I’ve had comments that this information about Saturn is a lot to take in, so the Synastry Q & A normally scheduled for Fridays will be suspended for this week. I’ll resume answering questions on synastry next Friday.
Please read Part One of this article (Saturn as a Relationship Plant (part One) before moving on to this one.
Saturn’s bad rap these days has a lot to do with his loss of stature as partner to the Moon. As a culture, we have rejected the mature and creative Saturn, 
the husband to material existence. (This applies to both sexes.) The consequence is that we have denigrated and demonized Saturn. Saturn now is about everything we have to do (but don’t want to). Saturn is about lessons we need to learn. Saturn points out where we’re lacking. But when Saturn is partnered to the Moon, Saturn teaches us how to get what we want and need. Saturn fulfills our hungers. Saturn points out what we’re missing so that we can use our other planets and talents to fill the gaps. Saturn allows us to move the world in the direction we want it to move. (We will get into this more when I talk about the earth signs and magic.) Most of the time, if you look closely at a chart, Saturn isn’t the cause of the problem, it’s the thing that’s pointing out where the problem is. It’s a subtle but important difference. The real difficulties often come from other parts of the chart.
These days, Saturn tends to represent a mindless, cruel and repressive authority. (Mindless repression has more to do with the fixed air of the Aquarian archetype. See the article, “The Dank Underbelly of the Aquarian Age.”) Saturn is something we rebel against. Saturn is something we are reluctant to embrace. Granted, history has a lot to answer for. Female oppression has a lot to do with being under Saturn’s thumb, but this is what happens when Saturn loses touch with the Moon. Saturn, as a planet, is not inherently cruel, or mindless. Saturn as creator is all but forgotten. But given that the MC/IC axis has to do with material reality, and our own self-actualization, imbalances there have to do with practical, real-life issues, and usually manifest in some direct way. This can be painful, because our faults are pointed out so clearly and so personally, unlike the issues that arise when Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are in play. Our Saturn imbalances can result in real solutions, if only we allow for new directions and alter whatever patterns we have allowed to entrap us. Where Saturn is concerned, we have to find where we are blocked and then make decisions that allow us to express our real needs and desires. And then we have to act on them.
There is a flow involved in Saturn’s process that is not recognized these days. The ancient symbol for Capricorn is not the mountain goat, but the 
melusine, a mermaid-like, freshwater nymph who could move over the earth as well as in water. The melusine herself can be seen as a symbol for the movement between the IC and the MC, the deep water of the fourth and the earthy grounding of the tenth houses allowing life to emerge. You can see her, sitting on her rock, in both the glyph for Capricorn and the glyph for Saturn.
Can we project Saturn? Absolutely. Well, we can try. Saturn has a way of not letting go, and it will wait a lifetime to point out the things it wants to point out. Young women can be particularly prone to giving Saturn over to someone else, but it can happen both ways, of course. In our culture, it has been socially acceptable for women to project Saturn. (For a while, it looked like this was changing, but it seems to be swinging back.) Just look at age differences in relationships. Fifteen years between a couple when the man is older doesn’t cause a blink any more, if it ever did. There is still a shock when the woman is the more mature partner. (This will change, too, when there is more flow between Saturn and the Moon. A woman’s life experience will not be valued less than a man’s. ) Women regularly hand over their Saturns to men who are older, more sophisticated, more famous, more knowledgeable—someone who can be seen to have accomplished something in the world, who has been out there and knows how the world works. The underlying implication is, “So now I don’t have to, my Venus is enough.” She may still have her ambition, and may in fact learn Saturn lessons from the relationship which will help her learn how to fulfill her own needs, but temporarily the Saturn gap is filled. Men aren’t allowed to hand Saturn over in quite this way. They’re stuck with getting on with it on their own.
