This is the final installment of a series that I wrote and published in a small astrological magazine one full cycle of Saturn ago, 30 years ago, in 1987, when, as now, Saturn moved back and forth in late Sagittarius, which itself just happens to be the degree area of my natal Ascendant And Sun! I timed the posting of this series to surround August 25, 2017, the day when Saturn stationed, turned to go direct, at 21° Sagittarius, exactly upon my 21° natal Ascendant.

For the other installments, see Introduction, Part I,  Part II,  Part III and Part IV

I imagine there are not many readers who can fully appreciate the deep resonance of this grand returning to the same unusually significant place of a long cycled planet for me personally. But a few more will appreciate the sociological significance, what was going on in this culture, when we old hippies were calling ourselves “New Age,” way back in the ’80s. And for these folks, and others who tend to think of time multidimensionally, as concentric, interwoven cycles, both large and small, we do appreciate and fill with wonder at how the planets carve out their own arcs through space, come back to their points of origin over and over again, each return generating aha moments when we recognize, somehow, that a meaningful story has been woven with our very lives.

And, while I can see now that, as ever, 30 years ago I was way too optimistic (double Sagttarius!) about how the Saturn/Uranus conjunction of that time would help us rewire our brains and heal all our cultural ills, I can also recognize that now, 30 years later, with Saturn again in late Sagittarius and Uranus again working with Saturn (this time via a harmonic 120° aspect), much has changed and “for the better” — at least personally. Now that I’m 74 years old, I experience Saturn much differently than when I was 43 years old. No longer so  full of fear, judgment, and control (negative Saturn) that I need to play out dramas in order to learn! Rather, now my learning is less tumultuous, more subtle and continuous. At this age, I really am more “in control” of my own automatic reactions to both inner and outer events,  much more able to recognize and retract projections almost instantly, thereby nipping dramas in the bud.

I wish I could say the same for the culture at large. However, as more and more of us do tackle the great work of learning to understand and integrate all the aspects of our  unruly selves, eventually this will translate into a greater public understanding as well. The only catch? We may not have time. We may run out of time. We may blow ourselves up, or global weirding may have made us extinct before we complete the next Saturn learning cycle. Indeed, I would wager a bet that IF humans are still on this planet intact when the next 30 year cycle of Saturn completes, in 2047, then it’s because we will have learned our lesson as a civilization. Will have learned to truly let go of fear, judgment and control in the interests of love, appreciation, and cooperation.

So here we go, the fifth and final installment, and as you will see, a decidedly personal story.

Saturn/Uranus in Sagittarius:

Conceptual Repatterning

1987

Part V

 

Introduction

This series on Saturn/Uranus in Sagittarius began with a philosophical article focusing on this conjunction as a process of crystallizing the paradigm shift in consciousness to be completed in early 1989, when these two planets move into Capricorn. At the end of that article I speculated that the series would continue in a philosophical vein by focusing on certain abstract themes within the emerging paradigm.

Instead, in the second article I found myself focusing on Saturn/Uranus as it imprinted on me, a child born the last time these two planets were together, in Gemini, during 1942-43. I worried about reader response to that article. It was so very personal and subjective — a far cry from the detached objectivity of the first article. I needn’t have worried. The feedback was wonderful.

As different as those articles were from each other, I have long used both approaches in my work and find them thoroughly familiar. Then along came the third article . . . to my surprise, this one departed radically from either of the others! They were both broad-spectrum: the first in space, the space of society; the second in time, the time of my life. Likewise, the first two articles more or less followed a plan. Both were somewhat Saturnian.

Uranus took over the third article — and the fourth — and this one, the fifth . . . (And with Uranus came the other two “outer planets,” Neptune and Pluto, and the minor grand trine linking them — for me, for my generation.) In that third article, I entered an open system, more right brained than left. Attuning to a space larger and more mysterious than that of my own lifetime, I found it impossible to project what the end would be from the beginning. Instead of knowing where I was going I had to go with the flow — and hope the reader could follow with me.

