posted October 20, 2012 05:38 PM
for all those dealing with this difficult placement here it is 
(Liz Greene)
The fourth house, corresponding to Cancer and the Moon, is the domain of childhood,
origin, family, and roots. As the base of the astrological chart, it represents the base of
the individual himself both literally - in terms of the home he has come out of - and
symbolically in terms of his inner sense of security and safety. This house describes the
emotions and atmosphere which surround him before he is old enough to make a
conscious and rational choice about whether he accepts them or not. This house may be
associated with the Jungian idea of the personal unconscious and with areas of
conditioned instinctual reactions imposed by the early environment.
Because of this association with influences that occur prior to the development of the
discriminating mind, any planet placed here is highly suspect because it points to
something in the psyche which must be first discovered and brought up to the surfacebefore it can be dealt with constructively. The influence of this house lies like a great
moving subterranean river beneath the surface of the later personality which is
developed in accord with the Sun and Ascendant; and this river may be powerful enough
to dominate the behaviour without being seen. It is a wholly personal house, and does not
seem to have much to do with the larger area of collective unconscious streasms which
affect the group emotional life. Because it is so personal, it is that much more difficult to
approach with a clear and unbiased eye.
The fourth house is generally considered to be the indicator of the father and his
relationship with the individual. This is of course subject to much argument; and the only
clear statement which has so far come out of the confusion is that the fourth-tenth house
axis refers to both parents. In some ways, it is immaterial which house goes with which
parent, as problems with one automatically create compensatory problems with the
other; however, I am inclined by experience to assign this house to the father as it is he
who establishes the backbone of the family, gives it his name, and determines by his
presence or absence the security or instability of the child's early life. It is rare that a
child loses his mother except by death; but when a marriage fails, or there is no marriage
in the first place, it is generally the father who leaves and whose support is withdrawn.
The background of a difficult or broken home in childhood is usually coincident with
afflicted planets in the fourth house or the fourth sign.
It will be obvious that having Saturn working as an unconscious factor from the plane of
the feelings s rather difficult as he is very slippery. He is usually considered, in Cancer or
in the fourth house, to suggest conditions of coldness, limitation, authority without love,
separation or isolation, and a generally unsympathetic early home life. This is often in a
very literal fashion, where the father dies or the parents are divorced or where the father
is forced by circumstances to be away much of the time. The isolation may also occur in a
symbolic fashion where the father is very much physically present but can offer no love,
sympathy, or emotional support - or where he may be loving and kind but is a budren or a
great disappointment through alcoholism, sickness, weakess of character, or an
emotional pattern which destroys the peace of the home. Or there may be undue
emphasis on material development and little on emotional expression.
There are many possible avenues on the mundane level in which a fourth house Saturn
may find reflection. The forms are as varied as are individuals. Regardless of which
means of outward expression occurs, however, the inner reaction is generally the same;
the sense of security, the feeling of protection needed by a developing child as a base on
which to build the evolving ego, is denied or frustrated; and the natural expression of
feeling which seeks to find unity with family and a sense of heritage is blocked.
It needs little further reasoning to see that this kind of situation, working on unconscious
levels, can effectively cripple part of the individual's emotional nature for the remainder
of his life if it is not understood. The mistrust of any emotional intimacy, particularly the
kind which revolves around a domestic situation, is usually pronounced; at the same time,
a craving for something secure and permanent and tangible in the emotional life is also
pronounced. It is a rare individual who is aware of this polarity existing within him; he
will see one end or the other. He may either be inordinately tied to his family and the
place of his birth, or hate them or display coolness and detachment. He is never truly
indifferent, however, for something which was necessary for his emotional development
was missing, and the entire structure of his psyche has had to develop lopsided to
compensate for the loss.
There is often great emotional instability with Saturn in the fourth house; and a definite
feeling of having been unloved, unwanted, is common. This may not be wholly conscious,
however. Nevertheless it will show, in a very obvious fashion, to the perceptive observer.
There is also often resentment toward men in general as the father is the first man or
symbol of masculinity encountered by the child. This can, of course, wreak havoc with a
man's understanding of his own masculinity and a woman's understanding both of men
and of her own unconscious male half. This is particularly true if the father is actuallyabsent from the home; for then, however jstified she may be, the mother must play both
roles, and consequently, whether she is temperamentally suited to the role or not, she
must become a dominant or authoritative figure. This is as much true of the weak or inept
father as it is of the vanishing one. The areas of the emotional life which can be affected
in adulthood are much greater than the sphere of the home, for the fourth house is one of
the angles and is therefore more significant in terms of the expression of the man on the
physical plane.
