Her Name Meant Dissolution. Her Name Meant Disruption

Forgotten Italian Goddesses of Dissolution & Disruption who might help us through Saturn in Pisces & Pluto in Aquarius

Dec 18, 2023

Preface

I wrote this blog post for The Mad Sorceress Grimoires Blog in early April of this year, but was inspired to post it on my SubStack for you all! Since this post has to do with Saturnalia, and today is the second day of Saturnalia (Io Saturnalia to everyone who celebrates), and because this post explores my patron Goddess Lua Saturni who was honored during Saturnalia, I wanted to revisit this piece.

What we learn in this post:

What are the significations of Pluto in Aquarius and Saturn in Pisces?
Ancient Italian influence on Saturnian Energy
Who is Saturn?
Who is Rhea/Ops?
Who is Lua Saturni
What is Saturnalia?
My personal work with Lua Saturni
What can Lua Saturni teach us in the Pluto in Aquarius and Saturn and Pisces Age?
- AI is the new 1900’s weird Hallmark Greeting Cards
- Healing and change
- Flow of time

With Pluto just entering Aquarius and Saturn entering Pisces, I felt it was a good time to write a blog post dedicated to my patron Goddess Lua Saturni. I feel she has a lot of significance during this time, especially if we consider the astrological interpretations of Saturn in Pisces and Pluto in Aquarius. I have already spoken about her on my Instagram, so feel free to check that out if you’re interested. Towards the end of this blog post, I talk a bit about my personal experience, as well. While I typically do not discuss my personal practice, I really just have an aching desire to share! I see a lot of Occultists, Witches, Magicians, and Spiritual Practitioners unapologetically and proudly expand upon their encounters with deities, and I often find myself questioning my hesitancy and resistance to do the same.

During this past year, I have been doing a lot of research on my ancestors. I have traced both my maternal and paternal bloodline with DNA testing, and cross-referenced this testing with the knowledge that was passed down to my family orally about our ancestry. I am a 3rd-generation Sicilian/Italian-American on both sides of my family, and my mother and father are from Mediterranean descent. I began looking into my ancient Italian ancestors, who were possibly the Etruscans (at least some of them), and the deities that they honored. I have been so incredibly inspired by the Gods and religions of my ancient ancestors, and learning about the deities they may have worshiped has brought me so much joy and creativity into my life. I started designing my own rituals devoted to them, and I wanted to share what I’ve gleaned from this time working specifically with Lua Saturni. To bring some context to this Goddess, Lua has an affiliation with Saturn and his lore. In my research of Lua, I found that Archaic Italian influence has shaped our modern-day Saturnian deity. While deep-diving into Lua’s lore, I saw a lot of long-lost significations of Saturn that we don’t necessarily associate with this energy, anymore. For my ancestors, Saturn represented agriculture, land, time, and the abundance found under the Earth (although this is Pluto/Hades’ realm in modern astrology). Let’s also not forget the Golden Age of Saturn where he ruled, and the ancient Romans described this era as a great era of peace, harmony, equality, and abundance on Earth. We will discuss this Golden Age further along in this post.

The Etruscans are thought to be the native peoples of Italy. Little is known about them, and there is a lot of debate whether they actually were the native people of Italy, or if they may have been “sea-faring people”. For a bit more historical context, Etruscans were referred to as “pirates” by the Greeks and Romans who looked down on Etruscans and saw them as “effeminate”. However, Etruscan Scholars are passionate to speak on Etruscan influence on ancient Rome. This is a big piece of discourse that is really important for this post, because scholars believe that a lot of Greeks and Romans mirrored their Gods after the Etruscan pantheon. Of course, there is also debate about that, too. While most researchers believe that the Etruscan pantheon is older than the Roman and Greek pantheon, others conclude that Romans, Greeks, and Etruscans all influenced each other equally.