The third article was written as a process, spiraling round and round two recent events in my life, one external — the near accident with my car, the other internal — the Ralph Nader dream. I received many interesting comments on that article, the most astute being that in the end my analysis of the dream should have been personal, not philosophical. I agree. I was still trying to be Saturn — and keep a thread of continuity throughout this series by tying that third article into the first philosophical one.

The first draft of the fourth article was written in a sort of Uranian frenzy, while I looked around at the mountain valley where I live and found myself in judgment (negative Saturn) against it. Reading it to a friend, I could see by his reaction that it didn’t feel good. So I softened it somewhat, to be more descriptive than critical.

In what follows, I again struggle with my tendency to judge; indeed, it becomes a major theme. This fifth article may be the final one in the series — at least for the time being. I offer it as a running account of the continuing Saturn/Uranus dialogue as it played itself out in my inner/outer lives while on a recent journey to California.

Naming the Journey

It is March 2, 1987. I am flying through the desert in my little red Subaru just as Jupiter begins its passage through the sign of Aries. I planned it this way. Wanted that extra fiery push to overcome transit Saturn squashing my 21° Sagittarian Ascendant.

Plans are to be gone from my mountain home for six weeks. Longer than ever before. About time I got on the road! Positively embarrassing for this double Sagittarian not to have been around the world several times already! Maybe this is the beginning . . . maybe I can overcome my Taurus Moon . . . so much inertia . . . reeling me in . . . grounding me in place . . . Thank God for fiery transits! For Jupiter in Aries trining my Sagittarian Sun! Now! Right now! Saturn and Taurus Moon be damned.

Oh oh, what’s that noise, that rattling sound? Is that the same sound I noticed going from Pocatello to Twin Falls yesterday? Is it just “bad gas” like the Subaru mechanic told me? Oh no, it seems to be getting worse . . . or is it? Oh no, what if it is? How will I ever make the hundred miles between here and Winnemucca if something goes wrong?

Fears worm their way in, nudge the glorious morning aside. I tense, stiffen, speed up even faster, got to get there, got to get there on time. Fear mutates to judgment — against myself. What’s wrong with me that I’m so afraid? I glance in the rear view mirror. My face glares back at me, the vertical line between my brows furrowing the way it has since I was two years old. I have recently learned that this type of line reflects the condition of the liver; that, from an emotional point of view, negative liver reflects judgments, criticism, dogmatic thinking . . . There’s no denying it, my face mirrors a chronic inner state exactly as Nietzsche put, “Even when a man lies, the way his mouth looks tells the truth.”

My menstrual period started yesterday. I feel fragile, inward, vulnerable. Particularly so this month. My body feels brittle, as if one slight nudge would shatter it into a thousand fragments. And so heavy this time, so much blood. . . . God what if I hemorrhage? What? Hemmorhage? How ridiculous! I’ve never hemorrhaged in my life! My God what is going on? Why should I be afraid of that now?

Oh yes, yes! Suddenly I have to laugh out loud, thank God my sense of humor is intact — that old bugaboo Saturn, sitting right on my Ascendant, exaggerating any fear I can dream up. My car breaking down . . . my body breaking down . . . Saturn as my shell, my ego, the vehicle I use to get through life . . . somehow it doesn’t seem large enough or strong enough to contain the energy surging through my blood now as Uranus swells to the bursting point. I am so happy, so happy to be moving through space on this glorious day. A day I can see forever. A day with the entire world opening up before me. A brand new beginning this is, I know it, I can feel it, as along with the transits of Saturn and Uranus, the Progressed Moon also ignited my fiery Sun.

I think back to the first time Saturn crossed over my Ascendant, in 1958, 29 years ago. That was a classic study in Saturn isolation. There was no contradiction then like there is now. I wasn’t one moment gloriously happy and the next terrified and afraid. That year transiting Uranus was nowhere near Saturn. Instead, it was locked away with natal Pluto and Jupiter in the 8^th house, festering, a secret internal battle ground . . . I was a junior in high school; as Saturn closed in on the Ascendant, I closeted myself in my bedroom and devoured Thomas Hardy novels. Brooding Victorian morality concealing/revealing exploding sexuality . . . I hated everybody that year. Hated my boyfriend especially, couldn’t stand the way he walked, the way he blew his nose, the way he stooped down to tie his shoes . . . Isolating myself from the entire world, I shoved it away by harshly judging against it.

