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.
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.”
Another source suggests this transit has to do with confronting certain values and beliefs that may not be working as well as they did in the past, if at all. This is a situation in which you may be able to begin to understand the hold the past has over your life by knocking against the structure it upholds. Where is your nourishment derived from? Where are your emotional attachments coming from? A sense of pride and power is also inherent in this aspect. Personally, I find nothing wrong with a bit of pride here and there, but if I were to find myself in a hostage situation with my own ego, I might ask myself whether or not I am trying to substitute arrogance for pride itself.
How did that ram get so stubborn? Genetics? Upbringing? Bellyache?
Anything that has to do with work is worth considering under this aspect. For example, if, deep down, I do appreciate being in charge of these animals and taking their wool and milk for my nourishment even if there is no warm fuzzy attachment, is the work not as bad? Sometimes you can even substitute the word “work” for “activity” and the heaviness is lifted. But this doesn’t always work. When this happens, we may come to the conclusion that the work we do is not giving us any pleasure. If ever we come to this conclusion, the next logical question to ask is something like: why am I doing this?
Moon enters Cancer at 1:40 am EDT.
Merry Met,
Genevieve
PS…as I write…Beyonce…live….all girl band…”If I were a Boy” ….X Factor final… America can be truly proud of that one……How is it that we can do that…….120 million records sold….and yet the money men….the politicians…..and the media moguls are complete and utter failures……?
How is it possible that the children of Woodstock….the inheritors of the old Hippie dreams….have got it so right……. the Soul of a Nation so beautifully expressed….and its house-keeping so badly mis-managed…?
How is that…??
Well….Yes….the Goats and Sheep have it……!! The applying trine to Jupiter in Capricorn is adding a touch of the old magnifying glass to the Saturn page….as if to examine the duality of Robert Hands…self gratification…and collective responsibility…. and producing a clear winner… which is undoubtably…Truth..!!
I have always found Squares….the most difficult…and yet the most clarifying of aspects. “Listen to the knocking from within…..and from without…” say the Zen Buddhists…..and the duality will always offer up some interesting insights…!!
Arrogance or Pride…?? Whose point of view….?? I played schooboys Rugby…and that intuitive …special sense..that Neptune conjunct Mid-Heaven can bring….caused me to be called arrogant on more than one occasion. Then I went to play against the immortal Phil Bennett from the all conquering Welsh side of the 1970s…to be greeted by a truly inspiring coach who looked me up and down…..sized me up in seconds…and pronounced to the world… “We like a bit of arrogance in our rugby players… Boyo… makes ’em special…!!”
The function and uses of power has also reared up this week…..and I would say to those of you who struggle…just give it away…!!
Carlos Castaneda was an Anthropology student at U.C.L.A. in the 1960s…and produced some great books about Don Juan…The Teachings…and another about Women…”The Second Ring of Power”. Don Juan teaches that a person must deal with 4 levels of learning on this journey….Fear…Power…Complacency…and Old Age!
Fear is relatively straightforward…you know when you are in it…..even if you are not sure what exactly to do about it….!
Power…however is the slippery road that corrupts…..and absolutely…beyond a shadow of a Bush…..!!
Complacency…is the reason why I continually read Planet Waves….walk miles training rookie marketing personnel…..and play bass at a moments notice for a young player who can throw something new at me! These are the mirrors that we all need to look in…and staying humble can give you an insight into how Power may best be used….!!
But generally….the sure fire best way to deal with Power is to give it away……allow for a discourse that can debate the next move…..we will never know what Pontius Pilate really thought that he was doing….!!
Mercury…currently staying in the next room down the corridor to Pluto…is also giving Saturn a blast as the ruler of Virgo….and therefore even greater clarity evolves…!!
As for Old Age….well….grow old graciously……or absolutely dis-graciously…the duality is ours to explore…!!
Great read today Genevieve…and yesterdays Friday horoscopes were really quite prescient…left me floating on air…while double declutching the 4 x 4…!!
PH
Gen… I swear this is one of the best aspects you’ve written – or maybe it just seems that way to my Pan-obsessed mind these days.
No, I’m reading again. From a formalist level, the writing is damn-near perfect. I tend to think of Saturn as a kind of geriatric Pan, one that has worn down the spark of his hoof and who tends to glower at the younger bucks. Old goat, indeed.
What the oldsters can’t feel, and often can’t even remember feeling, is the sheer Excess of the young, how much energy is on board, and the unremitting need to exercise/express it.
The Cancer moon suggests a way through the dilemma, finding those actions (“activities,” eh?) that care for the self through serving the other. No doubt you can cast your eye around the room and find five: in my case it’s infusing the rhodiola for N., sending the checks to my clients, bringing the python into the library for a while (our Seeing-Eye Snake), cracking pecans for the next wave of donation pies, giving old books to Goodwill.
As I do every one of these (you’ve got your own list), it is for the you-to-me-to-you circuit. Sun/Saturn join at the point of pride: how well, and at what level of efficiency.
*Then* I get to play with the Old Man in his effervescent Noon. I’m learning another language for Capricorn/Saturn. Pluto’s presence there is insisting on it.