what saturn is teaching me about authority + self-trust

As Saturn moves through Aries, it’s colliding with my midheaven and approaching my sun, mercury, and venus. I’m also in my Saturn square, a moment of revisiting themes that came up 7 years ago during my Saturn return.

And I feel the weight.

I hear Saturn saying: okay, let’s get serious and stop messing around.

Here’s one example.

Last week, I returned to some of my magical and deep animist practices after a season away. I first stepped into that work during my Saturn return, and while it was deeply nourishing and life-affirming, I mostly stepped back from it a few years ago, in large part due to my first pregnancy but also because I was struggling with questions of authority.

Because at a certain point in the work, I began to feel an inner tension that was difficult to carry - between following the external directives and specific instructions from the teacher and listening to and trusting myself. I was new to the work, and I wanted to respect it and do it right, but I also sensed I needed to be anchored in self. Still, I often struggled to know how and when to exercise self-trust and discernment.

And all of that came back last week when I returned to some of the practices.

The same questions remained: Who am I here? What is within my authority? How do I engage the work and traditions respectfully and responsibly?

This tension between self and other, between following external instructions and trusting myself, is such a Saturn in Aries quandary – and Saturn asked me to face it head-on.

Here's where I've landed so far:

I believe it’s important to trust people who know more than we do. I’m aware that my fiery Aries nature will barrel ahead without looking back, which can be both reckless and careless but also catalytic and powerful. I also know there is a root of self-trust to which we must all return. Because even if we place our trust in an external authority, that is a choice we make, and there is an internal mechanism we turn to in making those choices, hopefully grounded in our internal knowing and wisdom. 

I feel Saturn inviting me into the heart of this, and at this juncture, I’m seeing how much of my life I’ve tried to “get it right” – intellectually, pragmatically, morally – to land somewhere solid and clear, even when that’s not always possible, useful, or even the right question.

Right now, it’s time to be in that push/pull – and become big and sturdy enough to hold the tension of the unanswered or unanswerable question without crumbling.

This is the authority Saturn invites (as I understand it today) – not arriving at the “right” answer we cling to at all costs, but deepening our capacity to be in the messiness of life, navigating the unknowable currents with discernment, dignity, and duty to what matters most.

So if you're in a Saturn season, notice where you're being asked to deepen and solidify capacity, foundations, and authority. What is that invitation for you? 

chiron + woundedness + the unshatterable self

Chiron moved into Taurus on Friday after a 7-year journey through Aries. We’re not quite done – Chiron will dip back into Aries beginning September through April. 

Still, this move marks a shift in energy, especially in our relationship with woundedness and healing.

Chiron is that tender part of us that hurts – and transiting Chiron forces a confrontation with whatever hurt in us has not yet been tended.

It’s easier not to look, not to feel, not to know when it comes to our wounds, but Chiron knows this feeling + knowing is the first step – and that we’re here to tend, heal, and carry what hurts in this life.

Sometimes that looks like loving compassion, gentle space-holding, and/or deepening to carry what will never fully resolve. 

All of it is sacred work.

The last 7 years have been a journey of upturning hurts related to our sense of agency – our ability to do, move, and express boldly and courageously.

Transiting Chiron asked:

What does it mean to be wounded fire? To have and claim agency when it feels like it’s all being stripped away?

This is especially true for you if you have any Aries placements.

As a creature of Aries myself (midheaven, sun, mercury, and venus), I have had many conversations (and fistfights) with Chiron over the past several years.

As a fiery being, I always understood agency as physical strength + bright energy + unstoppable vitality. My sense of self was wrapped up in this specific definition of power and agency, and when that was threatened over the past few years, when I felt weak + diminished, vulnerable + wounded – I wasn't even sure who I was anymore.

But this stripping away was also an invitation deeper – a revelation that my definitions of agency and self were too narrow.

Chiron asked me to journey deeper – into what it meant to have agency when I felt I had none, into what true + abiding + unshakable personal power actually looks like, even in difficult circumstances. Chiron showed me the way.

Transits and cycles (whether we’re talking about Chiron are something else) are rarely easy. But they are gateways into our becoming. And our becoming is a sacred imperative in this life.

So whether you’re dancing with Chiron or another planet – whatever is breaking, dying, or falling away for you – I’d encourage you to consider this:

What if these losses were actually invitations into a deeper and grittier relationship with the part of self being fractured, shattered, or killed off?

Who is the YOU on the other side -- still here, still becoming?

what elemental season are you in?

When I look at a chart for the first time, I start with the elements.

What’s the balance of fire, earth, water, and air here?

Those four simple frequencies we experience every day hold so much.

But we can also look at the elements in terms of season.

