What's Going On

Not in our stars but in ourselves

Like many people, I sense powerful shifts occurring in the world right now. The broad implications of the recent ingress of Pluto into Aquarius suggests conflicts and tensions between what is good for the individual and what for the group. Aquarius is concerned with PEOPLE, humankind, universal rights and meeting the needs of humanity. Leo is concerned with PERSONS, the individual, personal sovereignty, individual rights. Pluto has to do with things that seem settled but are merely “buried”. Pluto in Aquarius will focus on things that are “buried” in the collective, unsettled scores and the karmic hangover from our collective past. Mars wants to assert the individuality of the individual and doesn’t like to acknowledge debt to or dependency on others, especially in Leo. This is a recipe for conflict.

Of course, none of this is new and it would be naïve to assume that any final verdict will be forthcoming. The wandering stars do not dictate events here on earth and even if they did, their ceaseless wandering ensures that conditions here will find no final resolution. We would be better served to understand HOW these wandering stars exercise their influence in our lives, both individually and collectively. To that end, I will spend much of the remainder of this essay in sharing what I understand about the seven “classical” (visible) planets recognized by astrology – Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. In gaining an understanding of how these seven wandering stars create the conditions by which individuality develops I hope to demonstrate how our collective woes and possibly hopes for peace, might be understood.

The Malefics

Saturn

We start with Saturn because by establishing a difference between inside and outside, Saturn creates all the grids and coordinate systems by which we navigate the world. Even the concept of an undifferentiated oneness so central to many mystical traditions would be unthinkable without the complimentary concept of multiplicity.

Saturn is known as the Greater Malefic. This is a somewhat problematic designation as many of the things that Saturn makes possible would be considered good. But from the standpoint of our limited, mortal existence (which is made possible by Saturn), some things are preferable to others. Saturn stands for alienation, estrangement, isolation and all manner of limitation. He rules over aliens, refugees, the sick and infirmed and prisoners to name just a few. But he also rules over monasteries, sanctuaries, and all “protected spaces”. Ultimately, whether Saturn is “bad” or not depends on which side of the line you are on and which side you want to be on. That we are always on one side or another is unavoidable because to be anything at all means not being everything, not being nothing.

Mars

Once Saturn has established in inside and outside, Mars is responsible for expelling what does not “belong” on the inside and keeping what belongs outside at bay. Mars rules over warriors, police officers, and anyone that could be considered a guardian. The ambiguity of his work can be seen in the fact that when two armies meet in battle, BOTH are ruled by Mars.

Mars also plays a role in any analysis. To analyze is literally “to cut apart”. No distinctions would be possible without Mars. It falls to him to both make and maintain these distinctions. When ever we make any attempt to order the world, we are guided by both Saturn and Mars – Saturn to make distinctions possible, Mars to make them actual. This means that Mars rules not only the sword of the warrior but also the scalpel of the surgeon. As with Saturn, how “malefic” Mars is depends a lot on which side of the blade you are on and which you want to be on. Bothe armies believe their cause just and the tumor that the surgeon removes has as much interest in its’ own life as the patient for whom the surgeon wields the healing blade.

The Benefics

Jupiter

Known as the Greater Benefic, Jupiter determines exactly what is beneficial. While Saturn creates the possibility of making distinctions and Mars the power to make them, Jupiter provides the reason for making them. Associated with philosophy, religion, law and education, Jupiter provides the rationale for designating some things, desirable, beneficial, and righteous and others not so.

Jupiter is also in charge of dissemination. Because he is associated with all forms of expansion, Jupiter could be said to rule over priests, missionaries, colonizers, judges, teachers and anyone who facilitates the spread of ideas and values. In a similar manner, he has a role in fertilization by the spreading of seeds, spores, sperm. Any process by which things grow from a center outward can be thought of as Jupiterian.

Venus

She is called the lesser benefic, yet nothing would be recognized as beneficial without her touch. Venus draws things together through attraction. While Jupiter determines what we SHOULD value, Venus determines what we DO VALUE. When we are drawn to another person, to a work of art or artifice, to an idea, it is because Venus has cast her glow upon it.

