Mending Wall
THE CAPRICORN FULL MOON
Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 11:40 pm PDT
The Moon and Sun Opposed at 22.28 degrees Capricorn/Cancer
Recently, hiking the trails that criss-cross down through the wooded hillside below our house, my husband and daughter discovered that someone had trespassed on our property. Not only that, they had cut some small trees and brush, clearing a section of an old logging landing that lies far below our house. A new trail had also been cut through our property to the spot. Although we have been able to thus far resolve the issue (a "misunderstanding" about the boundary lines) easily and painlessly, the whole experience stirred up some deep emotions for me, and for my daughter who was very upset to find one of her favorite spots to which we had often hiked "desecrated." The experience, which lead to the necessary reaffirming of our property lines with our neighbor, brought to mind two things: a childhood memory and a poem.
The memory was of an event that happened the first summer we spent in a new home in the Virginia suburbs. I was six at the time, it was the late 1960s, Uranus and Pluto were inching towards each other and the world was poised and ready to explode. But at six, the world didn't extend too far beyond my own neighborhood, and I remember being so happy to have a house with miles of woods behind it. Our neighbors on either side had already erected chain link fences that ran our shared boundary lines, but my parents did not immediately fence in the back line. There were no dogs yet to necessitate it, and they thought it would be nice to have the yard open up to the woods. And lovely it was until late one night when my mother woke up to the sound of cow bells. Looking out the window, she saw that a small group of dairy cows had wandered into our yard, happily munching the lawn grass and stomping all over her new landscaping work. The back fence, after that, went up in a flash.
The other thing that came to mind was one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost, "Mending Wall." Published in 1914, the year the First World War began, the poem appeared in Frost's second collection of poetry, North of Boston. Set in the New England countryside, the poem centers on one man's questioning of why he and his neighbor must repair a stone wall that divides their farms.
While each spring his neighbor quietly and resolutely rebuilds the wall without question, repeatedly reciting a platitude of his father's as if it were scripture: "Good fences make good neighbors," the narrator wonders aloud why it is necessary at all and seems to enjoy "poking" his reserved neighbor.
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
The impulse to goad his neighbor acts to open things up, even if just a bit, and just as the two men are working to rebuild the wall between them. This is Saturn and Uranus at play, two different principles, opposing values, yet in the poem we see them working reluctantly together. Incidentally, Frost had Saturn in opposition to Uranus in his natal chart, both favorably aspecting his Aries Sun. An unconfirmed birth time places Capricorn on Frost's midheaven and his Moon in the late degrees of Cancer, only two degrees from the position of the Sun at this Full Moon.
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out
Frost, who has such a Saturnian name, is well known for his deceptively spare writing style, simple beautiful language not unlike the stark beauty of winter. His uncomplicated writing, functions like the tip of an iceberg, using sentence structure and vocabulary that even a child could understand, yet possesses a deeper meaning shown, in this case, through the poem's structural complexities and symbolism. The poem is written mostly in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), a metric pattern that Shakespeare commonly employed. Frost also uses another of Shakespeare's "tricks" — inversion — which we see in the poem's first and most memorable line:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
So why does Frost employ Shakespeare's "tricks" to tell such a simple little story?
The poem hints at, as critic George Montiero pointed out, an ancient Roman ritual that involves the god Terminus, who presided over boundaries. Terminus was honored during an annual festival to reaffirm these important lines of demarcation. His worshipped statue was simply a stone or post that distinguished property lines. At the end of February, Romans gathered around their shared boundary markers, crowning them with garlands and offering cakes, honeycomb, and other kinds of bloodless sacrifices to Terminus. Apparently he had a sweet tooth. A public festival was also held at the sixth milestone on the road from Rome towards Laurentum, the extent of the Roman territory in that direction.
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
At every Full Moon, Luna's silver light illuminates what is normally hidden from view, tucked away, perhaps behind a stone wall, under the cover of night. At the Full Moon, the shadows recede and the world becomes an oracle, a time of revelation with insights that are reflected through the unique archetypal lens of the sign in which Luna falls.
Tonight's Full Moon falls in tradition-bound, conservative Capricorn, an earth sign ruled by the Lord of Karma, Saturn. Capricorn is one of the four cardinal signs, boundary posts themselves that guard the seasonal gates of the year. The sun's entry into Capricorn each year marks the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the Summer Solstice south of the equator.
Capricorn's ruling planet, Saturn, was for millennia the outermost "wandering star" and so marked an ancient boundary: the outer limits of the known solar system. Relatedly Capricorn rules our personal boundaries and physical structures: foundations, walls, fences — what supports but also delineates and separates: this from that, inside from outside, mine from yours.
