Jupiter aligns with Mars

 

Today is my birthday.   As far as I am concerned, February 9^th  is a great day to have a birthday. The plum trees are in bloom, plump red hearts are in the store windows, and the hills of California are green.  Last night it rained, and now the sun is shining on the damp earth. Yes, a great day to celebrate the miracle of this one specific life!!

 

Next weekend I go to Pantheacon, the annual Pagan conference in San Jose.  The last couple of years I’ve done a lot of reflecting on what it has meant to follow my particular spiritual path, and something about being at Pantheacon makes me acutely aware of the trials and tribulations of being a modern Pagan.  Recently I realized that I’m in my Saturn return of being a Witch, as is the particular tradition I’ve taken part in creating.

 

A Saturn return is an astrological event that happens 27 to 30 years after we were born.  This is the amount of years it takes    Saturn to move through its orbit and return to the exact point that it was at our birth. A Saturn return signals the time when we grow up astrologically. It is the time to release structures that no longer serve us, and a time to mature into our new adult selves. My first Saturn return has long past, my second one looms ahead, but I, along with a lot of other Pagan folks, are actively being challenged in a Saturn-like way to examine ways in which we and our spiritual tradition need to mature and come of age. Many modern Pagan "traditions" were born about thirty years ago, so despite all the claims of being "the old religion", this is our first go around with Saturn.

 

A friend wrote me today that besides some whopping cosmic eclipse, today is a day that Jupiter aligns with Mars.  I’m not sure what that means, but it makes me happy. It feels almost as great as the birthday that fell on the day that The Beatles played for the first time on Ed Sullivan. I know almost every lyric to the entire soundtrack of the musical Hair. Today, I've been singing that song about the moon being in the seventh house and Jupiter aligning with Mars all day long. You know, the one that starts with "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius...".

I’m thinking today about my spiritual Saturn return and loving this dawning of the Age of Aquarius. I'm pretty darn sure it is officially here. And something about the Saturn return of being a Pagan and this new age  intersect. The grandiosity is fading away, and more and more I feel comfort in being a miniscule part of a much bigger whole. And that's what the tradition I use to believe would change the world actually is - just another small little group among many groups, all of us putting our shoulders and prayers to the wheel, trying to move things in the direction of peace guiding the planets and love steering the stars.  The world is changing, you can feel it in the air. But, that is the nature of things, and no person or small group of folks was or is the linchpin of change, or maybe we all are. Every one of us. Yes, I like that idea much more. It's so Aquarian!!!

Can I tell you again just how much  I love the plum trees in bloom?  It is a damn fine day to have a birthday!!