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Astrology
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Excerpt from Donna's e-book:
An Astrological Guide to Self-Awareness: 2005 Edition
© Moon Maven Publications
Saturn and The
Mature Life Cycles
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by Donna Cunningham, MSW |
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©1997 by Donna Cunningham
Saturn has great significance for the Fifty-Something crowd. According to astrologers, it has to do with the wisdom gained of experience. Sometimes that wisdom comes from repeatedly bumping up against reality, and sometimes we learn our lessons more gracefully. Still, the Saturn times of our lives--like the ages of 50 and 57 and every seven years thereafter--are eras when we grow and mature, even when that isn't exactly what we had in mind. Saturn's orbit is divided into seven-year fractions, leading to the familiar observations about the seven-year itch.
I once saw a stunning photo collage from NASA of the four seasons of Saturn. The good news is that on Saturn, summer lasts 7 years. The bad news is that winter also lasts 7 years. Perhaps that is the source of the Biblical quote about 7 fat years and 7 lean years.
In keeping with Saturn’s association with maturation cycles, the approximate ages of 7, 14, 21, and 28 are significant times of maturing, along with every seventh year thereafter, including 49-50 and 57-59. The ages of 63-65, when many people retire, is another of those periods. If you are entering a Saturn cycle, you won’t feel it keenly for the entire two and a half year period Saturn is in that sign. The actual time it would affect you is less--anywhere for a couple of months to off and on for a year. Depending on where in a sign your Saturn falls at birth, you would only be affected while it is near Saturn's original position in your astrology chart.
Some time between your 57th and your 59th birthday, however, you experience what astrologers refer to as your Saturn return--the time when Saturn comes back to the exact spot in your birth chart where it was when you were born. Since Saturn's orbit around the earth takes 29 and a half years, you've already been through the return once, when you were in your late twenties. If that stands out as a particularly tough time of your life, however, remember that you're older and have collected a great deal more of that priceless wisdom of experience. Therefore, the second experience of this cycle is bound to be different from the first.
Let me not give you the impression that Saturn is causing your troubles--or, for that matter, bestowing rewards. The planets in your astrological chart don't actually cause anything to happen to you that you yourself haven't already initiated. If you look in the mirror and your hair is going gray or you've put on a few pounds, you don't blame the mirror, do you? Your astrological chart and the cycles it goes through are like that mirror, not creating your reality but merely reflecting it--in a most useful way. Saturn is not the only planet playing a role in the
50-Something segment of your life cycles, but it is a major one.
Let's take a look at how the second Saturn return affected three of the recent 50-Something generations. In reading these descriptions, you will find that Saturn’s sign modifies the experience considerably. For example, Saturn in Pisces at birth is far different from Saturn in Aries. Pisces is a dreamy, visionary, introspective sign while Aries is action-oriented and outer-directed. The challenges each faced during their Saturn returns reflected their own basic nature.
An issue for dreamers born with Saturn in Pisces is the conflict between their vision of how things should be and the realities they face and deal with in the real world. An idealistic lot, especially in youth, during their Saturn returns, they had to face, once more, the fact that we live in a world that is far from ideal. Thus, that transit could have been painful time of relinquishing certain ideals and saying goodbye to certain dreams. Sadder but wiser, they adjusted to dealing with the world as it actually was. Still, it helped many of them to be more grounded individuals and to build a more solid foundation for the future.
The lesson for those born with Saturn in Aries was patience and doing things properly rather than in a hasty and haphazard way. They are action oriented warrior types, and yet they all too often go off half-cocked, not planning well in their enthusiasm to tackle some new project. The presence of Saturn in Aries slowed things down to a crawl, much to their frustration and irritation. The end result, however, was a positive one, as they challenged themselves with far more difficult but worthwhile endeavors, and at the end of the two plus years, those who applied themselves built something of substance.
