The word that comes to mind today is: Dredging
Dredging is an excavation activity or operation usually carried out at least partly underwater, in shallow seas or fresh water areas with the purpose of gathering up bottom sediments and disposing of them at a different location. This technique is often used to keep waterways navigable.
Death Gone Fishing by Zena Coffey
Today is the last day of Saturn in Scorpio where its been ”dredging” for the last two and a half years. The sewers have been exposed and for the most part, dealt with. Good bye.
We are now more than ever aware (hopefully) of the insecurities, the old beliefs and the fears that keep us in a self made emotional prison. Now that we are armed with the maturity that came with the hardships, we are ready to move on to something bigger.
Here it is.
Saturn is moving into the last degree of Scorpio for the last time until 2041.
The lessons of the last few years have been difficult. The burdens very real. A slow crippling death to all the illusions about what you thought intimacy meant.
Psychological lessons. Bonds and boundaries between partners.
Corruption of the soul exposed.
The heaviness and the burden felt tremendous. An underground journey where you had to carve a tunnel through solid rocks. Chipping away in the hope of seeing the light…in the end.
Now you are out sitting at the edge of the abyss contemplating the teachings.
Until September 18 when Saturn finally moves out of Scorpio and into Sagittarius, some of the lessons of the last 3 years could come back to haunt you. But don’t be fooled by these hungry ghosts. They are nothing but a shadow, a trick of the light. You have pulled the root cause of the pain and found some gold in the process. You are forever transformed by the darkness. You learned your lessons. You have set the boundaries of what you will accept in your life and what needs to go. There is no need to go back to the abyss. You know what’s there. Courage. Breath deeply…and release. ★
The Sun in Leo is square to Saturn in Scorpio and the Moon in Scorpio will be triggering that square by tomorrow morning.
We also have Lilith at 29 degrees of Virgo. The 29th degree in astrology is known as the anaretic degree. The 29th degree displays the most extreme attributes of the celestial body and the sign it is in. The matters influenced by the planet in this degree have reached a critical phase of development and must be dealt with.
There are so many meanings attributed to Lilith. She is a dark and eccentric mythic figure banished into the wilderness for rebelling against the oppressor (read patriarchy). She is impulsive, confrontational and disruptive. Personally, I do not believe she is all bad although some literature portrays her as a demon.
Words associated with Lilith:
Wild-Rage
Sex-Power
Fears-Manipulation
Raw-Erratic
Instinctual-Knowing
Primal-Castrating
Lilith at 29 degrees of Virgo on a personal level could be associated with the limitations of the body and the subsequent anger and helplessness that comes with it. A health crisis, an indigestion. The body rebelling against itself.
On a global perspective, it could be the earth and nature (Virgo being an earth sign) rebelling against the oppressor (read human).
This is one example of the archetypes showing up but the experience will be highly personal.
And then… we have the bright Sun in Leo in a square with Saturn in Scorpio. Time to grow up kid, face reality and pay your dues. The desire nature is all fired up (Mars in Leo) but the only thing you can do now is face your responsibilites, deal with life and be an adult about it. Did you deliver the goods? How much money will it cost? How much money did you borrow?
Yes, you can go play outside but first you have to do your homework.
Sex is on your mind but there is a responsibility that comes with it. Who did you promise your time to? What kind of contract binds you together? The weight of a promise and the consequences are here.
This is heavy lifting astrology. You can’t bull**** your way out of this one. Even though we are in the season of the radiant and playful Leo and we all know that Leo likes to party, the party is not free. The Moon in Scorpio will make sure to remind you how meaningless it is to waste your time on superficiality. You might also feel like hiding your vulnerabilities but they are shining in broad daylight. Might as well admit it. Scropio doesn’t like to pretend. Scorpio wants real. Real connections, real people, real conversations.
Then you can get to the meaty parts. The best parts… and feel… for real.
A heaviness could be weighing you down. The choices you have made have led you were you are and you are seeing reality for what it is.
Harvest season is almost here
What you sow is what you reap
Some great stories showing up in the news that illustrates in a broader sense a few of the aspects mention above:
It’s Saturday. Samedi. Saturn day! The Moon is still in Taurus and will briefly oppose Saturn and then move into Gemini later tonight.
Venus in Leo is applying to square Saturn in Scorpio.
