Approaching Saturn
The way many speak of Saturn is through a grand externalization; a sense of fear, or potentially deference, even sometimes evoking the name of Saturn but always with the “but, they taught me the lesson of…”. What I hope is for each person to deeply reconsider Saturn, either by transit or within their natal chart, as some mechanism of causation in their lives, especially if you solely come to meet Saturn associating their presence as the very one which performs the restricting, the binding, the burdening, the grief wrecking. I am not interested in being any form of “Saturn is not a malefic-truther,” but more broadly, this practice of divination we do with astrology is our means by which we interpret the message from the Divine; as such, Saturn, like any planet, is a carrier of a divine meaning, rather than a “teacher,” or an agent of misfortune. Saturn, by transit, or within a birth chart, or on its own, contains opportunity for profound intimacy with the highest form of divine intelligence and is with you, within you, and archetypically embodying the most deeply felt embodiment of time itself; where we come from, where we go, this construct that defines what it is to be embodied and mortal; the consequence of corporal materiality; the profound love and fulfilling of contracts with Spirit; and for those most interested in astrology, the very nature of being in intimate relation to the highest Spirit and the existential truths of providence.
Asking the question, “What is the true essence of Saturn,” invites many paths of entry to a “re”-approaching of your relationship to their spiritual purpose. A wonderful first path is simply meditating on the Orphic Hymn[1] to Saturn:
Etherial father, mighty Titan, hear, Great fire of Gods and men, whom all revere: Endu’d with various council, pure and strong, To whom perfection and decrease belong. Consum’d by thee all forms that hourly die, By thee restor’d, their former place supply; The world immense in everlasting chains, Strong and ineffable thy pow’r contains Father of vast eternity, divine, O mighty Saturn, various speech is thine: Blossom of earth and of the starry skies, Husband of Rhea, and Prometheus wife. Obstetric Nature, venerable root, From which the various forms of being shoot; No parts peculiar can thy pow’r enclose, Diffus’d thro’ all, from which the world arose, O, best of beings, of a subtle mind, Propitious hear to holy pray’rs inclin’d; The sacred rites benevolent attend, And grant a blameless life, a blessed end.
“Endu’d with various council, pure and strong, / To whom perfection and decrease belong. / Consum’d by thee all forms that hourly die, / By thee restor’d, their former place supply”; Saturn, in their very nature, represents the very nature of balance; equilibrium; impartiality. Saturn, in this very way, and at all times, is the essence of God that is time itself; there is no greater “equalizer” than the wholeness of time, eternity – the indifference, extent, expanse, and ethereal essence of time that imparts itself on to all incarnate beings; it’s the very thing that defines what it is to be of a mortal, material experience. Within this, though, there is also the regenerative property of time; of the promises of time; the reoccurrence of existence; of living again, and again, again; this natural “restoration” of former places. Saturn is not just decrease for decrease sake; but as the agent of time, there must be means of “restoration,” of which Saturn may serve as the omen of times of reckoning, judgement, or retribution.
“The world immense in everlasting chains, / Strong and ineffable thy pow’r contains / Father of vast eternity, divine, / O mighty Saturn, various speech is thine: Blossom of earth and of the starry skies, /
Husband of Rhea, and Prometheus wise.”; while Mercury is certainly the embodiment of duplicity, duality, a trickster tongue (both, and!) – Saturn, in contrast, embodies the contradiction and the absurd in our relation to Spirit. To question time, to question suffering, to doubt providence; these are the moments when we are in engagement with the intimacy of Saturn. There is an absolute “various speech,” in the manner time itself, and the promise of time, imparts contractual relation to each other, and to divinity. Time – a constraint, a restriction, a limitation; is it also what imparts meaningfulness? What gives value to the sacred, or the hallowed? What allows for a feeling of being seen when engaging with something centuries old? Is this promise a contradictory “gifting” of liability and love? My own spiritual relationship to Saturn, long before I was an astrologer, was experienced through the works of Kierkegaard in Works of Love:
“Under the law man groans. Wherever he looks he sees only demands, never a boundary – like one who looks out over the ocean and sees wave after wave, but never a boundary. Wherever he looks he meets only severity, which in its infinitude can always become more severe, never the boundary where it becomes mildness. The law starves out, as it were; one never gets his fill by its help, for its character is precisely to take away, to demand, to extract to the uttermost, and the continuous regression of indefiniteness in the multiply of all its provisions constitutes an inexorable collection-statement of demands. With every provision the law demands something, and yet there is no life, but life is fulfillment. The law resembles death. But I wonder if as accurately as life knows everything which gives life, just so accurately does death know everything which gives life; consequently, there is in a certain sense no quarrel between law and love in respect to knowledge; but love gives and law takes, or to express the relationship more concretely in proper order, law requires and love gives.”
