Barriers and Boundaries: The Horoscope and the Defences of the Personality

by Liz Greene

What we need and value most may be the very thing which is most greatly feared by the opposite sign. Scorpio fears stagnation, on every level. Stagnation is death; change and transformation are life.

Grandiosity on various levels is another characteristic fire defence, and all three fire signs, to a greater or lesser extent, tend to exhibit a tendency toward self-aggrandisement or self-mythologising.

The ferocious competitiveness of the Oedipal defence system is really a way of saying, “I matter, and to prove it I will show that I can win over all the competition. That makes me a hero or heroine, a child of the gods.”

Marx is typical of an extremely defensive dimension of earth, which must provide a material explanation for everything that happens in life. If there are other reasons for events taking place, these must exist on a nonrational and noncorporeal level, and this is terrifying to the very earthy psyche.

The need for collective approval is one of the most characteristic Capricornian defences.

Virgo Liz: Shall we move on to Virgo’s defences? What is Virgo’s great fear? Audience: Chaos. Liz: And how does Virgo protect itself against chaos? Audience: By creating categories. Liz: Yes, Virgo desperately needs order, as a defence against chaos. Creating categories is a form of imposing order.

Virgo’s defence mechanisms spring from the need to differentiate, categorise, discriminate, weed out, and separate the useful from the useless, because all these efforts serve the creation of order.

It is not perfection that drives Virgo; it is a need to ensure that everything works with maximum efficiency. Anything that is creating disorder or inefficiency is at fault. When Virgos carp, they are not saying, “You are not living up to my ideal of perfection.” They are saying, “You’re threatening my sense of order; your behaviour is creating chaos. Clean up your act.”

There may be great satisfaction in making a beautiful object, or doing the best possible job; but this is a private satisfaction, not aimed at public display, because it creates the inner serenity Virgo needs.

In many ways opposite signs echo each other, because they share a mutable, cardinal, or fixed axis, and have a similar quality of energy. Virgo and Pisces are both extremely fluid, receptive, and refined, and therefore they are both intensely vulnerable. They cope with their vulnerability in different ways, but they are the two most sensitive of the zodiacal signs. They can both display psychism, and Virgo often exhibits mediumistic qualities that ordinarily we associate with Pisces. And Pisces likewise can display the need for a safe cosmic system which can be magically invoked for protection against loneliness.

Virgo fears the emotional chaos of Pisces, which threatens to flood rational consciousness with uncontrolled feelings and fantasies. Pisces fears the discriminating intellect of Virgo, which threatens to sever the state of emotional fusion which is so important to the water signs.

Capricorn’s need for collective approval may not come out in conventional social snobbery. It may be expressed in a specific professional context, in which only the opinions of one’s fellow surgeons, car mechanics, cat breeders, physicists, or astrologers matter; everyone else can go and you-know-what.

Many Cancers are reluctant to travel to unfamiliar places because they fear isolation. Even when Cancer does pack its bags and hit the road, one may have to endure stomach upsets, constipation, or a general state of irritability, anxiety, and sleeplessness, beneath which lies fear. Cancer may be frightened of not being able to speak the language, and therefore of not being able to communicate with or relate to anyone. This is the archetypal fear of not belonging. Cancer’s defences are mobilised as a means of preserving relationships and fending off isolation. For many Cancers, the comfort and warmth of relationship are symbolised by food. Nourishment must be available. For many people food constitutes primal emotional as well as physical nourishment, and certain eating disorders, in particular compulsive eating and bulimia, may, in part, be bound up with the feeling of being emotionally starved.

For the water signs, and for Cancer in particular, loneliness is a kind of death. We need to understand this about the sign, especially if one doesn’t have it in one’s own chart. Many of the less appealing Cancerian behaviour patterns which sometimes cause difficulties with other people – in particular the manipulative tactics, evasiveness, and tendency to use emotional blackmail – become comprehensible if we remember that, for Cancer, loneliness is not merely an unpleasant experience one has to put up with for a while. It is extinction. Isolation may frighten a Cancer more than anything else, and companionship may be symbolised by food because the two are the same at the beginning of life.

