The Taurus Sun opposes retrograde Saturn in Scorpio at 2:28 pm EDT Saturday to look at the upside of what brings you down. It has to do with what the Sun does. It’s about what oppositions are and how they are interpreted.
Prevailing interpretations of Saturn are also up for scrutiny. Finally, context will serve to distinguish this particular solar opposition to the ringed one from all others.
In your everyday, the Sun illuminates the world. The most straightforward interpretation of the Sun in astrology follows suit with your everyday experience.
Wherever the Sun moves on the zodiac, illumination follows. Objects in the sign opposing the Sun are considered especially subject to a more lucid interpretation, a perception that also parallels palpable reality.
The prototypical opposition, which serves as the template through which all other oppositions are interpreted, is the Full Moon. During a Full Moon, the Earth passes between the Sun and Moon. As benefit of being betwixt the luminaries, the Moon’s earthward side is fully lit and visible all night (weather permitting), allowing for the long and thorough contemplation for which Full Moons are famous.
What is true for an opposition of the Sun and Moon also applies to any other object in opposition to the Sun. Therefore, Saturn will rise in the East at sunset Saturday, appearing to move across the entire sky during the course of the night to set in the West at dawn. Just as with the Sun’s reality translating at full value to astrology’s symbolism, so it will be with Saturn’s emulation of a Full Moon.
As the Earth moves directly between the Sun and Saturn on Saturday (literally “Saturn’s day”) the ringed one will be about as bright as it ever gets, providing an optimum opportunity for actual and emblematic contemplation.
Since Saturn’s apparent motion is slow, and because the Sun is only a few days away from opposing it, you could begin your meditations now. You might begin with Saturn’s undeserved reputation.
Saturn’s reputation is not good in the world of cookbook astrology. It’s all too often associated with things that bring you down, such as limits, constraints, dampening, governance and being sternly put in your place.
It is with the experience of those very Saturnian qualities, however, that you find out who and what you are as distinguished from everybody and everything else. If you look at Saturn that way, it’s the spice merchant of life. When you consider the alternative of being undefined and without a discreet identity in the world, Saturn really does have an upside that makes life worth living, especially now.
For now you are living through astrology that defies any previous definitions. You have scarcely emerged from a transcendent eclipse cycle embedded with some of the most powerful planetary configurations so far in this century. If you think you have been unchanged by the past several weeks, you probably have another think coming.
So use the Sun’s opposition to Saturn, functional now and for the next handful of days, to do the thinking appropriate for this time. If you do so, you could do a lot worse than to reexamine what brings you down as your first priority.
For in such an examination you may very well find yourself redefined. Indeed, you may find yourself no longer brought down at all, instead more full and enlightened than you have ever been. Imagine that.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
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Len, if most men were even half as equality minded as you there would be no such organizations like Boko Haram; this is in no way your cross to bear.
The thought that I may have misled anyone regarding the meaning of Boko Haram disturbed me so I Googled it for more info. This article which is titled “Boko Haram doesn’t REALLY mean Western education is a sin” then goes on to explain how it sorta kinda does mean that. I’m just glad it didn’t turn out to mean some kind of harem (a Muslim tradition) which surprises me that it hasn’t been suggested.
be
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2014/0506/Boko-Haram-doesn-t-really-mean-Western-education-is-a-sin
Len, Maine had milky hazed skies that closed in as night grew darker. I will have my telescope ready tonight. Meanwhile, there is a lot of energy to support personal change, wide awake dreaming now. I believe we could use Saturn’s visibility opposite the sun to charge up the manifesting engine. Maybe my fancy, but it seems significant that sunlight reflecting from Saturn entering the hole of our eyes, the pupils, and carried directly to our brains could be useful for concrete transformation.
aword: You are very welcome. Congratulations on your acquired aptitude for Saturn.
Strawberry: Please allow me to add my voice to those who have already commented thanking you in turn. Congratulations to you in turn also, for what must certainly be a candidate for best metaphor of the week, if not the year so far.
be: Thank you for the appropriate and timely tie-in to the tragedy of the mass kidnapping in Nigeria. From what i can tell, this is the first time an organized group has claimed responsibility for a mass kidnapping. A precedent, in other words, and a nasty precedent at that. Even more disturbing however is that the Nigerian government had not rescued a single one of those kidnapped, even though over 50 have escaped on their own. Is it possible there is some sort of complicity going on? Sedna indeed. It’s enough to make me ashamed for being a man. When this patriarchy thing turns around, there will be some accounting for. May your citations from the Sabian symbols indicate better and more just times ahead as regards to gender issues.
