Saturn Return

The Elephant Man

2009-08-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

think for a deeper understanding of VIrgo/Uranus/Pluto drive to perfection andUranus denial of the natural human, in Michaell Jackson consider this quote by the man on Oprah: " That's another stupid story [that he tried to buy John Merrick's skeleton]. I love the story of the Elephant man. He reminds me of me a lot, and I could relate to it. It made me cry because I saw myself in the story, but no, I never asked for the—[skeleton]...." How revealing and it's an incredible movie.

John Merrick died at the approach of his first Saturn Return.

Iran's First Saturn Return - Iran's Horoscope

2009-07-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

Iran, the country, is having its first Saturn Retun right now.

With the North Node in Virgo in the 6th and that beautiful 11th house, you'd think this country was born to show us how to have a "proper" reeolution.

ElsaElsa Tackles the Saturn Return

2008-07-02T23:25:00.001-07:00

www.elsaelsa.com/archives/2008/05/28/judging-a-persons-saturn-return-big-mouth-goat-blathers-on-some-more/

Many people are confused about the Saturn Return. Maturity s no protection. It's about choosing your real life instead of the one you thought was yours.

Saturn Return Can Be Stressful

2008-06-08T02:15:00.000-07:00

Tapping can relieve some of the stress of your Saturn Return. Learn more by watchng the video.

Bobby Fischer Dies at Second Saturn Return

2008-01-18T21:32:00.001-08:00

Bobby Fischer, eccentric Chess Champ from the Cold War era, with an IQ estimated to be over 180 has died at his second Saturn Reurn in Iceland where he lived as a paranoid recluse.

Ecxkart Tolle's Saturn Return

2008-01-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

Eckart Tolle had his awakening at his first Saturn Return.

Pluto enters Capricorn

2008-01-01T20:13:00.000-08:00

Quoted from the BBC:

Bernard Baruch, a US financier who advised President Harry Truman, coined the term [”Cold War”] to describe the conflict emerging between the former World War II allies in a speech to Congress on 16 April 1947. Just over a year earlier, Britain’s Winston Churchill had talked of a Soviet “iron curtain” descending on Europe.”

It has been 60 years or two archetypal Saturn Return cycles for our relations with Russia — 1947 + 30 + 30 = 2007 — and a revisit is also heralded by Pluto’s egress into Capricorn in January 2008.

Further from the BBC:
“After World War II, Joseph Stalin wanted to cut the USSR off from the rest of the world because he had a deep fear of cold drafts coming in under a badly shut door - this talk of human rights and other things which would have landed a Soviet citizen in prison,” Mr Radzinsky told the BBC News website.

“When Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech, Stalin must have danced for joy because no dictator can live without an external threat and Churchill handed it to him.

“Poor Truman tried to play down the Churchill speech but Stalin would hear none of it: he instantly shut the door and began preparing the country for World War III.”

Note that Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech and Baruch’s rhetorical “Cold War” emerged simultaneously. We have recently lived through another layer of Churchll’s powerful symbolism as it was he who carved up the Middle East into these arbitrary countries that hate us and each other so much.

Now possibly ushers in another layer of results from Baruch’s powerful rhetoric.
A Pluto in Sagittarius lesson on the power of rhetoric and symbolism is fitting as Pluto leave Sagittarius and enter Capricorn.

Saturn Return in Cancer

2007-12-31T13:12:00.000-08:00

As Saturn moves through Cancer and aspects the Sun of the United States' horoscope, it is helpful to understand as much as possible about this transit. Astrologers have Utopian ideals for the future and idealistic expectations for the present but I find astrology even more useful for the patterns it reveals from the past.

It is sad and a little disturbing to realize that for the past 125 years, Saturn has been transiting Cancer during great wars including World War I, World War II and Viet Nam so I think it is worth taking a serious look at what Saturn in Cancer may really have meant in history. History is made by people. Far from "building walls and hiding behind security," the people I will describe to you with Saturn in Cancer instead provide those very things to others, despite often never having had them themselves due to traumatic events occurring in the outer world at the time of the birth which also affected their home environment.

An article appeared in The Mountain Astrologer in 1978 by David Horbovetz called The Seven Most Challenging Aspects. At the top of the list was "any combination of the Moon and Saturn". This includes Saturn in the 4th house, the Moon in the 10th house, the Moon's Nodes in Cancer/Capricorn, Moon in Capricorn and Saturn in Cancer.

Saturn is a complex and critical planet in chart interpretation and in mapping human territory. Since we are discussing Saturn in a water sign, we may learn much by considering Saturn in Cancer briefly as contrasted with the other two water signs, Scorpio and Pisces.

Saturn is uncomfortable in water. The water signs are about emotions and bonding. Emotions are meant to flow. Just when you want to appear strongest, your voice cracks or your eyes fill over with tears. Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces revolt at the cold demands of Saturn and become like children who, denied the sympathy they deserve if for no other reason than that they are children, cry even harder.

Scorpio, unlike Cancer, has traveled through the experiences of Leo, falling in love, sometimes foolishly; Virgo, cleaning up after a messy affair, financially supporting a child engendered in a one night stand or choosing to be alone rather than in a relationship which is not significant; and Libra, where the whole martial arts world of relating is encountered. After the Libra experience, you can't say you don't know that other people have boundaries and definition outside yourself with a whole set of expectations that may or may not guarantee that you will have what you want in the relationship, regardless of the initial attraction.

Scorpios have social awareness, whether they chose to use it or not. And they have built up some very real and persuasive personal power. Scorpios may be stung and stung badly - in fact if I had to choose between the greater pain, Cancer or Scorpio, it would be a very close call. But Scorpios never remain victims. They will destroy something, even themselves, to end a position of victimization.

