Saturn in Libra

NOTE: Wisdom is to view the changes occurring on Earth as tremendous opportunities for breaking through, not breaking down. We must experience and participate in the breaking down (the collapse) of ways of being on Earth that are death-oriented, and as such do not support Life.  Yet, again, wisdom is to understand that our challenge is to explore completely news ways of being on Earth and breakthrough what is a true Way of Life on this planet. We have been living “a way of death” on Earth, killing everything – millions of humans, millions of animals, plants, fish, birds, insects, and the planet itself.  Due to the amazing power of denial, we’ve been calling this “way of death” a “way of Life". It is not a way of Life. Collectively, in this very critical stage of The Evolution, we are in the process of discovering “A New Way of Being on Earth: A Way of Life”.

Part 1:  The Four Cornerstones of Our Lives:

Of the twelve signs (archetypes), four are the cornerstones of our lives.  Our ability to create stability individually and collectively (in groups of any size) depends one hundred percent on the strength of these four cornerstones. When they are in place and strong then we are able to work effectively and efficiently with the other eight.  These four cornerstones are:

(1)    Aries and the first house: one’s personal identity (who we consider ourselves to be at any given stage of our lives, and who we are becoming)

(2)    Cancer and the fourth house: home-family-roots (includes whoever and whatever feels like family)

(3)    Libra and the seventh house: relationships and/or partnerships of all kinds; evolving “relationships” into “True and Real Partnerships”.  This includes partnerships with “Sprit”.

(4)    Capricorn and the tenth house: the “man”-made rules that govern our lives and the people who have the authority to make them; also career, contributions to community, honors, recognition and reward for a job well done.  (NOTE:  For most of humanity’s sojourn on Earth, the rules have been “man”-made, i.e., made by men.  Absolutely as soon as possible, the authority to make these rules must be shared by all humans, they must be created by men and women, absolutely ASAP.)

These four cornerstones – Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn -- hold in place the very foundation of our lives and our world.  The strength or weakness of these four determines our ability to engage the other eight archetypes (signs), or arenas of our lives in a way that generates fulfillment.  The nearly three-year transit of Saturn through Libra (through Oct. 6, 2012), the sixteen-year transit of Pluto through Capricorn (through Nov. 20, 2024), the one-year transit of Jupiter through Aries (through June 5, 2011) and the seven-year transit of Uranus through Aries (through March, 2019) all signal a seismic shift in all four of these cornerstone arenas occurring over about a 14-year period (2010 - 2024).  All four of these arenas of our being, our lives, our world are changing drastically and rapidly, and once the change is made it will be permanent.  Our lives will never be the same again.  The changes in these four will generate equally powerful and permanent changes in the other eight arenas of our lives.

It’s easy to see that this is a reality now on Earth; we have several more years of intensity.

During these times we’re deeply and powerfully challenged to accept and participate in major transformation of all four cornerstone arenas as described above, yet the real potency of this energy is anchored on the Libra and Capricorn angles of that cross.

Many astrologers make the judgment that a square (90-degree) aspect is “bad” because of the tremendous tension between the planets involved.  The reality is that this is the tension that produces growth.  Saturn and Pluto are two very intense, unrelenting energies even when they make no aspect to another planet.  So when they are in square (90 degree) aspect to one another the tension becomes extreme, unavoidable and undeniable and will eventually reach a point where something (or someone) has to give (surrender and change).  The power of this transit is expressing right now on Earth. It is immediate and growing daily in momentum and intensity, affecting all of humanity at every level.  These four cornerstones are crumbling on every level -- personal, national and international, corporate-governmental-political, economic, religious, and social. Over the next several years, it is our challenge to build a new foundation, with new rules, for “A New Way of Being on Earth”.

In the song “Closing Time”, the great songwriter Leonard Cohen speaks of something that he says “looks like freedom but it feels like death, it’s something in between I guess”. That sentiment applies to the feeling this transit.  It’s clear that major changes are occurring in these two arenas, Libra (relationships/partnerships) and Capricorn (people in positions of authority and the rules they’ve made to govern our everyday lives, including the rules that govern relationships/partnerships.  So for many people the quest and the question regarding these two is, are we being set free, are we dying, or is it something in between.