P. Sophia: Yes, right you are with your own cite of Varuna. Thank you for the time and effort you made to take us deper into the issues of the ambient astrology, showing us a broader perspective. You are among the blessings we gratefully count here at Planet Waves. That’s quite a powerful passage you quoted from the Vedas, there. Thank you for that also.
Amanda: Thank you for being supportive of Strawberry (and for your kind editoral support, thank you always).
DivaCarla: Thank you for sharing your own experience of Saturn’s watery Scorpio cachet, and for being supportive of the other commenters too. Please, if weather did indeed permit, also share what you saw of Saturn through the telescope,
jinspace: Many thanks for your own sharing of Saturn transiting your first house accompanied so auspiciously by your experience. Additional gratitude for how you have also chimed in to support the others commenting here. You make the heart sing!
Wonderful, Len. Thank you for this illuminating lesson.
For me, too, Saturn’s heaviness has lifted, and this time I’m finding the transit through my first house enjoyable; not so much for me like a backpack as a gentle push on the back, that in moments of self-doubt supports me and prods me forward, saying: “of course you can” and “of course you are.” What a difference 30 years makes.
be – Thank you, too, for your remarks about Saturn’s transit opposite Sedna, which shed such light not only on the kidnapping in Nigeria but on recent personal events, too. Thank goodness not nearly so horrible, but the theme as you explain it is the very same.
Be: did not even catch along with the sextile, Varana was also in Trine with Senda and Saturn. Surely with Saturn in there equals patterns are of change. As mentioned Varana has been exact conjunct natal Sun Cancer 24+ degrees for quite a while, years?. Anyway not sure how long it’s been there, but I know he is a very slow mover.
And thank you for your reply to my comment of the aspect, it expressed a remarkable ring of truth to my life’s direction and path of late…
“Varuna will come to symbolize a transition between authoritarian figures and those who don’t always fit the mold society chooses for them.”
Oh, Len, this is magnificent. This opportunity to take a long look at Saturn and determine what he has to teach me is welcome, and beautiful, as weather permitting, I’ll be gazing at the rings and moons through a telescope.
It’s been exciting and challenging to have Saturn retro over my natal Saturn during the eclipses and Grand Cross. The structures Saturn erased, and is now beginning to reprogram, have been deep inner belief structures and patterns that inhibit my engaging in life as powerfully and joyously as I want to. I’m taking advantage of support in the restructuring. It is necessary, desired, and still so much resistance! I hadn’t thought about taking a backpack.
Strawberry and Amanda, Saturn as a backpack to help you get to the territory you are exploring with less strain. That’s brilliant.
Thanks a lot P. Sophia, that’s a great catch about Varuna sextile Sedna. There are some similar attributes between Varuna and Saturn that I find intereting, such as both were guys who keeps everything under control, and also both fell from being at the highest level to being a much lesser deity.
I’ve also read that Varuna can be really dogmatic in manifestation; conservative and even fundamentalist, traits associated with Saturn too. Let’s hope the sextile between Sedna and Varuna and the opposition between Saturn and Sedna, and the trine between Saturn and Varuna will come to symbolize a transition (from opposition to sextile) between authoritarian figures and those who don’t always fit the mold society chooses for them.
Notice too that each of these 3 symbols has a relationship with water; Sedna by her myth of sinking into the deep waters, Varuna the god of water, and Saturn temporarily in water (Scorpio). Another bow to the grand water trine?
be
strawberry — love the backpack metaphor for saturn! even though the abstract statement, “rules and structure make more sense and are easier to work with when their you’re own,” makes sense, something about the idea of “helping you get further into the territory you’re exploring with less strain” in the backpack metaphor just works brilliantly.
Be: it is such a sad reality this history, the story.
Thank you for mentioning, I do think it positive with Sedna moving onto a new degree. If it helps, you may notice with her new placement at 24+ Taurus, Senda will now be in aspect, Sextile Varana at 24+ Cancer. Likewise, I take this as a good omen, as at 23+ Senda was conjunct my natal Varana. And now at 24+ degrees will be sextile Varana transit and at same time also conjunct natal Sun both at Cancer 24+ Degrees.