For those with Saturn in Taurus, the major issue during their second Saturn Return was their way of dealing with material possessions and finances, so they were challenged to forego unwise spending patterns, start to trim the fat, and stow away some savings. Many of them also confronted the fact that their tendency to accumulate STUFF made their lives unmanageable, so they pared down their storehouse of possessions to live more freely.
Whatever Saturn’s sign at birth may be, if you or your friends and family are entering a Saturn return or another part of the Saturn cycle, it is time to call on all the strengths you have gained from your years of living. Saturn has much to do with the wisdom gained from experience, and this is a time to digest and reflect on what you've learned and accomplished. Even when you're an honors graduate in the School of Hard Knocks, you can gain a sense of accomplishment and competence.
Some astrologically savvy people panic about their second Saturn return, particularly when the experiences of the first return—some time between the ages of 28-30—were devastating. The second Saturn return can be a much different experience than the first, as the Saturn functions in the second half of life have to do with maturity, reaping the rewards of long years of efforts, and the lessons we learn from experience. Where the first Saturn return has been difficult, it shocks people into reality, and they begin to develop the positive qualities of Saturn—self-discipline, responsibility, a canny sort of caution, self-reliance, and doing things right the first time we do them. Over the 28-30 years from the first return to the second, people who are doing Saturn right build solid foundations and go a long way toward accomplishing some of their life goals and purposes.
Some Saturns are more difficult than others, granted, and I might rank Saturn in the water signs among the more difficult (Scorpio most, Pisces second, and Cancer third among the water signs) and in the air signs (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius) as less troublesome. I would expect that you have learned from whatever mistakes you had been making at the time of your first Saturn return. What is important in assessing a Saturn return—or any Saturn transit—is to get the whole picture, including other transits that might have been in effect at the time.
One reader of my Dell Horoscope column was frightened about her second Saturn return because the first return was a disaster. Her mother died, her career hit the skids, and her first husband died in an automobile crash. To understand the future through astrology, it pays to look at the past, and not just at a single planet like Saturn, but at the whole picture.
After studying all the transits at the time of that first Saturn return, I was able to assure her that Saturn was in no manner accountable for that series of events. In her case, there were quite difficult, once-in-a-lifetime aspects from transiting outer planets at the same time as the return. Transiting Pluto was square her Sun and conjunct her Moon, while transiting Uranus set off the same aspects. In neither case was Saturn acting on its own, nor would any outer-planet aspects remotely as difficult be forming to Saturn at the time of her second Saturn return.
Even when the first Saturn return is difficult without any assistance from Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto, however, I am not convinced that the second return will be as difficult. I interview the person about the issues and events that came up during the year or two of the first Saturn return. I then ask what the person has learned and built in those areas of since the first Saturn return, in order to gauge what the second return might be like.
I consider the state of Saturn in the birth chart—its sign, house placement, and the aspects it receives from other planets. A strongly-placed Saturn with several difficult aspects may signal a difficult area of life, one that hopefully improves as the person matures. I question the person about the house of the horoscope it is placed in, for the issues around the matters ruled by that house are bound to come up once more. In the 7th house, for instance, a long-standing relationship like a marriage may need attention, for limitations in the way the relationship has nurtured each of the partners would have to be addressed. In the 2nd house, I would want to know about money management habits and how responsible the person has been in planning for retirement. When people can list ways they have learned lessons and grown in the areas of life Saturn represents in their charts and can demonstrate that, in fact, they are on fairly solid ground in those realms, I am less concerned about a difficult Saturn return the second time around.
Saturn times signal a reaping of what you've sown. The shorthand symbol for Saturn looks like a sickle, and what the ancients meant to evoke by that glyph was the sickle Father Time holds in his arms. The glyph is a reminder that when you've sown wisely and well, working hard for your goals, you tend to reap accordingly, but if you've neglected to weed, water, and till, your crop may be sparse. If you--or your younger relatives in their late twenties--are facing a Saturn return, it pays to examine what, exactly, you've sown over the past seven years, for that has a great deal to do with what you will reap. Those who have worked wisely and well often find the Saturn return a time of fruition. The second Saturn return, then, can be the pinnacle of a lifetime of work, but also a time for reflection and planning about how the next stage of life will be arranged.
