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Astrologically, Saturn relates to timing and cycles within all aspects of one’s life. The process of life, from the moment of birth, is laden with a myriad of phases and cycles, including many that reflect the influence of Saturn. Astrologers across the centuries and disciplines have considered this notion through their own unique lens, reflecting subtle nuances depending on the applications, audiences, or clients they are working with. Illustrating this is a brief comparison of perspectives presented in the writings of Ptolemy, Brian Clark, and Stephen Arroyo.
In the ‘Tetrabiblos’, Ptolemy discusses Saturn’s relationship to the prediction of events triggered during the ‘ages of life’ for an individual including marriage, work, children, parents, health, old age, and death.[1] Similarly, Brian Clark, in his book ‘The Family Legacy’, considers Saturn’s journey through the family houses of the horoscope, (transits through the 4th, 8th and 12th houses), evoking opportunities to be more autonomous and self-directed as the individual travels a path from family home life out into society, the world of work, and beyond.[2] The transiting journey of Saturn through a house can last for two and a half years. In his book, ‘Astrology, Karma & Transformation’, Stephen Arroyo notes these transits are an indicator of the particular ‘structure, quality, and rhythm of one’s cyclic participation’ within the broad context of life.[3] He emphasizes the significance of Saturn’s cycle, and particularly its position within the natal chart, stressing that any interpretation should be considered with ‘an awareness of the importance of time’, since the meaning of an aspect and its relevance within a life is not static.[4]
Interestingly, Ptolemy’s ‘Division of Times’ appears to summarize the phases rather than the events of life, ultimately leading to Saturn’s lot of old age.[5] He insists that one must pay attention to the ingresses of Saturn since they represent the markers of events or ‘general places of the times’ and, like Arroyo, seems to reference the special quality of the cycles in addition to their duration.[6] Both Arroyo and Clark examine the cycles of Saturn in seven-year segments, acknowledging the significance of the hard aspects (squares, oppositions, conjunctions) of the planet in quarterly phases representing the full cycle of Saturn around the horoscope. With these transits, the notion of ‘life lessons’ so often associated with Saturn are, for Arroyo, laying out an avenue towards a happier and more complete experience of life with the potential for an ‘illuminated soul’.[7] He refers to the first cycle of Saturn (Saturn’s return) through the natal chart (approximately 29 years) to be ‘primarily based upon reaction to past conditioning, karma, parental influences and social pressures’, and therefore the lessons to be worked through will have relevance in these areas.[8] Clark, on the other hand, highlights different elements of responsibility that become more apparent as the individual’s life progresses to middle age such as decisions regarding elderly parents, stressing the need ‘to be responsible without losing one’s individuality’.[9] The second Saturn return, he suggests, is an opportunity to build the structures to support an individual’s new approach to life, the result of new understanding developed during the preceding years, observing that this phase reflects a time when external life structures have ‘reached their capacity and the soul yearns to fortify its inner life’.[10]
The significance of Saturn’s cycles and phases cannot be denied. Whether one considers the implications and timing relevant to karmic lessons and transformation, or the stages or ‘ages of life’, we cannot escape the influence of Saturn but, through active engagement in the journey we can learn to appreciate, and benefit from, the lessons we face. [JL]
[1] Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, p. 221.
[2] Brian Clark, The Family Legacy, pp. 333-334.
[3] Stephen Arroyo, Astrology, Karma & Transformation, p. 191.
[4] Stephen Arroyo, Astrology, Karma & Transformation, p. 79.
[5] Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, p. 447.
[6] Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, pp. 453-455.
[7] Stephen Arroyo, Astrology, Karma & Transformation, p. 8.
[8] Stephen Arroyo, Astrology, Karma & Transformation, p. 83.
[9] Brian Clark, The Family Legacy, p.103.
[10] Brian Clark, The Family Legacy, p. 311.