Is This The Most Challenging Saturn Return Ever? Part 2
Before addressing the Saturn Return, let’s talk about Saturn in Libra in general. You know, I can’t emphasise enough what a good placement this is. (OK, it might not feel like it just now.)
Saturn is exalted in the sign of the scales. That means he is at his best. He behaves better here than in any other sign. His obsession with rules and regulations is modified by a balance and fairness, by partnership, by intelligence.
The more people I meet with this placement, the more I admire and respect them as a group. People with Saturn in Libra are blessed with the following:
- practical fairness,
- clear, rational problem-solving,
- a sense of social justice and duty,
- an understanding that personal relationships are serious,
- loyalty to partners, commitment, the desire to work at relationships, these people are grown up about relationships,
- practical intelligence Libra is a very bright sign, like all the air signs, but this sometimes gets overlooked. With Saturn here, that Libran intelligence is put to practical purpose. Saturn is not a personal planet, so the intelligence tends to be less foregrounded, more subtle. It manifests more in how Saturn Libra gets things done.
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| Even Shiva and Parvati had their problems. |
Why is it such a special placement? Because Saturn in Libra, when well expressed, truly supports a partner, puts other people first. Saturn in Libra shares.
Here is the downside. Obviously the main area of difficulty is likely to be relationships which come under the rulership of Libra.
- working on relationships that aren’t worth the candle. Getting stuck in a partnership that is a bad habit.
- choosing difficult partnerships. It may not feel like it at the time, this is ultimately a growth experience. You need to look at it rationally and ask yourself: are we better off together or apart
- fear of commitment. You must face this fear (if you have it) and figure out how you are blocking yourself. Are you deliberately choosing the wrong people? Are you staying single for too long?
The 1980s generation
Right now, this generation is experiencing their torrid first Saturn Return. Saturn is important for many of them anyway, since they may have a Jupiter conjunct Saturn natally, which is one of the most challenging and character-building aspects. These big planets are the two kings of solar system with opposite ways of ruling the world. Saturn contracts, Jupiter expands. The conjunction (which happens every 20 years) promises great potential. But they fight each other. Saturn is about contraction and Jupiter about expansion. In the second house for example, this combo often shows people who are always broke but always able to earn a crust.
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| It took them years to get to the altar, v Saturnian. |
Or they may have a Pluto-Saturn conjunction, or a Saturn-Jupiter-Pluto conjunction. Pluto plus Saturn is really tough. In Libra, this would suggest the early experiences of partnership (e.g. their parents’ marriage) may have been pretty harsh. (I can’t help thinking of Prince William, born in 1982 with Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn, Mars in a stellium. His parents marriage was exactly a paradigm he did not want to follow. He learned the lesson (Saturn) of bad marriage.)
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| Isabella Rossellini (b.1952) and her then-partner David Lynch. Picture says it all really. |
You’d think that the previous generation born with Saturn in Libra in the early 1950s would have had an easier time with relationships – after all they have dreamy, romantic Neptune in Libra too and Saturn would be in a handy sextile to wicked Pluto in Leo for many of them.
Far from it. Neptune’s idealism has made partnership really quite difficult: there is no such thing as perfect. But with Saturn there, you just keep on trying – and you take relationships really, really seriously. And with Pluto in Leo one of your most important life-missions is the transformation of the self. You may well have effected this through relationships.
These are the flower children born with Uranus in Cancer, who did so much to change how we think of the idea “mother”.
You can see how this pattern starts to work. The whole structure of families shifted thanks to these people and I expect more shifts as they become grandparents.
More in the next post….
The Royal Wedding: Celebrating Power
For all the Royal Wedding/Middleton posts click here.
It’s interesting what you said about the 80s generation, which I am a part of, relating to the marriage and witnessing the marriage of our parents as a major life lesson in a concept so important to us as partnership. I have felt this my whole life but have found VERY few people who take it to be such an intimate experience as I… but I guess intimacy is a perspective thing lol…
But it is interesting that my mom is in the 50’s generation with the saturn in libra, etc. You mentioned they kind of set the bar, but really? I saw more heartache and struggle as my mom (a solar libra, scorpio influenced, and capricorn rising) basically arm wrestled my dad into a marriage ( he is a classic cold taurus with gemini rising but libra moon… cold but goofy lol) that he seemed indifferent to as he was on the path to great $$ and my mom growing up living in a bus in mississippi and in just about every state as a migrant (spelling?) worker picking the fields as a poor child with her other 5 siblings. She saw $$, security and the little white picket fence surrounding and protecting her mansion from her childhood terrors, few of which she has dealt with in a compassionate was, but rather the scorpio/mercury and sag/ mars was hahaa. She wrestled him who knew no difference and then was disappointed when he stopped fulfilling her sexual needs and like a classic angry scorpio with too much verbal accuracy, she started emasculating him… constantly… in front of her kids and family and public. That was the witness of marriage I had… it did not bring her happiness but stagnation in transforming herself as she worked in all the wrong ways (my dad basically ran further away) to save her marriage. They are still together, but it has been traumatic to watch their hatred for each other bleed into their relationships with their kids, family, etc. They fought to keep it together.
