Free Weekly Astrology Lesson: All About Saturn

Saturn by sign and house in your birth chart shows where you construct systems which make you feel safe and set-ups which make an unsafe and unfair world bearable, for you. We protect ourselves and comfort our paranoia by creating a particular way of living, in response to the issues raised by Saturn’s house in our chart.

If you have Saturn in Taurus in the Second House, you may work very hard to make yourself feel more secure about money, by taking out income protection insurance or by hoarding cash under the mattress. We all find our own way of handling The Fear.

Saturn is often the engine that drives your whole machinery. Saturn in Taurus people who (through no fault of their own) find it hard to earn a regular income, become hugely productive and prolific. Their fear of not being able to pay the bills makes them work harder than everybody else and they achieve great things.

Just as Jupiter in your chart describes where you are always protected and frequently very fortunate, Saturn shows where you are stuck with something (or someone) you did not ask for and never wanted but must endure. Saturn shows what we must patiently put up with and people’s lives are carefully crafted, in response to their Saturn position.

If Saturn is involved in a stellium in your chart (same sign) or makes a number of exact aspects, your life may be heavily shaped by your response to who or what you fear.

Endurance Tests

Saturn by sign and house shows what you are saddled with, and usually conscious of in your twenties, as Saturn bites. As you grow older and more experienced, you learn useful lessons about how to protect yourself, neither lurching into paranoia, nor living in denial.

Ignoring, avoiding or even evading your Saturn endurance test is unwise as sooner or later, you will pay a price for trying to run away from what, essentially, is fate. Being human means – we all have a handful of fated Saturn situations thrown at us, over the course of our lives.

If you were born with Saturn in Pisces in the Twelfth House, you will be forced to keep secrets that you find are a burden. Sometimes you have to cover up to protect other people. There is no point in running away from that and leaving these secrets wide open for all to see. Delete the sensitive e-mails. Denial makes you vulnerable.

Astrology is synchronicity, so Saturn’s famous rings symbolise circular walls, or the protective circle of a moat around a castle. You defend and protect yourself against what or who makes you vulnerable, by encircling yourself with little defense mechanisms (or big ones) and sometimes by actually building structures around yourself, which make you feel better about what or who threatens you.

Saturn’s rings were found by Galileo Galilei, who spent part of his life under house arrest for his views. Remarkably, we have his birth chart, set for 15th February 1564 which shows Saturn in Cancer in the Fourth House.

Cancer rules your house, apartment or accommodation. Galilei did not protect himself enough – he met his Saturn in Cancer fate via a hostile church who disliked his views on the universe. They punished him and he never left home again.

You will know exactly what your Saturn endurance test is – thematically – by the time you have had your first Saturn Return which unfolds between age 28 and 30.

Saturn will teach you to create security and relative safety for yourself – or at least, a set-up you can live with – so that you can do the most, with what fate has given you. Saturn will also teach you a crucial lesson about life management, every time you go through transits to your natal Saturn.

The trick with this planet is to ensure that what you do to protect yourself, in a cold, hard, world – is not harder to live with, on a daily basis, than the possible fate that you fear.

In other words, if you were born with Saturn in Cancer in the Fourth House – which rules your home – try not to turn your house into a prison with bars on the windows, burglar alarms and a high brick wall shutting out the sun – just because fate has decreed that you must move to an area with a high crime rate. There are ways to handle your situation, and ways not to handle it! Saturn reminds us, you must still have a life.

No astrology book can help you with your Saturn sign and house position, half as much as you can help yourself. The more you ponder how Saturn has played out in your life, the easier it will be to live with the patterns in your chart. Just writing it all down can be useful. Journals are therapeutic where Saturn is concerned. Look and you will see how this planet has played out in your life.

Here is some more synchronicity surrounding this planet. Saturn appears pale yellow (cowardy custard yellow) on camera, resembling the pallor of fear. Do try to face your fears. Seek expertise and help. Deal with who and what is there and ask yourself which coping mechanism will serve you best. The tried, tested, trusted and true method is often not particularly exciting or original, but if it’s the best you’ve got – use it.

It is common to over-compensate and do too much, in relation to the sign and house occupied by Saturn in your chart. You have so much fear there that you go over the top so that you ‘never’ have to put up with a particular situation again – and you will ‘never’ let the same things happen to other people that also happened to you. Be aware of how you might be responding in an over-the-top way to your Saturn sign and house.

Saturn Transits

Saturn transits or cycles chime with slow, stuck and serious situations which require tremendous thought and wise strategies. Can you avoid your fate? Of course. Know the sign and house where Saturn is transiting and head off issues before they occur. Dodge the proverbial bullet. Duck and dive.

