Download Saturn Square Neptune: Navigating an Ocean of

Saturn Square Neptune
Navigating an Ocean of Images
by Jason Holley
A
lthough Neptune was a
Roman god, it seems that the
Celtic worldview best gets
to the heart of the “otherworldly
yet this-worldly” nature we astrologers have come to associate with
the archetype of Neptune. Celtic
cosmology is notable for its lack of
an upper-world of sky gods, the domain of gods such as Jupiter and
Uranus. Similarly, the Celts showed
comparatively little interest in
underworld realms, the domain of
Pluto and perhaps other residents
of the Kuiper Belt. Instead of these
vertically arranged realms, what was
richly elaborated in Celtic mythology was the other-world: rich and
magical, all around us but invisible
to ordinary perception. In this way of
understanding life, one didn’t have to go
up or down to connect to other planes;
in fact, one didn’t need to go anywhere,
though bodies of water and especially
places with mists and fogs were frequently
mentioned. These realms were accessible
right here and right now. All one had to
do was take a moment and notice — in
the mists, in the gloaming. A sudden glint
in the light, and something is seen that
wasn’t seen before. A prolonged gaze into
the waters of someone’s eyes and a shift
in the image of their face. An angel? A
fairy? Something else?
From this perspective, the
other-world is always right here, alongside this one. We are always dwelling
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simultaneously in what the Greeks called
chronos, linear time and space, and
kairos, nonlinear time and space. One
way of understanding Neptune is that,
as an archetype, it is about the connection points between these two ways of
experiencing reality, the gateways in
consciousness that help us to remember
the many worlds we walk among. Nep­tune’s associations with dreams, spiritual
practices, psychedelics, music, film,
and art all connect with this principle.
Yet, for those disinclined to these paths,
one of the richest of Neptune gateways is
also one of the most accessible: the world
of images. Not only art and images that
are intentionally and consciously made
or sought after — the perfect view, the
masterpiece — but also (and perhaps especially) unbidden images: the things we
see in images made by others that they
One of the richest
of Neptune
gateways is also
one of the
most accessible:
the world of
images.
did not intend; the images brought to us,
without pre-approval, in our dreams, or
in the media, or in everyday life.
Images — and not just visual images
but really ephemeral impressions of all
kinds — are Neptune’s domain. They
are doorways into other times and other
worlds, inner and outer. Neptune in the
birth chart, and Neptune transiting a sign
for 14 years at a time, will tell us of the
images that most inspire or transfix a
person or society, and enable this kind
of time-traveling and dimensional shifting
we associate with Neptune.
Neptune in Pisces
Neptune entered its own sign,
Pisces, in April 2011, stayed for four
months, retrograded back into Aquarius,
and then returned to Pisces in February
2012, where it will remain until January
2026. Planets in their own signs are often said to be intensified in their effects,
and indeed it seems that there is an exponential proliferation of images, a kind
of surge in the seas of consciousness,
with Neptune’s journey through Pisces.
More and more images seem to find their
way into our world during these times.
The last time Neptune visited Pisces, in
the 1850s, was when photography first
began to appear regularly in newspapers;
for the first time in history, everyday people were exposed to actual photographic
images, and across that decade this trend
became the standard.
“Burial at Ornans,” by Gustave Courbet (1849–1850); oil on canvas.
“Burial at Ornans,” by Gustave Courbet (1849)
In the past few
years since Neptune
has been in Pisces,
we are seeing a
proliferation of
images: Everyone is
now a photographer.
Our time is similar. In the past few
years since Neptune has been in Pisces,
we are seeing a proliferation of images unlike at any other time in history. Everyone
is now a photographer. The Internet itself
is moving rapidly from a predominantly
textual to a predominantly imagistic interface. Some examples: The social network
Instagram, whose icon is a camera, was
invented just at the end of Neptune in
Aquarius (as the camera itself was, during
the last sojourn in that sign), and during
Neptune’s initial foray into Pisces in 2011,
the tide of images began to wash in on the
network, crossing the 100 million mark
in July of that year; in the four years of
Neptune in Pisces since then, 20 billion
images have accumulated there. In that
same initial transit of Neptune into Pisces
in 2011, it also became possible to do im-
age searches in Google not only by textual
specifications but by dropping an image
itself into the search box — an image
searching for images. And while Neptune
was in the first degree of Pisces, a popular program called Snapchat was created.
