Would that childhood were ever what we thought it was! A happy childhood is one of our culture's greatest myths. You, dear Saturn in Leo, are here to deal with the fallout of this :-)
"Now I lay me down to sleep...."
When God created recess he made the Saturn in Leo kids stay in and write "I am a loving child of a Harsh Dictator God" 20 times on the blackboard.
Ouch! Sad but true.
Other Saturn in Leo themes emerging ...
When blessings become a curse ..
The need to create a better God ...
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The eleven articles in the Saturn in Leo series:
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Who Says I am not Born under the Special Protection of God? Saturn in Leo: Leos feel very special. They feel talented and chosen. This article presents a discussion of the basic issues for Saturn in Leo with examples from the lives of famous people you can learn from. How did Lawrence of Arabia handle Saturn in Leo? Charlie Chaplin? Hitler? How are you going to handle it? By the way, do you know whose quote that is, "Who says I am not born under the special protection of God?"
- You Think Some Great Power Failed You Saturn in Leo in the 10th House: Sample reading for a young man with Saturn in Leo in the 10th house who trained for years for the priesthood only to discover that he was an atheist. Or so he thought. My answer may surprise you.
- Brush up on Your Solar Gods and Heroes This article gives you some inspiration as it explores the symbols associated with the expression of Leo and the Sun in the astrology chart. These are the things to which Saturn in Leo most aspires.
- Your second Saturn Return in Leo Saturn in Leo. Born between 1946-48? Turning 60 soon? So are the countries India, Pakistan, Israel and Palestine. Does this tell you something? Pakistan has been in the news lately. It is becoming the darling of American foreign policy. Read more. Yours is the generation that came into the world on the defensive, fighting for your life, just like these countries.
- Saturn in Leo in History This article highlights events that occurred when Saturn was in Leo all the way back to 0 CE, many having to do with the Middle East. The countries of Pakistan, India, Palestine and Israel are now experiencing their second Saturn Returns.
- When It's Time to Create a Better God Creativity is a big issues with Saturn in Leo. Although this concept may sound strange, considered symbolically, this is one of the most pressing necessities for those with Saturn in Leo,to keep evolving their concept of deity until they get to something they can honestly worship! . Read about Carlos, the Mexican airline pilot, Alexandra the scientist and others who take this personal journey. These are true life stories with the names changed to protect privacy.
- Genesis -- Don't Leave Home without It Saturn in Leo. Find out what the story of creation can do for you in your personal journey!
- When Blessings Turn to Curses Saturn in Leo. This is a very special area of interest for those with Saturn in Leo ... what do you do when there's too much of a good thing? So many of the Saturn in Leo people I read for have so much talent it almost becomes a burden. Are you one of these?
- Frankenstein, a very special myth for those born with Saturn in Leo. Frankenstein is the creature, the created, who figures out he is ugly and turns on his Creator. Do you get it? Read a complete discussion for some core Saturn in Leo issues.
- Quotes and Icons for the Saturn in Leo kids!
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When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why God? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, "There's just something about you that pisses me off. -- Stephen King, Saturn in Leo
This whole issue of creating a better God is going to offend some people because this isn't about religion, it's about a personal relationship with a living God that we all have inside of us potentially going on all the time. It's about consciousness raising. It's about me evolving hand in hand with God.
Look at it this way. See for yourself if this isn't true. I find that most people have a God that is very much like their personal father, possibly their mother, but of course we still have this chauvinist thing going on in the west about God the Father, so mostly it's father, not mother.
CARLOS, THE MEXICAN AIRLINE PILOT
Carlos was an airline pilot from Mexico who was so hard on himself it was ridiculous. He locked himself in a hotel room for hours on end, praying on his hands and knees to "God' to forgive him and let him have love and happiness. Carlos was so handsome he also starred in movies. He was intelligent enough to be an airline pilot. I wondered why his "God" was so harsh, so unforgiving. It didn't seem like Carlos was the kind of person who could have done something that wrong.
ALEXANDRA THE SCIENTIST
Alexandra is a woman in her middle forties who has improved herself tremendously during her lifetime as a professional. She is the only person in her family with a college or advanced degree. She says herself that she would characterize the rest of her family as one step above "trailer park trash" (her words, not mine). Alexandra works in a field that pays well but leaves her little time for socializing. But by night, it's different. She is never alone. Her dreams, her "Night Life" -- how different. She dreams constantly of her four brothers and sisters, her mother from whom she is estranged and a younger brother she pretty much raised. In her dreams she is always helping these people, watching over them, making the world safe for them, saving the world, praying for loved ones and so forth. She hides this part of herself during the day.
