A Case for Saturn Rejoicing in the 4th
Warning: contains Interstellar spoilers
As far as astrologers go, I’m not the first (and I certainly won’t be the last) to suggest that Saturn could rejoice in the 4th house, instead of its traditionally recognized place of joy, the 12th house.
A planet “rejoicing” in a house simply means the significations of that planet are aligned with the significations of that house. Saturn is said to rejoice in the 12th house because the themes of the 12th house align well with the essential nature of Saturn.
The 12th house is a “dark house” in the natal chart due to its aversion to the ascendant, where we find themes like isolation, the edges of reality, self-undoing, hidden enemies, prisons, hospitals, and a general lack of autonomy. In the time before telescopes, Saturn was at the edge of our visible universe. Due to this, as well as the fact that Saturn takes 30 years to circle the sun, we often find Saturnian significations including things like boundaries, isolation, reality, time(keeping), and all which exists in antiquity.
History, legacy, and the past are often associated with Saturn due to its position as timekeeper of the visible universe. However, the 4th house is also associated with these things. In my book Homecoming, I describe the 4th house-10th house axis as a “time continuum,” where the past and the future co-mingle. Saturn’s connection to time and the past is the basis of my argument for his rejoicing in the 4th.
My work with the 4th house is an act of devotion to Saturn, who is the ruler of my own 4th house and final dispositor of my chart. Saturn is also my malefic out of sect. I have experienced the harshness of a strong Saturn in a night chart having domain over my foundations. But I’ve also come to appreciate the unique nature of time in the 4th house through working with Saturn in this way.
The 4th house is a black hole in the way that it bends time and devours matter.
In the film Interstellar, a character falls into a black hole and finds themselves inside of a tesseract. The root of the word “tesseract” is the Greek word for the number four. In that same film, the wormhole in the universe that allows this to happen in located right next to (you guessed it) Saturn.
I think of the 4th house like a tesseract of your own invention. If the 4th house were a physical place you could step into, it would resemble a four-dimensional cube containing every moment of your life, both outside of time and containing all of time. If you could walk around in there, where would you go first? When would you go? My 4th house sessions are an attempt at exploring that tesseract with you, going whenever you need to go to communicate with your former & future selves.
The common thread that runs throughout time, and is central to the plot line of Interstellar, is love. A lot of the time we are digging around in the 4th house looking for the answer to a question that can only be answered by love. And most of the time, the ache we feel about digging around in the 4th house is the ache of not having been loved properly when it mattered most.
And the only place to go from there is inward.
So you fall into the tesseract, searching through time for the story, any story, that will prove you worthy of that love. And I’m here, looking at your birth chart, showing you how your worthiness has been the only story all along. Sometimes we just need time.