This is an application that allows you to
send an image to another person who is
also using the program. The image will
appear on their screen for just a few seconds, then disappear and dissolve from
their device without a trace. Perhaps this
is the ultimate Neptune/Pisces approach
— images as transient as dreams, like
a glint off the ocean or a brief visitation
from a spirit. As of early 2015, more than
700 million such “visitations” were occurring each day on this single application.
Images, and all ephemeral impres­sions, are surging during Neptune in
Pisces. And this thinning of the veils
occurs via not only screen and canvas,
but also the inner images of dreams,
spirits, and memories. We can go looking
for these as the spiritualists did during
Neptune’s last sojourn through Pisces in
the 1850s, but most will come unbidden:
spontaneous memories, recurrent fantasies, the images of our addictions and
obsessions, the creatures who chase us in
our dreams, the parents who come to our
dreams seeking reconciliation, the spiritual guides who come to support us, the
changing face of the person who looks
back at us from the mirror. All these images, and more, proliferate during Nep-
tune in Pisces, even as the screens we
check and now wear, and the increasingly
pixelated environments we inhabit, fill with
image after image as well.
Saturn in Sagittarius
As the images flood in, how can
we make sense of them? This is where
Saturn in Sagittarius comes in. Among its
many associations, Saturn as an archetype correlates with structure, particularly
the structure of consciousness itself;
Sagittarius is the sign of cosmology, philosophy, and meaning. On the one hand,
this combination can be the careful and
disciplined (Saturn) search for meaning
Saturn in Sagittarius
is associated with
travel, but with
Saturn it is not
The Fool setting off
in blissful ignorance,
but the older
and perhaps
wiser pilgrim.
Oct./Nov. 2015 * The Mountain Astrologer 25
Saturn–Neptune
and understanding (Sagittarius). Sagittarius is associated with travel, but with
Saturn it is not The Fool setting off in
blissful ignorance, but the older and perhaps wiser pilgrim. When Saturn in
Sagittarius is engaged with consciously,
there is a patient working through of the
images encountered on our adventures,
inside and out. We become strong and
well-boundaried travelers who can journey thoughtfully and groundedly with the
figures of our dreams and screens.
Less consciously, Saturn in Sagittar­
ius can describe how rigid belief structures
and cosmologies — truths with a capital
“T” — gobble up images and convert
them to predetermined meanings. In
place of the explorer, we find the believer,
the crusader, the consumer — guided by
the heavy hand of narcissistic, capitalist,
or fundamentalist logics, and threatened
by the possibility of dissolution in the sea
of images. This defensive approach to the
image seeks to freeze-frame the image,
determine exactly what it means and
exactly where it belongs, and (where possible) to crop it to fit into existing structures of meaning, safe and secure.
When Saturn and Neptune
Are Unconscious
One example of this second response
to an unbidden image is how the United
States responded to the image of the destruction of the World Trade Center. At
the time in 2001, Saturn in Gemini was
beginning a wide Last Quarter square
to the U.S. Neptune in Virgo, which it
would complete in the following year —
so the authorities were very quick with the
words; we were informed that the meaning of this image was an attack on our
freedom itself.
On a recent trip, I encountered a
poster in the security check area of a
small airport. It was a picture of the annual 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan,
known as the Tribute in Light, where two
large beams of bluish light are projected
into the sky to evoke the once-standing
Twin Towers. It’s a very poignant display
for me, and when I looked at it I felt in
my body a kind of swaying and a slowing down. For me, this image calls up a
feeling of loss, something missing, but
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also, and in exactly the same moment, a
deep love of others, a feeling of connection. As I journeyed on with it there in
the airport, I found myself in a memory
not long after September 11, of driving
on Interstate 95 from Washington, D.C.,
where I lived then, to a week-long therapy
program in Pennsylvania. On this drive,
I encountered a sea (and it can be called
nothing less) of Harley Davidson riders,
tens of thousands coming toward me in
the opposite lanes — bike after bike after bike, some riders with flags, some in
jeans, almost all in black leather jackets,
driving from New York to Washington.
