NMR ISSUE 13

Astrological Forecast 13
Belief and Magic
Chiron Key to Higher Consciousness
Collective Integrity Conduits
Consummation of Joy
Demeter and Persephone
Editorial 13
I am She
Letters 13
Longhorn
Magick and the Law
Metaphysics of the Gulf War
Selenite
Tarot 101
The Adepts
The Channel
The Goddess Is…
The Oldest Magick
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Saturn in Aquarius

Collective Integrity Conduits

Antero Alli

Does anyone remember the sensations of time slowing down after Saturn last entered Capricorn (November 13th, 1988)? The slow density of existence itself seemed, to this observer, as thick as blackstrap molasses in a snowstorm. I remember even the smallest tasks requiring the greatest of efforts to assure their manifestation in the material world. With my natal Saturn and Mars both exalted, in Libra and Capricorn respectively, I was no stranger to materializing my intentions. However it seemed obvious then that nothing worthwhile would come without the extra effort and self-imposed pressure to follow my intentions all the way through to the final inches of completion.

What I have learned about the Saturn force during that period (November 13th, 1988 through February 7th, 1991) was the gravity of follow-through, which has contributed significantly to my experience of integrity. I learned that integrity" includes being 100% behind whatever I involved myself in, to be sure of a complete follow-through. Anything less is irresponsible, counterproductive and a waste of precious time. I've also realized how time itself is all I can ever own—unless I own my time, I do not have a life.

As this Saturn in Capricorn era ends (February 6th, 1991) it seems its incumbent challenges have tested everybody's integrity. I might go so far as saying that if you haven't gotten straight with your integrity by now, you are about to miss the boat not the little boat, the Big Boat on the Big Wave. On February 7th, 1991, Saturn entered Aquarius clamoring on the airwaves to herald the next monumental marriage of transpersonal forces: the Uranus/Neptune conjunction (which started only five weeks later in mid-March and continues throughout 1995). As conscious astrologers know, the last and only time this century that two outer planets coincided in the same degree of the same constellation was during 1964-1968 with the volatile Uranus/Pluto conjunction in Virgo. Since this article addresses the specific transition of Saturn into Aquarius, I won't speculate on the forthcoming Uranus/Neptune Cultural Revolution right now. (Please refer to my book Astrologick, in particular chapter entitled Transits to Post-History.") Instead, let's look at the levels of collective integrity before, during and after a potential global shock wave.

The Energetic Function of Integrity

The other night, while talking with a friend over the telephone, I dropped two slices of bread into the electric toaster for an evening snack. Several minutes later the toaster's electrical wire went up in an intermittent sputter of white flames. There was no baking soda around to throw on the electrical fire and the plug itself was melting. The only thing left to do was turn the toaster off. The integrity of that toaster had diminished to the point of being incapable of handling the energy it needed to be of service. As a mundane analogy, I think the toaster incident works to describe the energetic function of integrity: We are only as useful as our integrity permits.

If we are incapable of channeling (managing and directing the life force within us in such a way as to be useful to others), then we are probably functioning with a diminishing integrity. If the amount of light or heat you are experiencing overwhelms your integrity, then, like the defective toaster, it's only a matter of time before you sputter and burn out—unless somebody or something turns you off first. Burnout is an integrity problem. Try to handle more than your integrity permits and see what happens. People who know how to operate at higher levels of functioning inside greater intensities, also know the value of maintaining the integrity of the instrument: body, heart, soul. Without this, they are unable to harness enough force and cannot access the energy necessary for accomplishing their high-powered missions. The greater the energy, the greater the integrity required to function in it.

In a conversation shared with Dr. Jose Arguelles (refer to my novel, The Akashic Record Player), he suggested a way people could maintain their sanity during a five year period of unprecedented chaos (1987-92)" by forming collective integrity conduits." These conduits would be made up of thirteen people (or twelve, if the thirteenth place can honor the spirit of Earth") who meet on the behalf of the Earth. A collective integrity conduit is formed when such a group has unanimously agreed to regard the Earth as a living intelligent entity worthy of their receptivity, conscience and ultimately surrender. Through group meditations and ceremony, a spiritual or energetic blending occurs wherein everyone comes to spiritual or energetic blending with the circle of others. According to Jose and my own practices, this has the effect of stabilizing the group energy at a higher level, thus allowing for a greater management of accelerating life force. A grounded group can circulate more light.

