Forging a new Excalibur

Imagining the planetary transits as characters in some magical high fantasy kingdom.

Lately, influenced by all the romantasy novels I’ve been reading, I’ve been imagining if we could look to the planetary transits beyond the now and follow their cycles like an unfurling story. This may be a more engaging way to be in the story instead of being recipients of what the planetary transits are doing ‘out there.’ It takes it away from our short-sighted manner of thinking about the planetary transits, as if it happens now and then, a few weeks or months later, it’s done, as opposed to seeing it as a story that is unfurling one chapter at a time. We're its participants and co-writers because it is an unfurling MYTHIC STORY.

So let’s give this a go. Mind you, I’m no George R.R. Martin, Sarah J. Maas, or Rebecca Yarros, so bear with me. This is meant to be a playful sketch of this idea, so let me know how it lands for you. References will be mixed up, but I’m sure you’ll keep up.

In the bowels of a castle, a deal was struck.

The story for this Courageous Decade started in 2020 in the castle's bowels in a rotten kingdom. As the old king lies dying from the plague, usurpers want to take the throne during the fragile state of the interregnum. Vipers slither in the corridors of power, vying for advantage, playing short and long games, and switching alliances as the plague destabilizes the kingdom and creates power vacuums.

So it’s in the dark corners of Castle Capricorn that Lord Pluto and Lord Saturn struck a deal to reconfigure the kingdom.

Lord Pluto, the richest in the kingdom, due to his vast treasures, especially the unseen ones, is more elusive, preferring to conduct business in the shadowed corners of power. Meanwhile, stern and focused Lord Saturn puts up the grim and accepted face of power that runs the kingdom day-to-day. Both have differing agendas, but are unmatchable in their determination to restructure and transform a dying kingdom.

Matched only in their love for somber colors, they make an alliance that will stop at nothing until the essence of power is held tightly in the grip of their hands. After Lord Saturn and Lord Pluto strike their deal in blood (just adds to the drama!) in the bowels of the castle Capricorn, witnessed by the jovial, popular, and opportunist Lord Jupiter, they go their separate ways.

Lord Jupiter has a nose for following any opportunity to expand his agenda of shaping the kingdom's culture. Claiming to be one of the people, he often offers more than he will deliver, although he is also known to gift many with his boon and blessings when the mood strikes and he sees that the receiver of his gifts is bold enough not to sleep through when opportunities knock.

All three have always been on the lookout for their own agendas, ranging from concentration of power and riches (Lord Pluto) to awakening a steely determination in those able to see that this interregnum phase would be about mastering new ways of seeing (Lord Saturn), and engaging and shaping a new worldview (Lord Jupiter).

With their deal struck in blood, Lord Pluto and Lord Saturn unleash their minions to spread their agenda through the kingdom via channels of fear, unease, and the sense that something unsettling had been stirred awake in the kingdom's psyche. Fear and death served as their way to unsettle their way through accruing more power. But those who could listen beneath the constant percussion of fear, they glimpsed this unfolding as an opportunity for a total regime change in the sick kingdom.

As the trio disbanded, Lord Jupiter and Lord Saturn set forth to make their separate alliance, while Lord Pluto stayed behind in the shadows, setting the course to further expose from within all that is rotten.

A new age of Air… Dragons

Just outside the boundaries of Castle Capricorn, Lord Jupiter and Lord Saturn meet on the most auspicious of nights—the Winter Solstice. Many mages prophesied that this night would begin a new age, not just a new 20-year cycle. Their rendezvous started a new 200-year era of Air, opening the portals to welcome the Dragons of Change into the kingdom.

These airborne scally creatures would breathe unsettling questions among the populace, burning off with their hot breath staid beliefs and outmoded ways of seeing the relationship between the people and the rulers. At first, Lord Jupiter rejoiced in the agitation of the population, shaking their fists against the old structures. Jovial Lord Jupiter had a penchant for a bit of mass hysteria to shake old ideas, but it didn’t take long for Lord Saturn to put his bony hands on the steering wheel to gain control over what could have been a broader revolution towards change. Lord Saturn loves nothing more than controlled and methodical change, unless he was the one trimming the fat, to which he executed it with focused and oft-heartless determination.

But the dragons were unleashed, and without proper training, they would run amok in the kingdom, laying eggs and whipping windstorms of ideals and ideas without discrimination and preparation. And the eggs they laid in all corners of the kingdom would give birth to future dragons that would continue to stir change without caring for any collateral damage being done.

While the powerful foolishly may think that they can dominate these wild air dragons of change, the general populace, with their lack of psychic protection, is more prone to succumbing to the windstorms, feeling overwhelmed and fearful rather than being able to ride the dragons with any firm groundedness. From the fringes, new voices will rise to teach the many how to protect themselves from the psychic windstorms and learn to ride these air dragons. Discerning the real worthy ones from the charlatans will take time, and many heads will become dragon lunchmeat. Those able to stay close to the ground of their being and connected to their joys and loves will manage to keep their heads attached.

Meeting the Rogue Mage

Lord Jupiter bounds ahead of Saturn after they usher in the new Age of Air Dragons, loosening the grip of old ways of thinking, opening the caskets of new opportunities, and spreading hope and excess whenever the mood strikes - which is often. Lord Jupiter wants his expansive agenda to take root and will loosen the chains that bind, spreading stories that will inspire, not caring if a bit of exaggeration may do more damage than not. He’s a bon vivant; more of anything is better than a humdrum existence.

