posted January 13, 2009 05:35 PM           

this is a subject of a major interest for me,maybe simply because i didnt passed through it yet...

I have red in several threads that people passing this hard period of their Lifes can undergo deep and transformacional processes in diferent areas of life.

It is never easy but it becomes easier to deal with it when we counsciously know in antecipation what kind of "influences" this Transit will have.

Im still in my 25 so i went to astro to see when will start and how the other planets will be alligned:

wHAT I HAVE Noticed was this:

At the same time i will have Saturn Return,i´ll be having also some other difficult aspects:

- Tr Saturn also cj Pluto
- Tr NN cj Jup/Uranus
- Tr Merc and Pluto cj my IC Arghh
- Tr Uranus entering my 7h
- Tr Lilith/Jup/Karma cj my Juno
- Tr Mars squaring N.NN
- Tr Kiron square Kiron
- Tr Neptune oposing Venus

Overall it figures to me a very hard period- but i would like no know more in depth what kind of "situations" could this Time appear?
Or what changes could i expect for that time?Emotional,career wise,spiritual wise?

(Sorry im not being able to post the chart)

Data:30th august 1983 at 9:30am oporto portugal

posted January 13, 2009 08:08 PM         

" .. Saturn completes its first return at around the age of twenty nine and a half. Although it is not a measure of either intelligence, capability, or talent, the first Saturn return is a measure of psychological maturity, if we assess this by the ability of the ego to stand on its own ground. Saturn has now made its circuit through all twelve houses of the chart, and one has acquired sufficient experience to form one's own values and attitudes, separate from those of the family background.

.. Those of you here who have not yet reached the time of the first Saturn return may feel vaguely insulted, as if I'm suggesting that you are immature. On the ordinary level, this is not necessarily the case - a person in his or her late teens or early twenties may be extremely gifted, intuitive, insightful, and capable of important decision-making. But there is a level on which the ego is still pliable and fluid, and where some essential inner structure has not yet fully formed. Maturity in this sense does not occur until the Saturn return. For this reason, those who have not yet gone through the Saturn may find that problems and conflicts are more readily solved in a therapeutic situation, and childhood wounds can be healed more easily - largely because one has not yet crystallised one's defence systems, and is still open to creative and healing input from parental figures and surrogates who might provide something more nourishing than what one got at home.

..The Saturn return is a time of great challenge, potential rewards, and also potential shocks, if unfinished business from the earlier squares and opposition has not been dealt with. Some people find this period extremely satisfying, and feel they are reaping the rewards of earlier years of hard work. Others have a terrible time, and find that the structures they have built, especially at the time of the second square, come tumbling down. At the Saturn return we face our own reality. and have a good, hard look at who we are and what we have made of our lives thus far. The picture may not be very pretty if we have been avoiding earlier Saturn challenges. We may realise that we are fakes, or that we have made marriages to people who are really parental surrogates, or that we have cemented ourselves into financial or professional situations which are stifling the spirit.

.. A lot of people rush to get married at the time of the return. They don't like the uncomfortable feeling of being alone and separate out there in the world, so they try to lose this feeling in a marriage which may turn out to be a disaster if it is based on desperate insecurity and a need to find protection. Not all Saturn return marriages are built on such foundations. Some are made because of a clear sense of where one is going. These are likely to endure. But whenever we make commitments under powerful Saturn transits, our motives are usually mixed, and much more complex than we might realise at the time.

.. By the time of the first Saturn cycle, the ego is more or less formed - or is badly unformed, if there are strong elements of the personality fighting against separateness. If the latter is the case, the Saturn return is likely to be pretty rough. But with a reasonable degree of self-sufficiency and self-definition ( rather like Winicott's "good enough mother" - perfection is not required, but rather, something workable ), what you have is a relatively mature entity with a good enough sense of self and an adequate capability of surviving in the world. One might be neurotic, eccentric, and full of conflicts, but there is a capacity to stand on one's own ground, and a deep feeling of being someone real.

