Meet the Planets: Saturn

Saturn is the Archetype of the Judge. Saturn represents the Law, the ultimate authority, at least within the context of the story and the game. Saturn is what creates the appearance of form, the experience of structure. And Saturn is the enforcer of the rules and regulations. One of the ways that we experience Saturn is as our internal authority figure. Saturn is the archetype that monitors when we step out of integrity with ourselves, and creates the appropriate consequences so that we can become aware and choose to move back into integrity. Saturn represents responsibility, both as individuals, and to society. The experience of being limited, and of being told “No,” is rarely pleasant, and so from a very early age, we develop very strong opinions about Saturn. Generally, we resolve to have as little to do with Saturn as possible. Saturn is, to put it mildly, no fun.

Most of childhood and adolescence is spent rebelling against Saturn. And yet no matter how far we run, Saturn is always right there with us. We cross boundaries and we are chastised for it. We break or ignore the rules and we are reprimanded and punished. We refuse to listen to directions or warnings, and we run full-speed into brick walls. During the first part of the game of this human experience, this is how we learn about the shape of the story. Our passage into adulthood, however, is marked by our readiness to shift our relationship with Saturn.

When we are in Right Relationship with Saturn, life is infinitely more pleasant than when we are not. The secret is that we finally accept that if we don’t break the rules, we don’t get punished. And once we know where the limits and boundaries are, we don’t have to worry about crossing them, and can enjoy absolute freedom to create and express within them. Instead of feeling trapped or limited, this relationship brings a deep and abiding sense of security. Being in Right Relationship with Saturn means that we accept personal responsibility for our actions and our choices. We have a clear and healthy understanding of where our personal responsibility begins and ends, and we steadfastly refuse to exceed those boundaries. And when we stand in this place of personal integrity and power, we discover that while Saturn enforces the rules, we are actually the ones who create the rules. If we decide a rule does not serve us anymore, we can petition The Judge to review the law. And we discover to our amazement that Saturn, The Judge can indeed say “Yes.”

If we are out of alignment with Saturn, we have given away our power to Saturn, and we operate out of Victim Consciousness. We whine and complain and argue that life is unfair, that the rules—clearly stated and impartially enforced though they are—should not apply to us. We plead our case arguing that we are special, we are entitled, we should be the exception to the rule, and Saturn is entirely unmoved. We are unwilling or unable to recognize that the laws exist to help us to align with our standards of integrity and claim our power. We project the inner discomfort that we feel from being out of integrity onto outer manifestations of Saturn as authority figures who punish, limit, or discipline us. We, of course, believe that this treatment is utterly unfair. We fear the pain of punishment and believe that the way to avoid that pain is to avoid accepting responsibility for our actions. Of course, the more we avoid accountability, the more we are out of integrity, the more pain we experience, and the more we project and externalize that pain experiencing it as authority figures who victimize us time and again.

Often we are not aware that we are refusing to accept personal responsibility for our actions because we tell ourselves that our lives are nothing but responsibility. In fact, we are weighed down and burdened with all of the responsibilities that we have to live up to. Closer inspection, however, will reveal that the responsibilities that we have taken on are not, in fact, ours. We are crossing boundaries and taking on other people’s responsibilities as a way to distract ourselves from the fact that we are not taking care of our own.

Getting in to right relationship with Saturn requires shifting our relationship to authority and accepting full responsibility for our choices and our actions. We must step out of victim consciousness and let go of our need for excuses. We must begin to be accountable for all of our choices and actions. The first part of the process requires that we begin to honor and obey the rules—all of them. And we must increasingly do so without any story that tells us that the rules are wrong or we shouldn’t have to follow them. We must accept responsibility for when we cross boundaries and break rules, and with genuine humility. Only when we are in right relationship with the rules and structures that are currently in place can we, from this place of integrity and personal responsibility, begin to petition that the rules be changed. We must also recognize where we are taking on responsibilities that do not belong to us, and relinquish them. Our responsibilities to others do not begin until we have first met all of our responsibilities to ourselves.

To begin to connect with Saturn, meditate on some of these questions:

• How and why do we limit ourselves?

• How are we responsible?

• What is our relationship to authority?

• How are we accountable?

• How are our boundaries?

• Where do we set limits?

• Where and to whom do we give away our power?

• Where and why do we take on too much responsibility?

• Where do we overstep boundaries?

• Where do we judge too harshly?