50 Shades of Saturn in Scorpio

I woke up with a start a couple of days ago with a terrible fear about being 50. My heart was racing. I should say that I’m only 44, 45 next year but I feel about 70 in many ways! I’m feeling my age and then some – the wonders of perimenopause that make me feel tired for week, demented for a week, unwell for a week and then on a high for about 3 days when suddenly I realise that this is what it feels like to be well! The arthritis in my right hip bugs me, my poor left foot is sometimes in agony from taking the strain. Saturn is opposing my Sun, exact on Monday and then will enter my 4th house and square my Moon – oh the joys.

But the physical challenges I can just about deal with. I rattle with vitamins and supplements which keep me somewhere this side of sane (mostly). It’s the gnawing fears that writhe deep in my bones that whisper about what I haven’t achieved, what I’ve never done (and probably never will), what I haven’t had. It’s the dark shroud of loneliness and cloying guilt over time lost. Saturn is working deep in my soul.

Saturn often brings what we think we can’t face, the fears we avoid. In Scorpio Saturn gives you a skeleton grin and then starts digging with his scythe right down as far as he can get. He’ll dig up what you’ve buried – secrets, fears, paranoia, jealously, issues of control. Oh and your sexual nature, he’ll have a dig at that too, to see if you are really sharing all you can with your loved one, or whether some little hurt pieces are still hiding away, quivering in the back of the closet.

Whether or not you are with someone, your sexual nature is connected to your creativity. The same flames of passion that feeds your novel, your visionary art, your desire to explore the world. Saturn in Scorpio is preparing the way for when he moves into Sagittarius, for when you can move to a higher perspective. Sex can be a religious experience. Relinquishing control and surrendering to a higher order can change your beliefs about what is possible. By facing your fears you open your mind to the wonders of experience in the world.

Is it any wonder that everyone is talking about Fifty Shades of Grey as Saturn leers in the face of Scorpio? Love it or hate it, en masse it has brought up issues of sexual control and inequalities and about testing your limits both hard and soft. Suddenly, people who have perhaps never experimented with new ways to ‘play’ are looking at bondage. Everyone is talking about domination and submission as if it’s a whole new thing. And underneath it all is a thread of abuse and the fine lines we can all walk at times. It’s Saturn here who is dressed in leather and binding your wrists but in this case there’s no safe word. You have to submit to his teachings.

It’s not Saturn’s job to be nice to you. His job is to make sure you understand what’s really going on. In Scorpio, he reminds us that we are all going to die some day. There I’ve said it – the dirty little secret that no one wants to think about. We all have a clock ticking quietly in the background. Saturn however doesn’t want you to start panicking and trying to control every movement you make for fear of getting got by death – no! Saturn in Scorpio says remember the little death. At the moment of sexual fulfillment, your mind, body and soul is more alive than at any other time. One of Saturn’s most beautiful messages of this transit is to teach you to really LIVE. And it’s only by conquering your fears and relinquishing control that you can.

You have to do the work. It’s as simple as that. The more you fight, the more the rope will cut into your wrists. The trick is to submit because by submitting you become the master of ceremonies. When you work WITH Saturn, he offers you strength you never knew you had – especially in Scorpio.

Scorpio as a sign is about sharing what you have and profound connection. Without deep connection our lives become colourless, grey bleeding into grey. Yet there can be a terrible fear of losing ourselves in another. The concept of two becoming one can provoke a powerful mortal fear! Likewise, this reaction can manifest in the sharing of our money and possessions. There can be a tendency to hold on to them because they are yours. From the Taurus screams of “mine!”, Saturn in Scorpio teaches you the maturity to share – mind, body and soul. If you don’t share your toys, no one is going to want to play with you…

It’s a time of coming to terms with your shadows. Is that a creepy hand scraping its fingernails across your window or is it just the old tree outside bending with the wind? Your shadow is like that. If you don’t look at it full on and see it for what it is, it too will seem like a scary figure always haunting you from the corner of your eye. Others can see these shadows too. Sometimes they see them clearly. Sometimes they see them as you see them. Often it’s a little both and then everyone gets jumpy. Saturn says it’s time to look at the monster under the bed.

It’s about learning to not be afraid of the dark because it’s only in darkness that you can see the stars.

Saturn enters Scorpio on the 5th October 2012 at 20:34 UT – convert to your time zone here