Saturday: Sun square Saturn

Dear Friend and Reader,

I have a love-hate relationship with goats and sheep. They are sort of like little people who speak an entirely different language than I do, yet when they fall under my responsibility, I’ve got to feed them, tend anything wrong or broken, watch them closely and keep them safe and warm. They do not say thank you. They do not say please. If they are goats, they are insouciant, merciless bawlers. If they are sheep they are seemingly thoughtless, gentle incarnations of various hillsides. I cannot reach either of these creatures, and switch between an awe-like disdain for them and a dutiful attachment. Their reactions to me never change.

Photo by Danielle Voirin.
Photo by Danielle Voirin.

But every so often, I get inspired by my inner Pan, and play a game with the goats and sheep. You see, one of the ways they communicate with each other is by butting heads. Between their eyes is a very, very hard layer of bone which has evolved over many generations of head banging. They can barely feel you touching them there, unless you apply some pressure. Sometimes, I make a fist and push against this bone plate in the middle of the forehead. They push back. We play like that.

I bring this little factoid up because I feel that it relates to the aspect of the day: the Sun is square Saturn. Vitality and the will to be, the need to be appreciated is creating a bit of tension with authority, discipline, age old patterns. It’s like a young ram versus an old ram. Or me versus a stubborn ewe.

Robert Hand explains this transit very succinctly like this: “The two questions you must resolve are: how much self-gratification do you owe yourself, and what duties and responsibilities to you owe others? Today will be characterized by conflict between these two poles, duty and self-gratification.”

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