Saturn is equally miserable in the water sign of Pisces. The Piscean ocean washes over the best efforts of Saturn and leaves not a trace. Your deepest commitment? Your greatest aspirations? Washed away. Saturn in Pisces often chooses to deal with things in life that are most corrosive to hope and most offensive to our desire to believe in the concept of progress. Wherever there is enduring poverty, where people are dying for lack of resources but forbidden to use birth control or eat cows, where people perish because they are too poor or too scared or too ignorant to get medical care before their conditions become untreatable, where people are slaughtered in the name of loving gods, where families pass along degenerative diseases and continue to breed and care for each other, in places where every birth is a still birth in a certain sense, there you will find Saturn in Pisces … enduring. Saturn and Pisces together, two very old souls. They can be quite gloomy together. But do we pity them as much as they pity themselves? No. Something inside us says, "You knew it would be like this all along. Now why complain?" They partake of the nature of the aged, which is to know all and endure all.

As we know from horary astrology, Saturn is in its "house of joy" in the 12th house, a similar energy to Saturn in Pisces. [William Lilly said: "Malefic Saturn rejoices in the baleful 12th house, which supports its theme of limitation."]

This brings us full circle to the first water sign, Cancer. What does Cancer know of all of this? Of Scorpionic revenge and the Piscean Rivers of Lethe? Cancer is a little child.

The horror of Saturn in Cancer is that a child who knows nothing is expected to endure with nothing. A child can't build walls to protect itself. That's what the walls of the home are for, the shelter of the father materially and the mother emotionally. What can a child do without these walls? There is an awe-ful vulnerability to Saturn in Cancer. I have seen people with this placement repeat the same mistakes in trusting over and over again, each time opening their arms and hearts as wide as a four year old child to embrace the snake that will bite them. There is an old song, "You knew he was a snake when you took him in." What does Cancer know of snakes when their question will always be, "Why did this snake bite me when I loved it so much and took it home and cared for it so tenderly?"

The reason this is more painful than Saturn in Aries, Taurus or Gemini, other early and "naïve" signs in the wheel, is that Cancer bonds. That is its nature as the first water sign. If the snake bites me in Aries, I will be surprised and furious! I will cut off its head. If it bites me in Taurus, I will hit it over the head with a shovel and throw it away or I will pay someone else to do this for me. If it bites me in Gemini, I will be amazed and curious and talk about it and find out more about it and what other things are dangerous in this world. But if it bites me in Cancer, I will continue to love and care for it though it may bite me again because I bond with all living things and I will be very, very puzzled. Why did it bite me? Was it something I did wrong?

I know that the traditional reading of Saturn is that you are limited in the area concerned but I sometimes believe it is just the opposite. It may be that we have unlimited access to an energy that the world insists must be limited (Saturn). Perhaps our lifework in our charts is to stand against the influence of a cynical and denying world and to pour out this energy from within, from the limitless source we have inside ourselves. Many of the people whose charts I studied did just this. At some level, regardless of stern disapproval by a denying world, they refused to believe that we are not a human family.

Cancer is the sign of the mother and the child. Every time we see a wonderful picture or painting of a mother tenderly embracing her baby, implied in the background is some strong protecting presence (father? husband? brother? provider?) who permits this intimacy to thrive. There is someone who battles the bill collector, and repairs the leaky sink, and works on the heater and pays for the car to drive to the doctor so that mother and baby can be safe in the budding of their sacred circle. All single mothers know this because they do not have this luxury of turning their backs on the world to be alone with their babies. But there is something else about this picture, something that only people with Saturn in Cancer may really know -- and that is that it is the child who loves unconditionally and not the mother.

When Saturn is in Cancer, thousands of little people are allowed to walk to school by themselves without umbrellas and raincoats, without warnings about cars and dirty old men. Where are their parents? And how can those with Saturn in Cancer become their own parent when they have no experience about the wider world to guide them?

My client Amy, with Saturn in Cancer, said, "I cried myself to sleep every night until one day it hit me. No one could hear me. I mean they couldn't hear me emotionally. So I quit crying."
I watched a military training film which flashed photographs of breasts, loving mothers, soft touches, tender looks, hair stroked, shoulders patted, hands tenderly held, sweet, loving young wives -- with photographs of children being beaten, pushed to the floor, shoved to the ground, hit and humiliated, sometimes standing alone with no clothes on or huddled in a corner. The images were alternated, a long gaze at the mother's love, a quick hit of denial, back to the longing for a mother's love, another hit or rejection.

The intent of this film was to put the tender throat of a man's emotions on the razor's edge and then turn him loose with as much pain as he could bear, directly onto the enemy. The film showed sadistic events and was itself sadistic. The Marquis de Sade had Saturn in Cancer.
Statistics from studies done in World War II have revealed that only about 10% of men are willing to kill under any circumstances. The images in this film were chosen to drive those on the borderline over the edge, in other words, to make normal men willing to kill. Please notice, that it was the denial not of sex but of motherly love which was the propagandist's weapon of choice. This kind of love is embodied in one sign and one sign only, Cancer.

Natal Saturn in Cancer can be heartbreaking not only because these children are old before they are young but also, paradoxically because, like innocent little children, they persist in retaining a trust and vulnerability which takes them into shark infested waters over and over again without weapons or protection, with only their own determination to love and endure. Their armor eventually becomes their very vulnerability. They believe that we, here on earth, are bonded, that we are clan and family, that we protect and care for each other.

I analyzed the charts and lives of over 75 famous people with Saturn in Cancer from Michelangelo in 1475 CE to those who are currently making their initiation in to the adult world with their first Saturn Return at this time, such as Drew Barrymore (February 2, 1975) and Angelina Jolie (June 4, 1975). Although the group of charts I looked at included some of the world's greatest generals, geniuses, artists, writers, performers, scientists and even presidents, it was the private lives of these people, the most intimate details of their lives which revealed the meaning of this placement of Saturn.

