The reason I say this is that much of what I wrote has been affirmed in three days of workshops in Melbourne this last weekend, the first two days on the cycle of Saturn and how to make friends with the old devil, and a third day of working with the Shakti goddesses, including the glorious and challenging Kali.
In the Saturn work, because of the square to Neptune, which can be so diabolical in our day-to-day reality, we found that some of the deeply rigid, defensive and masculinised internal structures were far more available to movement and reconstruction.
In the past I have run two full day experiential workshops tracking the Saturn cycle from birth through childhood and adolescence and early adulthood, an often gruelling ordeal through the worst of patriarchal conditioning, parental influences and the inner critic. This always created a powerful alchemical field for all involved but was not the most pleasant of experiences, however healing and illuminating the ultimate results were.
This recent workshop was much easier in some ways, without loss of depth, partly because of Neptune square and partly due to the fantastic conjunction of Jupiter and Hygeia. The latter we introduced to the process on the basis that Jupiter is an opposite, a counterpoint and a compliment to the energy of Saturn. This then gives us clues in our day-to-day experience to counteract the challenges of Saturn square Neptune; that is to energise Jupiter and the fabulous healing goddess Hygeia.
With both of them in Virgo, ways to do this include; using concentrated, focused spiritual practice, ritual and ceremony. This includes classical meditation and particularly meditation that allows us to access the still core of our being, whether we see that as the very still goddess energy that is the essence of Virgo and/or the still column of light that is Shiva, the sacred masculine within us.
And there is the need for the opposite, to honour the wild, organic, orgasmic energies of the sacred feminine, which includes the dark goddesses. Hygeia points the way as a kundalini goddess of spontaneous healing and who is close to Lalita the goddess of sacred sexuality and sexual healing. Whether through ecstatic and five rhythms style dance, some of the active meditations like kundalini, chakra breathe and dynamic, or anywhere where you can simply go ballistic and ecstatic with the rage, the fire and the passion of the deep primal feminine.
With the Jupiter Hygeia conjunction any healing process that takes you into the healing intelligence of the body will bear enormous additional fruit, in this case in the form of primal therapy, breath work experiential astrology, shamanic midwifery and any other expressive form of goddess work.
So the paradox of this time is that we need to find both stillness and express the wild ones inside us. Then we will move through this period well and experience much more liberation from old structures.
In the workshops we found that the goddess Durga was also a very significant presence, expressed through position of the Black moon and who’s essence includes that of Kali, Medusa and Lilith.
On the masculine side in a similar way old Saturn energy was much more amenable to revealing its earth-based fertility, wisdom and power, while simultaneously stretching upwards to link with Shiva energy, the highest expression of the sacred masculine. This then set the stage for another opportunity to connect with the sacred marriage, paradoxically inherent in Saturn conjunct Medusa and Lilith!
One of the fruits of this, also inherent in this month’s chart, is the possibility of coming out of the month, despite all the Neptunian fluctuations, with a far greater capacity for empowerment and transformative focus. This is expressed in a conjunction of Pallas Athena with the planet Pluto in Capricorn at 14° of the sign.
Pallas has been seen rather narrowly as a warrior goddess. While she is indeed that, her warrior energy expresses itself more as strategy, planning and diplomacy but she is also a goddess that, like her Hindu cousin Saraswati, is about the sacred and creative power of thought, reminding us all that Shakti follows where we direct our attention, our focus, our intentions. She is also a goddess who doesn’t mind getting stuck in with the surface masculine to create in the world, and one of her supreme functions is to act as a spearhead for the creative intelligence of the deep feminine in a masculine world.
Now this may make little sense in the early stages of this month because of the collective psychic flux that we are all in but as this clears in the course of the following weeks, Pallas joins Pluto exactly joining her potency with this of god of transformation, death and rebirth. So we can expect spontaneous upwellings of powerful insight, and greater awareness of how to move and focus our energies towards manifestation, at times almost magically so.
Archetypally, this feels like a love fest between two energies not obviously associated with each other and yet have very similar levels of intensity, focus and intention, particularly the effective use of power in all its forms. Sally Kempton in her book “Awakening Shakti” provides a subheading for the energies of Saraswati; My word is Power!
May we come out of this period with a greater ability to wield this power with grace, clarity and effectiveness!