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.
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.