A Tension as Old as Astrology Itself: The Sun in Leo Opposite Saturn in Aquarius

Hey everyone, this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology Happy Friday everyone. Hope you guys are gonna have a great weekend. Today we are going to take a look at an aspect that is perfecting over the weekend. The Sun's opposition to Saturn, so Sun is in Leo, and Saturn is in Aquarius. This is an archetypal tension as old as astrology itself; the lights, the Sun, and the moon they naturally take their home in Cancer in Leo, the signs that are opposite to Saturn signs of Capricorn and Aquarius. So there's an archetypal tension between the lights and Saturn that is built into the construction of the Zodiac itself. That'll be a part of what we're looking at today, essentially. So it's building over the weekend; it's really perfecting Saturday and Sunday. Technically, you have it on August 14 that the Sun will be opposite Saturn, but you should definitely be feeling it Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and even Monday, as the Sun moves through the opposition and, you know, sort of fades from that opposition into early next week. 

Okay, so that is what we're going to look at today. And did you know that next week, we will be launching two new courses and I thought it was going to be this week. But it's just taking a little bit longer than anticipated. There's a lot that goes into building new courses and getting everything set up so that the user experience signing up and registering is nice and smooth, and there are no glitches. So we're just slowly working out the kinks and getting it ready to launch. We'll have about a four-week pre-registration sale. And there's still going to be a need-based tuition option for the two new courses; I think you'll really like them. 

One of them is a moon circle. You can join my wife and I; dieting plants and working with the astrological energies of each month of 2023 new and full moon circles, and do so, work with those energies, mind-body, and really, you know, sort of take your experience of astrology in into a much and take it into a much deeper place, hopefully, one that leads to really deep intentional transformation. And that's something that, you know, Ashley and I do in our own lives all the time. It's never something we've really led other people through. So it's going to be really exciting. We've worked a course together with planets and plants for years. In fact, we used to do consults with people where we would, you know, pair planets and plants in astrology and herbal sessions together. So, but we've never led a full year worth of Moon circles where we're pairing astrology and herbal medicine. So I think it's going to be really fantastic. There's a masterclass series that's launching next week as well, where there will be four different seminar series, one per quarter, four classes each 16 classes on the year on specialized, more advanced topics in ancient astrology. So I hope you guys will check that out as well more on that next week. All right, let's get into it. 

Let's take a look at the real-time clock. And we can explore the sun Saturn opposition. So here you can see it is forming Sun opposite Saturn. This is Saturday, August 13. But if we move it forward a day, you'll see Sunday; this is by the afternoon; it's just passed over. So really, if we give it the three-degree treatment, you're looking at Thursday, August 11, all the way through about Wednesday of next week where this energy will be in the air; to me, the applying side is always the one you feel it on. So, you know, Thursday through Sunday, this yesterday through the end of the weekend, I think that's when you're really going to notice it. But at any rate, that is what it looks like on the Real Time Clock, just so you have a feeling for it. Now, this is right after the Sun is coming off the square to revolutionary Uranus, which we looked at earlier in the week. And when we did so, we talked about five themes and three lessons. We're going to repeat the same thing. Rinse and repeat. But now look at it from the standpoint of the Sun's opposition to Saturn, so five themes. 

The first one; liked but not loved. So when it comes to the Sun, opposite Saturn, one of the things that kind of gets into the archetype the fundamental reason that the Sun and Saturn are opposed to one another. Saturn was called the ruler of feigned appearances, whereas the Sun was compared to the daimon and the images that live in the soul, the imaginal world that calls to us and draws us into a path of destiny and a sense of true calling real and authentic selfhood as experienced by the living of a life, driven by things we love, driven by things that capture our imaginations. So, when you look at the Sun, opposite Saturn, one of the things that can come up is, it's close to what I like or what I love. It's close to what I love, let's say. But it's kind of a feigned appearance. 