SHIRLEY THE SOCALITE JUDGE'S WIFE
Shirley has had a life of extremes. She was a golden girl when young, beautiful, vivacious, successful, intelligent enough to be a physicist, well coordinated enough to be a brain surgeon. She married a driven, hostile man because she said if she played around she knew he would kill her. She was battered in her marriage and had a child who died tragically. Shirley is a very moral person, someone who has never willingly done harm to anyone. She is very considerate of others and holds herself to very high personal standards of conduct, ridiculously high. She takes several sedatives, Phen and drinks every now and then, often all at the same time.
PATRICK THE PEACEMAKER
Patrick is a very happy and peaceful person. He is successful, lives well, looks good and is happily married. He doesn't put many demands on himself. He is compassionate and forgiving of himself and others. He has tons of friends and loves his low paying job as a hospice counselor in Phoenix.
These people are all what you'd call Christian or "getting by" spiritually. They have all consulted me, so they are at least considering an alternative viewpoint on spirituality but they aren't fanatics and none of them goes to church regularly.
They have each been seeing me for a decade or more. I will let you guess for a moment what kind of God each worships or what kind of relationship they have with the higher power. Do they acknowledge a God? What form does S/He take? You know of course that we each worship a separate God ... we each have a slightly different version like snowflakes or fingerprints, even within the categories of the world's great religions.
- Carlos the Mexican airline pilot
- Alexandra the midwestern scientist
- Shirley the socialite judge's wife
- Peter the Peacemaker
If God indwells and rules our world, knows our thoughts and informs our lives, what kind of a God would produce a life like each of these has?
- Carlos is a devout, rigid and masochistic Roman Catholic.
- Alexandra is a Buddhist who conducts services at home in private.
- Shirley is an intellectual agnostic but she loves to hold other people to moral standards. It's a specialty of hers. She is angry that the God she doesn't believe in has taken her child.
- Peter is a questor and lover of the truth. He has few personal problems, spends much time cheering others up and is intuitively guided in his every day life by what he calls "Spirit". He says he has always been this way. Since I've know him, he has become wiser and more charismatic.
We could look at their charts and see why each would have the proclivities they do. I'll give you the shorthand version. When I say predominant, this is what I'm referring to. See FIND THE OVERALL CHART TONE.
Let's take a look at how life and fathers shaped these people.
- CARLOS: Carlos' father was very poor in a small town deep in Mexico. Carlos wanted to help. At a very early age, he talked his way into some stuff to sell. He is a Capricorn. Carlos ran home, so proud of the money he earned. His father was humiliated and told Carlos never to do such a thing again. He took the money away and as a punishment, took his cigarette lighter and burned Carlos' ankles until the flesh was seared and raw. To this day, Carlos can't stand the smell of meat on the grill. Do you understand now why Carlos prays the way he does and wants to kill himself?
- ALEXANDRA: Alexandra's father was quiet, unambitious, let projects around the house go unfinished for years, much older than his wife, and used his passive weak personality to manipulate. He has continued his domination by becoming dependent on family members for daily care in his old age. Alexandra has chosen the religion with what I would imagine is the most passive or neutral diety.
- SHirley the soCIALiTe. Shirley was raised by two very intelligent, well educated, materially powerful alcoholics in a chaotic environment that she often describes as crazy. Why would she think there was any God she could address in a rational manner? How could she trust any higher power?
- PETER. Peter's father was as jovial as Santa Claus. A very successful man, who did not love his wife. Nevertheless, he showered his kids with love and money, forgave them their small indiscretions and filled their lives with encouragement, appreciation, hugs and smiles of delight. Is it any wonder Peter feels at one with the universe and the world at large? Is it any wonder he feels his needs will be met and that there is always enough to go around? Is it any wonder he "toils not" but lives as the lilies of the field?
Our early childhood home and relationship with our father does much to shape the kind of deity we worship or fear. In a sense we have created this deity in the image of our father, though we do not know this. It is one of our most important tasks in adulthood to outgrow this God and to, in a sense, find or create a better one.
