This essay continues my series of my Saturn transiting through the houses, which is, so far the twelfth, first, second and now third. I’m about 1/3 of the way through, and this is my current report.

My second house Saturn journey appeared straightforward enough, but in hindsight it wasn’t at all. What I failed to grasp, then, was how any planet sharing the same sign as Saturn influences the entire transiting Saturn experience. For instance, Saturn is in Sagittarius right now bringing its testing, maturing influence to any Sagittarius planets you have. I have Neptune, Juno and Ceres in Sagittarius, also in my second house, and the survival resources I was consolidating at this time (a Saturn second house theme) were spiritual ones –experiences that delivered crises in confidence and presented me with survival issues (second house themes), which weren’t connected to money, or even self-esteem (second house), not really, though I was swimming in ripples of Neptunian uncertainty. The second house holds our gifts, talents and skills; these are what we have – material, spiritual and emotional, and these can be liabilities when they are under developmental tension -a phrase I use when I see hard aspects in our natal chart (this Sag stellium is quincunx my Sun). That’s what was happening, though it was hard to articulate at the time. There was a new developmental test at hand, as my relationship to Spirit hit a crossroads, my Neptune held under Saturn’s scrutiny.

During this time, which also coincided with my Uranus opposition, a Pluto-Moon transit (and transiting Saturn was also being squared by Neptune), I became a full fledged Empath. I have no idea why or how this happened, just that I became overwhelmed by other people’s emotions, and that was terrifying. Saturated by external environmental energies I didn’t know how to manage, this created a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. Faith wasn’t so easy to come by. Dipping into the great, spacious expanse of all knowledge, as I’d always fairly easily done prior to this, became treacherous because now the wide open waters were shark infested. Because I didn’t know how to deal with what was now in my energy body, all kinds of emotional and spiritual crises ensued. Yes, surviving adversity is a transiting second house Saturn theme.

Second house times often present us with new survival needs, so helpers and guides often appear during our Saturn second transit and this relationship can necessarily extend into the third house time. Which brings me to today. I’ve had to develop new skills, to understand my environment, to work with my mind, and to learn – the subject of Saturn’s transit through the third house.

Traveling in New Territory

With earthy Saturn in the third house, the mind works to understand what’s going on within and around it. Try understanding the world of energy, the realms of the invisible, a territory that cannot be understood, at least not rationally. Not everyone’s experience will be as extreme as mine, but the common thread is this: With transiting Saturn in the third we have entered a new mental, spiritual or an actual physical environment, as with any new environment we’ve got to understand the lay of the land, how things work here. Imagine arriving in a new world without a map. To ease the potential for mental anxiety, it becomes ultra important to figure things out.

“If we must travel beyond our known territory, then a guide or at least a map is necessary. Instinctive survival in an unknown land is unreliable at best, so we often find that when Saturn is transiting the third house we become obsessed with detail. It is necessary to develop one’s mind so that it becomes more capable of making subtle distinctions…” – Erin Sullivan, Saturn In Transit

One way through the fear/anxiety of a third house Saturn transit is by getting intimately specific and discerning about our concrete experience, by examining how our mind is interacting with what is happening in the here and now.

The paradox is the third house runs notoriously unfiltered and fast. The third house experience is like an 80 mph car ride on a three lane highway; we take in everything and anything all at once, often too quickly to really think about what we’re seeing. Saturn necessarily slows the speed of our “processor” down. Saturn asks us to deliberately examine our mental perceptions, how we relate to mind itself. For instance, through trial and error I’ve noticed that when I go into doubt, I am letting myself question things without examination. A doubt comes up, and I swat away at it like a fly, dismissively saying, “Ooh, that’s not true…” It’s in our collective conditioning to relate to fear that way, yet when I dismiss my concerns whether true or not, I lose center, spiral into confusion and conflict, my energy field becomes vulnerable to picking up others’ energetic junk. So, if instead, I sink into it and ask: Okay, what’s my question? Is this the right thing to do? Right approach to take? Do I really believe this? etc… let me feel into this, then my higher self, Truth, is free to answer.