I remember pulling over, weeping to see
them, feeling my own connection to them
and feeling like it was a kind of blessing,
being touched by this as I traveled to parts
unknown in Pennsylvania to travel to still
more parts unknown in myself.
When Saturn
aspects Neptune,
the risk is that
images become
reduced to icons,
and symbols
become reduced
to signs.
But let me return to the image that
evoked this reverie — back to the security
checkpoint. Just as I was about to point
out the image to the person traveling
with me, I saw that, to the right of the
image, there was also a text written in big
white all-capital letters: NEVER FORGET.
It was very jolting. Although I was very
much remembering, the directive to
“never forget” took me straight out of
memory, out of my creative connection
with what was for me a still-living image,
and into history: my relationship with
the official narrative that sought to contain and, really, to kill the image and shut
down the memory theatre I’ve described
here. In this official history, I know what
I am supposed to never forget: The bad
guys killed just under 3,000 of us, on our
own soil, and that’s terrible; they want
to take away our freedom and will stop
at nothing to do so; therefore we should
sacrifice our freedom to keep them from
taking it. In the face of this ideology, the
image suddenly seemed dead. I didn’t
mention it to my companion.
This is the risk when Saturn aspects
Neptune. Images become reduced to
icons, and symbols become reduced to
signs. While a symbol is polyvalent and
can go in many directions, a sign is very
set: Image x equals meaning y. This is
what happens when Saturn, afraid of
where an image could take us, steps in to
literalize and concretize, to try to fix the
image of the other world into the existing
structures of this world.
Saturn can go to extreme lengths
to fix not only the meanings of images
but their literal existence as well. There
is now a new 1 World Trade Center, the
tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Much has been written about it,
but one feature stood out to me: The first
20 stories of the building are solid fortified
concrete. There are no windows, just concrete (and no doubt, cameras). To cover
this up, they have hung sheets of prismatic
jewel-like glass, quite Neptunian, over the
concrete. This image-making seems to offer much in understanding how the psyche
may strive to keep a dead image going
— shore it up, thicken the walls, restore,
rebuild it taller and higher, make it as secure as possible — and then the Neptune
touch: Hang brittle glass or pretty mirrors
on the outside that will confound anyone
who wants to have a real relationship
with you and cover up just how dead you
are inside. Of course, this approach goes
far beyond New York — we all have our
own world trade centers, and we all have
fought to keep them up at any cost.
Conscious Work with
Saturn and Neptune
Saturn can also be our ally in working
with unbidden images. Saturn represents
the discipline and patience it takes to not
take the easy way out, to “stick with the
image,” as psychologist James Hillman
once recommended. Most obviously,
Saturn encourages us to slow down. This
may refine the gluttonous impulse of
Sagittarius, enhancing discrimination and
developing a kind of psychic efficiency by
lessening the quantity of images encoun-
tered yet deepening the quality and depth
of the encounters.
Saturn also helps with containment.
It pays careful attention to the seaworthiness of the ego in its Sagittarian quest
to navigate and experience the sea of
Neptune in Pisces. Saturn brings a kind
of psychic gravity, a heft that is essential
for deep work with images. Here, we
may recall the Odyssey, the journey of
Odysseus back to Ithaca. It was Neptune
himself who condemned Odysseus to
wander the sea for nearly ten long years
and to encounter all sorts of strange and
curious images for the first time. One of
these otherworldly encounters he had was
with the Sirens, who were known to sing
a song so beautiful that the entranced
sailors would wreck their ships on the
rocks in an effort to reach and possess
these mysterious beings.
