has no substance (but at one time perhaps did), we are dealing with CAUSE AND EFFECT...and from this we have karma. Karma is a word that encompasses a greater energetic truth, but what we will focus on here is the concept of RESPONSIBILITY. We must be responsible for what we choose to draw into our lives. The solid form that we have crystallized into, our egos in this life, we are responsible for expressing who and what we are in relation to the sea of all that is. When we take this responsibility, we also sacrifice something that we COULD BE. We close off the vastness of potential that lies within the sea to some degree, so that we may focus on the task at hand that is our karma in this life. If we do not do this, we will become "watered down" with confusion and images that will break down our sense of control over our bodies and our minds.

We also realize that we are greater than just ourselves, that we are all connected to the sea of all that is. With Saturn, we deal with the creation of boundaries....the boundaries that define the I AM apart from the SEA FROM WHICH I CAME. In this case, with Neptune being our relationship to that sea, there can be perhaps an element hidden behind the boundary....beyond the solid self, but because the self is connected to this collective pool, it is still effected by it.

This may sound rather obscure, so I will give an example. In periods of heavy Saturn Neptune contact, awareness of ecological issues that may cause a drought in one area of the world, or famine in another, comes to the surface. If a tribe is so focused on the Saturnine reality in which they live, they are concerned with the mundane upkeep and provisions of what is needed to survive for their tribe. How this effects the earth as a whole around them....how they go about getting their means effects the ecosystem and their environment, and perhaps remains hidden to them...the results happening under the surface. The results of this come to awareness with Saturn and Neptune.
Contacts with these planets can involve illness or fall from control of ones reality. Illness can be due to ignoring the effects that the hidden reality can have, eventually wearing on the body until one day it becomes sick. Revelation of poisons in the groundwater or gas leaks in the home, or whatever it is that has remained hidden and representative of the Neptunian realm, can come from Saturn Neptune contacts. Interesting to note here that Homeopathic medicine was discovered under a Saturn Neptune conjunction. The principle of this method is diluting tiny particles of whatever hidden substance has become the irritant within the native. It has found that even after diluting the substance completely, that a "memory" of the substance remains within the body water and eventually becomes assimilated as part of the whole. This is proof that whatever aspects of self are sacrificed to the pool of Neptune still exist and can be drawn upon at appropriate times (the limitation of time itself being governed by Saturn)

You can see from these examples that we are dealing very heavily with karma and responsibility of our actions. The question is are we to take responsibility? Or cower in failure and leave the responsibility to the next generation? Will we try to convince the next generation that we did the best we could and are not responsible for the state of our earth? In doing so, we would be a good example of the illusions that can be woven through the cycle of Saturn and Neptune, ourselves hiding the truth behind the borders of the distinct reality we wish to impart to our children.

So can you immerse an object in water without the water being effected? No
(see our example above on homeopathic medicine) Here the water reflects Neptune, and the immersing of the object which is solid (Saturn) into the water is a way of expressing contact between the planets, and the experience of the native in conjunction with them.

On a positive note, the native can draw upon the pool of life where great things have been done and written upon the walls of Akasha. Great charisma and leadership can be the result, and a shift in structures of law and how things are done politically and socially can be the driving force behind the native. Wars for national boundaries, civil wars, and especially control of the ocean itself has been taken over most often during Saturn/ Neptune contacts.
Now that TRUTH has been exposed, or the native, through sensitivity, washed themselves within the sea of truth, how are they going to recreate structure in order to encompass a greater degree of awareness so that less is hidden? That is the cause of the evolved native. In the example I gave of famine hitting during transits of these planets, I personally believe that the message here is that one body (one person, or Saturn) is not capable of embodying all that is, all that one needs. We need others, and the one person is the same as one segment of land. That segment of land cannot provide over time all that the tribe needs. The tribe needs cooperation from other tribes that are connected with other areas of land which provide other crops, or are perhaps not experiencing drought conditions and thus are able to help the area of the greater body (a part of the world with its tribe members) that are experiencing "drought" (infirmary)

On the negative side, the native can be dissolved and lost within the waters of Neptune. This can represent the great undoing of the self, and can manifest itself in the form of sickness, alcoholism and drug use, and always escape from responsibility.

With the cycle of Saturn and Neptune, we have the exaltation or dissolution of the father imago. We inherit the successes or failures of our father, and what we learn from how our father handled his responsibility, we in turn face the truth of what we have to work with in this life. We either build with the tools that we have, ever weaving that beautiful tapestry of our reality that is life, or we ourselves fall into disillusionment, running from our karma and out of fear of the responsibility we carry. With Saturn and Neptune, we realize we are responsible for more than just ourselves...everything that we are and everything we do becomes a part of all that is. It has been passed down to us from our parents and will be passed on to our children. The father is the figure that ultimately teaches responsibility to this truth. Also, because of this connection to all that is, and the responsibility to live up to something that does reflect something karmic, something greater than ourselves....FAILURE, or the temporal perception that one fails to live up to the archetypes that they are in tune with...archetypes that live up to their charismatic promises and reflect immortality, can lead not only to escape into drugs, alcohol or illness, but centers around the motif of GUILT. In the example I gave of the movie, Brendan Frasor's character feels terribly guilty for what happened to the mother, and instead of taking responsibility for his gift and understanding it, he chooses for several years to hide from it.

