Dear Saturn in Capricorn Generation,
Here we are! Friday 20th March, 2020. It’s Spring Equinox in the North and winding down to Autumn in the South…and who would have thought you’d be coming to the end of your Saturn Return in isolation? I certainly didn’t.
Saturn has made its way to the final degree of Capricorn. This coming Saturn-day it will cross the border into Aquarius. It has now touched all 30 degrees of Capricorn since December 21st, 2017. Somewhere along the way Saturn has returned to that sensitive point in your own chart where you experience its stern hand of realism.
Saturn Returns
No doubt you’re aware that the Saturn Return is a pivotal life transit. There are others, but not like this. Saturn is the gate keeper. For the longest time it was the furthest, most outer planet that we knew of. Enveloped by its rings, Saturn bounced the door to stave off chaos. It maintained the limit and order of our known world. Saturn doesn’t fuck around. When it descends, it binds us within its rings. We can experience it as deprivation, a painful growth spurt and intense pressure.
Saturn takes us to the end of the line. It highlights what we have outgrown, where we need boundaries and reminds us in a multitude of ways about our fragile mortality. Time becomes a pressing issue as you realise for the first time in concrete Saturnian terms that youth is now behind you.
Saturn measures in 7 year cycles.
At age 7 we start asking kids what they want to be when they grow up. At 14, we push back against any oppressive rings of authority, yet still don’t fully understand consequence. By 21 you’re given a card that says you can drink and drive, and that you’re now old enough to know of the consequences if you do both at once. By 28-30 Saturn returns to the place it was at when you were born. It’s as if the previous three cycles were small tests that lead you to sitting this big exam, with the hope of graduating.
Saturn has by now touched everything in your chart. It has technically assessed and graduated every planet in every house. Literally nothing has been spared. It arrives home and asks, “You know who you are now, what are you going to do with it? Who will you be in this world? How will you show up and what will you contribute?”
In my experience with clients, it’s often the period just after the Saturn Return that is challenging and disorienting. Something needs to catch up. You emerge from an intensive that is nothing like the yoga retreats you see online and are released back to your life. Where you assert boundaries, how you show up and what you do and don’t take responsibility for is reflective of how you now relate to Saturn. You are released from the grips of its rings for the time being. Saturn has acted like a bumper car riding along side you, letting you know when to reign it in and when to push for growth. Now you are required to trust yourself, to put into action the lessons learnt. It’s not just what happens during the transit, it’s how you utilise in your life afterwards.
Your friend, Saturn
On a mundane level, world events illustrate the dance of the Cosmos; as above, so below. When you think about taking your first breath, do you know what was unfolding in the world or in your family’s lives at that time? Experiencing the events unfolding in the world right now, imagine being born. People born today are the Saturn in Capricorn generation following you. While you Saturn Return, they are just beginning. These world events are woven into their Saturn story. Each iteration of Saturn in Capricorn has its own flavour, its own particular transits and challenges and subsequent events occurring.
Saturn first moved into Capricorn on February 13th, 1988. The year prior was marked by a dance between Saturn and Uranus in fiery, freedom loving Sagittarius. This combination of Uranus’s revolutionary energy and Saturn’s tight grip of control moving into Capricorn within days of each other changed the mood dramatically. 1988 was much like what 2020 will be in terms of Saturn crossing the border of two signs. It entered into Capricorn, but then retrograded out, needing to complete something in Sagittarius. By December 1988 Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were all within the first 10 degrees of Capricorn. For the next two years, Saturn slowly and surely completed its journey, finally exiting on February 6, 1991.
Somewhere in that time frame, you were born!
Saturn in Capricorn
Saturn in Capricorn is said to be in Rulership; strong, dignified and having access to resources to get its job done. Due to Saturn’s need for boundaries and definition we often experience world events that involve borders, tensions arising under pressure and authority figures asserting their will. Sound familiar?