Saturn in the fourth house is also often concurrent with a compulsion to accumulate land.
In this way, the need for some new sense of security on the emotional level is reduced to
a physical fact - a common translation which Saturn very often attempts to make. The
translation usually fails, however, for material things cannot satisfy an emotional need.
But to the person carrying this emotional burden, land is solid and unchangeable, and a
home which is owned cannot be taken away in the same fashion that emotional support
can suddenly be torn away by death or absence. The unchecked crystallisation of a
feeling value will eventually, as the individual hardens and grows older, lead to that
which has been referred to as a 'lonely end to life'.
It will be obvious from this that a fourth house Saturn can rule the life with an iron
although invisible hand by undermining the sense of self-worth and making it difficult for
the individual to permit any close emotional contacts. It is the meaning of the position
that is necessary if it is to be utilised in a constructive way.
By denying a component which ordinarily comes from the environment, Saturn's
influence forces an individual to create theat missing component himself if he is to have
any peace. He must gradually withdraw identification of the value with the external world
and find its reality within himself as a part of his own psyche. Thus the opportunity is
offered, when Saturn is in the fourth house, for the person to build an inner sense of
security and self-acceptance based on an understanding of his real origin. This solid inner
psychic structure cannot be destroyed or shaken by circumstance; unlike the support and
confidence given by a loving parent which fostsers emotional dependency on others later
in life - the worst quality of Saturn in Cancer - this inner strength becomes the inviolable
possession of the soul. What begins as an emotional value must remain an emotional
value, but the field of its expression is expanded.
This kind of security on a feeling level is extremely rare. The great majoirty of individuals
bear many scars because of the loss of security in childhood, or they are dependent on
loved ones for a constant supply of it. Only the individual with Saturn in the fourth house
is likely to have developed it on his own; and this because he has had to. There is some
amount of trust required in the guidance or wisdom of the inner self who has chosen this
particular experience. Without this trust, there is no possibility of understanding the
meaning of the experience. Saturn always drives a man to understand the nature of his
pain. With a fourth house Saturn, he must understand the vulnerability of his own feeling
nature and the needfulness which underlies his apparent coldness toward all family and
domestic matters. It is then necessary to accept the experience as a positive means to an
end which will be worth the pain and the effort, since the pain is relative to the
dependency on others in the first place. The very personal and intimate world of the
feelings must be acknowledged and encouraged. This is particularly difficult for men to
do; and for this reason a fourth house Saturn is more dangerous on a man's chart; but in
compensation, a man with Saturn placed here who has taken the time to descend into his
own emotional depths, as do the heroes of mythology into the underworld, will display
that rare integration and serenity which comes from a balancing of the masculine and
feminine sides of the nature.
(Bill Herbst)
Microcosm: In the 4th house, Saturn reveals the seriousness of self-importance. Privacy
is a difficult issue. At times it seems forced rather than chosen, more solitary confinement
than secure space, as if you cannot really connect with others. However, at othermoments, privacy feels denied by circumstantial responsibilities, and you must steal your
aloneness, protecting it jealously. The pitfalls revolve around fear that you may never
achieve truly balanced self-centeredness. How can you be the centre of everything, yet
remain humble? The challenge is to realize that your personal identity is inviolable, a
source of strength buried deeply within the self, like the roots of a giant oak.
Personal security: Security is linked with responsibility, especially the feeling that you
must carry on some fundamental family tradition, whatever the cost. You probably
believe it would be selfish to do otherwise, even when what you must carry is a difficult
burden. You may have trouble realizing the weight of these traditions, bearing them
dutifully rather than examining them directly. This is part of your basic conservatism, a
special sensitivity toward solid, dependable structures. Though you are cautious, you
work like 'the little piggy who built his house out of bricks' to establish a home and family
of permanent value. While we all deal with the pitfalls of shame in our families, you in
particular must devote enduring efforts toward overcoming any crippling effects from
shame-based experience. THe challenge is to honor the past without sacrificing yourself.
Emotional imprints: Your family was highly structured, marked on the one hand by
solid respect for authority, and on the other by a sense of brittle rigidity. Identifying your
role in the family was difficult. You may have felt unimportant, unwanted, or unloved; or
conversely, you may have felt far too important, like a bird in a gilded cage. In either
case, alienation is a real, if sometimes unconscious, presence. It's lonely both at the
bottom and at the top. But you learned how to satisfy your desires and avoid getting
caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Whatever you couldn't have, couldn't do, couldn't
be is what you most remember and work to achieve.
