Transits of Saturn

Transits to Mercury

Transits to Venus

Venus’s energy is social, one of the principal forces that fosters relationships of all kinds, including friendship and romantic love. Saturn, by contrast, gravitates toward solitude; it prefers people who keep to themselves and are not especially drawn to social activities.

Despite these differences, Saturn-Venus combinations are far from hopeless; they simply require balance. Any relationship, however loving, must relate not only to itself but also to the wider world. Ultimately all relationships, no matter how amorous, must deal with practical necessities. When balance is achieved between these two planets, this can happen brilliantly without sacrificing either energy. Wild romance may not belong to Saturn, but long-term commitment certainly does.

At the highest level, when Venus is fused with Saturn, the result can be a loving call to duty in one’s spiritual life. Venus represents not only everyday love but also divine love; when transmuted in this way, its partnership with Saturn can yield magnificent and beautiful outcomes — love of all creation, all humanity and whatever one considers divine.

Transits to the Sun

Astrologically, the Sun’s energy is Hot and Dry, both qualities considered moderate in the tradition. Saturn’s energy is Cold and Dry, and its qualities, according to tradition, are neither moderate nor balanced; they tend toward extremes. The major challenge in any Sun-Saturn combination is therefore to balance the Sun’s Heat with Saturn’s Cold. When balance is found, the pairing builds structures — physical and psychological — that are clear, well defined, durable and capable of great achievement.

A common Sun-Saturn theme appears in people who work extremely hard to create something excellent and enduring. That is the proper outcome of this combination. Unfortunately, Saturn can also stifle the Sun’s energy, suppressing ambition and vitality (the Sun’s Heat) with Saturn’s Cold. In natal charts it is not uncommon to find people with Sun-Saturn aspects who feel like failures even when they accomplish a great deal. Some have high goals but cannot define what success would look like; they feel that whatever they achieve is never enough, and many become over-achievers, accomplishing far more than anyone expects yet never acknowledging their own success.

Sometimes Saturn’s influence on the natal Sun is so severe that people with these aspects do fail because they simply do not believe in themselves. Helping such individuals recognise their abilities can be a challenge.

The Sun can operate successfully on personal, social/interpersonal and transcendental levels, although on the personal level it can dissolve into egotism. Saturn normally manifests socially, but its highest expression is transcendental.

The most difficult Sun-Saturn combination occurs when Saturn, operating socially, seems to demand that society subordinate an individual entirely to the group, allowing no personal expression. When both planets operate socially, the person works extraordinarily hard for the community — be it family, town, corporation or nation — identifying completely with it. This has both positive and negative potentials. When both energies operate transcendently, a great spiritual leader may emerge, though this result is rare. More often, transcendental Saturn blends with a social Sun to produce the fanatical, over-disciplined and repressive spiritual leaders so common in many religious traditions.

Transits to Mars

Saturn often suppresses the strong, vital energies of Mars, setting up obstacles that block Mars so completely that its only outlet is explosive anger or a long, slow burn. Conversely, when someone uses Mars egotistically — wanting to win at all costs — Saturn’s energy can be particularly hard. Mars’s proper purpose is to protect and defend what truly needs protection, even at personal risk; this aim aligns with Saturn’s higher energy.

Unfortunately, Saturn is also frequently experienced as gratuitously repressive, often reflecting early encounters with authority. Yet at its highest level Saturn is not about enforcing social norms; it leads the individual beyond ordinary reality to the transcendent and transpersonal. When Mars acts to fight the good fight and defend the deserving, it aligns with high Saturn. Making this the normal interaction between Mars and Saturn is the challenge — and it is not an easy one.

Transits to Jupiter

Yet Saturn has another side. While Jupiter integrates the individual into society, Saturn also represents the need to be alone, to contemplate higher realities and to transcend Jupiter. On one level Saturn can be seen as Jupiter’s “enforcer,” keeping the social order running; on a higher level, Saturn connects us with what lies beyond society — the truly righteous, the truly conscious — opening the path to personal transcendence.

Most commonly, Jupiter-Saturn interactions feel like a push-pull: expansion then contraction, settling into a place in life and then changing it.

Transits to Saturn

The first of these transits often occurs in the first year of life as Saturn crosses its natal position. Everyone who lives a normal life span will experience Saturn’s conjunctions with natal Saturn at about ages twenty-nine, fifty-eight and eighty-seven. Because these occur at such different ages and under such varied circumstances, separate interpretations are necessary; people at different ages react so differently that a single, general interpretation is impossible.