It’s Saturn time baby
Venus and Saturn are an odd pair. We can think of Saturn as having to be mature and assuming our responsibilities and Venus as our desire for beauty and ease.
Venus adorns herself with love-surrounded by the intoxicating smell of a thousand roses.
Saturn wise and reliable is dedicated to the task of turning lead into gold.
When Venus and Saturn are in a hard aspect like this it could be that you have to work extra hard to find the sweet spot (Venus) within your current limitations (Saturn).
Or it could be that you have been so liberal with your time, going out, socializing and having fun. Running away from some important matters and now you have to deal with the bill and the paper work and it sucks.
How much compromise do you make for the sake of long term benefits? Can pleasure and responsibility coexist? Is your patience being tested?
What kind of relationship do you have with relationships? With Saturn/Venus relationships (to ourselves and others) are under scrutiny.
Painting: Anatomy of the heart by Enrique Simonet Lombardo, 1890
There has to be a happy medium between instant gratification versus restriction and control.
Too much of too little can leave you famished.
Too much cake will make you sick.
Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?
What does your heart seriously desire?
I want to explore death, pain and loneliness. So if you are into positivity and fluffy unicorns these days, you might want to go here instead.
Saturn in retrograde motion is about to go back into the sign of Scorpio until September. I hadn’t put much thinking into it, until a conversation with Ichrak Dahou sparked my interest and got me thinking about all things below ”my belt”. Underneath, hidden, darkness, stillness, power, paranoia are powerful words associated with Scorpio. The sign that we most often connect with decay and the deep transformation that happens when something has reached the point of no return.
What happens when you add Saturn to the mix? Astrologers have spoken extensively on the subject since Saturn just spent the last two and a half years in Scorpio. Austin Coppock does a great job at covering the territory in his 2013 Astrological Almanac and he elegantly navigates from sex to politics in the most eloquent manner.
I found a painting by Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901) that strongly conveys what arises in me when I think of Saturn in Scorpio:
Isle of the Dead (German: Die Toteninsel) ”Isle of the Dead depict a desolate and rocky islet seen across an expanse of dark water. A small rowboat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore. An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern. In the bow, facing the gate, is a standing figure clad entirely in white. Just behind the figure is a white, festooned object commonly interpreted as a coffin. The tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress trees—associated by long-standing tradition with cemeteries and mourning—which is closely hemmed in by precipitous cliffs.
There is a desolation that comes with the scorpionic understanding that all things have an end. There is a fatality with Scorpio: ”Life’s a bitch and than you die”. With experience and age which is part of Saturn’s realm, we come to grasp with the multitudes of life’s endings that shape our inner landscape.
Have you ever met someone that has so much pain in their eyes, you can see their soul is burning? Not accepting the natural process of decay creates more suffering. Holding on to the pain somehow can feel safer but it will eventually eat you from the inside out. Using the hurt as the great teacher that it can be is not only how you will polish the diamond but it is also what will make it precious.
I have a feeling that Saturn short stint back into Scorpio for the rest of the summer will have us finally closing some files that we probably should have burned some time ago. But for some reason we decided to hold onto to them. Either because we love to indulge in the familiar or we were just not ready to embrace the change that comes with a new skin. What kind of ”business” and especially ”personal business” do you still have floating around from the last two and a half years which need finalising? Scorpio is a fixed sign, so the process of letting go can be a difficult and complicated one and Saturn’s revisiting last summer’s territory goes to show that there might be more dislodging that needs to happen in order for the light to enter and new life to be born.
In Saturn’s book, after the struggle and endurance test comes refinement and maturity. If you do your homework.
There is something tragic about endings that doesn’t sit well with our need to remain comfortably entrenched in the familiar grooves, but it is a necessary passage in order to bring change and growth. Fear can cripple. Insecurities can become a way we respond to situations, especially in the realm of personal relationship. Saturn returning into Scorpio is the opportunity to take the teachings associated with our suffering and self-protective responses when we feel threatened and use that pain to grow up.
“The true light never hides the darkness but is born out of the very center of it, transforming and redeeming. So to the darkness we must return, each of us individually accepting his ignorance and loneliness, his sin and weakness, and, most difficult of all, consenting to wait in the dark and even to love the waiting… ” -Helen M. Luke
9th House 