Astrology gives us the gift of divine perspective
A glimpse into a higher design of trials, explorations, and lessons all woven together with the purpose of transformation and soul growth as individuals and as a collective.
Witchcraft gives us the gift of tangible divine practice
A way of life that allows us to connect the magick to the mundane, to harness and work with the soul purpose we discover through spiritual exploration.
Astrology + Witchcraft, when practiced together, therefore amplify one another and further expand their potential.
And one of the simplest ways to begin intertwining these together is working with the planetary rulers of the days of the week in your magickal routines and rituals.
Daily cosmic witchcraft can be as simple as inviting the ruler of whatever day it currently is to join in on whatever spiritual practice you're already doing, so don't overthink things! But I also know how fun and helpful it can be to get to know and work with a new spiritual entity on a deeper level, so I wanted to be give us all the opportunity to really explore each of the major planets to encourage your own natural practice to form on its own.
Saturday, ruled by Saturn
Planet of teaching/learning life's limitations, self-discipline and restriction, overcoming obstacles, cause & effect, Karma, Time.
Astro Quick Facts:
Role: How we understand and utilize the various boundaries and limitations in our life for growth and wisdom
Element: Earth 🜃
Rules/Domicile: Capricorn ♑🐐, Aquarius ♒🏺
Detriment/Opposite: Cancer ♋🦀, Leo ♌🦁
Generation: Inner/peer placement
Day of the Week: Saturday
Download as a pdf:
When I was a teenager, I felt trapped. School, my friends, my family, my job—I felt constant pressure from control, manipulation, and external regulations—and I never really felt truly safe and accepted anywhere. Where to go, when to be there, what to wear, what to say, what not to say, what to listen to, who to talk to...all of these things felt like they were dictated outside of me. For many, many years I felt I didn't have a real safe space. Weekends were a time that some of the control lifted, and I'd run as far as I could with whatever I was given. This constant desperation to free myself on weekends over time became a habit of escapism. For me, this looked like addiction, and it didn't take much for that panicked cycle to ooze out into all of the days of the week, until every day I was constantly playing a game of cat and mouse with myself; keep myself under control, break free of the control, get myself back under control, break free, and on and on this went for a very long time.
Fast forward years later, I was now a student of astrology, and I had just gotten back into therapy for my anxiety. I began working with the planets individually on the day of the week they each ruled, and noticed, Huh, how funny. I've been seeing my therapists on Saturday. Saturn's day. How fitting. Yes, how fitting, indeed, Dani. Especially considering I was in my Saturn return. I had no idea how much this little tiny seed of a thought would blossom over the coming months, and now, years.
At that time I understood Saturn to be this strict, harsh, rigid disciplinarian come to take all my fun away. It literally makes me laugh out loud to reflect on that now. That version of myself had all kinds of twisted definitions of "fun" and "joy" and "comfort." At that time I had no idea that what I thought was setting me free, was actually keeping me in a prison of limitations (think 8 of Swords energy). But I remember when I would study my Saturn placement, my mind's eye would continuously come back to those damn rings...
You see, it's the rings of Saturn that helped me start making my earliest connections with this planet. For me they were a visual representation of the habits, the patterns, the cycles of time Saturn showed us. I started realizing Saturn was simply a data collector; it offers us the results of our thoughts, decisions, and actions over any period of time. What we see in those results, and how we react to and handle them, well, that's on us.
On Saturdays, ask yourself:
How can I be present in my boundaries without completely letting go of the wheel?
