Traditionally, Jupiter is known as the great benefic of the planets in astrology – a bringer of luck, opportunity, abundance, intuition, insight, optimism, faith, and knowledge – all of the good stuff, sometimes to excess, but few would object to an excess of ease. Saturn on the other hand, is traditionally known as the old devil; limitation, struggle, challenge, obstacles, discipline, lack, doubt, defense, denial, fear and all of the unpleasant things encountered in life. Saturn is often labeled a malefic planet for this reason, but he is said to yield rewards over time if he is worked with properly and taken on consciously by the individual.
While Jupiter is our bright face of vision and expectance of goodness, Saturn is our dark face of judgment. Saturn has been associated with our personal shadow, a term describing traits that are disowned by the conscious ego because of a sense of their inferiority and ugliness. Our moral deficiencies and bad traits are usually not acknowledged in ourselves because the ego can’t stand to see itself as lacking in any way. Typically, these traits are instead recognized as perceived moral deficiencies in other people. Integrating the personal shadow, in other words, owning one’s own Saturn is of great importance because it brings back the projection/externalization of lack and allows for the disowned traits to be neutralized and accepted as part of the self. The “bad traits” and perceived “deficiencies” are usually appearing that way because of resistance to them in the first place. This is not to say that all traits are good, but all traits need to be accepted as part of the self in order for the contents of the shadow to not run amok “back stage” submerged in the unconscious.
The people who are the most “good” (or at least perceive themselves to be morally superior to people around them) usually have the most vicious shadow because of its autonomy and exclusion from the conscious awareness. In my own experience, I got a great example of this when I changed schools when I was younger. My first school had been quite disorderly, the students were overtly antagonistic with each other and the atmosphere was rougher, a bit chaotic. I transferred because I wanted a more serious, civilized environment but as it turned out, it was only more overtly pleasant and more covertly sinister. The shadow was definitely there as much as in the other school, but it came in a “nicer” package. I guess I didn’t realize that there’s no such thing as a “better people”, human nature is the same – its darkness is the same, its light is the same. But most of us still long for that possibility of perfection.
In all places and social settings – whether its in society at large or in a family unit or a circle of friends, someone or a cluster of people are usually appointed the “scapegoat” role because someone has to take on the shadow, the role of the inferior – the role of the deficient and impure. This is done because people haven’t become conscious of their own shadow. Bullying stems from this, judgment and punishment stems from this. If we at any point feel repulsed and threatened of some quality in someone else and feel compelled to condemn them for their inferiority and weakness/ badness we should take a good look at ourselves first. What we have a hard time with in regards to others we have a hard time with ourselves. We are afraid to look at the ugly and unpleasant parts of ourselves because of our heavy judgment of them. Not uncommonly, these judgments are picked up from our environment as cues for how to behave and how not to behave in order to be “good” and “approved of”.
I’m quite Saturnian with my Sun-Venus conjunct the old devil at the MC; I kept myself (or was kept by Saturn) on a tight leash in terms of behavior and conduct growing up… I saw myself as a relatively good person compared to other people because I thought myself to be humble and willing to do what had to be done without dishonest shortcuts. I was willing to face my deficiencies if they presented themselves in order to work through them. I was willing to face reality. I tried to embody certain quality of character and I succeeded – I was praised and approved of most of the time but it was hard won. I never “winged” things like the Jupitarian person would. I worked on them. When you do this, you hope for it to pay off over time, for the ease to settle in. However, what I realized was that it was never quite enough; the effort and the discipline – nobody really cared if I succeeded or not, neither did I. They just wanted someone to judge or praise. I wanted someone to judge or praise. I had hoped that I would some day get a real confirmation of my character and superiority … I was always working from the ground up - working off my debt – and therefore I must be better than other people who didn’t even seem notice their own badness and fundamental insignificance. I assumed nothing and let my compensations take me as far as they could. Yet, this in itself was done simply to be good with an assumption of my own inferiority. It was still a defense mechanism and I didn’t gain the satisfaction I thought I would from it. I resented my hard work. I cursed and devalued the irresponsible and immature people around me –the people who had a less impeded sense of self (and perhaps a more integrated shadow). I hated other people. I still do because I project my own shadow onto them. I get nothing for free. Others seem to assume their own goodness and be confused when it is denied. I’m always denied. I gain by effort and concentration.
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With Jupiter types, all experiences are valuable and there’s no fear of failure. With Saturn types, there’s a fundamental lack and insignificance that is felt which acts as a whip to get to work and achieve. The Jupitarian jumps without second thought, relying on a heightened sense of intuition and trusts that it’s going to work out. The Saturnian assumes that all is hell or is going to hell but at least one can do one’s best to avoid it. No body is wholly Jupiterian or Saturnian, everyone is a mix of both – however, people often come more strongly under one or the other. Jupiter is expansive, Saturn is restrictive – Jupiter is the carrot, Saturn is the stick. Jupiter encourages us - Saturn discourages us. Both planets (psychological functions) have their legitimate place. Nonetheless, Saturn seems to bring more troubles and grievances and is very hard to work with. The question is, is there a way to outsmart him? In Greek/Roman mythology Saturn is overthrown by his son Jupiter, which points out that a more benign ruler conquers Saturn in order to let him and his brothers (Neptune and Pluto) have a chance to reign. Jupiter is, according to myth, the one that frees us from our overly fearful and restrictive tendencies. He puts things right.
