I stated on the Paul Newman post that I have had the ambition to not only live well but to die well and Jessica asked:
“Why do you say 8 years old, Elsa? Isn’t that about the age you got into astrology, too?”
Jessica, it is. For this Capricorn rising, 8 years old (give or take) was a defining moment in life. This coincides with the first Saturn square which is invariably inordinately important for for Saturn types.
My son has Saturn conjunct his Sun and I wrote about his first Saturn square a few times. One example I also went on record to say I thought it quite possible his life would never be as difficult as what he endured 7-8 years old and this the the point:
My feeling / experience is that if you get a hack on a Saturn type at the first Saturn square you’ll have a pretty good idea of their character. Commitments are made, I’ll tell you that.
In my case, I committed to learning astrology. I committed to being a good person or more specifically, I decided I would be the best person I could every day of my life. I also decided I’d like to die well as I had seen others do this and I adopted some of my grandfather’s (Saturn) philosophies.
I drew lines all over the place. “I will be like this person / I will not be like that person.” I found role models, see?
And the incredible thing is I have stuck by every single thing I nailed down at the time all my life and I am pretty sure my son will do the same.
Are we serious? Well yeah, we are.
What happened at your first Saturn square (7-8) years old?
Sun/Saturn in 9H Aquarius part of a grand cross. When I turned 8 I moved to another country to live there for about 5 years. Went there for my first Saturn square and came back around the first trine.
Huge learning experience because obviously I didn’t speak a word of the new language so I had to learn and adapt. It was very difficult as the culture was totally different too.
But now after almost 40 years I am using the language skills for work, so all in all the learning is serving me well.
My grandfather died of lung cancer. We were living on a bit of land he and my grandmother owned. She lost her mind a bit and sold it all, forcing my parents to move with very little resources. We moved a few times over the years between age 7 and 9. My reality dissolved so often I didn’t know what was what. I don’t know that I understood any of it and I’m not sure what lessons I might have taken from it. Maybe that reality shifts. My mother had promised my sister and I that we would stay there on my grandparents land forever.
Saturn in Pisces in the 4th and part of a t-square with my Gemini sun involved so it was my first Saturn square as well as my first Saturn transit to my sun. Mom’s a Pisces btw.
My close friend/playmate was killed in a freak accident literally like thirty minutes after I left her house. I was devastated, but coped really well I suppose. It had a direct impact on me through my mother who became super-protective and anxiety-ridden because of it.
I always wonder what is in store for my Sun, Moon, Venus, and Chiron in Capricorn daughter. I’m not sure if I should be afraid for her or what. I know that Cappy is supposed to be a toughy, but I see such heart in her, and I hope she never loses that.
Got it! You could have committed to just about anything, but “being a good person” sounds to me a total Venus-Neptune thing. Aiming for the highest ideal of goodness and being more worthy of your own and everyone’s love.
Just before my first Saturn square, Saturn crossed my Sun. I don’t have a lot left in my life from that time, commitment or otherwise, because hey, Pluto was there too. Saturn and Pluto conjoined on the degree of my Sun when I was 7. However, I do clearly remember a later moment (age 12) when I committed to an ideal of forgiveness and love (had to do with my parents). I just checked the ephemeris and it was the summer that Saturn squared my Venus (ruler of my Sun). I really think that’s interesting.
wow… while I was posting, Lupa posted – same thing with me! we moved and my reality dissolved – crazy with the Saturn-Sun at the first Saturn square.
Hey Elsa have you heard Allen Ginsberg’s “Father Death Blues”? (Click my name for a video at You Tube.)
We studied with the same Buddhist Rinpoche up in Michigan when I still lived there in the ’80s but I was too chicken to ever talk to him.
Anyway, I love that poem-song.
There was a serial killer of children killing kids in the Detroit area at the time. It was a weird time to be a kid. Everyone was scared – parents freaking out. The neighborhood kids made up games about it. One of the victim’s body got dumped in a park a couple miles from my house.
Never did catch the killer.
So I remember that & also getting my tonsils out.
Jilly – ::chills::
I am a Sun conjunct Saturn (taurus, 7th). When I was 8, my dad married his second wife. She took over our lives and physically abused my little brother and I everyday for the next 6 years, and nobody knew this was happening. When I was 8, I started keeping a journal. I wrote everything down. I knew that life could only get better, never worse. I still keep a journal to remind myself …
I love this. Hard. The thing I remember the most about my 1st Sun/Saturn square was having my hair forcibly cut off by my Mum. It was traumatizing but for some reason I never thought about its emotional consequence until I had my Saturn Return.
