Saturn, not just an asshole trying to ruin your life

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I thought I would talk about Saturn this week, because one planet after another in Gemini will be facing Saturn in a challenging aspect (square) and later this month, on June 29 Saturn turns retrograde and will remain there until November 15th. The outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) go retrograde annually for quite long (120-160 days) chunks of time, but they get less press because Mercury goes retrograde 3 different times/year and seems to wreak havoc because of its trickster energy and resulting communication and travel snafus. As an aside, Saturn enters Aries May 24, 2025. For now, when I speak about the current transits involving Saturn, know that it is in the sign of Pisces. 

Mythology

Saturn is known as Kronos (or Cronus) in Greek mythology. He was the king of the Titans and god of time. He castrated and killed his father, Ouranus (aka Uranus, god of the sky), so immediately we are getting a father theme emerging. He is also known for eating his children right after they were born from Rhea because he feared a prophesy that one of his children would overthrow him. This came true, as Rhea finally managed to secret baby Zeus away to Crete and trick Kronus by feeding him a stone wrapped in swaddling. When Zeus grew up, he forced Kronus to regurgitate all of Zeus’s siblings and they all became the gods of Mt Olympus and waged war against the Titans and defeated them. 

Astronomy

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun, and the second largest in the solar system, and one of the gas giants. Nine Earths would almost span Saturn’s diameter. Its orbit is 29 Earth years. The atmosphere is almost all hydrogen and helium. It is the farthest discovered by the unaided human eye, and has 146 moons. NASA is sending the Rotorcraft ‘Dragonfly’ to one of Saturn’s moon, Titan, as it is thought to have prebiotic chemical processes common to early Earth. It is targeted to arrive on Titan in 2034.

Astrology

Saturn is the planetary ruler of Capricorn (in Hellenistic astrology, also Aquarius) and is associated with the 10th house (reputation, legacy, vocation, sometimes the father or parent in the father like role). Just a reminder that the planet is the noun, the who wants or does the thing, the sign is the adverb or the how the thing is wanted or done, and the house is the area of life.

In medical astrology, which I have just started learning as part of my herbalist program, Saturn correspondences are (from Judith Hill’s book: Medical Astrology: A Guide to Planetary Pathology):

Lead, minerals, heavy metals, bones, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, cuticles, nails (with Jupiter), teeth, hearing (with Mars, Mercury, Taurus, Aries): knees (with Capricorn); mental focus, general stability of systems and rhythms, larger cycles (onset and end of menstruation).

Given all of that, we have associations of Saturn and Capricorn with aging and all the things that go along with it. That is: responsibility, maturity, discipline, time passing, experience, money, status, patience, effort, accomplishment, goals, standards. You can see that when Saturn becomes too strong, it could feel restrictive, or like too much pressure, and lead to things like depression and burn out, which Saturn is also associated with.

Saturn is also associated with the structure of our life. The house, sign, and aspects to other planets in your birth chart can give you an idea of how this may play out. I have Saturn in Taurus in the 7th house, and I am still tinkering with the structure of my life, which may be explained by the harsh aspects Saturn is in with my Sun, Mars, and Neptune. But if I were to analyze just the sign and house for my Saturn, I would say that in order to live out my highest potential, I would need secure 1:1 relationships (7th house) throughout my life, to serve as a foundation for my Sun’s ego purpose, creative self-expression. The way I interpret it so far in my life is that Saturn via the square to my Sun and Mars in the 10th house, has brought me close friends through my career. These 1:1 relationships with former and current colleagues have been the most supportive, even over family members, in my creative self-expression.

It is therefore not just your Capricorn friends who have to concern themselves with all of this. You may have heard the term “Saturn Return”, which is when Saturn returns to the same degree as it was when you were born. As we learned, its orbit is 29 years, so it happens approximately every 29 years. However, we may feel Saturn checking in with us when it is at the square (90°) or opposition (180°) aspects to our natal Saturn, or even just when it is hanging inside certain houses and aspecting other planets.

Maybe now would be a good time to interject one of the teachings of Jeffrey Wolf Green (whose lineage I am learning in the JWG School of Evolutionary Astrology). Individuals who are born with Saturn in retrograde (the frequency is > 1/3 of the population) will be driven to question authority and the consensus norm. They would tend to rebel in order to create their own authority and then integrate back into society in a way that honors what feels to be their authentic individuality. As a transit, this retrograde energy is thought of more like a checkpoint on our plan and our commitment to the hard work required. The restriction may show up in that we cannot have our cake and eat it too, after all.

So, if you have a Saturn return coming up (and know that most people feel its energy for about a year or two around the exact point, or even the entire time Saturn is in the sign it was in at your birth) or an aspect to a sensitive spot in your birth chart, here are some of the things Saturn may be asking you to consider. Know that the nuances around these things change depending on things such as what sign Saturn happens to be in, so I will try to give some examples using Saturn’s current sign, Pisces.

Remember that Saturn was the god of time. So, he wants to know you are not wasting yours. And the standard will always have the long game in mind. Are you spending time on activities that will get you closer to your goals? Worse, have you no goals in mind? And it doesn’t have to be a big goal or even the perfect goal. Sometimes, just putting in effort, even if it teaches you that you don’t want that goal, is helpful, because it will not have been a waste of time.

