Retrograde Wisdom: Waiting is Fullness

 

© 2012 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

 

“Waiting is fullness.” ~ Valentine Michael Smith,

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

No matter how many positive articles I write about Mercury and Mars Retrograde [1], the pair have been murder on me. My Cardinal, hurry-up Mars does not like this waiting around and uncertainty that’s thicker than thieves or thugs blocking the doors. I feel like I’m in an invisible prison. It combines with some other personal chart factors that have me banging on the bars of my poky. I want out!

If you’re a kindred go-getter, you’ll probably be relieved when Mercury goes Direct on April 4 and Mars on April 14. Back to what I said in the Retrograde Rest Stop section of my latest Mercury Retro article, this early year downtime is likely to be the calm before the storm, the rest before the work, the boring days before life becomes the fulfillment of the “Chinese curse,” living in interesting times. I like to think of the times not as a curse but as a double-edged sword, combining challenge and opportunity, a time that promises to keep me on my toes and grow me to my fullest possible height.

When I reacquainted myself with the Heinlein quote from  Stranger in a Strange Land, a cult classic in the ‘60s and ‘70s, my curiosity was piqued by a discussion in one article about the book. It focused on how waiting in fullness is not procrastination. In fact, it’s the antithesis of putting something off. It’s surrendering to the necessary, underlying development of foundations for anything you’re building. You can’t push the flower to grow or the egg to hatch. It seems more obvious when the example is a literal, natural process, but when it comes to the birth of an idea or project, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we can’t see everything yet. Decisions and directions need to be based on sound infrastructure in order to succeed, just as if you were building a highway or bridge.

For now, the work probably isn’t done in the invisible yet for you to move forward on whatever you’ve been contemplating. We’ve only got a bit to go before the pressure of waiting is off. My suggestion? Don’t leap, even then, but initiate the test balloons and preparation for new projects, practices, and important beginnings. Added to the retrograde mix and elongating the process: Saturn, planet of structure and foundations, has been retrograde since early February and does not go direct until June 25, 2012. In the sign of Libra, it has been asking us to take others into consideration. In the three planets retro mix, it may be asking us to wait till everyone’s on the same page before mixing the cement for a new cornerstone.

Why, then, is waiting fullness? Maybe the better analogy is eating, an activity where we know what full feels like. In order for the idea or project to reach its full potential, we have to feed it enough nutrients to build the bones and cartilage on which our skeletal ideas will hang in the world and form enough flesh to be real.

Westerners are not very good at this sort of thing. That’s why my best friend and both rankle when we’ve used the I Ching oracle. Its hexagrams seem more like gobbledygook than wisdom to Marsy people. (She’s an Aries Sun.) The Eastern perspective on life is much more astute about the need for waiting till the time is right and yin and yang are balanced.

The Western Way is the yang, male-energy path—the same one that often ends in destruction, the path from which the adage was spawned, Fools rush in.

Part of what makes waiting in fullness even more ironic is that Valentine Michael Smith, the guru character in Heinlein’s novel, is a Martian—literally a Man from Mars. I don’t know what, if anything, Heinlein knew about astrology, but juxtaposition is a great teacher. Another thought: In its day, Heinlein’s novel was futuristic. In 1961 when it was first released, people often thought of extraterrestrials as coming from Mars. It was our concept of far out, of strange and exotic, maybe even of the limits of the universe. Those limits have expanded as astronomical discoveries have increased exponentially in recent years.

So now, as we broach the finish of the first pair of the retrograde trio’s backward motion this year, focus especially Mars, your can-do planet. Visit the limits of what your Mars moving backwards and inching toward a halt can teach you, before you move forward in mid-April on your next courses of action. Make them appetizers until Saturn can support your fuller meal of new efforts in early summer.