At that point,
-Saturn was opposing my Sun
-Saturn was opposing my Mum’s natal Saturn (which is in Taurus, like my Sun)
-Saturn was conjunct my Dad’s natal Mercury in Scorpio
-This Saturn conjunction was opposing my Sun…
Basically my Mum was losing her mind and my Dad was literally underground…he was a silent witness and as a child that silence is deafening.
I see Mercury Rx is swallowing things, ha.
urgh. things meaning my comment!
We moved from Albuquerque to West Virginia the summer I turned 8. By the time the moving van got to where we were (after the long cross country drive in two cars with me, Mom, my aunt, my grandmother, my middle brother and the most neurotic dog on the planet) everyone was so damned miserable they told the driver to turn that thing around and take it back to Albuquerque. We lived (all of us) in a one bedroom apartment for about two months when Mom and Aunt bought a house together and we all moved in there.
That didn’t last long, though, because Aunt and Mom didn’t do well in such close quarters daily. So Mom and I moved again, into our own apartment. My grandmother did the same thing shortly after when Aunt brought home her last husband (aptly named Dick) from a bar and he moved in.
It was chaos. It’s the reason that even though there are no jobs here, I cannot leave this area and pull my children from their support systems now that my marriage is over.
**
My Boy, the mega Capricorn (Saturn is First House Aquarius, square MC)…when he was eight, he was stealing the tickets the teachers gave out for “Being Unusually Good” from his teacher’s desk and getting stuff in the school store for them. And I am now more afraid for him than I’ve ever been, which is seriously saying something. If that is when he made his choice what to be, and he has continued along the line with the lies and the diversions to cover his ass…well, shit.
Shit.
My nearby grandma died. According to at least one, this inspired a series of life/home/family changes that happened a year or so later. It was close to the time that my remaining nearest living sibling moved away, too. My mom showed her high level of insecure neediness about then… her moon’s square my saturn.
Kind of hilarious, astrologically, what I was doing in life 180 degrees later.
I taught myself to read. I was given a pity pass to get into grade two on account of my incredibly poor reading skills (I also couldn’t tie my shoe laces, tell time or determine left from right) and I went from remedial help with reading at the beginning of the year to a grade eight level ability by the end of the school year, I also got better at telling hte time, learned o tie my shoe laces – I still have to make ‘L’s with my hands ot find left though . . I also decided I wasn’t going to be like Deirdre (my older sister) or Leanne P. (who’d just transfered into my school and begun making my life hell). I decided I’d sooner be unpopular and myself (even if it made me unhappy) than just whatever Leanne wanted me to be in order to be friends with the other kids.
Sun in Capricorn (maybe capricorn rising) Saturn square my sun natally (and cnj jupiter, which if I’m not cap rising, I’m sagittarius rising). My first saturn square saturn would have been going over my sun and mercury.
“I see such heart in her, and I hope she never loses that.” Some of them never do, no matter what.
Cap Sun/Rising, Saturn conjunct Pluto on the MC
When I was 8 Uranus was crossing over my Asc and Saturn was making a grand tour of my packed 1st house (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus).
My mother was was making counterfeit money and hot off the heels of her divorce with my father and brought a sexually abusive boyfriend into our house. My father, upset over many things became physically abusive towards my brother and I…my mother was also bi polar and attempted suicide in front of me twice. She was arrested for her crimes and my father moved us from California to Alabama.
I became the family pillar that year like the good Cappy I am…kept care of my Pisces Rising Gem brother and my Aries father, and buried my pain and struggle.
I have a Moon/Venus/Mars in Aquarius, you better believe I kept composure..(well, until Uranus hit my Sun and I liberated myself from my family)!
All of these things really shaped who I have become today.
Thank you Kashmiri–that is comforting.
My Dad died on the day T. Saturn (with T. Mars) in 12H squared my Saturn/MC. I wasn’t quite 8 yet. This was positive for me in the long run (T. Uranus in 10H trine Sun – new parental figures, T. Pluto trine my 4H Jupiter – a new home.) I remember thinking ‘I’m glad he died now because I’m old enough to live without him. There is a reason for this (N. Saturn in 9H.) If we’d spent more time together it only would’ve been sadder.’
I think I dealt with it by retreating into my own world to be honest (T. Neptune trine Mercury. I also lied a lot that year.) I was nowhere near as clear headed as Elsa lol. I did become obsessed with reading that year, mostly fantasy – Carson Leven and J.K. Rowling. I think deep down I knew I wanted to be a writer. At the funeral I kept thinking ‘pay attention to everything, not a lot of kids go to their Dad’s funeral, this is good material!’ but all the words I could think of felt so cliche` and hollow compared to the actual experience. I realized there was a difference between pretending something and actually living it.