Now, 29 years later, Saturn has been around the wheel one full round more. I no longer hate the world, or judge against it. Now Saturn works inside me, and during this transit, brings an increased need for silence, solitude, inner discipline.

Despite this, I planned a journey to California to coincide with Saturn’s crossing of the Ascendant. This decision was made, not to defy the energy of Saturn, but to acknowledge the energy of Uranus, also activated within. I viewed the journey as an experiment (Uranus). I wanted to discover the rhythms (Saturn/Uranus plus Neptune) I would need during this time of working (Saturn) for an extended period as an astrologer (Uranus) on the road.

This spring Saturn and Uranus are together in the sky for the first time in 44 years. I am 44 years old, born under the last conjunction, when Saturn and Uranus were in Gemini, opposite Sagittarius, where they are now. I imprinted on that heavenly signature. The struggle between these two energies is a paradoxical quality of my original nature.

As a child I identified with Saturn, rigidly holding to my father’s Roman Catholic views. Rejecting Uranus, I refused to question those views and hated people who did. Later, I switched allegiance, identifying with Uranus at the expense of Saturn. The rebel in me surfaced. I saw the world entirely differently from before. Caught in my own arrogance, I judged those still caught within Saturn’s rings for their inability to see beyond.

For most of my life I have been unable to embody both of these energies at once. Identifying with one of them, I have projected the other out; first one, then the other. One was inside, the other outside. One was right, the other wrong. The result was tension — and that line between my brows: I had to keep on defending myself against whichever energy I refused to recognize as mine.

In recent years I have been realizing the need to embrace the paradox that is Saturn/Uranus. Now, as they put pressure on my Ascendant and Sun respectively, the necessity of that embrace is moving from a detached mental understanding to a felt bodily requirement. They are crossing the first house where my body meets the world; I have no choice but to integrate them now — a process for which I am allowed two years, 1987-1988, the years of this conjunction in the late degrees of Sagittarius.

Driving along, I am reminded of the mandala given to me yesterday by my friend Katy in Twin Falls, Idaho. “All of a sudden one day I started to draw something . . .” she said, “and when I finished it, Annie, I knew it was for you. It is your mandala for this year.” I was astonished. The drawing incorporates lightning-like zigzags on angles leading out from a center point, the whole encompassing a circle. Her image had captured the contradictory feeling I was needing to learn how to embody. Turning it over, I read the inscription: STILLNESS IN THE STORM.

My journey to California was planned to initiate this process of embodiment. I set it up to include an introductory lecture, several workshops and many chart consultations. Lots of work over an unusually long period of time. What would be the rhythm I would need to sustain my energy? What kind of internal structures would I need to create to allow for the spontaneity and flexibility such a journey would require? How could I become that stillness in the storm?

Timing the start of the journey for the beginning of March, to coincide with Jupiter’s entry into Aries, I had decided that part of the journey would complete itself at the end of that month, as Saturn and Uranus reach their stations and begin retrograde motion for the next six months.

True to the contrary pulls of these planets, even the planning of this trip had been a struggle. I had been so inward, so wonderfully alone in my tiny cabin all winter that I almost had to force myself to set this trip into motion. Yet I knew I must do something, that if I didn’t the energy of Uranus — that bud of restlessness swelling each day — would ripen and burst in some inappropriate way. If I didn’t give it room for expression it would take that room, causing an “accident,” or burning my cabin down, or some other drastic, unplanned action to wake me up to greater possibilities than my usual Saturnian routines.

Already the combination of Saturn and Uranus had been expressing through my physical body. Over the past several months various rashes (heat = Mars/Uranus) had been appearing and disappearing on my skin (Saturn). Most dramatically, a huge boil (Pluto) had come to the surface (Saturn) and exploded (Uranus) during the Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon of November, exactly upon the degree of my natal Taurus Moon.