In astrology, Saturn represents the process of maturation — the wisdom gleaned from life experience. Saturn holds that scythe in his hand reminding us that in life we reap what we sow. We are responsible for ourselves. He shows us the path towards the transcendance of ego, rising above the need for attention, applause, the outer confirmation of one's self worth. All of which I think is why individuals who have Leo, the sign ruled by the Sun, strong in their charts often have such a difficult time handling Saturn. For Saturn and the Sun represent opposing purposes: the Sun is about bolstering and creatively expressing our individuality, while Saturn is about duty and service to others, the family and community. Saturn's natural home is the Tenth house of public standing, career and vocation — using the life force to find your true place in life within ever larger concentric circles that ultimately, ideally extend out to include the entire world.
Traditionally Saturn was considered the "greater malefic," a dreaded cosmic school of hard knocks delivering suffering, hardship and obstacles. His mythology is full of horrors including the devouring of his own child. But viewing the Saturn process through this particular lens limits our ability to understand the subtle paradox inherent in the life struggle he represents. These two archetypes, Sun and Saturn, ultimately have a common ground for Saturn is also about squeezing the most juice out of life, in particular learning valuable lessons sometimes wrought only through hardship. Saturn teaches us not to squander life, nor let anyone take us off our path, keep our borders strong and functional. That's what true integrity is all about: wholeness and authenticity.
Saturn's metal is lead, found in that heavy apron they fling over you at the dentist's to protect you from their x-ray machine. But as every alchemist knows, within lead is also that elusive gold, the Sun's element, and there's another clue to Sun-Saturn's rather hidden esoteric relationship. With Saturn it's all about having the right attitude so you can find that hidden treasure, the silver lining, through old-fashioned, grown-up maturity and responsibility — accepting your destiny, your dharma and making the best of it. While at the same time, not being walled in by it either. 
The image of the Tarot Sun comes to mind, riding bareback holding the flag of the identity element fire, outside of the walled fortress.
A strong Saturn indicates a responsible, reliable, and sufficiently serious individual, who will not be forced off her path. Saturn individuals often have a certain presence too that clearly communicates no-nonsense capability and solid maturity. On the other hand, they can also have a kind of impenetrable force field around them (there's that stone wall again) that can be somewhat off-putting.
"Mending Wall" presents us with a dilemma and seems to nudge us to pick one side over the other, and no doubt most of us can relate more readily with the narrator and see the neighbor as overly stodgy and stubborn. But sometimes good fences do make good neighbors, as we have just recently discovered in our little neck of the woods.
At this Full Moon in Saturn-ruled Capricorn, one of the strongest messages Luna is reflecting to us is the need to look at where our own fortresses and boundary lines are weakest. Where do we need to mend our own walls, rebuild the structures that support us and help us maintain integrity? Where in life are we having trouble with trespassers: physical, emotional and energetic ones? Who is draining us in life? continually not showing adequate respect for our boundaries? Where do we need to draw the line more clearly? And conversely, where have we built walls that are inappropriate, that isolate us and keep us from experiencing life more fully? As the shadows recede tonight and over the next few days, we may indeed get a clue or two about our own old stone walls. Which ones do we dismantle? Which ones do we keep?
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
— Robert Frost from North of Boston, 1st ed. London: David Nutt, 1914.
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Related Essays
No Mere Goat — The Capricorn New Moon & Solar Eclipse (January 14, 2010)
Tightrope Walkers — The Aquarius New Moon (February 2, 2011)
Souvenirs — The Capricorn Full Moon & Lunar Eclipse (June 26, 2010)
Endnotes
Fans of the movie Citizen Kane, a Saturn/Capricorn tale for sure, might recognize the "No Trespassing" sign used in this essay. At the very beginning of the film, right after the titles, the camera shifts to the fence outside of Kane's mansion, Xanadu, and lands on the sign. Setting the tone for the movie, Kane does not want any meddling into his private life and personal affairs. His fences are strong! Then in a cinematic thumbing of the nose, the camera "climbs the fence" and moves towards the main house, passes the remnants of a zoo, golf course, and eventually arrives at Kane's house where we see a light switched off and then back on. Uranus and Saturn archetypes at play in yet another context.
George Montiero's insights into the correlating Roman mythology of Terminus in Frost's poem is from his article, "Unlinked Myth in Frost's 'Mending Wall" which was published in the journal Concerning Poetry 7:2, Fall 1974.
The photograph of the stone wall is the very one at Frost's own farm in Derry, New Hampshire, which he described in "Mending Wall." Photograph is from this Wiki article.
The photo of the old boundary stone is one of the quartzite monuments identifying the border between North and South Dakota. This one is marked "47 M" indicating that it is the 47th mile from the initial point where the 7th Standard Parallel crosses the Bois de Sioux River. The north face (marked "N.D." and east face (marked "47 M") are visible. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
The Tarot card, The Sun, included in this essay, is a scan of the original Rider-Waite deck. Authored by A. E. Waite and illustrated by Pamela Coleman, it was first published in 1909 in England by Rider and Company.
© 2012 Elaine Kalantarian, all rights reserved