Well I had in mind to talk
about Venus entering Capricorn today and getting a new team of dispositors. Dispositor is the astrological term for what
I call a subcontractor, or some might call expert. The people newscasters introduce to explain a
complicated situation, referred to as authorities, are like dispositors. The dispositor is the planet best equipped to
dispose of the task at hand. Today with Venus entering the sign Capricorn, the
task is to build something, or keep a structure in
existence, through times of low energy. The
authority on keeping things together, when there is a deficit of energy, is
Saturn.
So Venus is leaving the
umbrella of Jupiter (Link to Venus entering Sagittarius post) and coming under the
roof of Saturn. The planet of making the best of what there
is, is now crossing through the territory where there isn’t very much. This is a tough place for beauty (Venus), and
while Saturn is away on private business (Saturn still has another year in
Scorpio) it is even more challenging—because, taking a look at our List of Rulerships we see that Scorpio is ruled by
Mars.
Don’t get lost. We went from Venus to Saturn, because Venus is
in Capricorn, the land ruled by Saturn.
Now Venus has to look at what Saturn is doing if she wants to survive in
his territory. We look and see that Saturn
is in Scorpio, which is ruled by Mars.
Here’s the deal with Saturn;
it is kind of like a parent with the responsibility of keeping things together
through hard times. If you put that
parent in an atmosphere of moral and physical break down (Scorpio), well, I
guess it is kind of like sending an experienced drill sergeant in to shape up
demoralized troops. There is a big
difference between training new recruits who have no idea what they are getting
into and training people who know very well what war is all about. Saturn in Scorpio is not trying to prepare
innocents for the world, but to convince battle weary soldiers of life that
their integrity still matters in a world which they now know to be full of
corruption.
Saturn was in Scorpio Nov 1953-Jan 1956
then again Sept 1983- Nov 1985. Anyone
born between those dates ‘has’ Saturn in Scorpio. They started
out in life at a time when the planet of discipline was in the sign of
loss. Scorpio is the sign where the
ecliptic descends below the celestial equator; we see it cross under in Libra,
but in Scorpio the descent becomes starkly visible. The Mars rulership of Scorpio mirrors this
separation. Mars is the planet of
primitive individuality. It rules this
portion of the life cycle where the energy is steadily decreasing and reserves
are visibly low.
Most of us can easily see how
Mars would rule Aries, the sign of life exploding into being; the association
with Scorpio is not so obvious. In
Scorpio, Mars is preserving life for the future, it is storing its essence, or
seed, for a time when the energy levels will again rise. So Saturn in this sign of secreting something
away helps keep the storage area free of rot.
Many Saturnian types get
pegged with being bitter. How does a
tree keep its growing mass of cellulose from being consumed by opportunistic
organisms? It produces a chemical that
tastes bitter. It is this bitter
chemical in the flesh of the expanding trunk of the tree that keeps it from
rotting, which is really just the process of being eaten alive by another
organism.
Saturn in Scorpio is like an
old soldier among a bunch of battle weary troops suffering from war and overindulgence
in pleasure. Saturn has the time, the
experience, and the integrity those people who have been through the worst can admire. When they talk about what they have
seen and done, Saturn does not shrink in horror. Saturn in Scorpio gives people who have something to be
ashamed of a chance rebuild their self respect one small step at a time. And for those who think they have nothing to
be ashamed of, Saturn has ways of relieving them of their illusions.
It takes a lot of courage to
face ugly stuff- where is the planet of courage now? Mars is now in Virgo, the sign ruled by
Mercury. So the work now is being
carried out in the clerical pool and communications battalion. Corruption is being dealt with on a
logistical level, as in let’s figure out where the problem is entering and how
it is spreading once it gets in, by examining the situation…..as opposed to
lets spray it with bullets or napalm.
Mercury right now is in Scorpio, so the planet of facing challenges and
the planet of investigation are currently working closely together. You could say they are codependent.
And this morning Venus comes
under the influence of this pact of war makers.
Yesterday I flipped through a
book about the artist James McNeil Whistler, whose mother fled the chaos of the
American war between the states to live with him in England. If the
bohemian painter’s puritan mother had not felt the need to travel to England, we would not have the painting that is now so
popular in western culture. Just one
example of how great beauty comes from great trials and losses.
Arrangement in Grey and Black no. 1
James Abbott McNeill Whistler Portrait of the Artist's Mother
Looking at the lower left
quadrant of this morning’s chart you can also see that the sun is meeting
Saturn. Earth is now lining up on the
exact opposite side of the Sun from Saturn.
That should be about as far as we get from the planet of discipline; so
why did I feel so melancholy yesterday?
I agree with Johannes Kepler; it is difficult to accept this ‘sublunary’
influence of the outer planets, how can something so far out there have such
profound effect on us down here? But like him, I find the evidence of my observations
to confirm that of the ancients. The Sun
conjunct Saturn is not fun.
I love working for artists-
the book about Whistler and his mother was at an artist customer’s house- on a
different artist customer’s kitchen wall (right near the control panel for the security
alarm) there is a small illustration of white bearded Saturn with his scythe as
a staff, standing beside the luxurious bed of a sleepy woman. On such a cold morning as this I can feel the warmth
of the wine colored comforter she is not ready to leave. The caption reads something like this: “The
problem with the Father Time wake up service is that there is no snooze
button.”
Link to Cape Fear Civil War Round Table essay about Whistler's mother (and brother).
