29.4 Earth years (10,755.7 Earth days)
Distinguishing features: Like Jupiter, Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Its volume is 755 times greater than that of Earth. Winds in the upper atmosphere reach 500 meters (1,600 feet) per second in the equatorial region. (In contrast, the strongest hurricane-force winds on Earth top out at about 110 meters, or 360 feet, per second.) Though Saturn’s magnetic field is not as huge as Jupiter’s, it is still 578 times as powerful as Earth’s. Saturn, the rings, and many of the satellites lie totally within Saturn’s enormous magnetosphere, the region of space in which the behavior of electrically charged particles is influenced more by Saturn’s magnetic field than by the solar wind.
Zodiac Sign Rulership: Capricorn Old Rulerships: Capricorn and Aquarius
Saturn is the last planet in the solar system that can be seen with the naked eye from the earth. As such, together with the fact that it is bounded by a series of rings, Saturn represents the boundaries of the individual.
After the limitless expansion of Jupiter, Saturn in the birth chart represents boundaries and limitations. It is the principle of structure and form. In the body, it is the skeleton, which gives the body its structure, and the skin, which is the boundary to the outside world. In the mind, it is the structure of our ego and our sense of self which we seek to preserve from the impact of changes from within and from the outside world. Saturn gives us the ability to endure setbacks and work with discipline and patience toward well defined aims. It is the need for social approval through some kind of tangible achievement. Whereas Jupiter brings rewards and opportunities through what we might call good luck, Saturn brings rewards and opportunities through hard work, limitation and self discipline.
Saturn’s sign position of and aspects to Saturn show how we seek to establish ourselves as individuals and find our place in the social system of which we are a part. Any form or structure, however, when placed in the light of the Sun tends to cast a shadow. The position of Saturn in the chart therefore, shows where we find our “shadow”. It is here that we meet with our greatest sense of inadequacy, lack of faith and inhibitions. Saturn shows where we are most fearful, and hence most rigid; but if these fears can be met and overcome it is the source of our greatest strength and a solid foundation from which to meet the world.
Saturn represents your sense of responsibility and limitations. Nevertheless, it is also the planet that teaches the important lessons of life and can become your greatest strength. The zodiac sign it occupies shows how you react to setbacks and the areas in which you are most fearful and insecure.
If you do not know your Saturn Sign find out with your Soul Profile
You are learning to be self-assertive . . .
and sure of your standpoint, whatever that might be, as indicated by your horoscope as a whole. In order that this lesson can be learned therefore, you will often find yourself left to your own devices. It could be said that the very first lesson here is one of your learning to enjoy and make use of the freedom of movement and expression that this offers – or rather imposes.
By the same token, any form of order or discipline other than that which you have won through your own efforts just won’t stand up. You have to drive in the first post and blaze the first trail. “Beaten paths are for beaten people” as one leader once said. However, in the process, try not to be too harsh upon yourself or others as you doggedly pursue that point down the lonesome road of self-discovery upon which you’ve fixed your gaze.
You are learning to set . . .
the correct value on things. This in turn poses that you have a particularly good sense of material values on the one hand, but tend to undervalue intangibles. All the same, money can be a critical source of worry – either because you’re frightened of losing what you already possess, or because you’re in debt, or funds seem hard to come by.
In the first case, you are attaching too much importance to it; in the second you probably haven’t taken it seriously enough; in the third case you’d need to understand that cash flow is not really logical and has something to do with how well off you feel you ought to be. Which brings us back to undervaluing intangibles – that is, your psychological or emotional state and that of others and life itself.
You are learning to ascribe . . .
the right value to logical thought. Considering that rational thinking has been dominating our society for the last few hundred years, you have to be extra careful how you do this. Either you are the type that virtually worships the intellect with everything in life having to have a logical explanation, or, you feel hampered by not being able to reason things through and can actually wind up being anti-intellectual.
Eventually you’ll either find that you get confronted by a situation that defies logic, in which case you will need to get in touch with what your feelings and intuition are trying to tell you, or you might be confronted by a situation that you cannot feel or bluff your way through so you just have to work it out logically, or get down to some studying.
You are learning the true meaning . . .
of care and sympathy; striving to gain an objective view of emotional involvements, but without becoming uninvolved altogether. In order to gain this view you are sometimes made to feel emotionally alienated. You are forced to discover precisely what you feel and who you feel for.
It’s difficult for you to pretend to feel what you do not and even if you do, it comes across as obviously false. When you manage to express your feelings genuinely, your inner strength is of great help and a great lesson to others – possibly even in a professional capacity.
You are learning to establish . . .
your self-esteem without getting too big for your boots and to command respect without being dictatorial. Where you’re concerned, self-importance when carried too far attracts a fall from grace. However, seeing that Saturn often represents doubt, fear and what you’re not sure of, there is a strong likelihood of your being so anxious about that possible fall from grace that you hide your light under a bushel.