Rejection or projection of Saturn reflects in the Peter Pan syndrome, “I don’t want to grow up.” Saturn/father issues are often projected onto authority figures (including Mom, which is where it can get complicated.) Again, due to the cultural split between Saturn and the Moon, we can be highly successful in our external world/career and completely adolescent when it comes to relationships and life skills. (I’ve seen this happen even with prominent and well-aspected Saturns, but usually in those cases the IC and the planets ruling the angle have problems.) Men who reject Saturn usually remain stuck at the Mars level (Asc/I/doing). Women who reject Saturn tend to throw themselves into Venus (Desc/other/relating). In extremes, both sexes can regress back down to the lunar level when Saturn isn’t working. (I don’t think anyone can throw themselves into the Sun.) For either sex, Saturn can be about getting others to give us the things we should get for ourselves.
Young woman letting Daddy or the boyfriend pay the bills? Saturn. (If you think this doesn’t happen much, try living in Los Angeles for a while.) Woman marrying for status, money or security? Saturn. Man still living at home in his middle years, letting Mom take care of the cooking and cleaning? Married man who expects his wife to do everything his mother did for him? Either sex locked in a time warp? It’s a good relationship with Saturn, not Mars, that gives us all our independence. Saturn in good relation to the Moon allows us to accept the passage of time and still retain our childhood enthusiasm and delight in the world. Successful partnerships require this. Otherwise, we will not accept our own or our partners’ growing maturity.
In the same way that successful relationships require both sexes to embrace Venus and Mars (try being with a man who hasn’t got his self-worth or values in tact, or a woman who denies her aggression), our other “I” axis, our axis of psychological integration, requires that we strive for balance. In order to be happy, in order to consider ourselves successful, we need to relate to others in real terms. The journey of the MC/IC is the process of seeing our innermost being relate honestly to the world at large. We can only do this through partnership with others, whether romantically or in the purest sense of relating. Our relationships provide the mirror by which we understand ourselves, and therefore, understand how to make our lives authentic.
The attraction principle belongs to the Asc/Desc, but the actual working day to day relationship belongs to the MC/IC, and Saturn/Moon. The process of building a life with someone is related to the MC/IC. The axis rules home and work and everything related to those two things. What else do most of us have? In this culture, it’s pretty much how we divide the world. Whether or not I’m attracted to you is an Asc/Desc thing. Will you give me what I need, make a home with me, and stand with me as my partner in the world is an IC/MC thing. There are more breakups over the latter than the former. Problems with one feed the other.
There are many sides to Saturn, but one of the most neglected is its role as a grown-up Mars. If we can’t see our partners as individuals in their own right, if we don’t take responsibility for what we have initiated, if we don’t acknowledge and respect one another’s independence, if we don’t realize that we must nurture what we build, if we can’t help our partners realize what they have within them, then we will never be a decent companion for the long term. All these things relate to Saturn as creator, as partner to the Moon, and to the 10th house in relation to the fourth. If you just want a good time on a weekend evening, then none of this matters. If you’re thinking about building a life with someone, it’s everything.
Successful partnerships equal successful lives. No matter how inclined I am to go it alone, I must embrace my responsibility to my own development, and that cannot occur in a vacuum. If I feel safe with you, if I trust you to respect my inner world and help me to realize what I need to become, you are the midwife to my ongoing development. There is no greater intimacy and no greater bonding than this. No matter our quirks, kinks, eccentricities or radical attitudes, we will not be proper partners to one another or proper partners to the world itself unless we accept Saturn. Saturn is exalted in Libra. With Saturn, we take responsibility for who and what we love. People don’t talk much about Saturn’s role in receiving rewards, but it is, in fact, that planet that bestows gifts. If Saturn is embraced, the rewards are immeasurable, both internally in the emotional realm, and externally in the workaday world
Next time we will look at the MC/IC directly and see how it plays out between charts.
so without doing the work of Saturn and the MC IC axis we fall into a culturally proscribed, gender based, default identity ( Men stuck with Mars /ascendent and Women stuck with Venus/descendent) that seems unconscious to a significant degree, lacks true independence, and is not related in any real way to who we are as individuals on the deepest levels.
when you first read my chart in 2006 – and pointed out my Leo Mars on the midhaven and how it indicated a rush to the Aries NN and that it kept my male and female sides fragmented – it was hard to fathom because i was so polarized towards Mars and the fulfillment it supplied thru a successful career. now three years later – i’m hosting a small group where we are using astrology to facilitate a friendly shared intimacy – and the charts of the participants all have these angular things going on that take us into work of the MC IC axis and Saturn. any shift around one angle and its values seems to have an impact on the other angles.
you mentioned that squares are the aspect of anger – i am wondering if the work around the angles will usually require some rearrangement of attitudes and experiences regarding anger. i know it did for me with Mars on an angle – but is it generally true that reclaiming a rejected or projected angle will take us thru anger issues ?
