A Deep Dive Into Sagittarius and the Mars-Saturn Square w/ Astrologer Christopher Renstrom

Listen here:

A Rough Start to Sagittarius Season

On Today’s Episode You’ll learn…

🌑 About the square between the Sun and Mars in Sagittarius and Saturn in Pisces, highlighting a range of emotions from joy to sadness and the duality inherent in this astrological alignment.
🌒 The characteristics of Sagittarius, with its fiery optimism and belief in the goodness of life, and how this contrasts with the influence of Saturn in Pisces, which often brings to light darker, more negative aspects.
🌓 Insights into the complex emotional states encouraged by the Sun-Mars Saturn square, using Pixar's ‘Inside Out' as a metaphor to explore the necessity of both joy and sadness in life and the potential for emotional synthesis.

📚 Learn Astrology with Christopher Renstrom

📆 Turn your birth chart into a calendar: Cosmic Calendar 

🪐 Take the one planets course you’ll ever need: Ruling Planets for Unruly Times 

😍 Learn about Zodiac Sign compatibility: Love Among the Elements 

💝 Learn about Relationship Astrology: Step Away from the 7th House 

📑🧑‍🎓 Sign up for Rick Levine’s new LIVE astrology course and learn how to integrate Harmonic Aspects to reveal the chart’s hidden dimensions! Go to https://astrologyhub.com/harmonic

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Is there such a thing as joy without sadness? Or grief without hope? We'll find out, next on Horoscope Highlights.

Hi there and welcome! This is Amanda, the founder of Astrology Hub, and you're listening to our Week Ahead Snapshot with world class astrologer, historian, and author of the cosmic calendar, Christopher Renstrom. This show is designed to give you a quick overview of the week ahead, enabling you the gift of choice in how you navigate and weave these energies into your daily life.

Enjoy!

Intro

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Thank you so much.

Hello, my name is Christopher Enstrom, and I'm your weekly horoscope colonist here on Astrology Hub. And this week, I wanted to talk to you about the Sun Mars Saturn squares taking place on November 23rd and November 25th. Before I do, did you know that you could find out about transits happening to your sign by subscribing to my weekly newsletter?

Go to astrologyhub. com slash horoscope. Again, that's astrologyhub. com slash horoscope to subscribe to my weekly newsletter. And now… Let's go ahead and talk about that Sun Mars Saturn square taking place this week.

This week, the sun will be entering the exuberant sign of Sagittarius. followed closely on its heels by Mars. And no sooner do the Sun and Mars enter the Zodiac sign of Sagittarius, then they will both be [00:03:00] forming a square to Saturn in the Zodiac sign of Pisces. Now, your first response to this information might be like, Bummer. Why bummer? Well, the reason why we might be bummer is because

Optimistic Nature of Sagittarius

Sagittarius is known for its fiery optimism. It's known for having a faith in the deliverance of tomorrow, that things will all work out for the best in the end. Not only does Sagittarius have this burning, uh, optimism, which is really kind of like the keystone of the sign, but it also has this feeling that there's a reason why good things work out in the end.

That if you are living in conjunction with your higher purpose, If you are living a good life, if you are doing the things that are morally correct or responsible, things that show a benevolence, a munificence, a generosity of spirit, and in your interactive behavior, if you [00:04:00] are doing these things, in your life, then you are creating good.

And by creating good, you send good things out there into the world, into the lives of other people, and other people reciprocate by doing good things for you. And if you are a truer Sagittarius, then you will do these good things without request or being asked. You just believe in being the glowing orb that everyone else gathers around because you have a belief.

that things will turn out for the best in life, that the universe is good, and that people, are essentially good as well. And it's this undeniable belief that you hold deep inside your heart and soul.

To this munificence of spirit that you have as a Sagittarius, you also have a love of adventure and a love of the world. To you, going out into the world is one of the most exquisite and [00:05:00] pleasurable things. To go and journey to states, to countries, to hemispheres where you've never been before. to engage with cultures and peoples whom you would never have met unless you had traveled there, and to get lost in the diversity of humanity.

This is the great dream of any Sagittarius. So to link the idea of living a higher purpose fulfilled life. With going out into the world and experiencing the eclecticism and the diversity of humanity, these are the things that make Sagittarius very unique among all the zodiac signs that we have. And so again, this, this optimism, this feeling that things will work out for the best, that, that essentially people are good, these are very important to you.

Are the Sun & Mars Optimistic?

Now, do the planets The Sun and Mars, encourage this behavior. Do they support it? Yes, they do. Um, the Sun is always identifying with the idea that the Sun [00:06:00] rises on a new day, that, that no matter what, aggravation you go through, things will look better tomorrow. Okay, so there's already that optimism that we have with the Sun.

And when that's combined with the, planet Mars, Then there's a real zest. There's a real fervor. There's a real insistence that things better turn out for the best. Okay, so when you have a sun and Mars combined together in the sky, you really have this, uh, zest, this zeal, this tackling down, taking on any great obstacle and, and emerging victorious.

As long as you keep a good sense of humor, a positive frame of mind. And a belief, a belief that everything will turn out, for the best in the end.

Is Saturn Optimistic?

Does Saturn and Pisces share this sentiment? No, it doesn't. Okay, Saturn and Pisces does not share this sentiment. What happens, when Saturn is going through the zodiac sign of Pisces?

And [00:07:00] this is true of Saturn in any sign. It will bring out the qualities of the sign that the sign would rather you not know about. Okay, so, Saturn will bring out the darker or the more negative qualities of, of a sign. Now some people might assume that Saturn does this because Saturn is always the spoiler of the party.

