Tag: karma

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Saturn on a Sunday

Saturn has been coming up as a topic for me, during this Mercury retrograde, I guess because of age, but also I have Saturn in the 3rd house, sexile my own Rx Mercury. Also it is my late father’s birthday, today.  [Serendipitously, as I was writing this piece, some people began singing happy birthday, next door.]

Saturn can represent the father, or parent/grandparent/teacher that first enforces structure in our lives. I say ‘enforces’ because we have no choice in the matter. This can be for our protection, but it can also be to control us with or repress our natural expression, so, as we grow, we seek to redefine this outer structure that we didn’t create. Sometimes the repression can be quite severe, but Saturn is also the ‘karma lord,’ so somehow, somewhere, we must have had a hand in it and needed the lesson, if only to rebel against and thereby grow into ourselves.

found on ground

The first Saturn return (around age 29) is often difficult because, though it is usually defined as our first ‘true’ initiation into adulthood, reality and responsibility, our unconscious urges are to break out of any left-over, imposed structure not of our own creation, that we have spent our teens and 20s rebelling against.

So part of us may still be modelling our ‘adult’ self on the old blueprints and part of us seeks to continually redraw them until we come up with something more authentic. (We may have had kids prior to the first Saturn return and  discovered we ‘turned into our parents’ along the way). Usually by the second Saturn return we have had some TIME and experience to soul-search and let go of definitions that no longer apply to who we are, often during the ‘mid life crisis’ that is the Uranus opposition and Chiron return.

Aki Inomata hermit crab glass cathedral shell (photo from Fast Company)

It reminds me of the hermit crab (since we’re in Cancer season), who has to keep changing shells as it outgrows the old one, but who always needs a shell to protect it’s soft body. Sometimes it’s new shell is not a shell, but whatever material it finds fitting.
Saturn’s cycles are in sync with the progressed Moon’s, as well as the lunar nodes’ which makes sense, since these represent instinct, the soul urge/potential, emotional body, memory, etc.

Tower and Moon cards

In Tarot, the Tower is the old structure that is struck down, thereby releasing the prisoners. It is often associated with Uranus. Indeed, Uranus is the first planet situated beyond the boundaries of Saturn (Chiron orbits between the two and has been called the ‘Rainbow Bridge’). As 16, it is a ‘1/4’ card (every 4th card is also the 1st card of a new cycle of 3, thus  having to do with change/transition, death and rebirth). This type of change is a blow, shock or awakening from without (well, the lightening is attracted to certain structures for a reason).
In the Moon card, we see two, less imposing towers, with an opening in between, for the soul’s watery emergence. They may well be bridge towers. The Moon is a ‘3’ card (a womb for new creative potential, from which the next cycle is born). Since the Moon controls the tides of life, and the body of water that provides it, we can equate this with the soul forming and reshaping matter. Just look at beach glass, driftwood, etc. This type of change is a slow, but synchronized metamorphosis from within, that can be quite mysterious.

Saturn ultimately knows that in time, all structures will be changed, somehow. But the key word here is TIME. Patience, continued effort…there are no mistakes, no punishment, it’s all a process of becoming.

WW2 Defense Barrier with new graffiti, London    [photo © Kevin Harrison]

Meanwhile, Neptune in Pisces tides are wearing down our old preconceptions and washing away the footprints in the sand left by the Piscean Age. Things are cracking open. The Earth itself is changing, her waters rising, her crust shifting. It’s up to each and every one of us to use this opportunity to create new space for becoming who we really are, from within. Only we can change ourselves so that the old structures have no foundation to be re-built on.

All written content herein is copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reposted or reprinted without permission  plus a credit and a link to this page. You may share via link. Thank you for being respectful.

 

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A Word About Karma and Reincarnation

Rx Mercury in Pisces sermon…

Some western astrologers who use North and South Nodes nevertheless do not believe in reincarnation. That’s fine, I’m not out to convert anyone, but I think it’s important to understand the concept before throwing it out.
The detective in me likes to look for clues to past lives in a chart reading, but it’s not the entire purpose of the reading. Sometimes what I find really resonates with a person, sometimes it doesn’t, but to think every person begins everything from scratch at birth falls short. How do you explain a child prodigy like Mozart, for example? Just genetic info being passed down? Perhaps.

The Hindus may have invented the Nodes, but they did not invent the idea of reincarnation. Many ancient/indigenous peoples, including the Greeks, Inuit, Celts and others subscribe(d) to the idea that, like all things observed in nature, we return. Probably what JC was trying to tell his followers, too, but they didn’t get it and saw ‘being raised from the dead’ as a kind of zombie apocalypse. Likely it was only really taught in earnest to a handful of Gnostics.