Far from barricading themselves behind stone walls as I've been reading so many astrologers predict for Saturn's transit through Cancer, they reach out to embrace and protect those around them, even sometimes their whole country and all their country men, in many cases making their siblings or parents feel safe and protected, while never having known these feelings themselves. Let's take a look at some of these people.

Many of these people whose charts I looked at left school at 12 and 13 to support families: Raymond Burr and Jackie Gleason are examples. The list of runaway or missing fathers lead me to websites that addressed the issue of "father hunger". Robert Baden-Powell (founder of the Boy Scouts), Galileo, the Duke of Wellington, Jackie Gleason, Eminem, Angelina Jolie and Drew Barrymore had fathers "missing in action: The deaths or loss of mothers …, endless, but most profoundly: Michelangelo and Queen Elizabeth I. The loss of a child: Shakespeare, Sylvester Stallone (autism), Mia Farrow (two children: one to heart disease and one to Woody Allen). The loss of a mother and a child: Mary Shelley. The loss of both parents: Joseph Conrad.

Some people with Saturn in Cancer have lives one almost cannot bear to imagine. Edith Piaf and Eric Clapton had the unbelievable loss of both parents and a child. Edith Piaf was born underneath a street lamp and abandoned there, while Saturn was in Cancer in 1915. At one time this French singer, known as the "Little Sparrow", was the highest paid entertainer in the world. Her life was a tragic mixture of unrequited love and drugs, reflected in her soulful and emotive songs that captured audiences around the world (Milord, for example, and my favorite L'Amour, Toujours l'Amour).

Eric Clapton's life has been so painful, it is difficult to write about. Born in 1945, he was abandoned by both parents (illegitimate) and raised by grandparents. His life was plagued with drugs and alcohol. At one of the times in his life when he was on an even keel, his little two year old fell 40 stories from a hotel window. Clapton is considered by many to be one of the most talented musicians who ever lived.

Nostradamus, who lived around 1503, has the distinction of being someone whose entire family was killed by the plague (wife and children). Few lives are as filled with pathos.

The great Mexican artist Diego Rivera lost his twin brother at two and a son at two. William Wordsworth lost his parents and was separated from his sister at eight. He was eventually reunited with his sister and cared for her during her long mental and physical degeneration into death, the result of a severe illness.

Mary Shelley was born with Saturn in Cancer in 1797. Eleven days after her birth her mother, the famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft died. Mary Shelley later gave birth to a child who died eleven days after it was born, in one of the tragic and horrifying equations of the subconscious. Her father and her lover, the poet Percy Byssche Shelley, died within a one year period. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a work of art that has captured the imagination of generations.

The love of and longing for the mother you would expect to see with this placement is eloquently described by the great British writer, D. H Lawrence who had Saturn in Cancer. This is a rather long quote but so illustrative of the feelings of Saturn in Cancer, I think you will enjoy reading it … "My mother was a clever, ironical, delicately moulded [sic] woman of good burgher descent. She married below her. My father was dark, ruddy, with a fine laugh. He was a coal-miner. He was one of the sanguine temperament, warm and hearty, but unstable. He lacked principle, as my mother would have said. He deceived her and lied to her. She despised him - he drank. Their marriage life has been one carnal, bloody fight. I was born hating my father: as early as ever I can remember, I shivered with horror when he touched me. He was bad before I was born. This has been a kind of bond between me and my mother. We have loved each other, almost with a husband and wife love, as well as filial ,and maternal (...) It has been rather terrible and has made me, in some respects, abnormal (...) I think this peculiar fusion of soul (...) never comes twice in a life-time - it doesn't seem natural." [The Geographical Background of the Early Works of D.H. Lawrence, Claude Sinzelle, pp 78, 79.]

As well as great love for the mother, great and grave disappointment in the father is a common theme with this placement. "Father hunger" is the inevitable companion of excessive mother love and both accompany the feelings of abandonment that come with this placement.
It was the poet Walt Whitman, with Saturn in Cancer, who penned the line, "The child is father to the man."

Another approach to Saturn in Cancer is personified by Michael Douglas (1944), Liza Minnelli (1946) and Drew Barrymore (1975) who were born into famous families so famous they had other crosses to bear. It touches me very deeply that Michael Douglas, born with Saturn in Cancer, has released a film this year, the year of his second Saturn Return, entitled It Runs in the Family, starring … Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Cameron Douglas and Diana Douglas. The trailer says this is a story about the "loving, frustrating, reassuring, insane, and ultimately inescapable bonds of family". Liza Minnelli was enduring a humiliating divorce at the time this article was being researched. We have yet to see how Drew Barrymore will play out her family issues but she has already "divorced" her mother.

People experiencing their second Saturn Return in 2003-2005 were born in the thick of World War II. Saturn entered Cancer June 22, 1944. The Normandy invasion took place just 16 days earlier. In December came the Battle of the Bulge (Band of Brothers). It was the last German offensive. More than a million men fought in this battle including 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British. Hitler committed suicide April 30, 1944. Germany surrendered May 7. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima August 6, a very sad day for the Family of Man. Japan surrendered August 14. The trials at Nuremberg took place the next year (1945). The Nuremburg testimony ended August 30, 1946 and verdicts were handed down on October 1st. Saturn left Cancer in August of that year. The Marshall Plan, a humane and pragmatic plan for rebuilding the Allies, did not go into effect until 1947.

Saturn in Cancer is about resources and the truth is that often there are limitations in material as well as emotional resources with this placement. There is a wounding of both parents at the archetypal level because the good that the mother would do when the father is missing is also denied the child because she has to play both roles.

