Rewind: The Mystical Saturn

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. Today I'm doing a special bonus episode. This is a rewind episode from a talk that I did several years ago.

This was a talk that I gave at a number of professional conferences and for different professional astrology groups around the country. It was also something that, maybe four years ago now, was a gift through my Kickstarter campaign.

This is a talk on the mystical nature of Saturn. One of the things that happens is, when we start studying astrology, we learn about Saturn, and we learn a lot of things that are not, unfortunately, true. Or, we only learn some things that are true, and a lot of things get left out when it comes to Saturn.

So in this talk, I present the mystical history of Saturn and why Saturn was a planet associated with things like astrology, mysticism, and mystical experiences. I think you will really enjoy this as a way of filling out your understanding of the planet Saturn.

And so, I thought we would put this up as a bonus episode, as we're also trying to promote the Kickstarter in the final days right now.

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If you learn new things about planets, signs, or houses—if, as you listen to this throughout the year, you go, "I've never heard that about the sixth house before," or "I've never heard that about Saturn before"—if you learn something new, and this is a place that has you seeing things differently about commonly discussed symbols in astrology, then consider donating.

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A big thanks again to everyone who's already supported. And I hope you'll enjoy this bonus episode today. Bye.

Hi everyone. This is Achuta Bhava from Nightlight Astrology, and this is a special talk called "The Mystical Saturn." Saturn is a planet that means a lot to me because I was born with a Capricorn Moon and in a nighttime chart. So, I’ve had to make peace with Saturn. In my attempt to understand myself, my life, and Saturn, I realized that Saturn is often misunderstood.

It's a planet that has had a tremendous diversity of symbolic meanings and has been understood in many different ways by astrologers spanning several thousand years. One of the things that I feel is most misunderstood about Saturn is how mystical the planet is and how mystical its significations can be.

Oftentimes, Saturn gets pegged with very earthy, grounded, structured things. But it turns out that this is just one of its many qualities, and that it is, in fact, a deeply mystical planet.

I hope that you experience that same realization by listening to this talk and that your understanding and appreciation for Saturn increases because of it. I’ve done versions of this talk in the past, but this is a new and expanded edition, including a series of chart examples at the end, which I think illustrate the mystical and otherworldly side of Saturn. So, if you’ve heard elements of this before, don’t worry—there are many new insights to explore.

In this talk, we will cover the following topics:
The modern significations of Saturn
Saturn and its relationship with the outer planets
Some of the traditional significations or meanings of Saturn in ancient astrology
The joy of Saturn and its association with the 12th house
The discovery chart of Neptune
Chart examples
So, that’s our agenda for today.

In modern astrology, the meaning of Saturn has changed. As a result of emphasizing only certain aspects of Saturn’s symbolism, we’ve lost touch with some of the more diverse ancient significations of the planet. In modern astrology, some of the most common significations of Saturn are as follows:
Saturn is associated with time and karma. These words are often used loosely, and as a result, their association with Saturn isn’t always unpacked at a deep enough level.

Hard work. Saturn is often linked to hard, earthy work, tradition, and values.
Saturn is thought of as the teacher, but usually as a kind of cranky teacher who’s a taskmaster with a ruler that might wrap you on the knuckles.
Saturn is associated with discipline and structure.

Saturn is connected with restriction, constraint, and limitation.
And all of these are, of course, true. Today, we’ll talk about why they’re true, but why there’s a lot more to Saturn than just these particular significations.
Conservatism. Saturn is often associated with a resistance to change, preferring the old order, and also with authority and authoritarianism.
Responsibility and maturity.

Now, I’m not going to debate or dispute that any of these qualities are well-matched to Saturn. But why are they associated with Saturn, and is there anything more to Saturn than just these?

Well, first of all, in order to understand why Saturn is so different and why there’s so much more to Saturn than we think, we need to talk about Saturn in relation to the outer planets. Modern astrologers, especially in the early days of modern astrology, tended to glorify the outer planets as more evolved or sophisticated than the traditional seven planets, especially Saturn.

