Life to Live and Dreams to Dream

The Saturn–Neptune Cycle in Movies and History

by Shawn Nygaard

In 1853, while Neptune was transiting Pisces, prominent art critic, painter, and prolific writer John Ruskin noted,

The imagination is never governed. It is always the ruling and Divine power.1

This bold statement leads the way as we embark on an exploration of the 37-year Saturn–Neptune cycle, which reaches its current closing (or waning) square when Saturn in Sagittarius squares Neptune in Pisces from November 26, 2015 through September 10, 2016 (the time span from the first to the final exact pass).

With Ruskin's statement in mind, we can see the Saturn–Neptune cycle as the dynamic relationship between two governing forces: Saturn representing the concrete world, and Neptune representing the reality of imagination. To illustrate the cycle's dynamics, this article looks at our current cycle, predominantly using works of imagination — movies — mingled with historical events. But first we must establish some parameters for each planet.

Saturn has been around for centuries. We know his character inside and out. With his rigid rules and regulations, his restrictions, and his real-world responsibilities, he can be tough to like. Yet, his role is critical. Saturn brings structure. He is the skeleton that holds us up and the skin that holds us together. His gravity grounds us. Saturn is what we are most comfortable calling reality, even if that reality can be confining, constrictive, and claustrophobic — Saturn rules prisons. He is traditional and conservative. His world is the literal, concrete, measured world. The word "measure" comes from mensus, meaning "proper proportion, balance." Saturn is exalted in Libra, the sign of balance. The scales of balance are a manmade instrument used for weighing and measuring. Saturn's pace is a measured pace, cautious, looking both ways before crossing the street. He is serious and prone to melancholy. Saturn, the archetypal Old Man, is the limits of life, the aging process, with the goal of a long-lasting life. Yet, traditional astrology shows us that his malefic nature — dry, cold, and calculated — is simultaneously destructive to the life force.2 One day more to live, one day closer to death.

Compared to Saturn, Neptune is relatively new to our understanding but, in less than two centuries, has built quite a colorful résumé. When we speak of Neptune, we tend to speak of illusion, confusion, dissolution, escapism, and addiction (particularly to alcohol and drugs). Neptune transits are troublesome — a fog rolling in and turning your crystal clarity into a fuzzy haze, and your hold on reality into Don Quixote tilting at windmills. The best route to go is often considered to be the spiritual path.

I will use this article and the Saturn–Neptune cycle itself to develop Neptune further, particularly as the planet par excellence of imagination. It will take much of this article to illustrate how Neptune operates on a wider scale than we might be accustomed to. Unlike Saturn's measured manners, Neptune's immensities — and they are immense — are immeasurable, uncertain. Their boundaries and limits are unknown. We must walk into the fog.

The Saturn–Neptune Conjunction of 1989: What We Stay Alive For

Our current Saturn–Neptune cycle began in March 1989 with the two planets conjunct at 12° Capricorn. On June 2, 1989, the movie Dead Poets Society was released, a movie that captures the essence of the Saturn–Neptune conjunction with poetic precision.

Dead Poets Society is set in the fictitious Welton Academy, a conservative and formal private school for boys — the best in the United States. The school's motto extolling "Tradition, Honor, Discipline, Excellence" reveals the terrain of Saturn. John Keating, a controversial new English teacher played by Robin Williams, passionately tells his students, "Medicine, law, business, engineering — these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life (again, Saturn's terrain), but poetry, beauty, romance, love — these are what we stay alive for."3 And these are the terrain of Neptune.

As a teacher, John Keating is not only introducing his students to the class syllabus, he's also evoking the entire period of Western history known as the Romantic Era, which spans from roughly the late 18th century through a majority of the 19th century and includes Neptune's discovery in 1846. In the same way that Uranus was discovered in 1781 amidst the scientific revolution and the Age of Reason, and symbolically represents the qualities of revolution and a brilliant scientific mind, it was within an atmosphere infused with Romanticism that the passionate heart of Neptune was discovered. What, then, is Romanticism?

