[HOROSCOPE HIGHLIGHTS] October 30th to November 5th with Astrologer Christopher Renstrom

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The True Meaning of Saturn

On Today’s Episode You’ll learn…

🌑 How Saturn Moving Direct serves as a cosmic teacher, testing and teaching us through challenges, especially as it transits through Pisces.
🌒 The mythological parallels between Saturn and the story of Adam and Eve, offering a lens through which to understand Saturn’s role in our personal growth.
🌓 The transformative potential of this transit, providing opportunities to overcome obstacles and make meaningful progress in our lives.

📚 Learn Astrology with Christopher Renstrom

📆 Turn your birth chart into a calendar: Cosmic Calendar

🪐 Take the one planets course you’ll ever need: Ruling Planets for Unruly Times

😍 Learn about Zodiac Sign compatibility: Love Among the Elements

💝 Learn about Relationship Astrology: Step Away from the 7th House

📑🧑‍🎓 Sign up for Rick Levine’s new LIVE astrology course and learn how to integrate Harmonic Aspects to reveal the chart’s hidden dimensions! Go tohttps://astrologyhub.com/harmonic

Transcript

He’s back! Did you miss him? Saturn comes out of retrograde on November 4th, next on Horoscope Highlights.

Hey all, this is Rick Levine, and I’m inviting you to join me in a new class on the Astrology Hub starting mid November, starting November 14th. And this is going to be four Zoom classes of live chart interpretation, focusing on bringing the harmonic aspects down to earth. So we’re going to step beyond the squares and trimes and sextiles and oppositions into the magical world of quintiles, septiles, and even octiles and other strange tiles.

Find out more information about this and or register at astrologyhub. com slash harmonics. I’m Rick Levine and I’ll see you online.

hello. My name is Christopher Renstrom, and I’m your weekly horoscope columnist here on Astrology Hub. And this week, I wanted to talk to you about Saturn, coming out of retrograde on November 4th. But before I do, did you know that you could read about your planetary transits by subscribing to my weekly newsletter?

Go to astrologyhub. com slash horoscope to subscribe. Once again, that’s astrologyhub. com slash horoscope to subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Now, let’s go talk about that planet of tests and trials and tribulations coming out of retrograde on November 4th.

Behavior of Direct & Retrgorade Planets

Planets coming out of retrograde are a much anticipated event for astrologers. Basically, it signals that life is returning to normal. When a planet turns retrograde, and all planets turn retrograde, with the exception of the Sun and Moon, which are regarded as luminaries, When a planet turns retrograde, it basically reverses its motion or direction in the nighttime sky.

And instead of behaving in the way that it usually behaves, when it’s reversed direction or done in about face, It behaves in the opposite way that we’re used to it behaving. For instance, let’s take Mercury. Mercury retrogrades are pretty famous. Mercury is the planet of, uh, buying and selling. It’s the planet of messages, and it’s the planet of communications.

So when, Mercury is moving forward in the sky, messages are trustworthy, communications are coherent, and buying and selling and all kinds of deals and purchases can go off without a hitch. That’s the general understanding of what takes place when Mercury is moving forward or direct in the sky.

However, when Mercury turns retrograde, that means that communications are garbled, understanding is confused, buying and selling is interrupted, delayed, there can be a feeling of being had or cheated or deceived. So Mercury is basically acting in the way that’s opposite To its normal behavior, instead of bringing people together on a deal and making seller and customer both happy about the transaction that took place, mercury retrograde is a time when usually the customer is angry at the seller, or the seller is regretting that they let a product go at such a cheap and low price.

Okay, so, so. Mercury retrograde will throw a monkey wrench, uh, into the smooth dealings of your day to day life. So that’s why when Mercury comes out of retrograde, for instance, we’re all very happy. We can get back to business. We can get back to life as normal. Uh, just like when, uh, Venus comes out of retrograde.

Instead of dealing with all this feuding and fighting and nastiness that goes on, this breaking of troths and, uh, pledges and promises. There’s a return of credibility. People can be believed again, and this is a good thing. Now, obviously, this isn’t how life works. Um, it would be wonderful if we could enjoy, uh, uh, peace loving periods when Venus is direct and smooth transactions when Mercury is direct, but we all know that that’s not always the case.

And that’s because in addition to direct motions and retrograde motions in the sky, you have little things like oppositions and squares and quincunxes and semi sextiles taking place with the aforementioned planets in their relationship to the other planets in the sky. It’s a crowded sky and astrologers are here to help you understand it.

Saturn Retrograde

So Saturn is coming out of retrograde on November 4th. Now Saturn retrograde is actually one of the few retrogrades that sort of get people excited, and maybe even a bit happy. That’s because Saturn is the planet of tests, trials, and tribulations. Saturn is the planet that if it can make something hard, well then that’s not good enough.

It needs to make it harder! Okay, so, um, If you, uh, do, uh, 50 pull ups, Saturn is like, okay, that’s great. You did 50 pull ups. Now let’s raise the bar and let’s see, see you do a hundred. Okay. So Saturn is always making things more difficult, uh, in the name or the service of. raising the bar. Uh, so when Saturn is retrograde, what we’re supposed to, uh, what some people believe is that we’re supposed to enjoy a period in which maybe tests aren’t so bad, and the trials and the tribulations are a little bit more of a soft pitch.

And to some degree, that does happen. There is a kind of laxity that, uh, takes place in the heavens when Saturn turns retrograde. But that kind of Laxity isn’t always good, Saturn retrograde I’ve seen in working out horoscope predictions or working with people’s charts can actually bring at times a sort of complacency, a sort of complicity, a lowering of the defenses, a lowering of the walls, a lowering of the standards, and it’s not always good.

But, for the most part, there is a kind of feeling of relief or of respite when Saturn is retrograde and that can be one of the benefits or one of the good things that’s associated with this planet’s reverse motion.