One last bit of information to know is that ancient Indo-Europeans would typically take a quality of a deity, or an aspect of life, and exalt it to its own personified Godhood. This is also called animism. Most of these deities took on a feminine form, which is possibly why the Etruscans were seen as “effeminate people”. Regardless, the origins of these deities are so ancient that we actually don't fully understand them. They are “comprecationes deum immortalium, quae ritu Romano fiunt” or “the consecrations of the immortal gods, which take place in the Roman rite” and they are invoked alongside certain deities, and express a specific aspect of that particular god.

“The female entities, with whom the “comprecationes deum immortalium, quae ritu Romano fiunt” [ the consecrations of the immortal gods, which take place in the Roman rite ], unite with various divinities, of whom they express one aspect or one essential mode of action:
LUA SATURNI
SALACIA NEPTUNI
HORA ET VIRITES QUIRINI
MAIA VOLCANI
HERIE JUNONIS
MOLES ET NERIO MARTIS
[ … ] But in the course of the centuries, the leaders of Rome, heedful of circumstances, adopted this method of setting up divine protectresses for their activities, and private initiative produced other such goddesses.”
-Georges Dumézil on Personified Abstractions: Archaic Roman Religion, With an Appendix on the Religion of the Etruscans

Saturn

Saturn is the Roman God of Time, Agriculture, Wealth, and of Rome. Ancient Romans equated him to the Greek Titan Cronus, who was God of the Harvest. Ancient Greeks recognized Cronus as a dangerous and temperamental deity that ruled over disorder, while ancient Romans thought of Saturn as altruistic, and more like a mentor. Geb, the chthonic Egyptian God of Snakes, Plants, Vegetation, and The Underworld, also has connections to Saturn. Cronus is not to be confused with Chronos, who is the personified embodiment of Time itself.

Today, when we think of Saturn, we can name a handful of astrological and mythological links to obstacles, abusive patriarchy, prisons, solitude, poverty, and hard work, but what did the ancient Italians and Romans think of him? Saturn was worshiped since the 6th century BCE, and probably before that under different names. His name could possibly be derived from “satus” which means to sow. There was also an ancient town called Satria in Latium, and it is thought that his name could have come from that. An alternative theory, and I like this one, is that he may have been the Etruscan God named Satre who was thought to be a dangerous Death God who “ruled in the North West”. Little is known about Satre, but some believe he ruled over funeral rites and the underworld. Certain authors maintain that Saturn is actually a derivative of this Etruscan God. It is said that the earliest Saturn had an altar in a southwest part of the Forum. This part of the forum was associated with the Companions of Hercules.

In the popular myth of Saturn, his son Jupiter overthrew him, and Saturn fled to Rome. He was greeted by the two-headed God Janus, from which we get the word for the month of January, and he founded the city of Saturnia. This begins the reign of Saturn’s Golden Age. He is sometimes regarded as the King of Latium/Italy, or The Father of the Latin Peoples. The Ancient Romans perceived Saturn as a Benevolent God who taught his people to take care of themselves, sustain life, and was adamant about the prospects of equality and peace. There are accounts that during Saturn’s Golden Age, there was harmony and equality among all people, and Gods and humans co-existed in kinship and unity. This is even more interesting when we remember that in Astrology, Saturn exalts in Libra, the sign of peace and equality. To take this further, Etruscan women were seen as equal. They were allowed to gamble, go to festivals, and drink with men. This societal view and way of life further emboldened Greeks and Romans to view Etruscans not only as “effeminate”, but also as “barbaric”. The Etruscan way of life was so distinctly divergent from the rigid Greek and Roman life. Regardless, for the ancient Romans, the older iterations of Saturn are benevolent, reasonable, and enlightening. This strong tie to Libran facets are possibly why Saturn was also a God of Liberation, an aspect we will shortly analyze in a festival dedicated to him, and a Goddess of whom he is allied with. Ironically, in astrology, we do not associate being unbound as a Saturnian signification. In fact, the act of being bound or restricted is the energetic essence of our Astrological Saturn. However, by the end of this post, we will notice that Saturnian Deities have the ability to cause harm, or protect oneself from harm. This theme also resumes through Lua’s significations as well.