The Romantic Era emerged in part as a reaction to the hyper-analytical and rational mind of the Age of Reason. Yet, it also emerged as a natural next step. After the Industrial, French, and American Revolutions rearranged the order of the external world for many, the Romantic Era continued that revolution internally, focusing on the interior life of the individual. As the external governing forces fell, an internal governing force emerged: the imagination. Most significantly, the Romantic Era "gave privilege to the imagination as a faculty higher and more inclusive than reason."4 By making imagination a priority, the Romantics were recognizing the a priori nature of imagination — that it's there first. As van Gogh expressed it, "I dream my painting and then I paint my dream."5

See, Romanticism has less to do with the kind and quality of books found in the romance section of a modern bookstore and everything to do with the kind of imagination Romantic poet William Blake was describing when he wrote: "To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour."6 This is the Neptunian imagination that coursed through the Romantic Era. Said poet John Keats, "My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk."7 Keats's description of Saturn that begins his epic poem Hyperion is a far cry from the standard astrological description:

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud.8

Romanticism places high value on intensity and depth of emotional feeling, on Beauty, and on experiences that find their expression largely in the arts, from literature and drama to music, painting, and poetry. As a matter of fact, sales of poetry far exceeded prose during the Romantic Era, and culture thrived.

It can be difficult for modern society to take Romanticism seriously, as science and reason still hold the reins of the Western psyche. Western culture's fact- and evidence-based ways all but warn against Romanticism. It's just not practical. "Get to the point, would you?" Clear the clutter. We don't know what to do with Romanticism. To enter imagination — going to the movies, for example — is considered an escape, a departure from the norm, a break from reality. For the scientific or economic mind, grand passions can be a bit much, and are often dismissed as drama. Saturn talks us down from such wuthering heights. Western culture may eschew Romanticism, yet The Phantom of the Opera, set during the Romantic Era in Paris, is the longest-running musical of all time, followed closely by Les Misérables, which is based on the novel by the great Romantic writer Victor Hugo.9 Somewhere deep inside, we seem to recognize the importance of the Romantic vision.

Neptune is named after the Roman god of the seas, who is also the god of fresh water, horses, hurricanes, and earthquakes. As the god of the seas, Neptune's scope is vast and oceanic. As the god of horses, Neptune runs unbridled, ungoverned. As the god of earthquakes, Neptune shakes the Earth. In shaking us loose from the literal world, Neptune also shakes us loose from the literalness of the world, freeing us up to imagine. William Blake noted, "The world of Imagination is the world of Eternity."10 Standing on the shore of an ocean, we cannot see an end. Neptune opens us to eternity. Neptune's dynamic range is immense and boundless — from quiet and subtle pianissimos to grand explosions of choral exuberance; from the gentle moisture of a light mist to the devastating force of a tsunami. I found a fitting description in M. L. Stedman's book The Light Between Oceans:

There are times when the ocean is not the ocean — not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits.11

In Dead Poets Society, John Keating reaches for the Romantic heart of each of his students. Within Welton's walls, he appeals to their individual imaginations. Some take him up on the offer. Neil Perry is particularly inspired and moved. He auditions for and is cast as Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Neil is infused with life as he discovers his love for theatre. And he's good at it! "You have the gift — what a performance!" Mr. Keating exclaims to him on opening night. However, Neil's love of theatre goes against his father's wishes. In this brief dialogue, we can hear stern Saturn conjunct romantic Neptune:

Mr. Perry: We're not gonna let you ruin your life. Tomorrow I'm withdrawing you from Welton and enrolling you in Braden Military School. You're going to Harvard and you're gonna be a doctor.
Neil: But that's ten more years! Father, that's a lifetime!
Mr. Perry: Oh, stop it. Don't be so dramatic. You make it sound like a prison term.

Saturn rules prisons. Of course, ten years in a military school sounds like a lifetime to Neil. Dreams delayed or deferred can wither away. The Romantics championed spontaneity.

Back in the "real" world, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, a concrete wall designed to protect and control those within its boundaries, yet a wall that inspired countless and often imaginative attempts to escape its confines by people with dreams greater than its limits. When the wall came down, the flow of life returned to East Germany.

Disney's immensely popular movie The Little Mermaid, released on November 17, 1989, also captures the Saturn–Neptune conjunction by immersing us directly in the ocean, where we meet the mermaid Ariel. Like Neil Perry, Ariel is a Romantic. She dreams of life among humans. She also has a stern father, Triton, who forbids it: "As long as you live under my ocean, you'll obey my rules! Contact between the human world and the mer world is strictly forbidden … I am never, never to hear of you going to the surface again. Is that clear?" Of course, Ariel goes to the surface again. We wouldn't have a movie if she didn't — at least, not an interesting movie! Ariel follows her dream.