Thus, if you're 50-Something and you haven't already begun to plan how you'll spend your time when you do retire, this second Saturn return is a good time to start. In astrology, Saturn also has to do with facing reality and the consequences of our actions, so starting now to correct any unwise health or financial practices is also a way to avoid future difficulties upon retirement. To paraphrase the old saying, Saturn helps those who help themselves!
I first committed myself to the field of astrology around the time of the first Saturn return—I have Saturn conjunct Uranus. My second Saturn return was quite a pleasant surprise. As happens to many of us in our late 50s, a Jupiter return was also in store, and, in fact, the Saturn return and the Jupiter return were exact the same week. That week, I got the urge to organize all my written works, sorting out “tear sheets” of my articles that had been published over the past several decades and floppy disks with the files for the articles and book. In the middle of this project, I started to realize how well the materials from various eras fitted together. Finally, I was stunned and pleased to discover that the materials I was organizing were falling into place as not one but two new books! I always say that if you take care of Saturn, Saturn will take care of you. My Saturn was natally in Gemini, and this Saturn return was a wonderful reaping of all the writing I had done over the years.
Many people find their Saturn cycles gratifying times of harvest, when they get to enjoy the rewards of years of hard work. They also experience new challenges, since the world seldom allows us to rest on our laurels very long. Without new challenges, however, we would stagnate, rather than face and even embrace each new stage of life. Greeting and discovering what is new about each stage of maturity is part of what I call The Joy of Saturn, who is for me, by now, an old, old friend.
This article appeared as “Saturn and the Mature Life cycles—Times of Challenge and Reward,” Dell Horoscope Magazine, 1/97, pp. 67-69.
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Donna Cunningham,
Astrologer
& Healer |
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Donna Cunningham is an internationally respected astrologer and the author of 13 books on metaphysical topics.
Donna Cunningham has a dual background in astrology and psychotherapy, with a Masters in Social Work from Columbia University and over 30 years experience as a professional astrologer. She considers doing the astrology charts of children to be a sacred trust. It is a way of knowing who these Indigo children are on their own terms rather than as their families, teachers, and society expect them to be.
In these sessions, she focuses on typical childhood concerns such as family and peer relationships, the best educational approaches, and the child's special gifts and abilities. She can be reached for consultations at (503)291-7891, by email, or at her web page. Ask about her special rate for children's charts.
Donna is also co-editor of Vibration and a frequent contributor. She has written fourteen books on astrology and other metaphysical topics, including her Flower Remedies Handbook. Astrologers who want to know the special considerations involved in doing children's charts can read the chapter on this topic in Donna's text, The Consulting Astrologer's Guidebook.
Listed in several Who’s Who volumes, she has given seminars on astrology around the world and won the prestigious Regulus Award at the 1998 UAC.
She teaches astrology classes online at: astrocollege.com
You may reach her for long-distance astrology consultations at her web site:
DonnaCunningham
MSW.com
by email:
moonmaven @spiritone.com
or by calling:
(503)291-7891.
For the past 20 years, she has worked with the flower remedies, and she is co-editor of Vibration Magazine, a free online educational quarterly at:
essences.com/
vibration/
For information on Donna's online classes about flower essences, visit her website:
DonnaCunningham
MSW.com
"Donna's first astrology ebook will be available in March.
For more
information go to her web page:
http://www.donna
cunninghammsw.com
This series is reprinted with gracious permission from Donna Cunningham.
©2002 Vibration Magazine/The World Wide Essence Society
PO Box 285
Concord, MA 01742
978 369-8454
If you are interested in ordering a copy of Donna's new ebook:
"Flower Remedies--How Plant's Energies Can Heal Us,"
It is $15, available at Moon Maven Publications:
www.moonmaven
publications.com
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