Backbone > Panet Waves

Saturn’s Homecoming
By Eric Francis

I'm getting the feeling lately that I might be the only person excited about the new-born transit of Saturn across Cancer, which began in mid-June and lasts for the next two-and-a-half years. Most astrology fans are taking the news well, if a little solemnly. Others are brooding, muttering to themselves, "This can't be good," as they trudge toward the 7th Avenue subway. Thing is, the planets move. They always provide new challenges and new resources. In this world, anyway, attitude is just about everything.

Saturn is not exactly everyone's favorite planet. But it's certainly one of the most useful and necessary energies. If Saturn in Capricorn represents one's bones, Saturn in Cancer represents the shell and boundary that separates us from the larger world. Those critters that have crab-like shells—they're called arthropods—are the most successful phyla on the planet. You find them from the depths of the oceans to the highest mountain peaks where life exists. They organize vast nations (ant colonies spanning hundreds of miles) or survive by scavenging. It helps to have a shell. Especially one that flexes at the joints.

We last experienced Saturn in Cancer in the heart of the 1970s, spanning from August 2, 1973, through June 6, 1976. (There were brief interludes during that timeframe when, at the beginning, Saturn dipped back into Gemini and toward the end, forwarded into Leo.) If you were born then, this is the beginning of your Saturn return, that great coming of age. If you were an adult, conscious child, or teenager then, scroll back to that era in your life and get a sense of what was happening. If you were a wee one and it wasn't especially pleasant, remember that you're now an adult with a lot more maturity and power than you had then. This makes a significant difference where Saturn is concerned. The hard-won skills you acquired during that time you can now put to use.

When we think of those years, we might remember "The Energy Crisis," with its gas lines, the OPEC embargo, and daylight savings time in the middle of winter (going to school in the dark). According to the Oak Ridge National Lab's (nuclear power salesmanship) homepage, "Waiting in long lines for short supplies, many Americans realized for the first time how central a role energy plays in the good life—and how vulnerable some forms of energy are to political vagaries. Thus began, after the Mideast oil embargo of 1973-74, a rush to diversify America's energy base and to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil." The message was we needed to grow a shell and take care of ourselves.

We also might think about the special kind of idealism that characterized the era, what you could call the values of the 1960s coming home—literally into the home—after the Vietnam War ended. Many elaborate and beautiful visions for a greater world emerged during the ‘60s. The years immediately after were the time to put those visions to work. The great enemy of peace and justice, old Dick Nixon, had been defeated, fueling the ideals of many who dared to have them.

This ethos was expressed in few places better than in the publication Whole Earth. "Originally titled Co-Evolution Quarterly, the magazine was first published in 1974," their Web site says. "For its time, it was very pragmatic and principled. It furthered social change and new movements by introducing ideas such as the Gaia hypothesis, watershed consciousness, whole system thinking, and voluntary simplicity to readers. It featured many of the catalog's facets: access to information, book and tool reviews, essays, interviews with and articles by seminal thinkers of the day. An early issue was edited by the Black Panther Party, another by Beat poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure."

The ‘60s were run by the engine known as the Vietnam War, which pushed numerous social movements and helped people raise their awareness of important issues. When the war ended, there were big social changes as part of that process, and a lot of people with impassioned ideals on their hands, and their lives began changing. For some it was time for a sane and normal life, to settle down and start a family. For others, it was time to move to a commune and get back to the land. Many headed for the suburbs.

We also think of feminism as a central idea of this era. Well, there was feminism (a much older idea) and then there was that bizarre thing called Women's Lib and the push for equal rights. When I think of women's progressive movements of the 1970s, I think of Betty Dodson, author of Sex for One and the brand-new Orgasms for Two. She was not a women's libber and she defined feminism her own way—naked. And, for the record, as neither "hetero" nor "lesbian." In an era when you were really, really queer when you were bisexual (allegedly a fence-straddler who couldn't commit), Betty was a good three decades ahead of her time—now that it's all kinds of fashionable to be trans, bi, and multi-gender. In 1974, the first version of her book, then called Liberating Masturbation: A Meditation on Self Love, was published, shortly after her famous article on the subject finally appeared in Ms. magazine.

Many other people were expressing their most daring ideas, founding communities and communities of conscience, and waking up to the necessities of taking care of our one-and-only World Earth. It was about time—even three decades ago.

So what's the big deal about Saturn in Cancer? Some people know that Saturn is in its "detriment" in Cancer. Saturn rules Capricorn, hence it's said to be weaker in its opposite sign. (The same is true for Saturn in Leo, by the way, since in the ancient system and in modern common sense Saturn is the ruler of Aquarius. Hence for the next five years, Saturn is in detriment.) Conceivably, by this measure, Saturn in Cancer is bad for Saturn, not necessarily for you. But given how well Saturn worked the last time it was in Cancer, that is, how well it did its most valuable public service of manifesting effective structural changes, I suggest we stop worrying and start working.

When a planet is in a weak sign—in detriment or fall, or in a number of other positions that might compromise its efficacy—it can function chirotically, that is, like Chiron, when a perceived weakness can become a stimulus for strength and healing. By my reckoning, that was very clearly the case in the mid-1970s.

Perhaps part of the issue is that Cancer is considered such a maternal sign and Saturn comes with images of the Grim Reaper, Satan, and the Dark Father. You know—corporations, governments, and the school principal. We think of the official buildings, heavy gray lead, and all that stuff from old astrology books that give us material significations but no spiritual basis or method for dealing with the information. Even in modern psychologically based astrology, the issues that Saturn is said to rule are some of the more challenging ones we seem to contend with: structuring our lives, dealing with limitations, and dealing with authority.

"We're afraid of father because nobody knows what a good father is. We try to do it but we have no template for it, no pattern to follow on the emotional level," astrologer Denice Taylor said recently. "Very few people know how it supports; they know how it hurts to be related to in a masculine way."

Denice points out that we usually do have functional images of being related to in a nourishing way by a feminine figure since most of the nurturing in the world happens by and through women. But there's a missing volume on dad. In our culture—at least when most of us reading were kids, and to a great extent today—it's dad who leaves the home when there is a problem; or dad was missing in action, always at work; or drunk and having affairs; mother is presumed to be the responsible, dominant parent and the one who will remain present.

"I think that when we force Saturn, when it's made into the scapegoat, we limit our own ability to manifest and give physical form to our creations. Maybe Saturn in Cancer will help us create more complete emotional definitions of words like father and mother, and family, and home," Denice added.

Cancer is the sign of the home. When a planet transits Cancer, something or someone comes home. I would hope that any planet would be welcome here. Saturn is often associated with a parental figure, but the question is: Which parent? I take Saturn as a maternal figure at least as much as I do a paternal one. Isabelle Hickey, author of the beautiful Astrology: A Cosmic Science, takes Saturn as a distinctly feminine archetype, describing "her peace and her quiet power." There is the feeling that Saturn will represent the rising of an inner authority who will help us restore some sanity to our tumultuous emotions, and offer some order in our homes, and perhaps in our world.