In the mopping up of World War II that began as Saturn entered Cancer in 1944, we saw women everywhere in the western world cope with the financial, material and emotional disaster of global war for themselves and their children. In America in 1942 gas and coffee were rationed. The sale of new cars was banned. Meat, fat and cheese were rationed in 1943. Canned goods were rationed in 1943 and people were rationed to three pairs of shoes a year. In January 1945, a nationwide dim-out conserved fuel. As late as April 1945 sugar rations were cut by 25% as reserves neared empty.

Food is a frequent and familiar battleground for working out the issues of Cancer, Lebensmittel in German - the stuff you can't live without. While food is materially important, it is also one of our primary symbols for nurturing. So often the obesity associated with the sign Cancer is an exchange of the comfort of food for the cold, cruel world which seems to deny any reliable source of sustenance, either because there is no mother or the mother is incapable of nurturing.
Not by any means to oversimplify the issues connected with obesity, nevertheless, for many with Saturn in Cancer, food is the one reliable source of comfort in their lives. Fatty Arbuckle (1887), Jackie Gleason (1916) and Raymond Burr (1917) are three people with Saturn in Cancer who achieved fame in the entertainment world. Fatty Arbuckle was an extremely successful film star and one of the most highly compensated before scandal ruined his career. Fatty was being paid $1 million a film back when $1 million was a lot of money. He was accused of having very crude sex with a young girl wherein his weight was a factor in injuring her. Jackie Gleason incorporated jokes about his weight into his highly successful tv shows, The Life of Riley and The Honeymooners. [also see Obesity: A Special Cancerian Challenge.]

Personally, I think Raymond Burr deserves to be in a class by himself. This gigantic man left school early to support his family. He left a budding career to earn a purple heart in World War II. He returned to the death of two wives and a young son. He carried his burdens with great dignity, being a very private person. His weight is believed to be perhaps a hormonal condition as he reached his full height of 6'3" before he started junior high. This is one of the things that permitted him to get a full time job so young.

If there was rationing in America and that was a hardship, a deprivation, only imagine what was happening in Germany, Austria and other European countries where moral and military defeat slept with deprivation and impotence. Most families lived very close to the edge. All during this period, babies were born with Saturn in Cancer. Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy was one of them, born to a family in Nordenham, Germany, on October 2, 1944. Roy was experiencing his second Saturn Return at the time Montecore mauled him. I have written about how this was a "family: tragedy for Roy, who raised his white tiger cubs like a mother. [See Brother Tiger, Brother Bear.]

Wherever veterans gather to talk about Pearl Harbor and storming the Beaches of Normandy, I doubt that they mention their home lives but I have listened to their children, who have endured their bad tempers, addiction to pain killers and seething resentment for the waste of their "best years" and the loss of young limbs or young hopes.

Many a child with Saturn in Cancer was conceived by a scared kid who was shipping out the next night, afraid he might never have a chance to have sex again before he died. Thousands of young men returned to women they hardly knew and children engendered in the most unconscious circumstances. My client Lilly's father drank because he returned to a life that made no sense to him at all and Lilly's mother drank because she grew to understand that she was not loved, only tolerated out of duty and honor. Lilly cared for her young brothers and sister while her parents drank themselves to death.

A child from a similar home, Michelle dreamed she and her mother were lepers, scratching through rubble with their rotting fingers for scraps of garbage and debris, hating each other because they had to compete for so little. Michelle felt it was her father's love they were competing for.

Three of the world's greatest literary geniuses were born under Saturn in Cancer, William Shakespeare, Alexandr Pushkin (Russia's greatest poet) and Leo Tolstoy. If the purpose of writing is to touch the emotions, here we find Saturn in Cancer elevated to the level of genius. It is interesting to consider very briefly the Cancerian characteristics and subject matter of each of these world renowned writers.

Shakespeare had a genius for making his characters so personal one feels that no one else could see, or think or feel like King Lear or Lady MacBeth. They rise from the stage vivid and unique. Shakespeare also had his South Moon Node in Cancer.

In describing Alexandr Pushkin's greatness, Fyodor Dostoyevsky singled out the great Russian poet's "endless sympathy for all". The writer Andrei Bitov believed that Pushkin singlehandedly developed Russian culture and created Russian civilization. "In Pushkin," he says, "we have found our freedom, not the freedom people are talking about, but an inner, secret freedom. This freedom is present in his every line, in his every gesture." The poet in Russia is far more than a poet, but a high priest. Alexandr Pushkin was born with Saturn in Cancer.

Leo Tolstoy, the father of twelve, wrote often about the family. In fact, one of the most famous opening lines in literature is the beginning of his book Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Tolstoy was born with Saturn in Cancer. [Also see What Planet Does Your Family Come From: Uranus or Neptune?]

Now in closing, let's look at two of the greatest generals in history. Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington, who both had Saturn in Cancer and who both became protectors of their country and countrymen and ultimately immortals.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, and Napoleon Bonaparte were born in the same year, 1769, on May 1 and August 15 respectively. Forty six years later they were destined to meet on the battlefield of Waterloo to fight the war of worlds. Both boys were withdrawn and troubled youths.

Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington

Napoleon saw his homeland invaded. He felt his father sold out to the enemy for which he never forgave him. At 9, Napoleon was sent away to school in a foreign country where he was mocked and ridiculed. The great impression this made on an impressionable child is reflected in this statement by Napoleon: "I was born when [Corsica] was perishing. Thirty thousand Frenchmen spewed on to our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood... The cries of the dying, the groans of the oppressed and tears of despair surrounded my cradle from the hour of my birth." His mother, Letizia, was a hard, austere woman, toughened by war, who punished her children to teach them sacrifice and discipline. "She sometimes made me go to bed without supper, as if there were nothing to eat in the house. One had to learn to suffer and not let others see it." [Napoleon scholar Sandra Gulland on PBS Online]

Napoleon fell hopelessly in love with a very Cancerian woman, Josephine. This is how she is described by Gulland: "Contrary to popular opinion, Josephine was submissive. Very calm and gentle, she was Bonaparte's haven of peace … he would be able to come here to his wife and find a home and tranquility. She was always ready to serve him…. She was very soft and very gentle, which was important for Napoleon because she was the contrary of what he was." Their love was immortal.