In fact, the term used to describe the outer planets is "trans-Saturnian" as well as "transpersonal." Notice that the prefix "trans" usually means "above" or "beyond." When this is taken on a psychological, metaphysical, or philosophical level, it implies that anything beyond Saturn is better, above, or somehow more evolved than Saturn. Because Saturn is the last of the traditional seven planets, it came to symbolize all traditional planets and tradition itself. Anything beyond Saturn, then, is seen as above or better than Saturn.

For example, an early modern astrologer named Raymond Harris once wrote: “To those who can respond to their very high vibrations, Uranus and Neptune and probably Pluto denote the more highly cultivated types of humanity.” There was this belief that the old planets, signified by Saturn as the last of the traditional visible planets, were less evolved, or represented lower vibrations compared to Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Raymond Harris also wrote, “It has been suggested that both Uranus and Neptune are the spiritual correspondences, or counterparts, of Mercury and Venus. They probably are in touch with elements of thought and feeling that are wholly inconceivable to the more mundane types of Mercury and Venus.”

Here, not only are the old planets being looked down upon in contrast to the outer planets, but these outer planets are said to be the spiritual counterparts of the more material, lower planets. Similarly, an article from The Astrologers’ Magazine in 1891 stated that what our forefathers as astrologers lacked in astronomical knowledge was more than replaced by modern, advanced scientific knowledge. The ancient traditional meanings of the planets, and in a sense, ancient astrology itself, were deemed deficient compared to the new outer planets, the new science, and the New Age.

Alan Leo, one of the godfathers of modern astrology, also wrote, “The ancients would frequently attribute partial effects to fallacious causes. Hence, the theory of terms and phases, which the experience of the present day leads us to reject.” He further argued that ancient astrology was no longer a science, but merely a form of divination.

So there’s a real way in which Saturn starts to pick up this bizarre projection: Saturn becomes associated with the old, outdated, superstitious, and ancient, compared to the brave new, higher spiritual vibrations of this new age and our advanced scientific knowledge.

In modern astrology, Saturn is seen as the symbol for the categorical difference between the merely mundane, traditional seven planets, and the more highly evolved outer planets. Saturn, in relation to the outer planets, represents the limits of an old system, the mundane or personal, a less evolved, archaic past, the stubbornness of an old worldview, and a less evolved form of astrology.

So, those are some heavy things for Saturn to pick up, considering that in over 2,000 years, Saturn never really represented any of those things. But if it did have anything to do with tradition or the past, it also had a lot to do with a number of other very mystical categories of experience, mystical archetypal themes, and symbolism.

Now, let’s talk about the traditional significations of Saturn. By contrast, Saturn’s significations in ancient astrology were really, really diverse. Saturn was associated with melancholy, which in turn was linked to a wide range of internal weather conditions—psychic, emotional, and psychological states. Melancholy was associated with Saturn, and depression is one of those states. Saturn is often called depressive or heavy, or sorrowful, but it was also associated with wistful longing.

This means looking at the world as though it is void and probing for something beyond what you see in front of you. This longing for something beyond this world was actually associated with melancholics and with Saturn.

Saturn was also symbolic of severe emotions. Some might think Saturnine people don’t have emotions, but that’s not true at all. In ancient astrology, a Saturnine person or placement could indicate very intense, strong, and severe emotions. Saturn was also symbolic of grief, as melancholy is tied to grief, and grief with Saturn.

Saturn was linked to hallucinations, delusions, and visions—sometimes nightmares, dark or somber reveries, insomnia, and even demonic possession. These are just some of the more intense signifiers connected to Saturn.
Saturn was also associated with winter, with death, with old age, and with impermanence—realities that were considered deeply mystical. Yes, there is a way in which death, winter, and coldness can relate to depression and heaviness, and there’s something very earthy, almost bottom-line about Saturn. But all of these qualities are also associated intimately with the boundary between the mortal world and the realm of the Divine.

