Dear Friend and Reader,
Today’s feeling seems to vacillate between a surge of go-everywhere energy, and a deep sense of not knowing what to do, or if it matters. This is an aspect that involves a specific kind of self-discipline — the kind that says “carry on.”
To some this will be a painful aspect; it certainly describes our culture. Mars in Sagittarius — that Great American Spirit of “anything is possible.” then there is Saturn in Virgo: too smart for its own good; needing a feasibility study on a feasibility study.That Mars in Sagg wants to hunt and achieve and be a visionary and conquer a few things. Saturn in Virgo wants intellectual rationalization.
Saturn in many respects represents the literary figure called senex. Basically, senex is the grumpy old man who always brings you down with his long-winded stories about why you are going to fail. Mars represents a direct challenge to this ideology. If there was a placement that said, damn the torpedoes who who the fuck cares what Aristotle said, it is Mars in Sagittarius.
Saturn also represents constrictions that have been placed in the past which effect us now, as well as people who are older than us in general. Hand suggests that during this time a person is likely to experience parents, elders, teachers, employers and the like as discouraging. This is Saturn in action.
Mars, however, can provide a sense of bristling emotions at the thought and feeling of being held back. This surge of strength serves as a means by which a person experiencing this aspect will hardly take things lying down. Even though the relationship between Mars and Saturn suggests self-doubt and persistent questionings, within this square resides the endurance and strength to wield the power of working through your own doubts and road blocks towards success.
I would suggest the same thing that Hand suggests during this square: it is all about learning that some things are worth taking your time for, and some things can only be accomplished with patience. There may be a sense of doubt veiling many of the decisions that we have to make in life, but in some respects, this assures that we will deliberate over them carefully for fear of being reckless.
It’s sort of like the strength of the bear. Slow, powerful, sure.
Merry Met,
Genevieve Sophia
Hey Doll…
Saturn=’senex’ = Grumpy Old Man. Yes, that is the first hit on the screen. For me as well. But yesterday I found myself turning over the resonance between ‘saturn’ and ‘satyr’ – wondering if there were roots in common. And lo, according to the Oxford (not so much in my big Random House) it seems that the root for saturn means ‘to grow’ and refers to his primordial status as the vegetable king, consort of the goddess Os.
I hear a green man in there. I really, really do. And my astral wanderings have made it abundantly clear that the primordial, priapic, expansive, unbridled male energy we know as ‘green man’ (or more Greekly, Pan) is nothing if not pissed off these days. Hence the dour energy radiating off of the archetype.
A number of men I know are tasting that bitterness at the edge of their mouths. Many don’t have the first idea how to identify it, so they take it *very* personally. When dealing with the Great Energies, the chicken/egg question is a frequent complication: did I feel this? or is this feeling me?
Part of my re-visioning Saturn as Old Pan has to do with *my* age. When I was 30 he would have seemed Senex, my senior. Now that I am a fifterian, the Saturnian energy seems ageless, but experienced in disappointment. But I can look up the timeline (which is actually a few millennia in depth) and see where He begins.
Part of my work is to sweeten up the Old Goat, smack him around -firmly, gently- until it tickles (I know *just* how this goes…). Mars/Saturn square contains the red thread of that potential.
“SURGE of go-everywhere energy, and a deep sense of not knowing what to do”.
Last year, I went EVERYwhere (geographically), hence the capitalizing. And just last night, I wrote about how it all started. And no, I did not know what to do and went around the world, literally twice. And now I look and Saturn squared Mars (as well as asc / desc).
Indeed, there was no sense of being ‘unified’ around it all, I just had no word for it. I did not know what to do and but thought I wanted to return to the land of my elders (Europe), the best word for what ensued in situations of all kinds is ‘grumpiness’. Interesting.