Karma. Consequences. Cause and effect. What goes around comes around. You reap what you sow. This general concept sounds good to us, nice and dandy, vindicating even, when we're talking about someone else's actions. It suddenly takes on a lot more weight when it comes to facing our own. When Saturn returns to the same sign it was in when you were born, your Saturn return begins. This takes place from about ages 27-31, and peaks when Saturn is near or at the same degree it was when you were born. In many ways, every planetary return that we experience is very Saturnian in nature, because it's all about reflecting on past cycles, and taking what you're learning into the next one. So this makes the Saturn return extra...Saturn-y. There's a big giant emphasis on really examining what you do, how you do it, how it's impacting you and those around you, now and how it will continue affecting you in the future. In other words, our consequences. And for a moment here I want you to remember what concepts we learned in our Jupiter lesson about the power of our perspective. The way in which we perceive the results has a very large effect on how we learn from our actions that led to them. Some people may see it as a punishment. Others always look for the reward in every scenario. How the ancient Greeks viewed their version of the deity Cronus versus how the ancient Romans viewed their equivalent deity Saturn, is a fascinating example of this difference in perspective through a mythological/ancient pagan lens. For our intents and purposes, on a day-to-day level though, I invite you to aim for a more neutral frame of mind, and see this as a collection of data or information that you can use to your benefit moving forward. In a more long-term sense however, we start venturing more into the Hindu and Buddhist concept of karma. Also quintessentially Saturnian, this concept looks at the ripples of our actions across time and space throughout many lifetimes.
Saturn as Time. If you read through that really intriguing Greek vs Roman section of a Wikipedia page I linked just above, you'll be reading one example of our human attempt to understand, conceptualize, and work with time. This is something we have been doing for millions of years, and I suspect many, many more (mainly because I'm not quite sure how much about time we are supposed to understand). So, I do think on some level we'll never have it "fully" figured out. In most senses, Saturn deals with the tangible, the practical, the evidentiary. Time, however, is one of, if not the most conceptual and abstract association with this planet. There is physical proof and evidence of the passing of time. But how we define it, how we structure it, well, that's entirely human-made as far as we know. A minute, an hour, a day of the week, a year within a decade, a century within an era. It's easy to think of time operating in a linear fashion, we're very conditioned to function off of starting points and stopping points. But remember those rings on Saturn. And think of the cycle of the moon and the cycle of the sun, the orbital patterns of the planets. When we zoom out and look at patterns of time, we see they are cycles, they are circles, they are rings—all ending and beginning into one another. In our life, sometimes we repeat the same cycle many times before it changes or needs a change. Other times we move through them rather quickly. The same goes for lessons we learn throughout this lifetime and others beyond.
Boundaries, capacities, and limitations. Another layer of Saturn's rings in our Earth life is in the ways we are restricted, limited, or in the boundaries we both create and crash into. Think of those rings encircling you. Which are protective and helpful? Which are holding you back? Some limitations are for our benefit, so we can understand how much of something we can sustainably take on. Others present themselves as brick walls, and we are meant to find our way to break through. This fine-tuned dance between a well-placed, healthy boundary and a toxic, limiting belief is an intentional part of the Saturnian journey. As a Divine teacher, Saturn helps us to look at our experiences as series' of lessons and tests. Oftentimes we reflect on the events of a Saturn return, for example, and we take our emotional reaction toward those events, and label Saturn, or the experiential learning process itself, as harsh, cold, maybe even bad, because we feel bad, we feel uncomfortable or difficult emotions throughout or in reflection of these events. Well, my friend, that's a conversation to have with your Moon sign actually. How we feel and how we react to the various aspects of our life, that's a Moon thing, not a Saturn thing. And when you start to look at Saturn as our inner teacher, our inner mentor, our inner parent to ourselves, you can see that the purpose of this placement is to further our growth. In many ways, our Jupiter placement is how we envision our expansion, and Saturn is how we make that, or a version of it, a reality safely.
The Learning-Teaching-Learning Cycle. The more we characterize Saturn as a wise, loving mentor, the more we can see its purpose is to remind us what we have learned previously, so we can utilize the happenings throughout our life and turn it into growth and wisdom. In short, the more effectively you will learn from your experiences. Take the student-teacher analogy: a student that is open and willing is going to absorb so much more than the one who is closed off and determined to stay that way. But it's also up to the teacher, and how they approach a teaching-learning process that encourages and motivates the student. Very akin to the Divine Energy Exchange, the teaching-learning process is also a sacred exchange of energy, and it is most thoroughly nurtured when we embrace the fact that all students can be teachers, and all teachers are also always students. In other words, the ability to learn from someone or something is infinite. And when we all embrace both our inner student and our inner teacher, strengthen the hell out of our learning capacities, and the value we can bring therefore in what we teach—its reach is beyond what we could ever imagine.