In Tibetan Buddhism, reincarnation does not just involve being reborn into another body in this realm, they take into account other realms. There is nothing to say that a soul can’t be occupying different realms simultaneously, or that reincarnation is some sort of assembly line thing, since ‘linear time’ does not exist outside this one. Your cells are in fact being reincarnated at this very moment.

Also, ‘karma’ is not just an ‘eye for an eye’, that’s the westernized idea. Teaching people that if you behave in this life, the next one might be better is no diff than saying heaven or hell awaits. Something to control people with, or maybe just something they’ll ‘get’ in simple terms.

Even if you never came into contact with another human being you have karma – ie, an accumulation of memory resonance in every particle in your body, which has indeed had another life, previous – that’s just quantum science. Our karma  influences the choices we make, as well as our thoughts, so the more consciously aware and less emotionally invested in it we are, the better. (Why astrology is a great tool). Again, the idea is that everything returns, hence, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

It’s all a beautiful mystery, and the idea is to focus on the here and now, not get seduced by the romance of what we may have been, once upon a time. Past life memories (or parallel universes) can and do pop up from time to time, in dreams, altered states of consciousness or perhaps simply as a kind of deja-vu  type of feeling when visiting a foreign place. Sometimes you meet someone and feel you’ve known them before. Like present life memories, past ones are worth examining for clues they may hold to otherwise unexplainable behaviour patterns or talents, to provide inspiration, or, as in evolutionary astrology, to check in with our soul’s progress, but should not be dwelt on or attached to beyond this.


Reincarnation cartoon by David Coverly speedbump.com
All written text herein is copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reposted or reprinted without permission plus credit/link to this page).
Feel free to share via link, though. Thank you for being respectful.

 

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Jupiter and Saturn – Two Sides of the Same Coin ?

Jupiter and Saturn – are they two sides of the same coin ?

Here’s a very simplified, astrological comparison, without going too deeply into the mythology…

Jupiter (Zeus) was ‘King of the Gods’. He resides in the clouds and never was big on limitations – his own, that is. Though he does think it important that we humans should have spiritual laws, moral codes of ethics, philosophies and things like that, but also faith. The big 3 religions that can’t stop being morally superior to each other, all have an incarnation of Jupiter at the helm and are based on the belief that spirit exceeds all physical limitations. His glyph is a half circle rising over a cross, ‘spirit over matter’. The planet Jupiter, 5th from the Sun, is the biggest in the solar system and mostly gas. A ‘jovial’ windbag. His metal is tin – which may not seem befitting for the heavenly father, but it is the lightest and can be mixed with any metal.

Saturn (Kronos) , in ancient times, was the last planet visible to the naked eye, so his sphere was, literally, the limit, and thus he represents accepting/learning to work within our own limitations and the laws of nature – the biggest one being that we inhabit a material body. No escaping that, until death. Also he has rings ‘binding’ him. At Saturnalia, these, in the form of chains, come off his statue (Lord of Misrule) and everyone parties. His glyph or sigil is a cross, above a half circle (which sometimes looks more like a tail/snake), meaning ‘matter over spirit’. Thus Saturn is earthy, his metal is lead, he is gravity in all forms. The 6th planet from the Sun.

Wherever Saturn is situated in your natal chart represents where you feel limited or where your most important life lessons are (the ones you committed to), what karma you are working through during this lifetime. It can feel ‘grave’ or serious, at least at first, until you have learned and matured according to Saturn’s rules. There is comedy in tragedy and vice versa, that’s life. Tragedy means ‘goat song’.

Wherever Jupiter is, on the other hand, is a place you feel fortunate, rewarded, free. The gifts he brings may feel like lottery winnings, but they are actually rewards for good deeds and hard work in past lifetimes. Jupiter especially enjoys buffoonery and of course, gambling. He is also Santa Claus.

So as you can see, they work together. Body and spirit are interwoven during this lifetime and we can’t progress in one without the other, or we might experience their shadows. For example, some people who are all spiritual or preachy with Jupiterian morals start to express the  grave or humorless characteristics of Saturn or neglect their bodies. Those who are focused only on the material , worldly concerns of Saturn can start to embody the ruthless, megalomaniacal side of Jupiter, in their sense of entitlement.

Thus, it is very important to keep these two archetypes in balance.

 

All text (except quotation and cartoons) is copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff
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Eleven Power and Twin Towers

Today, Americans are marking the 10th anniversary of September 11. Nobody will ever be able to forget where they were that morning, nor the striking footage – somehow shot so clearly from every angle possible – of the world’s tallest skyscraper disintegrating into smoke before our very eyes.

At this time every year, I am compelled to zoom out and view the extensive symbolism surrounding the the Twin Towers, which stood for three decades as the financial matrix of the world. Two images stand out and contrast in my mind; one of Philippe Petit playfully defying death, atop a tightrope, (the beginning), and one of people falling to theirs from the burning buildings (the end). Both are of mythic proportion, completely surreal and defy explanation within the scope of our ordinary reality.