Saturn Devouring His Son, Francisco Goya

Saturn had, and still has, a chthonic side to him. This shadowy nature continues to connect him to the underworld. When learning about Astro-Herbs, we learn that Saturn has rulership over abortive and poisonous plants. Ironically, Saturn also has ownership over plants that are antidotes for poisons. So, again we see Saturn having rulership over things that cause death, while also being the remedy or antidote for it. With death being an inevitable part of time, Saturn also rules over time, death, and endings. Going even further from chthonic to straight up evil, there are a few stories of Saturn being more of a malevolent deity. You may have seen the many depictions of Saturn devouring his children. In the myths, there was a prophecy stating that one of his sons would overthrow him. In an attempt to prevent this prophecy from coming true, he began eating his children. That is, until one day, Rhea, his wife, wrapped a rock in cloth, and fed that to Saturn in place of his son Jupiter.

By the way, did you know that dinosaurs, crocodiles, birds, and goats ate/eat rocks? They are called gastroliths, and are said to help digest food in their stomachs. Saturn rules over dinosaurs (birds are the descendants of dinosaurs), crocodiles, and goats. I always found this correlation fascinating.

Association to Rhea & Ops

Let us first discuss the Goddesses Rhea and Ops to get a better idea of Lua. Rhea was a Greek Goddess of childbirth, menstrual flow, flow of time, abundance, wealth, and agriculture. She was also a Patroness of Opportunity, and she was Abundance personified. She is often flanked by two lions in most depictions of her. Rhea’s Anatolian equivalent is Cybele, whose symbol is also lions, and went by another name which was “Magna Mater” (Great Mother). She had a mysterious cult and religious following called The Cult of Magna Mater. This cult is a primitive Mediterranean religion in reverence to the Divine Feminine and Mother Goddesses. There are a lot of connections from Rhea/Cybele/Magna Mater to Inanna/Ishtar, the Mesopotamian Goddess of Love, War, Justice, and Fertility.

Rhea’s name means “flow”, so where Saturn rules over time, Rhea rules over the flow of time, something I always associated with being a bit beyond the material plane, and possibly how time affects other planets, galaxies, or even unseen dimensions. She is also associated with the flow of the menstrual cycle, which connects her to the moon. Being a Mother Goddess with relation to the moon makes her a Goddess that can be called upon during pregnancy and childbirth.

Rhea and the Omphalos stone, Metropolitan Museum of Art

It is said that Rhea was Saturn’s wife, but did you know she may have had another partner? Ops is the Sabine equivalent of Rhea. Her partner was an Italian deity named Consus, who was a God of the Grain (specifically grain that was stored away). Ops had a temple devoted to her in the Regia (Royal House), and it was so sacred only the vestal virgins may enter it. On August 29th, her festival Opalia took place in this temple, and marked the end of the harvest. These festivals included activities that also honored Consus, but his festival was on December 19th when the ancient Italians stored away their grain.

“In later times, [ Rhea ] is connected with the Greek God Kronos, but in earlier times, along with her epithet Consiua, she is more connected to an older God called Consus. [ … ]
Consus was honored in an underground altar in the valley of the circus at the foot of the Palatine. [ … ]
The calendar contains two feasts of Consus, the god of stored grains [ condere ] on August 21 and Dec 15. Each is followed, after a similar interval, August 25 and December 19, by a feast of the goddess Ops, the personification of abundance and, in the earliest times especially, of agricultural abundance. This arrangement proves a connection between the two divinites which is not at all surprising and which confirms the epithet of Ops in the August Cult: Consiua.”
- Georges Dumézil on Rhea, Ops, and Consus: Archaic Roman Religion, With an Appendix on the Religion of the Etruscans

Consiua was a very old Roman Goddess of Earth Fertility. Rhea also has connections to an older goddess named Lua Saturni.