The problem with Saturn is that if we don’t hook it up to the IC and the Moon, we will then fall into cultural stereotype. If Saturn isn’t attached to our emotions, to what we really want and need, then it will build defenses around those unconscious needs and it will think that it can be fulfilled with whatever the culture tells it to expect. Sadly, this unthinking, gender-based identity is running rampant these days, and many are continually unsatisfied and haven’t a clue what’s going on. We haven’t really moved on very far.
The angles do tend to work as a pair, with both ends of an angle playing off one another. It’s amazing to see how working one end of an angle will free the other end. The most important thing is to embody both ends of the angle. With the Asc/Desc, we have to acknowledge both the Mars and Venus, what we desire and how we achieve those desires. With the IC/MC, we’re talking about self-actualization, how our needs, and our inner power, become established in the world. If there is balance, we can help ourselves and others by being genuine. Saturn’s lessons are no longer burdensome, but joyful.
When I described squares as angry I was taking poetic license; those planets are usually looking for a way to duke it out to some resolution. The tension can take a number of avenues, including depression, nervous frustration and denial (the mode of the square will matter–cardinal, fixed or mutable). But yes, there are often anger issues that come up between the planets and houses in a square, and these should be brought out into the open. As I said in my recent article on aspects, semi-squares can be particularly prone to anger, because there seems to be no avenue of resolution. Planets in square know what they’re fighting about.
Depending on natal charts, the angles may not necessarily be in literal square to one another. Depending on the qualities of the angle, reactions can vary. Shame or guilt for past behaviour is as common a reaction as anger. Withdrawing projections can at first bring on a whole plethora of emotions. Sometimes, if they’re severe, they follow the stages of grief that Elizabeth Kubler Ross first explained. It is, in fact, a kind of death.
Hi Dawn,
I would like to ask you about the Saturn return. Some or most astrologers say /and I have come across this opinion many times/, that we should not take the easy way out during our Saturn return and that we should learn our lessons during this transit. My natal Saturn is in the 12th house, sextil Uranus and Square Neptune /and trine Chiron/.
/You might remember my earlier post I wrote about my Saturn return on Loving the hurt Venus-Chiron/.
Anyway, my question – regarding the „easy way out“ – is: Would taking the antidepressants be considered as the easy way out as I think those pills saved my life? I’m a bit worried that I might have not learned the Saturn lessons in a proper way because I „helped“ myself with the pills and that I will have to face up the consequences once the transiting Saturn squares or opposes my natal Saturn. I do hope it will not be that bad again…
thank you very much, kat
Hi kat,
Don’t worry about the medication. If it helped you deal with things in a more rational way, then that’s all that matters. Think of it this way–Saturn is very earthy, it wants us to deal with real things in real time. We can’t do this if we’re not seeing things clearly.
We don’t finish our lessons at the Saturn return. It’s an ending, but it’s also a beginning. The square and the opposition will also be challenging, but we’re older, have more experience of the world, and hopefully have learned to deal with the world in a more constructive way. Saturn is an ongoing process. Saturn brings challenges, but people forget that it’s Saturn that brings us concrete rewards and the things that make us happy on a day to day basis. Saturn becomes the place where we go for stability and comfort. As long as we make our genuine best attempts where Saturn is concerned, he is fulfilled.
“Successful partnerships equal successful lives.”
I love this, it made me smile! I have NN in the 7th and I dream to get to that point.
How would you define a moon/neptune conjunction, with neptune exactly conjunct the descendant and the moon falling in the 6th house. Neptune is receiving an inconjunction from a 12th house Saturn and this individual has serious relationship issues wherein his relationships all receive maternal interference. Would the Saturn/Moon inconjunction tend toward relationships with older women?.