Transits to Uranus

Modern astrology increasingly emphasises Saturn’s positive side, yet another aspect is still widely overlooked: Saturn as doorway to the complex, somewhat alien energies of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Many ancient sources describe Saturn as chief significator of the contemplative life — precisely the approach needed to handle Uranus. In this role Saturn channels, rather than blocks, Uranus’s energy, allowing it to manifest as constructive innovation rather than destructive explosion (literal or metaphorical). Revolutionary technology is a good example of a positive Saturn-Uranus collaboration. All this is what the cycle of transiting Saturn to natal Uranus is about.

Transits to Neptune

Neptune, by contrast, signifies an energy that is not entirely of this world. In everyday manifestations, Neptune blurs boundaries and dissolves order. It may create a sense that disorder dominates and that it is hard to grasp anything solid. Neptune often lowers energy levels so that one neither feels capable of nor interested in doing very much. Consequently, Saturn-Neptune transits can bring a seemingly irrational depression: when you look at your life, you cannot see why you should feel down, yet you do.

At their highest expressions, however, these planets can work together powerfully and positively. Their combination represents an orderly, structured approach that moves beyond ordinary reality toward the transcendent and spiritual. Achieving this requires definite methods — meditation, yoga or any well-developed spiritual practice. Adopting such practices is one way to escape the depressing emotional side of these transits.

Transits to Pluto

Both planets are outer planets, so everyone born within a significant period (over a year) will have Pluto in roughly the same place, and a Saturn-Pluto transit lasts close to a year. For such a transit to be powerful in your chart, Pluto must be strongly placed, or Saturn must simultaneously transit other planets. The next paragraph explains how Pluto can be especially powerful.

Not everyone experiences these transits with equal potency. Natal Pluto takes about two and a half years to move through a sign, meaning everyone born near your time has Pluto in roughly the same position. These transits are strongest when:

1. Pluto is near the Ascendant, Midheaven, Descendant or I.C. (the angles).
2. Pluto makes close, powerful aspects to the Sun, Moon or another planet on an angle.
3. Pluto makes many aspects to other chart points.

If none of these conditions apply, the transit’s effects will be observable but not very strong.

When these transits do involve powerful chart positions, they indicate periods of relentless, inevitable change. Do not be the mountain. The transit’s slowness gives you time to examine which life structures may be forced to change. Remember: no matter how external these energies may seem, they arise from within. They exist for your growth and development. The areas you most fear changing — the places of strongest, most irrational attachment — are where you will encounter the greatest difficulty. Embrace change; do not fear it.

Transits to Chiron

No combination of planetary energies is entirely harmful or useless, but transiting Saturn to natal Chiron is among the more problematic. The primary qualities of these planets help explain why. Saturn partakes of the Cold and the Dry. Cold implies low energy, which prevents or slows change; Dry preserves separateness and breaks apart things that normally work together. Combined, these qualities maintain existing situations and discourage integration.

Chiron seeks integration and reintegration; Saturn’s lower energy thus opposes Chiron, increasing the potential for traumatic disintegration. On this level, the pairing is traditionally “malefic.” The problem with this view is that it ignores Saturn’s transcendental side, essential to spiritual evolution. High Saturn represents solitude that allows focus on spiritual growth, free from everyday distractions. Used properly, Saturn carries you beyond consensus reality without causing the confusion sometimes associated with Neptune.

What healing, then, can Saturn’s transit over Chiron signify? First, any healing dominated by this combination is likely to be slow: Saturn’s cycle is just under thirty years. Second, the process may be arduous, not pointlessly, but because deep issues require careful work. Third, healing under Saturn demands focus and concentration; like a hermit in meditation, you must make healing a primary focus. Fourth, Saturn rules certain body parts — bones, joints, teeth and connective tissue, especially tendons — all of which heal slowly.

Accessing high Saturn is difficult, but later sections will offer suggestions for using this level beneficially in health and healing. We will also discuss potential negatives, so you can handle them more gracefully and, one hopes, successfully.

Transits to Midheaven

Transits to Ascendant

The cycle can influence career too, a function it shares with the Saturn-Midheaven cycle. Traditionally these transits were considered very difficult; all Saturn transits once were. Yet Saturn is not about pointless pain. The difficulties it brings are usually the consequences of your own actions over time — the true meaning of karma. Within one lifetime, karma is powerful and obvious. The central challenge of this cycle is to evolve from seeing life as something that happens to you to seeing it as something you create. As you grow in this respect, Saturn transits become increasingly productive, though always challenging. Whoever said life should be easy?

Transits to the Lunar Nodes