There can exist a fear of inadequacy in comparison to a charismatic or successful father....a fear of taking the reigns of karma and failing to measure up. However, it is usually the karma to ultimately see the vulnerability and fears of the father himself, who has perhaps hidden under the surface this fear in order to hopefully give the native more of a chance for success; to not allow the native to feel that the karmic load is so great that buckling underneath the weight of it, and eventually being crushed, is inevitable. Oftentimes, the revelation of the vulnerability of the father itself can create a fear in the native. On a positive note, the native can become inspired and somewhat possessed by religious archetypes that have the strength to cope with anything that comes their way. Negatively, the attempt to embody these archetypes to mask vulnerability can open up those necessary boundaries between the Saturn realm and the Neptune realm a little too much. It can cause the native to become disillusioned as to who they are, and their vulnerabilities may become hidden within. Taking on TOO MUCH responsibility can certainly lead to downfall, failure and illness. Much of the karma of these planets is to learn to restructure our environment so that each individual can work more effectively for the greater whole. No individual can do it all, and the collective cannot move forward if it spends too much time taking care of fallen individuals...who fell as a result of a failed system and who are catered to due to COLLECTIVE GUILT.

At the square, there is a crisis in point of REFERENCE. From the vantage point of Saturn, Neptune appears as continual change...the point of differentiation moving into the undifferentiated. We cannot find what is hidden within a given reality if we have no grounded reference point within Saturn or Neptune...no CONSISTENCY. My adopted son was born under a heavy Saturn Neptune square (also involving the Sun and Mars). His biological father left him when he was 13 months old. His grandfather was unable to really give him any reference point for manhood, and so the father imago was projected upon him, and then any relationship his mother had. I married her when he was 4 years old, and have done my best to maintain a solid reference point as a father for him...but a pattern and karma began long before I arrived. The father figure he had before me, a good family friend who he spent all his time with when his mother was working, died shortly before he turned 4. His mother and I separated 4 years later, and now she is with another man. My son trades off living with me on the West coast and her on the East coast. He is given all the love in the world from both sides but it is clear that given the circumstances I shared, it is hard to crystallize or formulate any consistency of reality given these circumstances. Every move and every new man in a sense reflects a return to the undifferentiated...my son awakening into a new reality at every turn..not able to truly ground. How can one uncover what is hidden when they are constantly in motion? Perhaps the motion itself in the case of this soul helps us to uncover the answer. Truly there is a great need to formulate a solid sense of self. Certainly this much uncertainty however, brings him deep into his imagination and into his fantasies..where he may create realities that are more real (Saturnine) then the realities we tell him to believe are real. It is HERE that he can form the framework of creating his own reality, and through fantasy and fiction, find the man that he wants to become (Neptune) and channel it through his consciousness and into the realm of becoming (the differentiated or Saturn). First, however, the native of the square must overcome an overwhelming fear of inadequacy...a fear that partially comes from the lack of control, or the perceived lack of control, over his/ her reality.

At the opposition, there is a need to fully become aware of ones responsibilities. Given the example of the movie I gave above, we can think of the character of the daughter in this case, who realized that the responsibility was hers to take what was passed on from the father, add her own perspective and energy to it, and use this to fulfill her own life and help heal her father and others in return. This is the highest hope for the opposition. However, as is the case with most oppositions, the soul faces one of the two archetypes with the other remaining hidden for sometime.

