Starry Eyed
by Spyrit
I have never heard anyone refer to Saturn as wishy washy.
Staring into the sky, the ephemeris, the computer screen, the fish tank, it’s still summer as of this Autumnal equinox. The Willamette Valley basks in a heat wave and the vibrancy of life is still pulsing. Virgo is silently cleaning up the place, preparing to put the bundles on the scale of harvest for Libra.
I took some email hits for ‘feeding into the gloom’ concerning the tie up with Saturn in Taurus with the Leo eclipse cycle (complete with the penumbral eclipse 4:21 am pst Sept. 6th, what were you doing?). Believe me, I don’t like reading about bombings and financial markets tumbling any more than the next being. Well, not the bombs at least. But the quotient of Saturn is stark reality, birth and death, yes or no. I have never heard anyone refer to Saturn as wishy washy.
Saturn went retrograde August 15, returning to Aries (yes, BOOM!) till it goes direct again Dec 29th. Retrograde is like, review—we bandy the word about, but really it’s about perspective. To understand it, try playing universe. Just draw a circle, everyone walks around it elliptically, going different speeds. Can you feel it yet? As you ‘catch up’ to the other people-planets, it seems as if they are slowing down, moving backwards. Add in the elliptic rotation and you really get that retrograde feeling—catching up and passing, then moving away. Retrograde is all about reviewing communications, seeing behind the scene, getting ideas in order.
That’s a bucketful about going backwards, but Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, four planets, have all been retrograde for most of the summer, causing much social adjusment and review. The essential nature of a planet is potentiated when it’s retrograde. When it bursts out of that cycle and goes direct, it releases all that essence.
By deep winter, these planets will have all gone direct. Since the outer planets speak of things greater than the individual, we have no choice but to feel them personally, for they are sweeping waves of occurrence and information, disaster and discovery. You can feel it intensely. I overheard a friend cackling recently, “drop the curtain, I'm tired of the drama.” On the other hand, to quote Grama, “worrying is just praying for things you don’t want to happen.” Both are applicable and helpful. Such personal sound bites help us endure the dense constant exposure to catastrophe and mayhem that the elements, animals and we humans are wreaking.
But what of the simple seasons? Virgo, goddess of the fields, offers her crops to Libra on her scales of justice—does your heart outweigh the feather? We’re into our Autumn quarter; Libra, Scorpio, Sagitarius. One could say Libra weighs the harvest/slaughter, then takes a tour of Scorpio’s underworld, giving up secrets and essence. Sagitarius takes the honed product and gives it direction. Libra will not be kind to the techno stock holders, that is for sure.
The new moons run with the sun, Libra (Oct 20), Scorpio (Nov 18), Sagitarius (Dec 18). If your moon or sun lies in these signs, use the moon cycle to do a bit of harvest weighing of your own. New moons are great for letting go of a crop that doesn’t sustain you. Using the cycles to time your actions makes any pain or indecision easier to get through. Clearing space, physical, mental or emotional, is the first step to new patterns or products. It is time to think about where you are going to spin your cocoon. Especially by the new moon in November, when thoughts turn cozy and dry. Remember, you can only carry so much inside the cave with you, so it better be the right stuff!
Autumn is one of the great reasons to live in the northwest. It seems to be a favorite in all the polls. Don’t mourn frustrated crops, learn from low yields how the plants in your life wish to be treated. Let’s treat every remaining bright day like a treasure because the sun is taking a trip south soon. Love to you summer, until we meet again. Gratefulness makes every harvest sweeter.
Stephen Spyrit is a writer and teaches yoga at the Yoga College of India in Portland. He can be reached by email.