The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 24, titled:
Understanding Your Saturn Return
With Chris Brennan and Leisa Schaim
Episode originally released on February 8, 2015.
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Gülşen Altay
Transcription released May 15, 2016
Copyright © 2016 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi. My name is Chris Brennan and you are listening to the astrology podcast. You can find the show at the astrologypodcast.com and you can also listen to us on iTunes. Today is Tuesday, February 3, 2015 and this is the 24th episode of the show.
In this episode I will be talking with Leisa Schaim about the topic of Saturn returns. Leisa and I co-write a blog together on Saturn returns called saturnreturnstories.com and she is also recently given lectures at the ISAR and NCGR conferences on how Saturn is interpreted differently depending on if you have of a day or night chart. The recording for that lecture is now available for purchase on her website at leisaschaim.com and I will have a link to it on the main page on my website on the astrologypodcast.com for this episode.
Leisa, wellcome to the show.
LEISA SCHAIM: Thanks for having me.
CHRIS BRENNAN: All right. Our topic today and this is a timely topic for me as my listeners know because I have been going through my own Saturn return over the course of the past couple of years since Saturn went into Scorpio on October of 2015 and may be a good starting point for those that aren’t familiar with the topic is to define what we are talking about. Let’s first start by defining what is the Saturn return?, or how do you define it?
LEISA SCHAIM: Sure. The Saturn return is when transiting Saturn in the sky comes back to the place where was at when you are born. That happens roughly every 28-30 years. The first time is usually the one that people talk about the most so age 28-30 give or take but there is also a second one around the age 57-60 and then a third one, you know of people are still around in their mid to late 80s.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. The main one is between the ages of 27 -30 or 28-30 roughly. Basically when Saturn comes back to the sign of the zodiac that was in when you are born and also back to the exact degree within that zodiacal sign when you are born, is eventually the exact Saturn return?
LEISA SCHAIM: Yes, that is exact Saturn return. The entire Saturn return that was really considered from the beginning is when Saturn goes into the sign that it was in when you are born for the first time and then it is ofiicially over when it leaves the sign for the last time that it was in when you are born and that is important because sometimes it will retrograde and so it will go between the end of one sign and the beginning of the next but those are kind of the official beginnings and endings and then when it get backs to the exact degree it was when you are born that is when it would be sort of the most intensified and that is what is referred to as the exact Saturn return.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right and that is something I have really emphasized in my articles that has been a big part of my research of the last few..,, last decade which is realizing that most transits actually begin as soon as the planet ingresses or moves into the sign in which it will hit the exact aspect but that the circumstances and the events leading up to or surrounding the exact transit begin as soon as the planet ingresses into that sign for the first time and it is really surprising and striking how much you can see this actually happening in Saturn returns and I think some contemporary astrologers actually get it wrong by focusing too much on just the time frame around when the Saturn return goes exact or when it returns back to the exact degree of the Saturn return when in fact it should probably be viewed as more of a phase in a person’s life that takes two or three years to really work out and that starts as soon as the planet moves back into its natal sign and then it ends when Saturn leaves or departs that natal sign permanently for the final time for that time period.
Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about and we have sort of defined the topic, let’s talk a little bit about what the significance of it is, why it is important and what qualities are associated with the Saturn return in sort of contemporary dicussions about the subject.
LEISA SCHAIM: Sure. It is often thought of as something like a final transition into adulthood like astrologically, a lot of astrologers are saying you are not really an adult until you have hit your Saturn return and so what happens is when Saturn goes back into the place where was that when you are born, it intensifies the natal placement and it intensifies any of the specific qualities in your individual chart but more generally it intensifies any sort of themes having to do with the planet Saturn itself so themes of maturity, growing up, on the positive sides sort of constructive hard work, striving towards goals, things that take a long time to reach that you have to keep working towards things like that. On the more difficult sides sometimes hardship adversities, things that feel heavy, people often feel…, sometimes people feel depressed during these kind of transits, sometimes losses of either people or things out of their lives so it can encompass kind of a big spectrum of qualities having with the planet Saturn itself.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Saturn in general is just in most forms astrology as a placement in a person’s chart is associated with things that are not necessarily easy in the context of the person’s life and then once you have that part of your chart getting activated, in that specific planet getting activated of course, it is gonna bring up a whole period in your life in which those challenges or those things that are not necessarily easy become the focal point for a whole spend of two or three years.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yes and that is often why people talk about the late 20s as kind of like a you know ‘Well, that was a really big transition for me’, or ‘that was a lot of hard work’ or ‘that was…’, people tend to most of the time really remember it as a big turning point or as something that was difficult or some amazing achievement happened after a while, things like that.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah and I mean one of the reasons for that maybe conceptually or philosophically there might be something to the point, I think that a lot of traditional astrologers make that sometimes gets under emphasized in modern astrology maybe not always but sometimes that Saturn as the very last visible planet or it is the last planet that you can see with the naked eye and that there is something significant about that in terms of it being the final boundary before you move out into the other outer spheres of that outer planets and you start hitting Uranus and Neptune and Pluto and whatever lies beyond that, that there is something about Saturn that really acts as a sort of final, I don’t know, point as you are moving from the middle of a solar system out into the sort of outermost reaches that Saturn is a final sort of bridge in some way or final barrier to sort of get through.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah. I mean I think it is interesting that it is the last visible planet in terms of how it sometimes as talked about in terms of limits so it is one of Saturn’s keywords and I think that shows up in really interesting ways in different actual real life examples of Saturn returns and also place a large part in how I think about Saturn returns, you know a lot of things having to do with the limits of what you can reach and where you draw that line.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. Limitations in a person’s life and what it takes to get there or what it takes to…, I guess not always transgress them in some instances you can but in some instances we are talking about limits that you can’t get passed.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah and I think sometimes it can be hard to tell in the beginning, you know…
CHRIS BRENNAN: Having an earthquake.