Almost as soon as Saturn changes signs and enters a new zone of your chart, you will find someone/something also fairly new, on your radar. This will represent rather a heavy choice (if you take the time to be realistic about what is actually involved, long-term) and you may want to sidestep it. This is how astrology works. It helps you dodge, duck and dive. Don’t just walk into Saturn traps.

By the time you are halfway through a Saturn cycle you will be made aware of one or two new realities which can’t be avoided. That’s life. However, you can carefully choose how you are going to respond, making sure you do not create a burden for yourself, in the way that you choose to make the situation ‘better.’ Sometimes your cunning plan will actually make things tougher for you. Ask!

Clear the Decks

Clear the decks before Saturn passes through. Get your affairs down to the bare minimum (regarding the issues ruled by that sign/house) and don’t start anything major. This is standard advice for Saturn transits.

Common sense tells you not to complicate the area of your world where Saturn will add burdens. As a general rule don’t take on anything/anybody new without deep thought, plenty of questions and a lot of research – if you know for a fact this potential new chapter in your life relates to the story Saturn is writing in your chart.

Saturn usually manifests as stuck, slow situations, people, places or organisations. Do not expect quick or easy answers. Be prepared to drop speed and work your way steadily and patiently through Saturn’s tests and trials.

Sometimes you can spot Saturn disguised as people. They may be pessimistic, negative or depressed. They may be heavy going. What or who might you be lumbering yourself with, on this long cycle? Maybe you really don’t want the elephant strapped to your Mini for two long years!

Ops and Jupiter

Use Ops and Jupiter cycles in your chart, as they travel through, and also use your inborn Ops and Jupiter advantages (your birth chart placements). They naturally balance Saturn.

Jupiter is Saturn’s son. Ops is Saturn’s wife and Jupiter’s mother. You will find ‘ops’ hidden in opportunities and optimism. In mythology their hope and healing triumphed over Saturn’s tests and trials. Any professional astrologer with good software can look at Ops and Jupiter for you, or you may be able to do this yourself.

Don’t Overplay Saturn

Don’t overplay Saturn! There are 34 factors in modern astrology, and he is just one of them. Saturn gets an awful lot of publicity. If you focus on your Saturn transits at the expense of other cycles, you may end up missing out on life itself.

Along with people who overplay Saturn, we also see people who deny Saturn is there, or try to ignore his importance in the birth chart. Respect must be paid to this famous astrological symbol and its cycles. No amount of chanting with bells is going to stop some of life’s more inevitable outcomes.

Michel Gauquelin researched Saturn and found doctors and scientists have significant Saturn placements in their charts.

Medicine and science are a hard slog and students learn the hard way, through one grueling exam after another. Patience, self-discipline, caution and a willingness to hit the books (and listen to their tutors, lecturers, elders and betters) gets them through.

These are all good Saturn tactics. By house and sign in your birth chart, this is where you attend the University of Life.

You have to put Saturn in perspective. What else is in the same sign and house as your Saturn? If there are two or more factors, the story becomes complicated. It’s full of light and shade. Highs and lows. If your Saturn sign is involved in a stellium in your chart, that particular story will rule your life.

Saturn and Fate

Saturn is fate. In your birth chart it shows what happens to you, in your life, that you cannot avoid. It teaches you about being human and the way of the world. When you offer people the chance to use a time machine, they often pick the moments when Saturn gave them their hardest karma.

The destiny part of the story is your conscious use of astrology to minimise the potential problems of any Saturn transit. Textbook advice is to talk to older people. Why? Because Saturn rules the passage of time and in the original myth, it was time itself that fixed all Saturn’s problems.

Whatever you go through in your life with Saturn by sign and house, or Saturn by transit, you just know that many people will have been there before you. Talk to them.

Some Saturn issues will be unwittingly set up by you, in relation to the sign and house where you find Saturn. When you are unwise, under-protected or under-defended, Saturn can bite.

Other issues just happen to you and it can be very tough – oh, so tough. What helps? Sharing the load with others who have been down the same, or a similar path.

Figuring out a way to cope that is as gentle on you, as possible, while still helping you feel more secure.

It’s only sensible to do less of the aspects of life which Saturn rules in your birth chart. If you don’t want a big set of burdens, don’t heavily pursue the areas of the world, ruled by Saturn’s sign. Sure, other factors may be in that horoscope house too, offsetting Saturn, but ultimately you have to respect his presence.

If you are still curious about this notorious planet, you can go to my website to find out more. Click on Saturn Signs to find out how your own Saturn sign and house has affected your own life – and what you can do about that. Just don’t play any Leonard Cohen while you’re doing it.

Edited extract from 2020 Astrology: Your Five-Year Horoscope Guide by Jessica Adams.

All Images Courtesy of Unplash.com and Pinterest.