The Lifeboat of Our Humanity

Whether you follow this format for collective integrity or make up your own doesn't seem to matter as much as your responsibly for bringing total integrity into whatever group process you're part of. From February 7th, 1991, through January 28th, 1994, the pressurized forces of the manifest world will test the integrity levels (Saturn) of whatever collectives (Aquarius) you belong to. From your immediate circle of friends to the farthest reaches of your community, we have three years to build the lifeboat of our humanity before Saturn moves into its dissolution in Pisces—when we can expect the unexpected as never before.

Direct from the No Coincidence Dept., an astrological newsflash! The last time Saturn was in Aquarius occurred from January 4th, 1962 to March 24th, 1964 heralding the explosive Pluto/Uranus conjunctions of the late sixties! The political (Pluto) war in Vietnam began when Saturn was in Aquarius. The economic (Neptune) war in the Persian Gulf occurred as Saturn returned to Aquarius. The forthcoming revolution will not be as politically based as the late sixties were. This one will be economically oriented—we're fighting and dying for the oil (Neptune). With the transpersonal force of Neptune involved, the real revolution is actually a revolution in consciousness. This, however, translates to an economic revolution once we realize how identified collective consciousness has become with money. In this cresting and crashing era of splendorously dangerous materialism (Saturn in Capricorn), we are about to awaken to a more humanitarian model of consensus reality (Aquarian Saturn). If you don't already know how important your friends are, your lifeboat has sprung a leak.

As a sociological force, one thing Saturn articulates well is where we are in debt and where there is work to be done towards restoring integrity. In Capricorn, it was professional integrity—getting your work together in a way you can stand by. Saturn in Aquarius is about patching up friendships and establishing a firmer stance in the group or power elite circle to which you are willing and able to commit. The words willing" and able" are both necessary for functional integrity: one without the other attracts failure. If we are willing but without the skill or knowledge to be able, we run the risk of sputtering and burning out. If we have the ability but are unwilling yet proceed anyway, we only fool ourselves. The time of Saturn in Aquarius demands that we know who our friends are. Who are the people we are willing and able to establish bonds with?

Saturn also passed through Aquarius between November 22nd, 1932 and February 14th, 1935?when Arabian oil was discovered (1932), Nazi Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany (1933), Franklin D. Roosevelt established the New Deal" for the devastated American economy (1933) and an unprecedented global population explosion occurred (the Thirties). Before this transit, Saturn entered Aquarius between January 20th, 1903, and April 12th, 1905, when humanity saw Japan rise in the Russo-Japanese war and the Wright Brothers rise to the skies in their historical first flight. More often than not, Saturn in Aquarius seems to signal forthcoming sociological, politico-economic shifts that bring people closer together—be it by war, depression or scientific/technological breakthrough.

Saturn is also symbolic of that function within our psyches (individually and collectively) that determines its own destiny by the choices we make and the integrity of our follow-through to make these choices work. Unlike the effects of more transpersonal forces (symbolized by Uranus, Neptune and Pluto), the Saturn element shows us where we are held responsible for our fates and the ability and willingness to shape our futures. In Aquarius, we are informed that it is time to take responsibility on a collective level; and doing so, our efforts are rewarded thereafter as an ever-deepening alignment with the transpersonal realms—to which Saturn in Pisces is a gateway. This is especially extraordinary when we realize how the transpersonal realm is beyond our control and often times, beyond our immediate comprehension.

In this way the Saturn function, when integrated, works like a bridge between the greater unknowns of our multidimensional soul and the three dimensional life of our mundane experience. Once this bridge is built, we are freer to traverse between inner and outer realms of our totality. When Saturn is in Aquarius, we enter a kind of end-time and work to rebuild bridges between each other as a people. On January 29th, 1994, Saturn enters its final cycle in Pisces. Whatever social structures have been reestablished in our lives then meet the vast intimacy of formlessness. It all dissolves together in an unending blend of humanity and divinity—the human emerges within the divine and the divine within the human. And, out of this swirling mass of chaos, a fury burns forth as Saturn enters the source of the powers of fire in Aries (April 8th, 1996 March 1st, 1999).

1991, Antero Alli

Antero Alli is the author of Astrologik: The Interpretive Art of Astrology and four other rebellious manifestoes. For a free Catalog of his books and services, write to him at P.O. Box 45758, Seattle, WA 98145.