Calypso warns Odysseus as he leaves
her island that he must not sail too near
the Sirens, yet neither should he avoid
them. Instead, when coming near them,
he must stuff the ears of his men with
wax, so they will not hear the Siren song.
Then he must bind himself to the mast of
his ship — tight and secure — so that he
will not go toward the Sirens to his death
on the rocks, yet may still fully experience the ecstasies of their song. This is
Saturn discipline applied to advantage in
Neptune’s realm: recognizing one’s limits,
voluntarily binding oneself, and proceeding with caution to engage with the other
realms, but not to be transfixed by them
and led into death.
This is much the same in work with
dreams and memories. Sometimes, a person may come into psychotherapy beset
by intense images, body sensations, or
memory fragments. Hearing these notes
of one’s own soul song perhaps for the
first time in life, there is a powerful pull
to rush toward these phenomena. This
may come from a regressive desire to
merge and unite with those places in the
psyche from which they emerge, or from
a defensive desire to possess and unravel,
decipher, “decode” the mysteries and find
the “truth.” Yet, if one has not done the
Saturn work of grounding and developing
a strong container in consciousness, it is
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very risky to dive in and approach the images. The individual will tend to become
transfixed, to misunderstand, to take as
literal what is symbolic, and to enter into
extreme and dangerous relationships or
identifications with images, eventually
crashing on the rocks. Saturn here is
essential to recognizing our limits and
taking precautions to survive and get the
most from the adventure.
An excellent example of construc­
tively combining Saturn and Neptune can
be seen in artist Gustave Courbet, founder of the Realist art movement in France
in the mid 1800s. Courbet was born in
1819 with Saturn square Neptune, in the
same signs as the current square but with
the planets transposed. (See Chart 1,
following page.) Courbet preferred to
depict images as they actually appeared,
a response to the lavish and often heavyhanded announcements of meaning found
in Romantic art. For instance, “The Burial
at Ornans,” Courbet’s best-known painting (see page 25), depicted a prosaic village funeral. It was a clear break from
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growth, through the initiation of depression, despair, grief, and loss. Used
well, Saturn shows how we disillusion
ourselves. It is the willingness to engage
the suffering that comes when we truly
accept loss and enter into grief. It’s quite
certain that the images that will surface
during the time of Saturn and Neptune,
collectively and in our own lives, will
have many of the qualities of images already seen during Neptune’s sojourn in
Pisces thus far — such as the video of
the New York police choking an unarmed
black man to death on the sidewalk; the
repeated beheadings of Westerners by
the Islamic State; the ghostly images of
inhumane torture that haunt the text of
report after report from the CIA. These
images are profoundly depressing and
disillusioning. They tear at any notions
of innocence, and compel us to see that
we are not nearly so decent as we think
we are. As James Baldwin told us, “People who shut their eyes to reality simply
invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state
of innocence long after that innocence is
dead turns himself into a monster.”1
This is, in fact, the deep logic and
perversity of fixation on any idealized
image — like sailors entranced by the
Sirens, our behavior in the name of the
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
image will, in fact, destroy
what the imNatal Chart
Jul 8 1926, Thu
age represents. While10:45
thepmnew
“freedom
CET -1:00
Zurich, Switzerland
tower” in Manhattan47°N23'
stands
at 1,776 feet
008°E32'
Saturn–Neptune
the trend of Romanticism. At the time,
it was a scandal for a huge canvas to
depict such a mundane moment, and
without images of angels whispering into
people’s ears or archetypal kingly personages — only a funeral, with village people
portrayed in all sorts of response and lack
of response, many seemingly not focused
on the event itself.
Like the people in the painting, we
the viewers are free to have whatever experience we have. This is not like viewing
the Romantic paintings that were popular in Courbet’s day, which seem with all
their might to insist on a particular interpretation of the image — rallying angels,
tricks of light and color, and so forth. A
Romantic painting tells us exactly how we
are supposed to feel and what we are supposed to think and see. Yet here, Courbet’s painting, unvarnished in its simplicity, offers the image alone and refrains
from any particular encouragement of
meaning. Paradoxically, the freedom we
have to experience the image derives
from Courbet’s Saturnian willingness to
stay with the image, to accept limits.
