Originally published May 18, 2009
Father Time
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I remember feeling like I would literally die if I didn’t leave Salt Lake City before winter hit. Like a snake, the skin of my emotional habits had become too confining and it was time, once again, for it to shed. I knew my oncoming Saturn initiation would be a process related to all areas represented by the Moon, and although much of it would address my inner world, I felt an overwhelming urgency to honor the beginning of the cycle externally. On October 1st I gave my landlord a 30 day notice. I did not know where I was going, I only knew I could no longer stay in Utah.
Transiting Saturn’s 9 month initiation cycles take us into a death and rebirth process relative to the planet, angle or node it is contacting in our natal horoscope. At the beginning of the cycle, Father Time taps us on the shoulder, signaling the need for change. As Saturn is related to our ego identification, its transits are a time of letting go of old attachments, forms and structures that have fulfilled their purpose and are ready to die. Sometimes it means the literal death or ending of a person/relationship, job/career, home and/or lifestyle. Even if a Saturn transit does not manifest this way, it still means a death of the current structure or form, and the birth of a new one.
Saturn cycles are work cycles and during these times, we feel the impetus to take a sobering or realistic look at the area of our life represented by what transiting Saturn is contacting in our natal chart. Evaluating what’s working and what is not. These are “time to change the game” periods, opportunities to reflect on the way we are playing the game of life. Responsibility is a key word for Saturn, and these cycles offer a period of time for us to re-examine our “response ability.”
At the beginning of the initiation, it can be difficult to be clear about what we want, what the changes looks like, or the specificity of our future goals. Oftentimes it begins with an awareness of what we no longer want, “no,” “not this,” “not that,” “can’t stand it anymore,” “it’s time-something has to change.” Perhaps anxiety increases at the thought of staying or continuing on in the same patterns within a current relationship, job, home, lifestyle for another 7 years when the cycle comes around again.
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During Saturn cycles, we have an opportunity to see which doors are ready to close and which ones want to be opened. Experiences in the outer world feel increasingly restrictive, limiting and binding (all Saturn keywords). As we begin to redefine (Saturn) what matters to us in these areas of life, accessing our inner authority (Saturn), clarity increases. We can more easily set the boundaries, limitations and restrictions for ourselves. The need for giving ultimatums arises. By focusing (again, Saturn) on the feedback in our external world, what’s being mirrored to us, we can make a choice to continue to struggle and meet with resistance, or let go and try something else, move on, severing the attachment in its current form. Continuing to clarify and define what we want, and paying attention to the response in our world, shows us the path to be taken. Where are we flowing? What is working? Where are we feeling rewarded for our efforts? Where are we being amply and easily supported?
Giving my 30 day notice to move, I sent out a signal to the gods, saying I was done. I waited for the signs to point the way to where I would go. Within a week, I received a message so obvious and clear, and I knew my path was leading me to Santa Rosa, California. Tuning into the timing, I delayed my departure for another month.
As I took I-80 heading west, I felt a weight (Saturn) lifting from my shoulders and a giant exhale followed – a cathartic release. I was finally leaving this Saturn-ruled state again (Capricorn Sun), heading to California, a cycle I’ve repeated numerous times since 1980. Each time I left Utah, I said I would never move back. I know better than to say this now, and still…I feel more certain than ever this is my last time.
Santa Rosa would be a temporary place for me and my move here marked a transition and passage state in my life. An in-between void space. Deathing Utah, a difficult relationship and my old self. Birthing a move to Hawaii, a union with my future Beloved and my new self. Santa Rosa would serve as a safe haven for my death-conception-gestation process preceding my birth.
I knew that wherever I moved, I wanted to feel nurtured and supported. But Saturn to the Moon can bring about experiences that are the opposite of that. Loneliness, isolation, depression. I was not prepared for the intensity of this. During my first 3 months in California, I went deeper into the cave, rarely leaving my house or wanting contact with the outer world. The inner work to be done was forcing me to confront the ways I was not emotionally loving, nurturing and supporting myself. Coming face to face with childhood and adult experiences of isolation, feelings of abandonment and no one to count on. In my early years, the religious foundation I had was where I found my support. Even though my conditioning was laden with harsh judgment, fear and guilt, God was always there. I moved frequently as a child and the physical/emotional chaos and instability of my home life was countered by the stability of my experience in the Mormon community. That foundation crumbled for me when I moved Utah (ironically) at 16 years old, and I experienced a loss so deep and great of everything I thought I knew to be true up to that point.
33 years later, I am still discovering what God is and means to me in a continually expanding quest. Finding myself. Coming home. The process of integration and the movement toward wholeness has been naturally highlighted since my last Saturn initiation cycle 7 years ago, during my mid-life and its particular transits. The longed for “Other,” deeply ingrained, as my human self has yearned for the marriage of my soul and spirit to it. I have known myself to be on the verge of an outer marriage with my Beloved, and had enough awareness that the union must happen within me, to truly manifest my heart’s desire.