'Inner-link' parent: What can we make of the father's symbol in the mother's place? It
may indeed be that the father is the inner-link parent in this situation; but more probably,
it indicates that the mother took over the father's role. She came to represent authority
and external structuring power for you as a child. This placement often corresponds with
a 'missing' father, someone not necessarily physically absent, but psychologically
neutralized in one way or another.
Private intuition: Can you trust yourself? You want aid from your guides, but may be
afraid to seek it out for fear you may be unworthy of your own best counsel. The key is
self-respect developed over a long period of growth, self-respect that can mature into
trust - truly believing in yourself. Honor the justice of your inner guides; they may at
times seem stern, cold, even unfeeling, but finally they are on your side, helping you to
become strong, capable, and grown-up. Real, honest adulthood is very difficult for all of
us. Your guides want to see you achieve that rare state.
(Zipporah Dobyns)
Saturn in the dourth house emphasizes teh early home and parents. Children with this
position usually learn to work early, thoguh this can be for many different reasons. Life
on a farm is possible, with chores for everyone. Help from the children may be needed
because of poverty, illness, or just a large family. There might be a single parent playing
both parental roles. Guessing details is a futile effort in astrology. When we understand
the principles, we can often change the details.
The main issues for Saturn in the natural house of the Moon involve dependency versus
power and responsibility. Some people are struggling to do justice to both a family and a
career in teh world, and they have to accept the fact that we can't do everything well.
The answer to dominance / dependency is interdependency - each person able to give
something that others value and can receive. As small children, the power is all outside,
and sometimes Saturn in the fourth house shows a truly difficult home life; but as we gain
skills, we can create the secure home and family we want.
Fourth house careers can include 'mothering' our own family or the world. We can feed,clothe, house, or comfort the public. An office or business in the home is possible, or a
family business which follows in the footsteps of the parents. Family roots, genealogies,
antiques, could be treasured. Security is very important, but concerns can range from
self-absorption in an insecure person to the urge to protect all of life including mother
earth. Some individuals might not have children of their own for fear of 'not doing it
right', but they might substitute pets or a garden to satisfy the parental instinct.
(Zipporah Dobyns) (contd.)
An astrological colleague with Saturn in the 4th house says she did not have harsh,
punitive parents or a difficult childhood. She and her siblings didn't have to do any work,
though their single parent worked hard. Saturn ruled her seventh house, and her
grandparent did some parenting. She was aware of 'poverty' in that depression-era
messages were received from both her mother and grandmother, so she felt 'poor'
sometimes even though she wasn't. She worked from the home, followed parental
footsteps in career, and works in a field involving emotional support of people.
(Bil Tierney)
In this house of psychological roots and subjective anchoring, Saturn suggests we may
feel a deep lack of inner security due to our early family experience. It may not have been
easy for us to digest the general atmosphere within the home during our formative years.
Later, we may grow up making a concentrated effort to protect ourselves from whatever
we regard as emotionally threatening. Saturn in the Fourth House can be an easily
internalized placement. We can become quite adept at constructing defence mechanisms
and other psychological barriers that insulate us from experiencing vulnerability in close
human interactions, leaving us lonely and cut off from others at a root level of our being.
Some of us work hard to keep our real feelings from being exposed or even analyzed.
Perhaps we fear that those we desire to attach ourselves to are capable of wounding us
or - even worse - abandoning use in our moment of greatest need, so we may choose to
remain impenetrable at the base of our inner foundation. How did we develop such a
deep distrust of other people's ability to nurture and support us on emotional levels? Why
all the hard-as-steel insulation? People may feel we are difficult to reach. Ever on the
defence, we disagree that we are inaccessible. We probably just don't see ourselves like
that, and it hurts when others do.
We may have viewed elements of our childhood years in the home as a source of
discomfort, denial, pain, and general restriction. It probably made little difference, from a
subjective viewpoint, whether ours was an environment of privileged affluence or abject
poverty. Any sense of deprivation was more on an emotional level than a material one.
We were paying close attention to how well our parents either responded to our original
needs or ignored them. Our upbringing and conditioning may have revealed patterns of
rigidity, coldness, a lack of color, and varying degrees of enforced discipline and control.