The nature of this world is impermanent, dead, and empty because it’s always changing. This aligns with the Buddhist saying that this world is void of anything that lasts. Yogis, of course, say the same thing. Winter, old age, death, and impermanence are the cornerstones of spiritual life because we must be able to see through the world—see through its hollowness—so that we don’t get deluded into chasing experience after experience, looking for happiness in a world that doesn’t provide it.

Saturn is realism, but it can also be spiritual realism. The spirit needs something beyond the trappings of this world. Monks, hermits, people who live in isolation, and those who contemplate the fluctuating impermanence of the world and see through it with a deep, wintry gaze—this is Saturn as well.

Saturn ruled the sign of Capricorn, which was called the gateway of the gods. It was associated with the departure of the body of the spirit from the body at death. Saturn was the dimmest and most distant planet in the heavenly spheres, a model in the ancient world. Its position in that model put it closest to the realm of the fixed stars and the divine primary motion—the prime mover and God, which lay beyond.

Saturn was given, for example, the seventh sphere of heaven. In Dante's Paradiso, this was a realm where Dante encountered the spirits of people who had dedicated their lives to prayer and contemplation, almost like monks. What I find so interesting is that Saturn is associated with mysticism because it's so far from this world.

If you think about what happens during winter, in the snowy times of the year in the Zodiac, associated with Saturn, Capricorn, and Aquarius, you get a feeling of everything being dead, impermanent, empty, and cold. You feel this vast distance from the world of spring and summer. It's that kind of space that allows us to contemplate distant, transcendent, invisible, subtle, intangible realms. It helps us recognize that we need separation, quiet, and stillness—like a monastery or a Zen meditation retreat.

You need death, and the heavy weight of time, with its endless permutations and fluctuations, to say, "Well, something more might exist." So Saturn was associated with that. Saturn was also associated with dark weather and trades that took place in cold or wet places, like the ocean. In this sense, Saturn is associated with that which is vast and stretches out beyond where the eye can see. It's the unknown.

Remember, Saturn is the last of the visible planets, emblematic of the vast unknown—spiritual realms beyond Saturn itself. Saturn was also associated with deterioration and dampness. People often think of Saturn as only cold or dry, but if you go back even further in the tradition, it's also associated with wetness.

Saturn is exalted in the sign of the Fall Equinox, Libra, which is the sign of the harvest, justice, and judgment, as well as beauty and fairness. So you also have Saturn associated with something like morality and law, with a sense of crime and punishment. There's a sense of reaping what you've sown, and that's where some of that "Lord of Karma" signification comes from.

In Indian astrology, Saturn was associated with outcasts. In ancient Greek, the word melas—at the root of "melancholy"—also meant dark, black, or even a person of dark or black color or disposition. When you think about prejudice, racism, and bigotry toward a person or a group, you can see how they may experience being an outsider.

Think of someone who's impoverished, living on the streets for one reason or another, an outcast from society. Perhaps consider the caste system in ancient India, where certain people or groups were discarded or put on the outside. These were all associated with Saturn, the gatekeeper between the visible and invisible.

Saturn was thus associated with both the establishment and those despised or ostracized by the establishment. It's an interesting dichotomy. Saturn can equally represent a criminal, a heretic, or a miser. These are all things that pertain to Saturn. Saturn can be someone on the outside of society because they're a criminal, or ostracized because they are a heretic.

Saturn can also represent hoarding and greed—the desire to keep everything for oneself, not letting anyone else have it. This sense of fear or ostracization by a greedy, power-hungry person—like a miser—can be Saturn. It can represent a black sheep, a wise hermit or recluse, an introvert, or a sectarian of some kind.

So you have the outsider, the person who's at a distance from the world, who enjoys reading, nature, and quiet by themselves, away from the hustle of society. You also have someone who's introverted, shy, or someone who belongs to a cloistered group.

In these cases, the community becomes like a monastery, a place that defines you, giving you a sense of belonging—but often away from the rest of the world. Saturn was also said to rule feigned appearances. It was the natural planetary contrary to the Sun, which it shares a secret affinity with.

