Architectonics : Why Saturn exalts in Libra
Austin by Ellsworth Kelly. Photo via Flickr.
The idea that Saturn exalts in Libra can seem discordant, but looking back to the early Babylonian representation of Saturn as the storm god Ninurta helps explain their compatibility.
Like most Mesopotamian deities, Ninurta was linked with agriculture and war. An eminent warrior, he brought structure to the world by building mountains from defeated armies. Mountain stones formed irrigation channels that fed rainwater, freshwater lakes, and streams into the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
Ninurta brought rain and the means to direct it to nourish crops that would be harvested in Libra season. Libra, as the domicile of Inanna (later Venus), a goddess of harvest and war, is complimentary to Ninurta, who organized the landscape toward cultivation.
Austin by Ellsworth Kelly. Photo via Flickr.
We can take the symbolism further and think of how stone can be harnessed in service to beauty, solidifying natural phenomena, becoming a vessel for light. I think site specific architecture, like Austin, the Ellsworth Kelly church and Luis Barragán’s, Cuadra San Cristóbal, captures Saturn’s exaltation in Libra.
Cuadra San Cristóbal, Los Clubes, Atizapán de Zaragoza, State of Mexico, 1966–1968. View of the main courtyard and horse pool. Photo via Flickr.
To build a stable stone structure you need air gaps; we see this phenomenon in the honeycomb composition of our bones. Although elemental correspondences to the zodiac postdate Babylonian cosmology, the correlation between Libra and Air dovetails with Saturn’s affinity for organized assemblage.
Post cover image of Cuadra San Cristóbal via Flickr.
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