Fear & Fascination of Saturn

But Saturn is, well, Saturn’s a fascinating figure, actually. I mean, I was going to go ahead and say something, but I’m actually going to correct myself.

Actually, I’m not going to say something and I’m going to move on to this idea. Saturn. is a very intriguing planet. It’s a planet that brings up a lot of fear and anxiety with people. People will often say like Saturn return, please tell me all about it. What does that mean? Or Saturn’s having in my sign right now.

Does that mean like, I might as well go to bed and put a pillow over my head for the next two and a half years? You know, where Saturn has really been eating my lunch, Christopher, for the past X amount of months. When does it let up? Okay. So Saturn has this reputation for being really difficult and for being really unyielding.

And, um, and, and, and people are always very nervous. always very anxious when, when Saturn comes around to a particular angle, uh, in their horoscope. But, , at the same time, what’s fascinating about Saturn is that everyone’s fascinated by Saturn. You know, uh, people may decry Saturn. They may like curse Saturn.

They may blame Saturn. Uh, they may like live in fear and trembling of Saturn. Sharon Kierkegaard, but um, what it is is that there’s also this intrigue and it’s a little bit more than driving by an accident and not being able to peel your eyes away from it. There’s an intrigue. It’s like, how exactly is it going to hit or what’s really going to happen?

How hard is it going to be? But then there’s also this feeling of like, Almost like, what lesson will I learn? What, what area of life am I going to find out about? It’s almost as if Saturn is assigned a kind of profundity, a kind of depth, a kind of meaning.

And these are things that we know that happen as we endure life’s trials, tests, and tribulations. Nobody wants to, you know, um, I’m certainly not going to say like, you know, Buck up and take on the next trial and tribulation. It’s good for you. builds character. I’m not going to do that. But there is at the same time, this feeling that there’s something profound about the experience, that there’s something meaningful about the experience, that, that having faced the test, the trial and the tribulation and made your way through it.

It’s a testament to perseverance. It’s a testament to Perhaps belief in yourself may even be a testament to desperation and the great feeling of triumph of having gotten to the other side.

Tests & Teaching

So a lot of times when I talk about Saturn, whether it’s an aspect or coming out of retrograde like it is on November 4th, I will ask clients to sort of reflect upon their relationship to teaching.

More importantly, I will ask clients to reflect upon their relationship to learning. How do you learn? Now, we all know that tests test how much we’ve learned, you know, and is one’s way of learning to sort of laugh it off and, or, or, or put it off or postpone it, or to be absorbed by other things. And then when the big day of the test, test arrives to stay up late at night and to cram and to put all that information into your mind so that you can sit the following day and apply it to the test.

You know, um, does, uh, taking a test mean cheating, uh, finding out the answers? Uh, used to be looking at a neighbor’s paper, but nowadays it seems to be downloading things on the internet. Uh, so does a test mean cheating? Does the test mean, um, avoiding? Like, I can’t take this test, it’s too much anxiety, I’m going to call in sick.

Mythology of Saturn

Saturn, as you know from previous episodes where I’ve talked about him, um, or you may even know this from astrology or Greek mythology, Saturn was given the unenviable task of, splitting heaven from earth and, uh, coming between the two of them. Basically the way that it’s kind of described in Hesiod is that with the sky pressing so heavily down on Earth.

There was no room to breathe. There was no room to grow. It was almost like a cosmic suffocating embrace. And so Saturn was given the unenviable task of castrating Father Sky and coming between Sky and Earth and pushing Father Sky into the realm of eternity and pushing Earth down into the mortal coil.

And Saturn then became time. Um, uh, his, uh, Greek name is Kronos. Uh, his, uh, Roman name is Saturn and, uh, Saturn was seen as the God of time and time comes into existence when it separates eternity from the earth. Okay. So basically we all live within time. And if you’re familiar with the Chaldean order of the planets, Saturn is at the highest of the, uh, seven spheres, uh, followed by Jupiter and then it’s Mars.

Uh, and then it’s the sun, it’s Venus, it’s Mercury and Moon, and I hope I got that right. Pretty sure I did. Okay, so Saturn was seen as the highest, the most, uh, remote of all the planets, but it was seen also as the highest of the orbs, so Saturn ruled over seventh heaven, and seventh heaven, uh, was a place actually of ecstasy, um, where it’s your, you know, when you’re very happy or elated, you’re just, you know, You know, uh, you say I’m in seventh heaven over this.

So Saturn has always had this very curious relationship of being the planet of test trials and tribulations, but also a planet that’s associated to elation, to elevation, to joy, being in. seventh heaven. So, um, Saturn then, after, uh, he separates, uh, Earth from sky, uh, it’s prophesied that he, that one of his children will overthrow him.

So as his wife, Queen Rhea, gives birth to every child, every child he swallows and they go down into his stomach. And, Goya painting where it shows Saturn, like one of the zombies in Night of the Living Dead, you know, where they were given chicken pieces like, you know, feasting. And, and so Saturn’s like ripping apart, you know, this, this, the smaller, you know, uh, body.

Um, no, what Saturn did was actually eat, uh, consume, actually what Saturn did was sort of pitch each one of his, uh, children like a little pez or, or, or a breath mint, uh, down into his throat and they went and what landed could plop into the belly of Saturn and there they resided until they would be freed one day.

And they were freed one day by Zeus. Jupiter, uh, has no Roman name and Jupiter, the God of benevolence, the God of prosperity, the God of good luck and higher purpose. This is the planet. Uh, uh, this is the God that the planet is named after named for in astrology. And so Jupiter by liberating his brothers and sisters and setting up a better government than the one that Saturn had set up.

And by putting down anyone who would rebel or overthrow it. Um, so Jupiter sort of sets up Mount Olympus and he sets up the present era that we still pretty much live in. Okay, so Saturn was defeated in a battle, battle of the heavens, uh, that Jupiter waged on one side with his siblings and Saturn on the other side with the Titans.