LEISA SCHAIM: … I think it is sometimes hard to tell at the beginning of someone’s Saturn return or beforehand where the limits are and that is something that is sometimes an exteriorly link to someone’s experience of this Saturn return is they are kind of pushing and testing how far can I go with this?, or you know where are the true limits?, can I reach these things that I wanna reach?, or conversely are there some natural limits either to my own life or to you know this fear that I am in ? or various things like that, that eyes an individual that is a limit for me. I think that is a really interesting theme that usually crops up in one way or another.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Yeah and it is interesting and this is something I think I have talked about on the show before like with Nick Dagan Best when he came into town and we went to the planetarium here in Denver and one of the things that we noticed was that like many of the physical properties of the planets we are actually once we actually got the ability to see them, there were things that showed up astrologically, you know Uranus is associated with eccentricity for example or you know things that are weird or not at natural but things that are out of the ordinary and that Uranus itself has a weird sort of orbit where it rotates on its axis or rotates on its side and it is like the only planet it does that. Saturn has some similar things and I think that is commonly common to on an astrological circles where you know it has one of the planets where it has these distinctive rings and in addition to you know being the last visible planet so that there is sort of reoccuring themes even with the physical properties of the planet that point us something about its astrological meaning is having to do with limits or boundaries or things that nature.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, exactly.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. We have talked a little bit about the quality of the time and we have talked about defining it. The next thing we are gonna talk about is how the Saturn return is often talked about like contemporary discussions about the Saturn return because especially in modern astrology where so in ancient astrology I think you could sort of make an argument of that the Saturn return was not discussed or was not emphasized this much but that is not necessarily true because they definitely did have an emphasis on Saturn and they did talk about like the 27 or sometimes 30 year periods associated with Saturn and with the signs that it rules which are Capricorn and Aquarius in traditional astrology but in modern astrology there has definitely been much more of an emphasis on the Saturn return so that you know there is entire books written about that topic whereas that wasn’t the case 1000 or 2000 years ago. One of the things that comes up in contemporary discussions about the Saturn return is the idea that there is sort of like lessons to learn or things that you have to do during the Saturn return in order to navigate it successfully and then in order to not have the worst case scenarios sort of take place regarding your Saturn return in your life and that there is like some element of choice or like volition in that where I mean I guess that is usually the case in most forms of modern astrology but especially it seems like in a Saturn return that is something that is emphasized to a large extent. Do you feel like that is the case?
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, definitely. It is something that I definitely started noticing as soon as I began researching astrology at all which was actually shortly before my own Saturn return and I was starting to get closed to going through these things on my own and then I was going through these things and at the same time I was reading everything that was talking about if you work hard on the qualities particularly, it is often emphasized well the qualities associated with the sign that Saturn is placed in and then I think secondarily it is more written about the house placement but basically the just is that if you work hard on these areas that are maybe not your natural strengths in the beginning, they will become your biggest strengths in the end and that is characterized as like a large part of what the Saturn return process is about and so that sounds really hopeful in a lot of ways of course, that you can turn your deposits into strengths and you know we like that sort of you know gang ouh ideology especially in the US but I started becoming concerned because at the same time I was seeing examples of you know people’s lives not only just during the Saturn return but just sort of more philosophically knowing that many things happen in people’s lives that they don’t choose or that they don’t necessarily cause that are difficult or you know even tragedies and I think I am sort of just naturally more attuned to noticing those things because you know a little bit Saturnian myself but basically so I became really interested when I found that there were some more ancient astrological interpretive principals, they would actually show how maybe one person Saturn return would go more smoothly or more positively or with more constructive outcomes, basically it would turn out more of how they would like it to be or as another person’s they could be doing sort of similar efforts towards similar areas of life and you know they might have just pitfalls of they that the first person didn’t ordest hardships that kind of came out of left few of even you know they weren’t their own.
Yeah, I think that has been a really interesting development for me to realize that there is actually ways to be able to differentiate between how those would go and it is really refreshing to be able to distinguish that because I think that it is really an important distinction instead of living at all if you don’t have some of those technical distinctions I think that it can easily become, you know the ideology makes sense of then what you put into is what you get out and of course there is some of that always in life but you know then when you have these other distinctions then you don’t have to leave it all of to them.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right. There is this double-edged sword in modern astrology where on the one hand they want to be empowering and astrologers want to empower people in order to sort of take charge of their own destiny and not just be passive players and how the planetary archetypes work out in terms of their birth chart and their transits and what have you so that…, but in doing that the way that the Saturn return in particular is often talked about is as if you have a choice where you got a sort of set off issues that you are gonna have to deal with during your Saturn return but that is up to you how well that is gonna go depending on how conscious you are about stepping up and taking the necessary actions in order to change your life and construct over in a positive way and then if you do it everything will work out fine and it will be a little difficult but otherwise you get through it but if you don’t then you are gonna have major problems but that oftentimes the way that is phrased is that it is completely up to you in some sense and that is something that you specifically objective to.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah and you know I don’t take it all the way. I think that in a lot of ways that can be empowering one of the things that I object too specifically I guess is the equating of psychological or internal efforts with external results or rewards. I think that there is almost always something productive that you can do in terms of working on placements that are more difficult or areas of life that are more difficult for you or psychological tendencies that are you know more difficult for you. I think that it is not that I want to say, you know that is all you know silly and we should disregard that and stuff just happens to you, it is not like all one or the other but what I do think is important is to distinguish efforts that you can make decouple them a little bit with the sort of external rewards and I think there is like a, you know a Buddist saying that I think I have referred to in this kind of context before, words like ‘Do the work and then let go of the results and I am sure it is more like quentin’ but that is just…, I think that is a really good approach to you know if you want to say working with your Saturn or any other placement like that, I think that is a just really good approach but you can always do things and you can always make efforts but it is not always the case and I think you know astrologically you can see and even just sort of observing life, you can see it is not always the case that is one to one correspondence between the two.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure so even though it is often characterized as a time when you often have to put a lot of work into something but if you do, you will eventually try that is not necessarily the case and instead there is like two classes basically that you have created one of…, with a lot of overlap but essentially there is definitely the people that go through their Saturn returns and they do have those more constructive cases where they have something they need to work on and they put their a lot of effort into it and they overcome their obstacles or challenges that come up during that time and it becomes sort of like constructive period in their life as a result of that or a high point or period where they put in a lot of work, they hit the pinnacle of their career or what have you but then there is this other class where people run into boundaries and obstacles and challenges that just kind of knock them down, I don’t wanna say in a senseless way because I am not sure that any of it could really be from an astrological perspective classified as completely senseless but in a way that is much more destructive and it is not about the person overcoming something but it is almost like the person just having to surrender to something or to not put up with something but realize that they have hit a wall that is not necessarily surmountable and to recognize their own limitations in that way.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah and I think that just as a present going through the Saturn return you do hit walls I think and it can be hard from a subjective perspective to always know which are things that you should recognize is natural limits versus which ones are temporary obstacles and thankfully, you know even though I mean as we talked about a little bit more I think there are cases where it is more constructive and more destructive, thankfully you know most people’s charts aren’t extreme in one where the other and so and most people’s lives aren’t completely extreme, some are but and so you get a mix and so it is not always the case that it is completely one thing or completely the other and you know there is specific distinctions that you can make around seeing that too in the chart.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure so it is not just a…, basically then like two points that were setting up here, one of them is that there is like a constructive version of the Saturn return and there is definitely a more destructive or incredibly challenging version that doesn’t necessarily give you a huge pay off and then there is this seperate thing which is that despite the way that is often characterized in modern astrology where they treated as if which way it goes is entirely up to you and point a fact what you have shown and what you have been able to demonstrate in your lectures is that there is specific techniques that will when applied to the birth chart, if you just do the basic analysis of the Saturn placement will give you some idea of whether or not the person is gonna experience their Saturn return as something that is more constructive or something that is more destructive or challenging or not necessarily constructive.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yes and I mean before we go over these distinctions I guess I just like to give a couple kind of general examples not full charts but just in case anyone is listening as sort of trying to figure out, you know ‘ What is really constructive or destructive?, or is it you know subjective to the person? or something’, you know there is one Saturn return example I have seen where the person had been volunteering at an organization and within the few years of their Saturn return by the end became director of their company so that is the constructive, you know hard work pinnacle type Saturn return we are talking about and then on the flip side there was someone I knew later on her life who was sort of living life, health conscious, doing sort of normal 20 something things and after Saturn return she became badder than with a sort of mysterious illness and never recovered up to this point that has been about 10 years so those are the kind of extreme edges we are talking about just to give sort of lay of the land for people, you know maybe not familiar with you know what we are talking about more saying constructive or destructive.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right. Somebody that like hits a career peak after a lot of hard work over a few year period versus somebody that just falls sort of ill and it completely destabilizes their life, not just during the Saturn return but acts as like a prominent impediment from that point forward.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, exactly.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay and these are the two of the examples that you use in your lecture and you have what like ten or twenty or so examples in the full lecture.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yes, something like that.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. We will not go through the examples too much here but for people that want more like concrete examples about the Saturn return and what that looks like, you can definitely listen to Leisa’s lecture.
