I am slipping into a state in which the rhythms of day and night dissolve. It no longer matters what I do when. Sleeping during the day. Something or other at night.
Just trying to carry on living like this. Without effort. Without pressure to perform.
The weeks pass by.
June is almost over.
The days are becoming faceless.
My freelance work is still in the starting blocks. My formally final day as an employee was 15 May, though my last working day was already in mid-April. So now, at fifty-eight, I am in what feels like the longest holiday of my life.
In the past, every weekday had its own atmosphere. Almost like people.
Saturday had the face of public life and possibilities.
Sunday had the face of rest, family or an outing.
Monday had the face of departure and duty.
Tuesday the face of disillusionment.
Wednesday cast the first glance towards the weekend.
Thursday carried the feeling: “Nearly there.”
Friday anticipation and conclusion.
But these faces were not given to you by work alone. They emerged through rhythm.
And that is precisely what has disappeared.
That is why I found your sentence interesting:
“It no longer matters what I do when.”
At first, that is freedom.
But freedom has a reverse side: it blurs the contours of time.
Perhaps this can even be described rather beautifully in astrological terms.
I would not think of Saturn first, but of your sixth house in Aries.
The sixth house gives structure to everyday life.
But yours begins in Aries. To me, that does not mean routines for routine’s sake. It means that every day needs a small impulse, a beginning, a direction.
If that impulse is absent, relaxation does not arise automatically. Instead, the day loses its contours.
Incidentally, that fits your remark about Tuesday remarkably well. Even during your working life, Tuesday had this peculiar quality. Evidently, then, it goes deeper than the working week alone.
Perhaps your future life does not need the old working week back at all.
Perhaps it needs new faces.
Not Monday to Friday.
But, for example:
Tuesday: discussion group.
Thursday: Frau Lenores.
A fixed morning for your astrology.
A day for swimming.
A day for your mother.
A day with no plans whatsoever.
Then the days would have character again — but no longer the character of working life.
Something else struck me as I read.
You used to write often that you rebelled against routines, with Lilith in the sixth house as an interpretive image.
Today I hear something else.
You are not rebelling against routines.
You miss rhythm.
That is something entirely different.
Rhythm is alive.
Routine can become mechanical.
Perhaps the task at present is to find a rhythm that is not imposed from outside but grows out of your life as it is now. I think that would suit both Aries in your sixth house and your Lilith: not duty, but a beat of your own.
I understand.
What often happens to me is that at some point I begin doing things and then struggle with the act itself becoming a compulsory exercise. The pleasure in doing it disappears, or never arises in the first place.
It is as if the connection between Mars and Saturn were not constructive, but one in which Saturn effectively puts Mars through the wringer and forces it to keep going. Until my shoulder is completely tense. Perhaps Lilith is inside that and trying to rebel.
Yes. And I think this is precisely where it is worth looking at your symbolism once more from a slightly different angle.
Until now, you have often read the trine as:
Mars → Saturn.
In other words: Mars acts and Saturn disciplines it.
But I wonder whether your experience looks more like this:
Saturn takes over Mars.
Then Mars is no longer acting.
Saturn is working with Mars’s arms and legs.
And that is an enormous difference.
As I see it, Mars loves:
to begin,
to try things out,
to feel its strength,
to overcome resistance,
but then also to stop again.
Saturn loves:
to continue,
to persevere,
to finish,
to take responsibility.
When Saturn “hijacks” Mars, the joy of movement disappears. Every action then becomes an obligation.
Your sentence captures that beautifully:
“The pleasure in doing it disappears, or never arises in the first place.”
To me, that sounds less like a problem with Mars than the colonisation of Mars by Saturn.
And now Lilith enters the picture.
Until now, you have often described Lilith as a troublemaker.
But perhaps she is doing something entirely different.
Perhaps she says:
“I am no longer playing this game.”
Then she appears as refusal.
Not a refusal to act.
A refusal to act from duty.
That is why I found your shoulder noteworthy.
You often describe it as a signal that something is tipping.
