Sitting with Saturn and Softness
“Alive, a man is supple, soft;
In death, unbending, rigorous.
All creatures, grass and trees, alive
Are plastic but are pliant too,
And dead, are friable and dry.
Unbending rigor is the mate of death,
And wielding softness, company of life:
Unbending soldiers get no victories;
The stiffest tree is readiest for the axe.
The strong and mighty topple from their place;
The soft and yielding rise above them all.”
With Saturn hovering around the last degree of Aquarius, my own Saturn Return is coming to a close. During these past few weeks with Saturn under the clarifying beams of the Sun, ruminations upon my Saturn return’s significance have become revelations. Although we often think of Saturn as a planet of incredible hardness and rigidity, this latest lesson was one of softness.
On the run-up to Saturn’s recent conjunction with the Sun on the 15th, I took a mile-long walk to a local graveyard, where I watched crows alight upon the branches of soaring cedar trees. Chickadees chittered and clicked in the shorter yews and spruces. I spotted some crocuses emerging from the earth and a handful of shy crabapple blossoms - subtle signs of spring’s imminent emergence.
For the soundtrack to my journey, I’d chosen a recent conversation on the Saturnvox podcast between the stellar McCalla Ann and the relational astrologer Diana Rose Harper. The topic at hand? Saturn, of course. The pair weaved their conversation through many of Saturn’s traditional significations like suffering, structure, and limitations. However, their most fruitful interaction came from a question of devotion and relationship. If we dwell in a living Cosmos in which one can relate to all manner of sentient beings, including the planets, then what does it look like to be in right relation with Saturn?
From their experiences as astro-magical practitioners, McCalla and Diana each shared the face of Saturn they interact with. Neither of them reported seeing Saturn in his traditional Greco-Roman image of a weary old man. Although each of them noted Saturn’s appearance as someone or something elderly, ancient, and numinous, neither saw Saturn as feeble senex.
And naturally, this provoked a question in me: how do I see Saturn?
Saturn as depicted by Cristoforo de Predis, a 15th century Italian illuminator.
Throughout my Saturn Return, I have cultivated a devotional relationship with Saturn. The intention was originally somewhat remedial. I thought, “If I make offerings, recite prayers, and spend time with Saturn, then surely he will lessen his blows. Perhaps his lessons will land with less force.” At the very least, I hoped to work with my Saturn Return intentionally versus incidentally.
How foolish of me. Saturn is always going to Saturn. In hindsight, I now wonder whether I actually activated Saturn, drawing an excess of his essence into my experience of the past three years. Observing my body in the mirror after a shower, I noted recently how spare and thin I have become, how sharply my bones jut out from my skin, how weathered my skin is. Reflecting on personal conflicts that cropped up and the deaths of two friends, I rolled through moments of sorrow, of bitterness, of regret, of loneliness and hate.
Considering my own devotional interactions with Saturn, the visage I have witnessed of the Greater Malefic has often been vulture-like. But need it always be?
One of the elusive attributes of Saturn addressed by Diana and McCalla was water. Neither his domiciles of Capricorn or Aquarius are water signs, yet they retain a connection to water through their archetypal imagery. In its original iconography, Capricorn is a chimeric creature: half-goat and half-fish. Likewise, Aquarius is represented by the image of a Water-bearer, a person pouring out a libation upon the Earth. In this hydrologic dance, Diana and McCalla pried at the possibility of Saturn containing some softness as well, with McCalla suggesting that Saturn, like the Buddha, favors the Middle Way, the path between polar extremes.
Reflecting upon this, I realized that I had perhaps needlessly forced Saturn into the extreme of deprivation and denial. Of the manifold masks Saturn may wear, I had compressed his vast potentia into an image of brittleness and bitterness - that of a hobbled, scowling old man or the skeletal ascetic meditating at the forest’s edge. While those images are deeply vital to Saturn’s milieu, so are contrary images of grandmothers and water. If Saturn preaches the Middle Way, then the Saturnian move for me at this point would be to relax the rigor of my self-imposed discipline.
“Nothing in the world
is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
nothing can surpass it.
The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.”