Lua Saturni

Let us now turn our attention to Saturn’s favorite tool: the scythe. If we put Rhea and Ops on one side of a spectrum, and Lua on the other, we may get an even wider understanding of why Saturn exalts in the sign of balance and harmony. On the spectrum of Rhea and Ops, the scythe is a tool to harvest crops. For our ancestors, food meant power, stability, wealth, abundance, fertility, vitality, general wellbeing, and life. The scythe, however, could also be turned into a weapon, and this association comes to mind when we think of the Grim Reaper. So, where the scythe can bring food (sustaining life) and security, it can also bring endings and death, and this is where we can now get an understanding of Lua Saturni. The balance between life and death is played out here between Rhea and Lua.

Ananke, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts

Lua Saturni was invoked alongside Saturn, and while some researchers believe she was the wife of Saturn, others call her Saturn’s Associate. She was also called Lua Mater, and remember that Mater means Mother. Her name meant dissolution, or destruction. She was called “The Liberator'', and she was the Disruptor of Social Order. Disrupting social norms is a theme we see in Saturnalia, a Roman festival that marked the Winter Solstice, and Lua was one of the Goddesses honored during this festival. It’s also thought that her name is derived from the verbs luere (to play) and soluere (loose). I joke that she must be a Goddess of Jazz and Prog Rock, if that’s the case. I cheekily play those genres when trying to connect with her. To honor her, the ancient Italians and Romans offered to her the weapons of their enemies as both sympathetic magic to weaken any weapons left in enemies’ hands, and to purify the weapons of malevolent energy/spirits. By sacrificing these weapons to her, this prevented any further harm done to the victors of the battle. In my opinion, with Rhea’s connection to the flow of time, and Lua’s ability to cleanse weapons, I believe Lua is a Goddess of Karma and Ending Karmic Cycles. Because of her war association, scholars say that she is like Saturn and Mars combined. In astrology, Mars exalts in the sign of Capricorn, which is ruled by Saturn.

Where Rhea was the Goddess of Opportunity, Lua was the Goddess of Liberation, but with Liberation comes resistance to order, and breaking free of structures that no longer serve us and hold us down. In order to liberate oneself, there must be a death process, especially a spiritual one. Lua is a Goddess of Blood, War, and Destruction, and was one of the deities prayed to during battle by the Fetial, who was a priest that sanctioned war. She was also called upon to protect oneself from misfortune as well as illnesses and destruction, but she could also enact war, illness, misfortune, and destruction. It is said that the fetial does not invoke mars in these rites of war. The priest relies on Jupiter and Quirinus. Quirinius was an ancient God of Rome, or possibly an epithet of Janus. Dumézil states in Archaic Roman Religion, it is only when the priest declares war (indictio belli) without invoking or bearing witness to Jupiter and Quinirus, that Mars alone opens hostilities on enemy soil. This means to me that Mars was possibly more of the personified Act of War to Ancient Romans. However, the generals of war would invoke the “technician-divinities of destruction” who were Volcanus and Lua. Volcanus, or Vulcan, was the Roman God of Volcanoes, The Forge, Blacksmithing, and Fire. He was a God who created weapons. His Greek equivalent is Hephaestus, and his Etruscan counterpart is Sethlans. Both Hephaestus and Sethlans seem to have the same significations and descriptors as Volcanus. Regardless, it was Lua and Volcuanus “quibus spolia hostium dicare ius fasque est (to whom it is right and lawful to call the spoils of the enemy).” Land, by the way, was part of the spoils of war, which connects Lua back to Earth with agrarian rulership in a more aggressive way. I also enjoy how the ancient Italians and Romans would offer weapons to Lua, but weapons were thought to be made from the talent and skill of Volcanus, and both of these deities were called upon during war.