In both Neil Perry and Ariel, we see Neptune's imagination coming from a place unwilling to be governed by Saturn's existing limits and rules. Dead Poets Society and The Little Mermaid present an essential Saturn–Neptune theme: Does Saturn stop Neptune's dream as it emerges, or allow it to flow?

The Saturn–Neptune Opening Square of 1998–99: The Powerful Play Goes On

As a prelude to the Saturn–Neptune opening square (in early Taurus–Aquarius), the death of Princess Diana — "the people's princess" — on August 31, 1997 unleashed floodwaters of emotion in England. Upon reflection ten years later, one reporter notes, "Britain mourned the death of Princess Diana with an intensity that took many aback." The week following her death was marked by "the abandonment of traditional British reserve" and "the sudden and public outflow of emotion."12

The opening square brought with it two curiously similar films, The Truman Show and The Matrix. In each movie, the main character finds himself questioning the circumstances of his existence and discovering that he is a player living in a fabricated reality, caught in a life not of his design.

Truman Burbank discovers that he's lived his whole life as the star of a controversial, real-time television show, a staged reality called "The Truman Show," with his every move manipulated by the show's director, Christof. "The Truman Show" begins to crumble as Truman awakens to the limits of his life. An interviewer asks Christof, "Why do you think that Truman has never come close to discovering the true nature of his world until now?" Christof replies, "We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented. It's as simple as that." A caller defends Truman: "He's not a performer. He's a prisoner."

Meanwhile, in The Matrix, Neo (Greek for "new") discovers that the real world in which he lives is merely a covering called the "Matrix," an illusion placed on top of the real real world, in order to control its inhabitants. Morpheus explains to Neo, "The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us … It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth … You were born into bondage, into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch." As the covering dissolves and Neo awakens, he discovers a greater reality — a prison at first, but a world that ultimately responds to his imagination. Through imagination, he is freed from prison.

Saturn rules the skin, the covering, the surface reality. As Saturn and Neptune separate from the conjunction in their cycle, in both movies we see two realities separating from each other. In both movies, the world of limitations is considered the illusion, while the immense world behind the covering is considered real.

Two realities are also presented in 1998's Shakespeare in Love. Set in 1593 London, young, well-born Lady Viola de Lesseps exuberantly proclaims that she will have love in her life. Why? "All of the men in court are without poetry! If they see me, they see my father's fortune." Questioned by her nursemaid, Viola passionately explains that she wants "love that overthrows life! Unbiddable, ungovernable — like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture!" (Pure, ungovernable Neptune!)

Viola is a Romantic, with a robust imagination full of intensity and boundless longing for a life beyond the prevailing prerogatives of her aristocratic lineage. She is born with an all-consuming love of theatre and poetry, and she imagines that young William Shakespeare — who is suffering from writer's block — can do what has never been done before: write a play that shows true love. Ruling authority Queen Elizabeth, though skeptical, is wisely intrigued with Viola's imagination. She sets a wager: "Fifty pounds! A very worthy sum on a very worthy question: Can a play show us the very truth and nature of love?" Shakespeare and Viola fall passionately in love, Shakespeare's words once again flow, and after the premiere performance of Romeo and Juliet, amidst the rapturous response of the frenzied audience, the Queen concedes that the wager has been won by Master Shakespeare. A play — an imagined fantasy, a fiction — carries truth! Imaginal reality resonates as real. The movie won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

To make more sense of these movies, it's time to talk about Eternity. What exactly did William Blake mean when he wrote, "The world of Imagination is the world of Eternity"? Western culture doesn't really know what to do with Eternity. It's hard to schedule Eternity in between meetings. It's hard to measure Eternity, which is a problem for a society busy calculating stock portfolios and counting everything from calories and mouse clicks to the habits of highly effective people. Somewhere along the way, Western culture dropped any mythical or mystical tradition necessary for remaining connected with Eternity. And without Eternity, all that's left is time — and precious little of it to waste dreaming. Life becomes its limits. Taking life literally, we miss a god (or goddess) in the details, or a daimon in our dramas.