And Saturn, as predicted, And, uh, Jupiter overthrew Saturn. And then became the question, What do you do with a god who’s overthrown? I mean, with Uranus it was easy. Saturn constrated him and moved him into the realm of eternity. So, so, and Saturn then sort of… encircled the world in a, in a kind of Ouroboros, um, he encircled the world in time.

So this became like a fortified wall against eternity, uh, that held eternity out and held, um, the cycle of birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, life, death. Okay, we are all basically, even though the children were liberated, uh, metaphorically speaking, at least we are all living in the belly of Saturn.

We are all living in the belly of time. So, you can overthrow… a god, okay, and this is exactly what Jupiter does to his father Saturn, he overthrows him, but you can’t kill an immortal god, and you can’t kill time, I mean, maybe if you’re waiting for a bus to come by or something, one kills time, but you know, you can’t really kill time.

And so what do you do with him? What do you do with the old man? And so that became the big question. , and so the Greeks kind of like,

Zeus sent him to, Zeus sent him to the Isle of the Blessed Spirits, uh, where he drinks a kind of like honey, like a potion or beverage. And he sleeps all day, you know, um, taking in the I mean, it always reminded me of like, Jupiter sent Saturn down to Florida or something like this where he, you know, could lie on the beach and just sort of enjoy the waves and the, and the, and the wind and spend the rest of his time and so that’s kind of theosophy basically the fate of Saturn, um, in, in, in Greek mythology.

Um, the Romans had a different idea, and I think a very wonderful one, one that I really like. Well, one that actually had legs, because, um, out of the Roman depiction of Saturn, you really get this side of Saturn that becomes very popular in the medieval and the Renaissance period, and is still to some degree accessed today by astrologers in their interpretation of the planet.

The Romans. worship Saturn as the god of agriculture, um, because Saturn had the scythe. Okay. Um, his mother Gaia gave him the scythe to constrain his father. That was the original, uh, purpose of the scythe. But the scythe is also used by farmers to harvest crops. And then later on with the black plague in the 13th century, you really see, the association of death with the scythe who, who, um, you know, cuts down everyone in their prime, regardless of being a peasant, a pope, or a king, because this is the Black Plague, and the Black Plague, uh, Eve, uh, leveled the playing field in Europe, and I think it wiped out something like a quarter or a third of the world’s population.

Um, so, so, but, but that image of death on the side, that comes later on, that’s like 13th, 14th century. But, um, earlier in, in, back in Rome, um, Saturn is the god of agriculture, and so he harvests… And so, of course, it made sense to the Romans that, well, if he’s harvesting, he has to have planted something. And so, it was Saturn that was given the, um, job of agriculture.

It’s Saturn that’s given the patronage of agriculture. Saturn becomes the god or the planet. of farmers, of people who toil, of people who work the earth. All right. And anyone who has any, even the most passing familiarity with farming knows that farming is a very hard job. It’s a very difficult and it’s a very tedious job and you could work very, very hard for, for, uh, A number of years, you can maybe even, you know, sort of be confident that I’m on a agricultural cycle in which I can expect things to, uh, bloom and, and, and, and, and grow and I’m going to harvest, but then you might hit, um, a drought, uh, in which things get very difficult and things, um, are, are very pressing, uh, droughts are very difficult nowadays, but.

Back in ancient times, droughts could destroy a society. Famine could destroy a society. That’s why famine is regarded as one of the four horsem*n of the apocalypse. Um, so, uh, I, I, I believe they are, uh, death, war, pestilence, and famine. Okay, so, so there they are. So, uh, but famine was one of the four horsem*n of, of the apocalypse.

So, so human being. Um, whether they’re Greeks or whether they’re Romans, their relationship to the gods was kind of iffy, especially back in ancient Greece, you know, the gods. enjoyed humankind and would frolic among them and maybe even sleep with them. But humankind was basically, you know, treated as less than a slave as far as the Greek pantheon was, was concerned.

And so what happened, um, you know, uh, Zeus would, you know, sleep with whoever downstairs or, or Mars would, uh, you know, stir up wars and, and, and combat to his, to satisfy his bloodlust. You know, but what Saturn did, especially in the Roman telling of the story, Saturn took, Saturn sympathized with mankind. I mean, Saturn had been overthrown, had been humiliated, had failed, had fallen from heaven.

You know, and, and mankind, you know, although created through divine agency, was basically treated like, you know, as I said, less than a slave or even cattle, you know, as, as, as, as something that, you know, it was, they needed to worship the gods and it was pretty much a one way relationship. So Saturn is the one God who’s not an Olympian.

An Olympian is reference to gods who reside on Mount Olympus under the governorship of Jupiter, Zeus. Saturn is the one God who actually feels for the plight. of, of humanity. Um, but it’s not sort of like, I feel for the plight of humanity, you know, and, and let me walk amongst you and put coins in your baskets.

No, um, Saturn, Saturn identifies almost like with humanity. And so he teaches humanity, humankind, to farm, to, to work the soil and to produce Good things, you know, and at first it’s produced good things like like food and so you eat and, and you have cattle and so they graze, but to Saturn was also given the responsibility.

producing civilization. Okay. Saturn teaches humankind to, to grow and, and, and, and cattle and agriculture, but Saturn also teaches humankind to build, to create cities, you know, to, to create civilization. So, so these are the gifts, especially according to the Roman telling, this gets more elaborated upon in the Renaissance.

These are the gifts of Saturn, and, and, and Saturn was because it was the old decrepit God. Um, the gifts of Saturn were seen in the great monuments. of, of, of ancient times. For instance, by the time the Greeks come around, the pyramids have been around for centuries, you know, and the Greeks often would go and visit Egypt and just stare and wonder at these extraordinary pyramids.

And so they knew that there was a previous civilization. They knew there was a previous time, perhaps even a golden age, where, where, where the accomplishments were extraordinary, and the people were beautiful, and the gifts of civilization were celebrated. Okay, so, so this was all associated to Saturn.

