When the Old Man changes signs, our sense of what we can rely on changes, as does our way of regarding regulations, ‘what is’, authority, boundaries, rules, and material reality itself. In Libra, we thought about ‘the Other’, whether that form was a partner, spouse, companion, stranger, audience, or enemy; we looked at how our relationships, our aesthetics, and our ability to make a case, to link and mediate between other entities, affected the reality picture, and especially how it affected the boundaries and limits we had to recognize. We were, without exception, more dependent on the partner (or authorities, or the father or father-figure, or the one who ‘judged’ us, or some set of rules, traditions, or systems) to help us determine our effective interaction with the material world than we will be in Scorpio; in the sign of the Scorpion, we will be aware of ‘the Other’, but our gaze will return to ourselves, and our feelings, about what is.

In Scorpio, Saturn becomes Self-reflective; we look at the reality that surrounds us and see ourselves in it–and that sends us on an emotional (Scorpio is a Water sign) journey, one that plumbs the very depths of the intimate ties between psyche and emotional perception. Saturn deals with the concrete, with the material and with ‘What Is’, while Scorpio emphasizes feeling and what may be hidden or intangible, but that we are able to sense. This suggests a misalignment of viewpoints when Saturn transits Scorpio; where in Libra Saturn could ‘think (and do something) about things’ (the Cardinal Air of Libra), now Saturn’s energies are dealing with the ungraspables of emotion and nuance, what’s hidden, perceived, but which we’re not able to hold in our hand–we may have trouble picturing, articulating, or doing anything about those vague things we do perceive and name (and yet we may feel that what we’ve grasped is inadequate, somehow). The Fixed Water of Scorpio makes us tenacious, persistent in digging to discover and understand via feeling–and yet, when we apply this methodology to what is familiar through tradition, through what’s known and tangible, we may get contrasting results. On the one hand we could end up uncovering meaning behind our material surroundings; we could suddenly gain immensely in terms of seeing (and having an emotional reaction to) reality in a whole new way; on the other hand, we could convince ourselves there’s more ‘there there’ than there really is!

What happens when a material reality is introduced to, and asked to express within, a liminal (mental) space? We become unsure of what’s real; everything seems to have deeper, mysterious, and unfathomable meaning, and we may spend a great deal of time trying to connect reality with the unseen, about which we must assume both its nature and its existence. This particular experience of Saturn through Scorpio might harken back to the Latin limen, ‘threshold’, and the anthropological concept of liminality, wherein an individual is in the state found mid-ritual. The old is dissolving, morphing, or falling away, and yet we are only on the journey, not yet arrived at the outcome of the change. This experience will likely be reinforced by Pluto in Capricorn, already wearing away the Saturnian ‘What Was’.

Saturn enters Scorpio on 5 October (Pacific time); will we feel it right away? That’s unlikely, though we may sense a shift to things we just can’t put our finger on. If you have placements at 00-03 of any sign, you’ll likely feel that ‘lid’ Saturn initially likes to place on our fun, set very gently down–and with Saturn in Scorpio, it might be difficult, no matter how hard we look, to single out exactly where our oppression, boundaries, and limitations are coming from.

Does this affect all your placements in Scorpio? No, not until it’s actually within orb of contact–it’s a Saturn transit, like any other direct contact. It’s important we understand that a planet moving into a sign does not affect the sign–the sign affects expression of the planet. Don’t mix them up! That means that all those who’ve been cringing in anticipation of Saturn entering the sign of their Sun, Moon, or some other important planet or point can relax until Saturn is, at the very least, 5 degrees from conjunction, and more often closer to 3 or fewer degrees away, with the effect fading about 2 degrees past exact.

This first appeared in ECLIPSE September 7-13; order the current issue here! Text copyright 2012 Julie Demboski All Rights Reserved