Okay, do you wanna go into interpretive principles at this point? or do you want have anything else to say before you get there?
LEISA SCHAIM: No, I think that we have been eluting for a while to the constructive destructive distinctions so we could start talking about sect which is the major distinction between day charts and night charts and how that relates to how someone’s Saturn return will go. Basically sect is the distinction between a day chart which means the Sun is somewhere above the Ascendant-Descendant axis in the chart and a night chart which is the opposite, you know the Sun is somewhere below the Ascendant-Descendant axis and that is by degree so it is…, well actually that gives into another thing that maybe you will do on a future show but…
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, I was just talking about that in the last episode how I am starting to see charts where even if the Sun is a few degrees below the Ascendant-Descendant axis that can still behave as a day chart but nonetheless for the most part that is correct. If the Sun is in the top half of the chart, it is a day chart and if the Sun is in the bottom half of the chart, it is a night chart.
LEISA SCHAIM: Exactly and so the reason that is important when coupled with looking at the Saturn return is in a day chart basically sect shows the qualitative differences between how planets will act in someone’s chart so in a day chart Saturn is gonna be how more of its constructive qualities sort of put to the forefront and kind of tempt down the more destructive qualities and it is gonna be the opposite with night chart so a night chart the Saturn is gonna be more of the difficult Saturn qualities, you know it is like loss or fear or things like that where you know the day chart can more constructive Saturn qualities are things like hardwork, consciousness to necessity, you know leadership, sometimes things like that.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right. It is not just…, it is both in terms of basically just as a general rule or general principle people with day charts tend to experience not just their Saturn placements but also their Saturn transits which includes the Saturn return as more positive or at least constructive whereas people with night charts tend to experience their Saturn placements both in the natal chart as well as in its transits during the Saturn return as more challenging or as things that involve more hardships.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, exactly and I am really glad that you said that and extended it to the Saturn transits more generally because even though I sort of foculize you know some talks on a Saturn return itself because that is kind of when you can see at the most clearly, it definitely extends to Saturn transits as a whole and that obviously has interesting sort of philosophical implications when you start looking at, you know of those are going clearly differently for you know different people and we are not always talking about the same thing when we were saying someone is having a Saturn transit.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and so that has to do with sect so sect is hugely important as a basic thing and that is one of the main things that you emphasizes and show in different example charts how that actually works out in practice in your lecture and I guess that example that you gave earlier was primarily dependent on sect. Right?
LEISA SCHAIM: Well, that example those two examples actually aren’t. Examples that I used for full charts in my lecture that is just kind of the lay of the land as some of the extremes I have seen but no doubt you know that was a night chart Saturn return.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. Yeah, that is one consideration and that is really the very first consideration and that is one of the ones I think that is hugely missing, that is probably the most important distinction that is missing from the modern dialogue about the Saturn return is that modern astrologers, the concept of sect had been lost until about 15-20 years ago and it has never been really taken into account in any of the modern discussions about Saturn or about the Saturn return so that they didn’t realize that there was a technical distinction that they were actually missing which could allow them to more accurately or more clearly describe what part of the spectrum person will experience their Saturn return on and whether it is gonna be more challenging or whether it is gonna be more constructive.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah and having learned about sect I just think it is incredible and it just makes such a huge difference in interpreting charts correctly and it gives you more concrete tools to, you know to accurately say this is how someone experiences this part of their life versus living everything up to just like it is how much work you put into it as we talked about before.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right so that there is more sometimes in the natal chart itself they can describe whether something is negotiable or whether it is just gonna be difficult and it is not as negotiable as you might want it to be or you might hope for.
Okay so that is first interpretive principle, do you have a day chart or a night chart?, and then I will tell you somethings about the quality of your Saturn return and your Saturn placement in general. The next interpretive principle that is really important and really I think the primary one in terms of determining what part of a person’s life the Saturn return is gonna affect is the natal house placement of a person’s natal Saturn since the Saturn return itself necessarily involves Saturn returning back to the house that it was in when you are born so identifying which of the 12 houses Saturn is located in is sort of the next step.
LEISA SCHAIM: Right. Yes, I mean that is gonna be the major area that someone is gonna experience in terms of the topics that are focused on during your Saturn return as well as the two houses that Saturn classically rules Capricorn and Aquarius so wherever Capricorn and Aquarius are placed in someone’s chart then and I am talking about.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Leisa, slow down before…
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: … start first with just the house placements. One of the things that might be useful if it is like more general people like none astrologers or people that are new to astrology are listening to this might just be to run through some topics that might come up depending on what the house placement is.
LEISA SCHAIM: Sure. Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: For example let’s just go through the 12 houses and list of the key topics that you will probably encounter or deal with or perhaps have some challenges or struggles with when it comes to your Saturn return so first house?
LEISA SCHAIM: Sure. If Saturn is placed in your first house, I think a lot of the aim topics that are come up during your Saturn are gonna be primarily about your…, it can be about appearance and body because the first house is sort of like you as a physical and also mental being but you as an individual so a lot of things come up in terms of like do I need to change my apperance?, how do I come off to the world ?, which can some superficial but it is really not, it is like who am I as an individual? It can sort of manifest externally and internally at the same time in some of those ways.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, like one of the keywords that modern astrologers always use for the first house is the self but that the first house is the self and the seventh house is the other which I am not sure that ancient astrologers necessarily use as exact keywords but it is still perfectly consistent with the way that the first house and the seventh house are classified in ancient astrology but I have been sort of seeing that more and getting more acquainted with what that really means, what the first house being associated with the self means over the past few years and it is really interesting how important that is and that when you actually have a planet that is associated with the first house becoming activated in a really core way or if you are getting a Saturn transit especially like the Saturn return dealing with your first house that issues related to the self become more of the focus and become actually like crucial areas of their life like defining who you are and what you are about and you know what you want to put off to or look like to the world and so on and so forth.
