Saturn's Interesting and Intense Influence

I feel very much in limbo these days as I await word on whether or not I will be accepted into UF's Journalism College.  I think I am psychologically prepared for either outcome.  If I get in, I will take it as a great opportunity to learn and hopefully have some semblance of a career soon.  When I went back to school two years ago, I was well aware that I could have started a free-lance writing career without a degree but I didn't think I was ready.  Now, that I have sharpened my skills a bit and have written practically everyday since the summer of 2006, I feel much more qualified to get the ball rolling.  Still, I would like more training.  A big difficulty during my schooling thus far has been lack of money.  Although I plan to work all summer, part of me wouldn't be so unhappy not to get into UF in the fall because then I could work even longer and get myself more set financially.  In such a scenario, I theoretically could get into a program in the Spring of 2010 with much less anxiety.  Whatever the case, as I said, I am psychologically prepared to focus on the positive of either outcome.  I will see whatever happens as Krishna's arrangement.

As of late, I have been going through a rather interesting but trying astrological transit. Interesting from the point of view for me as the astrologer but trying from the point of view as me the person.  However I see it externally, I ultimately see it more deeply as being good for me.  You see, I was born with a direct oppositional mutual aspect of Mercury, which is my ascendant lord, and the Moon.  In my birth chart, I am Virgo rising, with my rising lord Mercury at 24 degrees Leo and my Moon at 24 degrees in Aquarius.  I think this, more than anything else, has given me both proclivity in astrology as well as writing.  It has also made me kind of witty (if I do boast myself) and quick with the sometimes stupid or not so stupid joke.  As the Moon rules the mind and Mercury rules the intelligence, I am keenly aware of my thinking, feeling and willing processes and the role the intelligence plays (or should play) in directing the mind.  I am also very in touch with my subconscious through dreams and it has given me, to some extent, some intuitive and psychic prowess, as well as the ability to read people.  I can tell a lot about a person the first time I meet them.  As the saying goes, the cover sometimes makes the book or the expression on the face shows the index of the mind.  These things I have come to accept over time as good things but one of the pitfalls of the transit is I feel things way too deeply for my own personal comfort and I over-analyze things and thus think way too much.  I am also ultra-sensitive to what others are thinking and feel a little overwhelmed being in crowds sometimes.  Often, when I am doing readings, I can get burnt out by other people's psychic movements.

Now, it just so happens that the old hard-lesson-teacher Saturn himself, has been camping out over my ascendant degree, and directly aspecting my Moon for the last couple of months.  Not only that, but he seems to plan to stay a while longer.  Now, I am well acquainted with Saturn, as I have the planet in the same sign as my Moon in my birth chart and in a good place sign-wise in  Aquarius.  Aquarius is considered to be  Saturn's own sign and thus it tends to work well there.  It also happens to be exactly across from my Sun in my natal chart which is a heavy influence unto itself.  In short, I have learned a lot from Saturn and have experienced his teachings in the form of loss.  I have also acquired some of its better qualities through sheer association.  As a result, I have always been keenly aware of the miseries of life and have often felt compassionately for the suffering of others.  As my Moon is in Aquarius, I probably have not shown myself to be in that consciousness as far as others have observed, though.

Whatever the case, and please excuse my rambling, this current state of transiting Saturn has really hit on a number of my nerves.  Rather than feel depressed by Saturn's influence, I feel on some levels energized by embracing the intense mental austerity and on the precipice of positive change. It has made me peer into the fabric of life in such a penetrating fashion that I have become almost stymied or paralyzed by introspective analysis.  I am not getting much sleep and any time I am alone I gravitate toward peeling away the layers of my life and witnessing the utter rawness of my existence and other's as well.  Thankfully, Venus has been aspecting my ascendant during this process which has helped to considerably soften the blow. Because of this, the kindness and smiling faces of others, have made the whole ordeal bearable.  

Although, I am generally one to analyze something quickly and make a swift decision, I have begun to seriously question my life's direction and have become open for some much needed fine-tuning.  At the same time, I have felt over-burdened with an immense work and responsibility load (as is often the case with a Saturn transit) and find myself yearning the freedom to break out of the shackles that confine the real expression of the spirit soul in the material world.  In other words, I have become extremely sensitive to my own personal limitations and have received clues as how to free myself from them.  Most people live their lives wearing various masks which they think will somehow protect them from the threats of the outside world.  It is my realization that these masks, rather than protect us,  just make us phony and keep us from expressing our true selves free from the encumbrances of outside conditional pressure and expectations.  As a result, we settle for less and further entangle ourselves in a life of unnecessarily jumping through senseless hoops for others.  We end of leading lives that others want us to lead instead of what is good for us.  This does not help them and it sure doesn't help us as individuals.  I have felt rather isolated in this struggle, save and except for a few kindred souls, but have kept a positive attitude that I will come out of it a stronger, as well as a more creative and dynamic person.  In short, I want to break free of the endless cesspool of excrement and live a more honest and true to myself life.  Only in that state of consciousness will I be able to be creative in such a way to touch other's lives.  During this process, I don't really care too much what anyone else thinks, either.