Pluto does The Dance of Life And Death – someone or something is born, then it dies, then it’s born again, then it dies again.  Everyone and everything does this.  People are born then we die then we’re born again. Leaves on trees are born then they die then they’re born again in the spring of every year. Animals are born and then they die then they’re born again (as different molecular structures?).  The days of the week, the minutes of each day, stars and whole galaxies are born and then they die, then they born again..  In this very moment, as you read this you are simultaneously living and dying.  The moment we’re born and enter the Earth plane we begin living and dying and we continue to live and die all day long every day until our sojourn on Earth is done.  That’s Pluto.  For us the issue is not fear of Death, the issue is our fear of the feelings associated with Death.  In addition to our fear of Death, Pluto also represents our fear of living!  Of really fully living!  Pluto is those deep feelings and emotions, the very deepest feelings and emotions that humans experience, that’s Pluto.

Saturn is the law-giver, the part of us that is capable of weighing things to create balance. It’s the rule-maker in us all, the human-made rules that govern everything we do, from how we drive cars to how we educate ourselves to how we eat to how we shop to how we participate in relationships and partnerships.  That’s the key for humanity as we move forward – relationships and partnerships.  So this Saturn-Pluto square is powerfully and dramatically impacting the rules that govern our relationships and partnerships,

ALL of our relationships, not just intimate ones.

In this writing, let’s take a closer look at Saturn in Libra as this wide array of rules that, for better or for worse, govern our relationships/partnerships and our lives.  In subsequent articles we’ll zoom in tighter on Pluto’s role, the transformation (death and rebirth) of those Saturnian rules and the dynamic of the square between the two planets, the tension that is forcing us to change and grow – to accept dying, allowing deeply felt transformation to occur, then being reborn in these two arenas.

LIBRA

It’s possible that Libra is the most overlooked, underestimated, undervalued, and devalued of the twelve signs, or archetypes.

Libra (and the seventh house) is more than just “relationship”, it is the human potential and possibility for True and Real Partnership — not just relationship.  The sooner we engage, explore, understand and create true and real partnership, not just any ol’ sloppy relationship, the sooner we succeed in this human experiment.  Let’s read that sentence again for emphasis: The sooner we engage, explore, understand and create True and Real Partnership, not just any ol’ sloppy relationship, the sooner we succeed in this human experiment.    The longer it takes us to do that, the more we risk catastrophic failure.  Libra is a very, very important key; it could be the key to the whole experiment that’s taking place on Earth.  It’s an experiment in achieving balance.

At this stage of our evolution, a True and Real Partnership is a rare experience.  For most of us it might happen only once or twice in our lives, or we might not experience it at all in this lifetime.  True and Real Partnership requires and even insists that the interaction be completely just, utterly fair and balanced, harmonious, equal measures of give-and-take, a fifty-fifty proposition, neither partner dominating the other, neither submissive to the other.  One person is a “part”, and the other person is a “part”, and the two come together as equal “parts”, equal part-ners in a True and Real Partnership.

On the other hand, a relationship can be anything, can fall anywhere on the map at any given moment.  It can be wondrous and exhilarating or it can be treacherous, devastating and completely disastrous or anywhere in between.  It can be all give and no get, all get and no give, all out of balance, and it can shift from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month.  We never know what or where the relationship might be or go.  Yet True and Real Partnership, the true Libra essence, is stable, reliable, knowable, dependable, sustainable.

We’re not very good at True and Real Partnership.  Now, the good news is that we’re not supposed to be, not yet.  We’re in the process of awakening and evolving the Libra part of our Selves so that we come to the realization (soon!) of the power and importance of True and Real Partnership and how to create it.

There are a number of factors that make this process mildly to almost overwhelmingly difficult.  The number one problem is that we live in a culture that actually discourages True and Real Partnership!  What do I mean?