What’s the elemental flavor and frequency of this season of life, and what's that inviting?

And is it in tension with what's most alive in our charts?

For instance, I have a fire and air chart. I like to move boldly, act quickly, and think frenetically.

But I’m in an earthy and watery season.

A season defined by care and connection, logistics and limits – a time when, no matter how much my fire and air pull at me for more speed, drama, and energy, I’m feeling pulled elsewhere – into home and family, and all the watery emotional connection and earthy embodied care this realm of life demands.

This doesn’t mean my fire and air have gone away – what we come in with never does. It just means I’m holding it differently – alongside the roots and the flow my life needs right now.

It’s so helpful – even life-changing -- to understand the nuance, complexity, and power in our natal charts.

But our relationship to our chart (and to ourselves) is meant to change, as we're pulled in different directions over a lifetime-- through cycles, transits, and the shifting circumstances of our lives.

This can be challenging, but it’s also where it gets interesting.

Because it forces questions.

Like, for me: What does it mean to be fully alive in my fire in the presence of limits? What might it look like to be bold, fierce, and passionate when I’m swimming into the watery realm of deep feeling? How do I hold the tension, paradox, and frustration of this season?

These questions don't have easy answers, but when I can stay with them, my imagination and my world get bigger.

So know yourself.

But also remember that forces beyond your control will keep pulling you into new seasons that will change your relationship to that knowing.

Growth is the point.

moons + mysteries + what astrology is really about

I’m an air moon surrounded by water moons (my partner and 2 children).

Where I need space to think and room to breathe, they need emotional immersion and intimacy.

Where they feel what’s flowing under the surface, attuned to the subterranean emotional currents others miss, I experience emotional resonance in the exchange of words and ideas.

Where I lean away and take space to recalibrate, they lean forward, seeking regulation with closeness.

And this simple thing – understanding that air and water are two different elemental frequencies – has done so much to make sense of who I am as a relational being and what that means for my connections with others.

Because astrology is not just about understanding ourselves with more depth, clarity, and nuance. It’s also a way of recognizing the other – noticing what’s real + alive for another person and how that’s different from what’s real + alive for us.

And within that is a deeper invitation to honor the mystery of the other…

…and recognize that each person is a whole universe, a complex web of lived experiences, archetypal threads, and social factors, a deep well that is impossible to grasp, contain, or understand in a definitive sense.

Astrology has deepened my understanding of the human psyche – the inner and outer forces at play in the collective and in our own selves.

But even more than that, it's facilitated an encounter with mystery (in myself, others, and the cosmos).

When I look at another's chart, I feel that mystery deep in my bones.

Astrology helps me navigate that mystery.

...as well as commune with it and inhabit its power more skillfully.

The mystery in you (and others) isn't a problem to solve, it's a spirit to invite, a power to sit with.

What might it mean to invite it closer?

uranus + freedom + an invitation to expansive bigness

Uranus is moving and grooving this week.

After transitioning from Taurus to Gemini back in April, Uranus and the sun will form an exact conjunction (a cazimi) on Friday.

You may or may not feel the impact of this. We sometimes feel these energies of planets moving into new territories, dancing with other planets on the move. But what matters more for you personally is whether or not Uranus is colliding with anything in your own chart.

For those of you with any planets in early degrees of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, or Pisces, this is definitely a Uranian time.

I’m in this camp myself, with Uranus approaching my Jupiter and moon in early degrees of Gemini.

So far, I’ve been noticing Uranus as an energy in the air – an electric charge rumbling in the distance, lightning strikes on the horizon – a subtle reminder to not hold on too tightly.

An invitation into a more relaxed and open relationship with flux, chaos, transformation, and liberation.

Because Uranus breaks apart and shatters whatever is too small for us, whatever we’ve grown beyond (or need to grow beyond). 

Which sounds good, but sometimes those too-small rooms can feel awfully cozy and comfortable. Sometimes, we don’t recognize prison walls until we’re on the other side.

Uranus will not stand for these illusions. It will settle for nothing less than our most expansive bigness.

Part of the Uranian journey is being okay without solid ground, finding as much peace as possible in the unknowing, remembering that so much is yet to unfold that will alter our landscapes and shatter our imaginative frames, ultimately in service of our liberation.

It’s not always easy. The freedom that Uranus insists we have may feel too big, too unimaginable, too disorienting, too costly or demanding. We may not feel ready. 

But Uranus says: too bad; the time is now.

So stay alert to any flavor of stagnation or smallness. Release what you can in advance. Begin a conversation with the spirit of flux, chaos, and change. Consider what liberation means for you. Notice where freedom and bigness are calling your name.

All of this will support Uranus in doing its sacred work.