Check your chart:
Beginner:
-Look at the sign your Saturn is in.
-What planet rules that sign?
-Your Saturn is in _________ and ruled by _________.
Intermediate:
--Look at which house your Saturn placement is in.
--What sign rules that house in your chart? --What planet rules that sign?
--The area of life your boundaries and capacities are most centered around is the _________ House, which is in the sign of _________ and ruled by the planet _________.
Advanced:
---Do you have any aspects to your Saturn placement in your natal chart?
---Are there any current transits aspecting your natal Saturn?
---Is current transiting Saturn aspecting any parts of your natal chart?
*Tip: combine this information with the Saturn Placement Journal Guide.
^ ^ ^ What To Do With Any or All of the Above:
Ultimately, your intuition is going to be the best guide when nurturing your planetary relationships. I recommend keeping these Saturnian concepts in mind, taking that knowledge into your Saturday, and letting it permeate how you spend your time.
I found that this particular description of the Roman god Saturn to be a really beautiful lens to see the planet Saturn through as you reflect on how you've spent Saturdays past, and how you want to think of them moving forward:
"[Saturn] was described as a god of time, generation, dissolution, abundance, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. Saturn's mythological reign was depicted as a Golden Age of abundance and peace. After the Roman conquest of Greece, he was conflated with the Greek Titan Cronus. Saturn's consort was his sister Ops, with whom he fathered Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Juno, Ceres and Vesta. Saturn was especially celebrated during the festival of Saturnalia each December, perhaps the most famous of the Roman festivals, a time of feasting, role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry."
(source: Wikipedia.org)
Saturn Magick Activities:
Earth - I love Saturn's connection to the Earth element because as a deity Saturn was considered a masculine energy, and as a planet it is associated with feminine energy. Saturn's mythology is rooted in generational patterns through the story-telling of fathers, so there is definitely a complexity and blending here. With Saturn, there is no one side or the other, and we see the merging of polarizing energies in examples all throughout our earthly landscape. So when it comes to Earth magick through the scope of Saturn, think about the ways your left brain and your right brain work together what are some activities that bring balance to the polarities in your life? Think: singing along to the soundtrack of a Broadway musical while fixing your motorcycle in the garage. (Lol help I'm trying to be stereotypical so you get my point 😂)
Therapy/inner work - Any kind of practice or activity that involves the reflection of our past for a more informed step forward is Saturnian in nature. This can look like shadow work, different forms of therapy and counseling, doing things that break free from harmful generational patterns, and alternative forms of self-exploration like learning your birth chart, human design, enneagram type, love languages, etc. Call on Saturn's strengths during any of these sessions or incidents, ask for assistance as you work through trauma, wounds, and difficult memories.
Creating, maintain, and reevaluating boundaries - Sometimes working on your boundaries looks like speaking up for yourself in a way that feels safe for you. Sometimes it may look like letting go of an old way of thinking. Sometimes it's being observant and making adjustments accordingly. Even saying a full-bodied "no" versus a hollow, forced "yes" is a form of boundary work with Saturn. Update your calendar, set alarms and reminders, ask someone if they'll be an accountability buddy—use a variety of support systems , and think of these as reinforcements that strengthen your boundary work.
The key is not to look at boundaries as self-discipline. Or at least, maybe redefine what discipline means to you. For me, it's important that I don't see discipline or boundaries as forms of punishment and control. And instead, how I honor my own unique physical, emotional, and spiritual capacities on both a short and long-term basis. Knowing that when I honor my own boundaries, the benefits from doing so ripple beyond even my own life and benefit the world around me. And if we don't regularly evaluate what boundaries are helping us and which are harming us, it's too easy to slip into a mode of restriction, and suddenly we exhaust ourselves trying to be the puppet master of our world.
Be intentional with your time - I want you to pause here and journal. What does being intentional with time mean to you? What does it look like? What are the signs that indicate you're auto-pilot is on overdrive? What are activities, sounds, places, sensations that bring you back to the present, and realign you to center? Think: SIMPLE. Quick, effective reset buttons that you can use over and over again whenever you need.