.. The manifestation level of the Saturn cycle - Saturn transits as events - varies enormously. This is because Saturn is placed differently in every birth chart, and the "X-factors" which the chart does not portray - the level of consciousness, the nature of the society in which one lives, and so on - are also completely different from one individual to another. Yet there is a kind of inexorable logic in the way each Saturn aspect to its own place builds on all the past aspects, according to the choices we make at each juncture. This inexorable logic can feel like fate when we are hit with a manifestation which, to a detached observer, is clearly the consequence of earlier choices.

.. We often do some very silly things at the important stages of the Saturn cycle, largely because we panic. As I have said, one of Saturn's chief emotional expressions is loneliness, because the process of separating is painful. We experience our existential aloneness - a profound recognition that, no matter how close we are to other people, they cannot ever wholly know us. Also, there is often a deep recognition, sometimes unconscious or only partly conscious. that, even though we may have an immortal spirit, nevertheless the body will die.

.. This sense of mortality and loneliness can make us very frightened, and we may reach out compulsively for anything which will alleviate those feelings. Hence, during the first Saturn cycle, there are many breakdowns, many rushed marriages, many hasty work decisions, and many compulsive childbirths which cluster around these significant ages - especially the second Saturn square in the early twenties and the Saturn return at twenty-nine. Sometimes the best advice we can give the client who comes at these times is to wait, and to make decisions and commitments only when the whole process, including its possible consequences, has been thought through. Impulsive action is not usually a good idea under Saturn transits, but reflecting on the inner process as much as possible can have positive consequences for many years to come. Otherwise, one may be compensating for a false structure - or a false self - which has now reached its full term. "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Liz.G. then goes on to ask the audience for comments on how they experienced the first Saturn return ..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

re: " a false structure - or a false self "
if i get around to typing up the Saturn cycles .. that has a few paragraphs to itself
and .. " fighting against separateness. " ..
Liz.G. describes Saturn transits .. in the main .. as the process by which we separate from the family background .. ( parents ) .. to form our own identity.

posted January 14, 2009 10:38 AM         

I'm 29, going through my Saturn Return (exact on 25 August) and my world is entirely different from the things I was thinking 4 years ago.

posted January 14, 2009 01:53 PM           

i imagine that it can be the most strange period in our life then:we´re not adults yet but neither we are teen´s anymore.

as a Virgo i cannot stop thinking what will that bring - but one thing is sure:it will definatelly make me a stronger person.

posted January 17, 2009 03:54 PM         

Liz.G. :
.. A lot of you will have gone through the first Saturn return. Would any of you like to comment on how you experienced this, in the context of separating ? How did it come out in your lives ?

Audience :
.. I broke up my marriage for a while, and left my family. It wasn't a permanent separation, but it was a separation.

Liz.G. :
.. That was during your Saturn return ? How long did the separation last ?

Audience :
.. For around two years. I have Saturn in Taurus.

Liz.G :
.. It sounds like you were acting out exactly what I was describing. Perhaps you were trying to get away from a process that you feared, by creating an alternative reality in which you didn't feel the uncomfortable feelings. Let's look at what those feelings might have been, based on the sign placement of natal Saturn. What are the basic issues of Saturn in Taurus ?

Audience :
.. A need for security .. a fear of change.

Liz.G :
.. Yes, both are true, but we need to get beneath these characteristic defences and understand what Saturn in Taurus requires - what it feels like inside. the hunger for absolute security is very great, and there may be a strong sense of deprivation around security needs. Often the early home life felt materially shaky or unsafe, which a child with Saturn in Taurus cannot tolerate.

Audience :
.. Well, we weren't poor. but there was a lot of financial worries, and several moves of house when I was quite young. I hated it every time. I need to get used to things and know where they are.

Liz.G :
.. Later on, Saturn in Taurus, which remembers with a shudder every early incident of instability or undesired change, may cling very tightly to a familiar situation, even if it's uncomfortable of stifling to other aspects of the personality. That's the " down side ". The " up " side is that the great determination to establish stability can create enormous tenacity, strength, and patience in the face of adversity. Saturn in Taurus people are often able to endure hardships which would break other people. The trouble with this quality, which is in itself valuable and admirable, is that, if there are more freedom-loving and volatile attributes suggested in the birth chart, one can feel trapped by one's Saturnian needs. I have a feeling this is what happened to you at the time of the Saturn return. Did you feel as though life was closing in on you, that you had cemented yourself in a prison through your security needs, and that time was slipping by ?