It's sort of like a fake Rolex or something like that. Or, like, if you go, you know, you go shopping someplace, and they'll sell knockoffs or whatever have like a Gucci handbag or something, and you go, like, it looks like it. But it's not the real thing. Not that I'm not that I'm encouraging. You know, this kind of materialism, but whatever, everyone likes to go, everyone shops, so you know what I'm saying? There is something in us that wants something so bad. And we have to; we're constantly being asked whether it's something we want, as in a life path or a life partner, we're being asked to refine the desire and the actual experience that we have in relation to the desire that we have, that goes along with it. It's like, I want to be an astrologer. But I'm not going to settle for being, you know, a type of astrologer that doesn't sort of fulfill the image of what astrologer is and means to me, right? I'm going to stay true to the image somehow. But when the Sun opposes Saturn, one of the things that can come up is like, for example, let me give you a real sun Saturn part of my life as an astrologer, horoscopes hate them. Like, I just hate them. I don't mind monthly overviews, but I don't like Sun and rising sign horoscopes just they make me kind of want to, like, throw up in my mouth. Just like, I just can't stand them. But I have to do them. Because Don't you know, a lot of people like them. And I don't know why people like mine, I don't think they're very good. But if people like them, and it's bringing people in and getting people through the door to learning about astrology in a way that feels more real and authentic to me, then fine, I'll you know, it's like it's a compromise. 

There are lots of things that could represent a compromise of the ideal image, or a false version of it, or even a feigned appearance of it, like, for me, you know, I don't go around spending a lot of time I honestly do not spend a lot of time judging other astrologers. But like, there will be certain types of astrology, and I'm sure this is different for everyone. So someone probably looks at my astrology and say, like, Oh, that's gross kind, or whatever. But if you, you know, you're an astrologer, you look around and like that astrology to me, is that's somehow like, It's not it. Right? That's not; that's not the ideal image that I have of what astrology is, or should look or feel like, or something like that. 

Okay, so this can lead to a lot of different things we're going to get into the same basic idea, for example, has a tie into things like prejudice and conformity, and other themes. But one of the things that you'll see time and time again when the Sun is opposite Saturn is like I have to make a choice, there's the real thing, or there's something that's sort of a feigned appearance, or sometimes and you know, it's like, it's a tough choice, like being given a job that pays very well and it's sort of like in your field, but the company and the boss and something about it just doesn't feel right. Very Sun opposite Saturn. There will be things that you like but you don't love that's a very Sun opposite Saturn kind of feeling. If you've ever gotten into a relationship with a really nice person, really good-looking but just meh, Sun opposite Saturn. It doesn't have to be it could be Venus, opposite Saturn, it doesn't. Anything opposite Saturn will often bring up the dichotomy between something that you want or desire or love, and then some kind of shadowy feigned appearance of the thing that you're possibly buying instead, or possibly settling for instead, or maybe more nobly learning to make some degree of compromise. 

Like, for example, the Sun and Saturn can refer to aging. Well, you know, as we age, it's like, I don't look at my I don't know my skin in the same way that I used to, or I don't know, it's just, uh, you know, you guys know how aging is some of you out there probably more than others. You know, we're all at different stages of this journey toward death. Right? So as we go along, the ideal image of our body is just falling apart and crumbling, and we feel like I like it, but I don't love it, or you can feel like I have to somehow find the ideal in exactly where I am even though externally something about the way that I look doesn't quite conform to the image that I have in my head or an image I used to have in my head or something like that. 

So ideal images and things that block, mar, stain, call into question; that make you feel like there's an aberration, a deviation, a sense of yeah, a sense of compromise that has to be made. Like it's not exactly what I want. It's not exactly what I thought it was, or I thought I am, or something like that like but not love is just a general phrase that I came up with to describe this Sun, Saturn dynamic hope that makes some sense. 

Number two would be pride and conformity. It's interesting how the Sun has. Where does pride come from? Well, it could be just innate, like I have a sense of pride and dignity. And I'm talking now about healthy pride, like, self-respect, something like that a healthy you know, love and appreciation for one's own self, I have pride in who I am. That kind of thing. Now, there's always, there are pressures throughout life, Saturn and Aquarius, the Sun in Leo, very archetypally, it can represent that in order for you know, you may have that sense of individual or personal pride, often it can be innate, or it's often rooted in things that we've done or things that we're doing, I've done this, or I'm doing this, and it gives me a sense of purpose, meaning and healthy self-respect or pride. So people sometimes think that pride is a bad word, it's not it can be like prideful can be, you know, just like anything else, you know, it can be like, a good or a bad thing, depending on the circumstance. So healthy pride here,

and what I'm, what am I doing with my life? What have I done? Or what have I accomplished? Or what am I setting out to accomplish? That gives me a sense of healthy pride. 