In my own chart, Saturn occupies the 5th House of Good Fortune, one connected to pleasure, creativity, and children. More than any other event in the past three years, the birth of my daughter has defined my Saturn Return Although this shift in role and responsibility has aged me, it has done so through something soft, something young. My daughter has no cynicism nor bitterness. She approaches each experience with eagerness and “eyes unclouded by hate” a la Princess Mononoke. Although I thought Saturn would harden me, my daughter has made me soft.
And if ultimately what Saturn wants is longevity, he will call us to soften, to use the gentle touch, to take our time. Because, as mentioned in the above verses from the Tao Te Ching, longevity does not arise from rigidity. It arises from that which is yielding, subtle, and soft: water.
A few days after my epiphany, I heard another astounding conversation on Saturn, albeit obliquely. On a recent episode of my friend Brett's podcast 21st Century Vitalism, contemporary thinker Dr. John Vervaeke discussed the aging process as the thing that draws us into right relation, saying "[As they age]...what people zero in on ultimately is their relationships - with themselves, with Reality, and with other people."
Going on, he discusses how this change in values in reflected in a qualitative shift in relating, moving away from relationships founded upon need gratification to relationships founded upon the inherent worth of the Other. Instead of asking how Others are relevant to one's own egocentric needs and desires, one asks "How am I important to anther person or thing's survival? How am I relevant to them?"
If the Saturnian aging process is about getting into right relationship with others, then I'm starting by getting right with Saturn. To allow him to live outside of the austere iron cage I've crammed him into. To allow Saturn to be my grandmothers, to be both firm boundaries and open arms, to be loving care driven tenderly by the awareness of mortality. To be water.
Hail Saturn! Aquarius & Black Metal
Content Warning: Metal is a musical genre featuring dark themes. Darkest amongst its subgenres is black metal. A full discussion of the subgenre and its origins would be incomplete without mention of arson, murder, and self-harm. If you are sensitive to these subjects, you may want to refrain from reading.
Few musical genres draw more divisive reactions than metal. Its intensity, unconventional song structures, harsh vocals, and focus on extreme emotions can be off-putting to the average music listener. Then again, many folks dislike spicy food, while others relish curries and griot. It all comes down to a matter of taste, with many enjoying both food and art forms which mingle pain with pleasure. And then there are some forms of metal which simply seem off-putting and painful by design. Enter black metal.
History
Clad in pentagrams, bandolero belts, and spiked armbands, when black metal burst onto the world stage in the 1980’s, it deliberately fed into the ongoing Satanic panic. Intended to provoke pearl-clutching and hand wringing amongst the complacent and mild-mannered, pioneering black metal acts like Venom, Hellhammer, and Bathory released influential albums with provocative titles like Welcome to Hell, Satanic Rites, and Under the Sign of the Black Mark. Building upon many other innovations in extreme metal like double-bass drums and wild costuming, early black metal artists took the genre of metal to its furthest limits. As I stated previously, all metal subgenres find their unique flavor in some form of extremity, taking a musical element and driving it to the edges. Black metal finds its essence in atmospheric and idealistic extremity. Musically, much of early black metal was like thrash and speed metal: fast, aggressive, but much darker. They also opted for a rawer, crunchier guitar tone, and notably Quorthon of Bathory started singing in a demonic croak. Moreover, what set these groups apart was their subject matter: misanthropy, chaos, and the occult, especially Satanism.
Although the first wave bands created the template for black metal, it was the second wave scene in Norway that perfected it. Groups like Mayhem, Darkthrone, and Immortal crystallized the subgenre into the form we know today. Many of them ditched thrashing and chugging guitar riffs for tremolo picking at high speeds while drummers pummeled their kits with blast beats. Appearing demonic or dead, Mayhem started wearing black and white “corpse-paint” at their performances and other bands soon followed suit. Vocalists shrieked like Nazghul over lo-fi production. Band logos became indecipherable, bearing a closer resemblance to twisted, leafless tree limbs. Whereas first wave bands employed Satanism as a gimmick, the second wave kids wanted you to know that they really did believe in Satan. Burning churches, cutting themselves on stage, and even murdering one another, the second wave scene brought into being the darkest musical genre imaginable. In the frozen darkness of the Scandinavian tundra, black metal found its zenith.
