The Saturn Opposition in Mid Life

For any Aquarians with Saturn in Aquarius, the current two year transit of Saturn in Leo will mean they will experience a Saturn Opposition over a few weeks or months sometime in the next two years.

Saturn takes about twenty nine years to transit through the zodiac. The first Saturn opposition always occurs when one is between 14 and 16 years old. The second opposition occurs sometime between the ages of 43 and 45. The next one is about thirty years later.

So it's important to keep this transit in perspective and remember that a Saturn opposition is a universal event for each and every person (and all zodiac signs) in midlife between the ages of 43 and 45.

How this Saturn transit will manifest for you personally depends on many other factors in your chart. It depends on what house and sign your natal Saturn is in, what house Saturn is transiting through, and how your natal Saturn is tied to other planets in your chart. Primarily it is dependent on how evolved you are in the "Saturnian sense" and thus whether Saturn is generally a friend or foe in your daily life.

Any Aquarians with Saturn also in Aquarius are relatively lucky with this placement of Saturn. Aquarius is co-ruled by Saturn (along with Uranus) and Saturn is strong here, barring other negative factors.

Rober Hand's book has an optimistic view of this transit. He sees it as the "high-water mark of the Saturn-Saturn cycle". He notes however that how this transit goes for you will depend to a large extent on how you handled the Saturn Return about fourteen years ago. During the Saturn return (at about age twenty nine and thirty) people often enter a new awareness of life and make some changes in their life path. The Saturn opposition in the mid forties may be a time when you either reap gains from the life path you chose during the Saturn Return, perhaps assume more responsibility in your job position, or on the down side, experience some difficulties in the area of your life where you have been resisting change.

Alexander Ruperti sees "a crisis of reevaluation occurring at the time of the opposition. "It is an assessment of all that one has built as an individual since the age of twenty-nine. The keynote here must be OBJECTIVITY. The evaluation must be made according to one's personal values, rather than the expectations of family, peer group or society in order for the individual to find true meaning in his existence." He also sees this as possibly "an experience of real illumination - the gateway to an individual's most creative and productive period - age 44-59."

Ruperti's book Cycles of Becoming: The Planetary Pattern of Growth has an outstanding (40 page) chapter on the Saturn cycle. I'd highly recommend it if you are interested in reading more about Saturn's transits - even though it's out of print. (Used copies are available for about $10 at Amazon.)

For people experiencing midlife transits, I'd also highly recommend Erin Sullivan's new book; Astrology of Midlife and Aging



_______________________
The above image is "Saturn, 1963" by Helen Frankenthaler