“Mars was “Mars pater” (Father Mars) or “mars caecus” (Blind Mars). Mars breaks loose saeuit (rage) in the arms and weapons of the combatants and in order to orient this force, in ipso discrimine (in the crisis itself), the general will appeal to a divinity less involved in the details of action.”
- Georges Dumézil on Mars: Archaic Roman Religion, With an Appendix on the Religion of the Etruscans

When I asked Brigid Bourke from Chthonia Podcast what she knew about Lua, she called attention to the fact that Lua had some strong Hades/Death connection. Hades is the Greek God of the Dead, King of the Underworld, and Lord over riches found under the Earth. His earlier name was Pluto, and in astrology, Pluto has very similar significations to Hades combined with Saturn: riches under the Earth (inheritance), recycling, composting, poisons, death, transformation, and ghosts. Coincidentally, Lua is joined by spirits called lares who are thought to be Italian Hero-Ancestor spirits and/or house spirits and guides. Lares could have connections to Spirit Guides and Daimons, who the Greeks thought to be benevolent spirits of Fate of Fortune, and it was believed that everyone was born with one. Etruscans practiced ritual in which they honored their ancestral family deities. There were possibly many functions of Lares: to protect the household, protect the land, protect the crops, protect the temples, protect the family, protect the traveler while on the road, etc. There is also a Sabine deity called Mater Larum, or The Mother of Lares. Roman Author Varro calls her Mania, and later Roman authors associate her with being joined by evil and restless spirits instead, called lemures. This aspect connects Lua to Saturn’s affiliation to Hades and Death, Satre’s Death-God element, Saturn’s chthonic characteristics, and rulership over the underworld. There have been many novels, articles, movies, and much more that depict the Land of the Dead as being a plane of existence that resides outside of time (or at the very least, it is believed that time doesn’t exist in those realms in the same way that we perceive it). This would link that theme of “flow of time”, or to whatever time exists in other realms and planes of existence.

Saturnalia

Saturnalia was a Roman festival and holiday that was devoted to Saturn, and took place between December 17 - 23. It also marked the Winter Solstice, and was a time when all social normality and structure stopped for that week. This holiday was said to be a remembrance of a time when Saturn ruled during his Golden Age. Recall that this age was an era where Saturn ruled, and there was equality and harmony among everyone. Therefore, during this holiday everyone could participate in the festivities. A “Lord of Misrule” was appointed for this holiday, and served as the Mock-King and Merry-maker. An alternate name for the Lord was Saturnalicius princeps (leader of the Saturnalia). This Lord of Misrule made sure that everyone was participating in the chaos, and gave ordinary structure a rest as a way to remember the bygone age of happiness. This holiday was possibly a way to shake off the pressure of the rigorous conventions of that time, and to relax and co-exist as equal human beings, rather than have race, class, and gender come between them. Gifts, coins, and handwritten “verses”, like our Christmas cards, were given out and exchanged, making Saturnalia the predecessor of Christmas. The festival Kronia, however, was the predecessor of Saturnalia. This was a time when Kronos, the Greek equivalent of Saturn, was honored during midsummer. Again, recall that during Saturnalia, to honor Lua, weapons of the enemies were sacrificed to her to be purified. However, warriors who died in battle were offered to Saturn during Saturnalia as well.

Personal Experience and Ritual Work with Lua

When I started doing this work, I did not know Lua’s name. I do believe she has been trying to get my attention for my entire life, as I have felt a lingering Saturnian energy loom silently around me, but my first real introduction to her was in an extremely intense dream which I may expand on fully at some point in my life, but I only want to talk about a couple of themes from this dream to possibly connect some dots to her origin. I have many prophetic dreams, and I consider myself an Oneironaut, but I do not speak much about these experiences because I do not want to be associated with being some type of Prophetess or Vessel for The Gods type of character. I have an allergic reaction every time someone comes out and says they speak for whatever deity. On the other hand, there are times when all I want is to discuss these experiences out loud to share and connect with the Occult Communities in an effort to feel less alone in my craft.