Yeah, definitely things like that are hugely relevant as well as just things having to do with the person’s body and physical incarnation in general such as their physical vitality and their health. People with Saturn in the first house nataly one of the potential issues are just things having to do with their body and physical vitality and so on the constructive end of the spectrum that might involve you know doing physical regiments in order to improve their physical vitality or to improve the health if this is somebody who is doing…, if is somehow able to do their Saturn return constructively if they have Saturn in the first house whereas a more problematic thing that a person might run into with Saturn in the first house and having a Saturn return is some sort of major physical illness or ailment or potentially injury since the first house has to do with the body.
Okay, that is the first house. Second house is primarily about finances, personal possessions, money and resources so usually if you have Saturn in the second house, your livelihood is gonna become the main focus of your Saturn return. I have a friend actually who has Saturn in Scorpio and he has been going through his Saturn return and he has Saturn in the second house and that is definitely been huge focus is just been getting a job at a specific place and working really hard and trying to make more money in order to support his family and to support his daughter has been a large part of his focus and just getting his finances in order and becoming financially independent from his family and from the support that work that hit sort of help to him out financially through hard times over the course of the past decade and trying to achieve some degree of financial stability or financial independence has been a large part of his Saturn return.
Yeah, that is Saturn in the second house or do you have anything to add to that?
LEISA SCHAIM: No, it is pretty straightforward.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. Saturn in the third house is a little bit more tricky. Third house placements or basic meaning of the third house of course is things like siblings, education, travel and sometimes extended family. I am trying to think I can’t think of any like people I know offhand have Saturn in the third that really standout. Do you have any?
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah. I have had a few examples of people have Saturn in the third, they went back to school during their Saturn returns so learning, communication, writing, usually writing a lot of papers.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: And this sort of also ties back in with, you know podcast I did a few months ago, actually it was almost a year ago now, the last year has gone by really fast, they had to the with the third house then its significations where I was wrestling with these issue about whether some of the significations that had to do with like writing or communication if those are coming from the modern association of the third house with Gemini or if they were coming from the traditional association of the third house with the Moon and I am still a little up in the air about that and I am still feeling much more comfortable at this point about associating things like education and travel and some forms of communication with the third house so that is pretty clear that is like obvious significations that are coming through there.
Yeah, I can’t think of any examples offhand that are really good but I do have a friend who has Saturn in the third house and he is going back to college very late and like his mid 30s or early 30s I guess at this point who is having some Saturn transits so that is relevant.
Okay. Fourth house of course is the home, the living situation in general as well as the parents like the mother or father or sometimes both and sometimes just a person’s family in general. Fourth house Saturn return topics are pretty straightforward.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, a lot of people with even just Saturn transits through the fourth house you know be a time of like moving house, moving across the country things like that. Saturn return who just intensify that is sort of a maybe doing similar things but it being a more important topic or maybe a more permanent move or establishing one’s own, it means I have seen people like buy their first home at their Saturn return when it is involving the fourth, sometimes increased responsibility for some reason helping with parents or that sort of thing.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, sometimes the loss of parents.
LEISA SCHAIM: Loss of parents. Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: It is a big one, actually seem both not just with, obviously it is a big thing for people with Saturn in the fourth house if they have their Saturn return and all those topics becoming activated but even just watching like I have been common thing over the past few years, watching all of my friends or all the people I know that have Leo rising so that Scorpio is their fourth house like watching virtually every single one of them and I know a lot of Leo rising people have Saturn going through their fourth house and just having major changes and restructuring in terms of their both their home and living situation as well as sometimes issues pertaining to their parents has been almost comical seeing almost every single one of them do that.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: And I am sure it is even more, I know it is even more striking if they have Saturn in that house natally to see them go through that during their Saturn return.
Okay, that is fourth house. The fifth house is pretty straightforward as well we have issues related to children and pregnancy, sex, procreation and in some instances especially the modern context creative pursuit
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah. I mean it does seem to be like some people it is really focused on the sort of children or sexuality aspects of it and in ways that you might not necessarily expect like if you don’t have that placement or haven’t seen a lot of people with that placement, I have seen even people have their Saturn return affecting their fifth house like go through a period of self imposed celibacy like just rethinking how they use their sexuality, sometimes it is more responsibility for children or actually you know that can play out in pretty straightforward ways like having one’s first child and you know become a parent for the first time that kind of thing and then some people that do performance, entertainment type things tend to have Saturn associated with their fifth as well usually in more constructive ways of course.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and I have seen one recently where is a Saturn transit in the fifth house and had to do with like either the loss of children or like custody issues surrounding children.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, that is really important as a potential topics as well.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay, this is fifth house. The sixth house of course is primarily, traditionally associated with illness but from a more modern context and somewhat traditional also the concept of one’s work, the concept of service to others and in a both modern and traditional context, the idea of subordinates or people that work under your or that you employ in some way always being potentially relevant when the sixth house is activated.
LEISA SCHAIM: And in addition to ill health sometimes just, you know how the health arena in general. I have seen some people with Saturn returns in the sixth get really serious about health regiments and of course with Saturn there it is like a disciplinary regiment or you know something like that. It is gonna be something that they put really serious effort into rather than like I am gonna start exercising now.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Although that sometimes happens.
LEISA SCHAIM: Sometimes it happens but it is usually sort of like more than occasional thing as what I mean.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay, got it.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: They become dedicated too seriously focusing on the their health and…, or fighting illness or avoiding illness or what have you.
LEISA SCHAIM: Well, specifically I guess a couple of them that I have seen like became like yoga teachers, when they had like Saturn returns in their sixth like that kind of like regiment it, you know the health routine as like a dedication, not just like a I wanna be in good health.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay, got it and then of course the common one which is dealing with illness and dealing with things that are attacking one’s physical vitality and causing problems to it.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yes.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay, so that is the Saturn return in the sixth house. If you have Saturn in the seventh house, the primary topics associated with the seventh are relationships both especially romantic relationships but also sometimes just relationships or how you relate to other people such as partners or business partners or other people in general, especially marriage and the concept, the topic of marriage as well as the physical like active being married or getting married and just the other people in your life in general as main topics of the seventh house.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah. I mean marriages are huge, you know if someone has Saturn in the seventh house and they get to their Saturn return, it is usually a very, you know almost two of one it is gonna be someone thinking ‘Should I get married or not?’, if they are in a relationship or if they haven’t been in a relationship that is gonna become like a focal point if it hadn’t been before. If someone is already married then it is usually a time of sort of testing that, you know there will be maybe difficulties crop up in the marriage that cause them to think ‘Can we rework this?, how do we make this better? or you know there is diffulties that make them think maybe ‘This isn’t gonna work out.’ all of that kind of major stuff around structures of partnership.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Yeah, major issues having to do with relationships in your life coming up if you have Saturn in the seventh house and you hit your Saturn return, sometimes that can be if you are already in a relationship that it can mean running into major obstacles and challenges that need to be dealth with in terms of the relationship or if you are not in a relationship then finding yourself in a situation where you are suddenly having to think about those issues and actually consider them presumably because of major relationship of some sort of has come about in your life.
