Saturn Stations Retrograde | April 17th - September 6th - re-considering our commitments, re-thinking our responsibilities, re-assessing our ambitions, re-drawing our boundaries and re-valuing our time, NO is a complete sentence

Strength by pedadue

On Tuesday, Saturn stationed retrograde at 9 degrees Capricorn. He will move backward (from our perspective on Earth) until he gets to 2 degrees Capricorn and then reverse course and begin moving forward again (in early September).

If we have planets or points within these degrees of Capricorn or any of the other cardinal signs - Aries, Cancer or Libra - we will feel this retrograde strongest because Saturn will move over our natal "hot spots" three times. He has already made one pass moving forward. Now he will move backward. Then in the fall he will begin moving forward again. His retrogrades are annual and last for about five months.

Maybe think of a retrograde as if we are pressing the wrinkles out of a shirt. We move the iron forward, then we slow down a bit and move backward being careful not to iron in any new creases. Then we make one final pass forward more forcefully before we move on. This is kind of how it goes.

Right now we are starting the backward swivel part where we try to avoid ironing in any new creases.

Generally the best use of Saturn retrogrades is going back over structural issues. Re-considering our commitments. Re-thinking our responsibilities. Re-assessing our goals and ambitions. Re-defining our boundaries. Re-valuing our time. Re-structuring our projects. Sometimes we get to see what is holding us up because it isn't holding us up anymore. Dad is on vacation folks.

The activities of our Capricorn house tend to slow down a bit so we have the time to establish a stronger foundation. 

Wherever Saturn goes, so does our time and commitment. When planets are retrograde, more of the work becomes internal.

EXAMPLE FOR CANCER/Cancer Rising with Capricorn ruling your 7th house cusp, Saturn's transit of Capricorn will be about strengthening that 7th house. Situations will arise (mostly through other people because this is your partnership house) over the course of Saturn's two and a half year journey here that will require your time and commitment to the affairs of this house. Maybe the person/people you count on will have challenging personal problems and you won't be able to count on them. Maybe you will have to step up. Maybe a relationships changes course - romantic, business, competitor. You thought it was going here and realize it is going there, or maybe it is going no where. Those Saturnian rules, goals and limits are up for re-view now. Maybe you were born with Saturn retrograde (and Saturn is retrograde almost half the year so many people are) in your 7th house and your ability to set limits and boundaries and accurately access what can realistically be expected within a partnership situation is skewed (unless supported somewhere else in your chart) and you have a predisposition to say, "yes", when you should be saying, "NO" (which is a complete sentence all by itself). So, now as Saturn stations retrograde maybe your partners' problems will ease a bit or maybe you will start re-considering your commitment to their issues. Maybe you will re-assess your boundaries and limits. With Saturn retrograde here this could be about a past relationship.

Keep in mind Pluto is about to station retrograde in Capricorn, too - this can intensify whatever Saturn has us re-evaluating or focus us like a laser beam on one specific issue.

This is an excellent time to take an accounting of what we have accomplished over the last few months while Saturn has been direct. Saturn doesn't always offer pats on the back - so let's give ourselves one now.

It is so easy to notice what isn't working that we sometimes don't take the time to appreciate what is. 

This is the time to deal with commitments and responsibilities from the past rather than taking on new ones.

For some people, just working with "NO" being a complete sentence would be an excellent use of this transit. This would also be supported by Chiron in Aries and our North Node in Leo - whenever multiple aspects are saying the same thing we know we are onto something!

When Saturn turns direct in the fall, Dad comes home and brings some external structure into our lives. This can feel supportive (if we have been doing our Saturn retro work) or like a wall/limit/roadblock (if we have been partying like it's 1999).

xo all

Chiron into Aries | healing the wounded masculine, stepping into our warrior energy, healing through action, facing our anger

not angry by ZNZtazmanijus

Early this morning Chiron left Pisces - where he has been hanging his hat since 2011 - for warrior Aries.