In attempting to understand a personality like Napoleon, that shaped our western world, one cannot help but see the pathos in his not being able to fight for his own country or bring it to glory, as I believe Corsica was the great love of his life. His family was eventually spit upon and briefly exiled from Corsica and he, himself, never returned…. But this is material for another article at some other time in the future.

The Duke of Wellington's father died when he was young and his mother neglected him to the point of scandal. With Capricorn Rising and Mars conjunct Saturn in Cancer opposed by Pluto in Capricorn, he was a somber boy and later noted for his iron will and cold menacing stature.
In contrast, the Duke of Wellington reveals his Cancerian qualities in this oft quoted anecdote, "The Duke once met a little boy, crying by the road. "Come now, that's no way for a young gentleman to behave. What's the matter?" he asked. "I have to go away to school tomorrow," sobbed the child, "and I'm worried about my pet toad. There's no-one else to care for it and I shan't know how it is." Keen to ease the little chap's discomfort, the Duke promised to attend to the matter personally. After the boy had been at school for just over a week, he received a note: "Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Master ---- and has the pleasure to inform him that his toad is well."

Who would know better than the "Iron" Duke, the miseries of a young boy whose heart is troubled upon first leaving for school … and amidst the horrors of war?

One of my favorite sayings has always been, "In your vulnerability lies your strength" and certainly that is the deepest possible meaning of the placement, Saturn in Cancer. In the charts I've looked at and presented here, far from finding people who retreat into shells and barricade themselves from the world, we find people who give themselves to the world with a vulnerability and trust that is both raw and real. In the charts of the 75 people I researched, I found men and women who loved their country, their parents, their children and their fellow men under conditions where many of us would not think love was possible. I believe it is because these are the people who believe that we are family.

Let us remember this as Saturn moves into the sign of America's Sun and let us remember this as we honor all those who serve the human family. This is a eulogy I wrote to the young people who are currently experiencing their first Saturn Return in Cancer.

"During your life, many of you will give your tender and devoted touch to the frail elderly or to vulnerable newborns … to those most at-risk in the human family. Many of you are born empaths and healers. Under the spreading tree of your kindness many lost and struggling souls, old and young alike, will gather for rest and shade before continuing on their way. You will be like serene lakes in the moonlight to your friends, who will drink from your wisdom and be refreshed. You have the broad shoulders and soft breasts your friends will cry on when their ships crash against the rocky shores of life's adversities. Your's is the door that is always open, the heart, the lap ….. You, yourselves, who have been so often orphaned in this weary world will provide safe haven for countless others. It is because of this and for many other reasons that I'm writing this article for you. For you are the Loving Parents of this World."

Don't Let Your Second SR Start This Way

2007-12-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

An Ivy League professor pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for killing his wife last year as she wrapped Christmas presents, telling a judge that he “just lost it” during an argument. The man, Rafael Robb, 57, a tenured economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, faces 4 ½ to 7 years in prison for bludgeoning his wife, Ellen, 49, last Dec. 22. She was reportedly planning to move out the next month and seek a divorce after a rocky 16-year marriage. Detectives theorized that the scene had been staged to look like a burglary.

Nancy's Note: The second Saturn Return takes place between 58 and 60.

Happy New Year

2007-12-26T14:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays and all my best wishes for a great year ahead! THE FEATURED SPEAKER IS NAPOLEON HILL, author of "Think and Grow Rich".

Napoleon Hill has a wonderful Mars/Jupiter conjunct in Leo and the blessings of Sun/Venus in Libra, giving him charm andappeal. But he also has South Moon Node in Taurus as do many who are born into poverty.

According to WIKIPEDIA:

"The secret of Achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, and was never named directly as Hill felt discovering it for themselves would provide readers with the most benefit. Hill presented the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers, to make them ask of themselves "in what do you truly believe?" For according to Hill, 98% of people had no firm beliefs, putting true success firmly out of reach. Hill's numerous books have sold millions of copies, proving that the secret of Achievement is still highly sought-after by modern Americans. Hill dealt with many controversial subjects through his writings including racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war and poverty. Persevering and then succeeding in spite of these obstacles using the philosophy of Achievement, Hill stated, was the responsibility of every American."

I read Napoleon Hill's book at my first Saturn Return and it shaped my life. I read it at thirty but whatever age you read it, it will make immediate sense and bring results.

Barry's First Saturn Return

2007-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

Dear Nancy,
I wish to tell you my 1st saturn return story. My 2nd Saturn return is due soon. I am hoping this time around I might find material and spiritual happiness.

During my 30th year (approx. 1980) I was pursuing my first degree in Fine Arts (a for year u/g degree). At the end of the third year I was failed in my major, photography, by a panel of 5 academics (3 against 2). It was a politically motivated outcome rather than on quality or quantity of my work, I initially suffered from guilt and anxiety but soon realised I was meant to fight this decision as I had been warned of several unfair things going on against me for several years. As it happened, I also experienced a strange positive force which puzzled me but in seeking an answer I did a considerable quantity of private research which impressed other academics and so was actually allowed to continue private research for the final year while waitng for an appeal to be heard. This appeal process actually took 7 months before the institution saw there was no way I was going to back down; and a special new panel devised and a date to be heard. During this final year I was banned from lectures because I could not officially enrol (as an appeal had not been settled).The subject of my thesis was essentially my personal evolution via a spontaneously religious experience based on psychological and philosophical findings of my art and life. I graduated at the normal time as all my peers because this thesis (30,000 words) was graded as being of particular uniqueness in an area outside the general knowledge of the art academics. It was presented to another university in 1981 where I was offered entry into a MA (Fine); but which I did not take up. I managed to complete the Fine Art Degree because I had increased my workload during the third year to cover two extra subjects which incidently were top scores in science electives. As things turned out this allowed me a lot of time during 1980 to think about my self and.what had to be done.

