Saturn in Aries is an extremely contradictory placement. Saturn is about stillness and Aries is about speed. Saturn is about humility and Aries is about pride. Saturn is about contradiction and Aries is the sign of the self.

Let’s explore the first one first. Why is Saturn so slow? Saturn is slow because Saturn is about generational change. Saturn is about the habits and patterns that we inherit from the people who parented us and the people who parented them. Saturnian changes take several generations to manifest.

This slowness is something that we see in the myth about Saturn. Saturn was Uranus’s son and Jupiter’s father. He actually didn’t change the mannerisms of his father. Both Uranus and Saturn were tyrants who swallowed their own children. Only Jupiter broke the mold. The reason why Saturn is so frustrating is because it’s slowness allows us to see what we want to change about our parents before we have the means. Saturn rules with soil in astrology and the soil is something that takes a long time to heal. You have to nourish the soil with death.

What happens when Saturn is in Aries? Aries likes to move fast. If you don’t move fast, Aries gets impatient.

When things are at a standstill and you want them to move forward, what do you do? You fight. You organize a disruption. You make things move forward by creating some kind of challenge.

When Saturn is in Aries, Saturn tries to force change by chasing after challenges. Saturn in Aries people are always up for a challenge. They’re willing to sometimes put themselves into a grueling situation in order to force themselves to change a lingering habit. I think that Saturn in Aries is one of the most quietly intense placements for this reason. These people are looking for a challenge. They want it.

Saturn in Aries doesn’t do things the easy way. They choose difficulty because they want the satisfaction of meeting a challenge head on.

Saturn is about humility and Aries is about pride. My favorite thing to remember about Saturn return is that it’s not so much a time of gaining greater control over yourself than a time of understanding what you don’t have control over so that you can accept the control that you do have. When we’re young, we tend to blame ourselves for what we can’t control because that’s where we are at.

Young people are easily judged because they are in a phase of life where everyone and anyone is trying to teach them something. Young people are assessed and judged. As you get older, you let people judge you less because you are trying to step into a teaching role very gradually. Doing that takes great humility. Aging is humbling and Saturn is the planet of old age. You can’t do as much and can’t remember as much. You give less of a shit about the unimportant things and you take yourself a bit more seriously. That’s the energy of Saturn.

But what about Aries? Aries cares so much about what other people think because it is a sign that is often wanting to play the hero. Aries has a bit of hubris. I’m an Aries Sun so I know. We rush to advocate for the underdog and speak up against cruelty partly because we like to be seen doing so. Aries is a sign that has fantasies about overcoming all of our challenges, about helping and saving other people.

So, that’s very different from Saturn. Saturn is about understanding what you can’t control and the utter humility that collective organizing requires. You can’t change things all on your own. That’s why we need other people, why we need society. Saturn is an equalizer. Just like everyone else, you can’t change people who don’t want to be changed. Just like everyone else, you sometimes suffer without good reason. Just like everyone else, you will sometimes need to ask for help. You, too, will grieve.

That’s maturity—it’s humility.

Now, I don’t want to be a Saturn apologist. Aries has its own spark. Aries wants to be special and that’s a very different desire from what Saturn is trying to do. Aries knows that life will sometimes surprise you. If you believe that you can do impossible things, then who knows? Sometimes you can.

Sometimes, Aries is naive. Other times, it is incredible. Naivete can accomplish awesome things.

What is Saturn in Aries about? Saturn in Aries is about still valuing the certainty of your specialness, of your uniqueness, of that thing that makes you you, without avoiding the certainty of your own maturity. Yes, you are special. Yes, you are also just like other people. Yes, you live in a society. That’s not always a bad thing.

Saturn in Aries can look like the maverick type, like the type to not care what anyone thinks, when they’re excited about something. However, Saturn in Aries people actually fear social judgment quite a bit. More often than not, Saturn is Aries is a person who gives off this air of profound and lingering loneliness.

This is misfit energy. This is someone who wants to change a society all on their own. It’s this kind of “don’t judge me” along with a “what are people thinking about me?” energy. It can be a kind of “I’ll show all of you!” kind of mindset. In the most extreme scenario, Saturn in Aries becomes a person who wants all of society to change due to not wanting to change anyone about themselves.

But Saturn in Aries does want to prove itself. But to whom? To those who it challenges? Saturn in Aries doesn’t need to prove itself to anyone. But they still want to. You see now why Saturn in Aries has such a strong flair for self deprecation.

But the question that you are probably asking right around now is—why is Saturn in Aries so freaking stubborn? Why are they so tenacious? Why do they stick to their own way of doing things no matter what the circumstances may be and how those circumstances might change? Let me ask you this—when you are in the middle of doubting something about yourself, especially when doubting something very important, do you want to be advised?

I think that most people would say no to this question. When you engage in self doubt, you are fiercely examining your own contradictions. You’re investigating yourself. You feel the pain of self doubt. You know that your internal conflict runs very deep and that someone with only a superficial understanding of your struggle will sacrifice half of you to sorrow while trying to shepherd only half with joy. You refuse advice. You rebuke it. You will refuse to listen to anything except understanding.

That’s what Saturn in Aries is looking for at the end of the day. This is the placement of stubborn self doubt. Saturn in Aries is a very deep thinker. It’s not looking for advice. It’s not looking for superficial solutions. It doesn’t need to be pushed because it’s all of that internal pressure and constant pushing that is causing the intensity of the self conflict. Saturn in Aries is looking for complex understanding. That’s it. It is trying to complicate the so-called simple act of being.

Dictatorial? Not really. Saturn is Aries just doesn’t like to change its ways when it’s pushed to change without being first understood. It’s not flexible for flexibility’s sake.

Sometimes, Saturn in Aries will hide in self deprecating humor. Sometimes, it will hide in conflicted solitude. It tends to refuse social pressure because it likes to put itself under pressure. Saturn in Aries is not that stubborn or combative. It appears that way because of the strength of its own self doubt. That’s not stubbornness. It’s the hidden desire for compassion.