Saturn over Uranus

Berkeley, the night of my arrival. My friends Ella and Walter have invited me to a meeting of the “Institute for Consciousness Studies,” where a friend of theirs will be speaking on the chakras. I am dressed in black, trying to be invisible, and noting how pallid these city folk look. The atmosphere here reminds me of my years in Cambridge: the same chinos and tweed jackets, wire rim glasses, the same intense, intellectual, introverted demeanor. And I cannot help but notice how I too am the same as I was back then, still introverted, and intellectually separating myself off from them all through my judgments. Despite this, the chakra meditation goes well; I manage to get in touch with energy vortices within.

That night I awaken from a terrible nightmare. Quoting from my journal: “I am in Twin Falls (my hometown). I am being tried(?), accused(?) in a public way for crime(s?) relating to astrology. All eyes are on me — am being scapegoated — as a witch . . . feeling is of panic, a desperate fear, a need to get out of there but where could I run to, the world is too small, I would be found. Very real, palpable, the sense that the mob acting as a large impersonal force has targeted its fear on me.”

In this dream I relate to Saturn as fear of established authority, and act as if its reality is larger, more powerful than Uranus.

Fears, both day and night. Fears of not getting the work I need to justify this trip. Of not having the energy to do the work if I do get it. Of not being able to sleep at night. Insomnia during times of intense activity is an ancient problem for me.

Some nights I succeed, some I don’t. Each full night’s sleep feels like a victory.

San Francisco. I am staying with a friend in the heart of this intense city and she has been planning my arrival for weeks — arranging for a public room for me to speak in, sending out flyers, coordinating her efforts with those of four other women who are also helping to publicize my work to their friends. Claudia is excited; she is terrified. She’s done all this work and hardly anybody has RSVP’d. What if nobody comes?

Nobody comes. Well, not nobody. Maybe 15 people? And the room is big. Thank god we didn’t set out too many chairs, or our embarrassment would have been even greater.

Our disappointed expectations have cast a pall over the room. It echoes my appearance, as again I am dressed in black. I rise to speak, and spend the next hour and a half pretending to be my public commanding, fiery self. It works okay. I am a good actor. A few people sign up for chart readings.

On the way back to Claudia’s, she asks, “Well, what do you think of the evening?” Tentatively, hesitantly — not wanting to hurt her feelings, knowing how much time she put into organizing this event — I say, well, I’m disappointed more people didn’t show up.

“Me too,” she says, her voice strained.

We sit down at her kitchen table and spend the next two hours analyzing the events that led up to tonight’s fiasco. How come so much organization produced such paltry results? Well, Claudia had never organized such an event before, the entire thing was planned during Mercury retrograde, the other four women weren’t really into it, and invites didn’t get out until a week ago; it was raining tonight and people here don’t go out in the rain at night, etc. By the time we were finished it really did seem like we had figured it out. No longer did the lack of people feel like a personal affront.

Both of us were born during 1942-43, with Saturn/Uranus in Gemini. We need to know. We had to figure it out. Claudia had overplanned (Saturn) something that should have been more spontaneous (Uranus). And from my point of view, this event was an outpicturing of what had been going on inside me.

Even so, rather than covering it up and going on, pretending everything was fine, we had dared to look at the event in the face and acknowledge our disappointment. And we worked it through, right then and there. Those two hours became the turning point for my astrological work on this journey.

(To “work it through” is to understand the meaning of events as a process. A process is structured as a smaller cycle within a larger one, consisting of a beginning, a midpoint, and an end. To “process” something is to understand, to recognize its overall structure, to point out its background assumptions and future implications, and to place it within a larger, more holistic context. This word “process,” and the current use of it, is a positive, healing function of Saturn/Uranus in Gemini which our generation has pioneered over approximately the last 20 years.)

And these two hours were inwardly linked to a series of events that began the morning of the day before. These events changed me, irrevocably, though the change didn’t manifest in the outer world until that late night kitchen table conversation of the next day.

That morning I had been preparing to meet my first client when I noticed a letter addressed to me on the hall table. By the handwriting and the return address I recognized it as from the man whom I had been seeing the past year, and to whom I had not spoken for three months, so explosive had been our final parting. (He is 20 years older than I, and otherwise Saturnian too; I had been projecting that part of myself onto him, and using Uranus to try to shake him loose.) Quickly, I tore open the letter and read it, my hands shaking, so much energy did this reminder of him trigger in me. Just then the door bell rang. Damn, what timing! I went to the door and asked the client if he would please come back in 20 minutes; that I had just received a letter that contacted some emotion in me which I had to clear.