In every culture and society there are laws (Saturn), both written and unwritten, that govern and regulate the way the people live, including the way we participate in and conduct ourselves in relationships.  Those laws/rules either limit or expand our ability to do this.  In the U.S. we’re told that these rules are to be found in the spirit and the letter of documents like The Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Bill of Rights, etc.  For the most part, these documents are expressions of high and worthy ideals (for the most part). However these are not the rules we live by; it might be good if they were, but they’re not.  The fact is most of the 300 million people in America have not read these documents.  Most of us read a paragraph or two in junior high or high school, and that’s it.  Have you read them?  No?  I haven’t either.  Then how could these be the laws we live by if hardly anyone (including many members of the U.S. Congress) even knows what they are.

So then, what rules do we live by?  As I count, I come up with four and they’re gritty, grisly, growly, nasty and death-oriented rules – “the laws of the land”, we call them, not rules on the books – and without us realizing it, they govern both our personal and impersonal lives.  They are as follows:

(1) “Every man for himself!” (women don’t even get a mention)” and,

(2) “It’s a dog-eat-dog world!” (best to devour somebody before somebody devours you) and,

(3) “I got mine, you get yours!” (see what I mean about actually discouraging True and Real Partnership?) and,

(4) “It’s the survival of the fittest!” (if one “makes it”, and the other doesn’t – oh well, that’s not my problem, too bad)

The reality is that this nation is not compelled or propelled by the laws that are in writing.  America slogs along on the backs of  “slogans”, the four slogans listed above are the pistons that pump the engine that runs this nation.  They actually discourage(!) True and Real Partnership, yet they strongly encourage sloppy, shoddy, any ol’ kind of relationship based primarily on what one person stands to gain from, not give to, another.  Saturn says, “C’mon, get real here!  Grow up!”  But Americans have been twisted, and are still being twisted into not wanting to grow up or grow old.  Since its inception this nation has been severely childish, selfish, immature, like selfish little kids who want all the toys for themselves and who don’t care who they hurt in order to have what they want.  This Saturn in Libra transit signals that it’s time to grow up or grow down. We must muster the courage to get real about how we participate in and conduct ourselves in relationships, and in that regard, as the great Bob Dylan said, “It’s easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred.”

Now, obviously not all Americans consciously, deliberately, and intentionally enter into and participate in relationships with the above discouraging slogans and intent in mind.  What happens is that cowboy capitalism (to “capitalize” on the weak places in others, aka raw and rampant greed, competition, covetousness and self-ishness – “I got mine, you get yours”) is an extremely powerful subconscious, undercurrent, involuntary urge and motivation that influences, in varying degrees, almost every relationship in America – business, family, intimate, friends, colleagues, et. al. (again, Libra is all relationships, not just intimate ones).  This childishness is what to change.  Either we grow up or grow down.

A second key factor is this:  Many, if not most people never even think about True and Real Partnership.  For most Americans, we learn to spell the word “partnership” in the elementary school, then we forget about it. It simply vanishes from our consciousness and is not thought of or discussed ever again in our entire lives (I’m speaking generally about the majority of the U.S. population, clearly there are exceptions to this).  When was the last time you heard someone even say the word “partnership” (not to mention True and Real Partnership)?  When was the last time you said or thought about it?  In spelling class in the fifth grade?  We speak of relationships often, you might hear that word several times a month, or more (“I just ended a relationship”, or “I’m in a new relationship”, etc.) but almost never “partnership” or True and Real Partnership.

Living under the influence of these four slogans, blind to the power and importance of True and Real Partnership, we wander around dazed and confused about ourselves and one another, in and out of sloppy, shoddy relationships and we never grow up.  Instead we remain immature, grow old and possibly die with little or no idea of the Libra reality.  This can feel like being hopelessly “stuck”, something we say about ourselves often these days, and this is especially so in relationships. Yet it’s really not stuck, it’s your inner Self being still, not stuck, until we understand exactly where we are, and with that understanding we can discern when and how to move forward.  The notion of being “stuck” is rooted in our propensity to severely judge ourselves as wrong.

So the true essence of Libra is missing from our current version of reality.  We have to recover Libra.  True and Real Partnership.  That’s what this Saturn in Libra cycle is about, and it’s why so many of us are experiencing intense, undeniable difficulties in our relationships, some relationships more than others, yet for the most part all of them are up for serious, brutally honest analysis and examination, and then changes, alterations, modifications, or endings.

