Why the Sun’s Square to Saturn Can Be So Difficult

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today, we're gonna take a look at the Sun-Saturn square that's coming through this week. As the Sun is entering the sign of Sagittarius, it's going to be making a square to Saturn in Pisces. This is a Saturn that's just turned direct in Pisces, and this is one of those archetypal combinations that has a reputation for being difficult. But if you're like me, I always want to know why. Well, what makes it difficult is that once I understand what makes a planetary transit or aspect difficult.

I always feel like I can work with it a little bit more consciously, and that's really the goal of why we're doing this. So, we're going to talk about what makes the Sun-Saturn combination difficult and how we can work through that difficulty with a little bit more insight and consciousness this week. That is our agenda for today.

Before we get into it, don't forget to like and subscribe. Share your comments and reflections, especially if you have a Sun-Saturn dynamic in your birth chart or you experience the Sun-Saturn dynamic this week and have a story to share. You can always use the hashtag #grabbed or email us your story grabbed@nightlightastrology.com. Just don't share anything that you don't mind us sharing in a future storytelling episode, and of course, if you'd like, you can find a transcript of any of my daily talks on the web on the website nightlight astrology.com.

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Okay, well, on that note, Let us shift over now to talking about five reasons that the Sun-Saturn combination is difficult. I mean, why do people struggle with this one? Some of these will blur or blend with others on the list. There's some crossover between these, but I tried to make them very distinct because there are, I think, some really distinct things that can be said about the Sun-Saturn combination and why it has a reputation for being so difficult, but also how we can work with it. Understanding is freedom, right? In my opinion, once you really understand something and kind of understand what's going on within the nature of planetary experiences, there's a kind of freedom that's there, even if you still have to go through some of the difficulty of the transit, it makes a big difference.

So anyway, number one on my list is the problem of archetypal identification and the process of differentiation, and so what that means is a Sun-Saturn, our natural archetypal pair, the sun rules, the sign opposite Saturn sign, and the Sun is exalted in the sign opposite Saturn's exultation. So Sun rules Leo opposite sign of Saturn is Aquarius. This is an ancient astrology, of course, in the original dignity scheme.

Similarly, the Sun is exalted in Aries, where Saturn is in its fall, and the Sun is in its fall in Libra, where Saturn is exalted. So you have the Sun and Saturn for ancient astrologers as a kind of archetypal dyad. They are opposites, but in some ways, we're all going to experience them as fundamentally different from one another, but they also can't really be separated from each other. So it's really important to understand the Sun-Saturn combination and why that combination is typically experienced as heavier difficult.

It can be experienced in other ways that are more constructive, especially when you get the two planets into a trine or, a sextile, or even conjunctions; sometimes they're a little bit lighter, but squares and opposition's, in particular, tend to be a little bit more challenging and there's reasons for that.

So, when you think about the Sun, for example, if you can put yourself into the perspective right of the Sun, almost like put yourself in the center of the Sun. There's a you can imagine a very strong sense of there being nothing but yourself. Right, and if you were to imagine looking out from the Sun, it would be really hard to see anything else outside of yourself. You're so deeply identified with your own luminosity that, in a sense, you're blind to anything other anything outside of self, and so, there's a natural way in which the dimmest, most distant planet in the solar system for the ancient astrologers, Saturn was a kind of archetypal represented a kind of archetypal otherness. Saturn represented a sense of alienation, distance, difference, and differentiation.

Why? Because its natural opposite is that self-absorbed ball of light that really can't, by its own archetypal nature, see outside of itself. It's so at one with itself that there is no other from its point of view. Of course, there is, and that's Saturn, and Saturn is always checking something of the Sun and the tendency towards self-absorption.

So, for example, something that Saturn does for the Sun, if the Sun represents the self-absorption of a vain or egotistical person, is to check their ego and remind them that there is something else or something other. So, the person with the big ego might feel negated or slighted or checked by Saturn. But what Saturn is really doing is just reminding the person that there actually is something outside of yourself. That would be one psychological reflection of the Sun-Saturn dynamic. Now, the problem becomes, generally speaking, most of us like to have a sense that our life has a purpose or a meaning. I mean, 90% of my clients, when they come in, say something like I'm looking for my purpose, or I'm looking for my calling. I'm looking for something that will give my life a sense of higher meaning.

