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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 24 www.mountainastrologer.com 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 26 www.mountainastrologer.com 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 NCGR 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 School of Evolutionary Astrology New York citY chapter The Astrology Connection Classes, conferences, workshops and instantly downloadable mp3 recordings of recent and archival lectures from our community ’s leading astrologers & our quarterly newsletter “THE INGRESS” plus all the other great benefits of NCGR! For information on becoming a certified Evolutionary Astrologer through the Jeffrey Wolf Green correspondence course, or for his DVDs, books and the EA Message Board, please visit our website at schoolofevolutionaryastrology.com For inFormation and email updates, visit www.astrologynyc.org Neptune: Whispers from Eternity Relationships: Our Essential Needs Medical Astrology The Glossary of Evolutionary Astrology Uranus: Freedom from the Known For membership sign-up, visit www.geocosmic.org NCGR_ad_MA_Final_wCrops_10-15-2014.indd 1 New book titles available! 10/15/14 8:24 AM Oct./Nov. 2015 * The Mountain Astrologer 27 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' www.mountainastrologer.com 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°  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 www.mountainastrologer.com