The Sun conjoins Saturn the first week of February, reminding us that we have work to do.

The specific nature of this work varies from person to person, depending on where mid-degree Aquarius falls in your chart. But all of us are getting the same Saturnine message: Effort pays off.

Can we view our tasks not as unwelcome burdens, but as good, hard work?

Break a sweat

With Saturn, gratification can’t be finessed; it has to be earned. Sounds like something your grandparents would have said, right? In the contemporary world, Saturn’s values come off as anachronistic.

In this finger-swipin’ era, we’re led to believe that if we’re smart, we won’t break a sweat in pursuit of our goals. What’s cool is to skip steps, to outsmart the god of Time. We are coached to find workarounds and shortcuts. We are supposed to achieve mastery in a weekend seminar. If something is hard, it must be wrong.

This approach is antithetical to what Saturn is all about.⁽¹⁾ Is it any wonder the planet gets such a bad rap? To the extent that we buy into this strangely puerile attitude, our experience of Saturn transits probably will live up to their doleful reputation.

If we instead embrace its teachings (patience, gradualism and planning), transits like the ones in early February result in the building of character (details in this article).

As February begins, let your inner grownup take the reins.

Speaking truth

Mercury in Capricorn goes direct on Feb third, and on Feb 11^th it will rendezvous again with Pluto, as it – and the Sun — did a few weeks ago (see last month’s SkyWatch).

You might have caught a glimpse of subterranean workings around Jan 15^th-16^th, and then again on Jan 28^th when Mercury hit Pluto going retrograde. These transits can give us a quick glimmer of X-ray vision, whether we welcome it or not.

Ask yourself whether you noticed some kind of power trip during those days: a message between the lines, a hidden agenda suddenly perceptible. This month, with Mercury coming back to Pluto but going direct, the opportunity may arise to say something about what you saw.

Ideas for their own sake

After that, on the 14^th. Mercury goes back into Aquarius. For about a month, our minds become better at encompassing abstractions. Make full use of this mental detachment: it’s the air element at its airiest. This placement disdains the personal — it distrusts the drama of subjective feelings — but where conceptual distance is required, as with scientific insight, it is in its glory.

When Mercury squares Uranus on Feb 24^th, watch out for the shadow side of this cognitive style: stubbornness or arrogance in yourself or others. Try instead to harness its brilliant side: take an interest in ideas for their own sake, undistorted by our self-image and its stories.

Note

1) The USA, for example, is in arrested development as regards this archetype. In the natal chart of Uncle Sam, Saturn is square the Sun. We Americans, by virtue of having incarnated into this young-soul country, have a pointed mandate to accept and learn to work on our maturity.