Getting An Education

“One could consider the third house transit an education, no matter how it presents itself in events, circumstances, feelings. This education might be obvious, or subtle.” – Erin Sullivan, Saturn in Transit

Old conditioning starts to reveal itself when you slow down to question what your mind has been generating. Since Saturn casts a stark, sometimes unwelcome light on our mind, self-defeating mental habits, negative awareness about your intelligence or wisdom can appear as a result. You don’t want to take this so seriously that it paralyzes you, but use it to inform you about areas that you can take action on and change. For instance, in my childhood home there was only room for one person’s authority, knowledge and enlightenment, my father. As I began questioning why I had periodic insecurity/fear about my knowledge, I realized it was a direct result of having been shamed, here. This awareness freed me up to separate my energy, to clear it.

During this time, I’ve also been working with a mentor/helper who is literally teaching me how to work with my mind and the energy of my environment. I’ve become a student again, and this is no elective class. It’s a daily practice of feeling into the very specific and subtle details of what’s going on in my mind, body, spirit and around me. Because a slip in thinking, or lapse of unawareness can leave my energy body open to gunky environmental energies, my mind has necessarily become highly alert about how my experiences and perceptions interact. These ongoing lessons give me immediate feedback on my learning: either I feel bad, or I feel good.

I’ve complained that being an Empath is impossible because it requires you to be supra-ultra-conscious, lest you walk away from a trip to the supermarket carrying more than a gallon of milk in your bag, but other people’s sadness, fear or grief. I still sometimes feel this way. Yet this is the new reality. The third house rules both our daily mental environment, and the actual environment we inhabit.

As Rob Hand says of this transit, in his Planets In Transit, “The main issue you will confront at this time is the actual structuring of your mind and how it operates on a day-to-day level, in other words, your everyday mental patterns, attitudes, habits, styles of speaking and ways of listening to others. Normally you take these issues for granted…They are very important in structuring your world.”

Siblings, Your Neighborhood and Environment

“You may have trouble with people in your immediate environment, especially relatives and close neighbors.” -Rob Hand

Environment has been a huge theme for me so far, in more than just energetic ways. My neighbors are crazy. I am not saying this affectionately. I’ve had problems with mentally unwell neighbors wandering into my house uninvited, with mail being consistently stolen, and extreme weather taking out communication lines, so my immediate environment has taken on a troubling, dark Saturnian tone. This, combined with Pluto also transiting my third, has just about pushed me to the edge of sanity. As my astrology friend, Paul proclaimed at my last Solar Return, spying all this, quipped “Well, you haven’t killed your neighbors yet!” I find I’m more Saturnian, more intolerant, to annoying third house errata, which has contributed to the decision that I need to move to a new home soon. This will no doubt coincide with Saturn and Pluto’s transit my IC, my fourth house.

Since my relationship with my sibling is private, I’m not going to go into much detail with this but to say that this transit can bring up sides of your relationship that you’d pushed aside, or not thoroughly examined till now. Saturn shines a cold, hard, ultimately clarifying light on all third house matters, so naturally our sibling relationships are under his scrutiny. Saturn’s sober clarity gives invites us to drop any unrealistic expectations or wishes we’ve had for our relationship to be anything other than what it actually is. It’s tough. Siblings always bring up our shadow side, as they often carry the self-parts we wish we’d been (we’re the smart one; they’re the beautiful one, etc.), or we dump our shadow onto them (they’re the materialistic one; we’re the spiritual one, etc.). If we want them to be someone other than who they actually are, we will face that now, maybe in unpleasant ways, or perhaps in subtle ways that draw this realization out.

Thinking & Knowing

Thinking belongs to the realm of ego, which focuses on the acquisition of facts, rational logic and concrete data; knowing belongs to Spirit, the realm of intuitive awareness. The third house of mind and data always interacts with the ninth house of intuitive, holistic perception and knowing, and vice versa. Do both and the mind becomes powerful.

The promise of the Saturn third house transit may be the acquisition of new skills, new forms of self-expression, new ways of perceiving the world and interacting with it, but Saturn functions as a funnel here, a focused, dedicated container for interfacing practical information and data about the here and now. At times, we may feel bored or frustrated by the limited, concrete nature of our immediate reality, or question whether we’re learning anything at all. That’s Saturn. Yet we have the ability to tap into the knowledge of all time without needing to see or touch it. We can ask questions of the Divine, and receive answers. Recently, I’ve been playing with these ideas: of dipping into my own knowing, and then all knowledge, anew. I’ve been surprised to discover I know much, much more than I ever thought. And that’s exciting, magical, and likely the booty of the Saturn third house journey.

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