PRINCIPLE: Emotional loss, survival adaptations, hardship, sadness
MOON-SATURN
Proud, self-made. Dynamic, hardworking, persistent, self-driving. Encourages growth in others (expects them to do something worthy of their abilities). Usually emotionally reserved, private. Definite tendency (often unconscious) to seek total control of situations and relationships. Parent-themed issues (nourishment-deprivation, etc.) to work through. Judgmental (intolerant). Can be pessimistic, distrustful, little self-confidence, passive-aggressive, feeling inferior, anxious, depressed. Many enter religious or social work for mixed motives of service, self-immolation, and seeking control.
Notebook #93 observations: (CONJUNCTION-OPPOSITION-SQUARE) A definite tendency (perhaps often unconscious) to try to take total control of situations. This makes them seem like good potential leadership material on first impression; yet, as the result of these behaviors, they often cause a certain amount of friction in a group where they are not actually in charge. (When in doubt, they tend to bluster ahead and assume control of something or other.)
(TRINE/SEXTILE) Seems to be uncomfortable with anyone setting rules for them, and they deal with it through passive-aggressive behavior, excuses, etc.
POWER SHADOW
The predominance of people in the ministering and helping-healing professions, of famous religious figures, etc., is partly understood in terms of the
power shadow. As Guggenbuhl-Craig wrote:
All those active in the social professions, who work "to help mankind," have highly ambiguous psychological motives for their actions. In his own consciousness and to the world at large, the social worker feels obliged to regard the desire to help as his prime motivation. But in the depths of his soul the opposite is simultaneously constellated - not the desire to help, but lust for power and joy in depotentiating the "client." ... In general, the power drive is given freest rein when it can appear under the cloak of objective and moral rectitude.
In relation to this, note the high number of
psychotherapists with this aspect. My list of trines and sextiles is literally
filled all but to the brim with "helpers," many of whom are astrologers. Many cases of Moon-Saturn hard aspects are highly
insistent in the "protesting too loudly" sense.
Donald Bradley in AA 6/70 wrote:An accumulated hoard of resentments about one's early life, especially in connection with toilet-training and the development of "good" behavior as opposed to "bad" behavior... prone to suffer needlessly from feelings of guilt implanted in them by a too-orderly upbringing liberally riddled with quotations from Proverbs and Paul... Cyril Fagan called our attention to the fact that the most telltale configuration in the charts of hippies and other anomic types is Moon-Saturn... [they] know there has to be something more meaningful in life than to have a neat haircut and clean ears, show the proper solicitude toward elders and superiors, and never to burp audibly or scratch where it itches when anybody is looking...
GARTH ALLEN wrote:...it is miraculous how untrammeled and unscarred a Moon-Saturn "victim" can wind up his allotted span.
GARTH ALLEN wrote:...the mental faculty of automatic awareness of the unseemly side of human nature, a taking in stride of the darker corners of the mind. It has rightly been written that if you are born with the Moon and Saturn in configuration, you can easily brush shoulders with dirt and not get any on you.
Garth Allen on Sir Richard Burton wrote:His Lunar opposition to Saturn is suggestive of Burton's personal untidiness, his interest in the seamy, shady side of human behavior, and his rigid nerve in emergencies.
Fagan & Firebrace wrote:Because those who have this configuration at birth tend to suffer from some sort of chronic disability of that part of the body which comes under the dominion of the constellation holding the Moon, they tend to be depressed, melancholy, morbid, pessimistic, laborious, ponderous in thought, absent-minded, hesitant in speech, and given to philosophic brooding. These qualities do not make for success or popular appeal. They know hardship, frustration, and even failure and poverty. In constant fear of tomorrow they clutch at money coming their way and tend to hoard it. There is a fear of insecurity and on account of this they may feel resentment. Their work tends to keep them in the background. If Saturn is configured with Pluto the life of an anchorite would make strong appeal to some.
Fagan, AO Ch21 wrote:...the anti-social Saturn's aspects to the Moon incline toward impotency, frigidity, unwholesome contacts, and secrecy
U.S. PRESIDENTS
OPP/SQR: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover
TRI/SEX: Millard Fillmore, Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Those Presidents with close oppositions or squares between Moon and Saturn served during times of very bad conditions spiralling out of control, especially economic conditions. In most cases, the competency of the President was not a factor - circumstances appeared completely unmanageable. The two worst economic periods in the nation's history were during the terms of Presidents with Cancer Moons in hard-aspect to Saturn.)
STATISTICS wrote:High for murderers (Bradley) indicating weak frustration tolerance, probably in conjunction with a judgmental quality. (Probably MMPI Scale 4 elevation, antisocial, alienation.)
It seems to be a rather common aspect (along with Jupiter-Moon, probably for similar reasons) in my formal collection of psychotherapists charts - see "power shadow" notes in this section)