So all that not for a pity party or judgement festival, but rather to say, isn’t it interesting the thread between the generations… now i have the same saturn, but different lesson. So I don’t know if in my case I would agree that they began to solve and change the idea of motherhood, but something deeper was going on… I feel like they might have searched for the last dying breath of perfection in the ideal of marriage that had been ruling our ‘love’ for centuries in too tight a context based on rules of religion, that now is being reworked by our generation as we viewed our parents trying to perfect what was already broken. Now love is the vibration, not just the perfect marriage. Anyway, I just felt like sharing and starting a conversation about what got my mind rolling in a new direction in connecting our generation with our parents…. Sorry if this is weird or too personal, but I’m a Cancer lol, so vulnerability is my thing at my own expense lol… but run down: sun, mercury and mars (6th) with libra saturn conjunct pluto (9th); jupiter, uranus in sag (10th); and neptune in sag (11th) ; moon leo 7th ; virgo venus 8th; chiron in gemini 4th; true node gemini 5th; intercepted 1st and 7th houses; capricorn ascendent; midheaven / 10th ruler, scorpio; south node in sag. Anyway just for back story in case anyone was curious! You by no means have to be 🙂
Much love and peace everyone!!
On responsibility:
You know what I always wanted to be, Miss C? The mistress of a great house. A chatelaine with all her keys. No joke.
I feel pretty miserable if I don’t have a role to play, a responsibility to fulfill. This tendency is enhanced by my Moon, since the only good aspect my Moon has to a planet is to Mars – a minor one: a semi-sextile. You know, must take action to be emotionally fulfilled. In the 11th house in Virgo, you know what that means – VOLUNTEERING! (Enh, you play with the cards you’re dealt, no?)
@Nicole – thanks for sharing that. I think it illustrates exactly what I meant to say. Your mother had fantasies about her relationship which, when they didn’t work out, became poisonous (Neptune going wrong)
I didn’t mean to imply that the 50s generation had it all sorted at all…. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough.
“Neptune’s idealism has made partnership really quite difficult: there is no such thing as perfect.”
Let me put it a different way.
With impossible ideals about relationships (Neptune in Libra) and the need to transform themselves (Uranus in Leo) they may well have approached family in an unusual way (Uranus in cancer). Uranus is about freedom but also about being trapped.
I chose Isabella Rossellini for two reasons. Her relationship with David Lynch was disastrous – and the picture shows him blank and black.
I’m really trying to say that the 80s people may have had the opportunity to learn from their parents mistakes.
OMG Uranus is as much to do with freedom as with being trapped….genius!! I feel liberated knowing that – thanks.
My father has Saturn-Neptune conjunct moon in the 4th and I have the Saturn-Pluto conjuction also in the fourth. Family baggage?
We’ve been screaming at each other as far as I can remember and competing in who’s the real VICTIM (I have Sun conj. Neptune and moon in the 12th). Couple of months a go it felt like I’ve had enough and we’ve had very little contact since.
I only hope I could leave some of this behind by working on it and not leave it to the next generation as such.
Thanks for the positive traits of Sat. in Libra!
@diastella – yeah this was made very clear to me with regard to the veil (of all things!). Uranus is about liberating and banning. If you look at French legislation banning the veil, it’s on Uranus transits.
I try to restrain my Pollyanna tendency to always see the cool, funky, New Age side of Uranus – and remember that astrology works in polarities.
@Maija – it sounds like your imagination might be your liberation. Also, isn’t it amazing how clear astrology when you’re ready to get the message!
Thanks! Time will tell if I’ll just dream on or finally create something. Astrology has been an important source of pictures and connections.
That makes sense Christina…. I definitely didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t expressed… I didn’t reread lol. But really I agree…. not that that means a whole lot 😉 But I feel that my lesson from it was even a polarity! I love that about astrology… working in oppositions and polarities….i also never could put to words the uranus effect! Wow, you said it perfectly! I feel that a lot of times in astrology we mistake the archetype’s perfectionized ideal for the polarity that each planet, sign etc holds in their shadow, or low vibration. I really enjoyed and learned so much from your words and perspective, so thank you. I didn’t mean to imply anything negative about your article (oh dear no! it helped me put things in a generational context that previously I could not explain), but thought it to be interesting the cycles of the generations and how the lessons of the latter are usually a polarity in themselves. polarities seem to hold the same kind of ‘things’ or energy but in different manners and with different goals… I think? I’m not sure if I’m explaining it in words accurately, but maybe you’ll pick up on what I’m referring to…?? Anyhoo. Thanks again. Sorry if there was any ouch moments from my post, as that was not my intention. It’s funny dealing with mom stuff lol…. it always puts me on the aggravated emotions list!! What is that lol….much <3
Oh my goodness nicola – this is the difficulty with writing instead of talking.
I knew what you meant, didn’t take the slightest offence and think you contributed a lot by sharing your story. In other words I think it’s a brilliant illustration of the whole thing.
Sooo true about how we always assume the archetypes are the really cool ones or the obvious ones. I am trying at the moment to consider how Pluto could be Mr Nice Guy….ha ha….
Just in case I’m not being clear – I loved your comment!!! Please feel free to come back and say what you like.
PS – I am cracking on with the third post, but got sidetracked by life…
great post and comments! Ineed to read it more carefully but I can see those ‘generational combos’ played in my own family. There are similarities in Nicole’s parents marriage in my grandparents marriage (actually from the early and late 20’s). My parents from mid-late 40’s have pluto and sat in Leo plus Neptune in libra and what you said about it Christina is just illuminating!!!