In Aries, Chiron turns away from the emotional, connecting reactions and the victim stories we grew through in Pisces (this is a long process he is going to be in Aries for seven years but will drift back into Pisces during his retrograde, September 25th, 2018 - February 18, 2019)

and toward our personal regeneration.

(as the Parkland survivors have been reminding us - and if they are annoying you that annoyance is something to look at, not to judge yourself, just to sit with it - the time for prayers and long-suffering silence is over and this isn't about guns, but yes, in warrior Aries, Chiron will be about healing our relationship with guns, too)

Aries is the first sign so rules newness. What does it take to embrace the new? It takes courage.

Chiron in Pisces has been about feeling and then surrendering the wound. Chiron in Aries will require action. Individual action. The kind of action that isn't always supported by other people. The kind of action we take for ourselves. This energetic is intensely impactful for the collective, too, although it could feel like we are all alone in whatever we do with this.

Our natal Aries house(s) theme(s) will be our personal field of healing. Every situation, person, place and thing - if honestly met - will simultaneously gift and wound us here.

I believe, as spiritual beings, we came here with a game plan - a blueprint, a set of guidelines for our life arranged in a language of patterns and archetypes. Some of our blueprints are very specific. Most, are specific in some areas and more general in others. We probably can't even begin to know all the reasons for this. They are almost certainly diverse and complex.

Our natal astrology chart is a complicated set of specifications designed to build up an individual and run him/her. Like we would build a car or 3D print a Christmas ornament, except our "blueprints" are a map of our consciousness. 

Unlike a machine, we always have the choice to become more conscious - more than our blueprints, we have free will - but without our blueprints we can't gain entrance here to life on planet Earth.

They anchor us in time and space.

It may seem impossible to believe, that you, that I, that all of us, came into being with a plan/possibility for Chiron (discovered in 1978, so not even knowable when many of us were born) to move into the Aries room in our "blueprint" - the space we have always had to fight, always had to walk through that door alone, always had to initiate, be brave, be motivated - in order to get anything done, maybe in order to be accepted - probably for lifetimes - that Chironic energy (wounded healer) was going to come into this space on April 17, 2018 - to work with this energy precisely as we carry it as of April 17, 2018, in order to heal the wounds we are holding/hiding here.

Life is magical that way.

There are a million ways this could play out.

A word salad could stretch our brain here, so let's do that: healing the wounded (Chiron) masculine (Aries), physical (Aries) disabilities (Chiron), going (Aries) until we drop (Chiron), healing through men, male bonding, healing through self-defense, healing through self-assertion, healing through conflict, healing through courage, healing by going it alone, healing through our instincts, painful instincts, healing by pushing past a vulnerability, healing through expressing/acknowledging unexpressed anger or resentment, healing by resolving competition issues, healing by being ourselves - you get the idea.

Remember our Aries house has always been the space we have had to fight/work alone/compete/push for what we want if we are going to have it.

Chiron is going to help us lighten this load.

And like the medic resetting a shoulder that has come out of its socket, here is the part where I say, "this is probably going to hurt."

Our Pisces house gets to breathe a nice sigh of relief. Chiron will be back for a few months, during his retrograde, to tie up the loose ends in Pisces and give our Aries houses (and especially people with planets/points in early Aries) a short respite.

Chironic healing doesn't mean the wounded space just disappears.

Like the scar after the deep cut, there is always something here we kind of have to learn to live with. The healing comes through acceptance. The healing comes through our learning to work with/live with the wound - the embrace of our scars - somehow this shifts our energy and we become like a beacon attracting others with similar wounds (the way a recovering alcoholic can help an alcoholic in ways no one else can).

That's where the collective thing comes in. But for now this will be all about ourselves. Remember this is a process. We can't jump ahead and skip steps.

We will heal by learning to express anger, aggression and force in healthy, positive ways. 

For today - if we think about why we aren't doing what we want to be doing - who/what we are afraid of angering - why we are pissed off at men/the man/him - what we are resentful about - why we don't defend ourselves - why we are always defending ourselves - why we push our physical bodies so damn hard - why we don't get off the couch - we might find a place to start.

xo all