Saturn and Jupiter remind me a lot of the fairytale of “Rumpelstiltskin”. It’s about a miller who lies to the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold (he tells the king this in order to appear superior). The king puts the daughter in a tower threatening to cut her head off if she doesn’t spin the straw to gold by morning. Of course, she is unable to, and is completely devastated when an imp-like (demon/fairy) creature shows up and spins it for her in exchange for her necklace. She avoids the beheading but is required to carry out the same task again by the king’s orders. The imp helps her again in exchange for her ring. On the third day she is promised marriage to the king if she can fill an even larger room with gold, else she will be executed. She has nothing more to trade the imp in exchange for the service, but the little creature promises to help her if he can have her firstborn child. She agrees and marries the king. When the time comes to give away her child she pleads and promises the imp all of the treasures and riches he could wish for, but he denies. He wants the child. Certain of himself, he gives her a last chance. If she can guess his name within three days he will not claim his prize. She guesses many times and fails, until one night she overhears the creature sing at his mountain cottage, where he mentions his name – Rumpelstiltskin.
"tonight tonight, my plans I make, tomorrow tomorrow, the baby I take. The queen will never win the game, for Rumpelstiltskin is my name"
He is furious the next day when she has the correct answer but she gets to keep her baby. He is never seen again. Interestingly enough, there’s a psychological term/principle derived from this fairytale called the Rumpelstiltskin Principle. Basically, it has to do with the power of language –using someone’s title in a courtroom, or in a hierarchal setting gives the addressed person the power of that title. However, when using the person’s real name, equality is established. Curiously, using someone’s name disarms the person in an impactful way, similar to the fairytale.
Similar to Saturn, Rumpelstiltskin gives in order to get, not in the Jupitarian fashion with no strings attached and a faith in the universe to return the favor. Saturn always wants to control the outcome. Saturn, playing the part of shadow, wants to sabotage others, outrank them, outsmart them, and make deals that are devious yet seem advantageous to the people involved. He plays nice and he plays deviously - he can never be trusted because his deals are too good and too absolute to be benign. He is not really evil, he is only serving as devil’s advocate in order to motivate people to cultivate personal judgment and integrity. The lesson that he teaches is that nothing that is wholly pure and good is ever free, there’s always a price – there’s a debt and a consequence for everything. Saturn rules time and more often than not, time reveals the true nature of things. People who seem exciting, lively, joyful and full of energy could be empty inside, as in “lacking substance”. On the flip side, people who are ugly and devilish could be containing something of high value – in other words, the disowned “inferior” parts of the psyche could be extremely potent.
In Greek/Roman mythology Saturn is a cruel tyrant and a stern father archetype, a patriarch of sorts. In the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltiskin he is more of a trickster-devil, but I would say that both these images illustrate the complete dynamic of Saturn. In a sense, in the fairytale, Rumpelstiltskin is the ugly shadow and the Father-authority is the defense against it. The king in the fairytale is the controlling Patriarch – he has the right to lay down the rules and he will kill the girl if she doesn’t produce perfection (gold). The girl’s father lied in order to rise in the ranks; he couldn’t accept his own inferiority. The king however, doesn’t allow for mistakes (as typical of Saturn). The girl is stuck in an impossible situation that she doesn’t deserve because of other people’s foolishness and immaturity (also typical of Saturn). In response to this, the little imp enters the scene, which is really symbolic of the shadow of the psyche entering to offer a solution. No body else has her back except for a selfish and greedy creature (the immoral parts of the psyche). The girl is the conscious ego-self. She is pressured from the outside but can’t perform what is required of her through mere goodness, dependence and decency any longer. She has to give away her jewelry (symbolic of the identification with “goodness”) in order to be able to save herself and please the king. When she has no more jewelry to trade, she has to give away her own innocence and dependence (symbolic of giving up her child) in order to reap the benefits of her repressed traits (Rumpelstiltskin - the shadow). In the end, she is not required to give up anything because she has become familiar enough with her shadow self and has begun to integrate it. She can name the imp, which disarms him. The naming is symbolic of making the shadow conscious. She has a beautiful life, a curse turned out to be a blessing in the end.
The answer to the question of how to overthrow Saturn must be to make the shadow conscious, then there’s no longer any need for the defense mechanism. When the girl married the king, it was symbolic of real strength as opposed to weakness disguised by defensiveness. The conscious self could unite with that external and mighty “other”, the cruel patriarch.
How does Jupiter come in as the savior then? He does this through opening our eyes to themes in life and identifying their meaning and purpose. In a sense, Jupiter is unpacking this Saturnian complex – he is the visionary acting through us, through me – he is our intuitive knowing and understanding of life experiences and patterns. He is the traveller of myth and the king of the gods. He knows them and rules over them with benevolence.