And if you're born under Sagittarius, you would love a good party. So you want nothing to do with Saturn because Saturn always spoils the party. But, um, Saturn does have a reputation for being a bit of a spoiler. It doesn't go along with what, uh, is good. It doesn't believe that good things happen to just good people.

It doesn't believe that the, uh, universe looks out after everyone the same. Uh, Saturn believes very much. that there are people who are disenfranchised, uh, that there are people who do not get their fair share, that there is a lot of grief and tragedy in the [00:08:00] world, and Saturn brings this to bear in whatever zodiac sign it happens to be traveling through.

For instance, Saturn in Gemini, where Gemini is naturally curious, Saturn and Gemini might color it a darker color like skepticism or cynicism, you know, instead of being curious, Saturn and Gemini might be like, been there, done that, heard that, you know, not interested, where, uh, Virgo believes in hard work and service, uh, for other people, and that the mind can figure things out, can solve almost any problem, um, Saturn and Virgo might bring about a tedium of work, uh, might, uh, cast a shadow, which is the exercise of futility, that for all of your hard work, you're going nowhere in your life.

Uh, you think you're building something, but actually you're just a hamster. You're just a hamster running on an exercise wheel until you get thirsty. Hop off, drink from your water [00:09:00] bottle, then because the call of work is like a siren call to any Virgo, you hop back on that exercise wheel and keep on running in place and nothing you produce amounts to anything.

I mean, these are, as you can tell, darker sentiments that Saturn will bring to any zodiac sign.

​

Hello, it's Christopher Renstrom again. I remember the old days when people used to ask, tell me something about my sun sign. Nowadays, they ask, tell me something about my entire astrological chart. Thank heavens for Astro Gold mobile app. It's easy to use. All you have to do is tap one chart, type in the person's birth information, da dee da da da da da, press view and voila.

There it is! I can text, email, or message them their chart to their favorite social media app of choice. [00:10:00] Let's face it. Astrology is hard enough to navigate. Your astrology app shouldn't have to be. Ready to upgrade? Go to astrologyhub. com slash astrogold. Again, that's astrologyhub. com slash astrogold. And remember to type in AstroHub15 to get 15 percent off.

Let's get back to our episode.

​

Saturn in Pisces

So what happens when Saturn is traveling through the zodiac sign of Pisces? Well, Pisces we know is a sign that is deeply feeling. It's very sympathetic. It's powerfully compassionate and empathetic. And it feels people's emotions and feelings without really making any kind of judgment. Okay, so Pisces, um, which is a sign that is no stranger to hurt and pain, and it's a sign that's no stranger to suffering, understands these [00:11:00] things.

So Saturn in this sign, it doesn't increase the pain and suffering, uh, which might be, you know, sometimes the first idea of like, what does it mean to have Saturn in the sign? But what Saturn does in the sign. is bring a kind of loneliness to that pain and suffering. In other words, if you have Saturn and Pisces, you might be very, sensitive or compassionate to the suffering or pain and other people's lives, but you don't really share the suffering and pain that's going on.

in your own life. Saturn in Pisces, I've often seen in charts, kind of manifests as this feeling of, or it's really more like a question, which is along the lines of, did someone leave me in a basket at the footstep of a church when I was a baby? Because people with Saturn in Pisces don't really feel like they belong with their family.

They don't really feel like they belong with their friends. They, they're lacking that. basic emotional [00:12:00] bonding that is so important. And it can come across as, uh, fear and anxiety around the idea of abandonment. And sometimes in attempts to control, manage, or deflect that feeling, someone with Saturn and Pisces will throw up that kind of emotional distance and not really allow people to get close.

Which is ironic, because they can often be found in professions or careers where they're administering to either the pain or the suffering of someone, or someone's emotional, uh, process is, is part of what they're trying to help that person with, uh, um, you would see that, for instance, with a therapist, or you might see that with an artist, uh, someone who struggles with their own doubts and their own sense of, pain and suffering and isolation, and yet expressed through this extraordinary artwork.

So there's a kind of loneliness to a Saturn in Pisces, a feeling of being inconsolable, [00:13:00] even though they are probably the first ones to console. And very touchy around the idea of, of victimhood or victimization. They don't want to be seen as a victim, even if they were to narrate the circumstances in their lives.

And most people would say, oh my goodness, you were abused, you were hurt. This is, this is incredible victimization. They would be the first ones that say, um, no it's not. And, and might not even share those stories for fear of being seen as a victim. And people with Saturn and Pisces. can also have a very strong reaction to someone who sounds like a victim.

You know, there's, there's always a kind of suspicion. Uh, Saturn brings that kind of cynicism or skepticism. There's a kind of suspicion of like, you know, you, you, you're saying you suffer, but I don't really see it. You know, I see a kind of privileged background, or what about you is suffering, or maybe you're just playing the drama queen to get, to get sympathy.

And so there can be that kind of. [00:14:00] hardness to a Saturn in Pisces, because it really doesn't want to deal with the idea of hopelessness. All right, so Saturn in Pisces can in some cases be resistant to anything that is optimistic. Okay. Uh, they can be resistant to, well, there's a higher purpose for, for everything that happens.

