Saturn Transits to Saturn

When Saturn transits natal Saturn the need for security and achievement influences the structures and limitations of your life, and what you need to do in order to be true to yourself and build the life you want. Saturn transits happen in a 29-year cycle and the hard angles (conjunction, square and opposition) represent important testing phases in your life. These happen about every seven years, and the full cycle starts with the conjunction.

The Saturn Return marks the beginning of a new cycle that happens at age 28-30, 58-60, and 88-90. What you experience depends on how you’ve dealt with Saturn before the transit; in other words, whether you’ve been realistic and responsible in working towards your goals, and how well you have embodied and expressed your true nature.

If you haven’t managed to do this, the Saturn return will be harder and more stressful. You may be forced to change and have to deal with practical problems that you’ve avoided. This may involve an identity crisis if you haven’t been true to yourself, but it’s usually experienced as a mix of constructive changes and difficult challenges, depending on aspects to your natal Saturn and other transits that are happening at the same time.

These transits are a time of self-evaluation and testing so you can develop a stronger sense of who you are. It’s an opportunity to discover where you fit and what role you can play in society. This may involve a confrontation with authority that forces you to think more deeply about what you’re trying to accomplish. Or you may willingly take on more responsibility and grow towards developing inner authority.

The more conscious you are of what you’re doing, the better you’ll be able to handle these transits. If you don’t work towards becoming who you’re meant to be, your life will become harder and it’ll make you miserable. At best, these transits help you to achieve your goals and build good solid structures in your life that are flexible enough to allow you to continue to grow and change over time.

Anything that you’ve handled well, could bear fruit at these times, especially during the opposition. But you can also experience unexpected failures that force you to change your approach and do some soul searching to discover a new path. If you do experience success, it will probably bring increased responsibility and hard work, so you might not enjoy it as much as you thought you would. Even if things don’t go so well, these can be productive times when you can gain more self-understanding and wisdom.

Possibilities with Saturn transiting Saturn:

Changing jobs or moving residence
Re-evaluating relationships
Growing in maturity
Taking on more responsibility
Achieving long-term goals

Watch out for:

Reaping karmic seeds sown in ignorance
Collapsing life structures
Ending a relationship
Feeling insecure or inadequate
Depression

Ultimately, these transits are about the process of individuation and becoming whole. They provide an opportunity for course correction if you’ve ended up going down the wrong path. The entire cycle should be seen as a spiral, and events from earlier parts of your life will often be revisited later in order for you to deepen your understanding and grow.

There are more details on the Saturn cycle in the Saturn Transits Workbook which is available here and can be used to get the best out of these times by preparing in advance and getting organised. It’s a comprehensive guide to working with Saturn transits that includes worksheets to track and explore your experience. For more details click the image to visit the store!