By Cal Garrison a.k.a. Mother of the Skye
This week’s horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Leo Moon, on the day that the Sun enters Pisces, and Chiron crosses the Aries Point. With President’s Day also just behind us, things are in a state of embroilment that makes it hard to know what the truth is – so let’s leave that conversation alone and talk about what we have in common instead of dwelling on things that tear us apart.
Astrology is based on the relationship between time and space and to the relationships that the planets, asteroids, centaurs, and trans-Neptunian points form to our position in time and space at the moment of birth. Nothing in the universe is static. All of those relationships change from moment to moment. Within those changes, we live our lives, and through time and repetition, gather wisdom and experience.
The commonly held belief that our lives arc to a peak that reaches its zenith between 40 and 50 is erroneous. If we see it that way it is because, at the tail end of the Kali Yuga, the darkest point in the Grand Cycle, human consciousness has been conditioned to think in these terms. There are a million reasons for this , but maybe it’s enough to say that over the last 13,000 years we have forgotten what we are here for. In the modern era the civilized world has youth-anized our perceptions to such an extent that everyone thinks they’re over the hill at 40 and ready for the dustbin by the time they turn 50.
The only people who retain any memory of what it means to be human are the indigenous tribes. In all of their traditions, it is understood that wisdom comes from time and experience, and it is the elders of the tribe who hold all of the wisdom, all of the memories, and all of the power in the community. From an astrological perspective, for each individual, the attainment of wisdom and experience is measured in the short term by the cycles of the Moon, and over the long haul, by the cycles of Saturn. It is no accident that Saturn’s nickname is Father Time.
It takes an average of 30 years for a human being to bear witness to their first round of experience. In that time we go through a series of lessons that are unique to us, and based on the contracts that we signed before we entered the earth plane. In the first 30 year cycle, we have cosmic permission to make all kinds of mistakes. It is an interesting fact of life on this planet that depending on how we respond to our experience, that we either learn from our mistakes, or we don’t. In the second 30 year cycle, the whole story starts all over again – but because we are now adults who have already been once around the barn, we are held accountable for our mistakes. At around the age of 60, by the time Saturn completes his second cycle, we get to see if we have learned anything.
At or around our 40th year, the planet Uranus opposes its natal position and serves as an alarm clock that wakes us up enough to notice if we are adhering to our contracts or falling asleep at the switch. The expression “life begins at 40,” and what the shrinks refer to as the mid-life crisis is born out of this aspect. At this point all of us are given a choice. We can choose to stay stuck in the mainstream rut, or we can wake up to the idea that our purpose for living exists outside of the rigid constructs.
Assuming that we make the decision to wake up, the decade between 50 and 60 is where we get to dive deep into what’s left of the past and clear out all of the blocks and patterns that might prevent us from fulfilling our purpose. By the time we are 60, and Saturn makes his second return to his natal position, if we haven’t lost our connection to the truth,we can venture beyond the point where the sidewalk ends and begin to live, fully and completely, from a conscious place.
