Happy Solstice. I confess, I love the turn into the dark of the year. I am downright happy when the time changes back to standard after daylight savings. (Daylight time is the bane of all astrologers. Do we really need it? As far as I’m concerned, the only person who should mess with time is the Doctor (Who), and even he’s reluctant–but I’m getting ahead of myself…) The earlier it darkens, the more content I am. When friends observe that I’m a bit mad, I blame my twelfth house Sun. We twelfth house people invented the cocoon. We trust the dark.

Alas, or hurrah for you day people, post-Winter Solstice, the light gradually returns to us. All our winter candles and bonfires and yule logs are remembrances of the light and warmth of the Sun returning. Evergreens and mistletoe the symbols of the continuing fertility of the Earth, in spite of outward appearances, and the promise of spring to come. All these symbols whisper to us, “We will make it through.”

Of course, the hard part of winter is still to come. In the north, January and February are the harshest months of the year, which I find highly poetic in an astrological way. This is the place where Capricorn and Aquarius clash–where Saturn, the symbol of earthly limitation and Uranus, the symbol of the eternal future, fight it out. Both planets are strangely cold and hard, and can be brutal in operation, often leaving us with the feeling, “If I can survive this, I can survive anything.” The ruler of Time (Saturn) clashes with the timeless, and in the struggle, the light is let in.

Solstice and Doctor Who

For those of us who live with symbolic language, I don’t think there is any more pleasure than knowing that these living symbols exist in nature and culture, giving us assurance that we are connected to a greater pattern. I don’t know how many Doctor Who followers are reading this. Those who aren’t–bear with me. Doctor Who is a British TV series that began in November, 1963 and has been continuing in one form or another ever since. The Doctor is a Time Lord. He is now the last of his kind, and he travels through space and time (Saturn), fixing what he can (Saturn). The new series of the show has contributed a Christmas tradition to the U.K., with families gathered around their TV sets eagerly anticipating a new Doctor Who special every year on Christmas Day. I hope someone other than me has noticed that we now have a Time Lord taking over a feast that was once celebrated as Saturnalia. The Doctor himself is rather Uranian, with his scientific detachment and lightning fast mind coupled with his overriding humanity and his unique, wiz-kid gawkiness. This year, our current Time Lord will be dying, rather appropriately, on New Year’s Day–and regenerating into a new incarnation. (For the uninitiated, the Doctor doesn’t die, he just changes–completely, though an essence remains–and is played by a new actor.) In the battle between Saturn and Uranus, Uranus wins again, and the symbolic light is allowed in. (Also rather appropriately, the episode is titled, “The End of Time.”) Life moves on.

Solstice

So until the Vernal Equinox, and its celebration of all things green and verdant (which has been taken over by St. Patricks Day), let’s enjoy our cocoons and the gentle reawakening of the light. Let’s give Time and Saturn their due, by respecting the natural cycles of life, but let’s allow what is no longer serving us to die off gracefully, and let’s ring in the changes with open and expectant hearts. We may find that, much like the Doctor, we can regenerate ourselves to explore new and undreamt-of horizons.

I’m taking some time off for the holiday (how much partly depends on how devastated I am after watching this Doctor die–my Neptune again, too willing to suspend disbelief), so aside from one or two smaller posts there won’t be any new hardcore material until after the New Year, when we’ll continue our work on the Nodes and get deeper into aspect configurations in synastry. I’ll also be announcing some new classes via phone conferencing, so stay tuned.

If any of you have holiday traditions and observances you’d like to share with us, please do.

Wishing you all a warm and peaceful holiday season.

Love,
Dawn