Well, along that path, or whether you have an innate sense of pride, or it's rooted in something you've done or doing, there are going to come, come along, people are forces or situations that demand that something about what you're doing what you've done, or your innate dignity, conform to someone else's idea of what is meaningful, or prideful or purposeful or worthy of being celebrated or validated. Right? And it's like, well, this is natural. I mean, you know, I remember as a kid, you know, probably about middle school, you start realizing that there are social pressures. And the feeling of having to conform, in some ways, is a real thing. Now, there are kids; I remember kids who were absolutely total nonconformists. And there were some of them. And, you know, I guess in some, at some stages in my life, I guess I've been more nonconformist than others, like, certainly, you know, in my early 20s, my Christian friends thought I was completely off my rocker because I was drinking psychedelics in the Amazon and, you know, stuff like that. So it was like, oh, you know, he's, he's gone, you know what I mean? And I was like, I'm not going to conform to just, you know, this particular social group's definition of what is valuable or meaningful, or, you know, I'm not going to root my sense of self-worth or pride, purely in what they think. 

So there are always times like that in our lives, and the Sun Saturn is great; it perfectly captures the pressure that someone places on us to conform or the potential of some group or social force to be prejudiced against who we are in some way. And so there's, you know, it's like take a stand, be yourself, don't conform. That healthy sense of pride and dignity. This is I'm beautiful in and in who I am, or in what I'm doing, or in what I've done, and I don't need your validation. So it could be a very Sun opposite Saturn kind of thing. On the other hand, there were kids I remember, and I probably bend this way myself at times in life, the nonconformists, kids who are just obnoxious, you know, and there's a difference. It's not really in what a person is doing that's with or against some other group as much as it is in my experience how they carry it. How do you carry whatever sets you apart? Sun opposite Saturn can be the difference, the mark, the stain, or the unique piece of us, either any way you want to look at it that sets us apart. Well, if you carry that with like a chip on your shoulder, like a vendetta, a grudge, and kind of, I don't know, like an oppositional defiance complex or something like that very Sun opposite Saturn. People will probably find you obnoxious because even though you know.

I'm thinking, for example, when I first started working with psychedelics, there were a lot of people in the psychedelic community, for example, that would look at people who hadn't taken psychedelics as like sheep, you know, like, look at that, like, it's like, well, those, there's a lot of people who haven't taken psychedelics who aren't looking at you, like, there's anything wrong with you because you have, so why would you look at them? Why would you look at them and think there's anything wrong with them because they haven't? You know, and so, it's like, it's very easy to with Sun opposite Saturn to get into like oppositional defiance complex, which I think is actually like a, I think it's actually like a psychological diagnosis or something. So I don't mean to be using that, like, clinically; it's just a phrase that somehow popped into my head. So um, so you have to be really careful with that. Because, you know, on some level, we have to conform, and on some levels, we have to resist conformity. And the tension between those two things tends to come up when the Sun is opposite to Saturn. So, again, hopefully, we're making sense here. 

Number three studied determined creative effort. Sun and Saturn is like the contraction of labor. It's contractive. But there's something like, like a magnum opus, or going into some kind of fugue state creatively, you go into a state where there's a ton of pressure, there's a ton of constraint like I remember when I was writing my book. I mean, I had my schedule where like, I did my yoga in the morning, I went to my nine to five job, I came home, and I wrote until bedtime with like, a little bit of time for dinner. And then I rinse and repeat and repeat it in that, and I did that for like a year of my life. You know, and that was not fun. It was creatively fulfilling, but it was a very contractive-focused creative cauldron. You know, I was in a focused, creative cauldron, and I guess so. Steady, determined, creative effort, contraction, constriction, ultimately, as a part of something that's trying to express itself that has to do with your sense of calling or purpose or destiny, very Sun opposite Saturn. 