Now, 2007, I have been considering doing a MEnv. Man./Sustainability degree also by research. I developed poor health over the last few years and since completing my fifth u/g degree have been heavily researching my self through integral psychology and esoteric studies. I have reason to believe my life’s true purpose may be made possible with the next saturn return. I have little money, I live a very frugal life and am keen to be more successful with money as I believe money would enable me to best help others. I hope yo find my letter interesting.

Cheers Barry

Note from Nancy: Barry handled a tough first Saturn Return beautifully and may expect rewards at the second. He didn’t sent his vital info but he sounds like a Saturnian type person, stoic, frugal, determined and also perhaps, scapegoated.

The SR Blues from Selina, age 29

2007-12-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

I have first discovered that I am an INFJ about five years ago when I did a personality test at my job then. The HR person mentioned to me at that point that INFJ is not a typical personality type for an accountant and questioned whether I was in the right job for me. I was quite deflated by that statement as at that point I spent 8 years of my life either studying or working in the profession. I eventually changed jobs and became a programmer instead. This I found much more enjoyable as the job requires a lot of creativity. I really enjoy the constant problem solving. It is like playing games at work.

I would not put myself down as an introvert or at least shy person. I tend to fluctuate between shutting off and being lairy at parties. I need both the social and the quiet in my life. I feel suffocated after too much time with people. My great sadness is not having met that someone special. I have dated many men and have found some of them annoying and shallow. The ones I did love my family disapproved of so strongly to the point of forcing us apart.

The single mindedness trait is certainly true about me. I have done up houses alone. I do sometimes wonder though if all the additional pressure I put on myself is to distract me from the more important matters that aren’t getting resolved. I can be cold if required. I have dumped men in order to get to do tiling at weekends. I have not found the happy medium between compassion and outright disregard. I fluctuate between the two for prolonged periods of time, sometimes I won’t cry for a year or two and then I will cry every night for weeks. At this stage I am close to tears though and I am not sure why.

Saturn's Rings Will Last Forever - Makes Sense, Doesn't It?

2007-12-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

LEARN MORE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7141628.stm

Al Gore's Second Saturn Return

2007-11-12T10:16:00.001-08:00

Quoted from:

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - In a career marked by second acts, Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is becoming a partner at Silicon Valley's most storied venture capital firm.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said on Monday that Gore, a campaigner for action to slow global climate change, will join the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm as a partner focused on alternative energy investments.

The venture firm, which since 1972 has backed seminal computer start-ups ranging from Sun Microsystems to Compaq Computer to Amazon.com to Google Inc, has emerged in recent years as a leading funder of alternative energy companies.

[Al Gore makes a change typical of the second Saturn Return, between 58-60 years old. He is 59 and also won the Nobel Prize this year, a very good "harvest" indeed.

The Nation's Saturn Return Expert

2007-11-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

[Nancy R. Fenn, the Nation's Saturn Return Expert]

What Nancy's Saturn Return Clients Say ...

"I have been involved with astrology for over 40 years, have had 4 different teachers and know what I need to learn. Nancy R. Fenn's reading yesterday was and is brilliant. Liz Greene did a chart for me this year and 2 other astrologers, with little understanding of the 2nd Saturn return. It is like Nancy knows it, is not afraid of it and assisted me in embracing it. Nancy Fenn has an uncanny ability to see from a larger perspective...absolutely brilliant. It makes perfect sense, very logical the way she shared it. For the past 10 years I have been fascinated with the nodes and find no astrologers that really discuss them. From my point of view Nancy's understanding and brilliance of astrology, particularly the nodes and Saturn return deserves to be shared in a book...".

~Fiona McCain

Saturn Return in Virgo Happening Now

2007-10-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

If you have Saturn in Virgo, born roughly between 1978 and 1981, and you can’t get it perfect you will procrastinate…. Not only that, here are some more Saturn in Virgo issues:

not prepared enough
not good enough
not ready enough
not capable enough

This book is a great resource: Addiction to Perfection by Marion Woodman

not well enough trained
not pretty/handson/tall/short/old/young enough
not enough, enough, enough …

This is the curse of perfectionism. In a few fields, like brain surgery and diamond cutting, you can fine tune this characteristic and hammer it home.

If you want to become “the Expert”, that’s another positive use of the energy.

If you’re a regular person, however, perfectionism can be toxic enough to destroy the quality or your life and your relationships as well as your mental and physical health.

During your life, you can change this by learning when enough IS enough, how to leave well enough alone and not to fix it when it’s working.

If your friends accuse you of micro-managing, if you have ulcers or facial ticks, if you’re bulimic or have chronic digestive problems, you’re a Saturn in Virgo kid who needs to learn the difference between perfection and perfected.

And your first Saturn Return is the perfect (ahem!) time to get to work on that.

A Tale of Two Second Saturn Returns

2007-10-30T00:33:00.000-07:00

It’s been a bad year for British Lords and Businessmen. Earlier this year British Petroleum (BP)'s Edmund John Philip Browne, Baron Browne of Madingley, aka Lord Browne, approached his second Saturn Return (payback time). As it sometimes does at Saturn Return, his life began to unravel. Within months his brilliant career was over, his reputation besmirched because of a homosexual scandal, and he may have lost a $3 billion retirement package as well.
It would seem Lord Browne is having the Mother of all second Saturn Returns.

Let’s look at Browne’s chart and put these unfortunate events in the context of Saturn Return.

