Meanwhile Back in Reality: Sun Opposition Saturn

This weekend, an Aries Sun will oppose Saturn for the last time until 2040. That’s because Saturn is not long for Libra, the sign opposing Aries. The past few years have seen Saturn make history from Libra. From squaring Pluto in Capricorn to opposing Uranus on the Aries Point, Saturn has seen us prepare to make history ourselves. Sun opposing retrograde Saturn along the Aries-Libra axis one last time is an opportunity for you both to reflect on the reality of what has happened and to lay a foundation for the realities to come.

Astrology by Len Wallick

Now, more than ever, it is important to be grounded in reality. Not held down, as with a ball and chain, but rather free to move about a stable center. Saturn was such an anchor in recent years. The anchor symbolism will continue when the ringed one enters Scorpio in October. It is a role for which Saturn is well suited.

Saturn, like Pluto and Mars, has a bad reputation which is not entirely deserved. Of all the planets commonly acknowledged as visible to the naked eye, distinguished from stars by unique movement and steady light, inferred by the ancients to have deity and consciousness, Saturn is the most dim and slowest moving. Hence, a remote and deliberate identity was conferred onto Saturn by human beings all over the world who saw it as a universal teacher of responsibility, anchoring your life to the consequences of your actions.

Robert Hand, a tropical (western) astrologer, avers that “Saturn represents the way you program your universe at the deepest, most fundamental level.” Komilla Sutton, a sidereal, Vedic astrologer, has written that Saturn “brings up karmic issues you have to deal with, things you cannot avoid.” From two different systems, the same perspective. Saturn is about responsibility and its archetype is commonly experienced through consequences. Consequences are usually no fun, but they are instructive, and dealing with them shapes your consciousness — and ultimately, your life.

When another object opposes the Sun, Earth is by definition literally in between them, pulled by opposing gravitational fields which contribute to the shape of its orbital path. When the Sun’s archetype of consciousness illuminates the face of Saturn this weekend, you will be figuratively in the middle with an opportunity to see in reflection how, during over two years of Saturn in Libra, your actions and those of others in your relationships have, between them, shaped your life’s path. That’s because Libra is largely about relationship.

Represented by the glyph of balance-beam scales, the energy of Libra is experienced in the exchange that relationship entails. When Saturn moves through Libra, its instructive and realistic archetype is thus focused out into the social world. During this particular trip through the sign of the scales, the intrinsic exchanges of responsibility and sharing of consequences have been concurrently experienced in an evolutionary tension with Pluto’s transformational effect on structure, while in a revolutionary confrontation to identity through Uranus. As world politics and the personal lives of individuals have faced rapid and uncertain revision, Saturn’s tenure in Libra has represented both our anchor to reality and our teacher with and through others. It will be missed, but less so if we take the time this weekend to recall and consciously integrate what we have learned.

Assuming we are aware of them, the teachings of shared experience and common consequence that transpired during Saturn’s eventful trip through Libra will be transferable. Providing that we have allowed ourselves to be guided by those experiences and shaped through those consequences we will be prepared to participate in and contribute to the events that will guide and shape the entire world for a long time. From having restraint imposed upon us by circumstances of our own making, the next step will be to impose restraint upon ourselves so as to better make circumstances. From being held to account by others, our next task is to hold ourselves to account for others. From being held in check by reality, our next, highest potential purpose is to be the check that guides, shapes and underwrites the reality to come. It all starts with a little reflection.

Offered In Service       

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

12 thoughts on “Meanwhile Back in Reality: Sun Opposition Saturn”

  1. ….and Atlantis was on my Sun (opp Pluto) Yep, 1999, the end of an era and a new beginning that has been a long painful birthing.

    Let’s hope the personal is political. If so, I’ve done the karmic work for a whole bunch of us, to be sure.

    Thx for giving me a place to “put” this, PW.
    xo

  2. CaraSusanetta,

    And I really really love it when someone who has been listening in the wings introduces him/her Self! 🙂

    Thank you to everyone, PW Staffers, PW bloggers and PW listeners. All One.

    xo

  3. One of the things that has been most interesting in my long tenure as a reader and subsequent subscriber to PW has been the growth of the community here as well as the maturing talents of interpretation and “making it real” by the staffer as they explore the themes that affect us all. I can’t thank you all enough for being so relevant and so generous!

