I’ve been writing poetry for particularly unusual or interesting conjunctions for a while now. It began with hymns for the planets, and then continued with a hymn for Mars and Venus in conjunction, and Hymn for a Jupiter-Saturn Trine back in 2017, or the annual appearance of the Moon on the constellation of Orion shortly before the Winter Solstice… and then in 2020 for the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, and then the Mercury cazimi a few days ago. I touched on the reasons (or rationale) for these poems in this article from a while back, suggesting that astrology is in part a method for connecting mathematics back to language, and uniting the liberal arts with each other.
This hymn to Saturn and Mars in conjunction was composed last night during the Saturn-Mars conjunction in Aquarius. It comes out of that desire to poeticize and put into language the mystical and magical purposes of apotropaic action — that if we honor and recognize Saturn as the cold and slow decline (or death by weariness), and Mars as the bringer of battle and war, the herald of violence and swift hot death, that somehow their angry wings will pass over and avoid us.
Lords of malice and violent intent, Saturn, master of cold and weary ends, and Mars, whom bloody swords and spears delight, your eyes now brighten with strategic glint, as missives of distress to Earth, each sendsfrom caves below ground and the dead of night. Now rulers chortle in frank disbelief even as Pestilence or Famine stalk and raging soldiers brings mothers to grief — and Death, unhurried, takes his daily walk. Common folk follow their masters’ follies,l ockstep conscripts all trudging to the grave, choking on phlegm or bleeding from boils, stiffed with age or wearied by battle. Under the surgeon or soldier’s knife, they plead to live while yet bleeding out life. Thus Saturn and Mars test mortal mettle, squeezing each person in hardship’s coils, and forcing the coward to be more brave — or giving the brave the knock-knee willies. Turn away from us, malefic powers, or send your evils to those who can bear the trials you send! The one who cowers has surrendered already to your scare. Lighten the load, lords of stress and trouble nor bring your fullest cruelties to bear down on us poor mortals doomed by your desires! Let some be saved, pulled living from rubble, or whole households cured from the plague in town, the children pulled unharmed from raging fires.
Does it work? Will reciting this … hymn? … prayer? … magical text? … drive off the violence of Mars the Lesser Malefic and the weariness of Saturn the Greater Malefic? Traditionally, the biennial (normally once every two years) conjunction of these two planets, is the herald of pestilence and war. Now, as they come together, we find ourselves in a strange holding pattern around the ideas of pestilence and war — the pestilence that is still here despite two or more years of plague-avoidance, and the growing state of war between Russia and Ukraine.
Astrology’s point of view on these sorts of things is that this, too, shall pass — they are unavoidable when they appear, and the circumstances of their passing away is not entirely within our control.
We pray for peace among the nations, and fervently we pray that the plague will pass away. May some yet be pulled unharmed from the rubble and from the fire.