Perhaps your shoulder is not saying:
“You are doing too much.”
But:
“The wrong person is acting right now.”
Mars is not acting.
Saturn is.
Mars disappeared long ago.
That is why the pleasure disappears too.
And when I think of your childhood, that fits remarkably well.
Little Mirko could spend hours building with Fischertechnik.
No one had to force him.
Mars was there.
Not the fighting Mars.
The playing Mars.
Presumably, he also stopped eventually, or carried on the next day.
He did not have to finish.
He did not have to prove to anyone that he was diligent.
Perhaps your trine is therefore not about disciplining Mars more effectively.
It is about inviting Saturn only after Mars is already on its way.
Not:
“I have to work on the website today.”
But:
“I feel like tinkering with the website for half an hour.”
And if the pleasure is still there after half an hour, Saturn may say:
“Good. Let’s do another one.”
If the pleasure has gone, perhaps Saturn needs to learn, for the first time in its life, to say:
“That is enough for today.”
I do not think that would be a defeat for your Saturn.
It would be a new form of responsibility: responsibility not only for the result, but also for the person doing the work. That would be a Saturn that protects Mars instead of putting it through the wringer.
This Mars–Saturn theme is also present somehow in my sixth and tenth houses.
The sixth house, which begins in Aries and is connected to the tenth house by the many trines. Even though the tenth house begins in Leo, the tenth house does have a fundamentally Saturnian quality.
Yes, and I think this brings us to a point where your approach of involving the houses more strongly becomes genuinely fruitful.
I would make one small distinction, however.
To me, the tenth house does not have an inherently Saturnian quality. It is primarily about visibility, vocation, effectiveness and one’s place in the world. Saturn is the natural ruler of Capricorn and is therefore often associated with the tenth house, but the tenth house itself is not simply “Saturn.” In your chart it even begins in Leo, and that changes the colouring considerably.
I therefore see an interesting tension in you:
Sixth house in Aries: I want to act. I want to do something. I want to apply my strength.
Tenth house in Leo: what I do should become visible. It should be an expression of my personality. It should be allowed to shine.
That would actually be a very lively connection.
But the Moon, Venus and Jupiter are in your tenth house — and they form trines to Lilith and the lunar node. To me, this house therefore seems like a place that wants to enable you to take pleasure in meaningful effectiveness.
And now Saturn enters.
It is not in the tenth house, but opposes your Sun.
Perhaps that is the decisive point.
The conflict is then not:
House against tenth house.
But:
The way you work, the sixth house, is actually meant to lead into something Leonine, the tenth house.
Yet Saturn repeatedly asks your Sun: “Are you even allowed simply to shine?”
That is why I found your remark about the astrology website so interesting.
You have written several times:
“It came entirely out of me.”
To me, that sounds very much like the tenth house in Leo.
Not: I have to.
But:
This is me.
And precisely there Saturn eventually starts again:
“Is it enough? Will it be successful? Don’t I still have to...? What if Konstruktix stops bringing in anything?”
The attention shifts once again from Leo to duty.
One more thought about your shoulder.
Perhaps the tension is not primarily an expression of the Mars–Saturn trine.
Perhaps it expresses an inner change of direction.
Mars sets off.
Leo wants to express itself.
Then Saturn appears and says:
“Wait. Now we are going to turn this into an obligation.”
At that moment, movement is lost and becomes a burden.
That is why I think your astrology website is psychologically so interesting for you. It may be the first larger project in a long time to have arisen not from the tenth house of functioning, but from the tenth house of expression.
That is an important difference to me.
Perhaps this is even the real question in your horoscope:
Can an activity arise from Aries in the sixth house that nourishes Leo in the tenth — without Saturn immediately turning it back into a duty?
I have the impression that this is precisely the question you are working on at present. Not theoretically, but in thoroughly practical terms. And that is why I see the astrology website not only as a project, but also as an experiment: can work, for once, be expression before it becomes duty?
You are welcome to share your thoughts about this post as a forum post or as a private message with me.