If waiting is fullness, there’s a feast in store for us by mid-year. The hunger for action may be just the appetite we need to whip up for the bounty of juicy, summer fruits that really give us something to sink our teeth into.

~~~

NOTE

[1] Previous articles on Mercury Retrograde: A Blessing for Mercury Retrograde, 10 Ways to Celebrate Mercury Retrograde, and Down with Mercury Wrecko! Up with Mercury Respecto! On Mars: 10 Ways to Celebrate Mars Retrograde.

Photo Credit: © GoodMood Photo - Fotolia.com

More Saturn in Libra Exercises to Understand Your Relationships

Part 2 of 2

©2010 by Joyce Mason

In the previous article, Saturn in Libra: “Form” Your Love Life, Chart Your Relationship History, we began creating a timeline of past relationships. My inspiration was an exercise on charting times of personal transformation, based on the book, Living Deeply by Marilyn Mandala Schlitz et al. One of the exercises the authors invite readers to do: make a chart of your life in seven-year cycles. Of course, that’s the Saturn cycle with its seven-year increments!

The idea behind this worthwhile effort is to observe the way your current relationship issues mirror those of seven years ago and often, other previous cycles of seven, even back to your earliest pre-teen or teen relationships. Sometimes the same themes repeat throughout the seven-year cycles and offer us new opportunities, on each occasion, to greet and resolve them with more maturity.

Why? Every seven years, Saturn is making a major aspect to its natal position. Your planets linked to Saturn by natal aspect are getting an extra boost of Saturn’s influence. You can almost think of it as a double dose—Saturn by birth and temporarily, by transit. Since Saturn is both the planet of commitment and long-lived fears and resistance, most of us can benefit by looking at where we live on the fear-to-commitment continuum. The book I’m reading by popular author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) is a great example of the author’s struggle on that continuum. You can tell by the title, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage.

I have done several such exercises, creating timelines about various facets of my life and/or astrological influences. For example, since Chiron is my astrological specialty, I took the dates of my key Chiron cycles and wrote the major points of what happened during each of Chiron’s transits to itself. By the way, Chiron a lot trickier and less straightforward than working with Saturn because of Chiron’s wildly erratic orbit. For example, an individual’s first square of Chiron to itself can happen anytime between ages 5.5 and 23! It’s not neatly predictable like the seven-year Saturn pattern that’s virtually the same for everyone. To find your key Chiron transit dates, you’d need help from astrology software and/or an astrologer, if you aren’t one yourself. (Read Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets by Barbara Hand Clow for an introduction to charting your Chiron cycles.) Since Chiron is the bridge between Saturn and the outer planets, let’s go back over the bridge, back to Saturn, especially now that I’ve explained why this Saturn cycle exercise is going to be a piece of cake by comparison!

Saturn and Form

This relationship cycles exercise takes advantage of Saturn’s affinity for form. (Here’s a literal Word form you can use to do the exercise.) It’s a disciplined, structured, practical, organized approach—very Saturnian--to making sense out of your life’s drama to date when it comes to love. What can you hope to gain from it?

Those relationship patterns are likely to jump off the paper and invite you to take a grounded inventory of whether you’ve been living a soap opera, a heavy drama, a romantic comedy, or something in-between. The idea is to get out of yourself and to become an objective observer of your own life patterns when it comes to love.

The hope? To glean the best intelligence about how you’ve done relationship up to now, and if you don’t like this movie, apply some positive Saturn characteristics to change the picture: wisdom, realism, grounding, work, and discipline.

Bonus Exercise

Back to astrology: Now that you’ve done the Libra half in Part 1 of these two posts—examined the content of your relationship history—you’ve already done a bonus exercise that you can focus on next. Since you’ve recorded your relationship history in seven-year Saturn Cycles, you can see how Saturn affects your love life. At the end of every 7 years, you have gone through a quarter of the full 28-year cycle of square, opposition, square and conjunction to your natal Saturn.

The first return to your natal position, commonly known as the Saturn Return, happens at age 28-30. For the fun of it, you can write on the upper right of each page the where you are at in the Saturn cycle at the end of each age range, e.g. 0-7 (square), 8-14 (opposition), 15-21 (square), 22-28 (conjunction/return), and so on to your current-age page. (Don’t worry if your Saturn Return happens at 29 or 30, since there are slight variations in the cycle. For the sake of simplicity, just put it on the page that ends with 28. If you don’t see anything significant that happened in relationship for you that year, your next page will show them at 29 or 30—and you are now signaled on the previous page to look for them there!)

Of course, you could use any issue in the body of this format. Erase “Relationship History” and do another one for Job History to learn how Saturn has affected your career. But since Saturn’s in Libra, now’s the time to focus on your love life—and whether you want to restructure anything in this area of life that doesn’t work.

Some people may not need this adventure in introspection, but if you’re struggling with why your relationships haven’t worked in the past or are still longing for the right one, I think you’ll find this method to be eye-opening, mind- and heart-changing.

For those that make this journey of putting love into form, I would love to hear about your experiences in the Comments.

