2.06.23 Moon Tracks
Saturn Opposition- A Personal Reflection on a Personal Transit
Fresh off the Leo Full Moon, the light wanes in the final degrees of the lion. Immediately the queen of the night finds herself opposing Saturn. The Moon and Saturn in opposition is a direct challenge to what is swimming in your environment, or a personal affront to what you define as safety.
Saturn is in his final phase in Aquarius after nearly 6 years in Saturn-ruled signs. Saturn is hovering around the 29th anaretic degree. Soon he will swim in Jupiterian waters, not fully certain what his time in Pisces will consist of. Assured it is murky, mostly unstable with little container, emotional and visceral unlike the cold, structured, mental space of Aquarius. I am doubling down on more feels. This final phase, with the closing degrees, has the potential to bring the final push of the cold front, the last late winter storm before spring is finally handed the baton. These are the final degrees to which ancient astrologers theorized as the falling apart, or better yet the balsamic phase of a planet’s will. The closing phase of what has been haunting or exciting, no longer holding the center, a light fading and dissolution is at hand.
Molly’s Moon-day Muse is a more personal reflection this week. Unlike every week I have reflected on, there is no major lunation in the next seven days. The Last Quarter will perfect in Scorpio next Monday. This week, the focus remains on a very personal transit and one I think others can learn from. Certainly if you are around the age off 44-45 years old, you too are experiencing an opening or closing Saturn opposition.
Currently, Saturn sits at 26 degrees of Aquarius, this is a critical degree for my natal chart, having natal Saturn at the 26th degree of Leo. My natal Saturn sits on one side of my natal chart looking directly at transiting Saturn in Aquarius. This is occurring across my 12th and 6th house axis. The Full Moon just peaked in my 12th house of Leo as well, illuminating the darker angels that live here.
The days leading up to this profection, but hitting the 26th degree, I woke after an hour of sleeping to an intense anxiety attack. I am not one to suffer from anxiety. In recent decades, I can count on one hand that I have experienced this. I bolted up out of bed like the Nine of Swords in the tarot, head in hands and then I took a deep breath. I breathed easier when I remembered that Saturn had just clicked into the 26th degree and the bounds of this great malefic was holding tight across my 6th and 12th axis. These are the hard houses, the houses of bad fortune and bad spirit, respectively. These houses signify our health, mental and physical. They speak to darker places, including our shadows, our subconscious, our fears, and our toils.
Saturn in my chart is in rough shape, being in his detriment in Leo, in the 12th place. Leo is ruled by the Sun and has no use for depressive, life-draining Saturn. Saturn, is the furthest inner planet from the Sun, and is the coldest metaphorically and literally. Saturn rules the northern hemisphere winter signs, Capricorn and Aquarius, where living life is stamped out. Saturn in the 12th has its joy, which means it truly rejoices at starving out joy. Saturn loves a good sacrifice, and demands endless, arduous hard work. Saturn can also teach important lessons, but you need endurance to grind out the jewels.
Saturn in the 12th in Leo, I struggle with my joy at times and confuse hard work and endless tasks as pleasure. I have patterns of excessively invoking schedules and plans to exhaustion, years of restricting calories and increasing hard exercise, in the past I have overindulged in activities that rob life force rather than nourish it. Natal Venus is present with Saturn, and she too is robbed of joy and love in this placement. Extremely self-critical, and overly yang in many manners, Venus has a hard time expressing her deeper yin earnings. I have great fears of public speaking and being the center of attention, I have bowed out of many opportunities that may have been advantageous for me out of the fear of public scrutiny, judgement, or just greater visibility. Self-love has been the hardest lesson the 12th house continuously fails to bridge. I have to work with great awareness to be kind to myself, and remind myself I deserve good things too. I also have to work with heightened awareness in relationships, not confusing power for love, and not to isolate myself too much in partnership or friendship. Ultimately over and over, the pattern of my 12th house demons circle the wagon of self-worth. There has been considerable work done in the above areas over the years, but the root is deep and I am not sure it can be fully extracted and disposed of. This is the 12th house, a place of where we cannot always fully hold the comprehension of the challenge, we just learn to work with it more effectively. We starve it when it gets too hungry, and too often we feed it in our weakest points.
This opposition season has brought all of these, and more to my conscious mind. Oppositions are of the nature of Saturn. It is what he does best. It is uncomfortable, it is uncomfortable typing and sharing this. Yet it is a teaching moment, mostly to myself, to let it surface and let the full light of this past Leo Full Moon really shine down on it.
The 12th house Saturn opposition for me has been one of self-reflection, and working more consciously of building a bridge or a pathway to allow these stronger shadows a place to walk along with kinder light, greater understanding. Raising up that which I run from? Loving it for all of its sores and bruises. Can I admit that I am not perfect? This is extremely hard for a Virgo rising, with a fiery Mars in occupation. There is so much to improve and to learn, but can I also be okay with just sitting on my hands and loving the space I have built just like it is? There are so many beautiful things surrounding me, even in the shadows, there is beauty. Can I allow Venus a space in the shadows to grow brighter, cut a hole in the roof and allow her to branch off towards the light? This I believe is what my spiritual life provides, and my astrological practice continuously feeds, the lighter side of the 12th house, the liminal spaces we feed. Do we feed the monsters or the angels? What exactly are we feeding them? This is the spiritual temple of our soul, and most battles for the soul demand honest reflection.
I have continuously had this image in the last couple months of connective tissue running through my life, I can envision it with vivid imagery. It is invisible, it runs through all the houses in our birth charts. I see areas of my life starved for oxygen, and other areas that need to die off, and some areas are healthy and vibrant and plump with love. The tendrils of these tissues can get intertwined and wrapped up, some begin to cut off circulation to the places we need it most. The winter season is always a good time to prune the plant back, in an attempt to encourage new growth.
The Saturn opposition makes us reflect on that pivotal point of our late 20’s when we had our first Saturn return. This half-way mark has us take stock and ask the hard questions, what are we starving and what are we feeding? How healthy are the pathways that connect us to community, to ourselves, to our hobbies. Is there life force present? Saturn rules rivers and waterways. Are our own channels blocked or wide-open for unimpeded flow?
It is no accident that this is the point in our lives where we may go through crises periods, divorces, quitting jobs, moving homes, mid-life crises. Saturn always brings the hard questions with a divining mirror. Are we brave enough to scry that mirror, and do we like what we see?
Saturn rules my 5th house, Capricorn, this is the house where Venus has her joy. Saturn and Venus need to work together to keep this house in order. Pluto moves into the anaretic degree in Capricorn this week as well. This is the closing phase for Pluto through the winter goats sign. He may leave us all behind the well-earned riches of our Capricorn transmutation, if only we have been keeping up with the renovations in the house he has been living.
Just yesterday, under the light of the Leo Moon, I told myself in the mirror, “I love you.” This morning I woke and repeated it. This is good medicine for a 12th house Saturn transit. Simple, direct, and cuts through the darkness for even a moment.
Are you having your Saturn opposition or return right now? Uncertain? Reach out to me, I would love to help you navigate this more challenging period with a better insight to what this more challenging planet is trying to convey.