Saturn Retrograde

This weekend, Saturn stations retrograde at 14 degrees of Aries, in gate 21. He will be retrograde from 26/27 July to 10/11 December.

Saturn and retrogrades (in general) get a pretty bad wrap online. My hope with this essay is to help you see Saturn Retrograde as something genuinely useful and helpful. Which it is, if you know how to work with the energy rather than force against it…

This is an important transit for everyone, but it’s a particularly useful one to be aware of if you own a business. Because this retrograde, moving through the gates of control and opinions, is speaking directly to how you lead, how you manage your resources, and whose advice you’ve been following.

There’s nothing to fear here. There’s a lot to work with.

Before we properly dive in, two things.

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I also want to let you know that I have just two places left in Inner Architecture, my 1:1 mentorship for Projector women, beginning in August. If you’ve been feeling the pull toward working together closely, you’re welcome to reply to this email, and we’ll see if it’s the right fit.

Both of these paths are very Saturnian, when I think about it. Real structure, real support, built to last.

Now, to the sky.

When a planet is retrograde, it appears from our perspective on Earth to slow down, pause, and start moving backwards through the sky, the zodiac and the gates. The planet isn’t actually moving backwards, of course. It’s all a matter of perspective. But that perspective matters, because it’s the way the planet’s energy is experienced here on Earth, through the gates and the zodiac as a geocentric data stream. When a planet moves backwards through that stream, we feel a real halting and inversion of its energy.

I like to picture it as if the planet is on a road trip. Forward motion is travelling from one city to the next. But sometimes the planet gets to the next city and realises it missed some important stops along the way. Maybe it left its phone charger at a hotel. We’ve all been there. For whatever reason, it needs to pause the trip and make the journey backwards.

So when a planet is retrograde, it’s retracing its steps. Something important has been missed and needs to be revisited.

Retrogrades also give us a reprieve. Can you imagine how exhausted we’d all be if every planet was direct, all of the time, and we lived in a constant state of forward motion and action?

I’m tired just thinking about it…

We need retrogrades. They’re the review built into the cycle. They’re important and helpful (please don’t buy into the online fear mongering).

Saturn has a bit of a reputation problem that I feel compelled to try to fix…

There’s a tendency in certain branches of astrology to focus on the negative traits of Saturn. And in all honesty, I think that does everyone a massive disservice. He’s layered and multidimensional, just like you are.

His lessons can be really hard; I won’t pretend otherwise. But Saturn is the planet that most helps us expand and grow our capacity in this life.

He teaches us how to hold more, through discomfort, through challenge, through frustration and effort. He’s Chronos, father time. He slows things down and cools things off. He teaches us to put one foot in front of the other and to mature as we go. In your chart, he represents the area of life where you have to work a little harder than others seem to. And he creates a lot of good. It simply arrives in time, rather than on demand.

His retrogrades give us a chance to restructure, re-do and re-plan so that we can hold more. And by hold more, I mean more of the good and the bad. Saturn stretches us so our capacity grows in both directions. He helps us handle more, and he helps us receive more. The same steadiness that carries you through the hard season is what lets the good land when it comes.

Below I will dive into everything you need to know about Saturn’s Retrograde, how to work with the energy rather than force against it, and the specific area of life being impacted for each sign.

Saturn’s retrograde isn’t a quick overnight transit. It’s a slooooow burn. Which makes it even more important to be aware of if you want to truly work with the energy and lessons he is dishing up.