Pisces We know that alcohol and drugs are often Pisces’ line of defence against separateness. What other defences might be characteristic of Pisces? Audience: Music. Liz: Can you elaborate? Audience: I think some Pisceans can be obsessed with music, with the beat, with the rhythm. Liz: You are talking about an ecstatic state, which is similar to the state induced by drugs. Ecstasy is a state of fusion. Whether the ecstasy is experienced through a mass of people in a disco moving to an insistent beat, or through a mother-substance that one shoots into one’s arm, the feeling of being taken out of oneself – which is what the word “ecstasy” actually comes from in Greek – is a form of defence against loneliness and oblivion. Audience: And boredom. Liz: How do you define boredom? Audience: Lack of stimulation. Liz: Presumably you mean emotional stimulation. Boredom is an interesting word. We are bored by something when it lacks life, or doesn’t invoke a feeling response in us. People are often boring when they communicate without any feeling. It’s a bit like reading a telephone directory. There’s nobody home, so we get bored and stop listening. Emotional stimulation, for you, seems to provide a connection, a sense that you are not alone. This may be true for most water signs, which need a combination of imaginative and emotional stimulation as a defence against the barrenness and bleakness of loneliness. We may get some insight here into why the creative process can also...

We can begin to understand certain Piscean defences of an extreme kind by recognising that ecstasy, even in solitude, is a defence against loneliness. Extreme Piscean defences might look like they are anti-relationship mechanisms. There is nothing particularly relationship-facilitating about locking oneself in one’s room and shooting up, or falling down in an alcoholic stupor. But these may be attempts to preserve a state of ecstasy, which is really a relationship with a primal source. This state of fusion is the very first state we experience, first in the womb and then at the breast. In this blissful place there is no pain, loneliness, suffering, conflict, or mortality. It is the Paradise Garden before the Fall, and at all costs one must defend that place against the intrusion of the outside world and the suffering that actual relationships might bring. The word “Paradise” comes from the Persian, and means “a walled garden of delight”. Water sign walls are aimed at keeping the serpent out, because the serpent brings time, change, death, and isolation.

Can you look more carefully at Scorpionic possessiveness, and what it is really saying or attempting to do? Audience: It ensures that the loved one is always the same. Liz: Yes, I think we are getting closer to it. Possessiveness attempts to create a bond that will not alter. The bond is absolute, fixed, eternal, and can never be disturbed or broken apart by betrayal or by feelings given to other people. Possessiveness is a means of defending oneself against loneliness through rendering the loved object not only absolutely one’s own, but also absolutely predictable. No fluctuation in mood or feeling is permissible. Fusion for Scorpio is not a fluid state of ecstasy. It is an immobile and eternal union, impervious to time and change. Any sign of emotional energy being given elsewhere can provoke terrible vindictive feelings in a deeply insecure Scorpio. Such destructiveness comes from a place of great fear, and it is Scorpio’s way of defending itself against the horror of betrayal, humiliation, and isolation. Scorpio might not fear physical death if the death is chosen, since death is only a route back to the source. But the kind of death represented by broken pride and the isolation which comes from powerlessness may be a far more threatening prospect.

All the water signs share the fear of isolation, but they utilise different means of defences. These defences can be enormously creative. Cancer’s need to belong is a fundamental part of this sign’s gift of empathy and nurturing. Pisces’ retreat into the imaginal world can produce works of art. Scorpio’s need to fix bonds in an unchanging state can produce extraordinary loyalty, commitment, and courage. But in some cases the defences are so extreme that the person is taken over by them. Then the Cancer produces hysterical symptoms or looks like a beach-ball, the Piscean overdoses on the bedroom floor, and the Scorpio goes on a rampage and murders his wife as well as her lover.