“It is an extremist sect of an extremist sect. ”
Aquarius
Falling squarely in the middle of winter, there is no better sign for black metal than Aquarius. Typically in the tropical zodiac, the Sun enters the sign on January 20th each year. At this point in the solar cycle, the deepest darkness of the Winter Solstice is behind us. The daylight is slowly increasing, but the darkness still prevails. These are often the coldest days of winter. Here in the frozen wastes, the Sun experiences his exile; the vital spirit is assailed by harsh climes and bitter winds. Endless ice and snow blanket the landscape while oppressive gray clouds hover ominously in the atmosphere. The larder grows thinner each day and will not be replenished until the thaw. Night triumphs over day.
Modern astrology lends fairly optimistic associations to Aquarius such as quirky, humanitarian, and progressive. However, these are fairly new attributes for the sign of the Waterbearer, stemming from the erroneous assignment of Uranus to Aquarius, starting with John Varley in 1828 (Farnell, 2005). It is through the traditional ruler of Aquarius that we must understand the sign, its anti-Solar nature, and its connection to black metal. Enter Saturn.
Saturn
Of the visible planets, Saturn is furthest from the Sun. Shining a dingy, brownish color and creeping slowly through the zodiac, the ancients associated Saturn with elder gods such as Cronos and Kumarbi, fearsome lords who separated the heavens and earth by castrating their sky fathers (McCann, 1996). One of Saturn's Latin epithets is Falcifer meaning “scythe-wielder” (Lilly, 1659). With his sickle, Saturn governs the fall harvest, distributes the consequential harvest of one’s actions, and gathers souls at the end of life. As lord of lines and limits, Saturn outlines structures, creates containers, and delineates distinctions, including the final boundary between life and death. Named the Greater Malefic by the ancients, much of Saturn’s purview is that which is ostensibly negative: chronic illness, misery, melancholy, depression, grief, and loss. He may be a harsh teacher, but Saturn also stimulates virtues like endurance, erudition, and stability.
The Thema Mundi
Notice Saturn’s position in Capricorn opposite the Moon in Cancer, plus the sign of Aquarius opposing the Sun in Leo.
From the Hellenistic astrologers of Alexandria, we have inherited the Thema Mundi, displayed above. Held to be the birth chart of the Cosmos itself, the Thema Mundi was used as a teaching tool. Much like a mandala, the Thema Mundi is a contemplative image laden with meaning. Although superficially simplistic, continued meditation upon its form yields many discoveries. Notably, the Saturnian signs of Capricorn and Aquarius stand directly opposed to the signs of the luminaries, Cancer and Leo. While the Sun and the Moon govern life, light, warmth, and birth, Saturn stands in bitter opposition, lording over death, darkness, cold, and decay. Hissing, spitting, and spurning the light, Saturn’s signs set themselves against the work of the luminaries. Saturn therefore lends his nature to the aspect known as the opposition, in which two planets are 180° apart, occupying opposite signs and standing at odds with one another. This antagonism is best expressed in the dichotomy of the Leo-Aquarius axis.
Darkness and Light
As the domicile of the Sun and the fixed Fire sign at the heart of summer, Leo is thoroughly life-giving, lordly, and unitive. The Sun itself is literally the center of our Solar system, never undergoes retrogradation, and remains constant in its emanation of light, unlike the Moon who waxes and wanes. When above the horizon, the Sun eclipses all other celestial objects, drawing attention to itself alone. This sense of radiance, constancy, and centrality is expressed in authority figures, monarchies, the mainstream, and central power structures. Standing in contradiction, Aquarius is the realm of outcasts, the obscure, the diffuse, and the lowborn. Aquarius is the land beyond the city gates, the wasteland and wilderness, the fringes and frontiers. To Saturn Lilly attributes “deserts, woods, obscure valleys, caves, dens, holes, mountains,” and these desolate landscapes frequently adorn black metal album covers. As astrologer Patrick Watson states, “...airy Aquarius would represent wide open, harsh and unforgiving environments which put pressure on the mind and soul. Being far from central powers and civilization means figuring out how to survive with one’s own resources, doing things the hard way, discovering self-reliance” (2020).