Okay, the eighth house has to do with just in general, one of the main topics that is really, it is not really well clearly defined in like Hellenistic astrology but I found it incredibly true in this very broad sense that the eighth house has to do primarily with that which belongs to others or the possession of others because it is opposite to the second so this second house…, the first house is the self, the second house is the things that belong to you and what you possess or own, the seventh house is the other and eight house is the things that other people possessed or owned and its weird even though that seems like weird or almost obscure thing that applies to a lot of thing and it is a topic that actually ends up being much broader and much more important in terms of people’s lives then you might think at first glance so the idea of the eighth house is dealing with the possessions of others as well as other people’s money issues related to death, inheritance, death and the topic of mortality in general as all topics that will often come up during a person’s Saturn return if they have Saturn in the eighth house.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, definitely those are the main topics. I would add one more and it is more of a modern one but I have seen it play out in people Saturn returns is the eighth house having to do with kind of deep psychological things so sometimes when people go through Saturn transits through their eighth house and definitely, if it is a Saturn return in the eighth house, they kind of grapple with sort of deeper psychological complexes and I am not primarily a psychological astrologer so it is like, it is not for me to say like how someone should go through that but just as an observation of that topic coming up, the eighth house can be a time where someone either by themselves or with the help of a therapist kind of works through deeper issues that they haven’t of at that point.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and I mean even though…, I mean a lot of the access point, I mean I think the keyword of even though I have moved away from it or at least I have been trying to rebuilt my understanding of the houses by starting with ancient astrology first and then working my way upwards I found that the keyword of the transformation or transformative probably is inappropriate keyword for the eighth house as partially as the house of death but primarily because it is the house of death and because of the broader things that death symbolizes not just in the physical loss or the loss of physical life but in the death of things sort of metaphorically, I mean obviously can literally refer to physical death and deaths in your life or other things with people around you when Saturn goes through your eighth house but also just that idea of things dying and the notion of things transforming as a result of that which modern astrologers tend to associate with Pluto and their association of Pluto with this house but I am not sure that is necessarily, it is like you don’t necessarily have to resort to that because it could easily just be the fact that it is the place of death to begin with and therefore death is a sort of transformative things symbolically to begin with.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, I would agree with all of these things and then to bring it back to some of the more concrete appro…, it is not the case that you have Saturn there that you know someone is gonna die during your Saturn return. I have actually seen like a number of cases where it really does have to with financial debt and people, you know the Saturn return requiring someone to grapple with like how much debt they are in and like creating payment plans even if it is, their debt amounts seem surmountable and things like that. It is actually pretty typical.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, I always…, like it is becoming almost comical to me everytime I see people especially with like the career significators in the eighth house being people that work in like the financial industry or people who you know are bankers or accountants or just like literally people that work with other people’s money.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: And sometimes the way it works out in that way is so literal that is almost funny. Obviously that is not always the case and there is other ways that can work out in different ways but yeah, it is a pretty good bet sometimes that issues were related to other people’s money or death will come into play if you have an eighth house Saturn placement once and you hit your Saturn return.
Okay, the next one is the ninth house which has to do with education, foreign travel, foreigners or people from foreign countries as well as religion and philosophy and one’s personal beliefs so that is pretty broad sort of selection of topics but those are all pretty core meanings with the ninth house I think.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, you see people sometimes with Saturn in the ninth similar to the third, people often go back to school with Saturn in the ninth but you know more like Masters, PhD programmes like going on for sort of advanced education, people who want to work in universities things like that, sometimes a Saturn return in the ninth house has to do with someone reworking their own personal beliefs in terms of their religion they were brought up with or not brought up with and what they believe now that can be pretty common, working overseas or making a major move to another country can be a Saturn return in the ninth.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, definitely. Especially if they have something like the ruler of the fourth in the ninth or what have you but the idea of travel in general and going abroad definitely can become huge with a ninth house Saturn placement. Yeah and interaction with foreigners or things that are exotic or unfamiliar to the native and so on and so forth.
All right, so that is pretty straightforward.10th house of course has to do with career reputation what one does, one’s life direction and also sometimes superiors or people who are in a higher position in some way or in some context than the native.
LEISA SCHAIM: And with Saturn in the 10th, the Saturn return is gonna encompass a lot of that kind of typical things you hear about the Saturn return because career is often a major since it is one of your major life structures anyway. It is almost always involved in someway in someone’s Saturn return but if you have Saturn in the 10th and your Saturn return is happening there, then it is just gonna emphasize that a lot more, it is gonna be the focal point.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Yeah and what some of the things is associated with that sometimes I like hitting the pinnacle of one’s career or working towards something for a very long time in terms of one’s career and then accomplishing it, reaching the levels in one’s career, one’s reputation and so on and so forth, sometimes actually defining what one wants to do in terms of their career though becomes important as well.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah and sometimes starting over in as we talked about that in the beginning as much as I sometimes do but you know it is like sometimes people are on one track of they have been doing something for a long time and then they hit their Saturn return and it is what they still want to do or what it still seems like they ought to be doing and they do hit pinnacles but conversely, there is kind of another major track that other people find themselves on at their Saturn return which is they have been doing something or somethings for a while and then they hit their Saturn return and then they realize it is like what I need to do this completely other thing and so then it is a major new beginning rather than the pinnacle and then of course it takes longer for them to hit those pinnacles later but it is still a really important turning point and so with Saturn coming…, and that can happen in lots of different topics but particularly with Saturn going through the 10th that seems like one or the other of those two things.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah and sometimes hitting like a major crises that forces you to stop what you were doing in terms of your career or where you thought you were headed or where you supposed to go up to that point and suddenly completely changing course and starting out in a completely new direction and that is a good point about that because it is the Saturn return and it is Saturn coming back to its natal position, it is both the ending of a cycle and sometimes the ending of certaing things in a person’s life especially with respect to the house that Saturn is located in but also it is a new begining because it is the start of a new 30 years cycle and it is laying the foundations or initiating something that will then play out over the course of the next 30 years.