Audience :
.. Exactly that. I have Sun and Venus in Sagittarius.

Liz.G :
.. Did you come back to your marriage out of a sense of duty, or was it because you felt in your heart it was the right thing for you ?

Audience :
.. Both. I have a strong sense of duty, and didn't like the idea of throwing away something I had worked at for a long time. This was part from responsibility to my children, which also weighed very heavy. It seemed such a waste. I had a lot of conflict. But in the end I decided that I was someone to whom duty mattered a lot, and I had to accept that. If I wanted stability, and didn't want a guilty conscience tormenting me, something would have to be sacrificed. Once I accepted that, it seemed less imprisoning. I felt calmer, as if I had made peace with my fate.

Liz.G :
.. So you paid Saturn's coin, by facing yourself and accepting your limits. I think you are describing your experience very honestly. I often wish more of us would cultivate this sort of honesty when facing Saturn's dilemmas, because it always pays off in the end. As transiting Saturn moves toward its natal place for the first time since birth, we get a sense of something heavy and imprisoning creeping up. We think it is " out there ", and say, " I am getting out of here ! " But as someone I know once wryly put it, wherever you go, you have to take yourself with you. We fear that a very great burden, a very great weight, is going to descend. On one level that is true. It often isn't burdensome on the concrete level, but that is what it feels like, and we may try very hard to escape. the weight is really the necessity of our natal Saturn sign, house, and aspects - our inner necessity, which might not accord with our hopes and dreams for the future. This limits all of us, in different ways. It is truly a great weight - the weight of our substance, our authenticity, our earthly responsibilities in incarnation.

Audience :
.. There is a story somebody wrote somewhere. It's an Indian story. One of the gods is trying to escape the Saturn principle, and so he puts himself into a bottle for two and a half years, and at the end of this period, Krishna comes along and says, " What on earth are you doing ? " The god says, " Well, my Saturn return was coming up, and I didn't want to have to go through anything dreadful and heavy, so I imprisoned myself in a little pot and buried myself in the mud. " And Krishna says, " Well, you have had your Saturn return, haven't you ? "

Liz.G :
.. I know this story, but in a slightly different form. In the version I heard, the god turns himself into a hippopotamus, and sits covered in mud for two and a half years, so as to avoid his Saturn return. Clearly, attempts to avoid Saturnian mud simply create a different variety of Saturnian mud, which may be far worse than the mud one is seeking to escape.

.. You ran away from something hoping you could find freedom from the bondage of your own inner necessity. But the conflict you experienced was probably just as painful as what you would have met if you had stayed at home and fought it out. So you got Saturn anyway, in a different form. It would be quite impossible to judge such a situation from a moral perspective, and say, " You should have done this, rather than that. " Leaving as you did opened up an inner conflict which has made you grow. Strangely, it almost doesn't matter which choice one makes, provided one chooses sincerely and takes on the conflict. Other factors - personal morality, damage to other people, material and emotional responsibilities, and so on - may make one choice preferable to another. But one way or another we fail, because there is always some limit we cannot pass.

.. The important issue is the facing of the conflict. Attempting to avoid this conflict is , to my mind, a major part of what the Greeks called 'hubris'. This really means arrogance in one's attitude toward the gods. If we think about it, we can see that a refusal to face a conflict which life is thrusting upon us is tantamount to attempting to control life, to believing that we can exempt ourselves from going through something. We may think we are practising avoidance out of cowardice, but there is a powerful element of arrogance in it as well.

Audience :
.. You don't seem to be mentioning the trines and sextiles as part of the Saturn cycle.

posted February 10, 2009 03:28 PM         

...my Saturn return is a >hell< of a ride - and it's happening right now.

I should write a book now though. I've never had such strange thoughts from out of nowhere. I see my own life from someone elses perspective, like from above or just slightly behind myself... Like a movie. With music! And it doesn't even fit! I've not ever felt so deeply sad, angry and hurt and at the same time so liberated and lucky. I see poetry everywhere and I see the beauty of darkness. I've never felt so lonely and misunderstood. And never so weak - or strong.