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Mythic Prelude
Saturn and Chiron
While the main astral dynamic of the year continues to beckon
us, now from only two months out, and the year unfolds
as prelude to the Star of David alignment coming
on Nov. 8, the next two months have a pivotal role
to play in purifying and preparing body and soul
for the time of awakening that has already begun.
The time from now until Nov. 8 is ruled by
the subtle but powerful opposition between Chiron
in Capricorn and Saturn in Cancer. As these slow-moving
"outer" planets have orbital periods of
50 and 29 Earth years, respectively, they tend to
remain in relation to each other for months when
an angle of relationship comes. This time the angle
is the most energetic one:
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180°, a position of creative
tension between Saturn, the teacher
of esoteric wisdom (right), and the
wounded healer Chiron, also a major
teaching figure, shown here with the
boy Achilles. With these two planets
highly charged by each other in the
mirror of opposition, some kind of education
will be underway now. The question is
-- who will teach what to whom?
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Before we look at the mythic game between
Saturn and Chiron, which reaches its peak of power
in late September just after the Libra New Moon
on Sept. 25 - 26, we visit briefly a few power points
that enhance and build up to the end of the month.
9/10: Full Moon in Pisces opposite Sun-Mercury
conjunct in Virgo. Pluto in Sagittarius forms the
middle leg of a T-Square between Sun-Mercury and
Moon. This will be, among other things, a moment
when couples, friends and others in close and emotionally
deep relationships will face and work out their
power issues. Head vs. heart struggles are intense
now.
9/15: Venus exits Virgo, where she has been
"in fall" since August 22, and enters
Libra, one of the signs of her rulership. The Venus
role that applies here, and rules much of the festivity
at the Autumn Equinox, is that of the autumnal mother
who has borne her children, and thus now passes
the lifebearer role to the young Virgin, while the
mature Venus as Mother teaches her children the
arts of preserving and beautifying life. The
lessons in this cycle -- which greatly favors creators
and admirers of beauty -- continue through Oct.
10.
9/19 - 20: Mercury "goes direct,"
reversing his retrograde (apparent backward) motion
of the last 3 weeks and moving "forward"
again on the zodiac wheel. The 17 days between Sept.
20 and Oct. 7 are favorable for mental and organizational
work, communications and reports. It is likely that
September and October will be months when many who
have worked long and patiently toward creative and
spiritual goals will break through into new progress
and success, and they will see overt signs of more
new happy outcomes on the way. Look for the Autumn
Equinox weekend of Sept. 19 - 21 to be the gate
of good news about changes in livelihood, residence,
relationship. The changes accelerate now, as more
and more human beings awaken, and put into effect
some radical revisions to what had formerly been
spiritual sleep patterns, luxuries of unawareness
that now fade like smoke.
9/25 - 26. The Main Event. The New Moon conjoins
the Sun in Libra just as Saturn and Chiron oppose
each other most strongly. The purification begins
toward the time of spiritual awakening, and energy
renewal, that is coming later in the year on Nov.
8.
The mythic identities of Saturn and Chiron
offer some clues to how this time of preparation
and cleansing had best be played. While Saturn is
well known to all students of astrology, the mysterious
figure of Chiron grows more fascinating and influential
at this time of surging interest in natural and
alternative modes of healing.
Chiron is actually the son of Kronos/Saturn,
so that their opposition from now into December
is literally a confrontation between father and
son. Chiron's future mother Philyra, who was exhausted
by a shape-shifting struggle with Saturn and birthed
a god boy who was half-human and half horse, was
repelled by her son's centaur-like appearance,
and rejected him, dealing him the first of the deep
heart wounds that would manifest later as the central
wound of separation. Chiron is thus a Man of Sorrows
figure, spurned by humans and centaurs alike.
The pain of his loneliness seems to have yielded
some pearls of creative art. Chiron is said to have
been the one who discerned and named the constellations
of the sky, who invented the art of playing music
through wood pipes -- and is thus the spiritual
father of all flute, pipe and didjeridoo players
-- and who discovered the medicinal properties of
herbs. Chiron was also so gifted in prophecy that
he was often compared to Apollo himself.
He is known to have been the teacher of many
of the greatest heroes of the Greek heroic age:
Jason, Meleager, Asklepius, Aeneas and Heracles,
among others, and also Peleus the father of Achilles,
and the boy Achilles himself, with whom Chiron is
most often shown, as above and also here, trying
in vain to get the young warlover-to-be interested
in making music on a lyre.
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The student's face, as usual,
says it all: I am not here to learn
singing and dancing. When are we going
to get to the sword? The urgency of
Achilles, his petty jealousy and self-indulgent
rages are central to the Chiron aspect
now in effect, as we are now certainly
in a phase of planetary decision. Will
we proceed as Chiron does, in love and
service and with a desire to heal and
to create beauty? Or will we act like
Achilles, and spoil for a fight, as
long as we don't have to stay inactive
and bear the agony of silence and the
ordeal of peace? One root theme of this
time is true warriorship, and the question
of whether it is reflected in service,
protection and mercy, or in hate and
killing.
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The relationship of Chiron and Achilles is
a universal mentor-warrior bond, and this is why
it is depicted so much in classical and neoclassical
art. The tension is always palpable between the
man of action, the warrior who wants action soon
and revenge now, and the man of thought, the counselor
who urges restraint and slow moves because he is
always conscious of the wider sphere of suffering,
human, animal and vegetable, that encloses the event.
This is to say that Chiron has developed compassion,
while Achilles, or any other Mars figure, has not,
so that the warrior's main challenge is to evolve
beyond stupid and reactive violence into intelligent
service, protectiveness, courage and mercy. Everbody
else's main challenge is to love the warrior while
he goes through this evolution.
For awakened people, the most loving and useful
way to play the Saturn-Chiron opposition is to exploit
it as an opportunity to open the heart in preparation
for the major awakening point coming on Nov. 8.
More on this next month. It is time to stop war
by loving the warriors in whatever ways are kind
and fun. Two more radical ideas now apply:
The opposite of war is not peace. Peace is
a temporary condition of boring uneventfulness,
which is why human beings cannot bear it for very
long. What if the opposite of peace were something
much more exciting, especially love? What if the
opposite of war is love?
If it is, then it follows that those who respond
to war and war makers with hate and accusation and
rage are doing more to keep war on the stove than
they are to dissolve the need to cook war at all.
The loudest war-haters are now part of the problem,
where coalescing in intentions of love is concerned.
We may have to retire the signs that say, Down With
Him and No More That, and learn songs and slogans
of love that will be more beautiful and compelling,
and serve to charm and lift us all into the next
level of awakening.
Love Them All. Keep Holding That Frequency.
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