Your Saturn is inextricably tied up with Uranus, the great awakener, and Neptune with its urge to merge. These are not easy energies to attempt to contain (as Saturn would like) or deal with at once, as life often pressures us to do. Uranus is a disruptive, revolutionary energy that seeks to destabilise the status quo, to liberate us from any rut that may be draining our vitality and holding us back. Neptune on the other hand is nebulous. It rules things like the boundlessness of the ocean, things that alter our consciousness like drugs, meditation and prayer, as well as things we can’t see….like viruses!
Placing all of this energy in Capricorn adds another layer of push and pull. You may have experienced it as the desire to break free yet simultaneously feeling imprisoned or needing to create structure. Feeling the pull of responsibility yet simultaneously disillusioned and defeated. Spiritual highs being limited and/or commercialised by traditional systems like Governments and corporations which end up capitalising on fear and imposing limits on your freedom. There are endless ways this can express and you no doubt know of many more. Please feel free to drop comments below.
It’s a complicated energy and you can’t be blamed if you feel like life is a lot sometimes. While you have grown and matured over the past two years you have also had to contend with your own rebellious and revolutionary energy. You’ve had to define and understand what Spirituality means to you in a saturated, capitalistic world. You have had to sustain great pressure while you find your limit and understand in your bones what gives your life meaning.
When Saturn enters a new sign, the events of that year give us insight as to the themes and greater issues at play. As you can imagine, there was a lot going on in the world in 1988: plans were underway to remove all internal borders within Europe. This later became what we know today as the Shengin Agreement. The USA were testing nuclear weapons in Nevada, there was an accelerated break down of the ozone layer, Protestant – Catholic relations were tense in Northern Ireland and tension left brewing post Cold War resulted in a physical collision at sea (I can’t think of a better Saturn – Neptune in Capricorn analogy). The Soviet Union deliberately bumped into a US Navy Ship in the Black Sea over a disagreement about right of innocent passage (allowing vessels of another county to pass through territorial waters of another). Gays were banned then not banned then banned again from being in the US Military and Seamen went on strike at major ports in the UK, while Ronald Reagan was spreading his War on Drugs rhetoric around an increasingly conservative world.
Musical artists from those years include Tracey Chapman, George Michael, INXS, Tone-Loc, The Cure, Madonna, Milli Vanilli, Fine Young Canon Balls, Guns n’ Roses and Salt n’ Pepper. You can listen to hits of the year you were born here, as I have while writing this.
2020
As Saturn departs Capricorn on Saturday you can begin bidding your Saturn Return farewell. But as Saturn has likely taught you, don’t get too ahead of yourself! It will be back in Capricorn from July 1 – December 17 for one last hurrah!
You can take a look at your chart, or refer back to our reading together, and familiarise yourself with which area of life Saturn has been activating. Is it your 1st house of the Self, 2nd house of $ and personal resources, 3rd house of learning and siblings, 4th house of home and family, 5th house of creativity and personal expression, 6th house of work and service, 7th house of relationships, 8th house of the occult and death, 9th house of learning and travel, 10th house of career and reputation, 11th house of friends and community or 12th house of endings and completion? Where has Saturn been upgrading you? It will be leaving one area of life and moving into another this week. It will be this next area of life that you get to test your Saturn muscles.
Thank you…
I appreciate everything each and every one of you has shared with me. I have learnt a lot from working with you and feel confident about what you, as a generation, will contribute to the world from here on out. It may seem bleak right now, and that is a valid view, but as these old systems crumble it will be you who helps creates the new world. You’re ready for this! There is a recent post here if you want some further astro-understanding of current events.
May you keep your vision alive. May you move forward knowing you are standing on steady foundation stones that you have worked hard to set for yourself; they want to support you and foster growth. When you hear the voice of doubt and fear, listen with a rational mind and where need be, use your Saturn tools to set boundaries and push them back.
Saturn is your friend and wants to work with you. Use it as only Capricorn knows how!
~ Dru