Saturn was also the, uh, God, and now we’re moving into the planet and astrology. Um, if you look at the older astrological texts, Saturn rules over past civilizations. Um, and, and, but as time goes on, as time goes on, and Saturn is time, as time goes on, the past civilizations aren’t invulnerable. They’re not, um, as resplendent.

They’re not as glorious. In fact, we know of past civilizations because they lie in ruin. And so Saturn represented, it came to symbolize that ruination eventually, um, will visit all civilizations. Um, but ruins are also a testament to more beautiful times, more, more glorious days, more, more astonishing accomplishments.

So there was also, so there was this kind of, uh, association with Saturn of the fear of, of being ruined, you know, that could be scandalized, like, you know, I’m a ruined woman, you know, but, but ruined, I’m financially ruined, um, or my, uh, reputation has been ruined, uh, my fortunes. uh, lay in shambles. They’ve been ruined.

So, so Saturn was the agency of ruination, but Saturn was also the breathtaking respect and awe that we looked upon ruins. Look at what came before. Look at these extraordinary accomplishments. Look at these. teachings and learnings, um, and books and scrolls that have been, uh, or steles that have been, uh, I love the word stele.

Steles were, uh, were, were, uh, were stones that were set up that would list the laws and, and maybe show what would happen if you didn’t follow them, like vultures would, would eat your body or something like that. Steles were set up around different civilizations. But, um, But, but, but these, uh, legacies, right?

These things have been passed down, and so Saturn was also associate, associated to education, you know? But not temporal education, or not, um, on the job training type of education. It was education that, you know, we need to pass down our history, we need to pass down our literature, um, we need to pass down our culture, you know?

All things that kids in school are like, ugh. Why do I have to learn history? Why do I have to read this book? Why do I have to, you know, and everyone’s like, well, you don’t have to learn those things, learn mathematics and sciences, and go and do those things. And, and certainly Saturn had an association with mathematics and sciences, but not to the detriment of history and literature and civics and philosophy, those things that really make a person whole.

All right. So, so Saturn ruled over those things. Saturn, as time went on, because Saturn was seen as a dim light in the sky, an old and, and, and forgotten God, um, as a slow planet in the sky, as, as enfeebled and, and, and, and taking forever to get to the point. So as time went on, Saturn came to be the patron planet of the elderly.

Saturn came to be, the patron planet of the infirm. Saturn came to be the patron planet of those who toil without rest. And Saturn came to be the patron planet of the outcast. Whether, it was an oppressed people, or a fugitive, or someone who was once great, but now they’re ruined and no one wants to talk to him or her anymore.

So Saturn was their patron saint. Uh, Saturn was their… patron planet. They’re, they’re patron saint. Let’s go ahead and say it. That’s exactly what Saturn was. Uh, my Catholicism came out there. Um, but Saturn was their patron, their sponsor, their guardian. Saturn was in turn, you know, if you follow this, this, these ideas that I’m introducing to you, Saturn was also in turn the planet of slaves.

Slaves, were people, slavery has a very intricate and, um, uh, nuanced history. It has a very intricate and, and changing history. Here in the United States, we’re used to, um, the slave economy that this country was built upon, and what happened when that changed. And we are still dealing with, uh, grappling with, uh, the idea that every person in this country, um, is, is equal.

Um, and, and, and, and there are equal rights for all, and this is, this is, this is our story, and pretty much our relationship, to slavery. Uh, current manifestations, um, and believe me, there are still slaves and slavery is still in the world, but for instance, another manifestation of slavery is sex slaves, you know.

Slavery, when you go further back, was anyone who had fallen upon hard times. You could have been, um, the king of an empire, and you lost, you lost the war. Let’s take Troy, okay? You, you could be the king of Troy and you lose the war and the king is killed and the soldiers are killed and, and, and many of the men are decapitated or killed either in battle or, or chased out or something along those lines and, and what happens immediately when a country is, uh, when a country is captured.

Civilization is conquered like that, but the women and the children are sold into slavery. Um, in, uh, ancient Korea, for instance, if you, fell on hard times, let’s say you’re a farmer and you went through, droughts and you didn’t have any money, you were then a slave. Let’s say your family fell on hard times financially.

Or you were a criminal, for instance, okay, the, the head of the family, let’s say the head of the family is a criminal, the head of the family is punished, usually, uh, killed back then, and the entire family, was sold into slavery, it wasn’t just the, uh, wife and the kids, but all the uncles and the aunts and the, uh, relatives.

could be sold into slavery. So, so slavery really shows up in so many different manifestations, but what it comes back to is this idea of ruination, of having been conquered, of, uh, having, having lost a war, or, or, or fallen into debt, or fallen into hard times, and so you were enslaved. You, you, you became a slave to, to, to someone else.

And Saturn was the patron planet, the protective planet of slaves. And finally, according to the first century Roman historian, TAUs Saturn was the planet of the Jewish people. Uh, and and part of that was because the Jews had had this history in their Bible of slavery, but that’s not really what TAUs was, was focusing on what TAUs was focusing on and why TAUs said, uh, you have to remember to that, to the Romans, you know, Saturn’s a God, Jupiter’s a God.

Venus is a god, a goddess. Um, don’t forget that. Venus is always a goddess. Okay, so these were, these were deities. Okay, so for Tacitus, it was perfectly natural to assign a planet, you know. Astrology was practiced in Rome. Astrology wasn’t connected to the ritual worship of gods in Rome, but The planets were named after the Roman gods and and astrology was an art form in the Roman Empire, although it was not connected to the worship of the gods whatsoever.

But so Tacitus. You know, being familiar with astrology and, and, and his Roman culture, he’s a Roman historian, okay, said that Saturn was the, planet of the Jewish people, and the reason why he said Saturn was the planet of the Jewish people is because they rest every seventh day. day. Hmm. And, um, on that seventh day that the, Jewish people celebrated Sabbath, it was celebrated on Saturday, which in Roman vernacular was Saturn’s day.