It would sometimes appear, on the surface, that Leo needs approval and affirmation from others, whereas Aries doesn’t seem to give a damn. For Aries, the animosity of others may be taken as a compliment: “They wouldn’t dislike me so much if they weren’t jealous.” But one can’t win without engaging in competition. For Aries to win, there has to be somebody there to defeat, and also someone to judge the contest. So Aries doesn’t exist in a vacuum either. Active courting of approval may not be Aries’ style. But the sense of inner potency which is so important to Aries, as a defence against the helplessness and hopelessness of mortal existence, depends on an outer expression of potency in the world.

With Leo, potency in the world outside may not be that important. Obviously we have some glaring historical exceptions, such as Napoleon. On the surface, he seems to be an exception. We will look at him more carefully in a moment. But in the main, for Leo, it isn’t a question of feeling potent; it is a question of feeling unique. These are not the same thing. Leo’s need is not focused on beating the competition. In many ways Leo is not competitive at all. Other people simply aren’t important enough to be considered as competition, because Leo’s dialogue is really between oneself and God. This is reflected in the need to experience oneself as having a destiny, because an individual destiny implies that there is some divine power somewhere which says, “You’re here for a special purpose; you are my favoured child.” This is the core of the hero myth. The inner feeling of being chosen, of being the divine child, is a fundamental aspect of Leo’s defence against the extinction of ordinariness. It is the antidote to mortality. Leo may seek that affirmation inwardly, rather than externally in front of a crowd. “Even if nobody else notices it,” says the introverted Leo, “I know that I am here for a special purpose, even if it takes a lifetime to work out what the purpose is.”

If the Leo individual can’t experience an inner sense of destiny, or can’t find any outlet – however humble – through which that inspiration can be expressed, where is he or she going to get it from? One favourite place is an adoring audience. Self-aggrandisment of a particularly obnoxious kind may reflect the lack of an authentic inner sense of specialness. It may be a defence against a terrible hollow, empty feeling within. Leo doesn’t really need others to affirm his or her specialness, as long as the inner connection is there. Then the defence system works in a healthy and natural way, and provides the impetus for Leo’s creativity.

As an archetypal figure, the puer aeternus is one of Sagittarius’ lines of defence. The puer needs to be unattached, so that he is free to go on looking for clues. If one selects a particular goal or lifestyle, and commits oneself to it, one might miss out on finding another of those clues that could reveal the meaning of life. Sagittarius’ wanderlust, restlessness, and difficulty with commitment do not reflect some inherent fickleness or incapacity to love. They reflect the terror of Sartre’s No Exit. Do any of you know this play? It is Sartre’s vision of hell: a locked room in which three people are bound to each other unto eternity by highly destructive emotional bonds and no sense of meaning. Not surprisingly, Sartre had a Sagittarius Ascendant. “Don’t close all the doors,” says Sagittarius, “because if you lock me in I will lose my connection with all that unfolding meaning and purpose, and then I won’t know what I’m here for, and I shall die of boredom and despair.”

Feedback gives the air signs a chance to achieve a higher level of objectivity. It is in fact the opposite of emotional dependency. Also, some air sign people are very introverted, and formulate concepts independent of any collective validation. An extroverted air sign may want constant input from others, because he or she may not feel equipped to accept an idea as true without this support. An introverted air sign may reject input because it contaminates the inner purity and truth of the idea.

Even Gemini, which often has a reputation for being flighty, unpredictable, and changeable, is not actually all that changeable. The fluctuations in Gemini’s moods are regular and cyclical, and the apparent flightiness is usually a defence against a soggy emotional atmosphere. Gemini may not like being pinned down by others, but Gemini’s thinking is actually pinned down from within, by an insistent need for logic.

