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Troubled times have always been astrology’s stock in trade. From the lunar calendars of Ice Age shamans to the glossy magazine horoscopes at the grocery store, in one form or another people have looked to the sky to explain their distresses, large and small. Throughout human history astrology has provided a spiritual constant.

All of us who read charts have at some point been spooked by transits of Mars. It is perhaps the most closely watched and most cursorily interpreted planet in transit astrology. Not known for subtlety, Mars’ transits can be a revelation when they trigger more inscrutable underlying chart patterns, because with Mars something usually happens; something that we can point to. But considered alone, the very obviousness of Mars tempts us to remain on the level of symptom rather than meaning.

Mars’ deeper significance is as available as any other planet’s; but with Mars it is easier to miss. More likely than any other celestial indicator to coincide with actual events, Mars is notorious for

The system in question is the American mass media, a phenomenon whose immense reach extends well beyond this country into popular culture throughout the modern world — from Shanghai street vendors hawking knock-offs of J-Lo perfume to Nigerian gangsters using street language inspired by Eminem CDs.

Both skeptics and masters in the field will agree: astrology is not an exact science. It is a fluid, subtle symbolic system with interpretive results as varied as those who practice it. In the ancient world, when there was less distinction made between art and science, and none at all made between science and religion, astrology was considered a philosophical art form.

And there is an art to going to an astrologer. It isn’t like signing up for a workshop or going to a lecture, where you just sit there and listen to information that could apply to anybody.

Among the ten planets used in popular astrology, Saturn is far and away the most likely to get negative spin. Indeed, if we were trying to assign a planetary rulership to the concept of negativity itself, most astrologers would chalk it up to Saturn.

It is fitting that Neptune should be the most glamorized planet in popular astrology. Neptune has long been associated with glamour, both in the prosaic sense — cosmetics and fashion — and in the esoteric sense — the illusion behind the material world, known to the Hindus as Maya. In facile interpretations of natal Neptune, the planet’s complex range of meanings is often obscured by the same utopianism of which Neptune is itself a symbol, making the native sound like a veritable saint.

Saturn will be conjoining our country’s Sun and our president’s Sun over the next several months and will spend two years in the sign of its detriment. Now is the time to sweep away the cobwebs around Saturn’s lore and dispense with some superstitions.

To work properly, Saturn’s function should express the principles of consistency, practicality and preservation. But the core meanings of a symbol can become lost in the translation from archetype to societal expression. There has been a lot of bad press and confused thinking about Saturn’s modern face, and looking at it through the lens of the old planetary laws raises some interesting questions.

The planet Saturn is potent this year. It is orbiting in perihelion — as close to the Sun as it gets– with a peak period in July 2003. In this state of maximized strength, Saturn will ingress into Cancer in early June, which means that for the next couple of years, all charts with Cancer planets have an appointment with their karma.

Saturn, governor of karma, completes its turn around the zodiac every 28 years, necessitating the native to reap that which he or she (or it) has sown. There is nothing mysterious about the operation of this law. It is one of the least opaque principles in metaphysics.

Poor old Saturn, the planet of responsibility, is usually quite narrowly considered. We tend to think of its lessons as material tasks and calls to filial duty: I must go to work on Monday morning; I must call Grandma on Tuesday; I must settle down and become a parent before I’m thirty.

But Saturn has to do with being grown-up in all arenas of life. Its recent duet with Pluto has intensified the question of what it means to mature in all of our human roles, not just the immediate ones.