Many of us took all this quite seriously, and seldom without anxiety. We may have been
made to feel disliked and unwanted by at least one parent, whom we nevertheless tried to
appease and from home we nevertheless tried to gain respect. What we basically wanted
from that parent (and mmaybe from the rest of the family) was unconditional love and
closeness - an afformation that we were lovable for just being our imperfect selves, warts
and all. We typically grew up feeling we never got that. The prerequisites for love and
emotional nourishment centered on our obedience and model behavior. As few of us were
flawless in word and deed, we may not have grown up feeling accepted. As adults, we
may distance ourselves from our family at large rather than submit to their critical
rejection. (Much of the above is also likely to be symbolized by a very harshly aspected
Saturn: Saturn / Moon / Pluto conflicts in particular.)
Ths house puts us in touch with the maternal manifestations at the circumstantial level.We usually learn about our own caregiving capacity through interaction with our
biological mother or early mother figure. With Saturn here, we want our maternal figure
to be dependable and solid. We expect her to be predictable in her support. We can
become preoccupied with this parent's ability to fulfill our need for safety. How well she
does can have quite an impact on how we express closeness and intimacy as adults. But
astrology wouldn't put the sole blame on our mother if she did a poor job here. We are
the ones born with Saturn in the Fourth House, and it is we who are projecting certain
unappealing Saturn traits onto our mother. We may have trouble internally reclaiming
these projections as we get older, but they will need to be reclaimed as part of our
wholeness. Until then, our mother has to carry and act out much of Saturn's darker face.
In actuality, Mom could have been inconsistent or contradictory in her rearing of us,
creating mixed messages. She could have been very protective of our welfare while also
reluctant to be too warm and demonstrative with her feelings, as if drive more by
parental duty than instinctive love. We tend to absorb this same inner complex, resulting
in an ambivalence that typically doesn't sit well with the Saturn principle (which would
rather opt for clearly defined expression). Maybe our mother was unable to show her love
for us becausd daily survival needs were the number one priority, with little time for
tender-hearted moments of maternal affection. Her opportunities to show care may have
been limited for some tangible reason. Maybe her career needs were put before our baby
needs. How this Saturn dilemma played out could have taken many paths.
It could also be that our mother was emotionally immature at the time, or simply wasn't
very maternal at heart. Babies pick up on this quite vividly and can appear constantly
cranky as a form of protest for getting the cold shoulder. In a few cases, our mom may
not have physically been around long enough (due to abandonment, divorce,
institutionalization, or death) to help us structure healthy security patterns during our
formative years. Her absence created a void that may still need to be filled.
It is generally considered a social taboo, , so we probably carry some weighty guilt about
it, but some of us may grow up disliking or even hating our mother. Maybe we grow up
realizing we function best by keeping a safe distance from our mom and her negative
impact on us. (Often Saturn / Moon stress aspects are similar in theme here.) We feel
vulnerable around many of our family members, sensing they collectively know how to
target our weak spots. But what we tend to dislike the msot are the feelings of obligation
and duty we may have towards them. Dependency issues unresolved in the past can be
associated with an ongoing sense of doubt and frustration.
We may realize that our maternal relationship is neither healthy nor growth-inducing,
especially if we do nothing about it but gripe and let resentment slowly build a nest of
thorns. At the least, we sense a firm parental grip over certain aspects of our psyche - a
power we cannot break away from completely without first learning the inner meaning of
that power.
Saturn in the Water houses is more apt to indicate 'karmic' ties than when found in other
house placements. WIth Saturn in teh Fourth House, we may feel quite bound to our
mother (or the concept of mother), even if we don't like her personally or trust her
motives and intentions. But by paying attention to what discomforts us about her, we may
learn plenty about hwat we have trouble getting in touch with when others come into our
life and attempt to mother and comfort us, or when they show that feared dark face and
deny our needs by turning cold or leaving us.
Some of us with Saturn in the Fourth House tend to block our ability to become
emotionally dependnt on another. We feel weakened by our own neediness. It is possible
that we associate such dependency with loss, restriction, or even harsh criticism. Perhaps
our early attemtps at securing maternal warmth and affection were unsuccessful. We
could misinterpret ourselves as unlovable because of it. Later, in our adult relationships,
we may have little confidence in our ability to establish a sound emotional base. We could
push off others who need to depend on us on some level. Yet we can deeply feel attatchedto others. Our degree of linkage can be enduring, but unfortunately we may asociate such
connection with powerlessness.
If we do not eventually examine ourselves and ask why we are so afraid to meaningfully
connect with others, we could end up lonely and shut off from really intimate contact.
This can be painfully felt near the closing years of our life (the Fourth House deals with
our approach to 'old age'). We need to carefully review our past, studying the nature of
parental interaction - and especially that parent we strongly reacted to on the emotional
level. Even if we lakced an adequate maternal figure altogether, we are still prone to
fixate on the emptiness and hunger such a lack of nurturing could create.