Whether you call it Dharma, or like calling is probably one of the I'm pretty sure that that phrasing the calling probably comes from Christianity, at least it was something that was very popular in the Christian church, like when I was growing up, what is God's calling for your life or something like that? So the new age is, I think, probably, like co-opted that, you know, it's like, it's part of a lot of new age, spiritual, not religious thinking that we each have a special calling.

In the birth chart, Vettius Valens describes the Sun as a symbol that represents something of the daimon pole on our life, the spirit, the soul guide that is taking us from something like the acorn to the oak tree. So there's, if you think about the Sun by house and sign and maybe aspects to the Sun in the chart, you're really getting a picture of what we are trying to become what we're trying to identify with.

Okay, so it's like an image and goal that we want to become. So in the sense of becoming something, you have archetypal conflation or identification, I want to become the astrologer, I want to become the engineer, I want to become the masterful black belt, or whatever it is, and it could be there's an obviously there's a million images that fill our lives and not just one image, but many images, which is also why we have to look at the Sun sign in our chart as a kind of field, a tapestry of images that compel us. These are the things I want to become in the broadest, most universal sense, by house and sign; you'll get that in the birth chart. That's what the Sun is representing.

So you can imagine that one of the problems that happens for everyone, it happens for all of us, is that we're so compelled by this kind of hero's journey to become what I meant to become, to become that image of myself that highest self, that highest image for this lifetime and we get obsessed with pursuing that and becoming that to the extent that we can become identified with the image, and the image is actually not who we are.

The image is something that acts as a medium through which the soul, which is indefinable and mysterious, as Heraclitus said, explored forever to a depth beyond report. We are souls, and the soul is something that is always emerging, and we get understandings and glimpses of who we are and our true nature. But then, just like a deer that comes out to be seen in the morning light, and then as soon as it senses that someone is watching it, it'll vanish right back into the forest.

The soul resists identification, the soul resists being put into a category or being purely identified with only one image and that is because the soul is multi Vaillant, multi dimensional, multi archetypal, the soul gets to know itself explores experiments, enjoys, and participates in its own nature through the process of bringing archetypes and gods in and letting them play and then moving on and letting them go and exploring and experimenting more and soul identity is about that process and it's ongoing, and it's relational and if you try to grab it, hold it, define it with an image, you will alienate the soul, or you will suppress the soul, which is why eventually no matter what we try to identify ourselves with Christian, Buddhist or astrologer, or Ninja, you know, or parent or spouse, or whatever it is, eventually, the more we become identified with that role, life has a way the universe has a way of conspiring to knock us out of our identification with that role, that is the Sun and Saturn.

So once you get conflated or identified with something that you're trying to become, eventually, you'll have something that says you're not good enough to fill that role, you've fallen out of it, you failed it, it doesn't work any longer, it's boring, it's not satisfying someone, or something doesn't think you're good enough at it, or someone or something thinks you're a fraud, or whatever.

Saturn comes as a negating force that forces us to differentiate and, once again, separate and leave that kind of golden image so that we can return to this kind of mysterious place, the place that's much less able to be pinned down or identified, which is soul. Saturn, in that sense, is a servant of the soul and also is a servant of the process of continued creation so that the experimentation with new images can keep going.

So, the two planets work together. They're not like enemies. But their process, especially when they come into squares, or opposition's, tends to hit us hard because those are the moments where if we become conflated with a roll, something will come and make us question, or is that really who you are? Are you any good at this anymore? Do you really like it anymore? Or maybe you suck at it? Maybe you can't do it right?

Some of which will require that we be persevering, patient, and resilient to keep going with the hero's journey of some particular image. But other times, it will be the call of impermanence that says it's time to drop it, there's disillusionment, there's disappointment, and then, of course, we become melancholic and depressed, and we have to leave behind some image that we thought we were that isn't working or that we can't live up to or whatever.

