Saturn & the Moon

 

 

What rules history in astrology? 

Saturn and the Moon are the two archetypal influences govern the how astrology analyzes history. Saturn is time, the Moon is poetry and stories. The Saturnian influence demands a rigorous accuracy in the handling of data; fact must not be distorted. Well-researched, meticulously documented books fall into this category. Studies of bones, of pottery shards, of the obscure details of the life of a famous personage, all fall under the Saturn rulership. Archaeology and paleontology, representing the science part of history, are ruled by of Saturn.

The discipline of time, especially birth time, is governed by Saturn. Time must be treated as rigorously as fact. The mid-wife, Peggy Walters, who was present at the birth of Abraham Lincoln, stated that the future president was born around sunrise—possibly before and possibly after:

On the morning of February of this year, 1809, Tom Lincoln came out of his cabin to the road, stopped a neighbor and asked him to tell “the granny woman”, Aunt Peggy Walters, that Nancy would need help soon.

On the Morning of February 12, a Sunday, the Granny woman was there at the cabin. And she and Tom Lincoln and the moaning Nancy Hanks welcomed into a world…a boy.

A little later that morning Tom Lincoln threw some extra wood on the fire, and an extra bearskin over the mother, went out of the cabin and walked two miles up the road…

[from Carl Sandburg. Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years, Volume 1 (New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1926). Pages 15-16]

The astro-historian must work within this time frame. From this eyewitness account (a primary source), all attempts to place Lincoln’s birth time in another part of the day, as for example at noon or sunset, would be specious. Within the discipline of time, of history, of Saturn, the astro-historian cannot claim a different time frame for Lincoln’s birth.

The Moon Influence

The Moon rules memory. It involves not the Saturnian discipline of facts, but the storage of those facts. The lunar part of history encompasses the story, both how the story proceeds and how our minds have perceived that story.

In the historical novel, War and Peace, one of Tolstoy’s chief characters, Prince Andre, is wounded during the Battle of Austerlitz. Lying on the ground, gazing into the clouds, he is in an altered state of consciousness, far beyond ordinary daily perception. This passage, though written in prose, has the feel of exalted poetry. Perhaps, as Tolstoy affirms, this consciousness will lead the race into an expanded awareness of oneness and brotherhood. This passage described a Saturn and Moon experience.

The Moon is this poetry of history, the remembrance of things past. I will discuss this more when we reach our detailed explanation of the Moon.

The Saturn influence also rules cycles. An astrological cycle is a recurring period of time determined by the movement of bodies in the solar system. Definite astrological cycles exist in history.

The Roman Republic (532 B.C.) was born at the beginning of and died at the end of an astrological cycle; the Roman Imperium (27 B.C.) was born at the beginning of a cycle and died at the end of another cycle (456 A.D.). In the history of ancient Israel, the time from King Saul and David (1050 B.C.) to the Babylonian Captivity (586 to 532 B.C.) marks one astrological cycle; and the period from the Babylonian Captivity until the Roman occupation of Israel (63 B.C.) marks another cycle.

A cycle can last a nanosecond, a millennium, or a complete revolution of the galaxy. Some cycles last seven years, some thirty years. Ninety year, five-hundred-year, thousand-year and hundred-thousand-year cycles exist. They include cycles of birth and death, of flowering and dissolution. Some are easily perceivable and others are hidden from the knowledge of humankind. Cycles are the tool of the astro-historian.

The historical sense is the historian’s gift of finding meaning by choosing important events and situations in the human story. Out of all the data—from leaders who make decisions, to cultural movements that affect millions, to scientific breakthroughs that raise a civilization to a higher level—the historian must consider the relative importance of events. Some people have a knack for choosing just the right events to depict the true meaning of an era; some must work hard to develop this faculty.

Not just any random event can picture a civilization, describe a time, and delineate the transition of a people. Historians use balanced judgment, founded on value and philosophy–­they judge how an event fits into the context of history. The intelligence of judgment asks: Did this event affect large numbers of people? Did a decision by a lawgiver alter the flow of history? What event created change? The historian is always faced with such choices.