Sun Sesquiquadrate Saturn

(Transit Sun → Natal Saturn)

Avelom Podvodnyi. Aspects

Sun sesquiquadrate: It is not enough for a person to fulfill God’s will; he must also believe that it is his own. This aspect makes the person’s will in the areas of the Planet an insufficiently refined, sometimes overly crude instrument. His initiatives often turn out to be too straightforward (if the Sun is in Pisces or Cancer, the person will tend to avoid responsibility too openly and often awkwardly, hiding within his shell); and if inclined to self-observation, he may occasionally feel as though a foreign, deliberately coarse will is interfering with his own. A similar effect is observed in external circumstances, which are not exactly openly hostile or directly obstructive (sesquiquadrate is not a square), but rather unfavorably rigid, often actually destroying the most interesting, promising, or appealing moments for the person in the Planet’s spheres. And even if the external situation appears favorable, an inner demon suddenly activates, coarsening everything in a way that the person cannot overcome at the level of lower will. The work here proceeds along the lines of forming ideals and integrating higher will and higher direction, as well as careful analysis of subconscious programs governing the interaction between the will principle and the Planet: somewhere here (a clue should be sought in situations of simultaneous activity of the houses occupied by the Sun and the Planet) lies deeply entrenched ego, buried in evolutionary ground far below the person’s actual evolutionary level. Processing requires awareness and transformation of this program, after which the person gains the ability for precise and subtle volitional control in the Planet’s spheres. At a low level, this is the aspect of dictators possessing a rigid apparatus of external suppression, and their victims. Saturn sesquiquadrate: If the wheel of fortune is stuck in a ditch, the cross of fate can still be carried on one’s back. This aspect brings obstacles in the Planet’s spheres resembling shackles: walking is possible, but difficult. The person, however, does not always feel them (as with a square to Saturn), and sometimes develops a peculiarly awkward manner of moving—inelegant, yet generally acceptable. If this becomes habitual, it grows highly stable, and the person tends to view others who possess unnecessary and even harmful freedom with skepticism: a steam hammer has only one degree of freedom (up and down), yet works so effectively it’s a joy to watch, flattening even a crescent-shaped pastry. Subconsciously, however, the person feels strong clamps in the Planet’s spheres, forcing him onto a very narrow track in interaction with the external world, and may develop strong feelings of inferiority, which he attempts to repress into the subconscious. In inner life, he searches for, yet long fails to find, a path toward deep mastery of the Planet’s spheres, because the initially rigid internal framework allows movement only along very coarse, predetermined paths, as if blocking subtlety. Here, proper processing transforms the dog’s harsh leash into the flexible mind of a sage who discerns the course and branches of karma even in seemingly hopeless situations—but this requires overcoming inner constraints in the Planet’s spheres and realizing that in the external world, tribute is far more effective than forced labor.