I am not an astrologer..
but Ray Grasse is. In his article -Saturn, The Late Bloomer, he uses the tortoise and the hare fable to highlight the slow moving sense of Saturn. I like the simmering of pot image, and the alchemical process for my metaphor of choice. It is an arduous task to simmer and stir the alchemical cauldron. And it takes a long time to get to the gold.
Saturn, though a planet, is also a symbol for lead, the dense heavy metal. And lead, in alchemical texts, is the base metal to be transmuted by various operations, into the proverbial gold. Grasse says in his article“We tend to think of planetary principles in terms of static meanings, but it's good to remember that they also manifest through a complex set of developmental dynamics over time.”He goes on to let us know that the full effects of our work with Saturn, the lead, or the prima materia, unfold slowly. Grasse believes that this Saturn dynamic is key not only to grasping the role of Saturn, but the key to
“unlocking the entire horoscope itself. Why? In a way, it goes back to some of the very things we normally dislike about this planet: hard work, struggle, recurring obstacles..”
Alchemists will sometimes call this ‘The Great Work’.
Other astrologers have referred to Saturn as the “Guardian of the Threshold”. I read the Carlos Castaneda book series - The Teachings of Don Juan, when I was in my 20’s, and before my Saturn Return. I always remember his writings when Guardian of the Threshold comes up. I really do like this concept in relation to Saturn too. The idea of Saturn as the last planet we see at the gateway before accessing the mighty outer planets.
In -Esoteric Astrology Torgny Jansson writes of Saturn in a similar way. In the final paragraph of the discussion on the planetary effects of Saturn Jansson writes,
“Saturn builds a bridge to the soul (symbolized by the rings of the planet) an essential tool without which it would be impossible for Uranus and Neptune, vibrating at much higher frequencies, to manifest themselves in their more exalted aspects”.
Saturn is a gateway to higher worlds. The threshold of the below to the above.
Rudolf Steiner talks about both Saturn and The Guardians Of The Threshold
in several of his lectures. In -Initiation And It’s Results he outlines this meeting with the Guardian(s), helping us to grasp what this signifies. Steiner portrays the Guardian confronting us with the knowledge of how we have gotten by up to this point. We become aware that while on this path we have been guarded and watched over by powers which were invisible to us. These have been the limitations of Saturn, the aperture of our lens condensed and contracted to keep our focus on the work at hand, and bound by the law of Karma. But then the Guardian reveals to us that now,
“Now they shall free you from a part of their constraint, and a portion of that which they have accomplished for you must you now accomplish for yourself”.
This is how we understand that Saturn represents both limitation and liberation, free choice. If we have shown that we can drive the car safely, then we are handed the KEY to drive on.
But this Threshold where we must pass from limitation to liberation is FEAR, mixed with Wow! Remember the first time you drove a car alone- no guardian.
We could also think of it as the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter throwing rocks at us. We’re dodging and ducking the slings and arrows of Hamlet’s struggle, or maneuvering like Link in a Zelda Nintendo game, depending on your age. But no matter the age, the meaning of the threshold will make itself known- as
the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested:
nothing happens until the signal passes the threshold -
-Marvelous words right out of the dictionary…
Is it To Be or Not To Be ? Did we resolve our karma? Do the work… get the lead out?
In the Castaneda books the Guardian is frightful, scary, powerful . In real life its probably that fight or flight, or frozen catatonic moment when everything changes, and we must decide ...will we change. I had a phase of putting magnets on my car, the square flat magnet with a quote written on it. For several months I had one that said -Do The Thing You Think You Can Not Do-
Steiner unfolds Saturn's connection to karma discussing the
“all pervading consciousness of the past, and more or less unconsciousness of the immediate present.”
Saturn is characterised as a vibration of the cosmic memory, and the element of retrospection is always strongly at work. It is always a disservice and an inaccuracy to summarize Steiner into a byte of earthly information, because he is walking us through all the dimensions of who we are / and were. But to put forth a glimmer of concept I offer this excerpt from his Karmic Relations lecture given on June 10 1924.
“The intense concentration upon the past is transformed into a resolute striving for ideals which lead forward, towards the future. Human beings who bring down their karma from the Saturn sphere are fired with enthusiasm for the future, for ideals which point to the future, precisely because in a purely spiritual life in the Saturn sphere their gaze was directed paramountly to the past".
Here is where we can walk back to that simmering cauldron,
that pot of lead we started simmering several minutes ago.
If we return to Ray Grasse now after dabbling in Steiner, and conversing with Hamlet we can see the thread, it could even be Ariadne’s thread. Grasse says in his final remarks
"all Saturn-related energies in the horoscope tend to have a late-blooming quality to them, unfolding far more slowly over time".
This thread of karma is the needle work of Saturn. And while we are stitching away on our life we can’t really see the design of our Saturn work. It’s not until we have felt the poke of the needle off and on for a long while. Steiner says
"even with the insight of initiation one must have passed the sixty-third year and be able to look back ....before it is possible to acquire independent vision of all the connection".
This alchemical cauldron of simmering lead can carry us across the bridge from Saturn to Uranus and unexpectedly turn into the pot of gold, at the end of the rainbow bridge, where the goblins and guardians and flying monkeys reveal our evolution. The rainbow bridge is the antahkarana, a Sanskrit term. In Eastern philosophy it is the name given to the bridge that connects the lower mind with the higher mind (mind of the soul). Again, the below and the above. Even in Eastern wisdom we are shown that the bridge does not exist naturally but must be built over time, through spiritual disciplines, or astro - translation, Saturn discipline. Through practice, struggle, facing our fears and crossing the threshold, we evolve.
Mirror that - evol ve / ev love
eV love. eV = a unit of energy equal to the work done on an electron in accelerating it through a potential difference of one volt.
And I LOVE that.
Do The Work-With Love
Saturn, The Late Bloomer. Ray Grasse.
Initiation And It’s Results Karmic Relations Rudolf Steiner
To Be or Not To Be Hamlet
Books by Carlos Castaneda
