When Mars and Saturn clash, whatever manifests in your life is bound to harsh. Saturn is currently transiting my natal Mars. I’ve taken a bunch of cuts lately. Some of them have been deep. To be fair (Mars in Libra), I’ve made some cuts of my own.
There was a time when I’d have been on the floor over the pain of rejection(s). I things like this differently now. I understand the need to prune a tree in order to keep it healthy.
I have seen numerous branches crack and collapse on my own fruit trees over the last few years. They’d been left overloaded with fruit, year after year, until they just gave up. Helllloooo?
Sometimes what is pruned from your life is significant. You don’t recover right away, not because you’re failing but because it takes time to assimilate the loss and regroup.
When you do recover, your shape has changed. It’s important to realize, there is no way to go back. My trees have new branches, bearing fruit, but they are nothing like the branches that cracked off.
Last year, the matriarch of the family that lives next door died. This was their first Christmas without her. It wasn’t the same.
Things can get better though. They heal. So if you’ve taken some harsh cuts recently, keep this in mind.
In fact, I told a client recently, that we are designed to heal. We’ve got to let this happen.
Is Saturn transiting your natal Mars? How’s it going?
I have Mars in Libra exactly on my ascendent, 21°.
It’s strange but only now I feel like I am healing,after 10 years of Pluto squares to my Libra planets. It’s not over yet but I feel and see all around me a seeds of a new life. Climate is changing.
With Pluto crossing IC I will be born again.
Mars transited my Saturn briefly but Saturn will transit my Mars.. that time I got physically hurt from something meant to be pleasurable and bled for some days.. I took it as a taste and waited it out but it was hard..
Now Saturn has begun to transit my Moon.. I am desperate and in a bad mood most of the time and it’s only been some days but it feels “unendurable.” I have added yoga and floor exercises to my routine (I have a 6th house moon) and try to fulfill lists of things to do but it is not doing it. My upper back seems to sometimes fill and heat up with tension between moments and the desperate sadness/anger is hard to endure even though I went through my moon pluto transit. I’m not sure what *type* of things to do to keep the sadness down. Maybe they have to be bigger in scope.
Look into what Elsa has written about using Jupiter to relieve Saturnine problems. Perspective is the name of the game, whether it comes from travel or philosophy or religion or….!
thanks, furiana! Some days it gets all off. Also.. I have Saturn in Sag and have been out in the world..
Sometimes I feel lost, mang. But, I’m taking the pressure off myself with that. I don’t feel at home where I’m from, I tell you that. I think I have to use Moon Saturn to get things done, and Jupiter to get “bigger” things done..
TODAY transiting Saturn is EXACT SQUARE my natal Mars (at the tail end of my Sun-NN-Merc-Mars stellium that covers 10 degrees).
I will be very glad to be done with this particular transit.
Today was brutal. But I will heal.
I do feel on the cusp of a new life, and although I have done A LOT of pruning over the course of this transit, A LOT of good things have also come into my life.
For example, as painful and difficult as today was, YESTERDAY was incredibly awesome. Everything that was missing from today, it was there yesterday courtesy of a new person that has come into my life. Night and day.
I need to (and will) DISENGAGE from today’s group of people, and actively ENGAGE with this new person.
Good for you, Tango!
Yes, Saturn is squaring my Mars too now, plus I’m having my Mars return in Aries. I’m older, so it seems to be working in a more stabilizing way this time. Saturn is steadying and supporting my Mars. When I was younger this situation would mean speeding tickets. Or challenging a teacher. Or fighting with my dad!
It’s not exact until tomorrow but I’m going to go for a long fast walk up a steep hill to make sure this energy gets a positive expression.
Hi, I’m 53 and Saturn will be square my natal mars soon and exact 3 times over the next full year. I already feel like I’ve been dealing with this theme of blocks and hard work not paying off. I hope like you, I’ve already laid a solid foundation and it can help me stabilize. My mars is in Sag so I still blow a gasket now and again. I’m coming off the heels of years of pluto pain and struggle and need some joy not more anguish!
Think in terms of making a discipline effort towards a goal that fits with your ideals.
I am about to go thru this one…Im the same age and have mars in Sag @ 2deg…and I am hoping for the same outcome as you!
wishing us the best!!
Hi M! Me too, 53 with this Saturn transit squaring natal Mars three times this year; with the first wave starting this week. I’ve just come out of Saturn in my 10th these past 3 years and feel like my hard work will never pay off!! Plus the recent ingress of Saturn into Pisces at 0 degrees lit up my Uranus and Jupiter both at 0 degrees natal in the 6th house. It’s been a crappy month!!
I have natal Mars in Libra at 19 degrees. Speaking of pruning, I just got done pruning and cutting down many trees in my yard at the beginning of the square. Now, I am going through years of paperwork and shredding up a lot of it.