Feigned appearances could be like the shadows on the wall of the cave in Plato's Republic. This dichotomy between Sun and Saturn exists because they rule opposite signs in the Zodiac: Leo and Aquarius. The dichotomy can also be seen in the allegory of the cave, where the prisoner moves from the shadows (Saturn) to the light of the real world (the Sun). Saturn represents the feigned appearances, the reflections, and the shadows of the world, which pretend to be the real thing.

In mythology, Saturn rules the golden age but is eventually cast out from his throne and usurped by his son, Zeus. So you have this idea of Saturn being associated with the golden age, where everything was good, but eventually, it fell apart.

This association with impermanence—of power and kingdoms—relates to Saturn. Through the fact that Saturn is usurped by Zeus, you get the idea of the fondness for the past, but also the ruin of the current regime, and the eventual downfall of all things over time.

There are also interesting associations between Saturn and the Roman god Janus, a dual-faced god who ruled thresholds and looked both backward and forward in time. It’s interesting that Saturn in Aquarius tends to look toward the future, while Saturn in Capricorn tends to look toward the past. Both with a sense of idealistic longing, separation from something—whether it's some ideal in the future or some ideal in the past.

So those are some of the traditional significations of Saturn.

Now, let's talk a little bit about the joy of Saturn. Saturn was said to rejoice in the 12th house, also called the place of the evil spirit. There's a lot to unpack here with the 12th house, which we can't cover in this talk. Suffice it to say that Saturn shares themes with the 12th house, like ostracization and abandonment.

Being the outsider, being outcast, are themes associated with both Saturn and the 12th house. The 12th house also involves loss and grief, exile, imprisonment, disease, sickness, and slavery. These are all tied to both the 12th house and Saturn.

Confusion, deception, illusion, and even insanity and sorcery are associated with the 12th house and Saturn. The 12th house also represents confinement, shipwrecks, impermanence, and the native's loss of control. These are dark, saturnine themes that show up in both the 12th house and Saturn’s influence.

As the 12th house was understood as having recently fallen away from the helm or the rising place by means of the primary motion. So in other words, the 12th house right before you're born, whatever whole sign is in the 12th it most recently was in the first but has been carried by the primary motion of the sky, caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis to move upward. And that first sign becomes the 12th sign.

So the 12th house was associated with the place that most recently had been the first, but slid out of it, and the first was associated with the steering wheel of the ship of life. So anything in the 12th has fallen away from or lost control over the ship. Saturn is of course, associated with wandering and becoming lost in modern astrology, the 12th house has come to be associated with mysticism, ego, loss and karma, as well as the planet Neptune.

And most of those associations have been now given to Neptune, but traditionally they belong to Saturn. So let's talk for a second about a little bit more about Neptune and the discovery chart of Neptune. When you oops, just one second in the discovery chart of Neptune, Saturn was closely conjoined with Neptune.

So when Saturn was discovered, it was in this very tight conjunction with the planet Neptune, in the sign of Aquarius. I find that just absolutely amazing. Why is that important? Because it tells us something, perhaps, about the nature of the planet as we're discovering it, we're starting to assign meanings to it. Its appearance happens exactly conjoined with Saturn.

Consider the following similarities. Neptune is associated with the dissolving of boundaries, as well as all that is transcendental, mystical and otherworldly. Saturn was associated with disillusionment, death, winter, disintegration, as well as mystics and contemplatives who saw through the hollowness of the world from a vast distance, see how similar they are.

Neptune is associated with delusions, dreams, intoxications and madness. Saturn was associated with melancholy, which is a temperament that that a temperamental, great, affordive condition that could also be associated with all of those qualities. Neptune is associated with water and confusion. Saturn was associated with water in the darkness of ignorance.

So there's, again, a lot actually in common between these two planets. Neptune dissolves that which is permanent. Saturn was associated with old age and decay. Now, to be fair, the planets aren't identical. I don't want to say that exactly, but it seems. More than a coincidence to me.