This opposition baked into the Sun/Leo-Saturn/Aquarius relationship is the eternal war between light and dark, day and night, warmth and cold. It is expressed in the Game of Thrones universe in the Night King, who leads his army of White Walkers from beyond the Wall (Capricorn) to crush the Seven Kingdoms and its rulers. In the same universe, it also appears in the dualistic religion of the Lord of Light, who is opposed by the Great Other. We also see this light-dark dualism manifest in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, whose works would prove incredibly influential upon many black metal artists like Summoning, Carach Angren, and Gorgoroth (to name a mere fraction). In the Silmarillion, the first Dark Lord Morgoth destroys the Two Trees of Valinor which literally illuminate the world and give birth to the Sun and the Moon of Middle-Earth. Later, the second Dark Lord Sauron sets himself in opposition to all free peoples of Middle-Earth, launching wars to bring them under his dark dominion. Famously, he creates the “One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.” And as far as evil jewelry goes, can you get any more Saturnian than a ring?
There is another Dark Lord who is emblematic of this light-dark dualism and he provides the archetypal fountain from which all black metal flows.
Satan
Once again, we turn to Patrick Watson who states, “If the Sun is a God-like figure on its throne in Leo, then Saturn in Aquarius is a Satan-like figure à la Paradise Lost, a fallen angel exiled from heaven” (2020). Satan has his origins in the Old Testament, where the name appears as a title for a prosecutor in the celestial court of YHWH. Etymologically, the name comes from “Hebrew satan ‘adversary, one who plots against another,’ from satan ‘to show enmity to, oppose, plot against,’ from root s-t-n ‘one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as an adversary.’” (Etymonline.com)
Developing later in Christian mythology, Satan became associated with many figures, including Lucifer, the greatest of God’s creations. When asked to bow before God’s beloved creation mankind, Lucifer rebelled against God’s divine order and sought to create his own kingdom. As Satan says in Sjon’s novel From the Mouth of the Whale, “As all the world knows, I did not bow my knee to this new pet of my Father’s, and for that I was cast out of Heaven along with all who wished to follow me” (2019). It was this act of divine rebellion that would inspire Tolkien in his creation of the character of Melkor, later known as Morgoth, the greatest of the Valar who opposed the works of Illuvatar, the supreme deity of Tolkien’s universe.
Lucifer’s Fall from Heaven as depicted by Paul Gustav Dore for Paradise Lost
The original Edgelord in action
Notably, in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Satan occupies the Ninth Circle of Hell, imprisoned in a vast block of ice. With the beating of his bat-like wings, Satan circulates freezing winds, perpetually blasting this Circle of Hell with a glacial chill reminiscent of cold Aquarius. In his Book of Reasons, the rabbi Ibn Ezra states, “It is said that Aquarius is the sign of the devil because it is the domicile of Saturn that indicates depression at the sight of the devil. This is said of Aquarius but not of Capricorn, for the power of Saturn is shown in it” (Ibn Ezra, 1991). The last sentence is obscure, but may make reference to the fact that Saturn is slightly stronger in Aquarius due to his affinity for the diurnal sect.
It is Satan then, as the divine rebel opposed to God’s holy order, who gave lifeblood and inspiration to black metal. Blatantly evil, unremittingly antisocial, and intentionally obscure, black metal defined itself in opposition to everything mainstream, whether it be Christianity, commercialism, or even death metal, which was the ascendant form of metal in the late 80’s and early 90’s. With most artists adhering to atheistic Satanism, the figure of Satan himself is lauded as an archetype of unfettered freedom, carnal reverie, and authenticity of expression. Individualism is especially paramount to black metal artists. One aspires to be the black goat, rather than a blind sheep of the herd. Interestingly, the Sun and its sign of Leo are often touted as indicative of individualism as well. However, the Solar/Leonine figure stands out from the crowd as a leader or celebrity whereas the Aquarian figure carves out his own individualism in secrecy and obscurity. One immediately thinks of the prevalence of one-man bands like Xasthur in black metal, a suitably Saturnian phenomenon in its solitude.
Aquarius & Black Metal: Outsider Art
When considering Aquarius’ remote and rebel nature, one also thinks of the underground, inaccessible, and even anonymous nature of black metal. Lyrics are often cryptic to the point of obscurantism. Masks, corpse-paint, and stage names are employed to draw attention to the message of the music, rather than the identity of the artists. Some bands, including major names like Darkthrone, have never even played a live show. Due to the meager resources of seminal artists, early recordings are marked by their lo-fi production, distribution through demo cassettes, and DIY album artwork xeroxed in black and white. To this day, lo-fi production is often still favored due to its raw, cold, and gritty sound. For obvious reasons, the Saturnian use of black and white also remains integral to the black metal aesthetic in all its monochrome gothic glory.