And they might be like, well, what about the latest war? What about the latest massacre? What about the latest, you know, what's the higher, higher purpose of that? You know, and a Sagittarius might be like, well, um, uh, uh, you know, and they're like, what is the higher purpose to that? Come up, spit it out, fire sign with, with arrow, with, with bow and arrow and galloping horse.

spit it out. Okay. And so Sagittarians might be like, but, and, and this is, and so there's a resistance to, uh, that kind of optimism, or there's a resistance to that explanation. There's a resistance to [00:15:00] rationalizing pain and suffering or assigning it some sort of spiritual attribute. A Saturn in Pisces does not believe in that.

Um, now that doesn't mean that they believe in wallowing in grief. or, or in pain, but they also don't believe in false securities and false hopes and false promises.

Sun & Mars in Sagittarius Square Saturn in Pisces

So when you have a square taking place between a very exuberant sun made even more enthusiastic with a Mars conjunction, uh, or a close proximity to Mars, entering the zodiac sign of Sagittarius, Which believes that, uh, you know, faith will, will overcome if you believe it overcomes, or if you sign on for this humanitarian cause, it will overcome, or if you join this, this, um, call to justice, you will overcome, you know, um, this is pretty much the thrust.

You know, that, that everyone must believe in things that are positive, [00:16:00] you know, this can be a very strong, uh, uh, thrust, with, with the Sun and Mars, both in Sagittarius, and the resistance of the Saturn and Pisces can be equally strong, it can be equally like You know, you, you call out for justice, but look at all these horrible things that are happening as a result.

Uh, you say you're being humanitarian, but look at all these sacrifices that you're making. Look at the way you've, that you've turned a blind eye. And so people might be like, but, but how, but you know, you might be right with these criticisms. You might be right with poking these holes, but, what's your solution to that?

And. Sometimes what can happen, oftentimes what can happen with the Saturn and Pisces is to poke more holes. And so you kind of have these differences, these irreconcilable differences that are made more powerful, that are exasperated by the square that's taking place in the sky. So simply put, [00:17:00] a square between the Sun and Mars and Saturn would be disappointment, more complexly put, which is why I would like to unpack it.

Is

Squares & Conflict

what's going on here with with a square a square a square presents a problem a square presents a conflict and in the squares nature, one must prevail over the other. Okay. That's that's what squares are about. You've got two planets that are locked in a sort of like hand wrestling match. Uh, at a bar with different people, like, yeah, yeah, you know, knock him out, Billy.

Okay, so, so, you know, as they, they go back and forth like this. But squares can also appear as two compelling and competing arguments where you can't find the middle ground, where you cannot find the solution. And that to me is almost, actually, it's not almost, that to me really is the beauty of The square.

[00:18:00] Okay, it's because the emotions or the impulses are so conflicted. that one's not really going to win over the other, and so somehow there's going to be a third way that's going to emerge. I mean, yeah, with a square they can just keep butting heads over and over and over again until both fall over an exhausted heap, um, but sometimes, and this often happens with Saturn squares, The butting of the heads gets so tedious, um, that, you know, the two sides are kind of like, okay, we really have to, like, find a better way to get through this impasse.

And that is the potential that always exists inside of a square like the one that we're talking about this week.

Pixar's Inside Out

Now an example of this that comes to mind, and, and one that I would love to share with you, simply because it's one of my favorite movies, okay, that's why I'm like sharing it with you. But an example of this that comes to mind is, um, Pixar's film Inside [00:19:00] Out.

I think it was like produced in 2015 or something like that. And Inside Out. is one of those real Pixar gems where they just like, it's perfect. It's, it's, it's absolutely perfect. And it's a lovely, marvelous story. It's a story about a young, uh, pre teenage girl, I think maybe she's 11, um, in, in the film.

And her name is Riley. And, um, she, uh, is, is living in Minnesota and she loves ice hockey and she's got two great parents. And she's just living a really, really great life. And, you know, then we cut to the inner life of Riley, okay? And, um, the inner life of Riley is portrayed as a console, okay? A control panel, uh, which is operated by five emotions, okay?

And these are the emotions inside Riley's These are the emotions inside Riley's mind. This control [00:20:00] console exists inside Riley's mind. And the creators of this film were very, uh, quick to point out that this was not Riley's brain, like, like physical brain, but mind as in psychology. Okay. And the, um, Five controlling emotions are joy, okay, uh, which is this inextinguishable, she's this inextinguishable, irrepressible optimism and happiness and joy, and um, and she's in yellow, and uh, and then there's sadness, uh, who sort of has like this, this uh, bangs haircut, and she's blue, and she's Round in her face and wears glasses and, and, and she's very, very sad and she is inconsolable.

She's always sad. All right. Um, and then there are the emotions fear, um, who, uh, is is always coming up with everything that could possibly be wrong and would cause great fear, intrepidation, and anxiety. There's [00:21:00] disgust, who's like, ew, gross, broccoli, I hate broccoli, you know, you know, who just is, is very expressive of what she doesn't like.

And then there's anger. Um, who is always ready to blow his top. Okay, and these are the overriding emotions, or these are the emotions that exist in Riley's mind, in her personality. And together these emotions, and I just love the way that they set it up, together these emotions create core memories. Um, these are experiences that are colored by the emotion and maybe were triggered by the emotion, the emotional response, and are associated with the emotion.

An easy way of putting it would be like, Oh, I remember that time. I was so mad. I was so angry. Okay. Anger has created a core memory. And so it's logged. Or uploaded into the computer file of Riley's mind. I mean, they're working a lot with, uh, with this idea of, of, uh, uh, algorithms and, and, and [00:22:00] loading up into modern technology and all these sorts of things.