Okay. So not only did the, Jews stop working and rest on every seventh day to honor that on the seventh day in Genesis, God rests from his labors of creation. Um, but, but the Romans were like, okay, they rest every seventh day. And Saturday is Saturn’s day. And Saturday is the seventh day of the week. So the number seven becomes very, um, much associated with both Saturn and the Jewish people.

At least, of course, according to Tacitus. So Tacitus said that Saturn was the planet of the Jewish people because they rest every seventh day and let the earth life fallow every seventh year. Okay, uh, in honor of Saturn. Uh, and, and in honor of Saturn who, according to Tacitus and the Roman view of Saturn, was the seventh and the highest of the heavenly bodies.

A quick note of explanation here, Tacitus knew full well that Saturn was not a god that was worshipped by the Jewish people, that the Jewish people worshipped one god, uh, which Tacitus found peculiar and odd and strange. Um, why go with one when you can have so many, you know? And, um, you know, like, The world was a little bit more enriched than that, than this one God, um, but what Tacitus, you know, was saying is that although they don’t worship the god Saturn, the planet Saturn rules, it is the patron planet of the Jewish people.

And, uh, of course when you look at Jewish history and all of the things that have gone on and still go on, it’s not hard to recognize the Saturnian flavor or the Saturnian color in their story.

So Saturn is the planet of tests in astrology and Saturn tests, but Saturn is a teacher and not a tyrant.

Saturn is a builder and not a destroyer. So Saturn is a teacher, not a tyrant. Okay. You don’t know what you know, unless you are tested. Okay, let’s take it out of the schoolroom for a moment, right? Uh, where it’s like, What was the date of the, um, Constitution signing again? Bob? Okay, let’s, let’s take it out of the, the schoolroom here, and, um, let’s apply it to life.

We don’t really know how much we know unless we’re faced with a test, okay? And it can be sort of like, the car broke down, I don’t know how to deal with this, um, let me call, you know, uh, uh, what, triple A or something like that, okay? Or, or it might be like the car’s broken down and I know exactly what to do.

Okay, so we don’t, know what we know unless we’re faced with a test. But tests are a bit more than that. Tests throw us back on ourselves, you know, and remember Saturn is a planet of limitations, reaching the limit, reaching a boundary. Um, tests throw us back upon ourselves. We, we ask ourselves, Can we do this, you know, and, and, and some of us might go through a mental file and say, like, oh, I know how to change a tire and other of us might be like triple A, but, um, that’s part of the questioning.

But the other part of the question is like, do I have the resourcefulness? Do I have the ability? Do I have the ingenuity? Does this matter to me? You know, we’re thrown back upon ourselves when we face a test and, um, the test isn’t there to show that we’re, you know, Inept, okay? The test is there, you know, to say you can’t cross this boundary unless you know how to.

Okay. And so this is, this is what the test is. So Saturn isn’t just giving us, you know, midterm exams, you know, every three months or whatever have you, Saturn is, is, testing us to teach, you know, and a lot of times when we’re being taught, we can feel a great deal of anxiety. Okay. And Saturn, one of the beautiful things about Saturn, and I often say about the modern planets, but I’m going to apply it to Saturn as well, is that it’s a slow moving planet.

planet. This isn’t going to be the only time that you take this test. You know, uh, John F. Kennedy, Jr., I think, took the bar, four times before he finally passed, right? Okay, so, so, you know, with Saturn, it’s like, you will be tested again. You can take this test again. You could take as long as it takes. For you to pass and that’s something to keep in mind with Saturn and the tests that we, that we find in life.

Um, but a good teacher will repeat. A good teacher will show, will not yield and make it easy for you. But a good teacher will also not make it impossible for you either. A good teacher will get you to repeat so that you understand. A good teacher will try to figure out what you weren’t getting and, and, and, and bring that information around to you again.

This is what Saturn does. teaches. Um, Saturn is a builder, not a destroyer. Saturn isn’t interested in just, you know, uh, throwing everything into ruin, you know. Um, yeah, Saturn is associated with ruination, but that ruination is associated to time. Time passes, you know, and that ruination may be associated to the people who lived in that society and the choices that they made, but that’s for another time.

So, um, so Saturn is not a destroyer, although You know, time, that image of, uh, that idea that time swallows its children, everyone born into this world will grow old and die, you know, so in that way Saturn’s a destroyer. But there’s a little thing called a life that you have, that you have between birth and death, you know, however long and however, uh, wonderful or challenging that life may be, that life is something that belongs to you.

Time, Space & the Building Blocks of Saturn

And so, um, Saturn, if you’re going to live in time, and we all live in time, is actually really about building, uh, those, those impulses of Saturn, um, teaching how to farm, teaching how to herd, teaching how to build great cities and civilizations, and to discover these are the attributes of Saturn, but it’s not handed to you on a platter.

It doesn’t come easy. You have to apply it yourself. You have to work for it. Um, but often, And this is how Saturn will act in our charts, and in our transits, and in our lives. Often, in order to build, you have to… level everything back down to the ground again and clear out the dead wood. That always seemed to me like a bit of an elusive metaphor.

Like, you know, you have to clear everything down to the ground and, uh, clear out the dead wood. Okay. I guess, you know, um, until I lived in New York city for 28 years and then I was like, Oh, now I see it. Okay. So, you know, when, when, when you live in Manhattan, um, and, uh, and, and a building is going to be, replaced, they’re going to build a new building.

They don’t demolish it. You know, you can’t take out your sticks of dynamite and say like, okay, you know, or, or do whatever. I have no idea how they demolish buildings these days, but you can’t just like demolish it, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, or blow it up, uh, with, because it’ll take out the buildings that are next to it.

