CHOOSING SATURN AND MOON 1ST
July 20, 2018 – July 19, 2019
Another year with planets 1st – this has really become my thing. Through the lens of Saturn and Moon, I had lots of territories to explore. I don’t choose a planet 1st based on upcoming transits or progressions, I just follow my gut. But I know I’m intuitively tuned in because when I look, that planet is usually lit up with activity. This was true again for my Saturn-Moon year. In my Solar Return chart, Moon-Jupiter conjunction in the 12th house was close to the Ascendant. My progressed Moon moved into Aries in November and then into the First House in June. I had my Saturn opposition in December and the Cancer New Moon Total Solar Eclipse on July 2 was within one degree of my Saturn. I don’t focus too much on the technical stuff, but I do believe “As above, so below; as within, so without.” The practice of astrology is a true reflection of energy and really does help me understand, reflect, and grow.
This was the year I really grew up, which included accepting how childish I remain. Living Moon 1st was an invitation for the baby in me to just be a baby and combined with Saturn you might think that would quickly be repressed or “managed,” but it wasn’t that way for me. Yes, I had many opportunities to stop whining and be an adult, but more than anything, Saturn in me wants more stability and staying power. If my Moon needs are not recognized, honored, and LOVED, I become an unpleasant childlike version of myself who is hypersensitive, pouty, and super subjective. I hate it when my partner Darren tells me “It’s not always about you!” I hate it because it’s true and hearing it, I translate it to “I’m babyish, self-centered, and not nearly as accepting, kind, and wise as I like to believe.” Sometimes, I don’t like being seen.
In my natal chart, My Saturn is in Cancer, ruled by the Moon in Leo with a Moon-Saturn semi-square. When I chose Saturn and Moon 1st together I wondered if one would over-power the other. This was the first time I chose two planets 1st. It was my partner Darren’s idea to pick two for more balance. I was looking at Saturn and Moon as polarities based on their rulership of Cancer and Capricorn. This year did support me in integrating my inner parent and child; my nurturing and authoritative natures. I feel more stable, more confident in taking care of myself without looking outside for validation, approval, and permission. I have less of me tied up in anything or anyone else.
Before I get any further into this, I will share my writing just three months into my Saturn Moon year:
My heart needs to be in it, and it needs to be workable for me. And workable will not be like smashing a square peg in a round hole unless those edges are really ready to round. No more forcing. It’s so uncomfortable and unrewarding. Moon and Saturn draw from the past and I find that there’s a lot already prepared, grown, and built that I can just harvest. Some of it I made, some of it my ancestors created, and some, just like a random act of kindness, is available and happy to be used! Lots is wasted in this world, so it’s silly not to make use of it. If we are creating our reality, is there anything that isn’t ours? I’m not thinking (well, now I am) about stealing in the traditional rob a bank way, but my Moon-Saturn-Self has a LONG human lineage and we’ve worked before at all these things we’re doing now. If I want to buy a house, can’t I draw from some of my karmic savings accounts? I don’t believe in linear time or space, so why would I limit myself to a current time anything? “Just give Momma what she wants,” I say to Daddy, and those parts of me smile. How long have they played this game?
Mom and Dad in my inner world of me are doin’ just fine (or at least my fantasy of them is). They live a good life. They’ve already worked things out and now they can enjoy what they have and what they do. Now they do what they want. They never have to give up anything unless they want to. I mean they aren’t sacrificing themselves out of duty or fear or poor health. They are a Queen and King – not flashy or power-hungry, but they are proud of who they are and aren’t under anyone else’s rule! They are sovereign.
Now, you’re probably wondering what I think of my biological parents, who can’t be escaped living Moon and Saturn 1st – as if they EVER could be. For a Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn in Cancer girl (with all those in or on the 4th house), all paths just lead back home. These things are always beneath the surface. But home is something that has more to do with me than them. And I know I am here to be a reminder of home – where it’s always ok to be yourself, and where you can always go and it’s always where you belong. How could you not? There is NEVER any question of that. You can always use that address as your own – forever…no matter where you go in the whole world or cosmos. This Home is LOVE and it’s not afraid of any potential risk. Nothing could ever threaten it. Nothing could keep it from naming and claiming you as part of it…without exception.
As an astrologer, I try to avoid linking gender with any planet or sign. That’s my philosophy, but my personal experience gets muddy. At a minimum, most of us would agree that Saturn and Moon in part reflect parental dynamics. When I tune into my inner Saturn it feels like a woman and my inner Moon feels like a man. I don’t know what this means, if it means anything, or if it matters. And I’m harsher on women in general – at times it feels like I just have something against them. It’s so much easier for me to love a man. But ouch…in this lifetime, I’m a woman.
Saturn is comfortable energy for me. I don’t always like it, but I know how to do and be it. I have an extremely strong Saturn example in my parents and my own Saturn has dominated much of my life. It’s only been recent that I’ve come to understand more deeply how much I’ve identified with dominant male figures, starting with my father. I’m not saying Saturn is this male figure, but my father is a man and he’s like Super Saturn with a Mercury-Mars-Sun conjunction in Capricorn. The interesting thing is that both my parents were born during the 1947 Saturn-Pluto conjunction. They’re about four months apart, but both have Moon square Saturn-Pluto. Everything Moon has so often been a fight, for me.