So far, I’m getting a lot of things done with this transit.
Here is a follow up to my previous post… shortly after I posted it, I found out that an older friend who’d been a father to me had just died.
He had Mars at 14 Aries too – so also being squared by Saturn. Pluto conjunct his Sun today. He was a big astronomer, (and had his moon at 5 Leo) so how cool of him to pick this full moon in Leo eclipse to make his exit.
Astrology is amazing.
My condolences on the loss of your friend, aspire
Thanks so much. Going to go out and howl at that moon now.
Saturn is conjunct my natal Mars, more or less. It feels perfectly natural. (Capricorn Mars in the 10th)
My natal Mars in libra 22 degrees
Saturn is exactly square my natal Mars right now. I have to really force myself to get out of the house and do things. Any kind of initiative feels tedious. I took a big cut back in December, someone I saw everyday and was super close to for two and a half years died. I am near the end (just started the last semester) of my grad school program and I’m expecting it to be the most difficult semester yet. I just have to buckle down and get it done, I’ll try my best.
Sorry for the loss of your friend in December, la_sirena, and good luck with your semester! You will ace it, with your buckle down attitude!
Thank you
Saturn will conjunct my natal Mars on house 8 in February, my life has been hell so far with Saturn in house 7, making conjunction to Neptune, seeing the worst of people, stalking, harassment, people wanting to cut my head off for no reason.
This Saturn will join Pluto already making conjunction with natal Mars and sextiling Jupiter. Really hope it is softened a little.
It did, recently. Took me about a year and a half to bounce back even as I gave it everything. At times it was excruciatingly painful, and those are the bad news – but the good news is that if you stick with what you really got, what you truly know.. if you let yourself get pushed back all the way to basics – and sometimes it was a basic as in “breathe in, breathe out” – you’ll be fine.
And the fruits are just as juicy! The tree is different than the one you pictured, that’s all.
I have n Mars at 20° Libra , so I guess Saturn isn’t “actively” aspecting it yet, but I’ve been having a very hard time getting things done. It’s a torture to be so ineffective. This dynamic is a spiral – the worse it gets, the worse it gets! I don’t know how to stop this downward movement.
I hate to think of what it’ll be like when the transit is full on.
And Pluto is currently squaring my Mars, in 12th. I’m not sure how it works, what to expect, although I looked this up. I read and don’t understand.
When both planets will be squaring my wimpy Mars… Egads! Go hide in a hole & hibernate. (Nope, not a solution)
We are all feeling this is some way. Remember, there is no cure, never will be. There is healing, if you allow it.
When Tr Saturn conjunct my 7H Virgo Pluto and squaring my 4H Gemini Mars my marriage imploded. Nothing was salvageable.
I would be remiss if I didn’t add that new, bountiful life experiences were gained as a result of this “pruning.”
Thanks for this post, Elsa. The pruning analogy is lovely and so right on. Saturn is trining my Mars at the moment, but as a gardner, I understand getting rid of the ‘deadwood’ to make a tree [life] healthy again. Saturn is also opposing my Mercury, so have been down in the dumps with heavy thoughts. This too shall pass.
Today tr Mars is exactly square my Saturn which is exact on 2nd return. So the energies would be similar, but faster moving maybe?
It was all I could do today to not quit and move myself into a small house on a remote beach. I feel reckless. and like scratching the itch no matter the consequences. And I still might, tomorrow.
I didn’t know why I felt so extra itchy this morning, midday thought to look and saw the exact Mars square and thought wow astrology is amazing, and then saw this post. Voila, astrology and synchronicity all in one day.
Saturn was conjunct my 5 degrees Cap natal Mars on and off all of last year. Whew! ..am I glad that’s over now that Saturn has progressed further on down the line. I am not sure of everything I went through and/or was feeling with this exact transit but I do know I had some sexual issues probably thanks to Saturn constricting my Mars appetite.
All I can say is thank goodness it’s not a T-Square with my Jupiter in early 7H Cancer. Any time something goes into my 4th house, it aggravates everything in my life.
When Saturn conjoined jupiter at zero degree in aquarius.saturn square my natal mars at 29 degree plus and jupiter square my natal mars near December 21st ,2020.this is opposition of lunar ecilipse at 0 degree in leo on January 21st, 2019.very low and new beginnings.