I mean, Manhattan is a very compact, you know, like, like packed in a city. All right. So what you would actually see them do is deconstruct, you know, they would put up the scaffolding, you know, And they would deconstruct this building down to the, down to its, uh, foundations and begin to build again. You know, a lot of times when people talk about a Saturn retrograde, um, you know, uh, the word reflection review will be used, actually reflection and review is used a lot with retrogrades, but anyway, it’s, it, it seems to come up a lot with Saturn and that’s true, but, but Thank you.

I like to think of a Saturn retrograde as, um, the scaffolding that goes up around those buildings that they have to take down. Okay. And that could almost be the retrograde. They, they have to deconstruct or take down this building. And then when Saturn comes out of retrograde, they start building and the scaffolding is there.

It holds the shape. It holds the space. It’s like scaffolding. Scaffolding holds the shape and it holds the space to take something down and to build something up. And they’re not building back up because this is a whole new building. It might’ve been, I don’t know, a department store and now it’s going to be something else.

Uh, condominiums. New York, it’s always condominiums, but anyways, something like that. And so they’re going to build back up while that scaffolding holds the space. And that’s. That’s an image that I would share with you of a Saturn retrograde and a Saturn turning direct. Maybe even the Saturn retrograde itself is about holding that space while the process of, of, and then the process is, maybe that’s the, what I want to communicate about the Saturn retrograde.

So, um, so it’s not wiping out like Uranus. Okay, it’s not Uranus comes into your sign or transits in your life and it kicks over the game board and sends all the pieces flying. No, that’s not going on, you know, with Saturn. And it’s not flooding like, like, like, like Neptune. You know, it’s not like, you know, uh, rains from the heavens and the water.

That’s been soaked in the earth, you know, coming back up, you know, water levels rising and, and, and just flooding. It’s not flooding, uh, your life, like Neptune and, and, and, and Pluto. It’s not throwing everything into the underworld or releasing the underworld into your life. You know, like what can happen with Pluto?

Saturn holds that space. You know, because Saturn from the beginning after his overthrow was a great concern for humankind and, and, and really a great concern for humankind living in time. So, so here we have, um, you know, Saturn, the overthrown God, Saturn, who’s really a God that, understands failure and loss, that’s written into his myth, it’s written into his history, and it’s out of that failure and loss that instead of teaching you to, you know, deny your failure and loss and just focus on the triumph, Saturn brings an understanding of failure and loss, and Saturn uses failure and loss as a teaching device, right?

Story of Adam & Eve

A story that I always felt paralleled Saturn’s story, Saturn’s never evoked, you know, or Saturn’s never invoked, shall I say, in the Old Testament, um, but there is a wonderful Saturnian story or parallel to the story of Saturn in the Old Testament, and it is the simple story of Adam and Eve. And we all know it.

You know, God creates the world in, in, in six days, rests on the seventh, uh, somewhere in all of that creativity. Um, uh, Adam is, uh, is created in the image of God and from Adam is created a helper. you know, a companion, Eve, and they are placed in a garden which is full of abundance, right? It’s anything that they should want they can have in this wonderful garden, and they, and they, and Adam lords over the animals, not in an awful way, um, he lords over the animals because Adam can name each of the animals, and each of the animals or creatures in the garden is, is named.

Um, as a quick aside, I didn’t even know this until the other day when I came across it, kind of like as a footnote, but did you know that humankind were, uh, humanity, Adam and Eve, and, and, and the people who are, uh, are born of Adam and Eve, at this point in the story of humanity, they are vegetarians? I didn’t know this before.

Technically, according to, book of Genesis, humankind doesn’t eat meat until after Noah, okay? Before Noah, humanity is vegetarian, so I always thought that that was, like, really, Fascinating. I don’t really quite know how that goes with the sacrifice of the goat, with the story of Cain and Abel, but anyway, that’s what they said in this footnote.

Just sharing it with you, all right? So, well, you can sacrifice an animal and not eat it, right? And maybe animals were raised for sacrifice, but, but humanity was vegetarian until after, uh, Noah’s Ark. So in any case. We have, you know, Eve is, is, is tempted, you know, by the snake or, or really invited. Was Eve really tempted?

She’s invited by the snake to come and, uh, bite out of the apple or the fruit of knowledge. And they’ve been told, don’t go anywhere near the fruit of knowledge. And, and Eve does, and she shares with Adam who’s right there and he eats it too. And, and they’re both, I’m pretty good, you know, and then it’s like, Oh my God, we’re naked, and, and they see their nudity and they run for fig leaves or something.

cover their genitalia. And, you know, there’s, there’s all this panic because God comes back asking for them and they’re ashamed and they’re hiding and, and, you know, the truth comes out. And we know the rest of the story, they’re banished from Eden and thrown into the rest of the world and they can never come back to Eden because there is a wall of fire or an angel armed with a sword of fire and they can never come back.

So Eden is an. destroyed or removed, it’s lost, or eaten, then becomes forbidden, as kind of as forbidden as the fruit that was originally consumed. Um, I’m not going to get into it, but, you know, who sets up a, who sets up, two people for failure, you know, which I think is, Kind of a way you can read, uh, the story of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis, you know, you can go everywhere but this one tree, you know, and then there’s like this snake that no one knew about who’s like, come and eat, you know, I mean, you’re really setting someone up for failure here.

But nevertheless, It’s a test. Okay, the creation story begins with a test, which is fascinating, or the story of Adam and Eve begins with a test, which is fascinating, because if everything’s kosher, if everything’s all right, why would you have to test Adam and Eve? Why not just let them, you know, live in eternal bliss?

So, um, so that’s always stayed with me, I think, since grade school, it’s like, hmm? You know, but it’s Saturnian, because you have this idea of a fall, you have this idea of a failure, um, you know, everyone’s, everyone’s, uh, focus, of course, is on the shame and the guilt of Adam and Eve, and even the anger of Adam and Eve, like, like, you know, couldn’t you, you know, have, like, stayed away from that tree?