~~~

Note: This article is featured in Saturn in Libra and Relationships, published on Sasstrology as Part of the 2010 International Astrology Day Blogathon. The purpose of this web-based event is to create a permanent library of articles about how to deal with the stresses of the Cardinal T-Square of Pluto, Saturn and Uranus. The main page for the Blogathon collections is at The Cardinal T-Square of 2010: Saturn, Uranus, Pluto.

Saturn in Libra: "Form" Your Love Life, Chart Your Relationship History

Part 1 of 2

© 2010 by Joyce Mason

“Mature” relationship, by the very use of the adjective mature involves making peace with Saturn. There is a good reason why Saturn is exalted—best placed—in the sign of Libra. We all want relationships that endure, relationships that are “there for us.” We want love that’s steady and reliable, a love that creates just enough boundaries so we can feel safe to be ourselves, even when we push the envelope. (If we can’t push the envelope in a relationship, we can’t grow and the partnership withers.)

Regardless of where Saturn is placed in our natal charts, while it’s passing through the sign of Libra, Saturn’s relationship to relationship is highlighted for our common consideration.

I admire Donna Cunningham for stating publicly an opinion I share with her in a post on her outstanding blog, SkyWriter. Success in relationship has much more to do with personal history than the contents of our astrological make-up bag. This doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our natal charts and transits, but I think it means we have to look, first, at our own life stories. Our history tells us how we have played the astrological energies to date, whether we were conscious of them or not. (I was not conscious of mine before my first astrology class.) The way we explore our love history is by keeping an ongoing journal or creating a relationship timeline.

Of course, if you haven’t kept a journal your entire life, you don’t have your relationship history recorded. That is the case for most people. Even if you did, how would you ever mine anything out of all that scribbling? This calls for a different kind of exercise.


The Relationship Timeline

Recently, I joined a study group based on the book, Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life (Schlitz, Vieten, and Amorok). I can’t recommend this book enough for all spiritual travelers. One of the exercises the authors invite readers to do: make a chart of your life in seven-year cycles (Saturn cycles!). On the chart, you note when you had major changes of consciousness. They could be a tragic, joyful, or inspiring life events that led you to see your part in the cosmic whole or anything that seriously altered your worldview. I did it. What a revelation.

You could do the same thing with your relationship history. Make three columns, one skinny one for Dates and two wider ones for Relationship Events and Feelings About Events. (See Illustration. Here’s a link to download a blank Relationship History Form.)

Your first page is age 0-7 with the year below your age to help jog your memory. Second page is age 8-14, and so on. (Warning: The exercise takes longer the longer you’ve lived, but it's worth every minute of your time.) Quietly contemplate what was going on with you in relationships on each of those pages and time spans. Something wonderful about the memory. It will retain what’s important. I call that appearing in yellow highlighter in your mind. You don’t need to remember an event every year. What’s important will bubble up. Write it down.

While "romantic" relationships are the focus, don't limit yourself to them on the form. Especially in early life, your relationship to your parents and siblings impact the quality of subsequent ties. Include major ups-and-downs with family.

Once you’ve filled in the form (it’ll take an hour or two, depending on your age), scan the pages for patterns. What jumps out at you about your relationships? What were the key experiences and the feelings that went with them? Did you have similar reactions to like events?

How did you get into relationships? How did you get out of them? Was it graceful or always devastating? Do you recall the context?

For example, by doing a lot of memoir writing myself, I began to understand that I got into relationships that were wrong for me at my most vulnerable points of personal transition. A big one was between high school and college, my first “coming of age” step away from the parental nest and mom’s apron strings. That’s when I met a young man who had such an impact on me; it took me decades to get over him.

Another transition was when I moved to California—alone. For the first time, I stood wobbly on my own two feet. In this new place so far from home and roots, I had to create my own life. That’s when I met and married my first husband, an adventure in learning I’m grateful to have behind me, even while appreciating its gifts. I’m not sure I would have entered either of these relationships if I hadn’t encountered these men when I was exceptionally vulnerable and felt there wasn’t much Saturn stability in sight.