Experiences which injure without reason are the source of deep suffering for the air signs. Many people can accept hurt in a relationship because they know it is inevitable, and they can pass through the pain and emerge with greater empathy. They do not feel robbed or destroyed; they recognise that human nature is a very variable thing. The water signs may not like being wounded, and hurt pride may be anathema for Scorpio, but water can generally endure the pain, and can find a way of processing and releasing it. But air has a very low pain threshold. Emotional hurts hurt a thousand times more, because they are incomprehensible to air’s nature. They not only hurt; they also shatter ideals, and defy those laws on which air relies to survive in life. Also, air signs are often tightly bound by their own ethical codes, and cannot indulge in the kind of emotional release which could allow them to bounce back. “How could this have happened?” says the air sign. “I can’t find the reason. I didn’t do anything to deserve it. It isn’t fair. Why am I bleeding?” It is the bewilderment, the incomprehensibility of the wound, the utter irrationality and amorality of it, which is so terrifying to the air signs. Water may fall about throwing an emotional scene, but behind this necessary release is an underlying attitude of, “Well, yes, people do terrible things to each other even if they love each other. The important thing is the love.”

Fire does not cope well with the details and routines of everyday life. This ordinary, solid world can be a place of terror for fire. Those who are earthy and lack fire in the chart may fail to understand the intensity of this fear, and may accuse fire of being lazy and self-centred. But the defence mechanisms of fire, which, as we have seen, usually involve some degree of self-aggrandisement or self-mythologising, do not spring from laziness or selfishness in the ordinary sense. They arise from the fear of being trapped and suffocated in the darkness of matter, which, for earth, is not dark at all, but feels like home.

Equally, earth does not cope well with fire’s world. The earth signs may experience deep panic when confronted with the ever-changing, seemingly chaotic flux of fire’s invisible reality. If earth is unable to see what it is dealing with, it may defend itself through the virulent negation of anything other than the tangible. “What are you talking about?” says earth. “What inner self? What cosmic design? Where is it? How can it help you earn a living?” Fiery people may not understand earth’s resistance, and may accuse earth of being obtuse and unimaginative.

Water, as we know, does not cope well with separateness. It cannot bear being alone and apart. Airy people may not understand how unbearable loneliness can be to the water signs, and may accuse water of being manipulative and on a power trip. But while manipulation may be one of water’s weapons of defence, the goal is not domination; it is emotional closeness. And air, as we have seen, cannot cope with emotional suffering for which there is no rational explanation. Naturally it disengages in defence, but this does not reflect a lack of feeling. It is a fear of feeling too much.

The Moon doesn’t exactly enjoy this state of affairs either. Not only Cancerians, but also those with an angular Moon, or a hard aspect between the Moon and Mars, may have a lot of trouble acknowledging and expressing anger. It may be easier for them to inflict pain on themselves, or to collapse under hurt, than it is for them to show anger. Emotional collapse also doesn’t destroy the thing that matters most to the Moon, even if it reveals helplessness and dependency. The relationship is preserved.

Making the other person feel guilty by flagellating oneself is a favourite lunar defence, because one can communicate one’s hurt without that terrible chilling of the atmosphere. A display of helplessness is not threatening to the Moon, because one has managed to protect the thing that matters. But one’s anger might destroy it. As I mentioned earlier, idealisation may be mobilised by Neptune as a defence against the destructive effects of anger. Of course such efforts to preserve the emotional connection may ultimately prove illusory or ineffectual, because other people have a way of picking up an angry Mars even if it is muzzled and locked in the basement. Then the anger may erupt through the other person, who feels manipulated and comes out fighting. But the Moon and Neptune will go on trying.