For some, our beliefs about God were given to us in church but it was our father who chose our church and so the church will suit our father.
As Marie-Louise von Franz said (to paraphrase) we [Jungians] do not believe that God spoke once two thousand years ago, it was written down variously by human beings and that was the end of it. We believe that God speaks to each of us every day.
Carlos' God is saying something like this: If you do too well in life, I will strike you down. I will hunt you down and find you and throw your wealth and wife away and I will cause you to suffer all kinds of pain. Though you have forgiven me for what I did to you, I, God, will not forgive you. So down on your knees, grovel, beg all you want. I am implacable. I am a sadistic God and you worship me because you are a miserable masochist.
Alexandra's God is saying something like this: Approach me from a distance and only with your mind. Be mind-ful. Ignore the physical world and all its difficulties. Detach from the world because it is too hard anyway. Remain neural in most things. To care or to show that you care is to lose power. Further, this passivity will allow you to rule, to dominate and to create without lifting a finger. Everyone else will do it for you.
Shirley's God is saying something like this: I know you fear and hate me and in return I torment you and take from you what you love most. Your attempts to be moral and compassionate are hypocritical and please me not. Don't bother because you will never figure me out. In your soul I know you are terrified of me and so I take things away from you and watch you thrash about on your bed of pain. Be as moral as you want. It will not protect you from my all-seeing eye and destructive powers. As soon as you find something else you love, I will kill it.
Peter's God says: Don't think too hard, don't feel too much. I will not ask these things from you. Don't question too much either. If you want to remain on good terms with me, see only the best in me. I'm sure you want to be on the best of terms with me ... I am so generous, so good to you when you make me happy. You will be mine forever.
And how might these Gods evolve?
Here is what one woman with Saturn in Leo wrote recently. I will call her Ariana.
Putting my clenched fist in the air at 35, and shaking it at 'god' saying," 'prove yourself', damn it - drop lint in my eye, do something!"....Was the direct result of my discovery of the false god and the (for me) total futility of the church - at 8 years of age. The rage of it all - I couldn't contain any longer, so I just said it out loud and I meant it. It's what got me 'on the path', it's what turned my life still further into even stronger/deeper constancy of change, and chaos. And this is generational? If your answer is yes, it has just removed 50 pounds or so from the load, from the guilt I've fought to assuage all my life. It's another doorway to come inside. My life has been about creating a better god, cause I could not thrive with the god I was given....
This woman saw through "the God she had been given" at eight years old. This is a real seeker!
Carlos might demand that God forgive him and show compassion. Alexandra might demand that her God show some power. Shirley might demand that her God show compassion. Peter might demand that his god show some character, discipline and discrimination.
To grossly oversimplify Jung's Answer to Job, the point of the book is that the God of the New Testament, a God of mercy, evolved because people like Job absolutely revolted at the crudeness, tyranny and blindness of the God of the Old Testament. If all that happened in a few thousand years, imagine what kinds of gods many of us are evolving collectively at the moment.
If you are also a NINTH HOUSE PERSON, this is one of your primary "jobs" in life.
This is a lot easier for fiery intuitives and watery Neptunian mystics to grasp than the rest of us but one characteristic of Jungians is the broad variety of people who are successful as therapists and that in therapy, they become more who they are rather than clones of each other. It is impossible to categorize Jungians. All types -- water, earth, fire and air represented. I believe von Franz is generally considered to be a "rational" or air sign predominant.
To have Saturn in Leo is to want to be a fiery intuitive and to want to have a God that is like the Sun God Apollo. The desire is to be special, to be gifted, and especially, to be gifted in the arts that Apollo blessed. Those would be drama, painting, singing, dance and theater.
The catch here is that although most of us would love to be kissed by the gods, it is sometimes not all it's cracked up to be.
Cassandra is an excellent example. Here's some art about Cassandra.
Apollo, as you recall, was never lucky in love. Cassandra, pictures above, reneged on her promise to him and so he gave her the gift of prophecy with the curse that no one would believe her.
Even more than that, maybe, it is wishing to help the sun itself to rise in the morning. There is the desire to be that important, to participate that magically and intrinsically in creation and the world around you. Be sure to visit my page for you on the sun gods.