This is, this is the playing field that, uh, that, that we're visiting here. And so, um, there can be core memories that are very sad, there can be core memories that are joyful, there can be core memories of like, oh my god, you know, I hate that, I'll never go near that again, okay, anger like I talked about, and core memories that can be fearful, you know, that talk about a time when, when Riley was very afraid, and again, they're all sort of uploaded and stored In Riley's psychic databank.

Um, now, what do these core memories do? They do more than just store. They actually generate personality. Okay. Um, they, they generate what's called in the film islands of personality, uh, which are basically things that Riley has emotional investment in and that she identifies with. And at the beginning of us, our, our, uh, story, there's goofball Island and goofball Island [00:23:00] holds all of her like goofy craziness when she was like a little baby and a toddler and a child, you know, and the fun and the laughter that comes with it.

You know, and, um, for instance, uh, she liked to imitate a monkey when she was a little girl and her dad imitates a monkey and that that's his way of getting her to laugh and chuckle and they, they bonded over this. Okay. So, so there's an island of personality. That's called goofball Island. There's friendship Island where she stores all of her friendships.

Uh, there's hockey Island because Riley loves to play hockey. Uh, there's honesty Island because Riley's always very upfront. With what she's feeling. Um, it's interesting that honesty gets an island. It's not a value. It's who Riley is. She's very upfront type of person. And then there's family island and Riley is an only child and she's very bonded to her, to her parents, and they really are a team, the three of them.

Everything is going well. It's childhood. You know, everything's going well. [00:24:00] Riley's been born into a wonderful family. And, you know, all these emotional consoles and everyone's pressing their buttons and having their say. You know, there's a different congress of impulses that exist within all of our psyches and which we see personified, uh, by the planets in the sky.

Um, if you think about it, the planets in astrology aren't too dissimilar from Riley's. Okay, we have a planet of anger, we have a planet of disgust, you know, with all these expressions and more, uh, can be visited and recognized in the planets and their transits in the sky. So it's a kind of really a wonderful, um, comparison of, of, of, of, or allegory, uh, for, for the two.

So what happens in the film is that there's an unexpected move from Minnesota. I think the father's working for a startup company or something like that. And so he has to move the family from Minnesota to San Francisco. And Riley has no say in it. Riley didn't see it [00:25:00] happening. Um, um, suddenly she… She has to leave all of her friends, and her childhood, and her favorite places, and move to this, uh, faraway city, which is, which is San Francisco.

And at first, Riley's really kind of optimistic about it. She's adventurous. This is like, great, like, you know, let's see, let's see what, uh, what lies beyond the next bend. But she gets to San Francisco, and they move to a very depressing part of town, and the house is very depressing, and the moving van has lost their things, and things aren't set up.

And Riley, who's trying to be very happy, who's trying to put a very good face on things, um, is starting to slip, you know, um, she's starting to not feel, uh, happy, or safe, or even optimistic about the future, and so this is where the emotions, uh, uh, step in.

The first emotion who starts touching things that she shouldn't be touching, um, is sadness. Uh, there are these glowing orbs of joy, and this [00:26:00] is Joy's province. These are the joyful memories, these are the joyful emotions, and they're kept in a particular, uh, tray. And, uh, sadness goes and touches one of them, and it goes from a glowing golden to a, to a melancholic blue.

And Joy immediately is like, what's going on? What's going on? Sadness is like, I don't know, I just touched it, and it, and it just turned blue like this. And Joy's like, don't do that, don't touch those emotions, don't, don't fuss with those things. And this, um, has a parallel. At that moment, what's happening is that Riley's mother has come, come into Riley's room, where Riley's feeling very, Riley has a sleeping bag, they have no furniture, she's feeling very alone and, and very lost, and her mother comes in to be consoling, and in her attempt to be consoling, she's She, you know, gets Riley to laugh and Riley laughs and she's like, there it is, there's that smile that I depend on, you know, and, and it's your happiness, you know, that we really look, uh, to [00:27:00] during this time.

I want you to be, you know, my happy kid, my happy daughter, you know, and the mother leaves. Now, the mother thought that she just. you know, got Riley into a good mood, like she was consoling her loneliness. But Riley starts to interpret that or internalize that as an expectation that's being put on her to be happy.

So what we see here with the Sagittarius Pisces square, uh, which I wanted to demonstrate through, through the telling of this film, is that there is a genuine sadness that Riley is feeling. And so this is why sadness has gone and started touching the joy globes, you know, and joy is like, get away from that, get away from that.

What we see exhibited in Riley's exterior life, is her mother, in an attempt of being consoling, actually placing on Riley an expectation to be happy when she's not, all right? And this, [00:28:00] this goes against that sense of family and, and, and, and, and closeness. And this also goes against You know, that, that, um, she, she's not feeling that, but she has to express that.

And so in a way, she's being dishonest. And what's happening here is a beginning rift between Riley and the rest of her family. Um, so. Joy tries to be an upper, you know, because Joy's programmed for everything to be joyous and good. She's, she's Sagittarius on steroids, okay? Um, and there's a lovely scene where Riley is falling asleep and, um, and, and memory is leading into dream and Riley's remembering skating on a lake and Joy goes and she skates on the floor in front of this view screen and she kind of like accompanies Riley's memory of s her joy, and it's a lovely demonstration of memory and emotional association [00:29:00] that's going on here.

And Joy, for all intents and purposes, wants to keep Riley aloft. She wants to keep Riley happy. She wants to keep Riley Optimistic. Um, so the following day, when all the emotions, you know, regather at the console, um, again, uh, Joy comes up with a really great idea. What she's going to do with sadness, who, as you remember, went and touched a glowing Joy orb, and that orb turned blue and it didn't turn back again, so Joy is very, alarmed that sadness might spread like an infection, uh, to all the other emotional orbs.