Power and the Tower

In a previous post I mentioned how Tarot expresses ‘universal laws.’ It’s as if all the scripts were written (by us) long ago and we just keep re-enacting and revising them…and that is really what myths are – a record of dream-time stories from the collective unconscious, unlike history, which is a record of stories as events, as they occur in the outer world.
Sometimes the fabric between the two realms is lifted or torn and the effect is momentous, impossible to explain. It usually happens when the rational mind (masculine) has become too dominant, threatening the balance of life by depleting us of mystery, magic and awe (feminine). A grand act of surrealism, for better or worse, throws our rational minds into chaos, challenging our set notion of which realm, exactly, we are in. It’s a form of death, when everything familiar suddenly isn’t. And at this opening between the veils (in Greek, the word apocalypse means ‘lifting of the veil’), there is a moment of truth or grace, when time just stops and feels infinite at once. This is the expression of the ‘mute’ number, 11.  In  Marseille Tarot arcanum 11,  La Force, the Goddess’ hat is shaped like a lemniscate or number 8, signifying her infinite dominion over balance, truth, paradox, law and order in the natural world.

Grimaud TdM

11 is the master number of illumination and inspiration. If it shows up, that’s usually a sign. World players know of the number’s power and have tried to invoke it – Armistice was signed on 11/11 at the 11th hour and Prince William and Kate Middleton were married on the 29th (reduces to 11) day of the month at the 11th hour in 2011.  The towers themselves formed a colossal 11, as if standing in constant invocation to the heavens. And they were twins. In  both alchemy and cross-cultural myth, twins embody the duality (and paradox) that each of us must work with, overcome and unify, a theme that reappears over and over in Tarot. Another duality we create and reckon with is between ourselves and what we imagine as God. Any act of balance or karma takes the form of Judgement in our minds, as if we are being rewarded or punished by events we have no control over.
A tower is, of course, an overtly masculine symbol. It’s  La Maison Dieu, ‘God’s House.’ Putting aside Babel for a moment, in Tarot duality terms, that means the opposing and uniting force that knocks down the ego, blows it’s mind or brings it to climax is feminine – ‘La Force’ of arcanum 11.

The Supreme Mother Goddess, Durga, whose name means ‘Fortress’,  rides a lion or tiger. (Bengal, late 19th/early 20th c)


Enter the Solar Hero

Not surprisingly, the young man who heard the Towers calling him  to give them life is a double fire sign, Leo (the Lion) with Aries Moon.  He is an agile performer, the fearless star of his own show – an artist who creates from the heart and performs dramatically daring feats. Aries is also the Fool, the ‘wise child’ and the hero who lives for the next mission. Sun conjunct Pluto indicates a person who was born with a very strong feeling of destiny, of having something to show to the world that will transform consciousness. His Jupiter, Lord of the Sky is in Capricorn (mastery, the corporate world). Not everyone with this combination would use their faith and skill to literally ascend to the summit of the world’s tallest banking institution, yet, for him, it was the only way. Fire is known for it’s ego size and you’d have to have one as tall as the Towers themselves to want to perform a feat like this, or indeed to have built such monoliths in the first place. The difference is that Philippe, wise Fool, always maintained his connection with the universe and was keenly aware of his place in it:

Grimaud TdM

“At some point in one of the crossings, I lay down on the wire and looked at the sky, and I saw a bird above me. And again, because… my senses were [decoupled]. I could see that bird pretty high up, and I saw the eyes were red. And I thought of the myth of Prometheus there. But the bird was circling and looking at me as if I was invading his territory, as if I was trespassing, which I was. So at some point I thought the gods – the god of the wind, the gods of the towers, the god of the wire – all those invisible forces that we persist in thinking don’t exist, but actually rule our lives – might become impatient, might become annoyed at my persistent vagabondage there. So my intuition told me it was time for me to close the curtain on this very intimate performance…”

Zero Ground 

The archetype of the Fool in Tarot is one who has left the realm of perceived reality, of wealth, possessions, pain and attachments. It sounds a bit like dying, but it’s actually freedom from death. Transcendent, he wafts between forms like a breeze and has no fear of reaching the end. He knows there isn’t one, so is free to live life “1000%.”  Most of us find it hard to get past the more finite idea of death. It’s terrifying, like the Grim Reaper in arcanum 13 and to be avoided at all costs. The two figures strike a very similar pose (this feature is unique to Tarot Marseille), plus, one is unnumbered, while the other is unnamed –  it would seem they illustrate the dual experiences of facing imminent death, as depicted in the two photographs at the opening of the post.

We are eternal.   Peace.

 

All written content herein, except quotation, is © Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be re-used without my permission. Kindly share via link only. Thanks for respecting.