How I'm working with Saturn Retrograde in my magical practice and life

Photo by Tara Winstead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/saturn-spelled-out-in-scrabble-tiles-7666410/

Saturn recently went retrograde and will be retrograde through November. When a planet goes retrograde it essentially seems to be moving backwards. From an astrological perspective, a planet going retrograde is an opportunity to work with the particular influence of that planet in a different way. For example, when Mercury goes retrograde, it provides an opportunity to work with your communication and recognize where your communication skills need work. In the case of Saturn retrograde, the opportunity is around examining what you have built in your life with your career, home, relationships and the boundaries you have around each of these areas of your life.

I’ve entered into this Saturn Retrograde with a sense of quiet awareness as I’ve turned inward to examine my current life circumstances. I am getting ready to make some major transitions in the next couple of months and I’m doing a lot of existential kink work around the patterns I’ve observed in my life. While Saturn is known for boundaries, Saturn is also about separating the chaff from the wheat and in the process culling out what isn’t working. One specific example I’ll use is around my career/work and what it means to be of service.

In the last 6 or so years I have worked at jobs I haven’t found to be very fulfilling. They have allowed me to pay the bills, but what they have also emphasized is how much I settle for doing work I don’t like doing because it feels like that’s the work I can find. As a magician, this doesn’t strike me as a very magical attitude…instead it is egoic, wrapped up in a sense of fatalism around the work I am doing. I have been doing a lot of work in the last couple of years to challenge this perspective, and most recently the EK work has helped me see how an unconscious part of myself has continually gotten off on being unhappy because of how it has validated deeper wounds. As I’ve examined those wounds and done the healing work on them, I’m finding that the power of this pattern is falling away.

Saturn retrograde, as a period of reflection is allowing me to continue this process of transformation. I am embracing an opportunity to let go of the fears and insecurities which have acted as boundaries and limitations that have held me back from stepping into my truest self. I am recognizing that these fears and insecurities have held me back because I’ve clung to them as a form of justification for my circumstances. I no longer can hold onto them because they don’t serve me in any way that is useful.

I am using Saturn retrograde to help me dismantle the boundaries and limits I have raised in my life from a place of fear and a drive for safety. I am realizing that clinging to illusory safety hurts me and the people in my life because it keeps me small and holds me back from living and speaking my truth. I have done it in certain areas of my life and the cost is significant. It also hasn’t kept me safe. Saturn retrograde, as an astrological current gives me a chance to take a specific momentum to this work and use it to propel me toward the deeper changes that need to happen if I’m going to live my authentic life.

How is Saturn retrograde showing up in your life?

The Role of Astrological Cycles in Iterative Magic

Iterative magic is a form of space/time magic which employs the cyclical rhythm of time and space in order to create consistent results. One of the cyclical rhythms that iterative magic draws on are found in the astrological cycles and currents that all of us experience in our lives. In iterative magic, we purposely draw upon these cycles to empower and inform our magical work. Each iteration of a cycle refers to the previous and future cycles. When we understand this we can draw on the past, present, and future cycles of a given cycle to enhance the magical work we are doing.

For example Mercury going retrograde would be an example of an astrological cycle that all of us experience. While this cycle is notorious for bad communication, it can also be treated as an opportunity to apply iterative magic to our lives. We recognize that Mercury is going retrograde and instead of hoping that we’ll somehow avoid miscommunication we do iterative magic to either help us improve our communication skills or apply the mercurian cycle in other ways that are related to its influence. We can also apply this same approach to when Mercury is going direct.

We can actually apply iterative magic to any retrograde/direct cycle for any of the planets. Being able to do this doesn’t even necessarily require that you become well versed in astrology either. It may require working with an astrologer or learning some basic knowledge, but once you have that knowledge you can develop iterative magic workings for specific cycles and use that to help you tap into the deeper energies that are present and utilize them for your magical work.

Another approach I’ve taken to astrological influences is to do iterative magic around sun and moon cycles. The moon cycles every 28 days and sometimes there are eclipses which can also be factored in for this work. The sun has its own cycle which we experience through the progression of a year. Each of these can also be used as examples of astrological cycles we can work with iteratively. For instance you can choose to work with the sun at different times of the year (we see this with the wheel of the year) and have each time of the year reference the next and previous times. The same understanding can be applied to moon cycles.

We don’t need to limit iterative magic to astrological cycles, but they are one of the more obvious examples of this work and can be helpful for understanding how iterative magic works and how it can be applied to ongoing magical practices.