Engaging with Saturn is to engage with this sense of, for what is life fulfilling to serve? What truly is the nature of love? Is spiritual love, or should spiritual love, also be formed around a recognized commitment to our “beingness,” a choosing of our past, of our mortality, of our flesh as recognition of that bond to Spirit, within us and through our works, even in the contradiction of being thrust into the contract that is existence for which we had no choice at the inception, but with that which was our source (Spirit/time) we were never disconnected.
“Obstetric Nature, venerable root, / From which the various forms of being shoot; / No parts peculiar can thy pow’r enclose, / Diffus’d thro’ all, from which the world arose,”; and here, it is necessary to recognize this Spirit/”time itself,” nature of Saturn as that which all things are actualized. Saturn is the roots, the bones, the foundations; but also (keeping in mind the co-rulership of Capricorn and Aquarius, two signs averse to one another) the eternal promise of reoccurrence, of the next wave, of the potential that lies beyond death, of distancing from materiality for clearer, discernable objectivity. There is forever this contradictory marriage of past/future with Saturn; the burdens of our forebearers, and that which we are thrust with bearing into our future. In both of these circumstances, we are visiting Saturn in those darkest of places. In Astronomica[2], Manlius wrote “Where at the opposite pole the universe subsides, occupying the foundations, and from the depths of midnight gloom gazes up at the back of the Earth, in that region Saturn exercises the powers that are his own: cast down himself in ages past from empire in the skies and the throne of heaven, he wields as a father power over the fortunes of fathers and the plight of the old.” Here, Manilius likens the fourth house (opposite pole to the highest point of the chart), as a natural extension of that which is governed by Saturn. So too, Saturn’s natural domiciles Aquarius, and place of exaltation, Libra, are places in which the Sun is debilitated. The Sun’s nature is that of inception, inspiration, our subjective intelligence; inversely related to these places without light where Saturn lives; these “time”-chains that have this contradictory nature of imposing a sense of disorientation of the spirit and yet being in command of it. The Sun and Saturn both carry archetypical significations of the “father.” Sun, often for its associations with that which is “solar,”; leaders, kings, personas of centrality. Saturn, however, has connotations of that which is inherited, obligated, constrained. The light of the sun – the heartbeat, blood of our veins; the immensity of Saturn, distant in the solar system – the bones that carry us. This natural contention between Sun and Saturn, experiences of being in light and out light; serves as reminder of that indifference of time – indifference, the very thing a solar nature finds so highly insufferable; but when looking back on time, indifference to you (and to all, the equalizer), the individual, can soothe, can comfort, can provide intimacy in times of loneliness, connection and reverence to the dead, the silent, the mass experience of being incarnate that is rarely an experience of pure sovereignty. And yet, in the very contradictory nature of Saturn, Saturnine experiences provide incredible opportunities to discover what sovereignty we do contain. What are our boundaries? Our contracts? This is often at the very heart of Saturn square, opposition, and return transits. During these times, we live, we embody the experience of Saturnian “reckoning,” of being developing self-love, self-mastery of what is my own domain as opposed to that of my forebearers. Through the resiliency of creating foundation, conviction through one’s bones, what chains do I actively choose, rather than have thrust upon me?