With Saturn in Pisces, we keep all of the Saturn attributes, and layer Pisces’ way of being over it. At first, this seems a bit weird, because Pisces is known for being boundary-less. It is slippery, like the 2 fish in its glyph. It is also about dreams, mysticism, forms of escapism, and hidden things. So how might we plop Saturn amid those concepts? It seems to be about finding structural integrity in all of those things. How you can put definition and boundaries in those areas, and if we are simply floating along in Pisces water, completely detached from reality, we may be jolted into reality in a manner that is tough to overlook. 

Maybe a good choice for a Saturn return story is Albert Einstein, who had his sun in Pisces. I pulled this info from Wendell C. Perry’s book Mapping Changes in Your Life Saturn Cycles. When he was young, he excelled in all of the tasks and subjects which interested him and ignored the rest. He dropped out of high school, but managed to finesse a HS diploma and study at the Zurich Polytechnic in Switzerland. Teachers either recognized him as brilliant or never saw him. In 1901, when he was 22, about a year after graduating with his college degree, Saturn was conjunct his descendant and Uranus opposed his natal moon. He was getting desperate for a job, as he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and she had to return home to Serbia. He had applied for Swiss citizenship, and against all odds, he was approved and a job in the Swiss patent office secured for him for the following year. 

He worked in the patent office and his personal life remained somewhat messy (he was known to be a womanizer, despite being married), and it wasn’t until Saturn crossed his midheaven that he started getting attention from the scientific community. A couple of years later, when he had his Saturn return, things started picking up and he got a job first at the University of Bern and then a full professorship at the University of Zurich.

When Saturn crossed his Ascendant (1915), he published his general theory of relativity, but his first marriage also ended. It would take until the total solar eclipse in 1919 that English scientists were able to test his theory about the relationship between gravity and light, and by December of that year, as Saturn reached his IC, he had become the most famous scientist in the world and would receive the Nobel prize.

A couple of things to note. It is unclear as to what happened to the child that he fathered when he was 22, which in and of itself has a Saturnian theme. His Sun, Mercury, and Saturn are all close together, so this shows that there will likely be confounding factors such as these in any chart. His life and the path of Saturn and its return and significant aspects to the angles of his chart indicate a theme of perhaps choosing his career over being mature in his first marriage, but then, Saturn is known for asking us how badly we want something. Really challenging our commitment to the goal, perhaps at the expense of harmony elsewhere. In any event, the timing of his significant career-related events line up with his Saturn return and significant aspects.

Saturn in the houses

I thought it may be most helpful to summarize Steven Forrest’s description of Saturn entering each house from his book: The Book of Earth: Making it Real, so you can look at your own birth chart with it in mind. As a reminder, you can download your birth chart free at any of the online sites, such as astro.com or astroseek and the houses go 1 to 12, starting on the midline on the left of the circle and going counter-clockwise. For example, with Saturn now in Pisces, I would look to my 5th house because that is where Pisces sits at the cusp.

1st house: all of the Saturn themes are aimed at you. How are you working toward self-mastery toward the main goal in life, especially the goal that will create your legacy?

2nd house: Focus on securing or arranging personal resources to allow you to feel secure as you continue to place effort toward your goals in life. This may mean learning to live below your means so that you have a cushion.

3rd house: This could be a time when your curiosity leads you to something supportive of your life’s structure. It could be through your community or network of friends. Don’t forget to be open and get out of your shell.

4th house: The focus here is on knowing, supporting, and appreciating your foundation, whether it is your ancestry, your physical home, the spiritual practices that make you feel you have a home within yourself.

5th house: Think of this as a structured recess. If you have been all work and no play, it is time to examine that, as you may be stifling your inner child and that is ultimately not sustainable.

6th house: Beware of busy work. This is the opportunity to develop discernment and to tweak the structure of your daily life for longevity and in order to achieve your goals. A mentor may show up for you in this time.

7th house: This is the time period when a serious, objective look at your close personal relationships is warranted. How have you been showing up? How have they? Time to stop projecting and do the work called for.

8th house: The focus here is on your psychological structure. Is it secure, or is more inner work needed so that you don’t get sucked into unnecessary dramas in life. Set yourself up for a peaceful existence, inside and outside.

9th house: You may feel a call to expand your horizons, whether that is through travel or through mental or spiritual endeavors. If you have been focusing too much on the practical, this may be an opportunity for you to question the philosophy that guides your purpose.

10th house: Your chosen vocation may feel exposed here. If you are in flow with your soul, your relationships, and your community, additional responsibilities may come your way. If not, it is a reminder that there is work to be done to pave the way.

11th house: How do the groups you associate with fit into the structure and trajectory of your life? It’s time to revisit how they are or are not serving you and vice versa. Use your intuition rather than what society or peer pressure tell you. Where do you want to be in 10 years’ time? More of the same or dramatically different?

12th house: Deep inquiries into faith may arise here. What do you believe in and why? How does your life fit into the Universe? How do you face loss or isolation?