So Joy is very worried that Sadness might, if she continues touching all the other emotional orbs, spread like an infection throughout Riley's psyche. She goes and she takes a piece of chalk and she draws a circle on the floor and she asks Sadness to go and stand in that circle and Sadness does. And Joy says, you have a job to do, you know, and focus on one thing only.

And Sadness is like, okay, what [00:30:00] is it? And she's like, it's staying inside this circle. And Sadness is like, I don't feel like staying inside this circle. And Joy's like, stay inside this circle and everything's going to be fine. So Joy, what Joy is trying to do is contain sadness in this one place. You know, which is often what we try to do with Saturn when we experience it in our charts.

We want to sort of draw a circle, all right, um, put Saturn in it and not let Saturn go and, and, and, and, and fiddle around or mess up the rest of our horoscope. Okay, this is what we want to do with things that make us sad. This is what we want to do with things that make us depressed. We want to draw a little circle on the floor, make it stay there.

And, and then go about our day. What's kind of interesting about that is that it puts me immediately in mind of like, um, magic from, uh, Shakespeare time or Christopher Marlowe, where they summon demons and, and they do this by drawing a [00:31:00] circle on, on the ground. And so the demon is brought and summoned into that circle.

And that's where they stay there. They can't leave it. They're bound. You know, that's the only place on the. Planet on on earth that they can that they can reside is within the circle and so in our own sort of like Kooky way joy does that same exact thing with with with sadness?

But sadness is drawn to Joy's glowing orbs. She can't help it, you know, and as Joy goes and, you know, manages the other parts of Riley's psyche, she looks over, you know, and sadness can't help but touch the glowing orbs, making Riley sad. And what's happening here, remember that defiance that I was talking about with Saturn and Pisces, there's an honesty to the sadness, to the sorrow.

And so sadness, it's not by choice, sadness cannot stop herself. She doesn't want to be touching these [00:32:00] orbs, but she has to. And that's Riley, uh, behaving on a very deep level. Sadness has to do what has to reflect. what's going on in Riley's psyche. So, uh, Joy comes over, they get into a fight and a tussle and an argument over the whole thing.

And of course, someone hits a wrong switch or something, a tube opens up, and Joy and Sadness go flying up through this tube and thrown into, uh, the, the, the impossible to navigate terrain of Riley's. long, uh, long term memory banks. Okay, which is where they're spat out. So they are, are thrown out of the console, uh, by accident and end up in some remote corner of Reilly's long term memory banks, which are this, uh, they're described as a warren of, of, of, of shelves and paths, um, that just are unending where, where all [00:33:00] these things are, are, are these memory globes are, are, are stored.

And it's, it's impossible to navigate one's way, uh, through it, but they're going to try to go. Um, and, and as they do this, um, you know, sadness begins to cry. And, and, and Joy's like, why are you crying? She's trying to like make sadness feel happy. And sadness says, crying helps me to slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems.

I had to share that because that's just such a Saturn and Pisces quote. Crying helps me to slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems. So, so she's really being, you know, portrayed as, as a downer. But now they have to find their way back to the console because the only emotions at the console right now are fear, disgust, and anger.

All right. And, and fear and disgust and anger. [00:34:00] if you think about them, are basically, um, psychological defense mechanisms, fear, disgust, and anger. These are emotions that are meant to protect, to identify something that's toxic or repulsive, um, and to introduce, uh, caution so that one is not foolhardy, and, and anger is, you know, like a willingness to fight or, or exert willpower, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and out.

out yell someone else, but where they're great as kind of like subsidiary emotions in a way, you know, like if they're serving either joy or sadness, okay, but without joy and sadness, which are really kind of the two poles here, um, fear, disgust, and anger have no vision. They have no direction. They don't know what to do.

And so, Basically, they become reactionary, okay, so that, um, you [00:35:00] know, Riley turns into a very recognizable, um, 11 or 13 year old, okay, who just rolls their eyes at everything, you know, is full of self loathing, you know, is suddenly afraid of people being judgmental of her, you know, qualities of Riley's that were kind of like on the back burner are now lot Running her console.

And again, these are defense mechanisms. Um, how much do our fear and our anger and our disgust rush in, um, when there is a vacuum or when there is an emptiness of joy or desire. sadness. And if you look at the world today, and, and, you know, just in a sort of general way, you see how much fear and disgust and anger are running rampant.

Blindly, there's no direction. Um, there's no sense of going somewhere Constructive or doing something constructive. It's all [00:36:00] reactionary and fear builds on anger, which builds on discussed, which builds on fear, which builds on anger, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's really, really a lovely, um. It's really a lovely metaphor.

It's not only a portrait of, you know, um, uh, an adolescent kid, a prepubescent kid or kid on the edge of puberty, but, um, it's also, you know, what happens when you don't have joy and when you don't have sadness. Okay. Um, and so. The film, the plot of the film is really about, uh, joy and sadness's attempts to get back to the council and to get back, um, in, in, in charge of, of Riley's life.

Um, and again, it began with this dispute of joy saying we cannot have sadness. We have to just have joy and sadness, not knowing why she needs to keep touching the orbs, but she's touching the orbs because guess what? That's what Riley's feeling. But now that [00:37:00] they've been jettisoned from the console, Riley isn't feeling either joy or sadness.

