“Some mornings I walked out into the courtyard and every living thing there, the seagulls and wagtails, the small trees and even the stray blades of grass seemed to smile and shine in the sun. It was at such times, when I perceived the beauty of even this small, closed-in corner of the world, that I knew that some day my people and I would be free.”

Nelson Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom

No boon of Jupiter for Nelson Mandela to have been imprisoned for 27 years! Thinking of him brings me to our next social planet, Saturn, which has much to do with contraction and limits as contrasted to Jupiter’s expansiveness. You might expect a brief post then? Well – not leaving Jupiter completely aside – I begin with a long story from Greek mythology to make a short point about Saturn’s archetypal energy and it’s meaning for our lives.

Kronos, (Saturn to the Romans), the god of agriculture and king of heaven, after deposing his own father, ruled during the blissful Golden Age when animals could talk like men. Fearful of a prophecy that he, too, would be dethroned by a son, Kronos swallowed whole each of his children at their birth. The grief-stricken mother, Rhea, hid her last-born son Zeus (Jupiter) in a cave on Crete. Devising a clever ruse, she presented the newborn to Kronos as a heavily swaddled rock. Kronos devoured it.

When grown and out of hiding, the boy Zeus gave his father a drug to disgorge all the many children (each of them well, thank goodness), waged war successfully against his father’s troops and banished Kronos to ” the undermost limits of earth and sea…hidden under misty gloom,” putting him in a pit beneath the earth. After ages of time, he released Kronos and made him king of the Elysian Islands, home of the blessed where heroes dwelt in Paradise after death.

Within this myth, we see Saturn’s earliest associations with limitation, time, darkness and death. Other associations with cold and boundaries are reinforced by the physical planet itself. Let’s take a look.

 NASA Voyager, 1980

Saturn, the golden-colored sixth planet from the Sun, is the last planet that can be seen by the naked eye. It’s said that the Assyrians, spotting its path in the heavens, named it “oldest of the old” because it is so slow moving. It takes 29.4 earth years to orbit the Sun. To ancient astronomers and astrologers, this distant planet marked the boundary of the solar system. And Saturn is huge – 95 times the earth’s mass. Yet, it’s the least dense, so that if we could find an ocean big enough, it would float! Giant Saturn is an extremely cold ball of gas containing hot, molten rock in its center. Turbulent winds and thunderstorms rock a surface that’s enclosed by 30+ beautiful rings discovered by Galileo in 1610. The rings are made of water ice and icy dust particles varying from specks to mountains in size. Saturn has 62 known moons. One of them shows evidence of having oceans beneath it. Some scientists believe this to be another candidate for the harboring of microbial life. Both Pioneer and Voyager spacecrafts have made fly-bys. Cassini has been orbiting around the planet since 2004.

We’ve seen that the planet Jupiter graces us with expansive vision. To balance the largess of this energy, we need the grounding represented by Saturn to give structure and shape to our ego and order to our activities as visions are turned into reality – as we develop the responsibility, commitment, focus, and self-discipline to “get down” and get things done even though the obstacles we face may raise flags of fear or inhibition. Additional qualities associated with our boundary-making Saturn are accountability, a sense of duty, respect for tradition, and stability.

Saturn represents father/parental authority figures. These are our early teachers about boundaries in family and culture but oh! how we sometimes resist them (don’t fence me in). Saturn governs the more restrictive face of society such as police forces, armed services and prisons.

Saturn is the planet that rules our life span. The sickle that “Old Father Time” wields recalls not only the slaying of Kronos’ father but symbolizes the inevitability of death as time passes and the “harvesting” of consequences for our own actions. Look at Saturn cutting off Cupid’s wings – Mercy!

                                           Ivan Akimov (1802) Tretakov Gallery, Moscow

If we peer around a psychological corner at the dark, opposite face of the archetype, we see our saturnian character as quite a grouch – judgmental. over-critical, cynical, focused on the negative, rigid, humorless.  It’s no fun to be around that stodgy man or woman (in us or in others).

Saturn is often referred to as the reality principle. And so it is! For in the midst of the exuberant flow of our days when life is a high-flying kite ride and the winds are blowing our way, sudden rains might fall sending us scuffling to shelter, nose pressed against the window waiting for a better day. Perhaps a depression sets back our forward movement, Or a loss, insecurity, well – anything that feels confining around relationships, health, career, or even the spiritual life might settle in for a spell. We’re pulled to earth to “get down” and take responsible, measured steps in the face of limits as we gain self-discipline, endurance and maturity. A question arises: “What have you come to teach me?” For Saturn is a great teacher and taskmaster. Lessons to be learned face us as we face our limitations.

Like grapes aged on the vine, blessed by the sun and stretched by the cold of stormy days, winter confinements in our lives give pruning and shaping their time-tested transforming ways with us to repair, restore, re-balance. Are you aged by trials to perfection? Patience! Through embracing our limitations and learning the lessons that arise, we can grow steadily in wisdom like a bird gathering twigs, one by one, for the nest.

The astrological sign of Capricorn is ruled by Saturn. Here, the approach to career,  reputation and commitments is quite ambitious – goal oriented, tradition-loving, conscientious. Saturn shares rulership of the sign of Aquarius with Pluto. Its flavor in the mix ushers in a flow of humanitarian ideals to reform social and political structures.

Saturn is an archetype of the Wise Old Man and Wise Old Woman. Age and experience enrich and mellow the soul. The faces of Native American elders come strongly to mind. In their images I see the ways of tradition, duty, legacy, gravitas and wisdom.

Growing up in Minnesota, as I learned about Indian settlers, I often swam in Lake Nokomis (named for a revered grandmother of the Ojibwa people) and marveled at the roar of waters from Hiawatha Falls (her legendary grandson).

What wonderful stories the Native American elders tell about the old ways. As they mentored the young, many sent their sons into the wilderness alone for a long time, to endure many hardships before they could become a warrior, or a medicine man, or one who interprets dreams. Youth needed to find their own authority and inner strength. There was no other way than nature’s way (and the way of the Great Spirit) to prepare for life and find the right balance.

Listen to the wisdom of Chief Seattle: “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

Pictured below is another image I carry of Saturn. Saint Jerome, sage and Doctor of the Church was quite a “critic”of 4th century Christian life. Here he is in his garden. Saint Augustine said of him, “What Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known.”

Like life, language brings limitation. Think of how difficult it can be to put into words an experience of the Divine (by essence, limitless). Or how challenging it is for poets to evoke the transcendent in nuanced verse. Haiku poets purposely focus their creativity by choosing to limit their words to 17 (or less) syllable verses. This sample is from the 17th century Zen master poet of haiku. Matsuo Basho:

The warbler sings

among the shoots of bamboo

of coming old age.

Join me and rest simply in this moment where we’re limited to a single breath. And to the rhythm of breathing: acceptance, surrender.

Embrace our limits? Yes! Yet wise Zen elders remind us not to place boundaries on kindness for everyone and everything in this “life of the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows.”

I just know, dear friends, that you are aging to perfection,

Mary Catherine