Saturn

I’ve been drawn to Saturn lately, as I incorporate working with the planets into my regular spiritual practices, and into the relationships I am building in the spirit realms. I feel an odd fondness, almost warmth, toward Saturn right now. I am not totally sure why, but I do know I find some kind of satisfaction in resolving feelings of apprehension into genuine appreciation, when it comes to spirits, deities or energies that are typically feared or dreaded. I guess it’s a little like making friends with the monster under your bed.

ANYway!

So I am developing an appreciation for this planet and the god for whom it is named, and the power of “weightyness” it embodies. The first time I invoked Saturn the planet, maybe a month ago, I felt a heavy sense of weight all around me. I was very satisfied with the communion, but afterward, I flopped down on the futon and found I could not move…I was so tired and heavy! I remained that way for about 45 minutes. Since then, when I invoke Saturn, I politely ask him to remember to arrive “gently.” It has seemed to help.

As the lunar new years and the solar new year have drawn near and passed, I have been thinking about will. The lesson I am learning in my fledgling attempts at meditation practice is that the actions and choices I make all come down to will. If I think I want to pick up a new habit, aim for a goal, or practice and learn a new skill, but I don’t actually make any movement to do so, I realize there must be something else my will considers more important.

I learned this year that I had many illusions and shadows of what I thought the life I wanted would look like, and the thing was, the fundamental desires were real and generated by my will, but the attempts to act on them were all confused by surface illusions and secondary desires, namely, the desire to simply arrive at perfection in whatever current pursuit, but not be willing to embrace the process of being a beginner and having more realistic goals.

As meditation has helped me separate my emotions and habitual thoughts from my will, the person I actually am, I am starting to appreciate the importance of knowing one’s own will. I used to think it was a little cheesy, the way magicians and sorcerers talk about “will,” sounding as if they are touting or forcing themselves to imagine that they are somehow more powerful than anything else in the universe. It seemed a little arrogant, forceful, and inauthentic.

But I understand better, now. To know your own will is actually to humble yourself in a way, because the process for doing so is to realize and accept that all those momentary feelings and impulsive beliefs constantly running through the wiring of your being are not in fact all that important at all. (This is not to say I do not value emotions. Rather, I have sometimes, I think, valued them to a fault. Everything has its place.) The result of getting to know your will, though, is also a sense of confidence, calm and groundedness.

Groundedness! This made me think Saturn was a perfect energy to work with for better knowing my own will and allowing it to direct me rather than impulses and habits. Below is something like what I remember praying when last communing with Saturn. The words in brackets are those I would likely say if communing with Saturn on Saturday or in the planetary hour of a given day.

Saturn, Saturnus, I call to you.

I call to you, spirit of the planet Saturn, and intelligence of the planet Saturn.

And I call to you, Saturnus, the god for whom that planet is named

[on this, your holy day, in your holy hour]

And to all those beings and spirits you command

[and for whom this day/hour is sacred].

at this point I made an offering of incense before continuing

Help me to know my will.

Let my will be an anchor that weighs me down,

That grounds me in reality.

Let it act as my guide toward my desires/goals.

Let my desires/goals have substance and be grounded and weighted in what is real and true.

Help them to have form and shape,

And my practicing of discipline to come from my will and nothing else.

Thank you for the realm you command

I honor your power to give weight to things,

To restrict and give form.

Bless my endeavors.

I am enjoying getting to know you; thank you for spending this time with me,

and for accepting my offerings.

For someone like me, a dreamer often carried off by my imaginings and my ability to be creative, an anchor of groundedness feels like it could be very important and helpful. I hope to discover this, as well as the directedness (?) of being guided by my will, once I know it and am familiar with it, can distinguish it from surface and illusory, temporary and false desires. I suspect that it will have a streamlining effect, cutting through on a more direct path instead of one that pulls this way and that, which is often otherwise my natural way of “feeling through” things. My will has always been there, making things happen; now I hope to work with it more intentionally, to work with it rather than in spite of or at odds with it.