For example, the tremendous outpouring of emotion following the death of Princess Diana, the altering of Truman and Neo's reality, and the theatrical power of Shakespeare in Love all point to the Neptune-like god Dionysus, the god of theatre and of the grape, winemaking, and wine. A fertility god, Dionysus was known as the Loosener, the Wild One, the Frenzied One, and He of the Many Images. Like theatre and like wine, Dionysus liberates imagination. Like Princess Diana, Dionysus was the people's favorite.

In Dionysus, we find the theatrical nature of life, what Shakespeare understood when he said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." The world is the stage on which imaginations thrive and the dramas of our lives play out.

When we imagine — such as Shakespeare did, writing Romeo and Juliet — or when we see theatre or a good movie, we connect with the flow of eternal archetypal patterns or images. We connect with Eternity. We can be in the same audience as Queen Elizabeth, watching the premiere of Romeo and Juliet. If Saturn is aging and mortality, Neptune is life that does not age. In imagination, Queen Elizabeth lives. Hamlet is over 400 years old and hasn't aged a day. Moreover, connecting with archetypal patterns in imagination sets the dramas of our individual lives against the broader backdrop of the human experience. While it is easy to get caught up in the facts of our daily lives — caught by time — Eternity and imagination by way of fictions are what allow archetypal themes and their accompanying truths to sound across centuries and remind us of what is extraordinary in life.

An example: Saturn in Capricorn ruled during the early years of the Dust Bowl in 1930s America. Of life in the dust, says one woman, "We are merely trying to exist." Another reflects, "We lived in a brown world. Brown and barren."13 Dionysus emerged through John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath (Dionysus being the god of the grape), bringing dignity and value to the people cast into such difficult, unfortunate circumstances. The "truth" of fiction brought with it dignity. This is the power of imagination and so-called illusion. "Don't part with your illusions," urged Mark Twain. "When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."14

The Saturn–Neptune Opposition of 2006–07: The Defense of the New

The prelude to the Saturn–Neptune opposition of 2006 (18°–22° Leo–Aquarius) was Hurricane Katrina, whose massive waters rushed over the levee system of New Orleans in the summer of 2005 with profound force, and flooded the city as well as much of the Gulf Coast. Saturn's manmade wall could not contain the force of Neptune, the god of hurricanes.

The 2006 movie Children of Men presents us with a wrecked Earth in the year 2027, devastated by 18 years of human infertility. An ugly, barren world, brown and bleak, gloomy and grey. No new life in 18 years. Theo watches as the news reports the death of the youngest person, who lived precisely 18 years, 4 months, 20 days, 16 hours, and 8 minutes — his mortality measured to the minute. The cause of the infertility is unknown. No solution to the crisis is in sight. Elementary and high schools close their doors. No young people anymore. A sign reads, "Save Water to Save Lives." Graffiti reads, "The last one to die please turn out the light." Amidst the wreckage and the ruins is young immigrant Kee, who we discover is pregnant, almost to term. She gives birth: new life! Theo must protect Kee and her newborn baby, the first human born in more than 18 years.

Meanwhile, in the Pixar animated movie Ratatouille, Remy is a rat gifted with a highly developed sense of taste and smell and a passion for cooking. Remy is a Romantic, with a grumpy, stern father. While his father lectures him about being a picky eater, Remy delights in artisanal cheese from goat's milk, with just a touch of rosemary and saffron. Remy's inspiration is the late Chef Gusteau, who said, "Great cooking is not for the faint of heart. You must be imaginative, strong-hearted. You must try things that may not work. And you must not let anyone define your limits because of where you come from. Your only limit is your soul."

Remy becomes a chef in Gusteau's restaurant and must impress Anton Ego, the harshest food critic in all of France. To show his rigid, close-minded, and uncompromising character, one scene reveals Ego's office to be shaped like a casket. The front of his typewriter resembles a skull. In Ego we have Saturn.

With enormous care, Remy prepares ratatouille for Ego. With one bite, Ego is astonished! He is transported in a flash of memory to his childhood, when a troubled moment is softened by a meal of ratatouille cooked by his mother. Remy's meal touches Ego's soul. The uptight man is utterly shaken by the experience. When, on top of that, he discovers Remy is a rat, he proceeds to write his profoundly reflective review:

There are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new: an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core.