That’s when I tended—and am sure a lot of other people do, too—to grab the first person to hold onto without doing a thorough background check. I’ve since realized I do the same thing in friendships, another kind of relationship.

~~~

Next: More Saturn in Libra Exercises to Understand your Relationships (Part 2 of 2)

For more tips on relationship and how to manifest it, including flower essences that can help the process, read Finding Love in Later Life—Spirited Edition.

This article is featured in Saturn in Libra and Relationships, published on Sasstrology as Part of the 2010 International Astrology Day Blogathon. The purpose of this web-based event is to create a permanent library of articles about how to deal with the stresses of the Cardinal T-Square of Pluto, Saturn and Uranus. The main page for the Blogathon collections is at The Cardinal T-Square of 2010: Saturn, Uranus, Pluto.

Tools for Saturn in Libra

© 2009 by Joyce Mason

Oct. 29, 2009 - April 7, 2010 
July 21, 2010 – Oct. 5, 2012

Astrologers consider Saturn to be exalted or best placed in Libra. When you see Saturn coming, if you cross your index fingers and hold them out in front of you as if to ward off a vampire, this article is your chance to put away the garlic, reconsider and discover some ways to make the best of Saturn’s upcoming transit through in Libra. Libra is the sign of relationships, legalities, politics, artistic refinement, “niceness,” and peace and harmony. Besides structure, discipline and testing, Saturn also brings wisdom, practicality, and order to these areas of life. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little tidying up, especially in my government and legal system. Relationships always need tinkering and tune-up. Later in this article, I’ll suggest some tools.

Who Is Most Affected

If you have planets in Libra or the other Cardinal signs in your chart (Capricorn, Aries, Cancer), you are likely to feel the Saturn in Libra cycle the most. During this time span, Saturn will form a conjunction with planets in Libra, square Capricorn and Cancer planets, and oppose those in Aries. Traditionally, these aspects can be considered “stressful.” I’d like to say that in a different way. Saturn will be nudging you to change, to break patterns that don’t work, and to establish new ones that do. Whether or not this is stressful is directly related to whether you resist your personal growth curriculum, as hinted in the sky, or if you decide to go with the flow.

My Perspective

In the High Signs series, I advocate living on the upside of the astrological signs. We can aim for the same goal with any planetary energy. Granted, getting the goodies out of every planet’s mixed bag is likely to be an evolutionary process.

You don’t just wake up one day, kiss Pluto on the lips, and expect that the enchantment will be mutual and that from now on; all your Pluto transits will be a steamy love affair. Or hug Saturn and do everything a good little boy or girl should and expect that you’ll now have the ultimate Good Cosmic Daddy each time he rounds a connection with your personal planets.

The gods must be honored, and transits are the figurative gods of change. They reflect the various aspects of the One Spirit in which we’re all joined as souls on a human journey. We need to do our inner growth homework in order, ultimately, to live on the high side of any planet’s influence. Any transit is easier once we learn to get with the program of that planetary influence and its mission to catalyze growth.

Transits happen. Our choice is to cooperate and make it easy or resist and make it hard. Transits from certain planets might not always be pleasant experiences, but when we respect them as teachers and trust the process they present, any planet’s transit ultimately is positive. It just takes the eyes to see—sometimes the eyes to see ahead to where you’re going rather than just looking at what you’re dealing with now. With time and cooperation, transits just get easier and the results better as you grow in the direction the sky is pointing you in.

Capricorn Credentials and Game Plan

I have a good relationship with Saturn. Saturn rules my Capricorn Moon, and I realized somewhere along the way that my emotional life would be miserable if I didn’t start appreciating Saturn’s positive contribution. My poor Moon is besieged with squares to the Sun, Venus and Neptune—aspects I had to learn to revision and appreciate as constant invitations to morph toward a new and more whole version of myself. The Neptune influence, in particular, makes me so sensitive; I feel that if my Moon weren’t Saturn-ruled in the solid sign of Capricorn to compensate, I’d probably have no emotional control whatsoever. I’d be out emoting on street corners and making a fool of myself.

With that personal example in mind of coming to terms with Saturn’s energy, read on thinking about how you’ll make the most of Saturn’s trip through Libra. We’ll explore some major areas of life Saturn will influence while it’s in The Scales and how you can help “massage” how these transits will influence you by using tools such as affirmations, meditation, journaling, and flower essences.

Tools of the Transit Trade

Affirmations. If you really want to reset your thinking about a planet’s influence and help it to be the most positive, given your need also to learn from it, affirmations are the way to go. Find your favorite list of Saturn key words and form affirmations based on them. Focus on those issues with Saturn that are most personal to you. Here’s an example of some I use:

Affirmations for Saturn Cycles

My urge to build is backed by Divine Resources.

I set limits and boundaries with others and myself in ways that are appropriate for me.

I like being responsible and mature: I am my own authority.

A caution on using affirmations: Most people do not use them in the most effective way. Affirmations were originally designed to include a step for acknowledging and releasing negative internal dialogue. Without this step, it’s like sweeping dirt under the rug. It’s hard to “set” the new intention for that big lump of old garbage that has not been taken out. For details on how to make your affirmations virtually foolproof, read my article, Affirmations: Part 2, Column 2.

Meditations. Add structure to your meditation whether using a guided meditation tape or Buddhist mala beads to count a simple mantra, or any type of meditation system with a format, such as Centering Prayer, a Christian contemplative type. New or just returning to meditation? I suggest starting with an article on types of meditation, discovering the category that you feel fits you best. Then search online further with that category and meditation, such as “mindfulness meditation.”

• Create your own structure by putting together a list of positive Saturnian characteristics you’d like to develop. Use them as mantras. (Stick with 3-5 to keep a simple focus.) Alternatively, you can envision yourself in your daily life operating as if you already have these qualities. This can be the opening visualization and bridge to your meditation. Examples: wise, realistic, grounded, responsible, disciplined.

• Listen to Saturn themed music when you meditate. Examples: Echoes from Saturn by Michelle Costa, Saturn Returns by Alex Theory, or the Saturn track from Holst’s The Planets. (Visit Amazon and search for Saturn under Music for more options.) What does this music evoke in you? Journal your thoughts and feelings afterwards. Within these observations lies guidance for the restructuring Saturn is asking of you now. That brings me to the next suggestion …

Journaling.  Keeping a journal is an invaluable guidebook to your own life. (Check out my article, Journals: The Sort-It Detail.) When Saturn touches our horoscopes by making a significant aspect, order is one of the hallmarks of this particular growth nudge. I like to think of Saturn as the force that helps me get my act together. Journaling indeed helps you with those sort-it details.

Flower Essences.  If you aren’t already familiar with these small-but-mighty tools for transformation, there’s no time like a Saturn cycle for an introduction! My article, FLOWER ESSENCES: Emotional First Aid, Boomer-Plus Edition  may be geared toward those born between 1946-64, but since Saturn is connected with aging, saging, and maturing, this perspective works great for anyone who wants to derive wisdom from their Saturn cycles.

If looking at flower essences by planetary influences, it is as important to consider the planet transiting Saturn is aspecting. That means there are many possible choices of flower essences. Here are some specific essences and/or articles to consider during Saturn cycles:

• Plants and Planets Formulas by Desert Alchemy give you the opportunity to take its Saturn Cycles blend with the formula for any other planet in aspect to Saturn by transit: Sun, Venus, Mars, for example.

• This article also contains tips for Saturn’s aspects to specific planets: Mallow and Other Remedies for Keeping Mellow Under Saturn Cycles by Kathleen Douglas.

• Sage by FES Quintessentials may be the most generic “positive Saturn” essence anyone can take during these cycles. Wisdom is the ultimate Saturn characteristic. This remedy helps us discover the inner wisdom within our life experiences. It helps us find inner contentment and life’s meaning. Who wouldn’t want a dose of that good medicine?

“Out in the World”

Whether or not Saturn is lighting up your chart in particular by its transit through Libra, it will be doing its work in the world in general. Here are some areas of influence with the kinds of changes we can anticipate:

Relationships. Relationships tend to solidify with Saturn. No long-term relationship is likely to survive without a strong Saturn link in the synastry between two people. With that in mind, Saturn in Libra tends to make people want to put their relationships into more solid form, to make commitments. At the very least, they will want to define relationships—or redefine them. Partnerships that don’t have Libra’s loving kindness or fair balance are likely to hit the rocks. They will either perish or restore themselves through the hard work of picking up the pieces to rebuild on a firmer foundation. Commitment and cooperation of both parties will be mandatory, as they are the sole reconstruction crew—add a counselor, if they use one (and it’s a good time to do so). These comments apply to all kinds of partnerships, whether business, personal, or organizational. There may also be lessons to learn and past patterns to right--the consequences of being too nice or indecisive at the expense of the quality of the partnership. In this case, a stance of “no more Mr. or Ms. Nice Guy” will benefit the relationship by pointing to the nitty-gritty issues that need to be resolved to make it work.

