According to Plutarch, Cronus lies on an island that geographically could be found today in the North Atlantic, near a continent inhabited by Greek worshipers of the ancient god. Thus, eight centuries after the Hesiodic theogony, Plutarch resumes weaving the destinies of the chthonic god starting from his exile, no longer in the desolation of Tartarus but beyond the island of Ogygia, the “Ancient One”, Homeric theatre of the nymph Calypso, who detained Ulysses for seven years. At the same time, its cosmological and metaphysical foundations remain unaltered. But it shouldn’t be too surprising when you think that the myth responds to cultural conditions associated with specific times and places. The narrative in the form of myth to which the ancient authors accustom us often appears disturbing due to the dramatic and sudden change of setting and association the characters are subject to. But is this the case? Can we boast the importance of Olympic consciousness over the ancient gods and exorcise Saturn when he appears? Or should we attempt the path of reconciliation and understand his message now clouded by the reverberation of Jupiter? However, the Olympic divinities exiled the Titans, symbol of telluric and nocturnal powers, establishing – so to speak – a sort of dictatorship of the visible, prelude to an era of certainties and growth of linear thought that proceeds rapidly towards the understanding of the dark areas of our knowledge. Human experience, with its happy and less happy hours, defies any pretence of rational systematisation. So far, the Saturn myth echoes contemporary inadequacy in the face of the inexplicable. He can indiscriminately punish titans and mortals, yet it is always an announced punishment, often aimed at limiting even more tragic consequences. It is also true that Zeus possesses the attribute of divine lightning. It is the beginning of the new gods’ era, the bearer of a vision that replaces the primordial chaos with the light of the Olympic pantheon, capable of dispersing Hades’ mists and ordering the world according to reason. Zeus-Jupiter, one of these, escaped by a stratagem from the sad fate, dethrones him by confining him to Tartarus. Mindful of his father’s prophecy, which predicts the same fate for him, he devours the children he had with Rea for fear of being in turn ousted. Once his deed is done, Cronus marries his sister Rhea. Uranus is already a ruthless father who hides his newborn children in the depths of the world Gaea, burdened by the weight of the situation, creates the essence of iron in her bowels and extrudes a sickle from it, instigating Cronus to castrate his father. Hesiod tells us that Cronus – Saturn for the Romans – is the strongest of the Titans generated by the union of Gaea, the mother earth, with Uranus, the starry sky. Saturn has now relegated to the context that the myth itself assigns to it with its symbolic burden made of necessity. What is beyond the knowable – the fate, the accident – stands in front of it like a mountainous wall with no holds, impassable to most. In some ways, our current relationship with Saturn reflects an existential and cultural model whose horizon stands out no further than the vast expanses of Jupiter, the ego’s systematic growth that annexes to itself new territories of material and ideological conquest. The distance that separates it from the observer and its appearing – last among the visible wandering stars – makes it similar to a severe father god who comes to us through the trial of suffering, incomprehensible because we consider it excessive. Per aspera ad astra (through the hardships to the stars): this Latin phrase, taken from Seneca’s work, almost seems to echo the effort of the human soul in the face of the tests and responsibilities symbolically expressed in the horoscope by the saturnine glyph, icon of the most remote of the septenary planets. Published in: Proceedings of the 6th Turin Astrological Conference Virgil, Bucolics, eclogue IV Antoine Callet – Saturnalia (1783) Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo, casta fave Lucina: tuus iam regnat Apollo. Iam Redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna, iam nova progenies caelo dimittitur alto. Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
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