I’m on vacation by the sea. The same place, who knows how many times now. Familiar faces greet me, and in the evening, we raise glasses on the pier. We drink whatever’s brought—chilled wine or beer. There’s a lightness when no grand expectations weigh us down. Children race from one end of the village to the other, every adult in this tight-knit community knowing each child’s parents by heart. That, too, brings ease.
It’s as if the opposition of Mars and Saturn was waiting for me to notice how everything is falling apart. Because I’m an astrologer, and we astrologers see these signs reflected in the microcosm. Tables crumbling, houses left to ruin where once two or three cars stood parked, an internet connection creaking open like the gates of Heaven. The village’s time-honored festival, where old and young mingled in joy, is missing this year, casting a sameness over every day. For the “Fisherman’s Feast,” folks would set out to fish, shaping keepsakes from shells and sea-smoothed stones, etched with a message or the name of this place and its year. These tiny treasures have a strange magic, stirring forgotten feelings and memories in those who pass through.
The long-abandoned military resort across the way—a wild hill where we’d gather for traditional barbecues, where the young would slip away to gaze at the stars, guarded only by enormous spiders—will soon give way to a sprawling hotel complex. Those who build know nothing of what came before, nor will they care what the first excavators will uproot, scar, and seal in concrete.

For such is Mars when it stands in opposition to Saturn.

In the age of liberal capitalism, Mars is fixated only on what it can conquer, plunder, build, and turn to profit. In socialism, this same aspect (Mars opposing Saturn) dug and cemented, but to build resorts, monuments to heroes, museums, roads, and railways…
Back then, it was a mournful Mars, channeling the deep-rooted hatred of this opposition into monuments of resistance and remembrance. Back then, it was a Mars that felt it owed something to those who came before, who lived and fought before it. Its power wasn’t born from itself alone, but drawn from the legacy of those who paved the way. But in capitalism, the opposition of Mars and Saturn severs the roots of tradition, memory, the past, ancestors, belonging, and… strength itself. It cuts away emotion.

When these two planets are in a harmonious aspect, it was once common for them to foretell a long life, even reaching deep old age with a smile or pride looking at the young with hope, each seeing, respecting, loving the other.
But in times when the roots of tradition and heritage are torn up, even this aspect slowly fades into the collective memory, joining others that, though long present in astrology, find no real confirmation in life anymore, except on an individual level. As if we owe nothing to anyone, and all of it together leaves me deeply saddened. All day long. But right now, Boris sets down another bottle of cold rosé.

Pain.

All sorts of things will break in the days to come—whatever is fragile, whatever can no longer endure will shatter.
Today alone, I saw several people with bandaged legs or on crutches, another outcome of this opposition, which calls for rest, minimal action, and nothing forced. But, there’s no cure for the pain but to let it burst, like this typhoon charging toward us in Montenegro from Croatia. They’ve already begun clearing the yard’s furniture, leaving me for last. When the storm breaks, you know it’s happened by what it’s toppled, swept away, lost. And that, for us, is the greatest gain of this opposition, though its entire strength lies in loss.

So, though it’s expected to chase the rhythm of this New Age, to force good cheer, as if people would help the excavators dig just to hasten the end, what waits at the end of this opposition is always—rage, pain, unrest, fear, defiance that goes nowhere… except into mournful songs.

Those in denial comfort themselves that every end is a new beginning and  that life, like water, always  finds a way  to  flow on, but unfortunately, that would be the trine of these planets, not their harsh aspect. The opposition is not about Beginning, it is all about The End and Oblivion. When we supress to face it, to feel it in our bones, than we carry at the same place – in our bones, knees,hips or lower spine. Later, we replace it—discs, new joints—because Marsbear our legs and straight spine, the principle of strength. Ask soldiers if you doubt it.

Lightning flashes far off. The children are still running. Perhaps their legs carry what ours never did—to lead us where it was always truly right. Good. Safe. Natural. Wherever that One True Place was.

So now, we should expect nothing of ourselves but to be still, to force nothing. Both planets are in their fall position. It’s easy to fall, to crumble, to stumble, slip, degrade. Easy to forget, hard only to bear the pain. Saturn in Aries clings selfishly to what it built, what it bled or sweated for. It expects an eternity it never gets. The end of Saturn in Aries is like the last warrior, unsure if he’s glad to have lived so long, watching with small, clear, still-sharp eyes all that follows. In life, it’s like not knowing what we’re doing, where it leads, or what the vision is, because we no longer recognize what’s around us.

Mars in Libra laughs at it all. It has to laugh, for the last thing it needs in opposition to Saturn is memory. Memory dwells where history lies, in every archive, every document, where Saturn holds sway. So now, many will delete emails, messages, contacts. Many will toss photos, keepsakes, memories, time spent together, sell inheritance, divorce, broke up, flight from True Romance, just to avoid facing that same wrenching question—what to do with it? With pain that Life brings, at the very end to everyone.

We’ve shifted from one side of the yard to the other, by the little wall, as the storm begins. We watch all kinds of storms—this one from the sky is almost the easiest. It almost feels good, stirring waves, rocking boats, meant to frighten, but in truth… it can’t touch us ’cause we, too, are Storm-borns.

… the rains are tears, and many rivers will cross.
But people will remain as they were.
Because they won’t, they won’t want to know.

 

— BlockOut