Beginning at the beginning, which is a very good place to start, Browne’s father was a British army officer. His mother was a Hungarian survivor of Auschwitz. Browne worked for the same company his father did, British Petroleum or BP, for 41 years, the last 11 at the head, as CEO. BP is a publicly held company with shareholders and the CEO is constrained to protect others’ investment by keeping costs down and running the company prudently. Browne did an outstanding job. He also promoted green ideas and made the noble declaration that the right of self determination was crucial to people all over the world.

For the last four years, Browne had a homosexual affair with one Jeff Chevalier from Canada, a lad he met on “Suited and Booted,” a gay website. Browne is in much of the trouble he’s in because he later lied to a judge and said he met Chevalier jogging in the park. He also accused Chevalier of substance abuse and instability. He will probably not be prosecuted for perjury but the judge gave him a scathing condemnation.

Further, officers of publically held companies are held to very high standards of ethics to protect the public interest. This doesn't affect that Browne had a personal life but rather that he lied under oath.

When the affair with Chevalier ended, the young “escort” threatened to publish the details of his affair with Browne. It was also alleged that Browne abused company assets and resources by, among other things, giving Chevalier a BP laptop, letting him use the company plane and hand delivering him cash via a BP employee. It is illegal to use resources of a publicly held company for personal pleasure or to squander the assets frivolously. Were this Browne’s own company, he could have done whatever he wanted.

In his resignation statement made in May (2007), Lord Browne commented: "In my 41 years with BP, I have kept my private life separate from my business life. I have always regarded my sexuality as a personal matter, to be kept private. I shall not be commenting on my personal issues further. I wish to pursue my personal life in private. It is a matter of deep disappointment that a newspaper group has now decided that allegations about my personal life should be made public."

Browne’s public life is ruined. He has already resigned from some other boards and positions. He may lose his pension. The rosy projects that usually await a man of his stature and reputation will be withheld. He is expected to “do a Profumo,” referring to the British minister caught in a sex scandal who devoted the rest of his life to public charities and eventually re-earned the respect of his peers.

Let’s take a look at Lord Browne’s chart. We don't have the time of birth.

Gemini, Aquarius and Uranus are energies prominent in the charts of many gay men, often affecting the Moon which represents the mother. These energies can indicate a promiscuous lifestyle, a Peter Pan attitude, and thrill seeking high risk emotional behavior. Until very recently, getting “outed” could ruin careers or result in blackmail and extortion. I don’t think we would believe such a thing possible in the 21 st century, a full 18 months after Elton John’s marriage, but Browne conducted his life like a man of the past century—living a lie -- and set himself up for the classic denouement that gay men everywhere used to have to fear. His Moon is conjunct Uranus in Gemini.

Browne’s Moon also indicates a perhaps dreadfully unstable mother, maybe even “unhinged”, as one might expect of a tragic concentration camp survivor. Evidently her experiences during the war affected her ability to nurture, making a traditional male/female relationship unpleasing to her son.

If there’s a lot of Gemini, Leo and Pisces in a chart, it’s possible to lead a double life altogether. Gemini and Pisces are dual signs while Leo in their company promotes melodrama combined with a long run of very excellent acting. Browne has three planets in Leo with his Sun in Pisces trine Uranus in Gemini.

Browne has Venus in Aries opposite Neptune in Libra trine Saturn and Pluto in Leo. This is a powerful desire nature. This man is very loving. He has an exalted love nature (Venus opposite Neptune) but you can also be sure that whatever Lord Browne wants, be it money, sex or the companionship of a particular young escort, he wants it very, very badly (Mars/Saturn/Pluto). This kind of passion can border on obsession and often leaves a person open to extortion if it takes them to a dark place. Some wonder why Chevalier isn’t being charged with extortion.

The chart also reveals Browne’s enlightened green attitude with Sun trine Uranus and his high energy and charisma with nice aspects to Pluto and the Mars/Saturn/Pluto Stellium in Leo that many of that time period have (“Boomers”).

Browne’s South Node in Scorpio can give him the power and tendency to undo himself. It sat there all these years like a time bomb.

What does this have to do with the Saturn Return? The Saturn Return timing would indicate that this undoing was for Lord Browne’s higher good. Let me explain.

Saturn makes its first Return to its natal position when we are between 28-30 years old and the second time between 58-60. Lord Browne is 59.

Lord Browne's official second Saturn Return began September 2, 2006. Saturn checks up on us at these ages to make sure we are living an authentic life. We get a chance at 30 to opt in and again at 60 if we still aren’t with the program. In some cases there are major course corrections at either time and Lord Browne is certainly having one. I write widely about this elsewhere on my website. Lord Browne is one of many "Boomers" currently experiencing their second Saturn Return. If a person has been leading an authentic life, rewards come at 58-60. What is an authentic life? If you're gay, be gay.

A meaningful contrast would be Sir Elton John. Sir Elton came out at his first Saturn Return (age 28-30). It was under difficult circumstances but he did it. His popularity suffered a little. He regrouped and the rest, as they say, is history. Sir Elton's reward at his second Saturn Return could be considered coincidental but there are no coincidences. He was able to legally bind with his life partner.

Pluto has also been transiting Lord Browne's natal Jupiter. What has been hidden becomes visible and that is always a very good thing.

Yes, you could say Edmund John Philip Browne, Baron Browne of Madingley, aka Lord Browne, has been living a lie. The Universe wants us to be whole and wholly who we are. Lord Browne’s event is tragic by conventional standards, devastating financially and materially, but spiritually it will permit him to lead the final third of is life as a whole and therefore healed person.

For your free Saturn Return mini reading, contact me today via www.bemyastrologer.com/form.html

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2007-10-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

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Nancy's First Saturn Return

2007-10-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

This is how I looked at my first Saturn Return. You'd hardly guess my whole life was falling apart.