Riley is feeling fear and disgust and anger. Um, and in a moment of peak, uh, because she feels like her parents aren't listening to her, um, you know, anger. Who's in charge of the console, decides to plug in the impulse. As you might imagine, there's no impulse control with anger. Anger decides to plug in the impulse of running away from home, you know. And Anger's point of view is, let's get her back to Minnesota, that's where she was happy, her parents have failed her, she's pissed off, I'm pissed off, and let's get her back there.

So Riley is now running away from home. And in her decision to run away from home, the islands of her personality begin crumbling. Uh, they're already sort of on teetering ground. Goofball Island was the first to go because she was full of melancholia and her father tries to play monkey with her and she doesn't respond.

She rolls her eyes and she, [00:38:00] her father's not reaching her and so Goofball Island, you know, goes rolling down into this yawning cavern called the Memory Dump, um, or Memory Pit. memory dump is what it's called. And then followed that is friendship when she learns that a friend of hers has found a new friend in Minnesota and like her hockey team, you know, missed her for a couple of days, but they don't anymore because there's this new player.

So like Friendship Island went down into the pit. Um, and then I think, uh, right now we're dealing with Honesty Island. Oh, Hockey Island goes down because her mother tries to Her mother finds her a hockey team to try out for in San Francisco, but Riley is so angry, you know, and so doesn't want to be living there that she just, she just quits in the middle of tryouts.

So Hockey Island went down into the pit. Uh, Honesty Island is now going because she's running away from home and not being open with her family, and Family Island is looking on iffy ground. Um, so there's this personality collapse, [00:39:00] this collapse of dominoes that's taking place in, in Riley's, uh, psyche, and so, again, uh, the stakes are very high.

Joy and Sadness need to get back to being in charge of her, uh, of her, uh, console, but Joy isn't convinced that Sadness is a necessary part of this. In fact, Joy is carrying the core memories in a knapsack and doesn't want sadness even near them. And so even though she kind of patronizes sadness and pretends a friendship with sadness, she just really doesn't want sadness to be involved In fact, Joy, in a very Sagittarian way, wants to get back and get that upbeat, zeal, excited Attitude about the future again, because being depressed is a downer, and all fire signs, Ares, Leo, or, uh, Sagittarius really don't like the darker, downer emotions, okay, it really cramps their style, it really burdens and weighs down their psyche.

And [00:40:00] so the fiery response to that is to be up is to basically be up in a way, you know, just to, to, to have an upbeat personality and be focused on something in the future. And if you don't like your circumstances and leave your circumstances and go somewhere else, you know, uh, to be true to a higher purpose, which is to be in, in, in a good mood or on adventure or, or, or something, which is going to be optimistic.

Fire signs don't like to be. Uh, around downers, you know, you pour water in a fire to put it out, right? Or you throw earth on a fire to put it out. So fire sentence can have difficulty with. earth signs and with water signs, because these are dousing types of energies. At one point they meet Bing Bong, who is Riley's imaginary friend, who's part elephant, uh, part, um, uh, fox, I think, something with the tail, and then part dolphin.

I don't know, it's hysterical, it's a great character. But, um, at some point they meet Bing Bong, who's Riley's forgotten imaginary friend, uh, who's still [00:41:00] sort of like rumbling around, you know, the, the databanks. But, uh, Bing Bong had this kind of, like, let's pretend sled where they would sing a song and, you know, fly up to the moon, like that's what he would do with Riley, you know?

And, and, and, while they're trying to get back to the console, there's this kind of clean up psychic crew that's going and getting rid of memories that are not useful anymore. Uh, it's kind of like, what we might call baggage. Or, or. Cleaning your cash and your computer. And so this cleanup team is getting rid of memories.

And the memories they get rid of are memories that are no longer nurtured. They're no longer recalled. They're no longer, um, they used to be cared for, but they're not. anymore. And so they take a vacuum and sort of like, you know, vacuum up these memories. And the imaginary friend, uh, Bing Bong is kind of like hiding out.

He knows he's on slippery ground here with, uh, you know, not being a cherished [00:42:00] memory because she barely remembers who he was. And, and, and he knows that his days are numbered, but he helps, uh, joy and sadness to, to, to, uh, plot a course back to the console. At one point. The, um, the sing along rocket, which is what he had with Riley, is thrown into the memory dump.

The cleanup crew comes for it and they get rid of it. And he, he's sad. He, he starts to cry and joy comes and says, well, you know, that was a wonderful thing. We, maybe we don't need a sled anymore. We can still sing songs to Riley. Like she's coming up with like, you know, look on the bright side type of thing.

And bing bong is not. moved, but it's sadness who goes and sits down with bing bong and sadness says, I'm sorry that they took your rocket. They took something you loved and now it's gone forever, you know, and, and, and at that point, bing bong just starts crying and joy's like. What's the point of [00:43:00] this?

You're like such a downer, you know, and but the thing is he cries and then he clears his tears and he's like, okay, let's get back to getting you guys back to the console. You know, and joy is like, what, what happened here? Like, like, like you, you said this was a horrible thing. He began crying and now he's up and ready to help us again.

And sadness I don't know. All I know is that he was sad, so, so I listened. And that's a really beautiful moment, and not one that we associate with caring. A lot of times when we hear about someone's problems, or we are a witness to their worries, or we're the shoulder that someone is leaning on, we can feel [00:44:00] like we have to have an answer, like we have to have a solution, like we have to take that sadness that someone's feeling, come up with an answer that's going to solve the problem, tie it up in a pretty bow and give it back to that person.