It can also be about challenges to health or vitality. By the way, that same quality of the contraction around the Sun can be a contraction of vitality or lifeforce. You have to watch for that, like headaches or exhaustion or depression or feeling like there's a cloud hanging over your sunshine, so to speak. 

Number four is the old man slash woman. The Sun opposite Saturn can just represent time, wisdom, age, and experience, which is interesting. It can also represent the conservative nature of older people; we don't like change or something like that. So you can think of the wisdom of age, time, maturity, and experience as a source of light and wisdom. The Sun rejoices in the ninth house, the place of higher knowledge. So we know that the Sun was thought of by ancient astrologers as the noetic light, the light of Gnosis, of knowing, of real knowing, and age and time have a way of like a wise elder has that kind of old and they look close, they look close, they're near winter, you know, they're close to death. But still, there's a luminous quality, there's like a light quality, even though the body is frail, I think for example of Thich Nhat Hanh, closer to death, he still just looked like this little ball of light, you know, he's a diminutive, short, really short guy, but at least I perceive that in the, I guess, I've never seen him in person, but I've always seen him, but he's like, He's short. And, and by the end of his life, you know, it was really he just looked really like, like old, like very Saturn, you know, but then there's just this big, like this huge light that his stature, feels, you know, 20 stories, high and just sunny. And that's just because of the sweetness. I mean, he just been cooked in his practice of Buddhism his whole life, and probably lifetimes. So there's something about the like time does not just mean entropy; in some cases, time and the process of time is about refinement and gives greater depth to what is brighter, luminous, like an elder. 

On the other hand, you've had all the contractive, bitter, unchangeable, you know, boring, mundane, life-limiting, or inhibiting qualities that lead to number five.

Inhibitions and prohibitions. I'm afraid to shine, very Sun opposite Saturn, or I'm trying to shine, but someone or something is blocking me. So inhibitions and prohibitions, you know, watch, it could also be just frustration, oh, I have this great picture of where things were gonna go. But there's a block might have to deal with that and just the feeling of being misunderstood. That's very easy for, you know, like, the inhibition part that I'm mentioning here, Sun opposite Saturn can feel like I just I feel like people don't understand me and that can go goes back a little bit to that topic of pride and conformity. Anyway, just a few themes, I hope they are useful. 

Let's talk about three lessons that I think come along with them. Again, I pick these lessons out of my own experiences and observations from my own life as well as students and clients over the years. 

So number one, love is bitter and sweet. I think it's important to understand that this is very similar to what I was saying about the old man and woman. There's a way in which, you know, we tend to be in my experiences, talking to people over the years and observing my own psyche through my spiritual practices. We are really programmed in the like modern west to think of things along moral dichotomies good and bad, good and evil, good guys and bad guys. And there; certainly, that's a dimension of experience. Of course, that's very real. But, there's also a call in all the great spiritual traditions to learn how to see the world and our experiences beyond the duality of good and bad, that things are more than just good and bad, that they can be both simultaneously and they can also be meaningful, which is different than good or bad. 

You know, oftentimes, that word is it's a really helpful word to describe experiences from an archetypal or psychological or astrological perspective. What was that experience like with Saturn that you had? It was interesting. I learned a lot. It was thought-provoking. I appreciated it. It was beautiful, but not beautiful, as in good. Beautiful in the same way that a challenging but thoughtful and artistic movie is beautiful. So you know, love, there's something about the Sun and Saturn that speaks, speaks to me about the labor of love, and that what we love is often; you think of like the Passion of the Christ, that hole that that sort of archetypal motif, it's something that you suffer, there's a suffering that comes with loving. I think, for example, of having kids and the fact that I heard someone say this before I had kids, which is that having kids was like having your heart outside of your chest walking around. And I feel that way, like as a parent, I feel that way when I watch my kids walking around the world, and I think, you know, what, if something happened to them, or my wife, or the things with time that I develop a very deep love for, they become more fragile, even as the love becomes stronger and deeper and more profound. And not fragile, isn't weak. I don't know what the word is delicate, tender, or sensitive. And so anyway, I'm just it's me, I can just I can go right into it. 