At the opposition, the assimilation of awareness is multifold. Natives, as with most oppositions, usually must assimilate realities from opposite realms, one Saturnine and one Neptunian (this sounds obvious given that it is an opposition between the planets), but this can be experienced in different ways:
Often natives have a Western parent and an Eastern parent. One parents reality may rule the "sea" of the family...it is their reality that immediately dictates what happens. What the native is seeking is the sacrifice of one reality over another...the perception that one reality MUST be sacrificed over the other. At the conjunction, we dealt more with the issue of learning to curtail ones personal focus, creating a boundary in order to build towards a specific cause. The other causes and aspects of self are always there however, beyond the veil of Saturn.
At the opposition, often life begins with the parents reflecting these two motifs...one the sea captain and the other the servant. This does not necessarily mean that the captain is a strong leader. The father as is usually the case, is often passive and feels a lack of control over his own karma and destiny. If he becomes aloof, falls into alcoholism, or becomes very ill, this is a form of control and escape at the same time. Through Saturn and Neptune, we all must learn to pick up our fallen family and friends that co-inhabit the earth. They are falling because a part of them perhaps felt that the burden to live up to their own responsibilities of karma was too great...that there was too much on their shoulders. Now they feel others, such as the native in this case, take up the slack...and now it is on the shoulders on the native of the opposition. The native must assimilate the realities desired by both mother and father, and attempt to rewrite the story of the family line. They perhaps feel that destiny of a family or a tribe is on their shoulders. Oftentimes in trying to become what the father is not, a solid rock of a man, the native becomes disillusioned as to his/ her destiny that needs to be fulfilled. Funny that in this way, the ailing or irresponsible behavior of the father and the rock of the individual seems to be Saturn (the rock) versus Neptune (the haze between a solid life and a return to the undifferentiated...the haze of reality that drug use or alchohol or even illness can bring (Neptune), but this vulnerable reality is in itself Saturn, and the illusion that the individual can embody by trying to seem invincible to perhaps their children or their peers is in itself illusion which is the realm of Neptune. The need is to balance the two here appropriately. Ground into the full nature of the human, both the Neptunain realm and the Saturn realm. Realize that like ocean waves going ashore, differentiation or crystallization (formation of the individual wave (Saturn))outside of the full sea (Neptune)...is temporary (Saturn), having its place within the grander scheme (Neptune) of time (an illusion made possible through Saturn for temporal grounding of reality).

Natives of this aspect often draw relationships that go to extremes of nurturing and kindness to extremely harsh to where they feel completely picked apart. They draw this so that nothing lies hidden as to the spectrum of who they are. If they do not maintain a high degree of self discipline, they will draw relationships that will pick them apart and judge them for it.

The opposition is an opportunity for truth to be brought to the surface regarding the individual, or nation, and how the current structure fits into the greater picture or how it fits the picture of idealism that it holds. It seeks to reign in projection, to create idealism within with an awareness that that which is hidden from the self is hidden due to fear of realizing that the vulnerable individual fails to provide all that is needed (a complex of the father...the need to be the provider) and cannot embody complete idealism nor is the temporary incarnation to be IMMORTALIZED. We will live and we will die, going back into the collective...the body breaking down..and during that time it is important that we reveal and live out our complete truth.

In the worst case, the native will crumble in fear of taking responsibility for anything....a fear of being revealed as a failure. Ultimately they may feel that there is no point in creating form, it will all eventually fall anyway. We must learn to appreciate what form brings, even though it is temporal. Politically, the cycle of these two planets tends to bring conflict that arises as a result of the desire to manifest an ideal (Neptune) against the established order of Saturn. This cycle can also manifest in the exposure of governmental (Saturn) corruptive and deceptive behavior (Neptune).

Natives of the strain free aspects such as the sextile and trine have great charisma and self discipline. They are leaders of the new realities to come and of cause. They know that they must sacrifice much of their ego to create a greater structure for the greater good. Many of these natives become monks, priests, or some form of religious leader.

Natives of the inconjunction are struggling to maintain a solid enough reference point in order to assimilate inevitable change. In this way they can be shapeshifters, constantly having to adjust and have their reality completely shifted. In order to have some control over this, they will solidify a solid reality. However when they feel the hidden coming from underneath the surface, the fear of failing to maintain this reality causes them to make the choice to create a different reality. Issues surrounding the need to have a solid reference point from the family, especially the father, is at hand here.

It is important to note that whatever reality we choose, we must always make awareness that as the wheels of life turn, there is always something hidden around the corner about to make its way into the surface of our reality. When this happens, there is always something in our reality that falls back temporarily into the forgotten, hidden realms. We must make continual adjustments for change without fearing that it will mean the death of us (not necessarily physical death, but death of a reference point of reality)...we must not fear that this means we are losing control. Deception and manipulation is often used to protect that which is feared to be vulnerable. It is important that we all acknowledge our vulnerability....acknowledge that all of our consciousness lies somewhere close to that line where solid rock boundaries meets the oceans expanse..the unknown which from this perspective feels as if our awareness will only get lost forever, completely falling apart.

Through the cycle of Saturn and Neptune, we realize that all is not what it seems, that beneath the surface of all of our structure lies continued potential for creating change...that creative change is a part of the structure of reality. Nothing lies stagnant. It is up to all of us to use our tools and continually write our ever unfolding story, using the structures of today as a foundation for the new structures that we imagine into being tommorrow. These structures that we create cannot survive if they are only built to protect and secure the future of the self, or just the family. Saturn and Neptune teaches us that all energetic structure is connected, and ultimately we are all in this together on a karmic level.

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