Although many black metal artists believe Satanism to be essential to the music’s contrarian nature, there is also a panoply of black metal bands employing pagan symbols, motifs, and themes to mark their opposition to both Christianity and modernity. Typically, we think of ‘pagan’ as referring to non-Abrahamic spiritualities. However, before the 4th century AD, ‘pagan’ meant provincial, rustic, and peasant, perhaps due to the persistence of nature-based cults in the backwater of the Roman empire (Etymonline.com). Again, we think of Saturn and his governance over the lowborn, the serf, and the farmer. Christ may be god of the church and king, but genius loci rule over the rivers, mountains, and forests. Living on the fringes, far from the center, one must maintain relations with the spirits of the neighboring storms, streams, and stones.
Random misty forest? Or generic black metal album cover?
This romantic nostalgia for an idealized pagan past is a deep vein running throughout black metal, at times sadly veering into nationalist and even racist domains. Ironically, black metal is the only musical genre with both fascist and antifascist subgenres. This should be unsurprising to astrologers though, as Aquarius is a fixed Air sign, often seen as rigid, stubborn adherence to an ideology. Utopian in orientation, these political beliefs romanticize an inaccessible, fictitious past or look to a future that will never arrive. The unfortunate result is National Socialist black metal (NSBM), an embarrassment to the genre and a phenomenon that many prominent artists have vocally criticized.
Interestingly, some of the most seminal releases for black metal were all recorded and/or released during the last time Saturn was in Aquarius. The dates for that transit are Feb 6, 1991 to May 21, 1993. There was a brief 40 day dip into Pisces before Saturn finished the rest of the transit from June 30, 1993 to Jan 28, 1994. Taking it year by year, we can see that in 1991, classics such as Ritual by Master’s Hammer, Immortal’s self-titled EP, and Beherit’s Oath of Black Blood were released. The following year saw the release of Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism by Immortal, A Blaze in the Northern Sky by Darkthone, and Burzum’s self-titled album, to name a few. More classics followed in 1993, like Rotting Christ’s Thy Mighty Contract and Dissection’s The Somberlain. While Mayhem’s first studio album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas was not released until May of 1994, the recording of the album took place in ‘92 and ‘93 and multiple demos were released years prior (Questy). Further important works for the genre would be released throughout the 90’s, but these three brief years from 1991-1993 represent the peak of black metal in its raw potency. Moreover, the arrests and convictions of Vark Vikernes from Burzum plus Samoth and Faust from Emperor in 1994 deflated much of the Norweigian scene's momentum.
Conclusion
Thirty years later, many of those bands and albums are experiencing their Saturn return. During this past Saturn cycle, black metal has evolved in myriad ways and become interwoven with many other genres, spawning atmospheric, symphonic, bestial, and shoegaze subgenres to name a few. In particular, depressive suicidal black metal (DSBM) seems to have retained black metal’s bitter, Saturnian spirit. Some of the most galvanizing artists of the past decade are those coming from marginalized communities. Although women have been involved in black metal since its inception, there's been a rise in the visibility of female artists like Asagraum, Marthe, and Hulder. Native American artists such as Blackbraid, Pan-Amerikan Native Front, and Nechochwen have adapted black metal’s mysticism to indigenous beliefs and history. Swiss-American artist Zeal & Ardor has crafted a unique sound melding Satanism and Black spirituals. There is also the Crepusculo Negro scene out of southern California whose bands blend black metal with Mayan beliefs and legends. As fresh blood pours in from the fringes, black metal retains its contrarian ideals and devotion to darkness, reminding us all of humanity's potential for evil and quest for freedom. Hail Saturn!
Below you can find a carefully crafted Spotify playlist containing many of my favorite black metal tracks and artists. For tradition’s sake, I included a couple classics from Mayhem, Immortal, and Darkthrone. But the playlist also features many of my favorites bands across a broad spectrum of sounds. We have bands from the Cascadian scene like Wolves of the Throne Room, the cathartic black metal of Gaerea and atmospheric black metal from artists like Svrm and Ellende.
Bibliography
Farnell, Kim. “When & Why Did Uranus Become Associated with Aquarius?” Skyscript, Jan. 2005, https://skyscript.co.uk/ur_aq.html#:~:text=The%20first%20categorical%20statement%20that,Uranus%20ruled%20Aquarius%20in%201828.
