Departure

I often hear the comment :”Oh, you have it made…you open those “tables” of yours and you know everything that is going to happen…” But there is a saying, “the shoemakers shoes always have a hole in them”…so I sometimes try to explain to myself why this would be so. Why does the shoemaker have no time for his own shoes, why do hairdressers usually have terrible hair-dos or casually combed hair, why I, as someone who is practising astrology, rarely take a look at my own chart.

Sometimes I think it may be because I basically always have in my head the exact current position of the planets (for example, I know that today the Moon is in Virgo, Venus has started to move through Capricorn a couple of days ago, Mars will enter Gemini in three days and so on), so that is what seems to be enough for me – a strange feeling that I am “in contact” with the planets. However, what makes me look at my own chart are not some important events that happen whether we want them or not. It is usually thoughts, that stick as tar and I cannot shake them. Just like that, various images sail into my mind, all so familiar and yet so hard to unravel…and so today, I am talking to a friend about some other countries, the so called “abroad”, we mention the sea and the hot streets, a people different to this “domestic” one and a second after the end of that conversation, the brain ignites, thoughts follow one another, the carousel is set into motion, houses, planets and signs and the question that poses itself is whether I will ever really leave this country…when I have these two completely different principles clearly and strongly emphasized in my cosmogram: Saturn in Cancer and Moon in Scorpio on one side and Jupiter in Pisces on the other side.

So, how am I to reconcile Jupiter and Satrun, how can I reconcile the optimism of an absolute faith in good, with pain, endurance and waiting for the morning that is not coming, with a genetically inherited suffering that conditions me to survival through acceptance of all things. Does not acceptance of everything necessarily mean giving up on everything?
To accept necessity and inevitability, to console oneself with the destinies of others, to be content with the minimum…yes, I can do it because there are genes that have done it before me, there is nothing easier for a man than to be that what someone before him already was, whether in character or however. In my case it means survive, not move, as Saturn is not moving, especially in Cancer, but instead only sinks and sinks until it decays. “It is dangerous to fantasize, to be enchanted”, that is the secret message of my chart to me, “make fantasy a reality, let fantasy be existential, look around yourself and see all those who are tired and sick! “… and all of my life I have indeed been surrounded by people who are tired of living or of diseases that have long drained them.

Following my father (Saturn in the Tenth House) that spent his whole professional life in health care, I also chose his path to make human suffering, but through astrology, my profession. But even further than them, everywhere I look I see the same. And of course that is what I would see, since my chart is a microcosmic image of this country, the land of the expelled and the damned.

For what is my people if not the Moon and what is this people if not the sign of Cancer. And then Saturn in Cancer Trine Jupiter in Pisces, all of it trine Moon in Scorpio, and there is the image of deserted homes, devastated houses and families, widows, women in black, there is Arsenije Carnojevic who I quoted today, and whose painting (“Migration of Serbs”) is hanging in my parents’ living room. In love with signs and symbols, almost thrilled, interpreting it as a sure sign that we will all migrate sooner or later, I never influenced them to move it from there. I still here Goran’s (my teacher) voice (those who don’t know who Goran is should read some of the earlier articles) repeating to me in his characteristic Scorpio ultimative voice:

“…just as there is an absolute harmony with one man or woman, there is also a harmony with a place on Earth, with a country or city, so it is one of man’s essential needs to find THAT place…sometimes in his homeland, and sometimes far in the world where he will feel perfect, where his physics and metaphysics, his spiritual and strength and passion and emotion will function to its maximum and where he can feel the strongest intensity and experience of life.”

You see, this perfect harmony, that, in my case, carries the maximum of a healthy life is Jupiter. Positioned in Pisces, for a bit of the good life he would change his name and religion, let alone the environment in which he lives, from which he is in fact long gone, because, as a king of metamorphosis he is craftily walking among others without touching the ground, he floats on the border of reality and all that is virtual, alone and secluded from all, absolutely all.

And maybe that is the only position of the planet in Pisces, apart from the Sun and of course of the Ascendent (rising sign), that finds true, and above all honest happiness, precisely in his solitude which in this case is not a necessity or something imposed, but a choice. And again I have to quote G.M. “ …..so he can in silence, alone and tranquill talk to the secret of the world, closely and intimately as with a mistress who has given only to him a confidence greater than to anyone else…”. Wandering is therefore a need, and solitude is the only ambiance in which the maximum of strength can be attained, the maximum of optimism, of affirmation of life. This kind of soul will therefore be led by faith and not by any other certainty, warranty, but by pure faith in a miracle, faith in a mission of his own, to secure not as much for the self as for others – important to him, a safe and secure heaven.