LEISA SCHAIM: Exactly and that can be true in both ways it can be a new 30 years cycle at the next level of something you were already doing or it can be a completely new 30 years cycle in a different arena.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Okay, so that is the 10th house which so far that is my Saturn return is Saturn in the 10th house and I was doing pretty well, it is not as pinnacally as I would like, I did finish revising my Introduction to Hellenistic astrology course. I mean this is pretty impressing because we both noticed this in August where I have been working for at least a year to record a whole new series of lectures for my Introduction to Hellenistic astrology course and I have been working towards turning it into a course like it offer certificate of completion so that I was doing certification in Hellenistic astrology and the way that it just worked out as to happen in the very last lecture to finish the entire course revision and started offering certification in Hellenistic astrology within what days of my final exact Saturn return.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, yeah. You had some really interesting like exact hits going on in the last year.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah and then of course I started studying Hellenistic astrology seven years earliar when Saturn was in Leo at my last Saturn square so anyway that was nice. I need to finish my book though so I need to trying get the book out during my Saturn return and I have a lot of friends still placing bets on whether that will happen during my Saturn return or slightly later.
LEISA SCHAIM: Right and this is a good reprise of that principal about, you know the Saturn return does last through the last time that Saturn leaves a sign even if it is gone into other signs and so Saturn is gone into Sagittarius now but it will retrograde back into Scorpio in June for three or four months until September when then it goes back into Sagitarrius for good so for all of people with Saturn in Scorpio that is September is actually the end of the Saturn return so it is …. seven months or so for the vogue.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right. Yeah, I mean I have to get back at this summer. Yeah, we probably should have define that more like what the dates are so like Saturn in Scorpio, Saturn first went into Scorpio in October of 2012 so that would have been the beginning of the Saturn return for anybody whose Saturn in Scorpio and then even though Saturn departed from Scorpio like you just said in December, it is gonna come back next this June and it won’t leave for the final time until mid September and then not will be the end of the Saturn return for all the Saturn in Scorpio people but first Saturn in Sagittarius people who are born from what like 1986,1987 to 1988 or so, this Saturn returns started. If you have, it doesn’t matter where Saturn is located in Sagittarius, your Saturn return started late December as soon as Saturn went into Sagittarius and even though it will go back into Scorpio this summer, your Saturn return is still basically in effect for the next two or three years until I think it is through 2017 when Saturn finally leaves Sagittarius and moves into Capricorn and then the people with Saturn in Capricorn will start their Saturn returns.
Yeah, I will have probably put a list pretty soon about all these Saturn return dates on saturnreturnstories.com, you can go there for that exact listing.
Okay, we got interrupted for the houses, let’s finish our last two houses. The 11th houses friends, allies, groups and social movements or movements that one is a part of.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, a Saturn return in the 11th house could be something like starting to hold offices and official organization of some sort, oftentimes it is actually sort of renewing who are your real friends and you know it is sort of the natural ending of some friendships.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure, challenges of the friendship sometimes in deciding whether those friendships will last or continue in some instances.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, that is a very common thing of when seen in Saturn returns there.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Like deciding if certain friendships are like supportive like healthy if they are not then having go through the process of getting rid of them or finding new friends and things like that.
Okay and then finally the 12th house sort of general significations are things like solitude, places of confinement or retreat, illness, loss and enemies.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, I mean the 12th house obviously has some less pleasant sounding associations with it. It is basically just solitude for one reason or another but it can be a vestry of different reasons, sometimes it can be I guess the most positive ways of seen that play out have been people who have kind of serious contemplative practices that they really throw themselves into during their Saturn return and that usually has been something that is, I mean it doesn’t have to be, it has often been something that was already part of their life that they have intensified their saint meditation practice or yoga practice or something like that at their Saturn return, sometimes it can be isolations someway like a major illness, you know going to the hospital, you know prisons can be associated with that, you know thing they haven’t seen as many of those but I mean it is one possibility.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay.
LEISA SCHAIM: And I guess also actually like one of the other major things I have seen besides the contemplative thing is just people who weren’t already kind of going that way taking like sort of an uncharacteristic amount of time to be by themselves and just sort of things think through on their own and then to the extent that can actually worry other people in their life sometimes but that actually if you do have Saturn natally in the 12th and that is your Saturn return that is actually really appropriate way to be spending your time.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure, the idea of like isolation?
LEISA SCHAIM: Isolation in general but that isolation can be put to go to fact.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, can be either constructive or not constructive?
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. Those are pretty straightforward that is one of our primary interpretive principles I think everbody knows but just for those that our learning about the Saturn return for the first time that was important that sort of goes through those house significations but now we should go into some of the more advanced interpretations of other considerations that we take into account in the Saturn return. Although before we do that one of the things of course we should say that is a basic principle of interpretation that everyone should know as well and that we are not gonna go into too much here due to time constrain is just the quality of the zodiacal sign of course that Saturn is in, oftentimes some of the significations are the meanings associated with that sign of the zodiac coming into play you know during the Saturn return.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah and that is definitely true when it is something that you know most sort of write ups or popular treatments of the Saturn return actually emphasize more than everything else but I would maybe de-emphasize it a little bit but it is definitely something that will be in play .
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, I definitely think the house placement and the things that are unique to the person’s chart are much more important in terms of how Saturn return will play out but it is sometimes funny how some of the basic significations of the zodiacal sign will sometimes become relevant as well like I just remember thinking about like Prince William for example who ……. I believe was Saturn in Libra and the marriage getting married was like really famous like high profile marriage that took place when Saturn was going through Libra a few years ago and sometimes it can be as simple as that like Libra having to do through relationships and marriage and that becoming more important or relevant to people as Saturn in Libra in some instances.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, definitely.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay, the next thing which you had already mentioned earlier is that is more of an advanced interpretive principle and works really well from the traditional astrology is the idea that the houses that Saturn rules in the person’s birth chart that the topics associate with those houses will come into play as well…
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah…
CHRIS BRENNAN: … during the Saturn return.
LEISA SCHAIM: Right. Exactly. You are really looking at three houses unless Saturn is natally placed in Capricorn or Aquarius for you so is the house it is placed in and then the houses that it rules Capricorn and Aquarius wherever that is in your chart.
CHRIS BRENNAN: For example if Capricorn was the sign that was on the cusp of the seventh house then Saturn would become the ruler of the seventh house in the chart and therefore Saturn would have something to say about the topic of relationships just in the person’s natal chart in general but then by extension when a person hits their Saturn return because Saturn is getting activated in its natal placement, it is also activating the topics associated with the houses it rules therefore things having to do with relationships or marriage if a person had Saturn rule in the seventh house would come into play.
LEISA SCHAIM: Right and oftentimes people are newer to astrology wonder about empty houses and whether that means ‘Nothing is going on there.’ and you know the response is of course ‘ No, it is.’ then you look to the ruler of that house to see what is going on and this is one of the primary times where it comes into play where you know at your Saturn return. It would be activating those houses even if you have absolutely no planets in Capricorn or Aquarius.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and you should have to pay attention at the very least Capricorn and from a traditional standpoint what house Aquarius is associated with as well since Saturn is the traditional ruler of Aquarius and if you are like uncomfortable with that or if you normally use modern planetary rulerships where Uranus is associated with Aquarius, this is a good way to actually test that to see if there is anything to associating Saturn with Aquarius even as a co-ruler or a secondary ruler, I would personally say it is the primary ruler of Aquarius and Capricorn but even if you just wanted to test it as a secondary ruler this is a good way to do so by seeing if the topics associated with the house that Aquarius is on the cusp of come into play during the course of your Saturn return.