Ibn Ezra, Abraham. The Book of Reasons, edited by Robert Hand, translated by Meira B. Epstein, Project Hindsight, 1991, p. 7.
Lilly, William, and William Marshall. “Of the Planet Saturn and His Signification.” Christian Astrology, 2nd ed., Printed by John Macock, London, 1659.
McCann, David. “Saturn in Myth & Occult Philosophy.” Skyscript, The Traditional Astrologer Magazine, 1996, https://www.skyscript.co.uk/saturnmyth.html.
Olson, Benjamin Hedge. “I AM THE BLACK WIZARDS: MULTIPLICITY, MYSTICISM AND IDENTITY IN BLACK METAL MUSIC AND CULTURE .” Graduate College of Bowling Green State University, 2008.
“Pagan (n.).” Etymonline.com, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/pagan.
Questy. The History Of Black Metal (1981-2021). YouTube.com, YouTube, 28 Dec. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqsi6H_0H54. Accessed 12 Feb. 2023.
“Satan (n.).” Etymonline.com, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/satan.
Sjón , and Victoria Cribb. “Prelude.” From the Mouth of the Whale, Spectre, London, 2019, p. 7.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Shadow of the Past", 1954, p. 50
Valens, Vettius, et al. “Classical Significations of Saturn: Valens, Firmicus, Abu Mashar.” Skyscript, http://www.skyscript.co.uk/classical_saturn.html.
Watson, Patrick. “Saturn in Aquarius: Villains, Anti-Heroes and Nerds.” Patrick Watson Astrology, 16 Dec. 2020, https://patrickwatsonastrology.com/saturn-in-aquarius-villains-anti-heroes-and-nerds/.
Sitting with Saturn and Cycles
Life always unfolds in cycles - the waxing and waning of the moon, the endless turning of the seasons, the path of water from rain to river to sea to cloud and down again. Saturn counts the years to a slower metronome, with beats lumbering and long and vast intervals of silence between.
With Saturn nearing the end of its time in Aquarius, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own Saturn return.
Life always unfolds in cycles - the waxing and waning of the moon, the endless turning of the seasons, the path of water from rain to river to sea to cloud and down again. We count the years on calendars, but trees count them in rings, ticking away the days of budding to blooming to fruiting to falling apart and letting go.
Saturn counts the years to a slower metronome, with beats lumbering and long and vast intervals of silence between. I often think in terms of minutes and hours, days and weeks, but Saturn thinks in terms of eons, ringing in eternity to the tune of a funeral dirge. Under this unfathomable rhythm, Saturn traces great rings around human lives like the beautiful rings it wraps around itself.
It takes Saturn 10,756 Earth days to complete one revolution around the Sun, returning to the same spot it occupied roughly 29½ years prior. Each time Saturn returns to its natal position in the chart is the beginning and end of a Saturn cycle. In this way, Saturn weaves 2 to 3 great bounds around the average human life. And the first Saturn return largely forms the outer boundary between adolescence and adulthood. With a sharpened scythe, Saturn reaps the karmic harvest we sowed with our actions during the previous cycle.
As I’ve sat with Saturn and the closing of this chapter, I feel hemmed in by the here and now, keenly aware of my past errors and failings while simultaneously grateful for the good things coming to fruition. I'm grown up and growing older. Hopefully wiser too. I feel very humble and human-sized, living in greater intimacy with my impermanence. I am happy to be outlived by mountains and trees and seas, to be eclipsed by greater forces beyond my ken. Content to be a grain of sand in Saturn's hourglass, a blip in infinity.
Do You Want to Go to the Seaside?
Just 50 miles beyond Santiago de Compostela, the destination for pilgrims on “El Camino de Santiago,'' there lies a small craggy spit of land jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean. It is called Cape Finisterre and can be found at the furthest Western edge of Spain in the enchanted province of Galicia. The Cape is so-named because the ancient Romans literally believed it to be the “end of the earth.”
Just 50 miles beyond Santiago de Compostela, the destination for pilgrims on “El Camino de Santiago,'' there lies a small craggy spit of land jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean. It is called Cape Finisterre and can be found at the furthest Western edge of Spain in the enchanted province of Galicia. The Cape is so-named because the ancient Romans literally believed it to be the “end of the earth.” Here stone, sky, and sea meet in the breaking of waves upon rugged sea stacks and the aerosolized spray of seafoam.
