Saturn in our natal chart represents a place where we can feel limited, painfully inadequate, fearful, or experience delays. But there is a purpose behind Saturn’s seemingly negative effect on our life: Saturn wants us to grow up, take responsibility, and develop our inner authority. If we are willing to face ourselves and do the work to overcome our fears, we develop the strength and power we wanted all along.
We have a page about Saturn if you want to learn more. I also highly recommend Liz Greene’s book Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil, which is the basis for a lot of my thoughts on Saturn.
Saturn in Virgo in the Natal Chart
Core Conflict
Vulnerabilities
- frustration with routine aspects of life never being quite right
- feeling frustrated in menial jobs but feeling unable to leave
- irritation or frustration at being under-appreciated
- inner conflict leading to moodiness or depression
- ill health
- self-doubt
- inability to delegate
- fear of taking risks
Defenses
- being critical
- rigidity
- perfectionism
- subservience mistaken for humility
- avoidance of work required to develop skills
- defensive response to criticism
- obsession with details to avoid inner work or facing dissatisfaction
- avoiding challenge or growth to avoid failure
The Work
- do inner work to sort through feelings
- accept that growth involves making mistakes & do the work anyway
- learn to take feedback with grace
- translate the inner critic to understand your needs
- let go of control and accept messiness of life
- practice taking small risks
- develop self-care routines that foster internal order & calm
- learn self-attunement
Transformation
- true humility
- a sense of inner wholeness or completeness unto oneself
- serenity
- inner attunement
- healing ability & insight
- being fulfilled in service
- physical and psychological wellness
The Saturn Growth Journey
The Saturn journey involves a coupling of need and fear. There can be shyness, stiff awkwardness, and/or emotional coldness and a sense of inadequacy in an area where we badly want to feel confident and capable. And we just don’t. Where others experience ease, we struggle. Where others find things obvious, we have to painstakingly puzzle things out. Where others dance, we stumble. That’s just the way Saturn feels.
If we can’t face our pain, we can end up projecting our unowned negative qualities onto others, or trying to satisfy emotional needs with physical ones and replacing inner work with outer achievement. We look outside ourselves for what we need to develop within ourselves.
Eventually, we realize there is no shortcut. The only way to our goal is to just do the work, by ourselves, for as long as it takes.