So Saturn is often blamed as being depressive, but it could be said that the Sun is manic, you know what I mean? So there's, there's a kind of gold mania in the Sun that we tend to, we tend to celebrate because it's more exciting and there's more of a kind of cosmic enthusiasm with the Sun.

Whereas Saturn can feel kind of heavy and negating, but the truth is that they're constantly sort of balancing each other out. You know, if you live in negation, and you say, every, nothing is real, everything's impermanent, there's no image that can ever fulfill me I, you know, like that. It's like, well, it's a cynical life that we're living then, and we don't ever get the joy of choosing images to pursue of having a calling of going as far as you can go with something until it falls off.

Saturn may keep us, you know, like, I'd prefer to just not throw my hat in the ring and not participate, and maybe even there's a kind of dissociative bypassing quality to Saturn that says, I'll just sit on the sidelines because it's all bogus. The Sun calls us to participate, regardless of where your cynicism is, you know, it's like Carpe Diem, get some joy going, you know, spark into a fire and pursue something that your heart longs for and the, you know, the Saturn may be the sideline voice of doubt, you know, so they're, but they're constantly pinging off from one another, you get too high on something you become too identified with something Saturn will pull you out.

If you stay out too long, the Sun magnetizes and fills your heart with the impulse to do and to become something what an image, a beautiful, platonic idea in the mind of God, that will allow your soul to come forth more like the deer coming out into the morning sun, and eventually that deer will have to flee back into the forest. But that's the dance over and over.

So why is the Sun-Saturn combination difficult? It's difficult because nobody likes the process of becoming identified with something only to have to differentiate and let go, you know, for negating, canceling, you can't do that, you know, it's like nobody likes that. Nobody likes getting so wrapped up in something only to be cut off from it. This is why, for example, son, Saturn is sometimes associated with the death of the Father; you have this bright, glowing, luminous father figure in your life that's so joyful, and you know, and then all of a sudden, boom, the Father passes like sometimes people with Sun Saturn aspects in their chart will have that happen. The Father passes, and then all of a sudden, you're left with this feeling of like, well, how do I get the joy back?

Because the Father will often provide a very solar experience or image in the psyche, and then oftentimes, the people with hard Sun Saturn aspects that have a father die in childhood will spend a lifetime trying to figure out what it means to retain something of that archetype in your life, rather than becoming cynical or distant, or, you know, sitting in some kind of permanent hurt or disappointment. That's like a pretty classic Sun-Saturn dynamic, but there are many, many others to Sun-Saturn could be a father that negates your attempt to occupy and inhabit images by constantly casting doubt or aspersions toward you, or saying you're not good enough, or you can't be that or something. There are so many different ways that the Sun-Saturn can represent sort of difficult dynamics with Dad.

But anyway, number two is not having a dimmer switch. The Sun-Saturn one of the things that it does is it makes us aware of the need to have something like a dimmer switch. My wife mentioned this the other day, and I thought it was really interesting. I won't go into it, but it was an interesting conversation we were having. But anyway, the gist of the conversation was that it's really nice to be around people who know how to fill a space with their brightness, with their archetypes that they're identified with the comedian or the, you know, there's so many different personality types.

So you can really feel when someone's inhabiting their archetype, and they're just shining it out, and there's a freedom and a joy, even if they're like, I don't know, even if they're, like cynical, and they have a dark sense of humor. You can tell when someone's inhabiting whatever they're inhabiting, and that's the Sun, a kind of identification with a role, and there's a joy, and there's a freedom, and there's a brightness that's coming through them, and you have to be able to perceive it in lots of different personality types.

The Sun is not just for people who are expressing with some kind of happy go lucky, you know, mid-July, you know, expression. It's more like someone is Truly inhabiting something that feels authentic, and it's just radiating from them. Even if they're not like the cheeriest person, that's the Sun. So anyway, Isn't it nice to be around people like that, who can really occupy themselves, but then they have a dimmer switch, they can turn it down so that other people can come out as well.