Anyway, ever since I've learned about this that Neptune came to be associated with the traditional house of Saturn and was discovered in a conjunction with Saturn, while also carrying so many similar significations, I think in order to, like really deeply understand Saturn, you have to look at some charts just to get a picture of how diverse this planet really is.

So I want to take a look at a few charts from personal clients and the charts of important historical figures. A few anecdotes, maybe from personal clients charts of important historical figures. So I have seen a number of really amazing people who have lived Saturn stories that are not at all in touch with that grounded, serious, earthy, practical, conservative, strict, you know, that kind of stuff.

It's actually really diverse. Let's look at some historical personalities.

First, Nina Simone, who was a singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist. She was born with Saturn in the first house of identity, right on the ascendant. You can see it right there. She took her name Nina Simone in order to disguise herself from her family members, who believed that jazz and blues were the devil's music. She was also rejected many times as an artist due to the color of her skin.

She took up the mantle of being an outsider and of being a black sheep from her own family, and she took it up in order to become this amazing artist who forged a new name and a new identity for herself. She also ended up becoming a civil rights activist for people who were being ostracized and shown severe prejudice and racism.

So that's Saturn on the ascendant. And in that sense, Saturn marks Nina Simone's life as the outsider. I think that theme is so deep and spiritually significant, and not a lot of people might think Saturn in the first house means this. People might think, "Oh, you're going to be depressed," or "Oh, you're going to be a really Saturn-type person." But when we think of Saturn, we often don't consider the full range of its meanings.

How about Timothy Leary? He was a professor turned LSD researcher. He had Saturn in the 10th house of career. He was famous for saying, "Turn on, tune in, drop out." He's also criticized for being something of a psychedelic fundamentalist. So, you do have perhaps a little of that sectarian, authoritative, or even authoritarian quality that sometimes comes up with Saturn.

But here's someone whose mantra was essentially to "drop out of society" because of this otherworldly psychedelic experience he was popularizing. That’s a Saturn dynamic in his chart—a powerful Saturn in his career house.

Frida Kahlo was another really famous outsider artist—a visionary and an outsider artist. She had Saturn in the eighth house, which is a little bit more disturbing in some ways. In this case, she explored questions of identity, post-colonialism, gender, class, race, and Mexican society. She’s been described as a surrealist or kind of a magical realist.

But she also struggled with melancholy after her leg was amputated, and is believed to have taken her own life while very ill. After that, she experienced two major depressive episodes and suicide attempts. Her depression and suicide attempts have been linked by those who knew her to her marriage.

Here you see the seventh house ruler of marriage in the eighth house of death. This leads to a really intense, depressive, melancholic temperament that emerges in relationship to marriage, leading to suicide attempts and so forth. In the ancient world, melancholy could be a sign of an artistic genius who’s outside the bubble entirely, or even of a monk. But it could also lead to major bouts of depression and a feeling of dissociation from the world, and even the desire to die or leave the world.

Hunter S. Thompson was a kind of visionary Gonzo journalist. He was born with Saturn in Aries, and it was in fall and retrograde in the first house. This is a debilitated Saturn, but he was a maverick and a renegade. When you wear Saturn in Mars's sign, like he did, you wear it like it's an arm uniform.

In his case, Saturn became a token of his radical dissidence. He was a maverick and a renegade, also fueled by drugs, melancholy, and madness, and unfortunately, he also took his own life. One of the things you can see here is that Mars, in its fall and retrograde in Aries, is disposed of by Mars in the house of death.

But these are good examples of people who say, "I'm not part of your crew. I'm not part of that crowd. I'm going to do things very differently." You can see this repeated again and again in really prominent Saturn placements in people’s charts.

Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical movement, was another example. The Theosophical movement blends science, religion, and philosophy. Blavatsky was a writer and a researcher. She was also said to use very coarse, vulgar language and had a rough voice. Some called her a charlatan and a plagiarist.

