Francisco Miraval
Just a few days ago I was talking with a friend when, in the middle of the conversation and unrelated to what was being said, my friend told me, “Saturn is calling you.”
“Saturn?” I said. “I thought it was Jupiter. And which calling plan they use to pay for long distance calls from so far away?”
My attempt to make a joke failed. The face of my friend clearly indicated this was not a time for humor, but to pay serious attention to the new conversation.
“Saturn is calling you. You already know it,” said my intriguing friend.
A few moments later, we said goodbye and the meeting was over. But the idea of “Saturn” calling me was at the forefront of my thoughts. Saturn, of course, is not a reference to the planet (yet, there is a connection with the planet), but to the old god of the Roman mythology, the same god that was known as Cronus among the Greeks, that is, the god of time.
According to the mythology, Cronus was the son of Uranus and father of Zeus. Cronus had the nasty habit of eating his children. A famous painting by Goya, “Saturn devouring his son,” presents a impactful version of that mythological event. (Zeus escaped that ugly fate and eventually put an end to it.)
Beyond mythology, it is clear that Cronus -that is, time- truly “eats” us day by day, moment after moment. After all, we are temporal being and, as such, the more time we live the less time we still have to live. That’s obvious.
When we are young, time seems unlimited and, as a consequence, we seldom if ever think about “Saturn” (Cronus) calling us. In other words, we are not aware of our own temporality. But later, on the second half of our life, Saturn is no longer an ugly and revolting Titan of old mythology, but an unavoidable reality.
“Time goes on and we are becoming old,” said the song “Años” (Years) by Pablo Milanés. “Saturn” (time) never forgives. Its impact is irreversible. Because of that, as Milanés says, we are forced to think. “In each conversation… we include a piece of reason.”
Those conversations (that is, every kind of relationship and every interaction with other person) represent an odd mix of a new awareness of our temporality and a highly acute new level of rationality.
The future is but an invitation, a “calling” (as my friend said) to stop being a slave of the routine, to reinvent oneself, to dare to achieve what one always wanted to achieve.
“Saturn” then is a call to become ourselves as soon as possible and regardless of what Time can do. Yet, “trying to always be the first in everything,” “I forgot to live,” as Alejandro Fernández says in one of his songs.
Paraphrasing Milanés, the “call from Saturn” is a call to understand that it takes “old hearts” to “build a tremendous harmony… in each conversation, each kiss, each hug.”