Cosmic Weather Report Report
Beyond Right and Wrong
April 2012, Putney Vermont
At the exact mid-point of this month on April 15 The Sun opposes Saturn. Saturn stands for what was. The Sun shines for what will be. This is the critical polarity between all that has been and all that wants to be. When two such strong Planets stand opposite each other an intense beam of energy streams between them, pulling back and forth like a tug of war. Your visions of what can be and your recollections of what always has been tug back and forth between outrageously hopeful views of the bright future and saturated memories of the dark past. Concepts of right and wrong become supercharged, intensifying outbreaks of political repression and social upheaval. In your personal life the two poles of discipline and release, inflation and constraint, come strongly into play.
A famous Rumi poem states: "Out beyond right and wrong there is a field - I will meet you there." This suggests that as long as we're caught in aggravated dualities, as long as we replay the same old karmic dramas of this-against-that, we can't ever really meet each other; we only meet our own projections of disowned shadow. Once we demonize some other group and make them wrong, we fail to connect anymore as living beings. Our ideas go out and connect with something we darkly imagine the Other to be. If we wish to engage the truth of anyone else we have to get beyond the killing dualities and polarizations of the past.
This depolarization of our own consciousness, though, can't come at the expense of your own truth. Sometimes it is more genuine for you to say no to the need to meet another person, than to say yes, if yes means compromising your own truth. It is better to let some relationships fall out of your life than to keep them going, if keeping them means betraying your heart's need to stand its own ground. During a Sun-opposing-Saturn time this matter of self-boundaries and self-transcendence is often at play beneath your various relationships and careers.
Good clear self-boundaries mean that you're aware when you're on the verge of giving too much away, or letting someone into the sacred circle of your life when they don't deserve to come in. Transcendence would be premature if you talked yourself out of following your gut instinct to keep someone out, and confuse enlightenment with flimsy boundaries. In this case Saturn's need to draw a ring around yourself and honor it must prevail against the Sun's need to open and expand you before the time is right.
On the other hand, hanging on to old obsolete attitudes that keep you isolated from merging with new people, new experiences and attitudes prevent you from transcending a former stage of your growth, which needs to give way. In this case the Sun's need to expand you beyond previous limits must prevail against Saturn's urgency to play it safe.
Because this planetary opposition occurs in Aries and Libra (Sun in Aries/Saturn in Libra) the main field of forces involved here has to do with Relationship. As I reported in the two previous Cosmic Weather Reports, the matter of one person's connection with another is once again in the astrological spotlight. The Sun in Aries now seeks to open some door in your life and usher in fresh new energies. Aries is a fire sign. The spirit of fire is the creative life force itself. Aries is championing some bright future that wants to surge into the stale recesses of your past: What changes should you make to let that current stream in? What relationships need improving or releasing? Where does your freedom spirit want to go?
Saturn in Libra, from the Summer of 2010 to the Autumn of 2012, is leading our species through a tremendous reconstruction of love, sex, and intimacy, as well as teaching us new ways to relate to each other. We're three-fourths of the way through this Relationship Reclamation, which is the power spot of this Saturn-in-Libra wave. The way you make love, the way you make friends, the way you conduct your affairs with others now has the ability to transform like it rarely has had before. When such planetary forces combine with destiny moments such as the year 2012, the whole world is poised at the Gates of Change. Always at such gateways of evolution the past vies with the future for your attention.
Sun opposing Saturn this month asks you to gain the lessons of the past while releasing their burden. Free the gift of your history from its curse. Learn whatever message your history and relationships have been trying to get through to you, while liberating yourself from the need to repeat the old patterns. The Sun in Aries champions the hope inside each human breast that the future can be better than the past. Let's use this moment to rise to the high side of what we're capable of, and find a win-win version of relationship, where each person's truth flourishes not at the expense of the other's, but to the benefit of it.