That done, I went back into the living room and read the letter through again, beginning to feel fluttery in my chest. Encouraging the feeling, I began to breathe deeply and allow the feeling to surface. Within a minute or so I was crying, quietly — too quietly, as if embarrassed. I wasn’t able to crack the dam; the most I could do was let a little water go down the spillway. Well, that would have to do. I spent the remaining minutes composing myself, making ready for the client’s return.

The day before, a body worker had called, wanting to trade astrology for her work on me. I had reluctantly agreed (not thinking I really needed such work), and arranged to meet her late this afternoon. Now, walking up the hill to her office, I realize that given the emotions called up by that letter, and given the cramped, fearful state I am in, body work is exactly what I need.

As she works on me, I tell her about my relationship with this man, a double Scorpio. She recounts her experiences with Scorpios, saying something that strikes me still: “It’s as if their sting goes deeper than most, so we have to go into ourselves deeper than usual in order to heal.”

Afterwards, she asks me if I want her to help me clear out old emotion. Feeling still blocked emotionally, I say okay, more to be polite than to acknowledge a real need.

She tells me to lie on my back, knees up, and breathe slowly, deeply, into my stomach. After I have done this about 20 times she tells me to switch and begin breathing into my chest. “Now drop your consciousness down, down into your chest” — and I do, immediately, whoosh, just like that! She begins to lightly rub a diffuse area in the middle of my chest . . . I tell her a particular point really hurts, so she starts rubbing on that. “Now, if it feels like it’s a good thing to do, start kicking out your legs, one at a time, hard, kick at whoever you need to . . .” The chest breathing and rubbing have moved me into the same kind of crying I did that morning; the kicking now moves me into a totally animal space, out of control.

I feel as if I have jumped off a cliff and smashed down into my self. Filled with a deep, wracking sobbing, I am expressing it fully, loudly, in a strong, low, mournful wailing coming from somewhere deep within the recesses of my body. It seems as if my very genes are activated. Each sob lasts what seems like a minute. I am drowning in deep water; with each breath I have to struggle mightily to get back to the surface.

Later, writing in my journal: “It feels as if I had contacted an old buried feeling, the feeling of being in my crib crying, crying, no matter how hard I cried nobody came to pick me up, I was totally, utterly abandoned.”

“I hardly slept for two nights. Then, last night, after the body work, I slept like a baby. THAT SOBBING OPENED UP A TOTALLY NEW SPACE WITHIN ME: IT FELT LIKE I WAS CREATING OR EXCAVATING A DEEP TROUGH LINKING POWER CENTER TO HEART.”

Over the next few days the phone begins to ring with clients. I go into the routine I’ve been expecting/dreading, and the transition is smooth, easy. But I am still feeling somewhat Saturnian, deadened. An opening has occurred deep inside, but it isn’t translating easily into daily life. Working mornings and evenings, each afternoon I explore a new city neighborhood on foot. I do this without enthusiasm, feeling like a little Saturn robot, lost and alone, jerked this way and that by the constant Uranian excitement of a big city.

Spring Equinox. I have taken a few days off, and am now sitting on a point on the beach at Monterey, observing a private ceremony to mark the balance of day and night, allowing the ocean to wash over my mind. Later, walking slowly back, I spontaneously reach down and pick up a rock. I hold it all the way to the car and set it on the dash. From my journal that night: “ . . . a black and white rock, but pointillistic, tiny black and white bits everywhere interspersed with each other. Saturn judgments, black and white, now transformed into tiny exacting differentiated perceptions.” (My natal Saturn in Gemini is 150° to, and in mutual reception with, Mercury in Capricorn. My Pluto is 150° to Mercury, sextile Saturn. Mercury is conjunct Venus. The whole pattern — a tightly aspected “Finger of God.”) “That rock fit my hand perfectly and was soon warmed by it.”