Hello, Cibal–A man with a Moon/Neptune conjunction on his Descendant (it doesn’t matter which house it falls in) has some powerful illusions and delusions to deal with regarding his relationships with women. With Moon/Neptune there, he may be confusing his ideal partner with dreams of an ideal mother. He may never see his partners for who they truly are, and project his own needs on to them. He may long to be mothered by someone, and then have it all go wrong because of the Saturn influence. When Saturn is in the 12th house, there are usually father issues involved. The father may have been absent or inaccessible, and there may be Oedipal overtones. There is a conflict (and possibly a fear) between wanting to be an adult male (which may seem impossible) and being a child. The childhood may be seen through rose-coloured glasses, when the real hurt and pain and separation involved may have been swept under the carpet. Moon/Saturn doesn’t necessarily, by itself, indicate relationships with older women. (Venus/Saturn tends more towards that, or Saturn on the Desc.) I’m not sure what you mean by ‘maternal interference.’ If he gets involved with women and then gets in trouble with them because mother interferes, it’s because he has no boundaries and no strong sense of himself as a partner. He may still feel conflicted about being his own man and may prefer to remain a child, emotionally. He needs to cut the apron strings and create his own life, which will be difficult with this Moon/Neptune placement. When Saturn is in the 12th, we often have secret fears that we prefer not to face.
This is awesome!! As someone with a big stellium in 7th libra including Venus, mercury, Jupiter, Pluto and of course Saturn, I definitely see how I expect somebody else to be Saturn for me. I cant stand having to do “adult” things. A serious problem indeed, but now I see WHY. This is so enlightening! And I thought Liz Greene had pretty much summed up Saturn for me. But, no, you very clearly added a whole new twist to Saturn both for me personally and for my relationships. I just love the way you write and explain this stuff. I can’t get enough! 🙂
Thanks, Katey. The moment we become aware of something, it breaks the ground for us to carve out a new path. Good luck with yours.
Hi very, very interesting I would love to know what you think would be the better pairing ? Saturn conjunct his moon exact within 08 seconds at 26 degrees scorpio, his venus at 19 degrees scorpio , poss partners venus 17 degrees cancer, his saturn at 15 degrees scorpio, her mars 22 degrees pisces., his mars 9 degrees pisces. His sun is 0 degrees capricorn, her sun at 2 degrees virgo. The other possible’s saturn 20 degrees cancer, her venus exactly on his pluto at 28 degrees leo square his moon, and her sun at 12 degrees cancer, her saturn at 21 cancer,her mars
at 4 degrees taurus, her ascendant 15 degrees virgo His
ascendant 0 degrees sagitarrius. Who might be the longer
and stronger bond according to the saturn info
Hi, what a fabulous article, would love to see what you think of the possible pairings with either of these
HE. SHE. SHE
Sun 0 deg cap. 2 degrees virgo. 14 degrees cancer
Moon 28 scorp. 17 aries. 12 gemini
Merc. 28 sag. 28 virgo. 28 gemini
Venus. 19 scorp. 16 cancer. 28 leo
Mars. 12 pisces. 22 pisces. 3 taurus
Jup. 28 cancer. 9 virgo. 22 aries
Sat. 15 scorp. 28. Scorp. 21 cancer
Ura. 28 cancer. 4 leo. 28 libra
Nep. 27 libra. 26 libra. 9 sag
Pluto. 28 leo. 27 leo. 6 libra
Asc. 0 sag. 19 leo. 18 virgo
MC 15 virgo. 7 taurus. 17 sag
Which would you think would be the better marraige and longer relationship. I know this is a lot to ask, but it will really touch base on what you were talking about, and I would live to know what aspects you think are best, better, or worse. I am do intrigued by what you wrote, it changes my whole perspective, thank you so much for such a great article 🙂
Sorry, Sandy, but this is beyond the scope of this site/comment box. You can’t expect me to make a major judgement on a synastry by giving me a list of aspects. If you keep reading this site, you’ll understand why.
