EVERY SEVEN YEARS or so, Saturn forms a testy aspect to Neptune, and now is just such a time (Dec 23, 2014-Apr 18, 2015 / Oct 15, 2015-Jan 20, 2016 / Apr 13 2016-Oct 31, 2016). I like to think of this 13-month planetary face-off as a unique opportunity to sense into how much of our habitual workaday role-play (Saturn) is infused with timeless presence (Pisces), and how much of our time is spent jolting back and forth between tense, timebound responsibility and soul-numbing, escapist retreat. The collective tension of this transit is here to magnify the suffering involved in failing to be “in the world but not of it” and, thereby, motivate us to strike a more meditatively engaged pragmatism. How do we find balance? The first step is to gain a better understanding of these two outwardly antagonistic, inwardly complementary planets: Neptune and Saturn.
Saturn rules the sign of Capricorn, symbolized by a creature who is – you must admit – the epitome of a Monsanto lab experiment gone very wrong: the “Sea Goat” (see image above). Great. How can an alpine creature with hind hoofs mutated into a flapping fish tail ever expect to do anything? What kind of mythological madman would allow oceanic, otherworldly Pisces (the fish) to cripple hoofy, hard working Capricorn? Answer: the rule-bendy teacher that whispers to us all in our dreams.
Mountain peaks are the highest points in the physical realm. They represent the highest that our time-tethered, rational minds can go. The ocean, on the other hand, symbolizes the rationally unknowable subconscious, intuition and dreams – a complete paradigmatic immersion into the boundless Being on whose surface egos appear as mere waves.
The Sea Goat, therefore, is a symbol of you and me whenever we are dividing our attention equally between Saturn and Neptune: discipline and guidance, time-bound ambition and surrender to the invisible Tao. Here’s an integrative, Saturn/Neptune affirmation to post and practice during this 13-month period:
A timeless presence is flowing – relaxed and effective – within the banks of society’s rules and roles. May all beings awaken as that.
Stirring together the two halves of the global mind.
The linear, workaday mind and the symbolic, dreamtime mind are designed to blend together like two fruits into a delicious, nondual smoothie. The drinking of this smoothie, says astrology, is the soul’s very purpose and delight. Need proof? Just look at the constantly flipping light and dark halves of the planet.
While the dreaming half of humanity steps free of the gown of time and identity, the irradiated half is saddled with the task of witnessing and managing the karmically inherited wounds and gifts of their time-bound egos. The message is simple: either the global mind is terminally bipolar or it’s attempting to stir together its two hemispheres (diurnal doing and nocturnal dreaming), until we become mystics in the matrix.
Think of it: At any given moment, approximately 3.5 billion people are journeying out of time in Neptunian sleep while the other 3.5 billion are actively burning karma on the Saturnian stage of time. That means hard-edged Saturn and interpenetrating Neptune are forever co-arising. Lawful literalism and psilocybin sleep are joined at the hip.
The implications are vast. What, for instance, does this tell us about the purpose of sleep?
Sleep as Horizontal Service
What if sleep is not, primarily for us? What if insomnia, bad dreams and other sleep disorders are the result of selfish sleep, undedicated and undervalued as our healing gift – not just to ourselves, but to the waking? What if the quality of our Neptunian sleep is part of our Saturnian responsibility to others? How might we set a more sacred tone for our horizontal service and thereby supply more timeless relief to the time bound? Try this bedtime prayer:
May the contagious quiet of my sleep secretly induct the 3.5 billion open-eyed souls on the opposite side of the globe into the fullness of their being – unborn, undying and eternally alive to the seamless field of sentience.
[Need more sleep counsel? I highly recommend The Sleep Muse.]
On the other side of the equation, what if the way we are inhabiting our consciousness right now is directly soothing or disturbing the dreams of real human beings asleep on the opposite side of the rock? What if we can’t realistically muster the resolve to break our stressful Saturnian work habits (or the subtle stress of entropy and flaccid self-indulgence) until we dare to imagine the millions struggling in their Neptunian dreams to metabolize our stress? As the Buddhists say, nobody succeeds in waking up for themselves. If it’s not compassionate overflow, it’s probably a spiritual head trip.
Here’s how Terrance McKenna puts it:
If, in fact, we exist inside some kind of morphogenic field that is created by the sum total of human minds on the planet, and if, in fact, in half or more of the (sleeping) minds at any given moment the rules of the dream hold sway, then it is no surprise there’s an eeriness, to (waking life), a fatedness to it. We are inside some kind of (mythic, archetypal) engine or narrative and everyone’s life is touched by deep magic.
So how about it, fellow Seagoats-in-training? Ready to blend sober realism (Saturn) with moment-to-moment attunement to the voice of the soul (Neptune)? Not sure what that looks like? Here are a few hints:
If you’ve been nursing a longstanding vision, this 13- month transit may push you to either fully materialize it or unburden yourself from some ego-flattering destiny that is simply not yours to fulfill. Do you prefer daydreams to sweaty follow-through? Saturn may push you to correct the imbalance. Are you naturally disciplined, hard-working and strategic? Neptune may ask you to stir more life-trusting surrender, flexibility and flow into your work. Either way, the endgame is the same: standing tall as a holy hybrid, a fantastically evolving dream animal.
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