And I truly believe, doing this all of these years, and being confident of what I will now say, that if the chart supports going abroad, a large number of those who do leave find their true strength only somewhere far away. Suddenly, people have plans, enroll in universities at age 30, suddenly they want a family, they are more fertile, they think better and they sleep better. I say this because there is a difference between the charts of those who want to go somewhere “across” the border to escape the hardship of our everyday life, just to be away and who, apart from the dream of some magical place, have nothing else; and the charts of those who have at birth received a charm that they will be much better off somewhere else, and not in the place of their birth and where I, as an astrologer advise urgent emigration, pulling strings: big and small and packing suitcases…

Life far from home, abroad, is a mystery and even more so when a person wants to leave but has no one there. Here I pause, close my eyes and see a mental image of my own chart. My home is shown at my birth as being in ruins or deserted. What else could Saturn represent in Cancer if not a deserted home and a deserted city or a city populated only with old people. And what is it that is stopping me all the while, that is not allowing Jupiter to bless me, to give me a visa and open my path?

Well, Saturn.

Saturn (Chronos – represents time), and no planet will, as infallibly as Saturn tell you when something from your chart will happen! He is the reference for all events that he heralds through all of his aspects in your chart, so positioned in Cancer it is clear that from the deepest emotions, from a special kind of vulnerability, he slowly, through the passage of time, severs every connection to nation and home country. And it is clear that he isn’t obstructed by politicians, false authorities, as much as illnesses, depression, nothingness with which he is killing me, all of these people without strength and energy that live only in the acceptance of the inevitable and the minimal. So whatever may be the case, although I foremost truly feel compassion for all of them, although in the beginning I feel weakness toward all of them – incapable to leave anyone, to turn away, not noticing that with that I begin to resemble them, I am starting to secretly want them all to leave me alone, feeling in that my happiness and freedom. But in the end, the only truth that is reaching me is the message of Saturn in Cancer that says:

“…there comes a time in life when a man must not feel anything, when a man must kill his feelings, when pain must freeze all compassion just for him to survive” because sorrow and sentiments always summon weakness and giving up, always returning, looking back ….and staying. (for astrologers: sorrow and sentiments = Cancer, returning and giving up=Saturn).

So it seems obvious that a departure is desirable, but certain only when I will be able to turn my head away from everyone and say “I’m leaving”. Good. But who is going to make Saturn in Cancer make that change, if not those he will take care of, and over whose lives he will watch, not caring that much any more about his own life?

It is children.

So at the end of this contemplation, I came to the conclusion that only offspring can guarantee a departure here. Because man, in this case – me, will not go alone if Jupiter is in Pisces. Why would I, when already represented as Jupiter in Pisces, live hidden from myself and from others in my own virtual and remote world.

Jupiter, nor the Sun, or the Pisces ascendent have the ambition to do anything for themselves, but there has to be a need for a mission. So I depart only if it can change something for someone else, if I can find any mission (Pisces) through that. And those that are already here – they are all Saturn in Cancer and they seem to be here forever. Only those who will come, unprotected and “my judges”, for Saturn is guilt and Saturn is the judge, so only those that could blame me for “not going”, are the guarantee that a moment will come when all will be united: strength, endurance, determination and complete absence of emotions, necessary for the departure.

And where is it that I should go? Where should I find the secret place and the secret city in which the maximum of maximum has been patiently waiting for me all these years?
To Jupiter, in Pisces, to the furthest of the far, or at least to the most peaceful and most quiet, near the sea (JU in Pisces) near olive trees or vineyards (JU in Pisces in House 6 – plots, fertile land, property), and yet again a harbour must be near, for 6 are all shipping yards, ships, with 90 Neptune, 120 SA is across the ocean, that sail from Argentina to the Adriatic.

And with five planets in Sagittarius, the magic of adventure becomes the call of life.

So, if you see Saturn in Cancer and Jupiter in Pisces or Saturn in the Fourth and Jupiter in the Twelfth house in someone’s chart, you should know that a person will leave only when they are able to leave everything behind. Only when one sacrifice is justified with a greater cause or mission, conscience (Jupiter) lets them truly leave and destiny only then opens up good paths for them.

So here is how an astrologer thinks of her own chart – aloud this time. And is it then really important when some good planet will produce good aspects? It seems not, but rather every action until the day that here represents a clear turning point, until the day called “motherhood”, is nothing other than gathering the strength and readiness for Departure.