Happy Solstice, everyone! My personal solstice tradition usually includes cleaning, completely dismantling and recreating my altar, and often spending at least a little time wondering why I did not plan on doing something with friends or in community. Today I plan on doing a bit of all of those things.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

I once again find myself kind of longing for friend-time while at the same time being aware that it is the only day in a 12-day stretch that I have almost entirely to myself. Plus, Cancer is about home, right?

All joking aside, I have quite a bit of drive to really do something meaningful for this solstice, specifically in the form of ritual. I realized earlier that when Saturn entered Scorpio in October 2012, my intention was to create an altar to Saturn. With each intensification of the transit, I’ve re-resolved to see that intention through. Now, almost three years later, I still haven’t done it. Clearly it’s time to get it done.

I always look forward to re-building my altar. Washing the tapestries and altar cloths, cleaning out the censor, refreshing the candles and seeing what clicks into place at the last moment. I believe it was last year that I suddenly had the urge to find a statue of Isis for my summer solstice altar. I found one and then realized that on the day of the solstice the asteroid Isis was conjunct the Sun. I’m not sure what that asteroid’s orbital period is, so perhaps the conjunction has happened repeatedly in recent years. In any case, it was the first time I’d noticed it, and it was quite the happy coincidence.

So, friends, this will be the occasion I finally build that Saturn focus into my altar. Skulls and porn and onyx, oh my! As Saturn shifted back into Scorpio this week, the emotional roto-rooter has definitely been back in effect. And although I’m grateful for the movement I’m also keenly aware of how much I’ve been avoiding dealing with what’s coming up for review. The time for Saturnian devotion is now.

I’m also keenly aware of how much I tend to somaticize things — to hold them in my body. I’m sure this has always been true, but it wasn’t until I spent a year writing a thesis about apocalypse and grief that stress began to manifest as physical symptoms quite readily. As time goes by, I’m aware that this tendency seems to be increasing, and is especially exacerbated during world-grief spikes.

Waking up earlier this week to news of yet another mass shooting murder intensified the feeling that my heart is literally breaking, and that my body could use some assistance at all levels. Part of what the Saturn signatures in my chart indicate is a tendency towards being extremely self-contained. The effects of ‘holding it all in’ are not treating me well at the moment. All the more reason to embrace structures and discipline that can help all that holding to flow.

I’ve been bouncing back and forth about what to put on my Saturn altar. In the past, I’ve justified the purchase of stone and gem jewelry or beautiful statuary when dedicating an altar or doing a significant ritual. This time around, I’d love to use the justification for an onyx mala or stone skull. But alas, part of that Saturnian discipline thing is probably best displayed by using restraint during times of limited means.

What would Saturn appreciate more — adherence to a budget or honoring with some new tool? Before I could answer that question I made a last-minute decision to add a half hour massage to a busy 12-hour day because I could feel my shoulders, ribcage and pectoral muscles crying out for much needed attention. The massage was brief and effective; so practical, and worth my resources.

Said massage occurred the day my heart felt particularly broken due to the news of the South Carolina shootings; grief and then a sense of heartbroken surrender. Something has to change…right? That change, for me at least, has to be in channeling the grief and anger into resolute love and dedication to kindness, at least once the rough edges of the tougher emotions have been dealt with.

On that day, I also found myself posting on Facebook about my desire to lead an in-person bi-monthly group that would serve as a gathering spot for community to deal with the heartbreak of the world. As I see physical symptoms increasing in the people around me, and a need for more ways of coping, I’m increasingly called to help create containers for healing at more communal levels. I suppose that’s a Saturn-in-Scorpio (containers-for-strong emotions) response to the deluge of unconscious contents streaming up as well.

Saturn in Scorpio seems to be offering us the opportunity to take a deep look at the personal and collective laws governing our relationships with sexuality, money and emotions. I know that at the personal level, although I’ve been taking the mandate pretty seriously, it’s time to add more discipline and consistency to the mix. Everyone in my life assures me I am not lazy, but still — the gap between what I know I’m capable of and what I’m actually doing is huge. I can step it up a bit. Unless, of course, my body tells me otherwise. Ah, paradox…

I have come up with a ritual activity that I’m going to incorporate into my Solstice-Saturn altar rebuilding ritual that might be helpful to you, as well. Because I have been feeling quite lost and cut off from Source, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to write a letter to my higher self during the ritual.

Simple, yes. But after I’ve written the letter, and perhaps burned it in offering and release, I will listen for a response and write down what comes, so that that insight can be part of the altar for the summer season.

Here’s to summer, reconnection, and the greatness of Saturn.