Varana’s Mythology in Connection to Morality:
As the most prominent Asura, Varuna was more of personification of morality than a deification of nature. Just as he controlled aspects of the natural world, Varuna was also responsible for the moral laws of the universe. Varuna’s unlimited knowledge includes details of the moral activity of each and every human. With his thousand eyes, he was said to watch over human conduct, judging the merit of human deeds. Each individual’s merit is determined by adherence to rta, the moral order of the universe over which Varuna holds dominion. Varuna metes out punishment to the wicked and sinful who violate rta. With this in mind, the wealth of criminals was directed toward him by way of ritual offerings which took either of the following form: 1) throwing ill-gotten goods into the waters or 2) the bestowal of such wealth upon a learned priest (as commanded in Chapter IX, 244 of the Ins. of Manu.). Varuna binds those who have transgressed in cords calledpasa. Punitive action often took the form of disease, which would not be restored until Varuna decided to relent. As such, prayers petitioning forgiveness for wrong doings were directed to Varuna, since such evils disturbed the order of the universe which could only be maintained by Varuna.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Varuna
“Varuna has extended the air above the trees; he has put strength in horses, milk in cows, will power in hearts, fire in waters, the sun in the heaven, and soma upon the mountain. Varuna poured out the leather-bag, opening downward, upon the heaven and the earth and the mid-region. Thereby does the lord of the whole creation moisten thoroughly the expanse of breath, as rain does the corn.” (Rg Veda V. 85)
I’ve been brought down by the story of the stolen school girls in Nigeria Len. Over 200 girls in their early teens were taken during the night of April 14th by the Boko Haram, an Islamist group whose name means “Western education is forbidden”. It was at the time of the lunar eclipse, when the Moon was opposite the Sun and she was conjunct Ceres.
Saturn’s lengthy opposition to Sedna doesn’t reveal her the way the Sun opposite the Moon (except when she’s eclipsed) does, but he certainly redefines the major myth points of Sedna. From the perspective of a young woman being forced to do what she would prefer NOT to do; what the prevailing society INSISTS she MUST do, Sedna, sadly, symbolizes the Saturnian influence of society’s power over young women’s choices, at least in countries where the patriarchy still reigns supreme, as this atrocious act reveals. Of note, just hours from now Sedna moves to a new degree in Taurus, from 23+ minutes of Taurus to 24.01.01.
The Sabian symbol of the degree she was in (and for a few more hours still is) is:
AN INDIAN WARRIOR RIDING FIERCELY, HUMAN SCALPS HANGING FROM HIS BELT. (Rudhyar calls it “violence for survival.”)
Sedna’s new degree has the Sabian symbol of:
A VAST PUBLIC PARK. (Rudhyar calls this “a symbol of collective enjoyment.”)
Perhaps Sun’s opposition to Saturn will bring a new reputation to the taskmaster in those parts of the world where his bad reputation still reigns. Perhaps even, the Sun’s light, which failed to illuminate the Moon and Ceres at the Libra lunar eclipse, will give that extra illumination to Saturn and his reputation and this horrific event will serve a purpose; and these girls will have given their lives to serve all mankind.
be
Aword, like you, I’ve made friends with Saturn — astonishing, considering how anti-structure I’ve always been. But I ultimately realized that structure can either be self-created or other-created, and it was the other-created stuff that wasn’t working for me. It’s like having the proper hiking gear: the old external frame backpacks were often awkward, painful to carry & inflexible. But a well-fit internal-frame pack can make carrying the same load a lot more comfortable, helping you get further into the territory you’re exploring with less strain. I had a moment late last summer when I realized that if Saturn & I had a chance, I’d have to ditch the rules I grew up with and create some that actually worked for me. Now, I like to think of Saturn as my internal-frame pack: my rules are an extension of who I am and the life I live. They help me know when I get off-center, and help me keep myself contained when the fit hits the shan, which it has been doing in spades lately. They also give me a place to rest & come home to, when the world around me ceases to make any sense at all.
I never imagined that structure and rules and authority could be so useful as I step into this new life. But it helps, when everything is in transition, to know what does and does not work for me. And for that to be a baseline from which I can make my own decisions. I’d not have got here without the guidance, input and support from friends here at PW. I’m grateful to each of you.
Very “think-full”, Len. and I’m thank-full. I appreciate the review of oppositions in general, and the insight to Saturn and the opposition in particular. Saturn and I have become friendly, the services he–and you–offer are extraordinary.
As always, thank you.