It’s raining steadily, the forecast promises rain all day and the view from my kitchen window looks bleak. I love the sunshine as many of us do and I often feel a shift in mood when the weather’s cold and grey.
I felt distinctly uninspired this morning and unsurprisingly I was drawn to a blog article on Saturn transits by the excellent astrologer Jo Tracey. In astrology, Saturn has a reputation of being a bleak planet, associated with the colour grey.
This got me thinking about my own Saturn transit over my Sun in Scorpio. Saturn’s moving away from the Sun in my chart but it’s still a close orb (i.e. less than 2 degrees away from my Sun), plus Saturn is now squaring my natal Saturn.
This may be too much astrobabble for some of you but for me it helped bring a sense of clarity to my situation. I have Sun square Saturn natally and with Saturn ruling my 10th house of career I understand this energy and the way it works.
I can be incredibly hard-working and productive. I love a deadline and I pride myself on the fact that, as a media astrologer, I have never missed a deadline. When I’m on, I’m on. However, the opposite is also true so at times I become paralysed, overcome with inertia and find my energy crashes. The Sun-Saturn square works for me like an on-off switch, it’s black or white, with few shades of grey inbetween.
Saturn currently in Scorpio intensifies these themes and just as Saturn can be about hard work, productivity and building for the future, there’s a flip side that involves obstacles, lack and feeling stuck. Saturn transits can be the equivalent of carrying a load or burden which is so weighty you can’t see where you’re going (hence the photo of the man on his bicycle).
Once you have an understanding of planetary transits you can work with them and this helps you gain a new perspective on your situation. In astrology as in life, it’s important to start by accepting where you’re at. Saturn transits often require a reality check, deciding what’s possible and what’s not. It’s going to be a busy period on the run up to Christmas, plus there’s a sense of bringing things to a close and a theme of endings as one year finishes and we all begin to prepare for a new year. It helps to be realistic what you can and can’t achieve and work within those limitations.
There’s also a deeper level on this current Saturn transit in Scorpio for me as my Saturn is in the 11th house, which rules friends and I’ve seen a few friends go through unexpected near-death experiences. Thankfully, they’ve all survived and come out the other end but this has left me and them reprioritising what’s important. It’s a harsh reminder how precious life is and how death is an inevitable consequence of our journey on this planet. Saturn, the realist, reminds us that life is short and we owe it to ourselves and others to make the most of our time on earth and to live as well as we possibly can.
Saturn is in Scorpio from October 5th 2012 – December 23rd 2014 and June 15th 2015 – September 18th 2015
For more on Saturn, check out astrologer Adam Smith’s excellent book Saturn, Fatal Attraction
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