And in his travels, he encounters an old acquaintance he only meets every 12 years - the Mage Uranus. Their meeting always revitalizes Lord Jupiter’s vision for what he wants for his people, because he feels electrified and inspired in the company of Mage Uranus. On the other hand, Mage Uranus welcomes Lord Jupiter’s largesse, which boosts his magical energies and drive to spread it throughout the land.

Mage Uranus stays away from the seat of power as much as possible, spending more of his time ahead of the curve. His magic is sudden and unsettling, but all the significant shifts in the kingdom also have his DNA. He offers no allegiance or obedience to the likes of Lord Saturn and Lord Pluto, for the relationship can be both straining and a catalyst. He gets along well enough with Lord Jupiter, because both can share their broad visions for the future.

Mage Uranus is preparing to move to a different part of the kingdom, as he often does every 7 years. Meeting Jupiter before this big move from the duchy of Taurus to the metrotopolis of Gemini helps him learn what the deal between Lord Pluto and Lord Saturn was all about and how he can now play his part in this new age of Air Dragons.

With Mage Uranus’ move to the metropolis of Gemini, it will usher in the full power of the air element, and its Pandora box of gifts of communication, ideas, and duality. While also allowing him to have renewed correspondence with Lord Pluto, who has recently relocated to the state city of Aquarius. Also, reconnect with the realm’s Mystic Neptune, newly arrived from his 14-year-long sea voyage in the Piscean Seas onto Aries's fertile fields and encampments.

Mage Uranus’ gifts from his Pandora’s box are already shaking the four corners of the kingdom, and those in power and with their hubris are doing all they can to gain the upper hand and gain control, forgetting how his gifts are made to test humanity’s understanding of itself. Small minds can never fully grasp Mage Uranus’ vision.

The Odysseyian adventure of Lord Saturn

After Lord Jupiter skipped ahead like a traveling circus, leaving Lord Saturn to put in some structures after their deal ushered in the age of Air Dragons, our grim-faced lord finds himself lost at sea, hunting the old Mystic Neptune.

To fully execute his deal with Lord Pluto, Lord Saturn knows he had to find the old Mystic, much like a whale hunter will hunt the giant white whale of their obsession. Strange bedfellows, Lord Saturn only meets the old sea mystic every 36 years, and for a new kingdom, a new vision is needed; for that, the power of Mystic Neptune is called for.

Being earthbound in a landlocked earldom doesn’t make Lord Saturn at ease in the vastness of the Piscean Seas, where Mystic Neptune had been journeying for years. His need for exactness and structure flounders in the brine of the seas. Lord Saturn faces his most hidden fears, which whip into a paranoid frenzy, but sometimes allows him to see his soul dreams clearly. This odysseyian adventure loosens Lord Saturn’s grip on his deal with Lord Pluto, which now seems ages ago. He’s a lord with a crisis of faith, navigating his dark night of the soul and needing a new crusade.

He feels the old mystic isn’t too far away, as he can barely make out his sails a few waves ahead. This spurs Lord Saturn to surrender his excess cargo to the seas so he can speed forth towards his encounter with Mystic Neptune.

What dreams may come

Lord Saturn hasn’t seen that Mystic Neptune has made landfall on the red soil of Aries’s fertile fields. Drying himself from years of the sea’s salty brine, Mystic Neptune is rejuvenated by touching dry land. He’s fired up with a new dream and ready to embrace his fiery quest. After 14 years at the Piscean Seas, Mystic Neptune wants to change his monkish robes to don a templar’s tunic.

He knows he must await Lord Saturn’s arrival, so together they can blacksmith a new magical blade - a New Excalibur. He knew the lord had been chasing him for the last few years, but their union could not have occurred at sea. It must happen in the fiery lands of Aries, for this is the second vital piece of the puzzle in the new Age of Air Dragons - air and fire come together in these magical, monstrous beasts.

Mystic Neptune knows he needs Lord Saturn to help him materialize his vision in the kingdom. Lord Saturn will be the blacksmith to shape this new visionary Excalibur and ignite this quest.

All the other lords have forgotten that whatever deals they have struck with each other are only pieces of the bigger puzzle that he and Lord Pluto have set in motion more than a century ago. They all forget that Lord Pluto and he come together every 492 years to seed a new civilizational shift for all of humanity. This last time, they seeded the start of a new era for humanity in the metropolis of Gemini, where soon enough, Mage Uranus will arrive and activate those seeds fully awake.

Whatever deal Lord Saturn, Lord Jupiter, and Lord Pluto have made only serves the bigger foundational vision of what was seeded 134 years ago in the ideas-driven and duality-fertile soil of Gemini. The new Excalibur forged will serve as the quest symbol for the age of air with its dragon-breathing ideas, duality dance, and the power of the mind and consciousness to reshape what being human is all about.

For now, Mystic Neptune sits on the hot sands of Aries and looks out to sea. It seems choppy, and the dark clouds hugging the horizon indicate a squall coming soon. He hopes those who can find protection can huddle together, trusting those who know how to come together will benefit from his magic.

PS - That’s it for now. This is a really ‘rough’ - and I mean rough draft of an idea, but it was fun reimagining this planetary dance as lords, mages, and mystics. I missed Captain Mars, Priestess Venus, Alchemist Mercury, King Sol, and Queen Luna. Perhaps another day. Plus, as a first try, I didn’t have a chance to flesh out the challenges and gifts of each character. I imagine them as morally gray, but willing to grow as we engage with them. It’s a quick exposition of an idea.

Enjoy & Thrive!
Vanessa Couto