That night, in a friend’s house alone, another dream. From my journal: “I’m out on the ocean alone in a silver metal rowboat, spending the entire day. It is hazy, dreamy, sky meeting water with no differentiation. I spend the first part of the day sitting here, dreaming, in a trance state . . . finally, I shake myself loose, and get my fishing pole out. I look down and notice the bottom of the ocean is visible. There are lots of fish, some of them big — my God, what if I catch one? It might be too big! I want to move to where I don’t see the bottom — being able to see the fish is scary. Just then I notice water is pouring in the front end of the boat. Boat has been slowly leaking. Now the top is level with the water and boat is sinking. I notice the distance to land and think, well, I can swim and drag the boat too (it’s not my boat, I don’t want to lose it) when I notice a shark fin; a shark is circling in for the kill! It comes at me; I whap it on the head with the oar. Comes in again, I do the same thing. Next scene: I made it to shore and am talking to others about the experience. Mood in the dreams was not really fearful, except when I saw the bottom which allowed all the fish to be seen . . . would rather not know the danger on a conscious level . . . otherwise, when possibility of drowning or being eaten by a shark came up it was more a mood of objectively sensing the danger and doing something about it.”

 Saturn as boat. Uranus as unexpected dangers. Saturn as ability to handle them. A healing dream.

Again from the journal, same day: “Last 24 hours, as I spiral into myself, I am seeing Saturn on Ascendant as the fact of my judgments against others and the fact of my fear of others’ judgments against me — their abandonment of me — and how they somehow spring from the same source. Let go. Let go. Mind has been my defense system.”

Uranus Takes the Lead

 Two days later, another dream: “ Driving north on road next to the Tetons. I’m in back seat with a female friend, my age. Two old women are in the front seat, one of them clear, strong, wise, the other fearful, weak, nervous. We get out to change seats. I wonder whether I will sit with the wise old woman in back, but no, both old ones sit in back, with us young ones up front, my friend driving.

 “Suddenly, way in front of us, what appears to be a localized storm. Like a giant column of fog and ice. We turn off, get out. As we are standing there we are hailed by tiny metallic bits thrown by the storm. They stick in my white sweater and hair. The wise old woman looks concerned. I ask her if she thinks we should go back. Yes, she answers; we both wonder if this is a new Yellowstone boiling hole blowing out and if there is even going to be molten lava pouring (i.e., a volcano), URANUS NOW CONJUNCT MY SUN!!”

And I am afraid, want to turn back . . .

March 26. Saturn and Uranus both nearing their stations . . . From journal: “Spent yesterday walking with Claudia in North Beach. We analyze the dream. The two older women are negative and positive Saturn figures. Claudia notes that we changed seats. ‘You are Uranus. You are in the front seat now. Uranus doesn’t take advice from Saturn. This is the changing of the guard.’ The “storm” (from above) which turns out to be really the opening from below is Uranus — sudden, surprising, scary . . . The silver metallic bits — Saturn — the boat, ego boundaries, but now blown to smithereens: Uranus. Reminds me of the rock I picked up on the beach with tiny black and white bits . . . And reminds me of all the explosions in my life recently: the exploding boil, the explosion with my Saturn friend . . .

“On my way back I get a sudden urge to buy a ring, look at hundreds of rings, can’t find it . . .”

That entry was made the evening of the same day. The next morning, again in my journal: “Last night after going to bed, the column of whirling stormy energy was again in front of me, very strong, numinous, magnetic. Problem with buildup in power chakra again.” (Three years ago, for a few months, I went through a period where I experienced a huge energy build up in power chakra (solar plexus). It felt like an infinite space full of negativity . . . and would render me sleepless, sometimes for weeks. Over time I learned to visualize leaking the energy up into the heart chakra to let the pressure drain off. This technique had proved only moderately successful.)

