spirits, Magic
Taylor Ellwood
The relationship between sacred kingship and ...

One of the books I’m reading lately is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette. It’s a fascinating book that explores the archetypes of the mature and sacred masculine. This is currently part of the spiritual work that I’m engaged in as I explore my own relationship with masculinity and heal the ancestoral and contemporary wounds that I’m becoming aware of as it relates to how masculinity is treated and perceived in modern times.

One of the aspects I’m exploring in particular is related to sacred kingship and the land. I am in the process of exploring the new city and surrounding areas that I live in. While I’ve lived here for a year, I didn’t have much opportunity until recently to really begin exploring the area and developing a relationship with the land. I find it fitting and useful that part of the process has also involved cultivating a relationship with the land, particularly on the basis of the relationship has with their home and how that relationship plays out in sacromagical work one does in connecting with the land.

Saturn

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How I'm working with Saturn Retrograde in my magical practice and life

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Photo by Tara Winstead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/saturn-spelled-out-in-scrabble-tiles-7666410/

Saturn recently went retrograde and will be retrograde through November. When a planet goes retrograde it essentially seems to be moving backwards. From an astrological perspective, a planet going retrograde is an opportunity to work with the particular influence of that planet in a different way. For example, when Mercury goes retrograde, it provides an opportunity to work with your communication and recognize where your communication skills need work. In the case of Saturn retrograde, the opportunity is around examining what you have built in your life with your career, home, relationships and the boundaries you have around each of these areas of your life.

I’ve entered into this Saturn Retrograde with a sense of quiet awareness as I’ve turned inward to examine my current life circumstances. I am getting ready to make some major transitions in the next couple of months and I’m doing a lot of existential kink work around the patterns I’ve observed in my life. While Saturn is known for boundaries, Saturn is also about separating the chaff from the wheat and in the process culling out what isn’t working. One specific example I’ll use is around my career/work and what it means to be of service.

In the last 6 or so years I have worked at jobs I haven’t found to be very fulfilling. They have allowed me to pay the bills, but what they have also emphasized is how much I settle for doing work I don’t like doing because it feels like that’s the work I can find. As a magician, this doesn’t strike me as a very magical attitude…instead it is egoic, wrapped up in a sense of fatalism around the work I am doing. I have been doing a lot of work in the last couple of years to challenge this perspective, and most recently the EK work has helped me see how an unconscious part of myself has continually gotten off on being unhappy because of how it has validated deeper wounds. As I’ve examined those wounds and done the healing work on them, I’m finding that the power of this pattern is falling away.

Saturn retrograde, as a period of reflection is allowing me to continue this process of transformation. I am embracing an opportunity to let go of the fears and insecurities which have acted as boundaries and limitations that have held me back from stepping into my truest self. I am recognizing that these fears and insecurities have held me back because I’ve clung to them as a form of justification for my circumstances. I no longer can hold onto them because they don’t serve me in any way that is useful.

I am using Saturn retrograde to help me dismantle the boundaries and limits I have raised in my life from a place of fear and a drive for safety. I am realizing that clinging to illusory safety hurts me and the people in my life because it keeps me small and holds me back from living and speaking my truth. I have done it in certain areas of my life and the cost is significant. It also hasn’t kept me safe. Saturn retrograde, as an astrological current gives me a chance to take a specific momentum to this work and use it to propel me toward the deeper changes that need to happen if I’m going to live my authentic life.

How is Saturn retrograde showing up in your life?

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How to release your neediness and discover your actual needs

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In the last few months I have had a great opportunity present itself to me. I have come face to face with my neediness and co-dependent behavior and I’m going through this process to recognize and release the neediness in order to discover what I truly need. That probably sounds a little contradictory until you consider that the root issue of neediness is based in fear. When we feel needy, we often feel that way because we are afraid to discover ourselves and what we truly need.

This journey of mine has involved me learning even more about my relationship with fear. I already knew a lot about it, but I’ve come to recognize how fear is the root of neediness. When I feel needy or clingy, what is operating at the root of that needy clinginess is the fear I feel. Part of what has helped in doing this work is connecting with Saturn, because in a very real sense Saturn is an embodiment of fear.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 10

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7-21-2021 today I switched over to Binah/Saturn. Given that I recently did a Saturnic ritual it felt appropriate. I had a continuing realization that it doesn’t matter what I do in the short term, because what I’m really dealing with is my own pain and suffering and I am the author of that, for the most part. It helped me come to an important realization and a sense of peace about the choices I need to make in order to move forward with a number of things. I think my time of chaos is coming to a close. I will still have some grieving to do and other processing, but I can do it and I can also commit to the path forward that will pay off down the line.

7-23-2021 The last couple of days have involved a number of job interviews. What’s been interesting for me is realizing that I’m juggling these different possibilities and trying to decide which ones I’ll explore and which to let go. I let go of one because it was clear I wasn’t the right fit. I feel this very Saturnic weaving coming into play which is actually helpful because I’m ruling out what doesn’t work for me, in favor of figuring out what could work as well as what I want to do with what I’m learning. And through it all I’m also recognizing I’m going to have to make short term sacrifices to get to where I want to go.