“O, best of beings, of a subtle mind, / Propitious hear to holy pray’rs inclin’d; / The sacred rites benevolent attend, / And grant a blameless life, a blessed end.” Lastly, the best place to approach Saturn, is through the familiar, and so unfamiliar beauty of the twelfth house. Those who embody Saturn, or Saturnian experiences, have affinity to the devotional significations of the twelfth house. For this is the place that is cadent to the first; the place which “pulls away” from the Ascendant, our sense of personal agency, identity, self-hood. The contradictory nature of Saturn, as experienced predominately in the birth chart, can be expressed in the individual coming to embody contradiction themselves – to be contrary to “being seen,” to have more intimate familiarity with death or agedness than with youth or novelty; to be distanced, to be on the margins. Specifically, in Aristotelian natural philosophy, Saturn’s manifestation was often that of “black bile,” or Melancholia[3]. Marsilio Ficino stated that, “Saturn seldom denotes ordinary characters and destinies, but rather men who are set apart from others, divine or animal, joyous or bowed down by the deepest grief[4].” However, Ficino, too, identified Aristotelian melancholy with Plato’s “divine frenzy,” both conditions of “balck bile,” and as such, states of the most profound spiritual contemplation also have an intimate relationship with melancholy; have aptitude for transcendental thought and philosophy, and have the capacity to engage with divinity beyond the mundane experience[5]. Experiences of spiritual devotion and mastery, through Saturn, appear to necessitate “decrease,” some degree of renunciation, either forced or chosen abdication of the material world, isolation or a state of being solitary. As such, it’s evident that Saturn would rejoice in the twelfth house, the house synonymous with experiences that generally remove our perceived sense of agency, “perceived,” being explicitly what Saturn, time, would ascribe to any sort of sense that we are in any sort of state of existence as single entities, with consciousness and free will that can extend beyond the confines of our states of being. These are places where the true beauty of monastic life, the “in-between” places and states of consciousness, retreat centers, mediation are all places we may actively seek out to connect to Saturn.
Developing devotional intimacy: Lastly, it is important to note that Saturn (the inevitable, the law, the distant, the commandment) also contains this natural contention with Jupiter (faith, hope, truth, justice); their mythological lineage is worth considering. Saturn, father of Jupiter; Saturn, precedes Jupiter. Modern, western culture generally presumes that we enter contracts (marriage, etc.) in the order of: gratification (faith), love (intimacy), devotion (contract). However, our spirit-soul-flesh comes into existence in a different order: devotion (contract), gratification (faith), love (intimacy). Without our own choosing, we enter into relationship with Spirit, a contractual bond, or our ancestry/our relation to time, if you want to think of it this way, as well. Often, experience doubt, as we witness the contradiction, the absurdity of existence. Then, if we desire to develop intimacy with existence, with time; we must actively deny, or refuse, or suspend the seemed paradoxical contradictions of time (and its intentions for us); this, is faith. And from there, we often begin cultivating true intimacy; seeing and being seen, recognizing what is us, through us.
[1] The Orphic Hymn to Saturn in Renaissance Astrological Magic. 2020. Christopher Warnock. 12 May 2021. <https://www.renaissanceastrology.com/orpheushymnssaturn.html>.
[2] Manilius. “Astronimica.” n.d. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press. 12 May 2021. <https://www.loebclassics.com/view/manilius-astronomica/1977/pb_LCL469.157.xml>.
[3] Wikipedia. Melancholia. n.d. 12 May 2021. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholia>.
[4] Ficino, Marsilio. “Opera omnia” Kilbanksy, Raymond, Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl. Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art. pg. 259, Ed. Philippe Despoix and Georges Leroux. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019.
[5] Kilbanksy, Raymond, Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl. Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019.
