The Saturn Chronicles Part One; Learning To Love Limitation

The Dawn Of Awareness Is Rising On Saturn

I've been wanting to give people a sense of what going through a Saturn, a major Saturn transit is like for a while, so I have decided to pull back the veil on my life and give you some insight into the wonder workings of Chronos aka Saturn as an ongoing serial, known as "The Saturn Chronicles."

This is the first installment.

Learning to love Saturn is one of the hardest lesson any of us can undertake and experience in the practice and art of astrology. Saturn is often compared to a beast, in that when we are in a deep Saturn cycle, it always seems to be bearing down on us, relentless and driven in its pursuit to extract what Saturn demands; "Responsibility." We can see this on the macro level, with Pluto in Capricorn right now. Capricorn, an agent of Saturn is forcing people, through attrition, to take back their lives. Here in the U.S. we got fat and complacent on cheap money (credit) and cheap goods (China). We were lulled into a false sense of complacency while our economic future was being hijacked from under our noses. Now people are waking up under the intensity of Pluto in Capricorn, bouncing off Uranus in Aries. Whether astroturfed or synthetically manipulated, OWS is a manifestation of the awakening. But I'm not here to pontificate on the collective awakening. I'm here to share my own version of it.

Shifting from a Dionysian to an Apollonian being is not easy--especially at mid-life. It's been nearly four months since I eschewed alcohol and while the upside is better sleep, more hydration and lucid thinking, the downside is losing the escape into fugue states and light trance, the easy camaraderie of casual drinking at the pub down the street, getting loose, cracking jokes and shouting at the world. Then there's always that strange and synchronistic moment that pops through and all of a sudden the buzz takes on surreal proportions, stories emerge, intoxicated parables spoken is slippery tongues dance from stool-to-stool, sacred and profane, straight out of some J.P. Donleavey picaresque, American and post modern of course. In that fluid and lubricated state its easy to dance between worlds, slip through the cracks of self-censure and ignore the enormity of other parts of ones life left un-attended. That's the beauty of the Dionysian effect. There is no tomorrow, only the moment, rolling and endless until about 1AM.

I was not a heavy drinker. I could nurse a couple of pints of Guiness for a few hours. For me, the act of drinking was woven together with company, being out, seeing familiar and new faces. I spend a great deal of time alone, writing, thinking, pondering, researching where we're going and how I will communicate it with the rest of the world. Its an isolating experience at times and the respite wasn't just in the frothy, mocha colored head of a cold Guiness, but in the human contact and connection of others. But I noticed I was paying more and more time and attention to wanting those moments. Slipping out earlier, catching the Happy Hour and staying well past it. It was mollifying and medicating. It got me through and yet, it felt like I was caught in a whirlpool of inertia, the kind of vortex that conjures up Bill Murray, caught in a web of Samsara in "Groundhog Day." Something had to change.

SATURN CRISIS

Saturn has been transiting my 11th House, touching the Moon, Mercury and Venus, while squaring my natal Saturn in of course Capricorn. It rattled my world. My emotions seemed frozen. It had been nearly two years since my marriage ended and the feelings of exile were piling up while I sought to bury them and a morbid economic state in a myriad of confused connections. and irresponsible relating. I've written about this previously and won't go into great detail, but I was looking for something to propel myself out of the crippling spell of feeling stuck.

I had been continually frustrated by the lack of support that I had perceived from the universe in regards to my website and radio show. Somewhere, just beneath the surface, I was watering poison seeds of resentment, that I "should" be more successful. That I "should" be able to pay my bills by doing what I love. I reached out to friends with money and products to sell to see if they would work with me and they declined, for various reasons. I took it personally and was getting hardened. It spilled over into my emotional life.

Alcohol impacts the liver and kidneys and in Chinese medicine, both organs are incredibly important when it comes to dealing with anger, life force, Chi, etc. I was short circuiting my ability to deal with these complex emotional states by drinking. Not only that, but my kidneys (Saturn/Libra) were constantly sore and aching. From an emotional and physical perspective, I had to stop. What I was attempting to do was far too important.

Its been nearly four months and I do not miss alcohol. I occasionally miss the woozy connections and the kismetic clinking of glasses through the air, but little else. I'm locked away and in on making this website and my radio experience work. Saturn on my Venus yields pressure from my ex; "Get a job at Starbucks" she says. My reflexive rage gets triggered. I saw my father fritter away his life in favor of hobbies and nice cars, sacrificing any real risk on discovering who he was in the world in favor of downtime and an endless stream of pass times. Legacies are the only thing we have and leave at the end of a life and I was never comfortable with what my father didn't do in the world. My ex may not understand this, but I feel like its vital that my son know and understand what I do. So I have deleted the easy outs and quick escape. I'm staring down the challenge of Saturn, born into Pluto in Virgo, making a stand for meaningful work and legacy in the face of collapsing systems and time, hoping that someday, he gets it and that I can make it work and show him that you can do what you love. There may be sacrifices, but this is the lesson of Saturn. Obviously, its just the beginning,