This brings us right back to Neptune, the god of earthquakes. Any experience that rocks a person to their core is a Neptunian experience, also known as a mystical experience. This is William Blake's "Eternity in an hour." Or, Eternity in a single bite of ratatouille! When Ego tastes the ratatouille, he tastes Eternity and is forever changed. He loosens up and becomes an advocate for new creations, new life. From the outside-in, Ego is turned inside-out.

New life and new creation are topics in Liz Greene's book, The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption, as she beautifully details creation myths from many cultures worldwide. "Neptune's vocabulary is that of water," she writes. "And water, in the myths of every culture in every epoch, symbolizes … the source of all creation."15 Life emerges from water. Myth and science meet in this insight. When NASA scientists are looking for life on other planets, they look for water. Literally, water is there first; symbolically, imagination is there first. Where there is imagination and where there is Neptune, there is life.

In this Saturn–Neptune opposition, we see new life emerging and Saturn acting as protector, guardian, and advocate of that new life.

The Closing Saturn–Neptune Square of 2015–16: Just Add Water

I have intentionally filled this article with an abundance of works of imagination and with as few astrological facts as possible — just enough of the basic structure of the Saturn–Neptune cycle to provide an astrological backbone. This gives the imagination room to roam, while keeping the focus on the essential character of the two planets. Each movie or historical event demonstrates an interaction between Saturn and Neptune. Looking at the closing square of this cycle (7°–12° Sagittarius–Pisces), how are Saturn and Neptune interacting these days? It's difficult to write about movies that have not yet premiered, so which current events on the stage of life might involve Saturn and Neptune?

The May 1, 2015 cover of Newsweek magazine features a drawing of a huge tumbleweed and the words "California's Future — Just Add Water." The accompanying article, "Crawling Out of a Dusty Grave," asks a relevant question amidst California's current drought conditions: "Science got California into this desperate, desiccated mess. Can it also save it?"16 Drought conditions — where Saturn dominates the scene with beige lawns, parched fields, and relentlessly dry days — are significant as a Saturn–Neptune aspect approaches. "Throughout California," notes the article, "there is plenty of land and sun, but water is sparse. And in the high desert, where there is no water, there is no life." How might Neptune, the symbolic source of new life, make a difference?

Previous drought conditions in the U.S. point us toward the Dust Bowl during the 1930s, which began to turn around following the Saturn–Neptune oppositions of 1936 and 1937. The turnaround is due at least indirectly to the formidable and practical imagination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt who, as part of his plan to protect the severely damaged land of the Great Plains, legislated the planting of the Shelterbelt, a Saturnian wall of 220 million trees stretching 18,600 miles up and down the Plains.17 Roosevelt was born with a Jupiter–Neptune conjunction in Taurus, also widely conjunct Saturn in Taurus. (See Chart) As a Saturn–Neptune individual with an Aquarius Sun, he symbolically carried water where it was needed, and new life returned.

Keeping with the symbolism, drought raises other concerns as well. California has long been associated with the American Dream of success. As home to Hollywood and Silicon Valley, the state is a hub of dreamers, moviemakers, innovators, and other creative individuals who traveled west in search of a better life. The movie California Dreaming, released during the Saturn–Neptune square of 1979, features the tagline, "a state somewhere between fantasy and reality." California thrives on imagination. The last time Neptune was in Pisces, the Gold Rush drew throngs of dreamers who panned and found gold in California's waters. California became a state on September 9, 1850, with Neptune in Pisces and Saturn in hot, fiery Aries. On its first Neptune return, the key word is "drought." If California is drying up, is the imagination behind its version of American dreaming drought-stricken as well? Azar Nafisi, professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and author of the 2014 book, The Republic of Imagination, asks, "If you believe your country was founded on the actualization of a dream, then an obvious and essential question arises: How can you dream without imagination?"18

Another theme of this Saturn–Neptune closing square is education. The last time Saturn in Sagittarius squared Neptune in Pisces, in 1693, John Locke's hugely influential Some Thoughts Concerning Education was published, which developed, from the notion of tabula rasa, the concept that the human mind is born a "blank slate." This blank slate then acquires knowledge through education. Historically, this blank slate was then inscribed with the Age of Reason, and knowledge became associated with science and facts.