So there's something about, there's something about love, that in order for it to be sweet, there's got to be a little bit of that bitterness, and what the heart loves. If you think of the Sun in Leo as telling us something about the heart and what it wants, or what we feel we are or what we want to do or what we've done that we really feel is special, it's the totem on our shelf, you know, and the soul loves to look at it or touch that those stories, those images. Probably those images are, you know, those things that we're most proud of, the things that we love the most, are probably filled with some pain. There's probably been suffering involved. So don't it's really good, it's a simple thing. So you know Rumi, so many poets have written about it. Love and separation that there's a hurt that goes along with really profound love, and it tends to go beyond; real love tends to go beyond heroic narratives about good and bad real love somehow takes us, although it often includes dimensions of morality. It often goes right beyond that somehow. It is very willing to accommodate like pain and darkness. That's the Sun Saturn thing, I think, in part.

Number two, home isn't where the heart is. This is a weird statement, but it was one that came to me as I was meditating on today before today's talk. And I just thought about it like this. You know, when I was a kid, I grew up in Minnesota, and part of my story and wrote about this in my book was that I lived in a small town, it kind of northern Minnesota, a little bit north of the Twin Cities. And that town to me was as idyllic as like Lake Wobegon, you know, Garrison Keillor's; like it was just this idyllic Midwest town. And, you know, I was the preacher's kid at the church, I had friends at school, I was sort of like a well-adjusted relatively, I hung around with a lot of different groups of people, I did a lot of different things. I kind of knew who I was, and the world was; it was a smaller pond, you know what I mean. And there were the football games on Friday nights; the whole town was out for the football games. I just, I grew up in that space. And the world was like, manageable. And then, you know, my dad got a promotion, we moved to a big suburb, I was in a big school, I started getting teased and bullied pretty bad during high school. It was like; it was a really rough ride. And suddenly, you know, it that catapulted me in a very, very long, you know, a feeling of never really being home again, until we moved back to Minnesota just a couple of years ago, as Pluto opposed my Sun in Cancer, who happens to be the ruler of my fourth house of home and family. So it's like coming home. And as I've been back in Minnesota, and I'm feeling home again, you know, but I'm also realizing that the real home was, was in my heart, right all along. So, you know, in a sense that the literal location of home, the literal location of home wasn't, that was not where, although, for a long time, it was very painful. And I thought I had like, lost a part of my soul, you know, but in traveling so far afield living in so many different places, go into the Amazon, exploring, you know, opening my face to other parts of the world and other cultures, and religious traditions, learning astrology, you know, getting married, starting a yoga studio in DC, all these things that happened in my life, and, you kind of come full circle, and there's this, like, you know, I returned to this place. And I realized that nothing about this literal location, although it's really nice to be here, again, and I do feel kind of like I'm home again. But it also makes me realize that, you know, there's the physical location is never it, right? The physical location is just not it. 

But then the other thing that's also true is that my heart at the time that I left was also not what it is now. So I think there's one of the reasons I chose this kind of provocative frame; home isn't where the heart is, is because, you know, there's, it's like, it's not like your, your heart is not a static thing. You know, I mean, it's a living, even the organ, even the physical image of the organ of the heart, it's a beating thing. It's, a constant, it's a thing that's in constant motion. And so I think that there's something like, we're like, our hearts are like satellites, that orbit around familiar centers, and then they go eccentric, and they leave that orbit, that familiar orbit. And eventually, they find another one. And so, to me, it's, it's, it's kind of hard to explain, maybe this is too abstract of a thought. But it's just the feeling that my heart is not a static entity, any more than this place was the thing that was making me happy. You know, it's, when people say home is where the heart is, I think what they're getting to is like, you know, it's not about the house you live in or the neighborhood or the community. It's about the home of your heart, and that I obviously agree with. 

