Saturn Opposition: Midlife Transits

The Saturn opposition in midlife usually comes in close tandem with the Uranus Opposition. It is here to remind you of your obligations lest you forget them while you are feeling a simultaneous urge to break free from all prior limitations. This might make you feel a bit of whiplash during this time, conflicted about the best way to move forward.

“Uranus correlates to individuation, liberation, freedom, and deconditioning. Deconditioning from what? Deconditioning from Saturn. Saturn correlates to all the conditioning patterns of our life: the conditioning patterns of society, family, expectations of people in our lives, and the conditioning patterns relative to all the prior lives that you bring into this life. All that conditions your sense of identity at any moment in time. Uranus clearly is an antithetical archetype to Saturn. This means that Uranus is forever trying to shatter, revolutionize, liberate, or break free from all those conditioning patterns. What for? What is the intent? To what purpose? If we shatter all the conditioning patterns that define our sense of personality and identity then we can, at some point, arrive at our essential nature and identity that is unconditioned. Obviously, that can be a fairly long journey.” - Jeffrey Wolf Green, Uranus, Freedom from the Known

My Saturn Opposition occurred in 2019, when I was confronted with my child experiencing an intense struggle of his own. I was also confronted with my drinking problem. Both of these events encouraged me to face my responsibilities soberly. But it also helped me resolve my commitment to move toward a more authentic life. My son’s struggle in particular helped me face how much my life revolved around what other people thought of me. Even though I had this idea in my mind that this wasn’t true. I deeply cared about what others thought about me and this kept me from living an authentic life. I made a choice at this time to stand by my child at the expense of what others would think. It helped strengthen my resolve to also stick up for myself no matter how insecure I felt in the process.

This has been very challenging and it’s still a journey I walk each and every day and sometimes not very gracefully. I’m learning grace as I fall on my face. Sometimes this path is messy and you have to come to terms that to learn you need to allow yourself to fall and sometimes that falling happens a few dozen times until you finally move on from a particular lesson. The path toward individuation is not easy and this is why not many people walk it or stick with it. Sometimes it’s just your destiny to keep walking the path no matter where it leads. The path behind you is no longer available to you, so you must move forward.

How about you? Have you found this to be true in your own life?