The Saturn-Sun conjunction suggests a deep sense of isolation and separateness. Saturn throws its barriers up against the natural expression of the sign in which it is placed, and here it would try to block Scorpio’s longing for intense emotional encounter because of a fear of being controlled. Saturn in Scorpio is often deeply fearful of humiliation, and of being at the mercy of someone else’s domination through emotional and sexual needs. So this man may try hard to suppress his passions, or express them only in safe places. A kind of permanent volcanic bubbling is produced, which goes on under the surface of a rather suspicious and highly controlled nature. This results in isolation, because he cannot then fulfill himself with the kind of emotional closeness he craves so much. So it is a very painful aspect for a water sign personality.

Sun-Saturn people often feel terribly alone, even if they are surrounded by friends and lovers. It is part of the price one pays for Saturn’s strength and tenacity. Because Sun-Saturn people tend to work very hard to define themselves as individuals, and often have to do this without any help or support in childhood, they are unable to let go as adults, and can’t simply fuse happily with anyone they care about. Sun-Saturn reflects a powerful need to establish a definite individuality, and this inevitably creates a lot of loneliness.

Mars in Libra needs a “We” in order to function. It does not require someone else to make the decisions. It wants a concensus of opinion to confirm that its decision is the right one. It is a very ethical Mars, because Libra is, as we have already seen, deeply concerned with “right” principles and the application of ethical codes in relationship. Mars is inhibited in Libra. Once again, try to visualise the planet as a living being, a person or personified god. In the Iliad, Homer portrayed Mars as a hirsute brute, three hundred feet tall, muscular, sweaty, and very boorish. He’s too butch to use deodorant, and his language is pretty coarse. But the cosmos has played a trick on him, and placed him in Libra. This brave but insensitive soldier now has to go around in a pale beige Armani silk suit with a flowered bow tie, reeking of Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men, with a gold Cartier watch on his wrist. To make matters worse, he has to sit at a dinner party hosted by the Queen Mother at St James’ Palace, and everyone will be watching to see how he handles his fish knife. Other people will think he looks absolutely fascinating – all that elegance, and the suggestion of brute force lurking beneath. Mars in Libra often exercises a powerful attraction over other people. But how do you think Mars feels? Very, very uncomfortable. He has to do the right thing, you see, and he’s terrified he’ll say something to offend, or use the wrong fork to eat his salad.

One of the reasons why Mars in Libra has trouble in spheres where Mars in Aries does so well, is that Mars in Libra is forever thinking about whether one is doing the right thing. Mars in Aries operates on an instinctive level. One acts on intuition and instinct, without hanging about waiting for approval. Mars in Aries serves Number One. But Mars in Libra says, “Right. I’m now going to make a decision. I’m going to... Er..Um...Now hang on a minute. If I do it, So-and-so will be angry, and maybe he would be right to be pissed off, because it’s really rather selfish of me. But if I don’t do it, then Whatnot will be angry, and I wouldn’t blame her, because she was counting on me. Oh, dear, I know what I want, but what should I do? I’d better ring all my friends and ask them.” After several days have gone by and one has checked with numerous people to solicit their opinions, the moment has passed, and one is left with a feeling of failure and inadequacy. This highly ethical Mars, which is extremely socially sensitive and acutely conscious of fair play, is not going to please those other configurations we were looking at. Although water is sensitive to others’ feelings, the dominant tone of this chart is not particularly concerned with, or motivated by, ethics.

A singleton is a very powerful force in the chart, albeit often unconscious.

Audience: So you are saying that a sign is like a suit of clothes which a planet wears. Liz: Yes, that is one way of looking at it. It is a suit of clothes, a setting in which the clothes are worn, and a formula for behaviour which is required for that setting. It is a part in a play, already scripted, and the planet is the actor who must perform on the set, wear the outfit, and recite the lines. Hence Mars in Libra in the Armani suit at the Queen Mother’s dinner. Some outfits and settings can make a planet extremely uncomfortable. Others are just right and the planet has a wonderful time. A planet in the sign of its detriment or fall is not “weakened”, as older textbooks sometimes tell us. But a great many of the planet’s natural qualities may be inhibited, and it may sit and seethe underneath.

