Saturn’s Delays and Why We Should Embrace Them

©2009 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

  During recent Saturn transits, I’ve been experiencing a deepened understanding and almost visceral appreciation of how wise and benign the delays we experience under Saturn transits and natal placements can be. Around me people were chafing at the downtime in manifesting their long-term goals, feeling frustrated and blocked, and wondering what’s wrong with themselves that they don’t move forward. Myself, I am gobstruck at how perfect it all is, at the timing that just now seems as brilliant and chiseled as the facets of a flawless diamond.

The instant I accept one of Saturn’s current challenges, all the support I need to take the next step toward mastering that challenge is presented—often with the very next email or phone call I receive. It feels as though I am being simultaneously challenged and held. Much-valued, quality colleagues from joint endeavors in the past suddenly show up, spurred by the whispering of instinct to reach out to me.

We may have been out of touch for years, but as we catch up on our news, it becomes clear that we have been on parallel paths all along, and that our paths are once more converging so we can co-create the next piece of the Grand Plan together. “New” people show up, too, but quickly prove to be Old Souls and old karmic ties—we immediately recognize them as part of our soul group and admit them into our lives seamlessly.

Based on the increasingly urgent needs of the collective, task forces are forming all around us. Saturn knows exactly who to tap for each one—knows the just right person for each seemingly small, yet vital job. Is Saturn calling you?  Will you answer?

Most likely that goal or aim we are about to manifest has existed mainly in our minds for a while, maybe even a lifetime or three. It’s that next step that we’ve known we must undertake but haven’t been quite ready to tackle. Visions like these, we have to grow into, have to endure life’s seasoning until we are spiritually and emotionally mature enough to harvest them.

 If sitting around waiting is what we’ve chided ourselves for doing, we now find that not a moment has been wasted, that there is a stunning efficiency to every step along the way. Saturn is Spartan, yet elegant.  Saturn’s stations give us time to perfect, clarify, cool down, and grow up. 

To the outside observer–especially our detractors–it might seem like we’re procrastinating.  Over a lifetime,  I’ve found that procrastination has its merits…that often it’s not laziness and avoidance that’s slowing us down; it’s Inner Wisdom, that sage instinct born of life experience. There are times when it’s a waste of time to be on top of things. Lots of things that seem urgent turn out not to be, once we take time to think through the potholes and pitfalls of that path we were determined to rush down. Sometimes when we hold off long enough on doing something we OUGHT to be doing, we find out that it wasn’t worth doing after all, once all the facts are in.  It would have been wasted time and effort, unnecessary and unproductive stress.

In other situations, intuition is whispering to put on the brakes, to hold off until the time is ripe, to let the process unfold in its own Divine Right Order. Maybe someone crucial to the effort isn’t ready, or we’re not ready, or all the duckies aren’t in a row.  When the time is right, everything will unfold properly, and then the work will flow easily and correctly. I have learned much from Saturn stations about not pushing the river but floating on it. 

Viewing life through the lens of astrology over the years and watching what happens to people under Saturn transits, I have come to feel that delay is a benign rather than a benighted expression of Saturn at work. Back in my hippie days, I read a tag on a teabag.  The tag said, “God’s delay is not his denial.”

Who’d have thought a mantra could be found in a tea bag, but I’ve contemplated those simple words over several decades and find them profound and true. Contemplation and observation have confirmed that nothing happens before its time, and everything happens in the ripeness of time. And it feels, just now, as though time is lusciously ripe for the more challenging visions many of us have been entertaining for a while. Aged like fine vintage wine, we are about to taste that ripeness. It will prove worth the wait.

 I’ve gotten some excellent comments on this post, in which readers give examples of how  the delays under Saturn transits has worked in their favor, and I’ve added more of my own insights.   If you can think of an example of how delays worked to your advantage, do add them to the comment section, as this is quite a productive exploration.

More Posts about Saturn on this Blog:

• Venus-Saturn Aspects—Waiting for Love
• Why Saturn has as much to do with Luck as Jupiter
• Quotes about Saturn’s Issues—Wise Counsel from our Elders
• Some Life Patterns of People with Uranus-Saturn Aspects in the Birth Chart
• Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself
• Saturn Transits the 7th House—a Rare Interview with Father Time Himself

FREE EBOOKLET FOR SKYWRITER SUBSCRIBERS ONLY:  a 50-page excerpt from my out-of-print book, The Moon in your Life, also known as Being a Lunar Type in a Solar World.  Read more about it here: NEW: FREE BOOKLET FOR SKYWRITER SUBSCRIBERS!  If you’re already a subscriber and want a copy, forward your most recent email notification to me at moonmave@spiritone.com.  To sign up for a subscription, go to the top right hand corner of the blog and click on “Subscribe.”