The tabula rasa, of course, goes against the notion that the imagination is there first. The modern Western education system has struggled with this for decades. Today, the arts, which thrive on imagination, are the first to be cut with Saturn's scythe when times get tough. Meanwhile, relentless standardized testing seeks easily measured results. Facts become the focus, and answers are simplified to "right" and "wrong." Standardized tests aim toward standardizing students. No room for individual imagination. This very theme showed up musically 37 years ago, during the Saturn–Neptune closing square of 1979, when Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" — with its protest against unimaginative education systems — became one of the most popular songs in the world.19 And the standardization of education is precisely the kind of mentality that Robin Williams's character in Dead Poets Society fought against when he had his students tear out a particularly dry page of a poetry textbook, and proclaimed with disdain, "Armies of academics going forward, measuring poetry — no! We will not have that here!" In the film, his character is fired from his job, but not without leaving a lasting impression on many of his students (and many moviegoers).

What exactly the future holds remains to be seen. When Saturn and Neptune interact, how we imagine the future seems to make a difference. I shall conclude this article where I began, with John Ruskin — albeit a little differently, as is the nature of cycles as they return: "The great evil of these days is that we try to destroy the romantic feeling, instead of bridling and directing it."20 Directing it, perhaps, like the director of a movie or a play for the stage. But first, the imagination must live.

Chart data and source:
Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 30, 1882; 8:45 p.m. LMT; Hyde Park, NY, USA (41°N47', 73°W56'); AA: birth record (father's diary).

References and Notes:
(All URLs were accessed in October 2015.)
1. John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Volume III, National Library Association, 1853, p. 268 (iTunes book).
2. Demetra George lecture, "Malefics — Good or Bad?" (recorded in Australia, 2010, and for sale on Demetra's website: http://www.demetra-george.com).
3. Steven Haft, Paul Junger Witt, and Tony Thomas (producers), Peter Weir (director), Dead Poets Society (motion picture), United States: Touchstone Pictures, Buena Vista Pictures, 1989, transcribed directly from DVD. (All subsequent movie quotes are transcribed from their respective DVD or Blu-ray.)
4. Michael Ferber, Romanticism — A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 42 (iTunes book).
5. Jan Phillips, Marry Your Muse: Making a Lasting Commitment to Your Creativity, Quest Books, 1997, p. 176.
6. William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence," The Portable Romantic Poets (anthology), Penguin Books, 1950, p. 18.
7. John Keats, Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats, The Modern Library, 1994, p. 509.
8. Ibid., p. 251.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-running_musical_theatre_productions
10. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, W. W. Norton & Company, 2006, p. 125.
11. M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans, Scribner, 2012, p. 71.
12. Jonathan Freedland, "A moment of madness?" The Guardian (online), August 12, 2007: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/aug/13/britishidentity.monarchy
13. Ken Burns, The Dust Bowl (film), 2012.
14. Mark Twain, Following the Equator, American Publishing Company, 1897, p. 567.
15. Liz Greene, The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption, Weiser Books, 1996, p. 3.
16. Elijah Wolfson, "Crawling Out of a Dusty Grave," in Newsweek, May 1, 2015, pp. 26–35.
17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains_Shelterbelt
18. Azar Nafisi, The Republic of Imagination, Viking, 2014, p. 34.
19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Brick_in_the_Wall
20. John Ruskin, Lectures on Architecture and Painting, National Library Association, 1853, p. 78.

Image sources:
Butterfly/Stoppwatch: Public Domain CC0, by geralt via pixabay.com
Robin Williams: Eva Rinaldi [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Romanticism: Caspar David Friedrich [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Princess Diana: By Gegodeju (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Dionysus: By Haiduc (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Ratatouille: By Wikidemon at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Drought: By Tomas Castelazo (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Brick wall: Public Domain CC0, by Angelo_Giordano via pixabay.com

First published in: The Mountain Astrologer, Feb/Mar 2016

Author:
Shawn Nygaard is an archetypal astrologer from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he does readings and teaches classes and webinars. He spent a year working for an astrology hotline while also hosting the Internet radio show Imagine That! about archetypal astrology. Shawn is finishing his B.A. in English, focusing on British Literature and the Romantic poets. He has spoken at the Minnesota Jung Association and is a graduate of the CMED Institute, where he studied archetypes with Caroline Myss. Shawn spoke on behalf of the London School of Astrology at the 2015 AA conference. Contact Shawn at shawnbsb@gmail.com; website: http://www.imagineastrology.com

© 2016 Shawn Nygaard - published by The Mountain Astrologer

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