Saturn in Aquarius Comprehensive Analysis

Below you will find a comprehensive analysis of the Saturn in Aquarius natal placement. Read this and re-read it if you have to. Upon a firm understanding of the study, you will have completed the final step of our Four Part Study to Mastering your Saturn Return! If this is the first page you have landed on my site, then please visit the homepage if you would like a brush-up on the Saturn Return. This will take you to the 1st step of the 4 step plan to mastering the Saturn Return. Step 2 provides you with an understanding of your 1st Saturn Return and 2nd Saturn Return.

Issues facing Saturn in Aquarius

If you were born with Saturn in Aquarius, the issues during your Saturn Return will be about bringing the light. It will also be about bearing the torch, channeling, finding your mission in life, being different or “odd”, friendships, networking, politics, music, astrology, and strongly held opinions about change.

Saturn in Aquarius — ahead of your time

Anyone with Saturn in Aquarius is ahead of the time by at least two generations. You are a channel of new energy onto the planet (sometimes literally, as in Robert Oppenheimer). But your energy is blocked until you understand how to use the power cleanly. This may come to you as part of your Saturn Return.

Early in life you may have felt “different” and chafed at the differentness. At first (until the age of 40-45) it seems to work against you. You are a stranger in a strange land. And you feel like you are so different that your whole life is an act, an attempt to fit in and be like everybody else. You want the traditional. And, you want the normal. But eventually you begin to see that you have a different take on things and that your differentness actually gives you fresh perspectives and beneficial insights. As you begin to trust that, you realize that this different viewpoint is enlivening. It quickens others. You are able to point them to higher truths which waken sleepy eyes – sometimes like a cold shower. Then one day you remember what your mission is.

Celebrity examples of Saturn in Aquarius

Take, for example, Michelle Obama, born with Saturn in Aquarius. She struggled in her youth to reconcile her identity as a black woman with the privileged education she received. As a young adult at Harvard, she eventually found herself. She owned that she was both “black and brilliant” (so said her college advisor). Mrs. Obama then used that as a springboard to spend a life fighting for diversity and opportunities for young people. At her first Saturn Return, which occurred in the wake of the death of her father and then a close friend, she married Barack Obama. She also let her law license lapse as her career turned to focus on more community-oriented projects. These issues defined the boundaries of the rest of her career. This is just one example of using one’s life experience to enlighten and encourage others.

Saturn in Aquarius will benefit from Understanding and Forgiving Your Parents

Saturn in Aquarius is complicated and difficult to understand. It has to do with being somehow considered inadequate by a parent. This is usually the father, as if his own creation was not acceptable to him. (Uranus, the Sky Father, devoured his own children because they were not good enough.) Your task is to grow into an understanding. You should understand that this most certainly was *his* issue and has nothing to do with you.

In some cases, this dynamic inspires the individual. Obama’s father, for example, suffered from multiple sclerosis. This had a profound emotional impact on her, leaving the young girl determined to succeed in school, as her father wished. She has said his death in 1991 left her scarred. But she said it also pushed her forward: “His loss is my scar. But let me tell you something, his memory drives me forward every single day of my life. Every day, I work to make him proud. Every day, I stay hungry, not just for myself, but for him…” For those who work it through, a complex maturity ensues from this father relationship, a maturity which few people can really fathom. Leonard Cohen (more on him later), also with this placement, was said to make Bob Dylan seem childish in comparison.

For some, though, the healing never takes place, and there can be a rebellious, adolescent quality that haunts the adult life. Think Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Louis Farrakhan, Tom Cruise, Quentin Tarentino. Or Aleister Crowley, Ayn Rand, Winston Churchill, and Jon Stewart. These are strong, accomplished individuals with identities deeply rooted in autonomy, even belligerence in some cases. One wonders at times if the point is the ideal the person stands for or just the idea of being different.

You must move from the inner to the outer

To have Saturn in Aquarius is to have an inner life that is likely vital and profound. Also to have Saturn in Aquarius is to have an outer life that often stands still in order to permit this. At some point, you’ll learn to move from the inner to the outer. You already have an innate understanding that all you need to do to have this happen is begin to use active imagination more. Ultimately, you can teach others about this.

