Joy of Saturn
This is a stream of consciousness writing I created in 2019.
There are certain topics I find particularly beautiful, resonating with the symbolic language of astrology. Of the readings I have done and the charts I have seen, my favorite to discuss are the topics of the “12” house”; or the 12th place of the natal chart, deriving from the Greek concept of domicile. (I cannot read Greek). The 12th place is also referred to as the house of the “Bad Daimon (Kakodaimon)/Bad Spirit/Evil Spirit.” It is associated with the harshest of tribulations.
The symbolic significations of any construct in astrology are derivative. Derivative in that, at the base level, the natal chart represents the relationship between all within the cosmos-from the subjective human perspective on earth. The starting point of the chart (the ascending degree, making the beginning of the 1st house) is defined by the value (and the astrological sign) of the elliptical geocentric longitude easterly on the horizon. So the “1st house” comes to represent the physical body, physical appearance, outward personality; the “self,” that which is perceived by others. Planets (if there are any) here become particularly reflected in the personality, the constitution, the temperament, and the values of the individual.
If the natal chart is divided into 12 houses; the planets in the 12th house are perceptually falling away from the first. These planets are perceptually “hidden” from the first. Thus, all topics of this house are derived from that which signifies being taken off-course, being pulled off-track, having things taken away. This is considered to be the place of the chart which provides insight into our own self-destructive habits, tendencies, or actions; deliberate, but secret conspiracy of hidden enemies; external circumstances that lead to experiences of falling down (cataphora) or falling away (apoklima).
I tend to interpret the broad symbolism of this house to also refer to any experience that includes dispossession of the “self” – what it means to be denied (electively or by force) as an individual, or autonomous. This includes experiences such as quarantine, infirmary, imprisonment/incarceration, madness, monasticism, institutionalism, isolation, addiction, etc.
The ancient astrologer Rhetorius found the 12th house to be synonymous with “metakosmios,” the “place of Kronos, because through the outpouring of waters the fetus is expelled and because the mother comes into a state between life and death”; a place between worlds. Spiritually, the purpose of astrology is to cultivate a sense of “transcendental consciousness,” which allows one to distance themselves from our material experiences, both good and bad, that who “I” am, is not this “self,” embodied or otherwise, or the good conditions or bad conditions of my fated experiences. With this, the experiences associated with the 12th house may arguably, due to the suffering of such dire tribulations, allow “spirit-souls” to not fight against pain and misfortune passionately, and instead, quietly accept what was never personal to begin with. Often, this experience is also associated with the “Dark Night of the Soul,” a feeling of no way out, or being foreign and removed from the “self” and the “personal.”
This becomes the component of astrological symbology I feel the most intimate to. As a Saturnian person. This house is considered to be the “Joy of Saturn.” The entirety of the tradition of astrology is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. The trickery of inverted rhetoric, dialectics keeps the individual from intimacy with “truth.” Quoting “Women, Imagination and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France” By Rebecca M. Wilkin – “in Aristotle’s Problemata, Aristotle established the melancholic temperament as the physiological commonality of exceptional men: ’[Why is it] that all men who are outstanding in philosophy, poetry or the arts are melancholic?’ Identifying melancholy as a celestial gift from Mercury, ‘who invites us to investigate doctrines,’ and from Saturn, who ‘makes us persevere and retain them when discovered.” The place in astrology where Saturn is in his Joy is the experiential place of the pain and vulnerability (intimacy) of truth-seeking, not the divulgence of truth.
“Intoxicating joy is it for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and forget himself” – Nietzsche
