The Lord of Initiation
The Saturn archetype is associated with the Greek mythic figure of Kronos, the stern father of the Gods, the Roman Saturn. He is a complex image because of the long history of God. In the Greek version of the myth, the Oracle foretold that Saturn would be overthrown by one of his children. He tried to cheat fate by swallowing his children as soon as they were born. Thus, he is an image of the devouring father.
He was also the first God of the Capitol, known since the most ancient times as Saturnius Mons, and was seen as a God of generation, plenty, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. In later myths, he became the God of time. His reign was depicted as the Golden Age of plenty and peace. The Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum housed the state treasury. In December, he was celebrated at what is perhaps the most famous of the Roman festivals, the Saturnalia, a time of feasting, role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry.
Saturn, is the Lord of Karma, and the Teacher. If we have failed to attend to an earlier stage of our psychological development, Saturn will ensure that we have another chance to tackle what needs to be done. He guards the Gates of Initiation putting all who stand before him through the test. We are asked to take a hard look at the inner and outer structures upon which we have created our lives.
- Can they withstand the tests of time?
- Are they still relevant?
- Do they still support our soul-making?
- Or do they keep stuck us in old patterns?
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The Alchemical Saturn – Turning Lead into Gold
The astrological glyph for Saturn is a combination of the image for lead and a scythe. The later reminds us that Saturn is also the God of the harvest. For the alchemist, lead was the “prima materia“, that is, the first matter.
The ancient alchemists sought to turn lead (Saturn) into gold (Sun). It is a very important psychological process that the transits of Saturn demand. Psychologically, lead is chaotic, emotional confusion, our immature selves, and the raw material of our personalities. This part of ourselves is often referred to as the shadow. Saturn has a nasty tendency to surface those parts of ourselves that we would rather not look at. Through the inner work, our task is to turn the raw material of our psyches into the gold of psychological insight and consciousness. Gold is the strongest metal and the stuff of the divine essence in all of us.
The Psychological Saturn
When we are under Saturn’s influence, we must learn discipline and perseverance. While Saturn transits create outer opposition and limitation, they also strengthen, forge, and force us to look at the reality of our inner and outer situations.
It is a time to evaluate what is working and what is not working and to reflect on the way we are playing the game of life. As Saturn rules our psychological structures, we confront ego identifications and attachments from an earlier time that no longer serve our individuation. Saturn transits are often times of letting go of old internal attachments, forms and structures that have fulfilled their purpose.
It is quite possible to experience depression while in a Saturn transit. All the symptoms of depression have some aspect of withdraw – fatigue, lack of appetite, reduction of social interests, and withdraw into solitude. From a Jungian perspective, depression is functional and has a purpose. Experienced consciously, we sit in isolation and ponder deep questions about how we lead our lives. It thus becomes an important exercise in soul-searching, and a re-assessment of priorities, relationships, directions, self-image, spirituality, and values.
From the perspective of the soul, depression is a natural human response to an endless variety of circumstances and states of unresolved suffering. While it can be debilitating, it can also have a creative outcome, and necessary to retrieve needed wisdom and the healing gifts from the unconscious.
The greatest trap that we can fall prey to is the belief that nothing will change. Inner rigidity and futility – also Saturn qualities – can quickly lead to melancholy and depression. We can then lose sight of the overall purpose of the transit.
While Saturn is Retrograde
During Saturn retrograde, the experience of chronos time slows to a snail’s pace. This is certainly my experience whenever Saturn is retrograde. I am usually a person of action but with Saturn retrograde, outer life for me halts and stops DEAD. This was so true for me during this Saturn retrograde. The phrase “two steps forward and one step back” took on deeper significance.
We lose all any sense of momentum and have the feeling of being swallowed up during these times. Saturn is called “the great teacher”. We are asked to learn the lessons of time, patience, responsibility, and that whatever we want in our lives does not always happen as quickly as we would like. Soul never moves as fast as the ego; and like the later image of Saturn as the farmer, we need to gently tend the seeds of inner change by watering and weeding until they are ready to harvest.
From first pass over the initial degree to the final pass, Saturn’s journey mirrors the time that it takes to give birth a child – 9 months or 40 weeks. Erin Sullivan writes: “the seeds sown in the first hit undergo a gestation, maturation and eventual birth at the final passage over that same degree. Saturn delivers what he has entombed. Many stages of development and maturation of the seed idea transpire in the course of the retrograde time, so what actual does develop may not be at all what was projected at the beginning.” (Retrograde Planets p. 341).
August 2015
© Christina Becker
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