Saturnian Strangeness of the Winter Solstice

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Saturn, Old Father Time, rules Capricorn, the zodiac sign which so much later became associated with Christmas. Bright lights, good cheer, a nosh- up, a knees-up; the Romans celebrated Saturn as the god of agriculture, and also because, according to their theology, Saturn was the god who ruled the world during the long-lost Golden Age, and they wanted it back again, please.

The Saturnalia was celebrated 17 December, with festivities usually culminating round 23 December. And, well, they had it all going on. Masters waiting on slaves. Fellows with little goatskin whips running about the place. Women who wanted babies hanging about in the streets, hoping to get lightly hit by one of said fellows. For added luck with fertility. That was the idea, but human nature being what it is, maybe it didn’t always stop there.

Fun times for all. Outside of this context, Saturn is not usually so jovial in aspect. Jupiter gets all the fun. Saturn is the planet of great virtues, but stern and serious. Life is a serious business, and requires effort. Persistence and diligence is the message of Saturn. Though he does have a sense of humour and a keen sense of the ridiculous. Droll and wry, very dry.

But Caesar must be rendered to. The bottom line safeguarded. Nothing came from nowhere, nothing is for nothing. Even the birds don’t sing for fun. The birds especially do not sing for fun. They sing to win and stake a territory, and keep it. They sing to win a mate, they sing to ward off threats to their nests. The stakes could not be higher- But is their song less beautiful for that? Saturn remembers all the songs. since the first life in the seas.

Saturn is the view from the heights of the mountain tops. But first we had to climb it. Saturn says the mountains have roots, and Saturn is from the word “satus”, meaning to sow. Food is the bottom line, and the solstice means the return of the sun for the new year’s crops. The Romans were right. It does not do to take Saturn for granted. This time of year we can also think of him as another contender for Santa Claus, give “jovial” Jupiter a run for his money, going way way back before Saint Nicholas.

Photo by Adrian Infernus on Unsplash

The face of Janus, past and future, is yet another face of Saturn. Janus, the primordial god of time, duality, doorways, passages, is the god of endings and beginnings.

Public Domain, credit Marie-Lan Nguyen

The Neo-Platonists said the souls of the newborn descend to arrive on Earth through the gates of Cancer, zodiac sign of the summer solstice in a never-ending wheel of souls. The souls of the newly dead return to their origin, rising through the gates of the constellation of Capricornus

For all of us there comes a point where every year now, a long familiar face or name will leave the orbit of our lives, and we revisit the memories. Maybe it is a person, or maybe it is a place. Perhaps it is something we used to do, or used to wish for. The ghosts have pictures, visions, particular songs, sounds and smells. And above all, feelings about them and about us, and where we were at back then. It is selfish, but true, that when someone dies, we also lose a witness to a part of our own story. Loved ones leave and take our old names with them. Nicknames disappear. When my father died, I was no longer “Nen.” She had gone too, the personage known to him as Nen. He took her with him. When we go, we will do the same to someone else.

Now Pluto is in Aquarius, and next year Neptune will enter Aries, when the axis of Earth and Water gives way to an axis of Fire and Air. The Techno Idealogues rise in a new era between 2025 and 2039-43, inexorable in their conviction, and gigantic bucks backing, to accelerate the fourth industrial revolution for the good of all, like it or not. Conversely Neptune in Aries can bring to power firebrand warrior messiahs in all religions of the world. Neptune will do its work in Aries, same as it has always done, before returning to reground itself in Taurus.

The past was never perfect, except as snapshots in time and place, distilled in random memories. Beloved, still cherished but not perfect. Not the times, not the places, and not the people. But they are relatable, bittersweet, and not louder, but ever-more crowding, the ghosts of Christmas past.

WHO WALKS THIS EARTH UNSEEN

The ghosts of the Displaced

Those who could have been

Those who never knew

What else where else

To whom they could belong

Not here or now where else

They could have been

What else around us all

The ghosts of Might Have Been

Behind the lives behind the claims

Their space not yet but come their time

Make way

Margaret Whyte, December 2019

RIP the writer of this poem. My mighty little Capricorn Mam, agile as an ibex till Saturn felled her and gathered her back in. She died last February, 2023, and came to visit one night in May, 2024. I could not say it was a ghost, what I saw. But one thing was clear to me in that moment. The dead do not leave straight away. The journey is long. They can look back and still see us. They can, if they decide to, if they need to, even as they set their face to their re-ascent, and the gateway of the gods. She was looking me right in the eye, framed in a whirling of colours, blue, faint pink, purple, tightly shaped around her face. It started with the colours, before her face appeared.

So that was what they meant, I thought, watching the colours, about the wings of angels. Silently, we looked at one another for a count of about three seconds. There were no words. But no need, she had said them long ago. And so had I, knowing that one day the time would come, and then sensing it coming. But now I only said, could only say, oh Mam, how did you do THIS? as she smiled and faded away.

Just because we don’t see them, doesn’t mean loved ones couldn’t look back and see us, like Janus. They have somewhere else to be now, or something else to be. They have the edge on us that way. But if ever there was anything of that kind that we would not want around, we have our own advantages. Saturn has planted us here physically foursquare, and that gives us the edge to say, politely or less politely, this is my time, my spot, and now you shove the eff off. It works. I could testify to that, and we are unlikely ever to need it, but it works.

Nothing, but nothing messes with Saturn, space-time, and the power of cardinal earth.

Until next time :)