Mysteries of Earth, Laws of Water
by Jean Hinson Lall

This Full Moon falls just five days after the Winter Solstice, when the Sun reaches its northernmost declination, bringing the longest night of the year. The word ‘solstice’ means ‘sun stands still’, which is what it appears to do as it shifts direction. This moment of stillness and reorientation as the Sun enters Capricorn is observed with religious festivals around the world, celebrating the mystery of the rebirth of the Light – both the sun’s life-giving physical energy and the radiance of the spirit.

Saturn, god of time, form, boundaries, and mortality, is the planetary ruler of this season. In the body he corresponds to the skin (our outer boundary) and the skeletal structure, especially the knees. His metal is lead; his nature is cold and dry. With the coming of winter we feel the full weight, the slowness, cumbersomeness, restriction and vulnerability of physical existence. Where Saturn is strong, the ‘reality principle’ dominates our thinking. We learn the laws governing the structure and behavior of different kinds of matter. We picture the steps necessary to bring something into being and methodically carry them out. Under Saturn not only individual people and things but the whole vast machinery of civilization take shape, come to perfection, decline and die in their turn. With Saturn currently in Cancer, we are all being schooled in the laws of Water, both literal and symbolic.

This week in Baltimore the cold snap hit before we got around to shutting off the water to the outside, draining our garden hoses and putting them away for the winter. Luckily the pipes didn’t freeze as the temperatures plunged, and the bitter cold soon gave way to a single balmy day, with sunshine and sixty-degree temperatures allowing everything to thaw. As the hoses gradually warmed up I carefully unwound and disentangled them, stretching them out the whole length of the sloping driveway to help them drain. Even thawed out and emptied they still felt brittle and resistant as I coiled them up and carried them to the shed. I had to smile as I thought of the astrological themes of this week: the Sun’s entry into stiff and wintry Capricorn, the Full Moon in watery Cancer, and Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, also journeying through Cancer. It’s all about fluidity and form, about Earth providing channels for Water, Water loosening the hardened Earth, and the two working together to generate and sustain life.

Close on the heels of the warm front came a blustery winter rainstorm which circumvented our sophisticated, multi-layered waterproofing regime, depositing alluvial mud trails from the back door to an impressive puddle in the middle of the basement floor – just as we were preparing to lay down new flooring and complete our seemingly endless remodeling project. Since we took possession of our charming old house fourteen years ago our life has been shaped largely by drainage issues, inside and outside, upstairs and down. We’ve endured brown water from rusty city pipes, sewer backups the details of which are too lurid to be divulged on a family-oriented website, and heart-rending plaster damage due to broken roof slates, cracked pipes, and clogged gutters and downspouts; but the scariest events have involved the chronically wet basement. In the early years, as we discovered one after another source of unwanted water down there, we started a Letterman-style list of ‘Top Ten Ways to Flood Your Basement’, but we quickly got beyond ten. One by one, with the aid of highly-paid experts, we’ve attacked them and (especially since Saturn began its transit through Cancer in June 2003) have made real headway towards converting our lower level into habitable space. This week’s petite deluge simply points to an avenue of entry which remains to be addressed: there’s still too much water pooling around the foundation in the rear and seeping between the flagstones on the patio. Saturn kindly let us know this before we wasted our time and money on a premature flooring job.

We’d been looking forward to having it done before the holidays, with my long-dreamed-of washer and dryer installed atop the new green linoleum and all the excess boxes, shelves, desks and file cabinets finally evacuated from upstairs (where they’ve been crowding in among us like so many refugees) and neatly set up in their gleaming new spaces. It would have been nice to have the upstairs rooms looking their picture-book best for the season, approximating the ideal form of a family Christmas.

As usual, though, we’re thrown back upon Christmas itself, the still moment where everything shifts, the joy and mystery of rebirth and the love of family, friends, and fellow creatures. The Full Moon in Cancer (sign of maternity and birth, nourishment, home, feeling and family) reminds us that the forms and rituals in which Capricorn is so expert are valuable not for their own sake, but because they sustain and protect living beings. Just as we try to keep our garden hoses in good repair and store them properly over the winter, not for their own sake, but so that they can carry water to thirsty plants next spring and summer, we try to arrange and adorn our home to contain and convey the mystery of rebirth that will nourish our souls all year through.

For this purpose, though, a perfectly appointed house may not be the most potent icon. The Christ Child, like so many other hero and savior figures, is said to have arrived in the world under circumstances of deprivation and danger, to poor parents taking refuge in a stranger’s stable, hunted by a murderous king. Christmas belongs in this season because Saturn and Capricorn signify not only ideal and fully-realized form but also this condition of want, insecurity and imperfection, the poverty of spirit required if we are to receive the mystery. So like all the world’s imperfect people in flawed circumstances we’ll dust off our boxes, light a candle or two amidst the chaos, share music and food with our near and dear, and keep an ear out for the stranger at the gate.

Joyous holidays to all! And please join us for the New Moon on January 10^th, when both Sun and Moon will be in opposition to Saturn. Between now and then, enjoy the vibrancy of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Pluto all raising spirits in Sagittarius.

Look for the Capricorn New Moon
on January 10, 2005.

© 2004 Jean Hinson Lall
All rights reserved