Pressure Pressure - The Moon and Saturn - How do you cope with stress?

Resilience and need, resource and weakness is shown by many parts and aspects of a natal chart. However looking at the sign, house and aspect of an individual's Saturn and Moon gives a flavour of their endurance (Saturn) and emotional coping strategy (Moon).

Saturn is a stern teacher. On the one hand it represents an area of hurt in ourselves - where we feel we were short-changed by life or not good enough. On the other hand Saturn also promises bliss - that if you work hard then you can conquer that which hobbles you and you can master it. Saturn imposes constraints and limitations, but it also helps us stick to them and honour our commitments. Saturn (in synastry, natally and by transit) may be intensely frustrating but it can also be supportive. Saturn in relationship is a prime example of things that don't kill you (or make you strangle the other) making you stronger.

On the other hand the Moon is the naked part of the chart. Wherever it falls (even a secretive Moon or a hard-to-access 12th house Moon) tells us about the needs of that person, what their instinctual responses are, what hungers and yearnings they have, how they try and gain a sense of safety. The position, aspect and house of the Moon can also say quite a lot about what strategy a person will use to cope with stress and emotional turmoil.

As a working example of this I will use my husband's and my chart.

Z is a Sagittarius with a Taurus Ascendant and an Aries Moon in the 12th House. He has a Saturn in Cancer square Pluto in Libra. I have a Virgo Ascendant and Saturn in Virgo in the 1st House sextile the Moon and square a Venus Neptune opposition. My Moon is conjunct Uranus in Scorpio and falls in the 3rd House.

The most acutely stressful period Z and I lived through was our transition into parenthood, exacerbated as it was by inexperience and our son's refusal to sleep for three months. It was an experience so harrowing and intense that it pushed us (individually and as a couple) to breaking point and we used quite different strategies to get through it.

We both had a strong feeling of duty and responsibility (Saturn) to this child we had created and it was this which compelled us to keep responding to his cries and getting up and feeding him and walking around the house endlessly. It certainly wasn't a feeling of love or reward. We just gritted our teeth and did it like a job which had to be done. Z was better at it than me. Squares are energising aspects and a Saturn-Pluto square translates as Determination(Saturn) to Survive (Pluto). For him giving up was not an option while I gave up on a daily basis (usually multiple times) and then would just pull myself up and start again. In fact, my primary struggle was between the determination to stay with my child (Saturn) and a bone-deep wish to erase myself and dissapear (Neptune). I knew I couldn't do it, but for months, ceasing to exist was all I wanted to do.

The fifth house in the chart represents the area of our life concerned with creativity (and by extension, children). My fifth house is empty but falls in Saturn-ruled Capricorn which fuelled my own sense of parental duty. There was this completely helpless baby who I was responsible (Saturn) for and I was determined (Saturn) to work hard and do my best by him (also a Saturnian drive).

In my chart the Saturn and Moon are sextile. A watery moon feels a lot and the Virgoan Saturn takes what is too much to handle or what cannot be expressed (3rd House) and stores it in the body (1st House). Therefore as my mind raged against the difficulties of looking after this infant my body began to fall apart. Mostly it was through chronic injuries to my back (Saturn) which limited and incapacited me (Saturn) while at the same time giving me a high pain threshold to go on in spite of injury (Saturn) when there was no other choice.

In the meantime our Moons were doing their best (in different ways) to cope emotionally. My Scorpio Moon-Uranus felt assaulted and strangled by (what felt like) enslavement to this baby. In order to recharge I desperately needed to detach (Uranus) and be free for a while. I was in a bit of an identity crisis (Uranus) because I felt like I was being asked to give up myself and merge my identity with the role of being a mother. I defended myself through respite (I owe a lifetime depth of gratitude to all the people who took my son off my hands for a while in order to give me a breather) and through talking about the powerful feelings -good and bad- that I was experiencing (3rd house and Scorpio).

On the other hand Z simply went into a disconnect. He says : "I wasn't really there. I was running on autopilot telling myself - you can't afford to give up or snap, because you need your job and that howling monkey is still your son and that woman is still your wife. So fight for your family (Aries Moon) and don't think about feelings (12th House). Just get through each day and do what is honourable (Aries) and what needs to be done."

Where are the positions and aspects of your Moon and Saturn? How have you coped with stressful situations?

Births and Deaths and Resposposbility - all that lovely Saturn, Pluto stuff

Because the circle of life likes to be tidy, last week I had a baby and this week my grandmother died.

I have a Moon-Uranus conjunction in my natal chart and I had always been highly ambivalent on the subject of children. I had certainly never craved biological babies and was more ideally attracted to things like adoption. On the other hand what I've realised after having my Capricorn son (who fits rather neatly into my chart with its Saturn rising, and the house of children in the sign of Capricorn) is that I was born to parent. He's a lovely baby but he struggles with the burdens of the world a bit, but we stay patient and do our best to support him with it. I'm crazy in love with the little boy and look forward to a lifetime of learning about him.

