Francisco Goya’s horrific paintings of Saturn (Kronos), the Greek god, eating his children get to the heart of his astrological meaning, highlighting his obsession with time and mortality. Scared of dying he knew his children represented a future he can never possess, since his was limited by his mortal span. He tries and fails to abolish the boundaries of his life.
Saturn is essentially about facing reality, which presents in many forms involving practicalities, structure in earthly terms, duties and responsibilities. At its starkest it involves acceptance of death.
It plans, prepares, thinks long term to a feasible goal, gets foundations laid, builds slowly and securely so its achievements stand the test of time. The end result of its endeavours is not necessarily aesthetic but it is enduring.
Saturn restricts, so oversees limits and boundaries which may not feel like fun but are essential, psychologically as well as practically, in life. It stands firm for order, delineation, marked borders. In action, it is like a gardener who prunes plants back, lopping off overgrown branches, to stimulate fresh growth.
In Roman mythology, he was a god of generation, dissolution, plenty, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. Saturn’s mythological reign was depicted as a Golden Age of plenty and peace. He showed his positive face at the autumn festivals of the harvest, when the bounty of the year was brought in and drunken celebrations ensued after the hard work was done. Earthly delights are his preserve and his reign was seen as one of peace and plenty.
Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, has this duality marked as the two-headed god who looks back to the past year and forward to the new. He both mourns and celebrates. The old Capricorn symbol was half goat half fish. He operates in two realms, arising out of the watery realm of ideas and creative visions to make solid achievements a reality.
Not that Saturn is a delight at close quarters in intimate relationships. It can be cold, putting up a defensive wall against any encroachment, tending to put things above feelings, and is better at ‘doing’ than ‘being’.
Having Saturnine parents means facing two things – their envy and their ability to induce misplaced guilt on their child. The Saturnine father pushes and pushes his children to be a success, being excessively critical of any failures, making them feel they never achieve enough to satisfy him, so damaging the child’s self-esteem though it can helpfully induce a driving need to be a success. But deep down the father’s fear is that they might outdo him, become more successful and outlive him. It’s difficult to cope with since if the child-grown-to-adult became successful, the father would shrivel, feel worthless himself and be consumed with envy. So it’s a no win situation, until the child/adult separates enough to understand it’s the father’s issue, not theirs.
The Saturnine mother on the other hand insinuates into the child a sense that they are responsible for her depression; and their role in life is to look after her and make her happy. She makes an under-nurturing mother but expects her offspring to give her the caring she never gave them.
Successful people tend to operate in a Saturnine way. Maggie Thatcher with Saturn on her Ascendant pursued a career which moved to the transits of Saturn – into the Cabinet when tr Saturn moved up across her Descendant into her third quadrant, became PM when tr Saturn moved across her midheaven. She ignored its hints in the latter years of her tenure as it moved into her lower-profile first quadrant, when she should have been winding down. Her ego got in the way and she was ejected when her Solar Arc Saturn was exactly square her Sun. Saturn can raise to great heights through excessively hard work, but it is a hard taskmaster when lessons are not learned.
Richard Nixon on the other hand was forced to resign facing impeachment charges when tr Saturn was moving through his 10th (supposedly the peak). That was when Saturn’s iron rule ‘you reap what you sow’ came into play, and Nixon’s chickens came home to roost. The god of the harvest knows that only careful preparation at the right time, clearing the ground, sowing seeds, tending to the growing crops, sticking to the rules, will provide the cornucopia. If you don’t put in the sweat and planning and try to bend the rules, it brings retribution.
On my own chart tr Saturn was conjunct my Sun when my mother died and years later when my stepmother died. An inbetween tr Saturn conjunct my Sun came when I left (by choice) a long-running job which was quite a wrench though the right move.
The post Saturn – bringer of plenty and grief first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
