The client’s chart upon which I’m now concentrating has Aquarius rising. This means that the chart ruler is Saturn, which is now undergoing a bit of a battering by transiting Pluto.
In keeping with this challenge, I thought it useful to revisit how Saturn fares in each of the twelve signs and houses. The following comes from a lecture given by Dermod Moore for the CPA in February 2002.
Keywords for Saturn – Structure, Strength, Boundaries, Defense mechanisms and/or Denial/Projection
Saturn is two-faced – both a friend and a foe. With one hand, he gives us the structure & strength necessary to succeed in life but with the other, he makes us feel as if we’re a foolish failure.
I suppose that at the end of the day, Saturn is doing us a favor by highlighting where it is exactly that we’re most vulnerable. How else we could we shore up those weaknesses to be strong? But I will say that Saturn (natal/progression/transit) certainly doesn’t feel very nice. Oh well, as Dermod points out – at least Saturn is fair if not compassionate.
| SIGN | HOUSE | |
| Aries/ 1st | Denial of personal identity and self-expression so as to blend with others more harmoniously. Defenses may include overcompensation with fiery bluster – i.e. the ‘paper tiger’. | Fear won’t be welcomed in the world – the (tarot) Fool scared to take that all important first ‘leap’. Prone to adopt false identity (mask) behind which to hide with resultant anger for being thus compromised. |
| Taurus/ 2nd | Lack of security and/or lack of comfort in own body/skin. Difficulties accessing personal value system and/or lack of personal resources. Defenses may include greed and hoarding. | Fear of using personal resources or of acting in concert with own values. Eating disorders and clutching at straws – anything to avoid falling into the abyss (of the 8th house). |
| Gemini / 3rd | Difficulty playing and/or sharing/learning. Gifts include ability to concentrate. Defenses may include becoming workaholic and/or generalised overcompensation. | Blocked communication with self and others. Speech and/or learning disorders. Fear of being thought stupid/uneducated. Accident prone especially re: travel. Denial of ability to cope with physical reality. |
| Cancer / 4th | Fearful of being overwhelmed by feelings or that feelings won’t be accepted and/or understood. Inability to nurture/be nurtured. Defenses may include addictive, compulsive behaviors and/or frozen passions. | Fear of strong father or ashamed of weak father/fatherland. Feeling unloved and unwanted – emotional instability and/or mistrust of emotional intimacy. Tied to family and/or place of birth or, alternatively, developing a sincere dislike (or worse) of either or both. |
| Leo / 5th | Feeling denied of ability to play and have fun or to be acknowledged as special. Gifts include excellent leadership skills. Defenses may include self-sabotage to address fear of taking life seriously and/or becoming successful. | Going through the motions of ‘having fun’ – the ultimate and compulsive ‘playboy’. Fear of being disliked. Blocked creative flow. Demands too much from others yet never satisfied. Often manifests as unwillingness or inability to have children. Often perceived as having a ‘heart of stone.’ |
| Virgo / 6th | Fear of not being perfect enough. Gifts include ability to turn chaos into order. Defenses may include hypochondria and fear of losing control. | Does ‘dog work’ rather than intrinsically valuable work as a consequence of inability/unwillingness to see forest for the trees. Nervous complaints. Frustration, ill-health, disappointment often the result of being ‘lost in the daily grind’. |
| Libra / 7th | Paralysis; fear to take decisions. Hazy boundaries to avoid losing connection with others. Devil’s advocate – good mediating skills. Defenses include being ‘too nice’ and being overly ‘objective’. | Needs to admit vulnerability to the ‘other’ as well as to share in the responsibility of relationship. Fears of isolation, rejection, and disappointment. Marriage/partnership can become a duty. Sacrifice of love for safety. Equally, strong ability to form healthy commitments for life as long as willing to accept not a victim (of circumstance). |
| Scorpio / 8th | Fear of exposure and/or intimacy. – indeed fear of just about everything. Blocking personal passions. Gift of compassion. Defenses include exploiting vulnerabilities of others (to gain power over). | Problems relinquishing power (over). Hence issues achieving desired levels of intimacy. Family secrets and/or shameful inheritance. False laughter is not the best medicine. What goes wrong (re: sex & money) is not always someone else’s fault. |
| Sagittarius / 9th | Blocked faith and/or trust – can’t conceive that everything could be OK. Life ought not to be joyful. Defenses include feeling personally persecuted. | Dark horizons, crisis of faith. Religious inclination tends to be dogmatic – if someone in authority says that its true then it must be – even if based on coercion and/or guilt. Eventually (hopefully) Saturn in the 9th becomes his own authority and when this happens, doors start to open rather than close. |
| Capricorn / 10th | Stiff upper lip. Get on with the job. Pessimism. Fear of failure. Gifts include strength of purpose. Defenses include blind conformity, acceptance of conservative attitude at expense of authenticity. | Career progresses in fits and starts – difficulties and delays are manifest. Often must fail ‘big’ before achieving success. Difficulty working in groups as needs to be authority figure. Strong inner sense of purpose will eventually yield improved status/social position even if that ‘success’ is projected onto another (i.e. wife projects her ambitions onto successful husband or secretary/PA to his/her high-flying boss). |
| Aquarius / 11th | Fear of failing to be authentic and unique – adamant refusal to be stereotyped. Gifts include seed for change and ideological reform. Defenses include dogmatic attitude and/or doing anything & everything to make oneself stand out from the crowd. | Difficulty and/or fears around fitting into groups – feeling like an outsider or even the scapegoat. Inept at social graces. Best to avoid tendency to take position that there is no ‘need of friends’ – no man can stand as an island, or so conventional wisdom says. Equally possible to cram so many social activities into the calendar that there is no time to be alone. |
| Pisces / 12th | Fear of being overwhelmed/deluged by whatever is ‘out there’. Gifts include working with the collective through the symbolic (i.e. marketing or fashion). Defenses may include hyper-rationalization, refusing to believe what you intuitively know to be true. | Gets sucked into everything – all that glitters appears to be gold – getting blindsided or attacked without apparent rhyme or reason – feeling defenseless. Everything done must have articulated purpose else there’s a generalized (unarticulated) fear (and guilt) of ‘floating’. ‘Selfless’ dedication/devotion to another – but is the ‘sacrifice’ worth it? |
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