Dear Dawn,
What a great article! I never understood prior to this that Saturn was supposed to pair with the Moon. That was a huge revelation for me!
I have a 12th house Saturn also, and Saturn in Leo is the lord of my 5th house Capricorn Moon. My IC is on Sagittarius with Neptune in it, and Jupiter, the accidental “father”, is partile conjunct MC Gemini. Jupiter and Neptune form an opposition with rather large orbs, but I’ve been pointed out that it is an opposition that has some significance.
I can easily see the Moon as my mother (disciplinarian and creative Leo), and Jupiter as my father (lenient and truth-seeking Pisces), but most descriptions of Saturn the “father figure” do not fit the bill. By the way, 12th house Saturn is also in a perfect trine with 4th house Neptune. I can see Neptune & Jupiter as both representing my father’s personality type. But where does Saturn fit in?
I must confess to Peter Pan Syndrome (always hope and actually manage to get something for nothing. I blame it on the Libran Venus-MC Jupiter perfect trine). I’m in my mid-thirties.
Perhaps you could help me shed some light! I want to make friends with my Saturn, get to know him. Really! Again, this article is an eye opener for me.
It’s impossible for me to comment without seeing the entire chart. Saturn represents authority in the chart, and represents where we can find our own, internal, authority. If the father figure is more identified with a free-wheeling sign, like Sag or Pisces, Saturn will represent those other males in life who are authority figures, those who expect something from us that we may not be willing to give. But it always represents the masculine face of material reality, as opposed to the Moon, which is the feminine face.
Hi, such a fantastically in-depth article. I am curious about a particular synastry aspect I share with my older boyfriend; He’s 23 yrs. my senior, his Pisces Saturn is in my 4th house. He’s said that I evoke powerful feelings of protection within him. (His Libra Sun is also tightly hugging My Moon) What do you think about the Saturn 4th house overlay?
Thanx!
I think the article itself describes the dynamic clearly enough. Where Saturn is, we seek security and certainty. We desire to break through fears and defenses. These Saturn needs are being projected onto you via the synastry. A mature and developed Saturn will accept the role with and of responsibility.
Hi, very interesting article, as always.
I just started a very intense relationship with a woman, and the synastry aspects that really stand out most to me between us are a double whammy saturn conjunct descendant, which are also tightly opposing her 12 house sun and my 12th house moon, respectively.
I must say, I never felt so serious about anyone, nor scared of losing her, in my life. We have had mutual truly terrible abandonment fears coming up from the get go.
I really never got my head around the concept of projection in the descendant for some reason, but just wanted to ask generally, what you would make of that double whammy. It just fascinates me. 😉
Thanks!
Jeff, a lot depends on the signs involved and other aspects to the Asc/Desc angle. There can be fear of abandonment but also fear of commitment; a sense of responsibility for one another; a sense of feeling that something is ‘owed’ or ‘karmic.’ A lot of times these Saturn aspects mean that the couple owes something to one another (perhaps both were abandoned in the past) and that once it is resolved and Saturn has learned its lesson, the relationship ends. There is also the fear of the relationship ending. Sometimes one can take on the role of ‘responsibility freak’ as the relationship moves on, and the other can be the Peter Pan figure, not wanting to grow up. Sometimes the feeling of belonging to one another can be oppressive. It usually feels good at first and then starts to chafe later on. Ultimately, it’s about withdrawing those Saturn projections and standing on your own two feet, depending on what Saturn is doing in each natal chart.
Hi Dawn, Thanks for the reply. Don’t mean to draw this out, I know you are busy. Just throwing this out there anyway.
It is interesting that her saturn is in gemini, my sun and mercury’s (my dispositor) sign and mine is in the sign of her moon, taurus. Both are elements we mutually lack in own charts, outside seeing them in our saturns.
Something strange there with those sun and moon on ascendant / saturn oppositions…seems all tied together somehow. 😉 Will see how it plays out with father time, then.
I do feel very committed to her, and she is certainly solid, with scorp sun and taurus moon, and I like the heck out of her. I do hope we have something lasting, and not just some karma to burn and then adios!
Meant to say “signs”, rather than “elements”, above…