Understanding Saturn is so utterly needed in life: and this applies when he is powerful – or when he is Debilitated/Retrograde.
Saturn spends the whole of September at 1 deg Vedic Capricorn. And Saturn is actually transiting his own sign Capricorn until 29th April 2022.
So, Saturn is strong here. And I feel he is especially strong in his demands for hard work, duty, commitment, hard work, patience and diligence and paying off our karmic dues, dealing with sadness and frustration – all of which if we respond dutifully will lead to positive karmic reaping for us in our lives. For me at least, time seems to be going more slowly and it seems to take so much longer to do anything. That’s my personal experience.
The emphasis here during this high-dignity high-strength Saturn transit, is on concrete achievement. Nerves of Steel maybe! Overcome the blocks. With diligence, fight the slowness Saturn may impose on you during his retrograde.
It is also an energy that highlights worldly power structures – but of course note that adjacent Jupiter-Pluto may smash against or seek to exploit these. Rioting. OR shmashing our personal prison walls: the scripts we have taken on that confine us and minimise us!
Saturn is also a prime indicator of the baggage we bring to Love and Relationship. We need to develop clear perception of our baggage. This stuff may surface now. We need to heal it. You can get a Reading from me as to your Love Profile
This video and blog is actually an add-on to our upcoming Astrology and Healing Newsletter for September 2020.
As a special resource, I do show the charts and ephemeris for each month in both Vedic and also western astrology on my Starwheel website. You can see the full Vedic and also Western Ephemeris of the planets’ positions, the charts of the September Full and New Moons, plus the 2020 eclipse dates and more, all on my September Astrology page in my Starwheel Astrology website:
https://www.starwheelastrology.com/2020-september.html
And see the Pt 2 video here.
This transit of Saturn in Capricorn will be extra hard for people who are in Sade Sate: the following Moon signs: Sagittarius, especially Capricorn, and also Aquarius Moon people – because of Sade Sate.
And not so easy for Cancers as Saturn casts a 7th House aspect/opposition to Cancer.
Note which House in your Vedic birth chart Capricorn is: this is the area in your life where the Saturn hard-earned blessing and Golden Reaping must be sought for.
In terms of the Nakshatras, this Saturn transit is currently in UttaraAshadha Nakshatra, pada 2. This is the 2nd pada of Uttara Ashadha and 1st navamsha of Capricorn. It is the Capricorn pada of UttaraAshadha – and it also the is the vargottama Capricorn pada.
Note that Saturn is Retrograde to 29th September, when he turns Direct.
And note that Saturn is in close conjunction with Pluto at 28 deg Vedic Capricorn.
And Saturn is also conjunct Jupiter at 23 deg Capricorn.
And note that this month of September is actually a special case, as we actually have three planets who are moving so slowly that they stay in the same degree for a long time at present. These are: Saturn, Neptune and Pluto.
And when planets have very slow motion I the heavens, they carve their effect deeply!
In western tropical Zodiac, this is Saturn at 25 deg Capricorn.
Understanding Saturn Retrograde
Saturn is Retrograde until 29th September 2020
Saturn is Retrograde from May to September 2020. And he also forms part of three vast and utterly powerful conjunction with Pluto and Jupiter this year.
So, a major question now is: What energy does Saturn Retrograde bring to our lives?
Also:
How do we need to understand it?
How can we handle it?
What will be the effect on our society?
This is a key question, because Saturn is super-powerful, now. He is super powerful because he is transiting in his own sign: Capricorn. And he’s super-powerful because he is part of the three-planet huge conjunction with Jupiter and Pluto. And of course, other vast exceptional energy transits are going on at the same time.
First of all. Let’s note the Astrological degrees and dates of these conjunctions and transits:
Saturn moved into Capricorn on 27th January.
Saturn turned Retrograde on 11th May at 7 deg Vedic Capricorn.
He starts August retrograde at 3 deg Capricorn and is at 1 deg Capricorn at the end of August.
Saturn will turn direct on 29th September at 1 deg Capricorn.
He forms two vast conjunctions, and there’s a third related one. Here are the details:
Saturn and Pluto are conjunct all August – the exact was 11.1.2020 at 28 deg Sagittarius
Saturn and Jupiter are conjunct at 5 deg Capricorn on 15th December.
So, in effect, we have a Saturn-Pluto-Jupiter conjunction all this year.