Dr. Seuss channeled his Saturn in Aquarius energy well, reminding children (and their parents) in many ways that they had the duty to be their unique selves (“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”) and held the power to shape their own destinies (“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what to do. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”)

Like Dr. Seuss, you can help others envision and manifest in their own lives as a carrier of Saturn in Aquarius. You are a catalyst and you have no need for others to applaud you or make you aware of your powers. Also, you “see something” for someone else and pretty soon it happens. This is clairvoyance but it is on a very subtle level – your seeing something for someone actually has a way of quickening it or making it happen. Become more and more conscious of your thoughts for with you, more than most, they are your magic wand.

Honing in and Liberation

The first Saturn Return for people with Saturn in Aquarius seems to function as a way of honing in on one’s mission — usually something to do with equality, while the second Saturn Return often brings true freedom.

Leonard Cohen wrote novels and poetry on an island in Greece through his first Saturn Return but emerged from that period frustrated with his ability to make money as a writer. He moved back to North America and turned his attention to music, the beginning of a fabled career as a songwriter. As he approached his second Saturn Return, Cohen’s album “The Future” was released. It was his best selling work ever, and Kurt Cobain famously dreamed of living in a “Leonard Cohen afterworld.”

Internationally acclaimed for his musical talent, Cohen was equally well known for his womanizing. He seemed to find his true love in Rebecca DeMornay in the early 1990s, only to see that relationship fall apart during his second Saturn Return when, he says, she realized he could never come through for her as a husband and father (“And finally she saw I was a guy who just couldn’t come across. In the sense of being a husband and having more children and the rest. And she was right of course.”).

In the wake of the break up, he retreated to a Buddhist monastery outside L.A. famous for its rigorous interpretation of Zen Buddhism, and there he finally found his true soul mate in master Sasaki Roshi. Cohen emerged after several years finally cured of his lifelong depression, freed from his sorrow and the many prescription medications he’d tried to improve his emotional state over the previous decades.

Uncanny ability

People with this placement have an uncanny ability to understand the human condition. They also have the connection between the inner and outer reality. You can do a lot to raise consciousness. Take for example Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, George Orwell, Carl Sagan, and Frederick Nietzsche who shared profound insights about what it means to be a human being. The energy can also be expressed in a humanitarian or political career, a la Gloria Steinem, Alexander Hamilton, and Albert Schweitzer who all fought valiantly for equality.

Gloria Steinem struggled with issues of equality from a young age. Her mother was mentally ill, and Steinem felt that the care she received and the career opportunities afforded her were sharply limited by gender stereotypes. At her first Saturn Return, Steinem published two of her most important articles. The first, an assignment on birth control which turned into a thought piece on the choices women must make between career and marriage.

And the next year, a famous expose on how Playboy bunnies were treated (this involved Steinem working as a bunny for a period of time). These articles, the later one in particular, launched her career as feminist icon and shaped most of the rest of her adult life. It was only as she approached 60, in the throes of her second Saturn Return, that she remarked she finally felt free of the demands of gender which had plagued her since childhood. Free at last!

Aquarian energy

Although Aquarian energy can be unpredictable, in maturity it’s actually quite stable. As of this writing, consider the two countries in the Middle East that have withstood the current movements for change. They are both run by pragmatic reformers whose common sense has been the basis for peace and stability. I am referring to King Mohammad VI of Morocco and King Abdullah II of Jordan. You reform where reform is needed. For example, Deng Xiaoping (or, arguably, King Henry VIII) in order to avoid the chaos and violence of revolution. This means subtle adjustments and practical changes during the Saturn Returns. Nothing crazy.

Believe in your ability

Whether you’re a political wife, an artist, a humanitarian, a plumber, or a teacher — whatever you do — the first Saturn Return will support you in finding your life’s work. This will be a mission that will undoubtedly raise consciousness in some way. If people fall away or careers take a twist or turn, lean into it. The vision you have for yourself will surely fall into place by drawing the right people to you. Believe in your own ability to see the world as only you can. Believe in your ability to communicate your reality to a broad audience, and to change the world for the better. Remember for Saturn in Aquarius: The First Saturn brings the mission, the Second Saturn Return brings your freedom.

So what are you waiting for? Go get ’em, Tiger. The future needs you to distribute it.

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