You know, and this is Joy's perspective, pretty much. Um, sadness doesn't do that. Just like sadness touches the glowing orbs and turns them from joy to sad, but doesn't know why she does it. Sadness sits with someone in their woe and says, that must be very, very sad. And the person cries, but then they feel better again because they cried.

Alright? And so this is, this is what sadness understand. She can't articulate it, but she understands it. So Joy finds a way to get the core memories into a recall tube and get back to the console and, and, you [00:45:00] know, everything's going to be saved. You know, Bing Bong helped them get there and this is going to be a good thing.

And so sadness is like, well, let me get into the recall to with you, you know, we'll both go back to the console and make things right again with Riley and joy says, Oh no, no, no, not you. I'm sorry. I've been through too much craziness or whatever, you know, sadness, you're just. Bad news. You stay here. I'm going to go in the recall tube.

I've got these last five recall memories of Riley's and I'm going to plug them in. I'm going to make Riley happy again. And sadness, you know, I love you. You're really great and everything, but like, no, you're not coming near the console tube. We don't need you. All right. And it's really this wonderful poignant moment.

Because, and it also illustrates the square. You have this, these two combating ideas, one's trying to get over the other. Um, sadness isn't really trying to make her case, but sadness is fighting in a Saturnian way. It's through her [00:46:00] resistance, okay? She, she is resisting being told that she should be happy, because sadness is sad.

That's… Who she is. And so, and so there's this fight, you kind of get a feeling like there's a, um, like there's a alliance or friendship that's, that's come, that's grown up between the two of them because of their adventures through abstract thought and the land of imagination. This film is so brilliant.

But anyway, um, you know, and so this, this has bonded them, this adventure together. But when, when it comes down to that sort of like, Tap your ruby slippers three times and, and, uh, say there's no place like home moment. You know, when there comes that time where the, they can travel back through the recall to, to the console and make things right.

Joy turns to sadness and says, not you. You're not right. You're not going to make things right. I'm taking back the joy. We're getting rid of the sadness and I'm going to make things good again. [00:47:00] And that is such a powerful. moment in this Sagittarius Pisces square. So of course, sadness is sad. She's heartbroken, you know, and she turns and she leaves, you know, cause she thought they were friends and joy is like flying through the heavens.

You know, back to the console and this recall tube, but she runs into trouble because Riley is now on a bus running away from home, things are eroding, and the personality, she's shut off to anything, um, you know, she's, she's, she stole money from her mother to purchase this bus ticket back to Minnesota, she's lied to her family, she's closed all the doors to anyone who would be a friend or a support, whatever.

And she's reactionary. She's on, she's being piloted by fear, disgust, and anger. So there's no, and, and it's a wonderful analogy here. There's no personality anymore. Okay. The personality islands have all [00:48:00] gone down, you know, into the memory dump. And so there's no personality. It's just this reactionary, raw psyche.

Okay, that's making disastrous choices. She's an 11 year old on a bus heading back to Minnesota. What do you think is going to happen? It's not looking good. Okay. And so, um, as a result, the recall tube falls down into the memory dump. There goes joy. She's throw falls down into the pit of, of really Riley's.

Nihilism, you know, there's, there's nothing of Riley that's recognizable in her behavior and bing bong goes down on their down there with her, you know, and sadness is wandering through the labyrinth of long term memory data and it's. You know, as anyone knows from a Pluto transit or Saturn transit, it's Joy down in the pit and she tries to scramble back up and she can't, numerous times.

And she takes out these [00:49:00] Joy Glo orbs that she's been carrying in a knapsack and they're no longer golden and luminous anymore. They're dull and they're grey and they're faded. You know, there's, there's a total disconnect that's taken place between Riley and her, and her joy, which is demonstrated by this.

And so in this wonderful moment, Bing Bong's like, you know, uh, Joy's like, what, what would you do to get Riley happy? And he's like, well, we would sing songs and get a sled. And, you know, my sled was thrown down here and like, they're like, let's get the sing along sled. And they get the sing along sled and they sing and the sled goes flying on up.

And it looks like it's going to get to the top of the cavern, but it falls. down. And this happens a couple of times. And Bing Bong's like, let's try again. Joy's like, I, I don't want to. And, and, and, and, and, and, uh, Bing Bong's like, no, no, no, let's, let's, let's try. Uh, let's try again. And it's this, and Joy's like, no, I'm not interested, and she just, she just doesn't want to try anymore.

[00:50:00] And in this, um, moment, uh, she, she looks at one of the memory globes, which is one where, um, that, that sadness had touched. And it was a memory of Riley being happy with her hockey team. Um. and also happy with mom and dad, but it's now been touched by sadness. And so you, so what she sees is a very lonely Riley.

And Bing Bong says, well, don't you remember? That's when Riley lost. The hockey game, like, like the whole game depended on her. She was going to hit the puck into the goal. She was really close. She she lost the game and she and she wanted to quit. She wanted to quit hockey, you know, and Joyce, like, I don't remember that.

I just remember her being so happy about hockey and happy with the team and being like, oh, no, that that was a rough moment. She was very, very sad. And then [00:51:00] Joy was like, well, why are her parents there? And Bing Bong's like, her parents are there because they come, they came out to console her. And Joy's like, they came out to console her.

And, and Bing Bong's like, yeah, she, she was sad. And her parents knew that she was sad. And Joy was like, well, didn't they try to like cheer her up or something? Like, no, they just came out and they sat with her because she was sad. And then she felt better. And like, you can see a light go off in Joy's eyes.

