Transit Lab: Saturn in Virgo conjunct Arjunsuri
Yesterday I returned from a 10-day Vipassana meditation course, having learned this technique recovered by the Buddha 2500 years ago. The ultimate aim of it is the end of suffering, and it’s possible for every person to do this, given a commitment to patience, ardent work, awareness, perseverance and persistance.
Sound like a list of keywords for Saturn in Virgo, doesn’t it?
This is the kind of thing most of think we could never do, but each of us can choose to do it. I heard about it from a friend who has in common with me a strong mental and communicative energy (Mars-Mercury in Leo in 11th-12th, with a 10th-house Gemini stellium I totally jive with), and a desire for progress that shapes a work ethic that keeps one going going going, that keeps one driven. She told me she’d done one of these courses a while ago, and I was inspired that if she could cause herself to do it, I could cause myself to do it.
Each of the things I knew about it before going in were entries on my well-established and -entrenched list of not-to-dos: sitting still, focusing the awareness on only the breath, following the ethical code central to the technique (read: someone else’s rules), refraining from any communication with other students for the duration of the course, no exercise other than walking, and - here’s the big one - no reading or writing of any kind. I mean, go down the list of attitudes and behaviors I’ve used to define myself, and each needed to be shelved for the duration of the course if I wanted to give myself the chance to suceed with the technique.
But in the face of the opportunity to take better care of myself, and to get to the bottom of a couple of personal issues I wanted to heal, I was willing to do a little Saturn-in-Virgo…which was, I desperately need to tell someone mean, a lot of Saturn-in-Virgo. A lot. I’ve never worked as hard as I did during the course. Never. As a matter of fact, I realized while I was doing it that I can’t remember even a handful of times I chose to challenge myself and work extremely hard in order to achieve something I wanted. When I chose to sideline the rules I’ve developed for myself and submit to someone else’s program (that Mars-Uranus in the 1st bristles at the notion of someone else’s rules, and my Rx Saturn in Gemini/9th and Jupiter in Capricorn/3rd are pretty sure I know what’s good for me and probably that no one else could).
When I studied music, it came easily to me. When I studied philosophy, I couldn’t find the point of most of it and didn’t work very hard, until I found Albert Camus’ brand of life-affirming existentialism and was armed with something eminently useful. When I began writing poetry and satire, it just poured out like you wouldn’t believe (it took a while to bring out my own voice in each, but that was less a matter of hard work than one of doing it enough that other people’s voices played themselves out in me and fell away). When I began with astrology, I dove in and it was, frankly, pretty easy. I seemed primed to incorporate it into the vocabulary I had already been developing about the meaning of life, etc. (building on my work with Camus, in fact). There have been questions and issues along the way in my astrology education that have caused more perplexation than others, but, generally speaking, it was just sitting there and I drank it in in giant gulps.
Okay, so, channeling class was difficult, but in a specific way. I simply had to make sure I didn’t turn down the opportunity every week for four months to confront my fear of doing it; I had to make sure I showed up to do the work and chose to be willing to learn what I needed to learn. And those four months, each weekly installment of which I dreaded like nothing else, were nothing compared with the challenge of sitting still to meditate for ten days and not communicating with anyone.
Do you know many people with Pluto in Libra (those born 1971-1984) who are willing to sit still for 10 days and not communicate with anyone at all? I realized that that in itself was a healing opportunity for me, giving myself the chance to develop a stronger relationship with myself. The soul wound in these people is in relationship, the relating function: the area of fairness, equality and balance - in the area of dealing with others as equals. To learn to sit with one’s self and get grounded in a deep understanding of and relating to that self is Pluto-in-Aries work, or Pluto-in-Libra polarity point work. Doing this is precisely what a Pluto-in-Libra person needs to do when stuck in cycles of Libra misfirings, malfunctionings and junk…which I admit to being prone to be in my more robotic, unaware moments.
The shiny experience worth noting here in terms of Saturn is that the eclipse at 18 Virgo squared from the 12th my own Saturn, Rx in Gemini/9th. I learned something critical about owning up (Virgo) to having compassion (12th house) that I allowed to override (square) an extremely fixed guiding principle I’ve carried (Rx Saturn in Gemini/9th) that no longer serves me. Okay, I’ll just say it: It hasn’t served me for hundreds of years. Even in a past-life regression taking me back to the 1080s, I had this fixed idea! It’s what I’ve known about myself, what I understand as me. I haven’t known any other baseline. So, understandably, I can’t wait to see what will happen next - it’s anybody’s guess.
I work with an archetype I’m introducing to astrology, associated with asteroid 20300, Arjunsuri. This asteroid is in my chart at the first minute of Virgo, so when Saturn entered Virgo, I was in need of some hard work of figuring out to whom to listen. The basic story of Arjunsuri has to do with the process of seeking Truth externally and ultimately learning to listen to your conscience as your guide, allowing the inner voice of knowing to be your final authority. “Finding Conscience on the Path to Truth,” the title of the article I’ve completed describing the archetype, is a good summary of the process.
The meditation course for me, then, had to do with doing some real, some hard Saturn-in-Virgo work, but also with developing a closer relationship with my conscience. One of the conditions students agree to before taking a Vipassana course is to refrain from killing anything, which includes eating meat (as I understand it, if you eat it, you’re participating in a process that began with the killing of the animal). I found myself yesterday on the way home from the course at a restaurant, evaluating the excitingly extensive omelet list. (Omelets with the trimmings are my favorite meal these days, and if I’m going out to eat, I’m going to gravitate toward homey places that serve such things.) Aware that the meditation technique is built on a foundation of vegetarianism, and aware that I’m presently beginning a practice of that technique, I opted not to choose a meat-ridden omelet. I recognized this choice as a Saturn-transiting-Virgoan-Arjunsuri choice: My conscience, with its commitment to giving the technique a real chance in my normal life, overrode my love of meat-riddled omelets. And this asteroid is in my 11th house, indicating how I look to the future and realize goals. My mouth was a little disappointed, but the rest of me felt great in making an informed, healthy choice (Virgo) that supports achieving my goals (11th house).
If you’re interested in learning more about Vipassana meditation, check out: http://www.dhamma.org.
If you’re interested in learning more about asteroid 20300 Arjunsuri, sign up for my mailing list at http://www.tdjacobs.com. It’s the best way to keep up with my activities in introducing this archetype to the astrological community. Within the next few months I’ll be doing a podcast interview about it, and I’ve written an article that will in one form or another be published in the near future, both of which will be announced via my mailing list.
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
September 17, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
The Transiting Lunar Nodes Enter Virgo-Pisces
By Tom Jacobs
Beginning June 21st, with the Sun at the Summer Solstice (entering the sign of Cancer), collectively we had a chance to catch up with our emotional realities after a solar month of light shining on Geminian concerns. At the same time, the transiting lunar nodes were at zero degrees of Aries-Libra, finishing up a year and a half of a Mars-Venus, cardinal focus in our emotional evolution. Many of us found ourselves suddenly aware of key pieces of emotional information that may have seemed the missing links we’d been searching for, or suddenly in possession of information we didn’t know we needed but that clearly changed something for good. (more…)
June 18, 2006 By Tom Jacobs