Okay, so that is another interpretive principle and then what is another one that you use for I mean one of the…, I guess the fifth one that I wrote in my article for interpreting the Saturn return is hard aspects with other planets and that is actually extended to not just other planets but also other houses and I should kind of explain that but basically if like hard aspects which are the square and the opposition tend to really clearly coincide with like events or things that manifest very clearly in a person’s life or in a person’s chart and therefore if Saturn is in the natal chart square or opposing any planets then when Saturn returns back to its natal position it is also gonna be squaring or opposing those planets or also conjoining if there is any planets that are conjunct or in the same sign as Saturn then those planets are gonna be getting activated when the Saturn return comes into play so whatever the natal because basically if Saturn has natal aspect, especially hard aspect with planets in the natal chart then as soon as the Saturn return comes into play then those aspects as well are also gonna get activated…
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: …for better or worse.
LEISA SCHAIM: Great, exactly and it is important to note that it is any for the conjunction for any planets in the same sign even if they are at opposite ends of degrees as long as they are in the same sign, they are gonna get activated.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right and that is also true we are talking about whole sign aspects even for the square or the opposition so that if there is any planets in the signs, they are square to or opposing the natal Saturn placement, those planets even if they are not really close to an exact aspect with Saturn by orb or even if they are not within what you would normally consider the orb of an aspect if they are just a sign based aspect, those placements are still gonna get activated during the Saturn return so that is very important. I guess when we are talking about hard aspects it is not necessary…, I was gonna say this could be positive or negative but if we are talking about hard aspects of Saturn we are talking about probably some challenges to some extent best case scenario.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: It is just a spectrum of like some challenges that are surmountable difficulties versus some like major crises involving whatever planets Saturn is aspecting.
LEISA SCHAIM: Right. Exactly and I would say, you know I mean you know the transits in sextiles, you know especially if they are close in degree, they will get activated, too. It is just that, you know if you are first starting to look at it , you really wanna emphasize more the hard aspects.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right, just because they are more clear in their manifestation.
LEISA SCHAIM: Definitely, they are just more obvious.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay, that is one of the next interpretive principles. The other one that kind of goes along with that, that I have been seen more and more of the last few years and that is my…, I don’t know this starts drawing in a lot of things and I don’t know if you go along with this fully or if you are on board with this fully. Yeah, I am still trying to convince you but that…., it is not just like the house that Saturn transits through but really the other three houses that are angular to Saturn’s natal house, I have been seeing all four of those houses really come in the topics associated with those houses come into play during a person’s Saturn return so it is not just like you know if you have Saturn going through the fourth house, it is not just a fourth house topics that are gonna get activated but it is also because Saturn is squaring from the fourth house by necessity or by extension it is also gonna be squaring, If it is in the fourth house it is gonna be squaring the seventh house and the first house and it is gonna be opposing the tenth house and so all four of those houses that natal Saturn is angular to all the topics associated with those houses come into play during the Saturn return to a greater or lesser extent. Now it is still the case that the primary house that the Saturn return will relate to is the house that Saturn is natally placed in so if you have Saturn return in the fourth house. Fourth house topics are primarily gonna be what comes up during your Saturn return but what I see over and over again in chart work in client work is just that the other three houses that Saturn makes a hard aspect to are also relevant and also become prominent in many cases during the Saturn return.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah and I guess, you know we have discussed that in the past and I am interested to keep watching especially… I guess, you know we both know a lot of people with fixed rising signs and so it has been easier to see while Saturn has been transiting through Scorpio how it has been hitting all those four houses and I can kind of understand that if I guess if Saturn is natally there in some ways because you would say for instance if Saturn was square the Ascendant, you know that it meant something for sure, you know square the Descendant etc. I guess I am interested to keep watching to see if it is still holds if it is not in angular houses because the angular houses are so important anyway.
Yeah. I guess I am interested in to see, you know if it is going through the succedent or so forth, if it does still seem like it is hitting all four.
CHRIS BRENNAN: And I can already answer that question so yes, but ………my conceptual even aside from practically just feeling like I have observed that in my subjective like experience of working with clients and different client charts over the past 10 years. I would say like my part of conceptual way that I would back that up or grounded to make more sense or be more sensical how you know Saturn going back to its natal position and activating the natal house that is located in as well as the three houses that are angular to that the way I would so justify that more conceptually is by the fact that we know that the other you know Saturn makes its return but then there is three critical turning points over the next 30 years when Saturn hits the hard aspect as it is going through its cycle so you have the first Saturn square which occurs seven years after the Saturn returns so we have got the waxing, yeah waxing Saturn square which occurs in, it is the fourth house relative to whatever the natal house Saturn is located in so if you have Saturn located in the fourth house then the first square is gonna occur in the seventh house and then seven years after that you have the Saturn opposition which will occur in the house that is opposite to the natal Saturn placement natally so that is the other angular house and then finally you have the waning square which occurs in the 10th sign relative to Saturn’s natal house placement and that is the other sign or house that gets activated. I think it is like conceptually the way I have tried to work out of this, I think that is the reason why I am seeing these other houses come into play when people hit their Saturn return because those are topics that are gonna come up and are gonna be relevant for the entire duration of the rest of their next 30 years Saturn cycle and at the most critical turning points those are the houses that Saturn is gonna be in when it hits those critical turning points is those four angular houses relative to the natal Saturn.
LEISA SCHAIM: Right.
CHRIS BRENNAN: It is obviously, it is definitely much more clear in the natal angular houses like the first house, fourth house, seventh house and 10th house but I have even seen it for people that have it like Saturn in the second house and seeing topics that have to do with like they have Saturn in the second house natally so we expect issues surrounding their own personal finances and possessions to come up but what I also see is them also going through issues or mysteriously during Saturn return issues pertaining to children so fifth house issues pertaining to death or other people’s possessions, eighth house or mortality and then issues pertaining to friends or alliences which is eleventh house so you do see these topics come up in weird ways and then for example if a person has let’s say Saturn in the third house we might see things coming up with respect to like their siblings but then you also see sixth house topics related to like let’s say illness or work, you will see ninth house topics related to travel or education and you will see twelfth house topics coming up related to like isolation or loss.
I don’t know it is obviously complicates things because then it seems like we are taking to account like a lot of factors and a lot of different houses all of a sudden but I definitely recommend paying attention that because if you look at it not just in the context of a Saturn return, but if you are looking back on the person’s life in retrospect because I have oftentimes have clients that are, you know older than I am or a bit older in their 60s or in their 70s or 80s so you can go back through their Saturn returns in the past and back through their entire Saturn cycles and you will see those topics coming up everytime it hits one of those angular places, those places that are angular to its natal placements, that is the sort of justification.for that, that I have.