The forbidding quality which Burton displayed may be connected with Saturn’s mistrust and expectation of rejection, which can take the form of “shut them out before they shut you out”. Saturn has great pride, and will not beg. And of course the same may be said of Scorpio. In contrast, some Sun-Saturn people are so defended against their loneliness that they do not know they are feeling it. They may appear to be rabidly extroverted, because they are trying desperately not to experience the Saturnian sense of solitude and separateness. Yet it is immediately recognisable by other people, on a gut level if not a conscious one, and the performance may fail to achieve its purpose. It may be far better to acknowledge and express what one is. The friendships one forms, although perhaps fewer, are more likely to be authentic, and if more voluble people are put off, they may not be the right friends in the first place.

Pluto itself, however, is in a state of permanent defence. It is nature’s defence against stagnation. Pluto is concerned with survival on the most fundamental level, and therefore life is seen as mortal combat, a perpetual battle between the forces of generation and the forces of decay. Either we take power, or something else will take power over us. This is life in the jungle, where only the fittest survive. There is no welfare state in the jungle to provide a safety net for old, handicapped, or unemployed animals. The weak are destroyed by their own kind for the good of the species. If we don’t eat our enemy, he or she will eat us.

If you perceive love as a battle of opposites – life or death, survival or extinction, dominance or submission – you may have to learn to express this vision in a context where it will not destroy. Write a really gritty novel. Or get it out through painting, or music, or theatre. Find someplace where you don’t have to apologise for it, or feel forced to explain to shallower souls the depths which are so patently obvious to you. Join an amateur acting group. There is no better place for Venus-Pluto than playing Medea, or Lady Macbeth. The arts have always provided a home for Pluto, because it is the one place where we sanction savagery, apart from war. If Pluto has at least one good creative outlet, it is less likely to turn defensively on others. Pluto, like all the planets, has got to be able to live what it is. But its nature is inimical to what we call “civilised” interaction. If you give it an outlet where it can really rip, it makes a lot less trouble on the personal level. The need for intensity and emotional confrontation will still be there, but perhaps not so compulsively.

There is a difference between a Moon-Pluto which is dramatic and intense, and a Moon-Pluto which is compulsively paranoid. Moon-Pluto is always a little mistrustful. It is made like that, and rightly so, because if one senses so much going on beneath the surface, one is vulnerable to others’ unconscious malice and anger in a way a less sensitive person isn’t. To Moon-Pluto, another person’s unspoken rage is as real as a physical punch, and just as painful. But when the suspicion becomes compulsive, and the person begins to avoid social gatherings because everyone seems full of aggression, or he or she starts behaving aggressively toward everyone else, then the defences have begun to interfere with reality, and that person is in trouble. We can recognise compulsiveness in ourselves when our fantasies and reactions are hugely out of proportion to the actual situation, or when we become so obsessed with defending ourselves that we forget how to trust.

One of Aries’ favourite defences, which we haven’t yet mentioned, is that it gets terribly busy. Aries must always be doing something, whether it is athletic or intellectual. This can be a great defence against loneliness and pain. Aries may violently resist inactivity. They can be appalling patients in hospital for this reason, because they often can’t bear to lie quietly and wait for the body to heal. Sagittarius will resist inactivity as well. You may have to learn to be very quiet and still in order to work with the Moon.

Mercury-Moon squares can sometimes reflect the mind used as a defence against feelings.

I would associate Moon-Pluto and Venus-Pluto contacts not necessarily with a fear of abandonment, but with a fear of being humiliated or destroyed through falling under someone else’s emotional power.

What does Gemini need most? Audience: Communication. Liz: Yes, communication is the lifeblood of Gemini. Gemini must feel that there is somebody “out there” with whom to exchange thoughts and feelings. This sign must breathe. It must give out and take in, and give out and take in. It cannot exist in a vacuum; it is a social sign, even if society is a good book. A person with Saturn in Gemini may feel that this very fundamental ingredient of communication, of contact and exchange, was not on offer in childhood, or that the wrong sort was on offer. And deep down, consciously or unconsciously, Saturn in Gemini will usually believe that this is because there is something essentially wrong with wanting to share and communicate.