Realize that Saturn in the Fourth House does not exclusively deny us warmth or sensitive
responsiveness from others; but still we feel we must work hard to earn and secure such
response. We may assume it will involve a struggle. We are as likely to doubt our own
capacity to be caring of others (even of animals / plants / the home itself), but in truth we
are anything but uncaring and unconcerned at the roots of our being. One important life
goal is for us to recognize this. We need to work at accepting dependency relationships
and viewing them as redemptive and healing for us.
With a mismanaged Saturn, regardless of house, we often suffer beacuse of our own
unrecognized potential, underdeveloped strengths, or untapped capacity for excellence.
Saturn in the Fourth House suggests we can concince ourselves that we are somehow
emotionally inadequate. Maybe we inwardly doubt our ability to relate to people on a
safe, connecting level. We think we do not bond easily.
Perhaps we take the 'family' concept much too seriously. Inside us we crave having Ozzie
and Harriet for parents, but in reality we got a less than ideal set-up. Maybe we
continued to over-analyze various family members (the Fourth House also describes the
'family dynamic' as a whole) in terms of how they accept or reject us. Do they know we
are sometimes full of hurt? Or that we are lonely or scared? Would they even care?
Before we drown in self-pity, we need to recognize that our own standards of right /
wrong or good / bad behavior for our family can be rigid and unyielding.
Our family unit probably did appear to us as conservative, orthodox, formality-conscious,
or bland and lacking in imagination. Everyone seemed to take the safe route of controlled
interaction. Structured roles held the family together. But have we committed ourselves
to forever seeing some family members in an inflexible manner? If they don't seem to
ever change for the better, how much of that is due to our fixed attitudes adn lasting
impressions? We need to be careful we don't stifle their growth too.
Although our family typically didn't treat us like pampered babies (we certainly weren't
spoiled rotten with attention), we may still grow up feeling as vulnerable as infants
psychologically. Such emotional hypersensitivity either goes unrecognized by those we
try to get close to for support, or is harshly reprimanded and devalued (we are brushed
off as too clingy and suffocating). We are accused of always being hungry for
unconditional assurance from our mate, our kids, even the dog, and can get very down
and fearful when they start to back off and put up a stone wall of separation. Saturn can
be tenacious; and the Fourth House can be blind to its aggressive insintcts to envelop
others in its waves of feelings. We often are too subjectively wrapped up in our reactions
to understand that breathing space is always needed in healthy relationships. We are
subject to separation to begin with; but at some point in our development we need to
consciously allow for independent functioning, especially in the home. The 'empty nest
blues' need not be our fate. It would be good to see how well we can live alone and
unattached, if need be. Saturn will test our ability to be self-sufficient security-wise.
Economic difficulties in our family when we were young can make us sensitive to future
deprivation. We may harbor doubts as adults about not being well provided for on the
home front, fearing we won't have a decent roof over our heads. We over-achievers with
Saturn in the Fourth House will make sure we have a well-protected home (or homes)that is ours to control (renting is less satsfying than owning for Saturn). But if we block
our Saturn needs, our failure to properly self-nurture also expresses itself as a lack of
support for our domestic security needs. We can end up living in places that are cramped,
unattractive, worn out, or in constant need of repairs. It can get expensive to maintain
such a place. Maybe we also gravitate towards unsafe housing, such as a dangerous
neighborhood or living quarters that lack safety featyres such as deadbolt locks and
peepholes. We may live some place with cheap rent, but it may be drafty and a utilities
guzzler due to poor insulation. We may even forget to lock our doors or safeguard our
belongings in other ways. (An out-of-touch Saturn behaves much like a careless Jupiter or
Neptune.) Whatever the case, we need to ask ourselves why we literally feel at home in
such substandard dwellings. Don't we deserve a better nest, a safer shelter? Maybe even
a real dining room?
Some of us over-achievers react to our anxious feelings of insecurity by doing our very
best to build the most solid foundation we can afford. We insist on a sound and
dependable home structure. We'd even like to have our own land to build our home from
scratch. We also want to be grounded in natural surroundings. Our home must be our
sturdy fortress, totally managed by us. (Saturn is very much into protecting territorial
rights.) We typically desire fences, walls, heavy shrubbery defining boundaries, and other
forms of clear demarcation. We may instead pick an isolated spot away from populated
areas. However, we need to be sensible about how far we will go for the skae of ultimate
protection. Why do we only feel safe when living in a home resembling Fort Knox?
Lindaland
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posted October 20, 2012 05:38 PM
posted October 20, 2012 10:09 PM