When I chose Saturn-Moon 1st, I was surprised at how much Moon gets Saturn to protect, support, and work for it. It’s funny I’ve spent so much time fighting with myself and when it comes down to it, my Saturn is 100% on board with giving Moon the lead. Moon is emotion, mystery, intuition, the inner child. Moon isn’t rational or practical. Moon is all heart, feels what it feels, needs what it needs. The Moon in each of us is constantly reacting to life – it’s those impulsive, organic reactions to everything happening moment-to-moment. And Moon adds the need to be ok in each moment, so those reactions trigger a need to change the environment (inside and out) to get back to homeostasis. My Moon has so much to do, but that can’t happen without the cooperation of Saturn – Moon on its own isn’t very good at getting things done. Choosing to live Saturn with Moon 1st gave me a new foundation to explore my reactive, needy, emotional nature. Truth is, I won’t get very far without a tougher, resilient, self-sustaining emotional anchor. I can be easily swept away in silly, stupid bullshit and take it WAY too seriously.
Back to my parents. I withdrew. Three days after my exact Saturn opposition I had a very upsetting experience with my parents which pushed me to make a change. I finally stopped trying to get some things from Mom and Dad I’d been continually disappointed in not receiving. I don’t know how I’ll be a daughter in this new space I’ve created, but the way I kept trying to do it was NOT working. Years ago, a therapist asked me why I kept re-injuring myself trying to get something from someone who was not in the place to give it. That conversation was not about my parents, but it might as well have been. In all my anger, resentment, and pain over feeling judged and not accepted, acknowledged, and celebrated the way I’d like, I was doing the very same thing to them. I wasn’t accepting or celebrating them for who they are. I’m not “over” this and may not ever be, but I’m honest about it with myself. I ended a game I had been playing for forty-four years and certainly more before this lifetime. My Saturn-Moon work is progressing as I project less and own my own parent dynamics.
It’s important to me to honor my parents, my roots, where I come from. With Moon and Saturn on my mind, I was thinking about being born, conditioning, and self-defining. Saturn and Moon can describe our culture, genetics, and upbringing; part of the material we come from, but they are just ingredients in the mix. No ingredient stands alone or commands the thing created from its contribution. Once it has contributed and alchemized with all the other ingredients, it no longer retains its own integrity. It no longer is anything except the creation it became. And so, parents give their children the gift of living, but not as wholly and completely as they like to believe. On some level, every creature created has brought itself into being. Not on its own, of course, but of its own will. And children were meant to surpass their parents…to go further, think bigger, and bring forth new worlds. Sometimes, to do so, they need to leave their parents behind. I needed to initiate a version of this for myself. We reached a fork in the road and I went a different way. I don’t question it, not even for a second. No love is lost.
Physically, I made changes this year to support myself. This list is short and simple, but I’m sticking to it. I’m taking multi-vitamins daily. I’ve added collagen powder to support my gut. I do a better job calling it quits or saying “no” when I need rest or space. I go to yoga class twice a week and my teacher combines philosophy, breathwork, and poses in a way that really supports me and increases my staying power physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, check out EbenOrozYoga.com – he’s the thing I didn’t know I was looking for that’s helping me bring the pieces together.
Home is taking on a new meaning. It’s more me than any place and Darren and I have our heart home together. We were camping in Southern California this year and came across an old homestead. I asked him to take a photo of me because I felt like I’d been there before. The state of that dilapidated house in that beautiful spot felt like ME. I don’t mind falling apart. I know that my core “structure” – the metaphorical bones of my Soul cannot be destroyed. The rest is the changeable form of what isn’t real to begin with, including my physical body. It all moves through phases, just like the Moon. The less I’m attached to those things, the more centered and stronger I am. My strength is in LESS.
My inner life is very active. Most of the time, I enjoy it more than what’s going on around me. Sometimes it feels like there’s this friction between me and others. I don’t know what it is, and it doesn’t happen all the time. Sometimes, I’m just the opposite of ease and I can feel that tension. I wonder if they feel it, too. I feel guilty about it, telling myself I should be kinder, sweeter, more loving. What if I’m just not that nice? Can I be ok with that? If I’m ok with it, I expect that tension will be less. As my mentor, Adam Gainsburg has said: “Tara loves her tension.” But I’m loving it less these days and my Saturn-Moon-Self wants a tough physical and emotional body that can endure with dignity, commitment, and self-respect. Plus, I want to feel good and comfortable in my own skin. This only comes through accepting myself.
I’m big but still small. It suits me well – this child’s costume that’s ripping at the seams with sleeves up to my elbows. I like feeling myself grow out of things. In these days of 40-something, my 5-year-old still throws her parties multiplied by 9. I say I’m growing up, but I’m really growing IN.
