Last week I had a long overdue coffee catch up with some friends. We got talking about a whole pile of different things – as you do, but one interesting topic that came up was swimming pools.
So my friend was telling me how a pool caves in when they sit empty for a period of time, when there is no water to apply back pressure to the structure. Never having owned a swimming pool before, I’d never really thought too much about the structural integrity of a pool when it’s empty. The volume of the surrounding underground soil will increase and dislodge, especially after rain, and if there’s no water to help maintain the structure of the pool, the weight of the dirt will cause the walls of the pool to collapse.
So naturally, this got me thinking about this week’s final of three squares between Saturn and Neptune which have been in play since November 2015.
In short, Saturn represents structures, limits and the realities of our earthly existence. In a stark contrast, Neptune signifies the realms of the intangible, our dreams, our fantasies and what we like to escape to when reality is the last thing we want to face.
As astrological archetypes, these two planets share no common thread at all. Structures vs. blurred boundaries. Reality vs. fantasy. Support vs. free falling.
Where Saturn is like concrete, Neptune is like water.
When it comes to swimming, whether you’re the type of person who likes to elegantly dive in, tip toe and feel your way through the water or just bomb dive in, most people will attest the feeling of being refreshed, re-invigorated and renewed. It’s almost like you’re metaphorically washing something away- your thoughts, your fears, your problems, or maybe you simply like that fresh feeling on your skin.
To dive into a pool is to immerse yourself into something that isn’t even really holding you. It’s not like diving into bed, where the support is there, is tangible. A body of water is something different.
In the case of a pool, it’s the water- or the dream, that supports the structure. In this modern western life, we learn that structure supports the dream. Work hard, pay your bills and if you play your cards right, you can earn a holiday here or there, maybe a car you really want to drive, or live in a suburb you desire, or work toward an idealistic version of retirement.
Too often though, dreams are seen just as that. Dreams, fantasies or illusions. Not supportive of real life. Something to indulge in when the realities of life are taken care of, and even then, not for too long.
If you do have a dream, often reality checks from others, or even the self-doubt rising from within tries to squash the vision. It takes a certain type of inspiration to follow the stirs of the soul and then create the required structures in life to support that.
Saturn and Neptune have made two square angles thus far. The first back in November 2015, the second in June this year, and the third and final square reaches its culmination this week. This aspect has been intense for those who have pre-dominance of Sagittarius and Pisces in particular, as well as the other mutable cousins of Gemini and Virgo.
Like the swimming pool itself, if you take away the dream, the structure itself becomes useless, but without the structure, the dream has no foundation to hold it. It can be a tricky balance.
Together, Saturn and Neptune can work to manifest a dream. You may have to solidify some structures while let others wash away, like the walls of a pool.
Have you had to let certain things dissolve from your life in order to achieve an ideal? Perhaps you’ve had to re-enforce your structures to achieve the dream…..