This past Friday, while Venus was applying to a conjunction with Saturn in Aquarius, we took a day trip west to see the coast. Although the drive took us through thick mists in the mountains, the clouds were scarce once we reached the shoreline, evaporated by the winter Sun. We came to our own ends of the Earth, where Turtle Island meets the Pacific Ocean. Here we strolled along the shoreline, drinking in the lambent rays of the Sun. Rising dramatically from surf and sand, a couple sea stacks stood resolute. The everpresent roar of the ocean engulfed my awareness, a low oceanic drone drawing my thoughts to Saturn and Venus in the skies above.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
Amongst the many significations attributed by astrologers to Saturn is that of bodies of water like rivers and seas, travel by water, and water-based trades. Wouldn’t a planet with their domicile or exaltation in a Water sign make a more suitable ruler of the sea, such as the Moon, Venus, or Jupiter? Although other planets retain their own connections to water, it becomes quite clear when standing on a rocky seaside outcropping why Saturn would govern such a place. The sea is such a clear and definitive boundary marker, a hard limit, a point where one can literally go no further. Bounded by his rings, Saturn wards the world with locks and limits, degrees and divisions. He curtails, constrains, and controls. And for much of human history, seas, rivers, and oceans served as clear boundary markers between tribes, cities, and nations. Without a boat or bridge, water is simply impassible.
As the furthest visible planet, there is also something inherently remote and removed about Saturn. According to Lilly, he is the planet of “obscure valleys, caves, dens, mountains” and other remote or abandoned places. Often in these hinterlands, we find hermits, true children of Saturn. Whether they be Christian monastics, Buddhist monks on retreat, or Vedic ascetics, spiritual people are often found dwelling in solitary places. They are self-imposed outcasts, set apart from mainstream society by their devotion to their spiritual tradition. Fittingly, wild Cape Finisterre is dotted with sainted stones and solar altars. While I saw no such sites of pilgrimage along the Oregon Coast, the air hummed with a spiritual potency.
A part of me wonders if that potency lies in the sea’s aura of mystery, its sheer vastness and unimaginable depth. What really lies beneath the waves? Sunken ships and dead sailors? Beyond Saturn lies objects invisible to the human eye and the black void of space. And beyond the twilight zone of the ocean lurk monsters that live without sunlight, grotesque beings of the black abyss. What a gargantuan, all-encompassing thing is the sea. Its immensity summons to mind the concision and humility of the Irish fisherman’s prayer:
“Dear Lord, be good to me.
The sea is so wide.
And my boat is so small.”
And yet, Saturn was conjunct Venus too, no? There is a raw, feral beauty to these desolate places, a gorgeous beauty that tears out the heart, a jaw-dropping splendor that crashes down with a skull-cracking gravitas, splintering the self into incalculable, forgettable pieces. We are inescapably drawn to these bare and windswept places where our self-importance is eclipsed by the endurance of much older, wilder things. Here at the edges we butt up against beauty in its most extreme and austere form. The Romantics named this immense confrontation with the natural world “the sublime.” The sheer magnitude of the land and seascape conjures a sense of awe, appropriate smallness, and a touch of horror. As the ineffable experience of nature comes crashing down, one loses their words and is left only with wonder.
Capricorn - Doom Metal
Birthed from Black Sabbath’s eponymous song in 1969, doom metal is the grandfather of all heavy metal genres. Inspired by bassist Geezer Butler’s eerie experience of waking to see a looming shadow at the end of his bed, Ozzy Osbourne captured the feeling of impending doom with these hauntingly brief lines…
Of Horns, Hooves, and Heavy Riffs
Birthed from Black Sabbath’s eponymous song in 1969, doom metal is the grandfather of all heavy metal genres. Inspired by bassist Geezer Butler’s eerie experience of waking to see a looming shadow at the end of his bed, Ozzy Osbourne captured the feeling of impending doom with these hauntingly brief lines:
“What is this that stands before me?
Figure in black which points at me
Turn ‘round quick and start to run
Find out I’m the chosen one
Oh, no!”