“This time, instead of trying to move it directly to the heart, I began with the root chakra, allowing it to fill with energy; then, still sustaining that, roto-rooting it up to the second chakra, then third, feeling the differential in vibration in each — then the fourth . . . (Now the heart was easy to access, as energy moved up and incredibly expansive) — fifth — felt constriction here, in the throat — wanted it to expand, soften — to allow easy and mellifluous passage — then sixth, and crown, topmost point. I had become an electrified column of energy. I WAS THAT ELECTRICAL STORM COLUMN. That symbol in my dream was kundalini energy, linking heaven and earth — and it rained on me, showering me with Saturn, giving me a mantle of earthly responsibility.

“This morning I tell Claudia about the dream. She goes and gets a ring, it is silver, and shaped like a serpent or snake — kundalini — and tells me she had thought of it yesterday, but kept dismissing it.”

There it is. The ring. And it fits only the second finger, Saturn’s finger.

Saturn and Uranus Integrating

During the first few weeks of my visit, I had given my Uranus energy to the city, and felt lost and alone inside it. Working hard as an astrologer, I kept a strict Saturn discipline in all daily routines. Instinctively, I felt all I could do was pay attention to each moment as it came, and fulfill its demands exactly. I knew I had to live right here, right now, and not let feelings of futility overcome me. Two things seemed intuitively clear: if I did not do this, the strict order would break into chaos; if I did do this, I would eventually work my way out of Saturn into Uranus.

Meanwhile, Saturn and Uranus were slowly, imperceptibly, integrating. At first this was experienced on inner planes, only gradually moving out into physical manifestation. The prophetic mandala — “Stillness in the Storm” — underwent a sea change through the medium of my dreams. The struggle between Saturn and Uranus played out as a blocked desire to move energy from power center to the heart. (Saturn as power over the Ascendant, my need to rigidly keep everything in check; Uranus on the Sun as the heart, dramatically opening, expanding.) The dream of the storm column, my initial fear of it, and subsequent becoming one with it led, the very next day, to being given the serpent’s ring for my Saturn finger.

Now my forays into the city were joyous. My heart was open, I felt at one with each surprising moment and its opening into the next.

Sometime during those wondrous days an image welled up inside me: of Saturn as it had been, a thick cement wall hugging my skin. Now that wall was expanding outwards. As it expands it thins — to the point of transparency, becoming a membrane, capable of osmosis, admitting light.

The boundary system had thinned to a large circular membrane, and the membrane, as the days went on, was seen/experienced in three dimensions, as a tube, or channel, for Uranus energy to course through.

By the time of my final workshop on March 29, the day of a Solar Eclipse in Aries (and Saturn and Uranus very near their stations), it seemed as if everything that had happened on this journey had been leading up to this glorious Sunday morning. The setting was a beautiful, serene, handmade house in the hills of Northern Marin. The subject was “Transformation” — done through clinical case histories. And the people coming were 15 of the 60 or so I had consulted with on this journey. From the time they walked in the door, each one happy, open, joyous, bringing wonderful food for our lunchtime feast, it seemed, as one of the participants put it, “as though this were an AA meeting of people who had known each other for years.” In reality, very few did know each other beforehand, and the variety within the group was astonishing, from a 65-year-old man to a child of only 11 years. What they had in common was their Pluto processes, and the capacity this brings for us to strip away normal pretenses and deal with what is real.

The day flew by. I hardly remember it, except to say that it was brilliant, and sunny, with a fresh wind blowing in through the open deck doors. I stood up (not dressed in black, but lime green) and talked for eight hours, my throat allowing easy, mellifluous passage. Drawing each person’s chart on butcher paper, we plummeted into his or her reality, and surrounded that with love. The group operated in a magical way, united in supporting each other’s process, meanwhile asking tough questions and attentively and sensitively receiving what they had to say.

For each of us Saturn seemed to have thinned to a membrane on that miraculous day. Rather than feeling like isolated individuals locked into separate cocoons, we were all expanded and resonating together. We had transformed into butterflies, and our Saturn membranes were the wings. Fluttering, diaphanous, rainbow-hued, they fused into one dancing, glowing radiant being. Swelling and contracting in waves, this light being pulsed in response to Uranian energy and insight coursing through the room.

The workshop officially ended at 5:30. Not until nine that night were people persuaded to go home.

The long wait is over. The separation is done. We humans are glimpsing our glory, and we hunger for more.