She had Saturn exactly conjoined with Mars and Mercury in the third house of communication. So, you have this writer and researcher, a coarse, vulgar communicator, who was also this otherworldly mystical occult personality. There’s Saturn right in the mix. So, you can start to get a little bit more mystical with this placement as well.

Ram Dass, an influential spiritual teacher, helped bring yoga and meditation to the West. His famous book, Be Here Now, came out in the 1960s. He had Saturn right on the descendant in the seventh house of marriage. In the 1990s, he came out as gay, which marked a major turning point in his life and professional work. This moment was deeply connected to his own spiritual unfolding as a popular guru in the West.

So, here, the mark of the outsider—Saturn in the house of love, sexuality, and marriage. In the ancient world, the seventh house was associated with sexuality.

You also have Teresa of Avila, a famous Christian mystic and saint. She was a nun, a visionary, and a contemplative mystic. She was also a religious reformer during the Catholic Reformation. She was a writer and, as a "doctor of the church," she was incredibly prolific.

Saturn was in her 10th house. She was a visionary, a mystic, and very otherworldly, but she was also someone who was part of the Counter-Reformation. She became a voice for change within the church, which positioned her as almost a heretic, even though she later became a saint.

That voice of standing in opposition to the status quo is very common for strong Saturn placements, even for mystics like her.

Sri Ramakrishna was another famous mystic and guru who inspired a generation of teachers, including Vivekananda.

And he had Saturn also in the 10th house, like Theresa of Avila. He was monastic and often slipped into altered states and trances, just like here and there, because he was really dialed in. Really, if you ever want to read an amazing story, read the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna—it's a very beautiful book. But he, again, was someone who slipped in and out of altered states, Samadhi, and trances all the time. People would have to pick him up, and he was, you know, sort of from a totally different stratosphere.

Of course, he inspired a generation of people who would, in some ways, unorthodoxly bring yoga and yoga philosophy to the West. So those are just some chart examples that have meant a lot to me in helping me understand Saturn as I did my research. It all started for me because I was trying to understand, like I said, the moon and Capricorn in my chart.

Every time people would try to describe that placement, all the conservative, limited, authoritarian, rigid, you know, all of those themes came up—time-bound, or heavy, depressive. I would just be like, “Well, I don’t feel that way.” So, there has to be something more to Capricorn. Capricorn, the sea goat, has always struck me as such a mystical sign, as has Aquarius.

I wondered, well, why did ancient astrologers associate this kind of boring old traditional Saturn, which is what I was picking up from modern astrologers? Modern astrologers were telling me left and right that the old way is outdated, last, unevolved, mundane, merely material—and oh, by the way, Saturn is sort of the emblem for all that old, outdated, unevolved stuff.

I just kept thinking, “No, I just… I don’t think that’s true.” So as I did my research, there were a few books that were really important to me. One was called Saturn and Melancholy. That was probably the most important book. Also, The Myth of Saturn. That’s another really great book.

Let me see if I can bring some of these up. Actually, I'll just show them to you so you can maybe even pick them up on Amazon. But perhaps the Melancholy and Saturn was a really good one. The Myth of Saturn—no, it's not called The Myth of Saturn, it’s called The Greatness of Saturn. Here, you can see it right here—The Greatness of Saturn: A Therapeutic Myth by Dr. Roberta. I love this one. This is great.

Let me show you another one. There's another book called Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil by Liz Green. I really love that book. Saturn and Melancholy—it’s a little bit expensive, $65 for the hardcover, but this is the absolute best history of the meaning of Saturn from ancient times to now. That's where this talk mainly was inspired by. I found it after I had developed all of these conclusions piecemeal, and then I found this, and it was like the ultimate coagulator, I guess.

There are also some other really good books called Senex and Puer. These are a series of essays by James Hillman. I would recommend this one right here, Senex and Puer (Uniform Editions). These are essays simply about the dichotomy between Jupiter and Saturn in some ways, but all the essays on Senex consciousness are very helpful in terms of understanding Saturn as well.