As Saturn moves through what astrologer Steven Forrest calls our “inner sky” through Oct. 2012 in Libra, we’re feeling (Pluto) the pressure to awaken to Truth and to Trust Truth.  One Truth is that True and Real Partnerships and true and real partners are an absolutely indispensable key to our sustenance and success as humans, that it is not possible to succeed in our human experiment without this Libra part of ourselves being activated, experienced, understood and integrated into our being, our lives, our world.  Our current plight on Earth provides the clear evidence that this is so, and this Saturn transit is the time to take a hard, brutally honest look at the paradigm of sloppy crazy relationship we’ve created, allow it to die and be reborn as something new and better, as True and Real Partnership between individuals between neighbors, between nation, religious groups, corporations, governments, etc., etc.

Almost every day in every reading I’ve done since this Saturn in Libra and the Saturn-Pluto square have been active, I see people stretched to the breaking point as a result of this tension between the old and new ways of doing relationships.  The traditional way of doing relationships is feeling (Pluto) more and more unhealthy and unfulfilling, and increasingly people either want out or they want to find a new way to stay in the relationship.  The question is this:  Who will breakthrough to new horizons and who will breakdown?  It’s a choice each of us must make for ourselves.  The new way requires a willingness to investigate new rules and generate a major shift in our understanding.  This is a big change, not a small one.

Like it or not, ready or not, this is happening and it’s happening rapidly.  I would say we’re fortunate in that it I’m pretty sure this Universe-Creation-Creator is essentially benevolent and so It is very powerfully supporting each and every one of us who puts forth effort in the direction of experiencing and living Libra in a more evolved way.

As these cornerstones rumble and quake and crumble, our challenge is to shift relationships into the Universal Spirit and the Cosmic Law of Aquarius – “One for All, All for One”, or, True and Real Partnership on every level in every aspect of our human experience here on Earth.  Try saying that softly and slowly – “One for all, all for one”, and notice the difference between that and the four grisly, inhumane, death-oriented slogans mentioned above.  How much sweeter, how much more pleasant and pleasing, comforting and confirming the Aquarian way is of us.  We have to find our way along the path that leads us to “One for all, all for one.”  Cooperation trumps competition.  Collaboration and cooperation in order to create “A New Way of Being on Earth”.

That’s our challenge and Libra is a vital key.  We do have a choice between the old and the new, yet it’s really not much of a choice.  The old way is rapidly dying and I’d say that's good because it’s rooted in death, not Life.  Let’s let go of the old and have the courage to move into new, unexplored territory where we get to build what we choose, not what other choose for us (aka slavery).

Usually Saturn gets a really bad rap because in Saturn cycles we’re asked to grow up, not grow old, but grow up, and we’re in a culture that is allergic to growing up, to maturing, to being wise (evidenced by the billions of dollars spent every year on cosmetic surgery in order to appear young).  Saturn asks us to step up to the next level of maturity (whatever that step is in any given cycle of our lives) and accept the new responsibilities associated with the new level of maturity.  In the case of Saturn transiting through Libra, the challenge is to accept that to a great degree we have been and still are more than a little immature in the way we initiate, engage, behave and participate in relationships.  It’s time to grow up.

Saturn is foundations, skeletons, the bare bones of a structure, as in the bones in our bodies, the structure on which all the rest of the body is built, rests, and depends.  So our charge over the next two and three-quarters years is not to build the entire new paradigm for True and Real Partnership, but rather to lay the foundation, the skeleton, the new rules for the new paradigm.  After that we’ll have about a quarter of a century to add flesh to that foundational structure.  We have time, yet no time to waste.  Time does not wait.  Ready or not this has already begun.
As Martin Luther King said, “Either we live together as brothers (and sisters), or perish together as fools.”

It can be difficult to imagine the degree to which Life on Earth, and especially in America, will transform over the next fourteen years and beyond.  These are times of radical and prolonged change, changes that have their origin in the depths of the Cosmos.  True and Real Partnership is a fundamental key to A New Way of Being on Earth.

We’ve only just begun.  We have until about 2017 to be clear about moving forward into the new, the completely, utterly new.

Muster the courage to be afraid in an aura of Trust.

Thank you.  Bless you.

Expect the Unexpected and Trust Truth!