Jupiter and Pluto were conjunct around 4th April 2020, 30th June and will be again on 12th November.
To see the charts and ephemeris for each month in 2020, go to my Starwheel Astrology Website, and click on the relevant month’s astrology on my 2020 page:
https://www.starwheelastrology.com/2020.html
And in terms of the vastly sure and declarative, Nakshatras, note that Saturn is transiting all this year in UttaraAshadha Nakshatra. For my video on each of the Nakshatras, see the list of links in my Starwheel Astrology website: https://www.starwheelastrology.com/nakshatra-videos.html
So the really vast and important question are:
How are we each to understand Saturn’s energy and message at the time of this Retrograde and these conjunctions?
The next question is: What do I need to do about it?
And the third question is: What are its implications for Society?
First of all, I must make the point that Saturn, like each of the planets, does have a Divine Nature, and the effects and manifestations of this Divine Nature can be named and defined and we can seek to understand it.
Basically, Saturn’s nature is that he lays necessary requirements for our discipline hard work, and requires of us endurance and dotting the eyes and crossing the t’s.
If we can fulfill his conditions we will experience golden reaping. His roots are those of an agricultural deity.
But we humans can be so sure of our worldview and our view of the nature of our self, that we cannot see the cosmic and right directions of Lord Shani, lord of karma, and if so we experience suffering and grief – but this is only because we are clinging on to prison walls that we should no longer in habit; this is only because we are failing to embrace the needed right life for us personally.
When Saturn is retrograde is imperative grows in power and time slows down. Saturn can be wrongly understood as cruel and punitive, as an all-encompassing power in our life.
So, when Saturn is Retrograde, we are made to finish off unfinished projects and demands. We may even be required to start a new project if that project will rectify something that has been left too long and rectify deficiency. Time will seem to slow down. There may be a feeling of sadness because the austerity and power of Saturn’s demands can cut us off from the pleasures we would like to seek.
Saturn can be wrongly understood as cruel and punitive and be seen just as the ugliest significator of depression, death and poverty and separation in human lives, but what we need to do is see his divine face behind the worldly show we experience until we develop more spiritual awareness. Depending on the House in your chart that he is transiting, there could be a death in your circle.
Saturn causes contraction and destruction, but this is so that we can complete our tasks, and so that we can solidify our perception… and so he can require us to complete our duties and tasks and to take on board the fact of death. We do need to have a realisation of what death is, if we are to understand life.
We do need to develop better awareness of where we are over-attached to the material world.
And, crucially, we do need to find out how and where we are blinded to the light; blinded to the divine connection – and Saturn can delay things and withhold, all this to make sure we do our needed learning.
Saturn energy can lead us to feel depression and self-pity, worry, anxiety and fear, feeling of self-weakness, but that is only because we are failing to develop the beauty of the divine connection in our present situation, because we are failing to see and understand the utter and terminal truth of our present incarnation in the material world, and how its energy is manifesting and directing us in this time in our life.
Saturn’s lessons are the most difficult – but the most rewarding.
Saturn offers meditation and the chance to identify the way of transcendence: the divinely-connected perception we need to learn to bring when viewing and managing our self and this life.
Saturn insists that we work with our specific fate in its current manifestation, that we work with our specific destiny for this lifetime. Vedic astrology can offer a magnificent declaration of this, when it is expertly offered.
In this way we can live the fullest and longest life the life that is most in harmony with our incarnational life purpose which he, Saturn, compels us to face, and this is a call we say ‘no’ to, at our peril
I feel that the combination of Vedic with Western psychodynamic and evolutionary astrology, actually offers vast insights which we need to hear. The best declaration needs to combine the two.
But then each of us must add the next questions:
- Do I need to change the way I see things, and how I understand my nature and my life? What am I going to do about it?
- Is there Healing I need to do?
- Empowerment – how can these transits and conjunctions help me come into my own power, into the fullness of me?
- Saturn is a prime indicator of the baggage we bring to Love and Relationship. We need to develop clear perception of our baggage. We need to heal it. You can get a Reading from me as to your Love Profile.
But we also do have to note at the same time, that each person will experience this Saturn transit and this Saturn Retrograde and these three great conjunctions, in a way that is different and individual.