Then there’s this book I haven’t read yet, but I skimmed it, and it’s definitely going to reiterate everything that this talk has. It’s called Saturn Through the Ages: Between Time and Eternity by Charles Obert. So my recommendation would be to check out any of those books if you want to go further.

I think that if you look at Saturn in your own chart, what I've seen—and I wanted to just share a few anecdotes—is that when you have Saturn well or prominently placed in your birth chart, there's often a way in which you're going to experience or encounter being the outsider. Or you'll come into contact with people who are very different from you in different areas of the chart.

There are certain areas of life that somehow teach you the lessons of impermanence. That may bring a bit of that “dark night of the soul,” but it also puts you in touch with eternity. Saturn is a very blessed, sacred, beautiful planet in this regard. So remember that, and don’t only keep the images of Saturn that are hard, cold, restrained, conservative, and restrictive. Elements of that Saturn do exist, but Saturn is also this beautiful, like prismatic watcher on the gates of time and the threshold of eternity.

It’s such a deeply mystical planet that teaches us how to be in this world while not being of it. Saturn transits are often like that. In the lives of my clients, I see this constantly. A Saturn in the seventh house transit may bring hardship—Saturn difficulties around marriage—but it can also bring a deeply spiritual partner into a person’s life. It can bring the need for spiritualization of one’s sexuality.

Saturn in the fourth house can bring difficulties around home and family, but it can also bring you in touch, as the fourth house was traditionally associated with the mysteries, with Mystery Schools. Saturn in the fourth is deep occult knowledge and mystery. Saturn in the first house can be hard on health—okay, fine, basic—but Saturn in the first house is also about wearing that mantle of the outsider as your identity.

Saturn in the 10th is doing something sometimes as unconventional or otherworldly for a living. And it’s like that through all of the houses. Don’t let Saturn be only one thing. Think of Saturn as this planet that sits on the gateway between the status quo and those who are outside of it, between time and eternity.

I hope that this talk has been enriching—that you feel like your understanding of Saturn got more mysterious, interesting, and beautiful, and that it maybe liberated you a little bit from, ironically, some of the limitations of how we tend to think about Saturn. We can think about Saturn in limited ways. That’s a real irony.

In some ways, the attempt to say, "Well, there’s just this old Saturn stuff and the old tradition, and it’s down there," and "there’s this other transcendental, otherworldly, mystical stuff, and it’s all beyond the outer planets," ironically, all of that could be thought of as saturnine in the traditional sense. Whether you’re on the mystical, contemplative, higher realm side, or you’re like, “Oh, that’s the old status quo,” or “That’s just the merely worldly,” or “There’s the outcast, and here’s the in-crowd”—that kind of thinking was traditionally associated with Saturn.

It’s something we have to be aware of. Remember that Saturn rules the opposition in ancient astrology—the aspect that pits things against one another. "You're there in or you're out, you’re on this side or you’re on that side." But there’s also a sense in which this world is impermanent, and we do spiritual things, like study astrology, because we’re seeking that otherworldliness.

Saturn is the potential to be fallen or condemned, or decayed—or it’s the potential of decay and death in merely mundane things and time. But it’s also the planet that, by virtue of those experiences in life, helps us start to grasp the intangible and subtle spiritual dimensions.

So I highly recommend, especially The Greatness of Saturn. There’s a great way of really getting to know Saturn in that book. It’s not a bad thing to also just talk to Saturn a little. You know, if Saturn is transiting your chart, just say a prayer and say, “On behalf of the way that you are guiding my relationship with source, help me to understand the lessons that you’re imparting.”

So that’s what I’ve got for today. This was typically a talk I’ve done without a good amount added into it, and it could have been broken up into two sections. But I decided to do it in one slightly longer video.

I hope that this was enjoyable for all of you today. If you have any questions about Saturn, you can always email me at info@nightlightastrology.com and put "question about Saturn" in the subject line.

Alright, that’s what I’ve got for you now. I hope that you enjoyed this and that you have a new and deeper relationship with the planet Saturn.

Alright, take care everyone. Bye.