The astrological omens for the coming week suggest that now is the time for sloughing off the dead weight and for moving out of stagnant situations. The week opens with a Blue Moon that sweeps close to Saturn and then comes closest to Earth, which means it’s rare, it takes time, and it leans in. This brings to mind Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner who has to free himself of the albatross around his neck.
An albatross has a mighty wingspan that allows it to cover impressive distances, and it symbolizes mystery, burden, and freedom. The albatross has the ability to “go the distance,” which is the mood of Moon and Saturn this week, but this can also feel like being stuck in the same ole pattern, only now it’s time to break free.
In Coleridge’s poem, the ancient mariner stops a wedding guest as he’s hurrying into the church. He holds the wedding guest spellbound with his gaze and with his story, of how he killed an albatross and had to suffer the long and punishing consequences alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on the wide, wide sea. Only when he realizes the beauty of the lowliest creature, a water snake, which he blesses from his heart, does the albatross slip from his neck.
The message here is that the Blue Moon brings rare opportunity for deep learning, and while Saturn affirms that it takes a long time to get to this place, the perigee Moon will give a boost to your intentions to let go what needs letting go, providing you keep in mind what the mariner learned:
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