But the other thing is that sometimes people act as though the heart is the static thing that never changes. And I think what's most exciting is that the heart is naturally a wanderer. The heart is naturally a living being that is changing and dynamic. And so there's also there's a sense that like, No, when I lived in New York City, I moved apartments like a lot. There was I felt like every year I was there; I moved apartments. So there's like Three or four movies just within three years of living in New York City. I think our hearts are like that, too. I'm just not sure that the heart is actually like, Okay, well, you know, your house may change, but your heart never will. It'll always be home. It's like, yeah, in a sense, I get that, like, our eternal nature is always there. But what's also so exciting about our eternal nature is that it is also always changing and new and different. And I don't know, I feel like home; it's just such an interesting, like, home is an experience, isn't it? At the end of the day, it's an experience that the heart likes to have. But I don't know that a physical location is a home, or I don't know that the heart is a home for us any more than a physical location is. It's like, you know, in some sense, we are perpetual wanders. We're like, we're little orbiting satellites that find temporary places to orbit around, and then we keep moving, and it's part of feeling at home to me. I guess what I'm realizing over the years is getting used to the rhythm. You know, it's like, like the beating; that there's a rhythm of like feeling at home and feeling alien; feeling other, feeling like a wanderer or feeling like a nomad. And I guess you can; if you can get home in that, then there is something like a home in the heart. But I want to stand up for wandering, you know, for you know, it's like, even in yogic language, well, like, like, I think it was Ram Dass, who said, We're all just walking each other home, you know, like that, like, there's this eternal place. And once we're there, you know, you never leave and, and that's nice, but I suspect that, that there's that because life itself is dynamic and moving, and living like a heart is beating that the alternation between feeling at home and feeling alien, exploring, feeling nomadic, being adrift, even in the heart is important somehow, it's not just a derivation, or a fallenness, or a lostness, or something like that. Okay, maybe that was just way too out there. So anyway. 

Number three, what is age if all souls are eternal? There's so much about the Sun Saturn that has to do with the wisdom of age and time and experience. But just think about this question. I'm not going to give you an answer. I think it's just a good question to ask. It's one that I have found myself asking more than a few times just in, you know, kind of prayer or meditation, or it'll just come up as it's kind of like, koan or something. What is age? Like, we have a human definition of age, like, my grandpa is like an elder in like human terms that there's that means something right? But let's just imagine sometimes, in New Age circles, people will say you're an old soul. What if all souls were eternal, and there was no birth of souls or no death of souls? So that there's, there's literally no way of categorizing the age of the soul? What if all souls are just eternal? So just start with that premise? Then what is age? Right? What is age?  

One answer might be that it's an archetypal experience. Not that it is a mark of merit or that it's a distinguished, you know, trophy that you get to hold over other people. But that it is a kind of experience or a kind of perception. I wonder how much things would change if we looked at all structures of society or Society. What if we looked at all elements of the social fabric of life that take some sense of power over others because of their time, age, experience, longevity, their traditional sense of having been around for a long time, or whatever? And what if, what if we applied this idea right, that well, actually, everything is archetypal. And therefore, everything is equally timeless. Everything is there's nothing that's really older than anything else. Then, what is tradition? Right?

It's a kind of experience. It's a kind of archetypal way of viewing or experiencing. That's the only meaningful answer that I've had. But to me, I think it's a really beautiful and interesting question to ask because Sun Saturn will often bring up distinctions between authority, time experience, seniority, and things like that. And it's a really interesting question to ask, like, what does a claim to authority based on time mean if all souls are equal? No, I'm not saying that like a doctor who's done all this training is less qualified, just as qualified as someone who's done no training. Nothing like that. It's more existential than that. It's like, well, what? 

What is this experience of age, wisdom, time maturity? What is it? If all souls have always been and will always be, I think it's just to me it's again; I have working answers; I don't have the answer or anything like that. So I think it's a question that's worthy of meditation. Anyway, I'm now feeling like some of my insights today were almost like I did LSD or something. But whatever. I hope you guys enjoyed them. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Share your comments. Click the notification bell for updates. Hope you guys are having a good day. Have a great weekend, and don't forget to leave your stories. Use the hashtag grabbed, or email grabbed at nightlightastrology.com. I'd love to hear how the Sun and Saturn shows up for each of you. And feel free to philosophize in the comment section about your own ideas about the Sun Saturn and especially if you haven't your birth chart. I'd love to hear what you guys think. Alright, take it easy, everyone. Bye