In this dream, she came to me in the form of a Great Beast, with a serpentine tail and the face of a lion. No, this was not Yaldabaoth. Recall that Geb is associated with snakes, and Cybele and Rhea are associated with lions. This deity sat in the shadows and referred to the place we were speaking in as “Forgotten”. I asked if she was Saturn, and she confirmed she was “Saturnian”, but “went by many names”. I can lucid dream very easily, but every time I tried, she was able to prevent that. She asked me to focus, and to remember the dream so I could write it down when I wake up. In fact, she kept repeating “remember”. She had explained to me many things, but wanted me to know that I would witness a “new age”. Personally, I feel like we sort of weave in and out of “new ages”, so I could feel my dream-self roll my eyes. As she was describing this new age to me, she dropped a coin in my hand. When I looked up from this coin, suddenly I was in ancient Italy, and I could see my ancestors in the distance. They saw me, too, and I believe they greeted me. They looked like they were trading goods with each other. She mentioned that my ancestors come from “a place with a warm sun by the sea”, and that they used to worship her. She then said that people no longer worship her, and have forgotten her. She also made a gesture with her fingers tapping her chest, and then tapping mine, and said “you come from me”, as if to say “The Goddess in you, is the Goddess in me.” I looked at the coin and it was silver and gold with a face looking to the left. There was also something wrapped around the head of the figure on the coin. She said “look at the dolphins”, and I looked out towards the sea and saw dolphins. I even swam in this ocean, and was heartbroken when I was told it was time to wake up. I lived in Florida when I was younger, and I loved going to the beach. I distinctly remember that in this dream, I was playing in the water just like I did when I was a kid. As I was waking up from the dream, I felt sad as if I was leaving her in this “Forgotten Place”, and from that day on I researched everything I could. I thought if I could find out who this entity was, I could maybe free her, or at the very least, reconnect with her again. You can imagine my excitement when I came upon information about “Saturn’s Associate: a forgotten and ancient Italian Goddess named Lua Saturni”. That excitement turned into disappointment when that was about as much as I could find.

The next time she came to me, it was in a vision as I was meditating. I got the feeling she kept calling attention to her connections to other deities to help me better understand her as a whole. One image that kept playing out was a “Fourth Face of Hecate” or “The Fourth Fate”. From Norse, Roman, and Greek myths, we know there are three Norns, Fates, Parcae, or Moirari, but these types of archetypes show up in a lot of other cultures and ancient religions as well. We typically see these characters take the shape of three women who represent past, present, and future or maiden, mother, and crone. They represent our destiny. In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing the three faces of Hecate, but there was a hidden fourth face behind them facing the other way. If you can imagine a fourth woman standing behind the front-facing Hecate who looks in the opposite direction. I “heard” that if one draws the thread to indicate a new life, one moves the thread to indicate karma and life decisions, and the third cuts the thread to indicate the end of the life, then who writes the story of that life? I saw a fourth goddess ascend above the other three Fates, who referred to herself as The Storyteller. I once again did as much research as I could, and one day the name Ananke appeared on my screen. I didn’t know how I could possibly connect Lua and Ananke together until months later when I stumbled upon a tumblr post from 2015 that connected it all for me, and the blogger breaks it down so perfectly. A lot of what the author of this post says, I have speculated myself. So, seeing someone else say the things I was thinking confirmed my internal monologue about Lua. This post is so beautifully written, so please check it out! Here is an infographic I made that sums up the info in this tumblr post:

Ananke is a primordial Goddess who is the commander of the laws of nature, and is Fate personified. She is depicted as a serpentine-like goddess, and has connection to the ocean. Water is hard-associated with fertility and creation for our ancestors that come from all types of cultures. She is also the mother of Moirai (The Fates). Here is one part from the tumblr post I mentioned, which was so incredibly affirming for me:

“Ananke carries a spindle and controls fate, yet the Fates (the three goddesses of fate) answer to Her. Spindles normally represent spinning the thread for the tapestries of fate, but I am not sure that She weaves fate per se. It seems to me like She weaves something broader, like cycles of time or the movement of celestial bodies. This makes more sense since She also carries a torch, and since Saturn and Chronos are associated with the zodiacal wheel of astrological signs (thus the movement of the stars and the changing of the months). In short, Ananke would be a primordial force that exists outside of fate.”
- MaliceinCandyland tumblr