In turn, guitarist Tony Iommi’s snarling riff gave life to doom metal's signature low, slow, loud sound. All metal subgenres find their niche in some kind of extremity, taking a musical element and ramping up its intensity to the Nth degree. Well, doom metal is extremely slow. The legendary Sleep song Dopesmoker clocks in at over an hour long! Eschewing the shredding antics of thrash or death, doom metal finds its apotheosis in soul-crushingly heavy riffs played on down-tuned guitars at exhaustingly slow tempos accompanied by lyrical themes like despair, depression, damnation, and grief. It revels in fear, terror, and the Lovecraftian cosmic horror of being slain by the sublimely incomprehensible.
Naturally, doom metal is the purview of Saturn, the Greater Malefic, whose malevolence was said to come from being excessively cold and dry. Bounded by rings of rock and ice, Saturn stands for that which restricts, opposes, and oppresses. While his pedagogy is cruel, Saturn can teach valuable lessons like discipline, maturity, and control. He imposes the laws of impermanence, death, and decay. Because he governs lines and limits, Saturn is the patron of the excluded: outcasts, the isolated, and the marginalized. Prior to Neptune’s discovery and subsequent acquisition of mystical significations, Saturn governed ascetics, occultists, hermits, and states of intoxication. When considering the black monastic habits worn by bands like Sunn 0))), dark phantasmagoria of Stoner Doom, and mournful dirges of Funeral Doom, it's easy to see why Saturn is Doom metal’s patron.
Saturn - The Greater Malefic
According to the Hellenistic planetary rulership scheme, Saturn has two domiciles or homes. Doom aligns most with Saturn's cardinal, Earthy, nocturnal domicile of Capricorn. The season of the Goat begins at Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and longest night. Amidst the cold, accumulating snow, darkness reigns supreme. Harsh conditions drive people inside to huddle around fires. They pray their harvest lasts until the spring thaws, while outside howl the winter winds and wolves. It is these grim conditions that give birth to the melancholy and misery, depression and deprivation encapsulated by Doom.
So what makes Capricorn the province of Doom metal? Besides the panoply of goats appearing in band names and album artwork, my interpretation stems from the sign’s mode, element, and gender. Capricorn is a cardinal sign, meaning it begins and births. Capricorn season initiates Winter and marks the point in the year when the sun begins its slow, arduous ascent back toward the pole star. Doom metal itself was inceptional; its unholy anthem “Black Sabbath” is the seed from which all heavy metal blossomed.
Elementally, Capricorn is Earthy, meaning concrete, material, and tangible. As first of the Earth signs, Capricorn speaks to primordial, physical structures. These foundations of the Earth can be seen in rugged mountains where goats climb and play. Qualitatively, Earth feels weighty and dense. There is an austere gravitas to Capricorn. This density is expressed in the painfully heavy riffs so characteristic of Doom. With a lethargic tempo reminiscent of trudging, the subgenre’s mythological imagery often features long arduous journeys. Pilgrims bearing burdensome loads march through harsh landscapes to a slow and steady metronome. Oftentimes, something obsidian and monolithic looms in the distance, inspiring numinous dread.
The Foreboding Terrain of Capricorn
Finally, Capricorn is considered a feminine sign. Although gendered terms were baked into astrology’s beginnings, they have diminishing utility in the 21st century. We might think of masculine and feminine instead in terms of Yin and Yang, active and receptive, or diurnal and nocturnal. Of these binaries, I find diurnal vs. nocturnal the most useful as its metaphorical foundation is light, something whose variegating quality we all experience throughout the solar year. Consider then the enfolding, all-consuming power of a velvet black night in the depths of winter when the natural world appears most unforgiving. Doom metal artists often pen hymns to the Void, the philosophical personification of nothingness. These songs make homage to the idea that the deep well of emptiness within us all is truly the Ground of All Being and is experienced and accessed only through negation. Therefore lack, absence, and loss beget bitter truth.
As a love letter to Saturn and my favorite subgenre, you can find a Spotify playlist below filled with some of my favorite Doom metal tracks. It’s an eclectic mix, including classics from Doom’s forebears such as St. Vitus, Pentagram, and Trouble as well as contemporary favorites like Thou, Pallbearer, and SubRosa. Generally, the mix edges more toward Stoner Doom than Drone, Epic, or Sludge simply because the cannabis-infused, bluesy grooves of the genre resonate most with my own heart.