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?

Living with and loving: 12th house moon

If I can point to one way which astrology has enhanced my life and the lives of those around me, it has been through increasing my tolerance of others and my understanding of innate difference. This has been a truly helpful development for someone who had very firm attachment to the ideas of being right, and my way being therefore the most logical and favourable way of being.

Over the course of my life so far I have had the privilege to meet many people and learning their charts has been ever so helpful in quieting the voice inside my head which wanted to hit them over the head with mallets. Being able to sit comfortably with difference is a challenge, and one I've nowhere near sussed but the Living With and Loving Posts will be a log of my attempts to do so.

Thus, on the subject of 12th house moons...

In astrology the Moon represents our emotional and instinctive self. Where the Moon falls in our chart (by sign, house and aspect) describes something about our primal, innermost self: our hungers, our needs, how and where we seek security.

The 12th house describes the unconscious, the hidden. It is the vastest, and the most mysterious of astrological houses. Trying to see its contents is as useless and as dangerous as trying to discern how deep the ocean by looking at its surface. The only way to experience the 12th house is to sink into it with eyes closed, using intuition and sideways senses and allowing its contents to rise up and meet you, like the distant ancestoral memories we carry unaware most often of the voices which sing in our blood, whisper in our bones.

The 12th house obscures whatever it contains, and its contents are not easily reachable. Attempting to grab a part of us that it's in the 12th is very much similar to fishing - direction and depth are illusory, things slip from our grasps, float to us in their own time, of their own accord.

On the subject of how to spot a 12th house moon, astrologer Alexander von Schlieffen gives a deeply helpful definition; namely that with a 12th house moon person their needs are hidden, elusive, both from themselves and others around them.

I verified the truth of that when I met my husband.

Although his Moon is in the fire sign of Aries (the warrior, the hero; the bearer of courage, arrogance, drive, aggression) and trine a fiery Sun in Sagittarius, its placement in the 12th house obscures everything. While this has its benefits for my rather sensitive nature (he is not aggressive, he doesn't yell) in most aspects it's taken a lot of adjustment (my own Moon is in the 3rd house of ideas and communication, my own needs and emotions are easily verbalisable and plain and obvious to me).

So, here's a list of useless questions to ask a 12th house Moon (unless you are looking for an excuse to work yourself into a froth of frustration):

How do you feel? ("Don't know, can't put it into words.")

What are your needs? (A wide-handed shrug that equates needs to vastness and unquantifiability of the sea; "I don't know")

What do you want? ("I don't know"; "What do you want?")

Can you remember how you felt about that? ("I don't know how to put it into words"; "I cannot find the words to explain how I feel about you either, words are so inadequate, I just feel".)

What are your boundaries? ("I don't know, but when you cross them we'll both know.")

What makes you happy? ("When you're happy.")

In short, a recipe for insanity if you're looking for any kind of a straight answer.

A recipe for suspicion or interest too, if you happen to have a probing Scorpio Moon intrigued by the fact that your normally very keen sense about other people (what makes them tick, where they shine, where they are vulnerable, what they're feeling) is being completely eluded by a 12th house moon person who is ephemeral, keeps slipping away. It takes a different tactic to catch this fish.

You must use patience, and subtlety. Enter its world. Wait with no probing questions, no sudden movements. Move with eyes closed, or using only peripheral vision. Do not startle, do not rush. Gather what information is given and wait for more, wait until the fish swims closer, reveals itself to you. And when the fish comes to you do not frighten it, do not violate its trust by grasping it and hurting it. Respect what you are shown, and honoured with. Swim in its own world, drift with it.

It has taken me three years (and some Pluto transits) to see my husband's naked core, his raw emotions. To be trusted with his secret self. And the experience was all the more special for the waiting.