Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Since Saturday is governed by Saturn, let’s see what the planets are up to, with an emphasis on the planet of stabilization.
October 30: Saturn in Libra – We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Bowl
There are precious few planetary conversations in progress now. With the exception of the Moon, who circles the entire zodiac each month, all of the planets are occupying less than half of the signs of the zodiac, and are lumped together in what’s known as a bowl pattern. If you look at the chart below, you can see Saturn (the old guard) and Uranus (agent of change) at the edges of the bowl. This alone is a powerful symbol of what’s happening around the globe, and in your own back yard. Saturn and Uranus speak to the tension of needing to renew those situations in your life that have settled into a rut, without completely removing the rug from underneath you. And so we keep dancing with the energy as it moves through us: a little (or a lot of) change here, while imposing some security or boundaries there.
It’s striking to me that Saturn is in the crucial position of leading the rest of the planets into the empty sector of the chart. That empty sector is the bottom of the bowl. Think of the function of a bowl: it contains things – also an apt description of Saturn’s function. It contains and restrains – kind of like a safety measure. So, Saturn continues to occupy Libra, the sign associated with the search for balance, particularly in relationships. The idea is that, through Saturn’s prolonged presence in Libra, we are learning how to contain those relationships that nurture us. Where there may be cracks, similar to a bowl, we learn how to repair and strengthen. If the bowl is not big enough, we learn to place less in it. And if we can’t recognize that we need a bigger bowl, along comes Uranus to break that bowl altogether, so that we’re forced to get a bigger bowl. Which then sets us on the path of discovering how wide our new boundaries are. Enter Saturn again.
So there’s a weighing (Libra’s scales) of how much freedom versus togetherness we require, or how many people we can realistically maintain excellent relationships with. Consider the explosion of social networking sites, where relationships are more often virtual (which is the energy of Uranus) than tangible (Saturn) day-to-day exchanges. I think of the logo for LinkedIn: Relationships Matter. That’s about as literal an expression of Saturn in Libra as you can get, even though it’s a Uranian platform! There you go: Saturn and Uranus at the edge of the bowl. They get billed as arch enemies, but they’re actually partners in facilitating growth and change (Uranus) at a measured pace (Saturn) that we can handle.