A man with Saturn in Leo wrote to me because he had been coerced into marriage by a woman who threatened suicide. Thirty years later, still faithfully married, his dreadfully unbalanced wife had been in and out of the emergency room too many times to count and was considered incurable of her tendencies. Helmut's life consisted of not much more than his work. Lately he had met an American woman who encouraged him to move to the states to be with her. This is my reply to Helmut.
An excerpt of the situation from his own words:
I married, much against my better judgment, on Xxx, 19xx in Exx. If it hadn't been for my wife's threatened suicide if I left her I would not have married her at all. My marriage for the most part has been rather horrendous. This is almost entirely due to my wife being affected by a severe psycho- affective disorder....and has been hospitalized on too many occasions for me to enumerate them all.....possibly hundreds. Living with this illness has been traumatic to say the least. It's impact has been profound on both myself and my son Xxx.
What I would like to know is.....when will it all end? I do have an American lady friend who has been a tremendous support. Indeed I have contemplated transplanting myself to the U.S. However I am torn between a desire to do the right thing by my wife and a desire to have some sort of happiness. My present marriage has been my only marriage.
This is Helmut's chart:
click chart to see in full
Dear Helmut,
You are writing a nontraditional person who sees higher truths than conventional morality. If you took your marriage to a court of law simply as a contract, it could be thrown out on grounds of coercion; therefore it is an abhorrent thing . Your wife is a black hole, an anti matter universe.
What interests me is what conditioned you to the brutality of this bondage? You cannot live until you shake that off and likely it was some brutal teaching on the part of your father either by his demands or by his wretched behavior and you were reconciled to being better than him which has now become a living grave. If some of this is also the severity of the famous Xxx religion, well then, let's consider a change of heart here.
I would pray for release from bondage with all my heart -- pray for your wife to be completely healed or to succeed in her next suicide attempt so that she can be released from her suffering and go back to spirit and return with more going for her in another lifetime. Apparently she has been trying to do this for most of her life. An excellent book to support those dealing with suicidal tendencies in themselves and others is James Hillman's book Suicide and the Soul.
You wanted to understand about mental illness in this incarnation but now I think you have caught a little of it yourself and it's time to get free!! If you care about your son, his chances are better if he sees you make a break for a better life rather than suffering endlessly because someone else has failed to rise to the task. I think you've given it enough of a go. I recommend going to the lady in America but first you must find a god that will forgive you and that means a little creation on your part. Your god is not a worthy god and does not deserve to have this question brought before him. Find one that does!
I have a goatish sense of humor, my dear Helmut and you certainly deserve better than this.
The journey of one with Saturn in Leo is to recapture the magic in the world. Other placements of Saturn deal with the grosser realities, the firmer hand, the all-seeing eye. Leo is the sign that believes and believes and believes, until finally it sees what it wants to see.
You are here to lift others out of the doldrums the run-of-the mill, to give them the gift of restoration, re-freshment, re-creation. The association of the words recreation and re-creation are so often lost in today's world but their connection is critical to understanding Leo energy. There is no problem or issue in life that is not better for leaving it a few minutes and returning with a brand new outlook.
If you worship a God who punishes you for being happy, who requires you to live one-step removed from the center of your own life, who requires passive obedience, blind worship and outrageous humiliation ... you worm! -- reach deep within you and imagine a God you can talk to, argue with, wrestle with -- like Ariana -- that you can close the door and have it out with. You will be so much the better for it. Imagine the vitality of having a relationship like that with a God you can relate to that way.
By the way, I love all the world's major religions and find truth in all of them. The misapplication of their mystical principles is what I address in this article and the confused ways our children's minds connect with these principles through our father and childhood home conditions are what I suggest recreating.
For some, the concept that there are different "Gods" may come as a shock. Just imagine sitting in Sunday School school learning about "God". It's no different than sitting in sex education class or advanced biology learning about sex and biology. You're all learning generally the same thing but scratch the surface and see how different we all are. Have fun with this! See what you can come up with.
With Saturn in Cancer, we explored the father-hunger that resulted from a wound in the family. With Saturn in Leo, father is everything and the father must be redeemed. This is a tremendous task of the will, a solar journey to the outer edges of the universe, a heroic venture of mythic proportions. What does this really mean ... to redeem something?
The Grail Quest probably sets this forth most elaborately. CLICK HERE to learn more about the Grail Quest in relation to Saturn in Leo.
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