Welcome to the world my cardinal little bundle of fun.

Talk of death in the next post.

The Magician and The Party Pooper - influences of Jupiter and Saturn

In my natal chart, my ascendant falls between Jupiter and Saturn, with Jupiter conjuncting it from the 12th house and the effects of these two planets are something I've noticed quite strongly throughout my whole life. When I was born there was a food shortage-Saturn- (my mother didn't have any breast milk, there was no powdered milk available in any stores) but a donation from brought me suitcases full of powdered milk (Jupiter) which satisfied my rather vast Cancerian appetites. And even though throughout my life I kept encountering pretty much every kind of hardship (Saturn), there's also always been some kind of hidden benefactor or protective element (usually in a deus ex machina fashion) to intervene in my favour and see me through. After my father died for instance, and inflation reduced his life insurance money to the cost of a Kinder Egg and my father's friends robbed us, financial help from a relative from abroad (and Jupiter rules The Foreign) saw us through. A gift of foreign money (scholarship) paid for my education when I immigrated. I've had the tendency to get the mildest version possible of chronic, debilitating disease and several times when my life has been in danger strangers have appeared out of the blue to rescue me. When my childhood home burned down (mostly a Plutonic experience at the time, in terms of the planets) miraculously no one got hurt and an exploding window fell down, literally landing at the feet of an off-duty fireman who had happened to be walking down the street at that moment.

Most recently, it occurred to me that the pregnancy is an expression of the two as well - even though my external baby bump is quite compact (limits of Saturn), ultrasounds say that my unseen baby is actually a very long one (hidden Jupiter).

These experiences of hardship and faith have been profound, and ultimately very beneficial to me. I am quite resilient, I have a high threshold for endurance (Saturn) but I also don't live my life by fear thanks to the blessings of Jupiter (the accountant of the Zodiac, Saturn speaks to us through our fears and our cautions). Even when as now, when my family seems hit by one financial blow after another and I've spent my pregnancy beset by a string of irritating ailments I have not fear, that things will work out. Baby will be fine, birth will be fine, money will be found from somewhere, things will work out. That instead of endlessly worrying (Saturn) about the things I can't control, my energy is better spent in letting go, nurturing trust and being open to the appearance of hidden opportunity (12th house Jupiter).

If anyone else has thoughts on how the Saturn-Jupiter aspects have manifested for them (whether natally or by transit) please delight me by sharing. :)

Planetary Transits through the media

Posts on Elsa Elsa about the way that planetary movements preceed and reflect various real world trends have caused me to notice the recent patterns in the British media.

For instance Mercury's current transit through Scorpio (the uber-sleuth and dirt-bringer-upper of the Zodiac) has coincided with headlines relating to the inquest into the long-ago death of Princess Diana. Due to my policy of ignoring as much as possible the antics of the British Royal Family (past and present) I haven't been reading the articles too closely - however all feature and debate various theories about her death (conspiracies, secret pregnancies, abduction, murder and other such nefarious plots). All these were rampant around the time of her actual death and its initial investigation, and it's interesting how they've resurfaced now in an inquiry that pledges not to leave any stone unturned in its search for the truth.

Similarly as Saturn has left the flamboyant Leo for conscientious Virgo and Pluto inches ever closer to good old belt-tightener Capricorn, we are seeing the emergence of new (more subdued and conservative trends) all over the place (including renewed rehab efforts from Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, no doubt related to the public's fed-up-ness with their antics).

An article by Fiona McIntosh in last week's Grazia sums it up rather well.

Here are some quotes (with added asides in brackets and emphasis in bold):

"Turn on the lights, call a tazi, the party's over. It was wild while it lasted, but it took a banking crisis for us to realise the Naughty Noughties are over. All the delicious blind greed of the decade (which coincided with Saturn's transit through Leo and the giddy joy of the world not ending in 2000) has evaporated faster than it took Northern Rock investors to empty their accounts. (...) Conversations at dinner have swung from how should I spend my money, to blimey, how safe is my money? (...) Ladies who lunch have begun growing their own lunch in greenhouses at the end of gardens. The fashion phrase of the moment is 'Future Heirlooms' - an investment piece built to last over several seasons is worth so much more than a dirty Primark binge. Belts, the hot new 'now' piece are being tightened both physically and metaphorically. This new Frugality has been bubbling under for some time, fuelled of course by the green movement. But it took the panic of a credit crisis for us to completely re-evaluate our lifestyles. (...) What were we thinking? This rampant consumerism is not only mad, it's vulgar. "