Carving a horoscope in stone and placing Saturn on the Ascendant says more about the people who chose it than the structure itself. Although this Abbey isn’t famous, it’s makers elected an astrological time for its construction. True to its Saturn, it still stands despite a massive and, at the makers time, unknown Grand Fire Trine. It has burned by lightning. Fires have destroyed the abbey and its library twice. It has been sold off to private persons and reassembled back into a monastery. It has been Roman Catholic and Byzantine Catholic. According to the monastery, over 50 people have been beautified or made a saint from the abbey. Currently, it is a school, two churches (Catholic and Byzantine) and a monastery.
It has survived wars and fires, and continues to serve it’s purpose. Saturn is the god of time. He doesn’t often excite the passions but he is known for hard won success and long life. In these two measures, the abbey has seen the benefit of their solid patron. Although the monastery, abbey and school are housed in handsome, solid buildings, there is no ostentatious display of excessive wealth. It has a appearance of means and high status. The monastery is a business whose surplus is dedicated to the Christian God.
The election of a chart potentially has a side helping of disaster. The Medieval and Renaissance church did this without knowing where major pieces of the puzzle were located. Niederaltaich is no exception. It has a Grand Fire Trine. Two of these planets are destructive Pluto and bolt from the blue Uranus, this chart has the astrological mechanism for sudden destruction. True to form, Scorpio Saturn uses these events to obtain shared resources and through steady, solid advancement lengthens the life of this community. Just as a volcano renews the nutrients in soil with its ash, Scorpio Saturn renews the abbey through the destruction of its exhausted former work and treasures. Destruction of tradition gives a Scorpio Saturn a special regenerative ability that a Saturn in another zodiac sign lacks.
The 6th house is the monastic life in solid, conservative Taurus. The sign of material value, and wealth. The Virgo Moon is in the 10th. Seclusion may be desired but these Virgoan monks are very much in the public forum. The 9th represents the abbey with its Leo Sun shining in its role of religious expansion. The astrologer who chose this astrological mechanism imbued a steady, solid monastic foundation meant to stand the Saturnian test of time. Even the disaster that was unseen is harnessed to that steady constant advancement. That astrologer monk chose the hard path straight up the side of the volcano knowing his work would long last. Over 500 years later, Saturn on the Ascendant has triumphed where many others have faded away and been forgotten.