Accepting limits is one of Saturn’s
least enjoyable yet arguably most useGustave Courbet
fulChart
lessons. It is the dimension of
Natal
Jun 10 1819 NS, Thu
Saturn–Neptune
aspects that can be
3:00
am LMT -0:24:36
Ornans, France
the 006°E09'
hardest, yet can also bring the most
47°N06'
Geocentric
Tropical
Porphyry
True Node
Rating: B
‹
Á
25'
 27°‹
Ü ¾ 29°‹ 32'
29°
18°
É 18° ‹50'01'
¼ 00° Ü 29'Œ
¶
10
‰ 25'
‰
18°
11
À 18°
27° ¿
ˆ
ˆ
22°
» 16° Ý 39'
27° Ý 04'
º
Ý
27°
33'
Œ 42'ˆ
8
Œ
26'
Chart 1:
Gustave Courbet
1
‚
Š
14°
25'
½ 26°Š
¸
18°
7
Œ
29'
19'
18°
5
3
‚
4
25'
18°
09°
ƒ 25'
…
09°
00° „ 24'
28
Ê
†
25'
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25'
11°
‡
‹
26'
27'
¿
†
18°
27°
22'Œ
19°
10
9
Ü
14°
Ü ¼
50'
1
26'Œ
29°‹
50'
8
7
11°
…
27'
6
23°
49'
Ý
2
3
46'
‚
Ý 13'
13'
5
01°
Â
18°
†
06' „
53'
15°
14°
Chart 2:
Elisabeth
Kübler-Ross
12
‡ 13'
‡
36'
Œ
11
6
2
¾
‰
24'
S
50'
Ý 19'
12
Ê
16°
‰
59'
9
18°
13'
12°
Š
09'
Œ
Charts use Porphyry houses
and the True Node.
21° ˆ 36'
09°
17°
Working consciously with Saturn–
Neptune means that we must accept
the loss of the concretized and idealized
images of the past and the meanings we
have given them, and face our grief as
other unbidden or forgotten images arise.
Here, we may learn from the work of
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who brought the
subjects of death and grief into the mainstream, and who was also born under a
Saturn–Neptune square. (See Chart 2,
below.) She spoke of five stages of grief,
not linear but certainly distinct: denial,
anger, bargaining, sadness/despair, and
acceptance. At one end, unconscious
Saturn would have us rigidify in denial;
Rating: B
½
09°
Grief and Loss
Geocentric
Tropical
Porphyry
True Node
00° Š 24'
25'
tall, many of its proponents act each day
to estrange us more and more from the
ideals of freedom expressed in 1776.
While egg cartons display pretty images
of chickens on a sunny farm, the egg industry systematically destroys such farms,
and their chickens never see the sun.
While the adult child of a narcissistic
parent holds on to the fantasy that they
were well-loved, they cut themselves off
from the full experience of feeling truly
loved in their relationships today.
„
12°
4
S
24'
56'
ƒ
53'18'
ƒ
16°
ƒ ƒ
11°
15°
03°14°
»
¶Á
21° ‚ 36'
¸É
À
50'
º „
14°
ƒ
18°
13'
Accepting limits
is one of Saturn’s
least enjoyable
yet arguably most
useful lessons.
at the other, unconscious Neptune would
have us accept, and even forgive, prematurely — ironically, also a form of denial.
But these planets together mean that we
also have to face the stormy seas of anger, sadness, and despair that lie between
denial and acceptance.
This is incredibly difficult to do. It is
hard to admit that a relationship is over
— to give up the fantasy of unconditional
love, or the image of what we hoped the
relationship would be. It is hard to accept
betrayals and disappointments by our
parents, friends, family, nation — to give
up the images and idealization of them
that prevailed before. It is hard to accept
that one has harmed someone else, or that
one’s body has changed with age — to
give up idealized images of self. Yet, there
is no peace without such recognition. As
long as these truths remain concealed by
frozen images, there will be discontent
and a vague sense of sinking.
