← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 33/235
Saturn
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Saturn is the planet of limits and of time: structure, discipline, responsibility, endurance, and the boundaries that give a life its shape. It describes where a person meets resistance, works slowly and earns things the long way, and what they fear or hold back. The tradition gives it old people, farmers, builders, miners and all who work patiently with the earth, and it signifies delays, losses and hardship — but also the patience and prudence that make things last.
Nature
Saturn is cold and dry, masculine and diurnal. It belongs to the day sect, with the Sun and Jupiter, whose warmth softens its chill; it is thought to be harder to bear in a night chart. It is the greater malefic, the farthest and slowest of the seven visible planets. Its virtues are endurance, prudence and patience; its faults, fear, rigidity, delay and coldness.
Signs it rules and where it is strong or weak
Saturn rules Capricorn, its night house, and, traditionally, Aquarius, its day house. Modern astrology gives Aquarius to Uranus and often keeps Saturn as co-ruler. Saturn is exalted in Libra, traditionally at 21°, where its sense of order becomes impartial justice. It is in detriment in Cancer and Leo, the signs of the lights, and in its fall in Aries.
Motion
Saturn takes about 29½ years to go round the Sun and spends roughly two and a half years in each sign. It goes retrograde every year for about four and a half months. Its return to its natal place, near the ages of 29, 58 and 87, is one of the best-known cycles in astrology: the "Saturn return", often read as a time of reckoning, when what is no longer sustainable asks to be restructured and what is solid tends to be confirmed.
In a chart
Saturn's house points to where a person tends to work hardest and mature most slowly: in the 10th, toward a career built step by step; in the 7th, toward commitments taken seriously, sometimes late; in the 2nd, toward caution with money; in the 4th, toward responsibility in the family. Hard as it can feel, a Saturn placement is also where lasting competence is most likely to be earned.
In transit
A transiting Saturn moves slowly enough to stay near a natal planet for months, often in several passes. Its contacts are frequently read as tests of structure: what is sound holds, what is not asks to be rebuilt. They tend to reward patience, realism and commitment rather than shortcuts.
In the tarot
The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow.
Major Arcana: The World
Decans it rules: Seven of Pentacles (Taurus 20°–30°), Five of Wands (Leo 0°–10°), Three of Swords (Libra 10°–20°), Ten of Wands (Sagittarius 20°–30°), Eight of Cups (Pisces 0°–10°)