Ananke, Necessity Personified, above the Moirai

“Ourania, illustrious, laughter-loving queen, sea-born, night-loving, of an awful mien;
Crafty, from whom Ananke first came, producing, nightly, all-connecting dame:
’Tis thine the world with harmony to join, for all things spring from thee, O pow’r divine.
The triple Moirai are rul’d by thy decree, and all productions yield alike to thee”
— Orphic hymn LIV

I also wasn’t sure if the connection to Tanit resonated for me personally, until I jumped on Tanit’s wiki page to find the below picture. It is a coin with silver and gold tones with a left-facing figure of Tanit with something like a wreath around her head, but get closer to the screen and “look at the dolphins” (just like the deity in the dream asked me to do!). Tanit may have been the Carthage equivalent of Ishtar, and was worshiped in the Mediterranean region. She is yet another War, Fertility, and Mother Goddess. Tanit was also associated with the moon, and her symbols were lions.

A Punic coin featuring Tanit, Minted in Punic Carthage between 330 and 300 BCE.

Putting it All Together : Pluto in Aquarius + Saturn in Pisces

Is there anything we can learn from Lua Saturni that can help us approach this “new age” of Pluto in Aquarius and Saturn and Pisces? In the Astrological community, Pluto in Aquarius brings up some heavy Artificial Intelligence significations. There are many, many apps and companies that are now heavily involved with the assistance of AI. Canva rolled out several new features that rely on AI support, and by the way, they are calling it “Magic Assistant”. That sounds entirely Saturnian Pisces to me. I’m not a professional astrologer, but I remember something the author Alan Moore said: “if we do not have a word for something, it exists outside of our consciousness.” I associate collective consciousness with both Aquarius and Pisces. Yes, Aquarius has more rulership over this subject, but Pisces dissolves physical and spiritual boundaries, making the expansion of consciousness possible. One day we might look back on this time, and see how AI molded our collective perspective and consciousness of things. Will AI art take the shape of new things we’ve never seen before? How will that affect us in the future? Will it expand our reality by expanding our consciousness? Think of it this way: before 1910, we didn’t have Hallmark cards to express our “holiday greetings”. Close your eyes, and try to remember old Christmas greeting cards, and how they were weird as hell: a baby’s head on a frog’s body with a top hat, a chicken dancing with a beetle, a man wearing a monocle with a turnip for a body. All of these weird and unsettling drawings were paired with the words SEASON’S GREETINGS. Back then, we didn’t have any way to say “hey- have a great holiday” in the form of art on a card. Today, we can’t imagine a holiday season without seeing wreaths, Santa and Rudolph, snow, menorahs, driedals, or a decked out christmas dinner table on the cards we send and receive during our holiday season. Before we had a standard, we had our weird ass imagination spinning like a broken compass trying to find the perfect way to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. The symbols we have now for this holiday season existed beyond the consciousness of our past selves. Replace Hallmark with AI, and basically what I am trying to say is we have just walked through the threshold of a new era of art and expression.