Inner Student, Inner Teacher - How are you nurturing your inner student and your inner teacher? Opportunities to learn and to pass on our own knowledge present themselves to us all the time. Maybe if you've been leaning into one more than the other, it's time to find some ways to balance that out. Maybe one of those roles really brings up some imposter syndrome for you—what are some questions you can ask yourself understand more about where that comes from? And from there, what are some safe steps you can begin to take to challenge that a bit? Taking a class or hosting a free one, looking for new pages to follow on social media or sharing some helpful knowledge on your own page, finding a new author or putting your own pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard). Think about what you were like as a younger student, and what you are like now with the experience you have. Reflect on teachers you've had too—who inspired you and empowered you, and whose teaching style maybe made you feel the opposite? Incorporate your findings into your Inner Student, Inner Teacher work.
Past life work - There are loads of ways to get into this type of exploration: read books on past life experiences and past life regression, follow past life readers and regressionists online and social media, learn more about the Akashic records by working with an Akashic records reader or become attuned to explore them yourself. YouTube can be an endless rabbit hole too: videos on different forms of past life exploration, videos on the concept of time, videos on reincarnation theories, and videos that guide you in a past life regression itself. We have an excellent intro to past life regression and guided past life regression right here in That Witch School too! The more you practice, educate, and open yourself up to past life work, the easier the process gets and the more you will discover. My biggest tip is to document your findings so you can revisit them in the future (this is really incredible to review once you've been doing past life work for some time).
Journals & habit trackers - First, and this is very important, remember that journaling doesn't have to look like traditional journaling. It can even be as simple as pulling a tarot card or just being in a reflective frame of mind, and making note of any connections you make throughout your day. Write down things like the date, time, day of the week, moon phase/sign, sun sign, etc. because the main point is documentation so you have the ability to look back at your tangible progress. They make some really creative and unique journals, planners, and habit trackers these days, so do some sleuthing online and have a ball. Personally, I love changing up the way I journal in my regular, plain, blank notebook myself! Pinterest and TikTok are filled with soo many easy tutorials for cute little ways to draw habit trackers, mood trackers, write the date, jot down your thoughts and feelings, and more. If you've been in a rut with your journaling like I was recently, you can really find some fun inspiration that brings some more excitement and motivation back to the process again.
Pay It Forward - Sure, this can look like paying for the person's coffee in the drive-thru lane behind you, but what I'm talking about here is more of a mindset. How can you pay it forward in whatever it is you're doing? In other words, what can you give your future self or the environment around you by taking one small extra step in that moment? What is something you have right now that you can offer up to gift yourself or someone else in the future?
The future can be in the next hour or in the next decade. Maybe you're having lunch at a park and you can pick up some extra trash. Maybe you can clock out 10 min early to breathe and ground to transition out of work mode. Maybe you can take over a duty or task from a house member or partner. Maybe there's a friend who could use $5 for a coffee. Maybe the cranky (read: stressed, overworked, underappreciated) server at your table could use an extra few bucks on top of the 20% tip you're leaving them. Maybe you can take an afternoon one weekend to spend helping out in a food kitchen. Or maybe you can pick up a few extra non-perishables next time you're at the store for your local food bank. The spectrum is huge and the possibilities here are endless, but our lives are so busy we can go months or even years without doing these acts of service. And so this is why practicing shifting into a pay it forward mindset can lead to those micro gestures that add up and grow into gorgeous gifts for ourselves, our community, our Earth, and our Universe. (Pro-tip: brainstorm a list and save a little bank of ideas for yourself!)
To sum up:
Remember as always, there is no wrong way to work with Saturn's magick! I hope this lesson will be an inspiring jumping off point that expands into your own natural relationship with Saturn that evolves and grows over time. Be open, stay curious! It's fun to work closely with a planet or a celestial body, and to see how your unique connection unfolds in your spiritual practice and in your life.
Comment below if this was helpful for you, and any other questions you have about working with Saturn!
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