All of life consists of cycles. Think of your heart. Deoxygenated blood enters the right atrium. After its journey through the right side of your heart it heads to the lungs where in the pulmonary arteries it becomes oxygenated. From there it is ushered through the left side of your heart before exiting the aorta and flowing through the body’s muscles and tissues. This process of enrichment and depletion is a never-ending loop…heart-lungs-heart-tissues. On average this process occurs 100,000 times per day.
Speaking of a day, this too is a cycle… sunrise-noon-dusk-midnight. These ubiquitous four-portal cycles that are all around us, often go unnoticed but not unfelt. Much like the turning gears of the countless machines and tools we as humans have crafted, so too there are a plethora of cycles that are churning in the background of our lives, powering a numinous unfolding of an even greater “never-ending loop”. One that connects everything that is and ever was.
In this “mysterium oceanus” floats another tool, one passed down through multiple generations… Astrology. Think sonar. A system that allows seafarers to see deeply in otherwise dark and hidden waters. This maritime technique is used to navigate, measure distances, communicate with and or detect objects present in the depths. Literally giving form to what is indisputably an unknown and forbidding territory. I believe astrology is much the same, sounding out the energies we individually have been endowed with and then tracking them as we sail through a sea of ever-changing energies.
The planet attributed by astrology to bringing form and structure in our lives is Saturn. The ringed-one resides 6 notches from our Sun and is also the 2nd largest planet in our local galaxy. As the last planet visible to the naked-eye, Saturn represents a boundary, limits, and containment. In myth, Saturn is identified as Cronus, son of the sky god Uranus. After his father’s fall, Cronus established a new rule founded in civic harmony and acted as an authority who encouraged abundance through hard work.
Saturn too has a cycle. Its cycle is measured in relationship to its orbit around the Sun which takes approximately 29 years. During this journey Saturn passes through all the zodiac signs and registers four significant checkpoints (sound familiar?). These represent aspects in astrology and they are a square around age 7, an opposition around age 14, another square around age 21, and finally a fabled “Saturn Return”, or conjunction, around age 29. This same loop persists throughout your life, creating a potential Saturn Return at ages 58 and 87, complete with the complementary squares and oppositions in between.
As we pass through these portals of angularity, we experience the activation of Saturnian principles in our lives. Saturn is a taskmaster who rules time, karma, responsibility, and wisdom. During these approximate 7-year windows of time (think of the popularized seven-year itch) we are visited by Saturn in his role as the teacher of lessons in maturity and discipline. These lessons often come through some series of difficulties, delays, or obstacles all pushing for the continued unfolding of who we truly are and pointing us toward a greater level of self-mastery.
At the squares, we are tested. From the basic definition of a square, we can gain insight into what form of testing this might elicit. Squares aggravate. They manifest as situations that present a conflict in our life, things that compete with the way we have been doing something, shaking our confidence in some manner. And being that it's Saturn, stoking fears which make us question our commitments. These are not trivial periods of time but rather friction filled moments that push us toward some action we need to take to advance our own coming-of-age. This is a time of examining what is working and what is not, and making adjustments accordingly. Great growth is the potential outcome but not without challenges that act as sentinels pointing out what needs to be done.
At the opposition, we can also experience a challenge. This checkpoint is greatly affected by how one has dealt with the seven years since the square. Did we clear away the patterns or situations that were hindering our development? If not, these issues may raise their threatening head again shouting at us to get our stuff together. On the other hand, if we did deal with things, this can be a time of culmination where our adjustments pay off and prove successful but at the same time bring a greater level of responsibility than previously. Oppositions represent a fullness of something. That fullness can be either success or a breaking point that illuminates and makes abundantly clear that something has to change. This however should not be a period of despair but rather a time to see what it is you need to do. The way this will likely appear is by presenting us with a vision of the clear differences between where we are and where we need to be. The objective is to seek balance.
At the conjunction (also known as the Saturn Return), we experience the combined energies Saturn/Saturn bringing a union of interests to hasten great changes. This is truly one of the most important times in life. Everything gets thrown under a microscope and examined at its depths. This period is often marked by endings and new beginnings. Relationships often change or end, residences or jobs, a sense of urgency in so many areas rises up prominently into our awareness. If we were successful at our first Saturn return at addressing what needed to be addressed, our second Saturn Return will likely be a period where we solidify that and move into new phases. If we did not address things properly twenty-nine years ago there may be a new crisis to pass through which, if we allow it, can become just what we need.
Saturn transits and especially the return constitute some of the most maturing moments we experience in our lives. Their influence is actually not just at the moment of exactness of the aspect but rather are often felt one year prior and one year after. It’s a process. And just like the cycle of the human heart where there is a depletion followed by an enrichment, and the cycle of a day where there is darkness followed by light, Saturnian portals too can deplete us and create unwanted darkness. But when we surrender to Saturn’s lessons, we too can experience the enrichment and illumination that we need to pursue our true path and purpose.
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