You made us all live in a world where we, you know, live and die, and, and, and all these horrible things, and it wouldn’t have happened if not for Adam and Eve, but that was set from the get go, I mean, again, it begs the question, who sets up a test if everything was supposed to stay in this Garden of Eden?

What I really, though, want to emphasize in the Adam and Eve story you know, we know that what follows is they get lots of children, and the first two, one kills the other, and all these sorts of things, but, you know, try to imagine, if you will, let’s say you’re Adam, let’s say you’re Eve, let’s say you’re both Adam and Eve, why not be both of them, um, and it’s, you, you step out of this garden, this, this paradise, this garden, and into a world that, You barely knew the garden, and so you really don’t know this world that you’re stepping out into.

And you’ve gotten this punishment, you know, you’re told, you know, if you’re Adam, you’re told you’re going to toil. And if you’re Eve, you’re told you’re going to have children and be in horrible pain and even die in childbirth. You’re actually wrapping your… head around the notion of dying, uh, which wasn’t an option before, or it wasn’t even on the table before.

And here you are. And it just, I, I, I find it fascinating. I mean, Adam and Eve don’t sit down outside the flaming wall or, or, or this, this, this, there’s now flames or they’re not allowed to go back into Eden. They don’t sit down there and bemoan their misfortune. Well, I mean, I’m sure there were a few days and weeks when they did, you know, I mean, they’re human at this point, but they don’t sit down outside the, the wall of Eden and give up, you know, they don’t.

They’ve been loaded with punishments, punishments based on a rule that they barely understood and why and, you know, and, and, and, and so here they are abandoned in a world where they’re going to die, where there’s going to be pestilence, there’s going to be war, there’s going to be famine. And these marvelous creatures who are now humans made in the image of God, could have just given up and said, That’s it.

It’s something that I want you to keep in mind.

Pisces, Fantasy & Apocolypse

Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac. It’s the last sign of the zodiac because it’s the last sign of the agricultural year. The zodiac is based on the agricultural year. That’s why Aries leads in the spring equinox and the 12 signs end with the 12th, the last one, which is Pisces.

And Pisces is technically the zodiac sign of endings. Pisces is also, I mean, we know Pisces is unconditional love, and maybe self sabotage, and compassionate empathy, and pity, and pain, and suffering, and all these sorts of things. But Pisces is also a zodiac sign that’s very much associated to the apocalypse.

That was heavy. Okay, Christopher, where are we going with this? No, but Pisces is associated to the apocalypse. And the apocalypse, the ending of the world, uh, these were Basically Apocalypses, back in the day, there were a dime a dozen. There were like a bazillion apocalypses, okay? Uh, because essentially the apocalypse or apocalypses were the revenge fantasies of slaves, okay?

This is where people could imagine. The overthrow of this oppressive king, you know, the, the, the end of this unyielding master, you know, that, that, that the world was going to be judged and all of these people who made all of this money and, and oppressed me and, and everyone I know and love in my life who, who imprisoned us or killed us, all of them are going to get their end because God is coming back.

Okay. At some point it was a Messiah. At some point it was, uh, Jesus, uh, in, uh, with Christianity, got to come back, you know, and, and, and, and what, one of the things that made Judaism different from the other deities was that In Judaism, God was a god of time, okay? Time starts with the banishment of Adam and Eve.

Well, time starts technically with the creation of the world. It’s created in seven days. Six days, the seventh to sleep on. Um, and then there’s the banishment of Adam and Eve. This is people living in time. The Garden of Eden was outside time. These are people living in time, and living in time is to toil, is to be tested, is to, to fight, to not fight, to give up, to despair, to be full of fear and anxiety, and to get up and go about it again.

Okay. But here, you know, with Pisces and the idea of, of apocalypses was the return of, um, you know, either it’s the appearance of Messiah, uh, signaling the end of time or the return of the Christian version, uh, which was going to bring about this battle and signal the end of time. And then, you know, there would be people who lived in eternity and people who didn’t.

Okay. So, so this. This God that’s talked about, is a God of time. And you can see, you can hear the resonances to Saturn here. And so, you know, this, this apocalypse, apocalyptic fantasy, it’s not something that just, Oh, that’s what they, you know, did back in the day. I mean, apocalyptic fantasies are. De rigueur nowadays.

I mean like everyone, uh, everyone seems to be coming at the table with an apocalyptic fantasy. Like, you know, um, you know, the world’s going to end like this, it’s going to end like that, you know, it’s going to be climate change, it’s going to be, uh, the rapture, it’s going to be a great battle that’s going to be fought.

I mean, they’re all really dreary and, and, and, and dreadful and, and honestly, in my opinion, horrible and unfeeling scenarios and really quite unnecessary. Um, but. This can get released when you have a planet like Saturn, um, moving forward again in Pisces. Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s actually, it can be released with Neptune going forward in Pisces.

But, uh, but, but, you know, these, these, these heavy duty planets, for lack of a better way of putting it, moving forward in Pisces can really stir up or bring about, um, these, these, these fantasies. And, um, what is important to remember at a time like this is that there will always be promises of salvation.

You know, if you, you, you, you live a good life, you’ll be saved. There’ll always be promises of Salvation. If you, you know, bomb and defeat your enemy, um, and if you die in the bombing and the defeat of your enemy, you will be saved. Your soul will be spirited to a paradise. You know, there are all these fantasies, uh, Uh, with salvation being caught up in the end of, of, of things, almost like mankind or humankind, really, I should say, almost like humankind, uh, cannot do anything to save itself.

And with the discovery of the atom bomb and nuclear warfare and things like that, humankind seems pretty intent on destroying itself, you know? I mean, there’s a very pessimistic spirit. in, in, in, in humanity. Um, but this is the lesson of Saturn moving direct in Pisces.

