Saturn Retrograde: July 26 - Dec 10

 

Saturn.  Photo by Carol Raddato (Naples Museum) 

Saturn Retrograde

July 26
12:56 PM PDT
14 AR 45

Saturn Stations Direct
December 10
3:31 PM PST
7 AR 55

Halfway through the Cancer lunar month, something interesting happens. Saturn stations retrograde at 14° Aries.

Saturn spends about two and a half years in each sign, completing one trip around the zodiac every twenty-nine and a half years. If you live to be ninety, Saturn will likely pass through each of your houses three times.

Personally, Saturn often feels like cleanup duty.

This is when we find ourselves clearing out riffraff in our homes, our jobs, our relationships, and sometimes ourselves. Saturn is the planet of time, responsibility, commitment, and accountability. During Saturn periods we become aware of where our time is well spent, where it is being wasted, and where we've been avoiding work that now demands our attention.

Saturn always brings a broom. In Aries, that broom gets handed to the leader. Instead of asking us to be responsible, Saturn in Aries asks us to lead. During this retrograde we may discover situations that require our guidance rather than our avoidance.

Saturn is one of astrology's societal planets. Unlike Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, which define entire eras, Saturn describes shorter chapters of collective development that last about two and a half years. I began wondering whether this Saturn retrograde might feel different because it is unfolding against one of the most remarkable outer planet landscapes we've seen in generations.

So, naturally, I went down a rabbit hole. I looked back at previous Saturn retrogrades in Aries. 

They occurred in 1789, 1865, 1895, 1937, 1967, and 1996.

What struck me wasn't that the same event repeated.

It didn't.

What did repeat were questions of leadership, authority, and responsibility.

• 1789 – The French Revolution transforms France.
• 1865 – Lincoln is assassinated as Reconstruction begins.
• 1895–96 – J.P. Morgan reorganizes American finance while the robber barons sit at the height of their influence.
• 1937 – The world edges closer to World War II.
• 1967 – Vietnam, civil rights, and anti-war protests challenge political leadership.
• 1996 – The internet begins reshaping institutions and the way society communicates.

None of those are small moments.  If we revisit any of them it will be big.    But what I find most interesting is 1789.

It is the only previous Saturn retrograde in Aries that also occurred with Pluto in Aquarius, which is part of our landscape now. Curiously, the other societal planet, Jupiter, was also in Leo in 1789 and is back in Leo during this cycle.  Given that ticks off 3 for 3 let’s drive by that history.  

During that Saturn retrograde, France experienced an astonishing series of events:

• May 5 – Estates-General convenes.
• June 17 – The Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly.
• June 20 – Tennis Court Oath.
• July 14 – Storming of the Bastille.
• August 26 – Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
• The rapid collapse of the feudal order.  The revolution is on.  
• 
  

Right about now I should probably put up a disclaimer.

I am not saying we're all about to storm something. The Bastille was a political prison in eighteenth-century France. What is the Bastille in 2026? And where is it? Not sure I can even guess.  

I'm only pointing out that the combination of Saturn in Aries and Pluto in Aquarius and Jupiter in Leo last appeared during one of history's great periods of political and social transformation. Then there's another curiosity.

The Cancer New Moon of 1789, which we just looked at, also coincides with the Storming of the Bastille.  4 for 4.   Wow.  Weird, right?

Anyway, whether this retrograde echoes 1789, 1865, 1937, or none of the above...

We'll find out together.