Dealing with the Wasteland
Leo62 said:
This brings me back to the element of water - astrologically the element of water is associated with intuition; the planet Neptune and the water signs Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. Water is crucially lacking in the wasteland and without water the land cannot regenerate and nurture life...
...perhaps Neptune in Scorpio is both the wasteland and the healing of the wasteland...
I'm very interested in your description of Neptune in Scorpio, as I have this placement in my natal chart (as many of us do who were born in the Sixties...). This has given me much food for thought - thank-you.
Hi Leo - thanks for focusing my attention on this. I had really written the comment about Neptune in Scorpio intuitively and not given it much conscious thought. I also have Neptune in Scorpio and he is the only water connection in my chart. I was born in 1956, not long after he entered Scorpio, he's at natal 0°-19'-51". The influence seemed to result in a generation which was alienated from the establishment, from Saturn values, from parents and materialism. It was self-destructive and socially-destructive, but also the source of a wonderful awakening of consciousness and artistic activity - plunging the previous Libran order into decay so that society could be reborn.
It was only within the last year that I began to integrate his energy into myself, and I believe I still have a long way to go. Luckily my Aquarian Venus is trine Neptune (a very sixtyish couple don't you think?) and I have the very good fortune to have Vesta in Libra conjunct with Neptune across the cusp.
Vesta is a wonderful source of balance, especially when in Libra - I was looking for definitions of her power, but I don't think I can do better than to include a quotation from my meditational cycle on the Majors in October of last year (WalesWoman groans
). In order to communcate its core truths, the psyche seems to have modeled itself as internal characters or entities fashioned after the Tarot and astrological archetypes.
In this little play, the key players are David the integrating self or ego who has become the Regent of his soul, the Fool progressed; the Empress Eirian is the social, artistic, but manipulative Aquarian Venus; the Emperor of the Inner World is Saturn in Sagittarius; and we are about to meet Valerie. This is the meditation on Temperance, met following a willingly sacrificial but torturously shadowed ego death through Hanged One and Death.
Eirian continues, "But the Emperor really needs some feminine intuition to guide him. Ah, here is Sophie, and someone you haven't met. My Lord David, Regent of the Inner World, I present Lady Valerie, holy priestess of Vesta."
I rise and greet a healthy, graceful woman in her early forties, her hair red and wavy, extending a bit beyond her shoulders. She wears a long dress of deep burgundy; she has vibrant laughing eyes and a gentle smile. Valerie takes her place on a couch next to Sophie, and I see James is watching her somewhat curiously. I notice now that Valerie wears a substantial emerald on a silver chain, perhaps a symbol of her faith.
Eirian resumes, "As you can guess, I would like you to consider appointing Lady Valerie as the Emperor's counsellor and Deputy. In fact, if the Emperor is not available for any reason, perhaps you would consider having Lady Valerie automatically assume his role."
I respond diplomatically, "You must regard the Lady Valerie very highly, Empress."
"We have been friends for quite some time. Valerie has been... watching the Emperor for quite some time also. I'm sure they would make a fine team, if that is your will Regent."
"Will Valerie be acting for herself, or for you Empress?"
"Perhaps Valerie can answer that."
Valerie responds with quiet dignity, a beautiful melodious voice that is both sensual and spiritual, "I have my own ideas, Regent. I would like to bring harmony and balance to the World Within. As artists, the Empress and I have been good friends, but I have always been independent in my views. I have dedicated my life to beauty, balance and harmony, and these are what I most desire to bring to the Emperor, and to the Inner World. What do you think of art, Regent?"
"Art and love are the keys to life."
"The two together are what I want to teach. The sexual and the spiritual are one, are they not?"
"Yes, I believe they are."
"Can you trust me to guide the Emperor and your world?"
"Yes, I see that I can. Eirian, perhaps we should meet with the Emperor."
Eirian quietly smiles, "I think you will find he is waiting for us in my council room. And then we can all have dinner together."
"Empress, I think you must be quite the chess player."
"Perhaps, but the world doesn't need another chess player trying to run it, my Regent. The Lady Valerie does not play chess, do you Valerie?"
"No, Empress. I have never found it necessary."
The meditation ended. The Major Arcana's Temperance card - the archetype of artistic realism, health, healing, moderation, synthesis, and the balancing of body, mind and spirit - is highly congruent with the archetype of Vesta, which also includes sacred sexuality.
I've included this long episode to show how through one particular form of inner work, natal shortages in the elements can be adjusted for, even when the only elemental influence is a generational one. The outer three planets were not accessible to me as persons, which seems logical since they appear to reside in the collective unconscious, but by tapping the Neptunian source of water energy through the conjunct and personal Valerie of Vesta there was a great release of healing water within the soul. So much so that in water's excess my wasteland of earlier this year was in fact a stagnating swampland, but one gradually frozen over by winter snow. Only in the last few weeks has a rebalancing come, the fiery emergence of a vital new Mars in Sagittarius, personified as
The Lord of the Rings Aragorn, the perfect wilderness guide.
Leo62 said:
I might also associate getting stuck in the wasteland with a lack of water astrologically, along with an over-emphasis on Saturn in the fixed signs. Saturn in Taurus (or perhaps Capricorn) as the polar opposite of Neptune in Scorpio. Also - there is Capricorn's association with the Wounded King who cannot regenerate either himself or the land...(Liz Greene's book The Astrology of Fate has a fascinating chapter on this, linking the Grail myth, and specifically the character of the Wounded King, with Capricorn...)
Well, Leo, you must have been reading my chart.
My Saturn is actually conjunct Mars in Sagittarius, tending to nail my masculine energy with conventional passivity. I have Capricorn Sun and Ascendant, and the Wounded King has been a very apt description of a good portion of my life. This looks like a another book I will have to read!
What I intended to ask everyone yesterday was, how do you visually perceive this Five of Shields? To me it could be either a swampland covered over in toxic fog, or a frozen winter wasteland. In considering it this morning, I believe that I have a hybird view, that is it is a swampland that is frozen over under winter snow. Although it is not my personal connection, I also see that it could be a parched Land of Shields (Pentacles), dying for lack of water. In short, is your personal wasteland arid, oversaturated, frozen, or containing some other imagery I haven't thought of?