I have Saturn mars natally and I think it looks like stymied action. I am so used to road blocks at all angles! But…I’ve found there is ALWAYS at least one path open. So I take that and go where it leads me. There’s always a beautiful fitting reason for it later. These are the paths no one would ever be able to justify taking, but they turn into golden brick roads for me. Getting into astrology was one of these roads. I had a job that was so boring for so long that I needed something to mark the time. I thought astrology was ridiculous at the time, (“how can anyone POSSIBLY believe this stuff?”) So it was a hugely curious thing. I found Elsa and started to play with it, acting as if it were real, to get inside the head of someone who believed such a ridiculous thing. Of course, anyone who studies it seriously realizes there’s more than meets the eye. My job was so dull that I was able to learn how to feel the distinct energies of the different transits. It turned out to be incredibly rich and a powerfully useful tool that I’ve relied on for over ten years. It got me through Pluto in Capricorn and the Uranus Pluto square, and all the intense stuff the past decade—much of which hit my chart intensely.
So, thank you Saturn mars for blocking off so many other roads that I had no choice but to either sulk in self pity or learn astrology! 😉
I have Venus and Mars conjunct in Pisces square Neptune in Sagittarius. Saturn was going back and forth in Sagittarius conjunct my Neptune and squaring my Venus and Mars AND then my Moon in Aries over Jan 2017-Dec 2018 and it was the most traumatic period of my life in 36 years.
Welcome, Anna.
Saturn is currently opposing my cancer mars via transit but it’s also conjunct my Neptune and Uranus. I’ve been going through these all of 2019 until December… best way I can describe this whole experience is painful. I’m going thru so much pain and desperately looking for solutions. But the more I learn about these transits, the more I realize that I just have to face it until the transit ends and by then I’ll have some answers.
I really hope because this all really hurts.
Welcome, Lee! 🙂
I have been going through one of the most difficult experiences in my life while Saturn transiting in Capricorn is squaring my natal Mercury, Venus, Mars and Sun which are all in Aries. It feels as though
you are being punished for a crime that you didn’t commit. Everything seems to fail, no matter how hard you try. There is the deep feeling of loneliness especially after a ten year relationship came to an end. I have been lonely many years before, but l have and l am presently experiencing this transit almost as an unbearable feeling of isolation and deep loneliness even though l have many friends and family who unfortunately live a long distance from me, but l see them occasionally but not often. As l am a professional astrologer myself l have to take a philosophical attitude of acceptance and faith that this extremely painful experience is teaching me something more deeply about myself and relationships. I will just have to surrender to this experience even though l don’t fully understand the necessity of all this pain but to have faith that l will understand the meaning and purpose of all this when the transit is over. I take comfort in your view that things don’t get better – but they heal, if we allow this healing to take place. Dr David Hawkins says that instead of allowing the ego to fight against that which is painful, we surrender to the experience and find that healing takes place.
Peace brother. I’m sorry you’re for the messed up transits. I’ve been going through a lot as well so I can relate. I want to just go to sleep and wake up when they’re over. I hope time speeds up for you. I know it’s really hard and I can definitely relate to nothing working out despite the effort. We’re going to look back in a few months with so much relief and gratitude and a new outlook…I promise.
That does sound like a lot. 🙁
I’ve been going through a Saturn mars conjunction all year. Your trials sound familiar! I also moved away from my support network—to New England, where it literally takes years to make friends because people are suspicious if you seem too friendly. Lol So it’s been a very solitary time, which makes you feel like there’s something wrong with you. (There’s not!)
It’s also been a time if one foot on the gas and the other on the brakes. I have both Saturn and mars in cancer natally, and I’m an Aries sun exactly conjunct Chiron squaring Saturn, so it’s familiar energy and I’ve learned how to work it somewhat. All year I have hit by roadblock after roadblock in my big plans for moving forward. It’s been over a year and I haven’t even been able to change residency or get my stuff moved out because I’ve had much less money than expected, partly due to illegal disability policies at my grad school, etc. But I know it’s really just Saturn delays. One thing I’ve been more aware of is my Aries/mars need to have what I want NOW. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. But this sense of frustration is now so familiar that I’m starting to see the pattern. 😉 It’s like the mars action comes across as aggressive and out of bounds and then people react by stonewalling. So I’ve tried to just chill out and expect long, long, long delays. With Saturn mars—and this is critical—there is ALWAYS a path forward. It’s just hard to find it. BUT it’s the right one. It’s like being in an electrified maze. You’ll bump up into every damn wall and get zapped but you will find your way through eventually. I learned this from the natal experience. Now I trust that the one stupid random thing I can make any progress on (which seems COMPLETELY irrelevant and a waste of time) will turn out to be a huge gift in the end. That’s actually how I learned astrology. I had an unbelievably tedious job for four years and I couldn’t distinguish one day from the next—but I could do as much online research as I liked, so I got into tracking the planets (and reading Elsa!) Since I was in such a neutral experience I was actually able to feel the different transits. Silver lining! 😉
So this year I will be celebrating the release of this transit but also grateful for what I’ve learned from it. Right now I’m doing a round of working through issues from that job that left me disabled from bullying (my boss had Saturn directly conjunct my mars), so I’m expecting to make forward progress on my health and career rehab as a result.