  4. Len —

    “a universal teacher of responsibility, anchoring your life to the consequences of your actions.”

    ‘Be’ made an astute suggestion yesterday that I set aside the charts for awhile and listen and feel for awhile. Sage advice, to be sure. In the meantime, that triggered me to look back at a time when “all this began” for me — and low and behold the first thing I spotted was Saturn.

    Saturn is currently – as it segues from Libra – moving onto my IC/Jupiter/NN/Neptune (Scorpio).

    The chart from my past that I ran was that of my solar return in 1999. Saturn was on my MC opposing that stellium.

    (That’s the year I began to consciously make decisions about changing what I had been programmed by parental authority to “be”)

    Also on and around that date I was experiencing a Uranus return, Neptune squared Neptune, Pluto squared Pluto, TNode squared TNode and Venus and Jupiter were on the Aries Point – natal DML and near enough to Moon/Eric conjunction.)

    And that’s only a look at the major planets – I didn’t bother with asteroids etc. (!!)

    Well then, Saturn’s come round to the other side of the dharma/karma equation.

    Maybe that’s why I had the dream about past relationships last night, revisiting old homes and putting nagging feelings of unfinished business to rest — and then awoke holding my drawing board to my chest like Pallas with her shield.

    Old business is complete?
    Back to the drawing board?
    Something interesting about a drawing-boardo-shield; a tool of protection that is yet a tool for Creation?

    Something Darmic/Karmic and Saturnian about that, no doubt.

    Thank you again for your wisdom and insight, Len.

  5. “On the one side she is becoming more and more conscious of her identity and on the other side she is confined by responsibilities to and with others. As much as Aries enjoys it’s newly emerged ‘life’, it has no meaning without Libra ‘others’ to share it with. It’s like “you can have a party Aries, but you have to keep it within this room”. Without the reality of Saturn to remind Earth of what her boundries are, her path might lead her far astray. Without Libra she might forget how important it is to stay balanced.”

    This is EXACTLY how I feel. Thanks Be for the above and Len for starting this conversation.

  6. There is much to think about here Len. I especially was drawn to the image of Earth caught between opposing gravity fields which help to define Earth’s path. On the one side she is becoming more and more conscious of her identity and on the other side she is confined by responsibilities to and with others. As much as Aries enjoys it’s newly emerged ‘life’, it has no meaning without Libra ‘others’ to share it with. It’s like “you can have a party Aries, but you have to keep it within this room”. Without the reality of Saturn to remind Earth of what her boundries are, her path might lead her far astray. Without Libra she might forget how important it is to stay balanced.

    In the Sabian Symbol for where the Sun will be when he opposes Saturn we have this quite curious picture. Through Imagination A Lost Opportunity Is Regained. Rudhyar interprets it by noting that a mind overstimulated by what it might accomplish MAY fail, but if so, that apparent failure could be testing the mind’s capacity for “creative imagination”, and Undaunted Faith is required in the pursuit of one’s ideals.

    Saturn’s symbol seems pretty straight forward though. An Airplane Sails High In The Clear Sky. Rudhyar says “This picture symbolizes the capacity, latent in every individual, to comtemplate the stress of existence in our world of duality from a higher level.” He calls it a stage of Transcendent Realization”.

    For all of Saturn’s restriction, he might be inviting us to rise above the apparent problems we face at this time. Keep the faith the Sun tells us. Now that is a reality I think I can live with. Thank you for your never ending guidance Len.
    be

  7. Ah Len, I have been eagerly awaiting your gift of the day….honoring Saturn and its teaching. Saturn and I have been rather close for a thousand moons it seems. Another planet that truly deserves acknowledgement through ritual. The last two years I have been on an adventure without my companion of 20 years, and honestly, without Saturn to show up and let me know what I could create, well, I wouldn’t be where I am.

    If I may, I would like to quote Caroline Casey here: “We feed Saturn when we actively choose our focus. Saturn says…the truth of what we worship is what we spend our time on, regardless of what we say is important to us.”

    Thank you Len for these lovely moments to reflect.

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