Aesthetics and Art. Saturn in Libra brings the desire to organize and bring order and beauty out of chaos. If you’re artistically inclined in any way, this is a great time to put your concepts into form, especially if you have planets in Libra in your chart. If you are a busy modern person whose personal space has suffered from collected “junk” for lack of time to attend to regular pick-up, Saturn will urge you to get things in order and give you an injection of Taskmaster to get it done. It’s not like a Virgo housework tizzy; it’s about creating the safe and orderly space where your creativity can cut loose. This is applicable to personal space in the most literal sense (scungy garage, yard that looks like a natural disaster struck, home office in shambles) to your inner space (a desire to clean negativity out of your energy field and invite in higher thoughts and interactions). You may find yourself wanting to redecorate and hang more pictures that reflect an oasis of beauty and inspiration in your home or office.

Legalities. Since it’s so topical to Libra, I expect there will be changes in same-sex marriage laws that reflect a fairer solution for all concerned that are motivated from upholding civil rights not religious opinion. In general, I expect clearer delineation of what the separation of church and state really means, and where it needs to evolve to support people in the 21st Century.

This goes for balancing other aspects of the relationship between the government and its citizens, such as the health care debate. (Libra loves debate! With their ability to see both sides of an issue, they can even have great arguments when talking to themselves.) While health care is a very Virgoan subject—the sign Saturn has just transited, reflecting why the issue has been stirred up of late—the crux of the matter is fairness and the intrinsic value of human life and a country’s citizens. Affordable health care is an inalienable right. I watched my sister die because of decisions she made (actually didn’t make) based on her lack of health care insurance. An estimated 22,000 Americans die annually for the same reason. [1] This is unconscionable in a supposedly progressive nation. This aspect of “government for the people and by the people” needs fixing, if we’re to hold our heads up as a “humanitarian” nation, first to our own citizens.

I expect that whatever the outcomes, we will begin to remember during the next two years that Lady Justice wears a blindfold and the Scales are balanced impartially.

Politics. In case we haven’t seen enough political scandals yet involving “unsanctioned relationships,” we may see even more, but ultimately, during this cycle, I suspect we’ll balance the way we view this “dirty laundry.” Many people around the world think Americans are completely out of touch with reality to place so much emphasis on the personal lives of politicians. It’s tragic to think of how many careers have been ruined or seriously tarnished by marital infidelity or other sexcapades among fully functioning leaders who are often, otherwise, out there “doing good.” Will we use Saturn’s maturity to separate a politician’s public and private life? Or become even tougher on offenders, insisting that private/public life be joined in holy deadlock? Perhaps we will get out of other people’s bedrooms and tend more to our own. After all, they say politics makes strange bedfellows.

Peace and Harmony. As of this writing, headlines read “Obama Peace Bid Flounders,” referring to attempts at Middle East peace negotiations. The U.S. President’s win in wartime of a Nobel Peace Prize was ironic on the cusp of Saturn in Libra. As pointed out in the New York Times editorial, The Peace Prize, U.S. President Obama has yet to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s a long way off from an orderly withdrawal from the Iraq, and has not yet set a strategy for Afghanistan. Still, he has denounced torture and made a good start on climate change. Less than a year in office, his commitment to make change is being noticed and encouraged—at least by the Nobel Peace Prize committee. While President Obama himself felt he did not deserve the prize, it sets a high bar for achievement in an administration that has already taken on change head-on.

There is an additional factor that comes into play. In the U.S. birth chart, Saturn is at 14 Libra. The country is coming up on a Saturn Return. [2] Saturn returns, retrogrades, and then returns again to its own place in the U.S. chart from December 2010 until August 2011. When individuals experience a Saturn Return, it is a time of forming new structures and commitments. Same with countries. In fact, when a young man or woman reaches his or her first Saturn Return at age 30, we often think of it as a time for “settling down.”

It will be fascinating to observe how things “settle down” in the area of war and peace. At least as far as President Obama is concerned, he has already gotten a large vote, if not nudge, of confidence in the Nobel Peace prize.

We can only hope that the outcome proves, once again, that Saturn is exalted—at its best—in Libra.
~~~

Photo credit: ABSTRACT SATURN | © Soldeandal... Dreamstime.com

NOTES

[1] National Coalition on Health Care

[2] There is much debate and variance among astrologers on the chart of the USA. I use the Sibley chart (named after the man who first proposed it, Ebenezer Sibley, 1751-1789). Data: 4-Jul-1776 at 5:10 pm, Philadelphia, PA.