The Dweller on the Threshold
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
–The Guest House
The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks
In Caroline Casey’s book, “Making the Gods Work For You,” she writes, “Saturn says that we will encounter any inner issues we shirk, or qualities we refuse to possess, outside ourselves in a form we might not like so much. Without our inner authority, outer authority will direct us…challenging external circumstances drive us inward to make an appointment with Saturn to rewrite the script. ‘How do you want your life story to proceed?’ inquires Saturn the inner author. If we do not go inward willingly, then Saturn will reach up and yank us down forcefully. The involuntary yanking downward is very often experienced as depression, but is instead a reminder not to live life by default.”
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Saturn has traditionally been called, “the dweller on the threshold,” or “the ring-pass-not.” Casey says, “these monikers refer to the scary initiatory ordeal each of us must undergo in which we encounter all that holds us back or keeps us fearfully obedient to a life of oppressive limitation. Usually, the catalyst for this transformation is an experience in which we break a rule, violate a taboo, or otherwise disobey the tribal elders.”
What attachments and habits were running the script of my life, jailing me, usurping my power? The emotional prisoner of my past. Ways of being I thought I had released reared their hideous head, breathing fiery hot breath in an effort to purify shadow pieces of my unconscious still running the show. Casey points out that right before a change, we encounter all our obstacles to that change. She states, “this is known as a ‘sunset effect’: as a pattern goes down, it glows most vividly. Just before people are ready to change, they often thrash around, saying, ‘I’ve already worked through these issues, so why am I dealing with all of this again?’ The answer is, ‘these issues are coming up again because you’ve almost resolved them.’ When you feel this intensification coming on, remember Saturn’s motto: ‘Things are so hard, I must almost be done.'”
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This certainly was the case for me. Before leaving Utah, I was entangled in destructive relationships with two men. The first one, lasting two years, continued on in an addictive fashion for over another year past my initial attempted escape. The second, a condensed and potent caricature of the first. These powerful relationships precipitated a healing crises for me, and I plunged deeply into the abyss of emotional currents I had consciously forgotten about.
At the same time, I had also become aware of my Witness Self, the Watcher part of me that observes my human self. Like a loyal, steady friend to hold my hand, or a guide to shine the light on the darkness of my path, the Witness Self was a saving grace as I continued to be cooked in the cauldron of past and current fears, examining ways I was still not fully present to self-love, self-nurturing and self-support. The ways in which I continued to doubt myself, my truth, allowing others to claim authority, power and control over me.
“Saturn says there is no shame or blame in landing hard, as long as we acknowledge that we have been thrown by the spirited horse of our own teaching,” says Casey. “The initiatory ordeal is by definition, a solitary experience that leads us to self-reflection. Solitude, Saturn’s sacramental activity, is the portal to the magical realm where power larger than us resides. Time spent alone allows us to ‘consider’ our lives, to align the inner gods with the outer gods of the cosmos, to disentangle ourselves from the phantasmagoria of seductive distractions.”
Carl Jung said, “The highest, most decisive experience is to be alone with one’s own self. You must be alone to find out what supports you, when you find that you can not support yourself. Only this experience can give you an indestructible foundation.”
Positive Father
Sometime at the beginning of March, I realized I had deathed what laid lurking in my darkest realms. After repeated rounds of self-judgment (Saturn) followed by subsequent self-compassion, I fell in love with me again. Over and over, I felt myself as a little girl-scared, lost, alone. As I continually judged myself for allowing these malefic experiences into my life, I followed the judgment up with, “what if it’s okay?” Saturn can represent the negative father, admonishing us with criticism, blame, pointing out our imperfections. But what I wanted to experience of Saturn was the positive father, the one I needed to allow for “mistakes,” and lovingly point me in a better direction. This was the masculine I wanted to more fully integrate. Radical self-acceptance was the starting point. Through sheer determination, focus and dedication to a breakthrough of limiting ego thoughts and emotions, I became the loving father I always wanted. I broke the chains of fear, and found my “Other” as my wise soul and spirit, merged with my human self. I found my way home, resurrecting an integration of Divine proportion unknown to me up until now.
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Photo by Holly Alexander
Being in nature helped. There, my soul rested and came alive at the same time. A beautiful man appeared in my life, my “nature boy,” and my connection with what feels like “my original state,” that inner union, manifested in the outer world, miraculously showing itself to me.
This 9 month initiation feels like a lifetime. Time has slowed down and stretched itself in such a way I hardly recognize it as linear anymore. Being circular, or feeling like a spiral, the past, present and future feel interchangeable. I am seven months into my pregnancy, and transiting Saturn has just stationed direct. I have moved through the third stage of transition, the toughest part of my labor and am getting ready to birth the baby, my new Self.
Caroline Casey’s book, “Making the Gods Work For You,” was instrumental in bringing me to a new understanding of astrology and its archetypal language. Caroline led me to find and study with Daniel Giamario, and the Shamanic Astrology Mystery School. I am deeply grateful for the work these two have done, and also for Beth Wachenheim, who introduced me to Caroline’s book.
© Holly Alexander at http://www.yourdivineblueprint, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Holly Alexander and http://www.yourdivineblueprint.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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