In South Africa, after apartheid, a
process was undertaken by the court-like
restorative justice body known as the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It
began exactly as transiting Saturn in Aries
made a Last Quarter square to Neptune
in Cancer in the chart of South Africa
(not shown). Though imperfect, this process was intended to allow those who
had suffered the evils of racism to speak
and to share. This was not a campaign
to prosecute and punish. Its product was
not a single official narrative, but rather
a collection of stories. The memories
and images were horrific, yet the country
and its leaders watched and listened
patiently. The images brought forward
were neither narrated and explained away
nor entered into a master text of official
history; rather, they were brought out into
the open, acknowledged, and grieved.
I sometimes think that, in therapy, and
perhaps even in some dreams, people
are conducting their own truth and reconciliation commissions, calling parts of
self and soul forward to bear witness, give
testimony, and bring images into view
through the mists.
Last Quarter Square
The Saturn–Neptune square now
underway is a Last Quarter square, as
the two planets begin the completion of
their journey from one conjunction to the
next. The Last Quarter square is possibly
the most challenging of all astrological
aspects. Dane Rudhyar called it the crisis
in consciousness. In his work and in
evolutionary astrology, it is seen as the
requirement of complete reorientation, a
massive deconditioning of what has been
taken on in the first three quarters of
development. It correlates with autumn:
Oct./Nov. 2015 * The Mountain Astrologer 29
Saturn–Neptune
the waning of the light and the falling of the leaves. We can
attempt to keep summer going, or to keep dressing as if it
were summer, but the weather will change nonetheless. If
we avoid the reorientation, the letting go, the grief, and the
legitimate suffering, things tend to keep falling apart. You can
put as many fingers in the dam as you want — but eventually
the water surges over the top. The familiar narratives and
idols must dissolve so that aspects of consciousness hitherto
unrecognized can emerge.
And of course, even when we do the best we can, we will
sometimes find ourselves adrift. Neptune was never a lover
of heroes, preferring instead to wreck them again and again.
Shipwreck, too, is a Saturn–Neptune image — “old age is a
shipwreck,” my godmother used to say, only half-joking (she had
the square in her chart as well). But shipwreck, like maturity, has
possibilities, too — it slows us down, it opens new worlds, as in
the Odyssey and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and it keeps us
abroad from the familiar much longer than we’d planned. Even if
the ship is lost, this may be the opening to a kind of redemption
of the ego by the soul, a very Neptunian theme, for we must first
become lost if we are ever to be found.
Chart Data and Sources
(in alphabetical order)
Gustave Courbet, June 10, 1819; 3:00 a.m. LMT; Ornans, France
(47°N06', 06°E 09'); AA: Quoted BC/BR.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, July 8, 1926; 10:45 p.m. MET; Zürich, Switzerland (47°N23', 08°E32'); A: from memory.
South Africa (Union), May 31, 1910; 12:00 p.m. EET; Pretoria, South
Africa (25°S45', 28°E10'); Nicholas Campion, Book of World Horoscopes
(BWH), The Wessex Astrologer Ltd, 2004, Chart 307.
United States (Sibly), July 4, 1776; 5:10 p.m. LMT; Philadelphia, PA,
USA (39°N57', 75°W10'); BWH, Chart 370.
Reference
1. James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, Beacon Press, 1984, p. 175.
© 2015 Jason Holley – all rights reserved
Jason Holley is an astrologer and
psychotherapist in private practice in
Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has taught
nationally on astrology and psychotherapy, including at conferences held by
the School of Evolutionary Astrol­ogy
and NORWAC. For several years, he
has taught and supervised psychotherapists making use of astrological insight
in depth-oriented therapy. Jason’s astrological education began 30 years ago
with the discovery, at age 12, of a secret
trove of Dane Rudhyar’s books hidden in
his grandmother’s credenza. His website
is http://jasonholley.net
30
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