Just as the Malefics are only relatively so, it is the same with the Benefics. The Jupiterian desire to spread knowledge can become pedantic and dogmatic leading to the opposite of education and enlightenment. Venus, for her part, is equally inclined to cast her golden light on addictive and corrupting people and things as on wholesome and healthy ones. The relationship between Malefic and Benefic is a complex one which none of the wandering stars so far mentioned help us untangle. Saturn and Mars, Jupiter and Venus pursue their interests, sometimes cooperatively, sometimes antagonistically. Jupiter insists on what is good, Venus on what is beautiful but goodness and beauty are not always in agreement. Saturn insists on distinctions, Mars on action. But the call to action often blunts the capacity to make clear distinctions. It is left to another wandering star to mediate between these competing values and motivations. Before we meet this star, however, we have two others to visit.

The Luminaries

The Moon

Luna carries all that has been. Our memories and heritage: cultural, genetic and karmic belong to The Moon. All our habits and trauma, all we have learned, loved both conscious and unconscious are revealed in her waxing and waning.

The Moon is reflective. She is a pearl made of time, the body of the past. All that happens in the material world, our fortune and misfortune, individually and collectively belongs to her as our bodies belong (and do not) to us. She teaches the lessons of temporality and impermanence. Her light is both romantic and deceptive. She illuminates the night but only half the time. She comes and goes but always is. All of life reflects her caprice.

The Sun

The Sun endures. His light is pure and true and life giving but too strong to be born by the naked eye. The Sun is both generous and punishing. Revealing all things and bleaching bones to dust. The Sun is the source of the light that shines through The Moon. The fire that lights our life is always new, without a past, The Sun is the only wandering star that produces rather than simply reflecting light. Because of this, he has always been seen as the symbol of nobility and the origin of life. But as the myth of Icarus demonstrates, those who attempt to occupy his throne are doomed to burn and fall. The pride of heaven that makes us humble.

The Luminaries work together. No one can claim the light of The Sun for their own. We are all the children of The Moon. We reflect the endless succession of Sun lit days remembered by our Lunar Mother. She stands between us and the father light of Sol. Practically this means that none of us emit a pure, clear light. To be someone is to have a past. To have a past is to have received only a limited quantity of the endless light of The Sun. Just as most of the light of The Sun is NOT reflected by The Moon but goes on to light the other planets and fade into the endless night of space, none of us have seen everything, know everything or are in a position to illumine more than a limited disk of light that waxes and wanes in the endless night.

Mercury.

Mercury is the messenger of The Gods. Without his/her (Mercury is sexually ambiguous) gift of communication, the wandering stars we have so far seen would have no way to communicate. It is impossible to underestimate the service Mercury provides. Consider, for example, the relationship between Saturn and Mars. Mars is a warrior but, Saturn a general. Without a clear sense of where the front lines are, who the allies and enemies are, the warrior would simply cut and burn what ever was in his path. Mercury makes it possible for orders to be given and received with clarity. Likewise, Jupiter wants to make laws and found lofty philosophies to organize the world and see that it thrives but needs the light of Venus to make these ideals beautiful as well as noble. Here, Mercury interprets the soulful part of Jupiter’s wisdom to Venus that she might make the true beautiful (or at least appear so). Without Mercury’s gifts of translation, none of the Gods we have met would be able to act in concert to bring about a lucid and beautiful order. How would humans ever learn to communicate among themselves if the Gods could not.

But Mercury is also a trickster. He is Hermes who, as the Orphic Hymn tells us, “Delights in exercise and in deceit”. The con man and thief also work with/for Hermes. Even the sincere teacher of wisdom must talk a little blarney to arose the interest of distractable humans. The price we pay for the gift of understanding is the possibility of bullshit. And Hermies like Bullshit as much as truth. This may strike some as unseemly. Why would a God be interested in anything but truth?

It is helpful to understand a little of Hermes’s back story. He was born to Maia who lived in a cave and was visited by Zues by night in one of his many adulterous affairs. Although Maia was content to live away from Olympus and the intrigues of the Gods, Hermes would have none of it. As a newborn he contrived a convoluted scheme to raise both his and his mother’s station to one worthy of a Son of Zues and his mother.

