Saturn Transits - Ya Gotta Have Jokes

One of the blessings of astrology is that it helps you mark what potentials are coming to you and where you are in life. It marks our aging.

Saturn transits in particular can be especially noteworthy and challenging because they take no prisoners. Saturn does what it is going to do and if you do not want to accept the lessons, take responsibility and mature, you can find yourself suffering with a deep depression. In reality, there is always some degree of depression, even if you are wise to what the Universe is asking of you and following the path.

That is because Saturn....The Parent, The Teacher, The Taskmaster...makes you realize some parts of you and your behavior must die so you can mature and be an even better you...and that happens with age.

Buying a motorcycle, a red sports car, or the latest skimpy fashions will not help you escape the lessons, as many people in their 40s find out. You need to dress appropriately (but not like a decrepit senior citizen!) and use that motorcycle or car money to pay for twice-annual sessions with a good astrologer and/or life coach and some time away retreating to get on track.

But most of all you need to have a sense of humor. When things are particularly challenging, stop and look at yourself. Are you 43 and wearing a shirt that exposes things better left undercover? Are you wearing a hairstyle that should have been left with the decade it came in with? Are you feeling terrified and dissatisfied riding that morotcycle or sports car but don't know why you are doing it? You thought you were "stylin" when really you are providing more laughs than The Comedy Shop.

Are you hanging out with people who are jsut too young for you at the moment. It cna be as siple as being 27 or 28 and approaching your first Saturn Return, and coming to the realization that 24 and 26 year olds are just in a different place. Last month a 28-year old Virgo man I know with Sun, Mercury, Venus and Saturn in Virgo commented to me as he was leaving a party we were at, that he was going home. He smiled wryly and said "I'm old".

I smiled, too, as I was standing outside enjoying the fresh air and not participating in the mostly early 20s crowd at the indoor party.

He looked tired and I realize that much of his tiredness came from having Saturn in Virgo transiting conjunct his Mercury and near his Sun for nearly the last year and that he is only a few months from an exact conjunction on his Sun and Venus this summer 2008 and his actual Saturn Return in Virgo in autumn 2008. His next 12 months until summer 2009 will be very challenging.

He knows nothing about astrology but he realizes internally it is time to grow up and put off childish behaviors. He is graduating from univeristy, will be needing to make a decision about work and the woman he is living with marriage?). And of course with Saturn knocking on him he is morephysically tired, even...he feels Saturn in his body, in his BONES.

Stop. Look in the mirror. Laugh at yourself. You have been making a fool of yourself. Have a good hearty laugh....and then let it go! Let go of the clothes, the cycle the car, the crazy relationship, the dissatisfying religious community etc. Put on something fashionable but comfortable, get a car you enjoy driving and are not embarassed in, and start doing the things that resonate within you as "right"...not what you think will make you fit in with some group of people to whom you have given too much importance. And again, laugh at yourself.

Oh! Take some pictures or have a friend or family member take some pictures of you in that midriff shirt, hotpants, gold chains, and Duran Duran hair on your motorcycle. You will have something to to make you smile when you need a lift.