Why is it so difficult for Saturn in Gemini to feel that people are really listening? Is it really true that the whole world is so intent on its own business that no one has time to pay attention? Or might it have something to do with Saturn’s own closed-mindedness, or Saturn’s own reluctance to communicate in any language other than its own? Why is it so hard for Saturn in Leo to feel that people are really recognising one’s specialness? Might it reflect Saturn’s own reluctance to risk vulnerability through self-exposure? Why is it so difficult for Saturn in Taurus to feel safe and secure in the world? Is the world really such a tough place, or might one’s own attitudes toward security be too inflexible or idealistic? Why does Saturn in Cancer find it so hard to feel wanted? Or might Saturn itself fail to recognise and accept other people’s affection?

Dane Rudhyar made this observation in one of his books. He said that Saturn is the real essence of the individuality, even more than the Sun. It is the one thing in us which can become absolutely our own, because we have to earn it. The Sun, with its bright sense of meaning and individual purpose, is a kind of free gift from the gods. Of course we must be willing to take on the burden of individuality to express the Sun, but if that is accepted, it will light the way without stinting. But with Saturn, nothing is free. Everything must be paid for, and dearly. The radiance of the Sun is invoked largely through intuition, through a recognition of uniqueness and inner purpose. It is like Parsifal’s vision of the Grail, initially vouchsafed without effort. But Saturn requires work, and depends on time to unfold its rewards. There is no way we can have a self-reliant Saturn in infancy. By its nature, it will inevitably experience hurt, because there is not yet any ego to contain and direct it. Saturn in myth is the lord of time. And Saturn’s fruits do not come into being until they are ripe. They must follow a particular process of maturation, and they must be consciously harvested or they will rot on the tree. There is a great mystery about Saturn, that is concerned with the essence of individual identity and the capacity to survive as an independent being in the world. It is through Saturn’s defences that we discover we can survive and remain up and walking regardless of what ...

If Saturn is in an air sign and we feel we are going to be exposed as stupid or intellectually incompetent, we may choose to be around people who are our intellectual inferiors. We may find excuses not to complete our education, because we are terrified of putting our mental abilities to the test. We may avoid jobs which require us to lay our intellectual capacities on the line. With Saturn in a fire sign, we may avoid any situation which requires us to express original ideas or assert our own identity. With Saturn in an earth sign, we may avoid any position of responsibility which requires us to relate competently and sensibly to the mundane world. We may adopt a militantly anti-materialistic philosophy to mask the fact that we feel hopeless at handling material issues. We may set up situations in which we are apparently restricted by other people, or by the nature of the work we do, so that it looks as if life, not our own terror, has thwarted us.

Saturn can create situations of apparently unending frustration, which appear to be the fault of the outer world. The individual may then live with a dreary sense of being limited and denied happiness. But such situations often reflect an unconscious effort to avoid being free, because of the exposure of inadequacy freedom might bring.

Because Saturn is linked with the parents as carriers of the archetype of law and authority, Saturnian parental issues often get projected on authority figures in society, such as employers, government officials, and “the establishment”. Saturn may also be projected on anything which requires us to limit ourselves – in other words, the law and the legal system. There is a certain kind of Saturnian complaint which is monotonous in its regularity and is usually voiced against any law which triggers the individual’s sense of personal inadequacy and frustration. The inevitable rules and restrictions which exist in every society, to preserve mutual respect and civilised behaviour, may stir Saturn’s wound and evoke an angry and self-righteous response, cloaked in political language to deflect the perspicacious observer and also fool oneself.

we get experiences of every planet in the chart whenever the transiting Moon passes over, which is once a month.