Closing Thoughts

Saturn, let’s go back and meet Saturn again in Saturn’s mythology after he’s been overthrown and humiliated by, by, by Jupiter, but Jupiter realizes he can’t kill Saturn, not out of any great respect, but because he’s, you know, a deity, you can’t kill a deity.

So it’s like, what do you do with the old guy, you know, and, and, and a question that’s often asked by younger generations, what do you do with the old people who are like gumming up the works or won’t move on or have become burdened These are all Saturnian. These are all things that fall under the patronage, the protection of Saturn.

But Saturn could have said, I’ve been overthrown or whatever, and that’s it. You know, I’m retiring to Florida. You know that I’m not going to teach people how to do agriculture to make something of themselves. I mean, forget it. Now, that’s it. Adam and Eve, where would the story have gone if Adam and Eve had stepped outside paradise, looked at each other and said, Oh my God, forget it.

And just like sat there and starved themselves and died. Where would the story have gone? These Saturnian characters are not particularly heroic. They don’t fight great battles. They go, don’t go on tremendous quests. They don’t recite mantras. They don’t envision things. They don’t go on TED talks, you know, nothing like this.

Okay, because. They’re human. They’re, they’re, they’re the basic human, human, like you and me, human, not, not, not influencer or superstar or whatever, you know, human, you know, which is what Saturn stands for. And so the great question is, okay, Saturn could have thrown up his hands and said, I give up. Adam and Eve could have thrown up their hands and said, I give up.

We can all, we all at different times of our lives want to throw up our hands and, and say I give up. I mean, you know, there’s a certain point we’ve, we’ve maybe looked at it in our teen years or, or our midlife or later years in which it’s like, what’s the point? You know, you’re born into the world and you die.

So like, what’s the point? You know, and, and, and I, I need a vision. I need a mission. I need someone to tell me what to do. What’s the point? Saturn challenges each one of us, you know, but not a challenge like, hey, you know, Saturn challenges like, let’s try this test again. Okay. Um, let’s, let’s, let’s try this lesson again.

Saturn challenges, tests us, every single one of us to make something of ourselves. in this world. This, this fallen world, this world cut off from the deity, this world where people were born into it, who just can’t help themselves. They’d look for new ways to destroy it. Like let’s do nuclear bombs or let’s do AI and really mess up with people’s heads.

You know, I mean, they just seem to be like hell bent. All right. Or, or let’s, you know, climate ruin the planet. You know, I mean, there just seems to be this virus or the spirit and humanity that’s hell bent on destroying it. But there’s another part of humanity which knows how rough and tough the world is.

There’s another part of each of our corners of humanity that reside within the house of our bodies that knows That we’re going to lose the battle of life, you know, that we’re going to grow frail or we may be defeated, but this world is something we’ve been given to make something of it. Okay. And, and, and Maybe it’s based on getting back to the Garden of Eden, who knows, you know, or maybe the Garden of Eden planted a template in each of our minds and souls and creativity.

Or maybe our creativity springs from witnessing one another in life, being with one another in life. Maybe creativity comes from our ecstasies. And our sorrows, something embodied in Saturn, who can be the planet of sorrow, but is also the planet that rules over the seventh heaven. Maybe these are the things that lead us to understand the planet, our civilization, one another.

And maybe it’s not about the people in the high places. Maybe it’s about the regular person, the Saturn person. Maybe it’s not about giving it, giving it back. Let’s have an apocalypse. Let’s blow everything to hell, you know, and, and, and the good will be saved. You know, well, that’s kind of like a no brainer because everyone’s been blown to hell.

So no one knows if the good or the bad have been saved. It’s silly. Right. But Saturn says, Pick up the shovel. Pick up the pen. Pick up the tool. Pick up the child. Pick up the person who has stumbled. Pick up yourself. And try. Try again. Because there is no exercise in futility. If your mission in life is to make the world a better place.

Something to think about as Saturn continues with its journey through the zodiac sign of Pisces when it comes out of retrograde on November 4th.

The entirety of our known universe from the subatomic microcosmic level to the galactic macrocosmic level is all built upon the blueprint of sacred geometry. Everything in the cosmos is made up of the sacred geometrical laws that bring reality into existence. You know, traditionally, we astrologers look at these patterns through a 12 fold system based on 12 signs of the zodiac.

However, dividing a cycle by 12 is not the only way that nature works. It’s just a very convenient way. For us to mathematically divide a circle by two, three, four, or six, which of course creates the traditional aspect all astrologers know well, unfortunately, this patriarchal bias prompts us to miss a lot of the action.

When we divide a circle by the magical five, or the otherworldly division by the number seven, or even the motivational number eight. In order to widen our astrological thinking, so, so we can make invisible worlds visible, we’re going to look at quintiles, the division by five, septiles, the division by seven, octiles, called semi squares and sesquisquares, that’s the division by eight.

Hey all, this is Rick Levine and I’m excited to be announcing my latest course, Unlocking the Magic of Harmonic Aspects. This as some of you know is one of my favorite astrological topics and I’m quite pleased to be teaching this on the Astrology Hub. Although the course actually includes a one hour introductory video that’s a crash course in harmonic aspects for anyone unfamiliar with them.

It’s also a refresher for those who have already studied some of these aspects. But the course is not a course on theory. It’s a hands on practical application of harmonic aspects for natal chart interpretation. I’m going to be reading four charts per class in four to our live zoom webinars. Meaning that 16 lucky students will be chosen in advance and will be brought on screen to have me analyze, to unfold their harmonic aspects, revealing things about charts that maybe these people have never had put into words.

in an astrological session. So I invite you to come along on a mind expanding ride and take a next step into your astrological studies. More information, details on the curriculum and registration is available at astrologyhub. com slash harmonics. I’m Rick Levine. See you online.

[HOROSCOPE HIGHLIGHTS] October 30th to November 5th with Astrologer Christopher Renstrom - Astrology Hub (2024)