I have Saturn in the 8th house and that's a tough one.

What house is your Saturn in? I hope you're a lot luckier than I was!
It is the difficulties I had at my own first Saturn Return that made me want to reach out to others at this difficult time.

Write me for your free mini Saturn Return reading: nancy@bemyguide.net

Chickens Come Home to Roost at Second Saturn Return

2007-10-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

French playboy Jean-Maurice Agnelet has been convicted of murdering an heiress soon after her casino sale windfall when they were both 29. They were both at their first Saturn Return. Her body has never been found.

The 69-year-old lawyer was only charged during his second Saturn Return in 2000 after another girlfriend withdrew the alibi she had given him. Chickens comes home to roost at the second SR.

Agnelet was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Doris Lessing has Saturn in Virgo

2007-10-11T16:47:00.001-07:00

Doris Lessing who won the Novel Prize for Literature today is approaching her third Saturn Return. Here's her chart.
Showing her Saturn in Virgo qualities, she completely rewrote one book, "The Fifth Child" before she felt it had integrity.
Her very unhappy life is shown by the conjunt of Mars/Venus and Saturn. That is a person effectively robbed of all human happiness and comfort.
Lessing's Saturn is at 8 degres of VIrgo. Her chart shows a near-kite pattern including a Grand Trine between Mars/Pluto and Uranus. She could have withstood anything, probablyy did, but would never abide weak people.
Lessing had two short marriages in the 1940s.

Nancy R. Fenn becomes "The Saturn Return Expert" at Self Growth

2007-10-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

SELF GROWTH is the #1 Self Improvement Site On The Web, as Ranked by Google and Yahoo!

Nancy R. Fenn has been chosen SATURN RETURN EXPERT for the gigantic self growth community served by this information portal. What an honor!

When to Get a Reading?

2007-09-28T17:34:00.000-07:00

I recieved an amazing astrological report from Nancy at a time when I was experiencing an identity crisis. My life was all questions, no answers. I was depressed, stifled and uninspired. After recieving Nancy's report, I felt revived. Something in my spirit was reawakened. I understood how the experiences I've had were neccessary in shaping who I am so that I have the tools to be that which I aspire towards. The report gave me new insight into my self and to the hidden influences affecting my current state of mind. I was able to get in line with the underlying energy and use it in my favor instead of feeling burdened by it. With this new sense of empowerment, I moved across the country, signed up for school and am following my life long dreams. I recommend Nancy's report to anyone that is in need of revitalization and answers!

-Lee Ann Fleissner

Scond Saturn Return Reading

2007-09-28T01:08:00.000-07:00

10.09.2006

Nancy, I have been involved with astrology for over 40 years, have had 4 different teachers and know what I need to learn. Your reading yesterday was and is brilliant; Liz Greene did a chart for this year and 2 other astrologers, with little understanding of the 2nd Saturn return [emphasis mine]. It is like you know it, are not afraid of it and assisted me in embracing it.

You have an uncanny ability to see from a larger perspective so you do not get lost in the trees as you are able to sense the forest I am going through..absolutely brilliant.

It makes perfect sense , very logical the way you shared it. For the past 10 years I have been fascinated with the nodes and find no astrologers that really discuss them.

From my point of view your understanding and brilliance of astrology, particularly the nodes and Saturn return deserves to be shared in a book. Maybe it is time, you have your e-books so with a little magic and a wave of the wand, it is there.

Poet Kay Ryan's First and Second Saturn Returns

2007-09-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

Kay Ryan is an American poet whose life beautifully illustrates winning cooperation with the two most important astrology transits, the first and second Saturn Returns. The first Saturn Return comes (for all of us) between 28-30. This tremendously important transits asks us to find our authentic selves and give ourselves second birth so to speak, to leave our parents again, consciously this time, and their expectations, and begin to lead our own lives. If we succeed at this very arduous task, the second Saturn Return between 58-60 years old brings tremendous rewards.

Work hard at Saturn tasks and Saturn always delivers. The converse is also true; perhaps this is why many people die at around 60. I write these articles to help you get in the first group with Kay Ryan.

You are not reading this by chance.

Kay Ryan was born in 1945. At around 30, her first Saturn Return, she took time off for long bicycle ride in order to “find herself”. She was right on schedule with the task at hand. Everyone should do this between 28-30! Something about the pedaling, pedaling, pedaling reminded her of poetry. She had an epiphany, as many do at 30, and decided to devote her life to writing poetry.

Ryan took a job in the teaching field where she could work just two days a week and pay the bills. In order to live like this, she stripped her life down to the bare minimum.

For the next 30 years she wrote and wrote. Nothing much happened and she did not seem to ask for much to happen.

When she was around 60 someone gave a book of her poetry to someone that mattered in the literary world and soon Ryan’s work appeared in The New Yorker. Thus the second Saturn Return was positive payback time. Ryan had worked diligently at her authentic task and the reward was bound to come. Thirty years seems like a long time but Saturn wants us to focux on what is really important to us between 30 and 60, not what someone else wants. These are our mature, serious years when we bear the yoke and pull the plow. The harvest comes at 60.

Since Ryan’s breaks began at 60, according to poets.org, her poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, The Yale Review, Paris Review, The American Scholar, The Threepenny Review, and Parnassus, among other journals and anthologies. She was named to the “It List” by Entertainment Weekly and one of her poems has been permanently installed at New York’s Central Park Zoo. Ryan was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2006.

Since l971, the time of her first Saturn Return, Ryan has lived in Marin County in California.

My favorite Kay Ryan poem:
Too much rain
Loosens trees.
In the hills giant oaks
Fall upon their knees.
You can touch parts
You have no right to –
Places only birds
Should fly to.

Use Kay Ryan’s life as a classic example of how to win with Saturn Returns #1 and #2.