We really should be using the supreme declaration of astrology (Vedic Astrology and western psychodynamic astrology), to gain insight into our destiny and life purpose, and into the nature of our psychologic self, our egoic self.
Not that that is enough!
Yes – this can give us good perception into what we are experiencing in our lives: (natally – as per our destiny and our incarnational life purpose, our egoic personality, our shadow side) but also predictively – now.
But all this only has any real value if it is done with the prime aim of actually learning to transcend our earthly scripts and egoic self in this life.
Yes, to live in the scripts, the energies and the transits, but to also to come to the point (now) where we re-remember that we are a divine being, where we come to the point where we develop perception of the Divine Nature of the planets.
We need to come to the point where we use our navigation of the energies, to more greatly fulfill our incarnational life purpose at this time, to act more according to our Divine Nature: achieving oneness with the Divine – now – which is the greatest achievement and purpose of the human life.
But I make the point that each person will experience the energy of Saturn differently – depending on their script for Saturn energies in this lifetime.
This is expressed by Saturn’s placement in sign, house and aspects in the birth chart for example: those are the filters through which we view the divine nature of any planet.
So, in a bit more detail, this can be understood natally, especially from their Vedic sidereal zodiac birth chart, such as the sign Saturn occupies, which House that is, which houses Saturn rules, which planets aspect Saturn, Saturn’s strength scores, how Saturn and other planets treat each other, etc.
And looking a bit more deeply, we can use astrology to understand more of the detail of how we will experience the Saturn Transit. For example, we have to consider the Ashtakavarga score: how well protected we are in the face of this transit, and what Saturn is an indicator (karaka) for: generally – and in our particular chart.
And, also, we do need to also bring in Western psychodynamic astrology (this is Western Astrology using the Tropical zodiac as a declaration of our psychological self, of our egoic self). We note what tropical zodiac sign Saturn occupies, what house, what aspects, and which aspect shapes Saturn is part of. This way, yes, we acknowledge that Saturn is a face of the Divine, as is each planet, bet we acknowledge how we experience Divine Saturn through ‘filters’ of sign, house and aspect.
In his benevolent full form – which we will experience only if we can develop our perceptions and understanding and only if we come to obey his requirements and lessons for us at this point in our life – in Saturn’s benevolent full form, we can experience peace and prosperity, good fortune and protection, good health, longevity and contact with the immortal.
Another point to remember, especially at this time of Saturn Retrograde, is that Saturn reveals the true essence of time.
We can experience the divine connection and bliss because Saturn’s slow-moving power dissolves the world of its duality.
As great teacher he restores peace and calm in our lives, and quietness in our inner life.
Saturn actually ploughs steadily through the web of our illusions, restoring integrity upon us and inculcating virtues of discipline and self-control, stability and mindfulness.
Saturn compels us to move beyond sorrow and ignorance, pretence and denial, to perceive the true nature of our deep samskaras – the karmic leftovers of our past actions from many lifetimes.
Saturn enables us to identify the cosmic patterns which have shaped us through several lifetimes – and so allowing us to potentially burn them as the cause of our unhappiness, despair and misfortune.
Saturn enables us to see through the idiotic scripts that may have been imposed on us by our childhood upbringing, by our schooling, by the society we live in.
Saturn moves slowly.
His power as a teacher is great.
Saturn actually also compels us to face the shadow, so as to come to see the full nature of our life, the full nature of our actions, the full nature of our situations. – so that we can understand and go beyond.
When Saturn forces us to face the shadow within our self and within our life, this reveals the light. He forces us to face the shadow inside ourselves.
So, often, we can be obsessed with the shadow in other people, and be overly critical, but fail to recognise the shadow in our self. We can be the whited sepulchre. We can be in proud denial.
But if that is the case then we will each have to face it all at the life review that will occur after our death.
Saturn makes us see that which limits the light.
Saturn makes us repeat every lesson until it is totally learnt.
Saturn holds the key that opens the door to the higher or eternal life.
He can take us through death to reach life.
You can book an Astrology Reading with me at: https://www.starwheelastrology.com/buyanastrologyreading.html
Or you can enrol on one of my courses at: www.mastervedicastrology.com
My wife, Maggie Pashley, offers a range of Healing modalities worldwide. Find out more at: https://maggiepashley.com/ or email Maggie at maggiepashley@gmail.com or call her on +353 899799642 (0899799642 from within Ireland).