Okay, we are getting towards the end of the show so maybe we should wrap up just talking about the last few potential interpretive principles. One of them is mitigations that there is actually mitigating factors that need to be taken into account that can sometimes make the Saturn return go much more smoothly than you would otherwise expect based on for example like the sect of Saturn. If Saturn is in the night chart and you are expecting it to be really difficult Saturn return for the person but then for some reason it is not, it is usually because there is one of these mitigations involved.
LEISA SCHAIM: And mitigations are really important both because can even easy objection to sect can quickly be, you know ‘It is not that simply black and white, you know life isn’t just like this sort of binary thing or some people have great lives, some people have difficult lives’ and that is true and mitigations…
CHRIS BRENNAN: Not all day chart people have easy Saturn return and not all night chart people have like horror stories.
LEISA SCHAIM: Exactly and it is important to, you know get that objection out of the way but also to reassure people that, you know just because you have a night chart which is gonna be have to people or so, you know that doesn’t mean that you are gonna have horrible Saturn return so one of the major mitigations is if one of the so called benefic planets which is gonna be Jupiter and Venus if those may a hard aspect to your natal Saturn then and especially this is gonna get a little advanced but especially if its say you know Venus for a night chart or Jupiter for a day chart, it is gonna significantly how about your Saturn Return and your general natal Saturn placement.
CHRIS BRENNAN: If what?
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah. If one of the so called benefic planets Venus or Jupiter is making a hard aspect to your Saturn…
CHRIS BRENNAN: Like a square or opposition…
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, like a square or opposition or conjunction and especially so if it is Venus doing that in a night chart or Jupiter doing that in a day chart.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay, these are like the what Hellenistic astrologers partially refer to as the conditions of bonification and maltreatment which are able to counteract of planets’ significations so you focused on Venus in particular if the person has a night chart and Jupiter if the person has a day chart but even if the benefics are at all configured to Saturn sometimes that can offset how negative it is.
LEISA SCHAIM: Exactly.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay and that is true especially if hard aspects…, even like trines, in trines…
LEISA SCHAIM: In trines. Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: … like a trine from Venus to Saturn or Jupiter to Saturn is going to significantly moderate some of the negative significations that might otherwise be experienced in association with Saturn.
LEISA SCHAIM: Definitely.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay so those are important. Another one to that actually come up really frequently is if Saturn has any dignity especially by domicile so for example being in its own sign.
LEISA SCHAIM: Being its own sign Capricorn or Aquarius or you know if you are lucky to have been born when Saturn was in Libra in its exaltation, all of those things are going to hope Saturn be in sort of better condition than it would otherwise be even in a night chart.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah and that is definitely true. I have seen that come up over and over again and let also add to that even and this will tie into one of the next shows that I hopefully do before too long which is the next best thing after Saturn being in its own domicile or exaltation is Saturn having reception with its domicile lord so even if Saturn is not well placed by sign, by being in its own sign so that is sort of running the show or it is not in its exaltation, if it is in a sign that it doesn’t rule but it is configured to the planet that rules that sign by an aspect, especially if that has an applying aspect between Saturn and the planet that rules the sign of Saturn is located in that can significantly help to strengthen Saturn’s position so that it becomes much easier and more favorable of a placement rather than a challenging one.
LEISA SCHAIM: Definitely and it has been impressive to me to see how much that can help out even of its own. When I have few examples of that in my lecture slights in the recording, few examples of people having their Saturn returns and it is Saturn with reception even in a night chart, it goes remarkably better than I would expect.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah so that is a huge one and we will get into reception more in a future episode.
Okay, I think that is it in terms of interpretive principles. Do you have any more of the top of your head?
LEISA SCHAIM: No, I think those are the major ones to look out for.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. Well, then I think that is bringing us towards the end of our show. We have been going for about almost an hour and fifteen minutes or maybe an hour fifteen minutes now so that is usually about to standard show length. I guess if people want to learn more about the Saturn returns of course they can listen to or they can check out our blog that we co-write together, it is primarily your blog because you are the Saturn return expert here is as far as I am concerned at saturnreturnstories.com and then of course I have already mentioned your recording where you basically go into a lot of this with a bit more depth and you give dozens of…, how many chart examples as it like 10 or 20 ?
LEISA SCHAIM: something 10 or 15, something like that.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay so you actually show how some of these interpretive principles and the mitigating factors and other things actually work out in the lives of real people so that people can be more confident or clear about how to interpret that if they have a client or if they are looking at their own chart or what have you so we will have that available for sale on your website at leisaschaim.com and I will give a link to that on the website for this podcast if you need a link and then you also do consultations for Saturn returns as well as just Saturn transits and other things general. Right?
LEISA SCHAIM: Yes.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay and that is through for your website?
LEISA SCHAIM: Yes, that is my consulting website at leisaschaim.com.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. Perfect.
All right. Well, I can’t think.. I feel like we are probably missing something that we meant to talk about with respect to Saturn.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, I mean the major thing that I just think is important about looking at Saturn returns and kind of rethinking Saturn in general is awarded that is often link to Saturn but I don’t know is always fully applied which is realism. I really would like a balance to look at what Saturn returns actually look like in real people’s lives and that is to give, you know it gives people hope to think that, you know everthing is kind of under their control but it also can be really disheartening if people have difficult Saturn returns and so I guess I just like to keep to put a…, you wanna people to put a balanced view out there, what really happens so that no matter what someone’s chart is like, they can feel more okay about whatever they are going through whether it is more constructive or more challenging at whatever point in time.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right so not to accidently even though you are trying to be empowering to somehow actually do the opposite to the person by telling them that everything should be great if they do this, this and this even if that is not realistic for that person.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, I just find it fascinating that Saturn, you know one of its significations is limits and yeah we sometimes talk about it as though it is limitless. I guess I would like to try to bring some balance back to that discussion.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right. Okay. Well, that is I am definitely I am bored with that so as a Saturn dominative chart type person I am definitely I am bored of that. Although I do have Uranus, I was thinking about that because you know people…, somebody actually recently comment and I meant to mention this in the last show but people often this is just like a protype kind of a side force some astrologers or astrology enthusiast where people often misidentify my Saturn conjunct Mercury as me having a lot of Virgo placements and I probably said something interesting or informative about the nature of Saturn and how it is experienced by people versus the nature of Virgo but that is completely unrelated to anything what we are just talking about. I don’t know, let’s end the show here.
Thanks for coming on the show and everyone check out Leisa’s website, check out saturnstories.com and leisaschaim.com and you will be blogging more recent, you might be blogging again on another website as well.
LEISA SCHAIM: Yeah, I am looking to sort of expend, you know I really love the topic of Saturn returns, I am looking to expend potentially talk about sort of marklectic things on a seperate blog so you can look out for that if I do that I will put out a link on my consulting site.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. It sounds good.
All right. Well, I guess that is it for this show. Thanks everyone for listening.
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