This particular Goddess energy that I keep referring to, is a primordial personified archetype of The Laws of Nature, Fate, and Destiny. She is an ancient Agrarian and Fertility goddess, has a top-down view of time, rules over the flow of time (life and death), liberates, is a War Goddess, and possibly a Goddess of Closing Karmic Cycles. Reeling the Astro-Weather back in: Aquarius and Pisces both have some ownership over karma cycles. It is often expressed that to end a karmic cycle, one must go through their own death-like process, which brings in Saturn and Pluto. I guess we can put it like this: time is inevitable, and death is tied to time. Everything meets its end, even the way we perceive “normality” and everyday way of life. This specific Goddess energy is in the liminal space between being brought into this world, and/or leaving it. She is the moment in which we must fight for our liberation and for the changes we want to see in this world. This is not a new concept, by the way. It is always an energy that looms. There are people in the world that need liberation from archaic rules and regulations that are still being enforced. For instance, there are minorities who are still oppressed. We are still fighting for equality for Black and Brown people. Tying back in Earth and Land, indigenous people are still fighting over the land their ancestors not only came from and had ownership of, but also took care of for generations. Certain governments still want to control certain bodies with laws and bans, like abortion laws and laws that affect trans people. There are many more examples. So, yeah- change needs to happen. It is very curious that the God who ruled over a time of absolute harmony is the same energy that we point at for difficult things in life. Is the Baby-Eating God of Time the same God-King who ruled on Earth, and created a perfect balance between all things? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Saturn needs his associate to bring back balance. As occultists who honor the Goddess (preferably, I like to refer to deities as genderless, but I digress), we talk a lot about restoring vitality to Mother Earth, and healing our ancestral maternal wounds. I really do believe we are shifting into a general collective energy where maybe this stuff is actually possible. Maybe I will see a better world before I leave this Earth. There are so many healers in the world right now who are doing this work. Think of our indigenous neighbors trying to heal the Earth by establishing a reciprocal relationship with it, our Black and Brown spiritual leaders who are teaching us about Ancestral Practice, and our fearless Femme Artists who are unapologetic about their work, their bodies, and the space they take up.

This very ancient energy that has come to me and my ancient ancestors in the form of a Liberating Saturnian Goddess is not in a “forgotten place”. She exists beyond the realms of our perception of time, and awakens when the hour is near to use the scythe and cut old order and structure that no longer serve us. She is Aquarian in the sense that she is the Lord of Misrule who disrupts daily routine, and liberates The Collective. She is Saturnian in the way that she not only watches time and eras unfold, but is The Storyteller our Fate. She is Piscean due to her dissolving boundaries and expanding consciousness, while existing as a primordial Fertility Goddess with connection to water. She is Plutonian because she is the Scythe-Wielder, and rules over war, death, and endings. She transforms by recycling old order, and using it as compost and fertilizer to create a new infrastructure.

I have been thinking about the “flow of time”, and how we comprehend it. Could our observation of time change, and how? The United States is considering discontinuing participating in Daylight Savings, which definitely disrupts a yearly ritual of Time we partake in. Will American bodies be affected by not changing their clocks forward? Or will they not even notice time ticking by? Moreover, there has been a 4-day work week trial in the United Kingdom for 61 companies. While employee hours were reduced to 32 hours a week, their pay remained the same (meaning they received 100% of their normal pay). 56 of the 61 companies have said that they will continue to use the “4-day work week” structure after the trial ended. This trial was largely successful for productivity, mental health, regular sleep schedules, and better work-life balance. Resignation also declined over that period, as well. How could this affect us? Personally, I have always been a fan of this type of work week structure. Truthfully, apart from the previously stated benefits, I believe that once we all start having the space to be happier and content with our lives, we will pay that merriment forward. The employees who participated in this trial said they had more time to spend with their families. In my opinion, this is a lovely advantage. When we are consumed with rigorous weekly work schedules, we become burdened with the fact that there just simply isn’t enough time in the day for everything. Something important unfortunately always gets sacrificed to gain “more hours” in a day. Being loaded with work takes us away from the things that are important: family, hobbies, sleep, health, and mental-health.

Let me leave you with this: spiritually, our fields are blighted, and it’s time to rotate the soil. We should really be asking ourselves what is it that our bodies, soul, and mind need that we have yet to bring to the table as our “normal”? Furthermore, how can we address the change we need, plan its manifestation, implement it, and create elasticity with it so that these structures can dissolve and evolve with us when we need them to? What are the names we will give it to bring it into our collective consciousness? What is the shape of it? No matter what, to create enduring change, we must first disrupt what we currently know as our “norm” and social order. The short version of this post: How can we be more Saturnalia-n? In a time where misery is prevalent, who among us will be the Merry-Making Lord of Misrule? How can we offer up our symbolical death and metaphorical weapons in order to be purified for a brand new karmic cycle? In my opinion, I think this astrological era will teach us these lessons, and I believe this is why the Goddess of Liberation and Disruption is knocking on the doors of my subconscious.