Hermes is said to be a “man loving prophet to mortals”. By making it possible for humanity to communicate with the Gods and vice versa, Hermes bridges the gap between the mortal and immortal worlds. He is one of very few beings who can cross the boundary set by Saturn. Communication is the priceless gift which allows us to see into the minds of others – other people, the dead and the immortal gods.

He does this through correspondence. As Above So Below is the first HERMETIC truth. It is not given to mortals to see all things clearly. But through correspondence, we can, if we care to, see how the stars are LIKE the Gods, the Gods LIKE people and people LIKE one another. This is why astrology, alchemy and even writing are Hermetic art. By shedding light on the commonalities between all things, Hermes invites us to understand all things THROUGH one another.

The Amorality of the Gods

The wandering stars are neither moral nor immoral, they are AMORAL. This amorality is a boon to us. All political, moral, aesthetic judgement depend equally on our capacity to draw a line (Saturn) and to maintain it (Mars). The drawing and maintenance of lines both motivate and facilitate judgments about virtue and beauty (Jupiter and Venus). But none of these wandering stars show preference for content. Liberals and conservatives, hedonists and teetotalers, rationalists and mystics are equally indebted to all these wandering stars to make sense of their world. Likewise, all of us are what we are by virtue of the accretion of experiences, a past. The Moon counts our days in bands of light and dark. The bitter and the grateful, the fearful and the curious are carried equally and impartially by our mother light. Finally, all of us want to shine. All of us, in our attempt to perfectly mirror some eternal principle, are likely to mistake reflections for actualities. It is said that Hermes as a “Man loving profit to mortals … interpreter of all and profiteer who frees us of care”, who taught us the art of astrology that we might both understand and shape our fate. Whether we hope to charm or deceive others, we must understand them first.

Each of us are touched by these wandering stars in various ways and to different degrees. Our birth chart tells us something about how they show up in our lives. The immortal Gods show no favoritism among the schemes of humanity. They are here to help us, asking only that we recognize them.

Back to the Present

Returning to the present we send our attention back to the Pluto ingress into Aquarius. What will Pluto reveal, hidden within the collective. We might think of history, unsettled scores and places that WE have gone wrong because THEY have deceived us. Like anyone, I have my own opinions about who WE and THEY are. But,if I have learned anything from the wandering stars, it is that my own ideas about these things arise from the same process as everyone else’s. Rather than taking sides, I am interested in examining the ways in which sides form.

It is the most natural thing to assume that the lines we draw, the measures we take to protect the integrity of these lines, the rational for what belongs within and what should be cast out and the affection that holds all this together arise from some transcendental “rightness”. This is natural because it arises from the material world which is what nature IS. But the forces which organize and move the material world are SUPERNATURAL, are literally outside of nature and the material world (Beyond Saturn). As a devote of Hermes who is, among other things, a TRICKSTER God, my goal is to make the reader LESS certain that his or her ideas of goodness are rightness are “written in the stars”. The stars only provide the means by which WE write OUR ideas of what is best and most beautiful, what and who fits into those categories and what and who do not.

So, I asked Hermes/Mercury, messenger of the Gods, who can pass effortlessly between our bounded (Saturnian) world, the boundless playground of the Gods and the underworld of the dead and passed away (Pluto), what is buried in the collective. What do we have in common which sets us against one another. He has told me, and I am reporting to you that it is simply this: we have mistaken the light of The Moon for that of The Sun. We all assume that our experience of the world is the same as the world. We forget that we are merely reflecting facets of the eternal light of heaven. In addition, this might be unavoidable for most of us most of the time. But there is a price to pay for mistaking reflections for reality. The Gods will not help us to discern the difference, it is up to us.

I will close by repeating a teaching I received from a pastor in the Lutheran faith. Once there was a faithful man who daily faced the Lord in prayer. One day the man asked the Lord why he allowed terrible things to befall humankind. The Lord asked for examples of these terrible things. The man gave a predictable list including things like war, hatred, poverty, etc. The Lord, after some time responded with “I don’t know, why do YOU?” The moral of the story is, of course, that most of the bad that befalls us is not the mandate of heaven but rather the result of the limited judgement of mortals. Although what I have shared in this essay may fall a bit afield of my church days, the truth of it is not too distant. We should not blame the Gods for iniquities that originate in us.