In fact, my favorite people to be around are those that know how to inhabit themselves. But also when they sense other people are hiding or maybe getting a little bit overwhelmed by the brightness, we just turn that dimmer switch down, and then you start allowing other people to come out, and you kind of are inviting people to come out, and then their lights going up, right. I think some of the most brilliant people are those who have a good Sun-Saturn relationship archetypal, in their psyche, it's like, I know how to be bright, and I can tell if it's starting to feel too much space or, you know, like, overwhelm people, and then I kind of turn it down and other people come out a little bit more like that.

This is hard; if you don't have a dimmer switch, it feels like people, something, something is trying to dim you, and that is because one of the like, one of the cosmic tasks of the Sun-Saturn is to humble us when we are so identified with something, but we don't know how to, we don't know how to step out of it. It's, we have to be able to see to ourselves, oh, I'm inhabiting an archetype. But I'm actually a soul. So let me just turn the light down on that, you know, kind of let me turn the light down on that expression. People who know how to do that are people who know that they're not archetypes; people who don't know how to do that, quite frequently, are people who are overly identified with an archetype or different roles that they play, and they can't step out of it.

Because they can't step out of it, there's often not a lot of room for other people. So when this transit comes up, it's experienced as negation, frustration problems with authority, people trying to clip your wings, the feeling that someone's trying to dim your light. It's a lot easier to do, and like, that's tough for anyone, even my, like, I'm not, I think I have a little bit of a dimmer switch. But, like, it's still, you know, I find that my ego gets checked by these transits, and then I have to, like, develop that become a little bit better with a dimmer switch.

So, that's a challenging thing. Nobody likes having their ego checked, nobody likes the lesson of, you know, humility and being becoming humble, it's usually it usually comes with a little bit of like wound licking, you know, like, and that's because when our sense of self is wrapped up in how well we can perform or be identified with various roles, rather than in the mystery of the soul. You know, we tend to experience our self-worth in terms of the success or failure of our endeavors to perform a role at a high level. That's exhausting. So, the Sun-Saturn is also known for being exhausting.

Number three, not having a healthy relationship with No. So, you know, to me, the most interesting thing that was said about Saturn was that it was akin to Mercury, the planet of curiosity. Isn't that interesting? I mean, Mercury-Saturn were good friends in terms of people who had a contemplative archetype they were working with, and to me, one of the best ways with Saturn in the Sun to work with them is when No comes along when negation or blokes come along, to stay curious and contemplative. Because then you're not getting offended or hurt or reactionary about things. You're staying curious and open, and then it's interesting how there's something creative that's being offered. So that's another one that makes this kind of tough is that people just have a hard time with No. We don't stay curious when No comes along. Not that it's easy.

Number four not recognizing creative contractions. Creativity is a process, and one of the best things that ever happened to me was watching my wife and two pregnancies go through the whole arc of a pregnancy and knowing that creativity is something that comes along with contractive moments and spaces, deaths, rebirths, contractions, expansions, they're all like they're all part of the creative process. People who think of creativity only as uninhibited, free, joyful expansion have a hard time understanding the creative potential of the Sun and Saturn.

Then, number five, if you don't have a relationship with silence and emptiness, this is going to be problematic because silence and emptiness are absolutely crucial for this transit to deliver its deepest gifts. When you have a relationship with silence and emptiness, there's a way in which the Sun-Saturn will empty things out and create a need for silence. If you can move into those spaces with an open heart and open mind, you'll receive the most; if you can't, it becomes really difficult because this is a transit that tends to bring a kind of silence and emptiness where you might wish that there was more activity, joy, shine, or whatever.

In my opinion, if you stay curious, you stay open to silence and emptiness, and you recognize creative contractions. There's something that ends up being very promising about this most of us don't have the patience for, including myself.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on why the sun square to Saturn can be so difficult, and hopefully, this has been illuminating. Hopefully, we can understand the relationship between these two planets archetypally so that we don't feel overwhelmed. Understanding is freedom again.

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