This is hardly putting yourself to the test though, so Saturn makes sure that something else comes into your life – in some form of authority or suppression such as a parent, a partner, school, church or government, or a certain imposed responsibility – that forces you to develop your potentials rather than allowing you to bemoan your fate.
You are learning to distinguish . . .
between essentials and non-essentials, between what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ for you. Such tests as these can drive you to extremes of self-denial and self-indulgence by way of compensation. At times your conscience is like an altar at which all desires for Earthly pleasures are sacrificed; at other times you busily set about desecrating it.
In order to alleviate this possible confusion as you seesaw between your purist intentions and your more realistic physical and emotional needs, I suggest that you allot definite or equal amounts of time and energy to both work and periods spent alone, as well as to pleasure and social activities. Avoid taking yourself to task to an almost masochistic extent when you fall below your standards. At the same time though, it’s true that your task is to stick to your guns over matters of health and work.
You are learning the most . . .
important lesson in life – balance. This means that you find yourself in situations where you have to decrease what there’s too much of and increase what there’s too little of. One-to-one relationships are particularly demanding as you have the task of establishing who is responsible for what, of being utterly fair in granting yourself and the other person equal rights, allowances for human error, etc.
Because balance is more of a critical factor for you than it is for most others, it would seem that there is often a steep imbalance between your position and the other person’s. Grist for the mill, you could say. Upon passing this test, finding that crucial balance, you can land yourself with a relationship that is far more stable than most and become, in general, a fair judge of social affairs.
You are learning to effectively . . .
handle and express any kind of power, be it sexual, political, personal, material or whatever. There is an intensity about the way you pursue your aims and objects of desire and you’re hard to stop once you have decided upon a particular course of action.
Equally, and maybe because of this, you can torment yourself over what course of action to take; but this is understandable considering the damage that could be wrought if your energies were misdirected. Negatively, you can display a ruthlessly controlling and scheming nature. You may, on the other hand, be a victim rather than a perpetrator of such, but it still points to the necessity of looking at how you are, or are not, expressing your power and desires.
You are learning to build . . .
a sound set of religious and moral principles that will guide and give meaning to your life and thereby, the lives of others. As if to force this issue, it’s quite likely that you have a background of religious dogma or emptiness that has limited your scope in life. This can amount to a great need for social or educational awards which you feel will put you on the map and indeed, because of this, you are likely to win them.
However, you find that having a handle to your name does not give you anything to hang on to when the spiritual chips are down so eventually you must go seeking to find what your guiding principles are in the moral or philosophical sense. In the meantime, you’re given to playing the role of Devil’s Advocate to the spoutings of ardently emotional ‘believers’. This does help keep feet firmly on the ground, but be careful that this isn’t just a mask that hides your own lack of beliefs.
You are simply learning . . .
to know your place – and this can be interpreted in two ways. Negatively expressed, ‘knowing your place’ can mean anything but that. In other words, you can be inclined to succumb to whatever society expects from your class, race, creed, material standing, etc. There could also be a compensatory reaction to this whereby you avoid and resist what these things demand of you or brand you as – but without actually doing your own thing either.
Alternatively, you appreciate that your place in the world is what you establish through your own efforts and then your strong streak of self-determination comes into being, along with your inherent sense of discipline and orderliness. By exploiting what business and society have to offer, rather than getting bogged down in it, you can become the archetypal self-made person.
You are learning to free yourself . . .
from whatever is inhibiting you. In order to do this you have to establish a set of rules that allows you to break the rules that were laid down for you initially. If this sounds like a recipe for hypocrisy then you’re right, it is – and you could lose (or never gain) many friends as a reaction to your double standards.
If, on the other hand, you take the trouble to devise a set of moral, political or psychological principles – and stick to them – then your impartial view of life can be of enormous help to anyone who feels caught between two camps. In order that you begin to meet this objective, you will attract relationships and situations that force you to come clean with the stark truth of the matter. In the process though, beware of merely being offhand about your shortcomings, because that would put you back to square one.
You are learning to cultivate . . .
an inner seriousness and a deep understanding of life and others. You could be described as an ‘ancient soul’ with the woes and wisdom that go with it. You have suffered at the hands of others and so are sympathetic to suffering. You emanate a gentle and somewhat solemn light that guides and comforts in a very subtle way.
However, you’re also having to learn to draw the line in your forbearance of others’ failings – a practice that can become a mask to conceal your own. This is owing to a complexity of your character that has something to do with a need to dissolve inhibitions mixed up with a somewhat indiscriminate limiting of your own potentials. Inevitably this drives you to embark on a plumbing of your own depths and you owe it to yourself to find the quiet and solitude in which to accomplish this.