You know, that she's making this connection. She's like, okay, let's try the sing along sled one more time. And so they do. And, and they're singing vibrantly and it goes flying up. And at that moment, Bing Bong tumbles off. The back of the sled. Okay. This and, and, and, and it's his weight. Cause he's like an elephant.

It's his, uh, and he's made of cotton candy and he's an elephant. Okay. That can be a dolphin. Anyway, it's an imaginary friend. What do you want? He [00:52:00] falls off the sled. He kind of jumps, falls off the sled and the sled makes it to the top and joy is delivered and joy goes running back. And she's like, bing bong.

And like, that is so heartbreaking. You see bing bong down in the pit. With, with the faded memories, and he begins to fade. He says, say hi for me and when you take her to the moon, give her a hug. And he fades because there was never a place for this imaginary friend. Riley is maturing. She's growing old.

She doesn't need him anymore. And so he fades. And it's in that moment that Joy really feels, it's a sadness. She lost a companion, but she also comes to understand sadness. So she goes in pursuit of sadness, who's [00:53:00] heartbroken and soul, and grabs sadness. They come back to the, they, they, they get back to the console.

Um, and then there's this really beautiful moment. Where anger and disgust and, um, fear are like, Joy, you're back! They're totally ignoring sadness. And so they're like, Joy, you're back! You're back! Get back to the console, make things right! And they're totally ignoring sadness. You know, they don't even, like, register that she's there. And they're pushing Joy to the console, Joy goes to the console, and she begins to touch the panels. Which are fixed and dark, but they're not, they're not lighting up.

You know, she's not animating them with her life force. They're, they're, they're locked closed because Riley is, is closed down psychologically. So, so, so this is like the, the nightmare of a fire sign. It's like being closed down like this and just in a depression. on this greyhound bus heading Lord knows where.[00:54:00]

And so Joy turns and she's like, Sadness. And Sadness is like, Yes? And she's like, Come over here. And she's like, You don't want me touching the panel. She's like, Please, please touch the panel touch all of these buttons. Touch them, we, we need you now. And Sadness comes over and she begins to touch the different panels on the console and they turn blue.

And Riley turns sad. You see her looking out the bus window and she turns sad. And what sadness gives Riley is her memories. Of sadness and with her memories of sadness, she revived. She wasn't sad before she was out. She was without sadness. She was without joy. She was just fear and anger and disgust. And with this [00:55:00] sadness.

She remembers her friends and she remembers her family and she, you know, cries at the bus driver to stop and she gets off the bus and she heads home. And her parents are like fraught with worry trying to find her. And so the parents are like, Riley, where have you been? Where have you been? And it's not until she gets home and she's with her parents that she begins to cry.

You know, for so much of this film, we've seen Riley angry, obnoxious, shut down, afraid, timid. Anxious. mad, you know, and just reacting and just quitting things and doing things that harm herself. But here we see her lose it. For the first time, she cries. She cries and she cries. And she says to her parents, I know you don't want me to, but I miss home.

I know that you need me to be happy, but I [00:56:00] want to go home. And the parents reach out to Riley, and they hold her, it's in this embrace of Riley just crying, you know, and her parents being there for her, and saying, we miss home too, you know, they're not trying to make things better, they're not coming up with an answer, they say, we miss home too, and it's in that moment, of course, That the console comes to life, that the islands of personality reemerge, that Riley's psyche comes back to life, but it's not restored as the old Riley, as, as the child Riley.

It's restored as a Riley who has matured, who has grown, who, who by letting in these feelings at the [00:57:00] risk of being dragged down at. And, and, and feelings maybe that she's gotten rid of because she didn't want to be hurt or disappointed. And she didn't want to believe in enthusiasm and joy anymore. We've all heard people who say, you know, I don't want to fall in love because I don't want to be hurt, you know, or, you know, I will always be sad and being asked to believe in joy is just beyond me.

I can't, I can't even imagine wrapping my mind around that. I'm going to stay with sadness because that's protective. She's moved past those things, and all of a sudden, the globes, which were always solidly red for anger, or dark for fear, or blue for sadness, or golden for joy, or green for disgust, all of a sudden, these orbs take on a spectrum of color.

You know, each of these orbs is full of a spectrum of color. Not… Not evenly balanced, there might be a little bit more red than anything else, or a bit [00:58:00] more yellow than anything else, or green or blue, but they take on a spectrum of color because Riley has grown into a fuller personality, you know. And this, this is this idea that, that the feeling of And missing something is what.

bonds her to her family again. You know, she doesn't have to be the person who's happy all the time or, or the problem all the time. But by saying I miss, you know, and, and, and I have loss, this actually connects to both her parents who are feeling the same thing and trying to put their good face on it.

And so sadness leads. to a mix of joy and of other emotions that brings about a more polychromatic landscape.

Closing

And this, this is something that happens [00:59:00] potentially, can happen potentially through a square. A sextile will go for a sextile. A trine insists on harmony. An opposition is irreconcilable in its oppositeness.

But a square, a square, can move from the nature of combat, of fighting, to the nature of collaboration, to the nature of mixing. One doesn't prevail over the other. And if you think of the word collaboration, which means Co labor, to labor, to work together. One doesn't prevail over the other.

There doesn't have to be absolute agreement. Okay. But there can be creativity in the differences and there can be healing in the sorrow. And this, this is what the square between the Mars and Sun and Sagittarius to the Saturn and Pisces. This is the wonderful [01:00:00] vision that these planets have to offer.