Saturn, the father of Jupiter (Zeus), was a most terrifying god to primitive man. Originally called Chronos (Time), and often confused with the Titan Cronus, it was the ancients all-devouring Black Hole with the longest observable repeatable period in the sky, which is around 30 years. Also known as Aeon, he is often depicted as an elderly man with a long gray beard.

Saturn rules Capricorn and the 10th House (Public Image, Career and Destiny). In the body Saturn rules the bones, skin, and spleen.

As the god of agriculture, Saturn founded human society, and social order. The period of his rule was known as a golden age on Earth, honored by the Saturnalia feast.

Beginning on December 17, the Saturnalia was celebrated for 7 days. All business stopped and executions and military operations were postponed. It was a period of goodwill, devoted to banquets and the exchange of visits and gifts. Slaves were freed, given places of honor at the family table and served by their masters.

Saturn (the stern father figure) and Capricorn horoscopes are associated with restrictions, limitations and fear. But those qualities have their purpose, as they call us to examine those self-imposed limitations within ourselves and free ourselves from them.

Saturn is by nature cold and dry, a melancholy, earthy, masculine, solitary, and diurnal planet. When Saturn rules the ascendant (rising sign), the native is of average stature and dark or pale complexion, has small black eyes, broad shoulders, and black hair, and is ill shaped about the lower extremities.

When Saturn is well dignified, the native is grave and wise, studious and severe, of an active and penetrating mind, reserved and patient, constant in attachment but implacable in resentment, upright and inflexible. If the planet is ill dignified, then the native will be sluggish, covetous, and distrustful; stubborn, malicious, and malcontented.

Capricornians are unable to keep to themselves, and can spread gloom, tension and depression to everyone around them. In the extreme this trait can make them manic-depressive, ecstatic happiness alternating with the most wretched kind of misery for no reason that the subject of these emotions can name.

“Capricious”, they can be surprisingly and suddenly witty and subtle for the dull, prosaic creatures they seem to be, and they also have a tendency to ruin everything earned by their caution and shrewdness by unexpected and utterly irresponsible bouts of flippancy. Another unexpected quality in some Capricornians is an interest in the occult which persists in spite of their naturally skeptical turn of mind.

With subtle intellects, they are capable of profound thoughts with little originality, have good memories and an insatiable yet methodical desire for knowledge. They are rational, logical and clearheaded, have good concentration, delight in debate in which they can show off their cleverness and logic.

Faults to which the type is prone are over-conventionality, bigotry, selfishness, avarice and miserliness, chronic complaining, incessant unnecessary worrying, and severity spilling over into cruelty.

This is a highly practical, unemotional planet, associated with concrete reality, material things, rules and laws, and authority. Saturn is not a creative influence; rather it reminds us of our duty to act responsibly to maintain the established social order, and to develop self-discipline for order in our life and to persist during times of hardship. Those qualities, in turn, are associated with ambition and careers.

Saturnine types of individuals form strong goals early in life, and devote much of the available time to fulfilling them. Serious, focused, reliable, dutiful, responsible and capable beyond their years, they can also be somber perfectionists or depressed, anxious workaholics, especially when stymied in accomplishing their lofty aims.

The older they get and the more of their goals they fulfill, the more they grow mellow and cut themselves some slack. They can become the elders of the tribe with valuable practical experience to pass along.

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