So don’t lose hope! The other thing it has taught me is absolute tenacity. It feels like reaching the end of my rope over and over and over and just having no other choice but to pick up and get back in the horse. Literally every week because my school refused to change the lighting in the classroom, which left me reeling and ill from new intense concussion symptoms EVERY DAMN WEEK. I may as well have slammed my head into the walk every time I walked in the door. End result is I now have improved my capacity to prevent and treat any symptoms, since I had the chance to tweak my approach each week. And the mood swings have released a ton of pent up emotion which has been contributing to my other illness. So I guess I’d say Saturn mars is most like a crucible. You’ll be burned to dust but then transform into something else. It’s all about learning how to best manage the experience of hopelessness, futility and frustration. I’ve learned to be as upbeat and patient and cheerful as possible. And to not FEEL traumatized by everything. I think of it as my navy seal training year. 😉 I’m learning how to be a cheerful badass!
Hang in there! And watch some navy seal training videos for inspiration. 🙂
Small correction: my transit is actually Capricorn Saturn-cancer mars opposition, which is why others stonewall me when I want to get my way NOW 😉 and I feel unloved and actively neglected to the point of harm.
Divorce, socopath wife and Mars in 23° Libra. Our trial date is January 13, 2020 at the time of the clash of titans. My (hope soon-to-be ex) wife’s acs capricorn, Mars in libra 17° Saturn n Libra°26 Degree, she has aries placements as well… Fate it seems is not without a sense of irony.
My Saturn will be exact square Mars on March 5th 2020. I’m a Pieces with Aquarius rising 7 degrees, Taurus moon 8 degrees. So much coming up! You know what I’m talking about. I watch my planets everyday and try not to be scared out of my wits. Recently have kidney stone pain I’m having to deal with. Seem as if I can’t get things going because of the pain experiencing, I’m retire and have so much planned but I’ll keep y’all posted.
Ugh. Nothing like kidney stone pain! I passed my first. I now drink 80oz of water a day, without fail.
I’m hoping, never again!
Hi. Saturn is currently squaring my natal Mars at 2°. I got into a car accident last night, and it could have easily been avoided. It was my first accident, too. I was really calm about everything, though. The lady who witnessed the crash said I was a bit ‘too calm’ about everything. I’ll definitely be more careful and aware next time. I had pent up anger and decided to drive. Never doing that one again…
Welcome, Davana. I’m glad you’re okay. You might have been a bit shocked after the accident; comes across as “calm”.
My Mars is 27 deg and Saturn has been squaring it on and off for the past few months. I have had an enormous amount of pressure and responsibility on me with work and having the kids at home during COVID. Mostly I just don’t feel supported and am constantly frustrated. I am trying daily to keep calm and at ease, but it hasn’t been easy, most days I want to throw in the towel.
Welcome!
I’m so glad this thread popped up in my email this morning. I just finished writing a paper about an experience I had that embodies this energy, plus an 11th house Mars 4th house Neptune opposition —being scapegoated in a group of women.
After ten years of trying to process the experience—an exquisitely painful one—I’ve come to several conclusions. First, a natural leader can easily become a target if she isn’t careful—due to envy, or ignoring/being blissfully unaware of someone’s feelings, assuming the group is in accord when actually there are simmering resentments waiting for an opportune time to erupt into a power grab. Secondly, it’s critical to actively seek to share power rather than allowing it to consolidate in one person, as many group members will happily hand over their power to a charismatic leader, turning the group dynamic into more of an inadvertent autocracy than democracy. Such a situation becomes ripe for shadow factions and intrigue, as people feel disempowered and less likely to discuss issues openly, or to challenge the authority of he leader in a healthy way.
Elsa, you’ve talked a lot about being saddled with other people’s neptunian projections, and I’m wondering if as this group’s (charismatic!) leader you’ve noticed anything similar, or have any thoughts about my theory?
Thanks!
Yes, I think the scenario as you describe it is virtually guaranteed, at every level, in any realm. In other words, AI, will hunt for people with charisma or leadership ability, and neutralize the threat.
Whoa—now that is a fascinating take on the subject! AI as its own political faction, competing with humans for leadership roles…and likely winning of course…that is absolutely terrifying.
You might like the futures scenario club at Urgent Optimists. It’s a really fascinating group and the stuff people are sharing there is about as consistently mind-bending as I’ve seen anywhere. And fun too, as they run scenario games to get people thinking really creatively about the future. (I’m not affiliated, just think you might find it interesting…delete if you need to!)