The teddy bear's in trouble

After learning what Saturn's astrological function was, I hated that damn planet for several years. I learned astrology with Saturn transiting my 9th house, which is the house of learning something foreign to you (meaning: I was right on schedule), and wherever Saturn is by transit, you're working (meaning: I was learning). The 9th house is also one of the "god hates me" houses if you're the type of person who feels sorry for yourself, because generally the 9th house is concerned with your big-picture belief system, so to have a planet like Saturn (natally or by transit) in there acts like a wet blanket, and you realize your long-held, treasured belief system needs some... editing. Most of my existential tantrum was "you mean to tell me that I've had [mountain of bullshit] happen because of some (fucking) PLANETS?!?! Who set this up?" Is there such thing as an astrological Karen? I was astrological Karen. I whined. I lamented. I threw books across the room. I wrote my penpals angry emails. I'm a freedom-loving person, so upon realizing that planetary influences were impacting my life in a meaningful way, after looking at historically where transiting planets were at key times and having oh-shit moments, I did not appreciate the cosmic impositions.

By the way, the other "god hates me" house is 12. People taking heavy transits in either house or with natal Saturn or Pluto there...well...they're less happy with big G, let's put it that way.

Anyway, a notoriously nasty Saturn transit is to your moon by conjunction, opposition, or square. In a 9 month span, I had a breakup of a situationship I wanted to be in, and then a breakup of a different situationship I didn't even realize I was in (how does one do this? I have no idea, but my ability to wander into such things is unparalleled). So I was big sad, because the moon is basically your heart at its core (think: soft mushy place) and Saturn is the emotional equivalent of welding equipment. They don't mesh well, obviously.

With time and distance, I realized Saturn was showing me very clearly, in no uncertain terms, what *wasn't* good for my heart via the moon transits. Mean people got meaner, emotionally distant and cold people got farther away and colder, and all of that seems like some vast conspiracy, but it's actually information that you can use when Saturn is not poking you with sticks in order to make your life better. In the moment, you don't want to hear "stop doing this shit to yourself," but with time, you realize that the asshole planet holding a blow torch to your teddy bear has a point.

All transits are best understood in hindsight. You lack perspective when you're in the thick of a cosmic shitstorm, regardless of the planetary culprit. The best you can do is learn to pay attention to the messages you seem to be getting and then act on them intelligently, instead of just spastically reacting, which used to be my MO. And, by the way, no one's perfect, so my advice is 1. get some outside perspective and 2. do your best.

I'll give you another example: the last time Saturn was on my sun, I had someone reenter my life who I had a lot in common with, and we started sharing notes about our respective histories after over a decade of radio silence. At first, this was exciting. But then, the demands this person made on my time and emotional energy added up and became overwhelming. The Saturn lesson here? Be thoughtful about how much of my time and energy people get. This was a hard one because both the other person and I had good intentions and meant well, but at the end of the day, it was unworkable.

Sometimes Saturn makes you feel like you can't have nice things, but in hindsight, the things you lost might not have been as nice as you thought they were in the moment. Something to think about.