In the natal chart, the North Node represents all things unknown. Unike the South Node, which is familiar, we’ve never learned the North Node lessons before, so moving towards the North Node can feel uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, Saturn rules boundaries, limits, restrictions, and responsibilities. It’s easy to see that these two energies don’t play well together!
Saturn is a large, important planet that influences your birth chart in a huge way, so Saturn-Nodal aspects are incredibly important. Saturn can give us the power to manifest the life we desire, but it can also bestow painful lessons that ultimately help us grow.
Saturn-Nodal aspects will indicate where you face challenges and how these challenges push you towards your North Node and your future self.
Saturn Conjunct North Node (Opposite South Node)
Saturn conjunct North Node suggests that this life will feel very “Saturnian” with a lot of hard lessons to learn. You’ll have to deal with quite a lot of baggage on your journey to your North Node.
You will need to learn maturity and self-reliance with this aspect. Saturn conjunct North Node indicates a dependence on others in past lifetimes, so this lifetime you are forced to “go it alone” in some way. This can feel uncomfortable but will force you to grow.
It may be hard to see the good in your journey to the North Node. You consistently feel different from others and “hung out to dry,” so you might start to see Saturn conjunct North Node as a bad thing. However, all of the difficult lessons you encounter are necessary in order for you to achieve true independence and mastery of self.
With Saturn conjunct North Node (and therefore opposite South Node), you may hold on to the past far too much. You try to tell yourself that this isn’t emotional but is simply logical and that your past ways of doing things are best. You might even think that you don’t have or express emotions as much as others. However, you’re lying to yourself here: this is an emotional wound that makes you want to stick with what you know.
Saturn conjunct North Node often means that it’s necessary for you to change your views and your way of thinking. You must forge ahead and create a new mental construct. This will be difficult because you’re stuck in your old ways, but it is also necessary. Until you can let go of your past beliefs and embrace new beliefs that better serve you, you’ll experience the “pain” of Saturn over and over. You can choose when to transmute this aspect by changing the way you think!
This aspect concerns letting go. You must release your past beliefs and even your past self in order to become who you’re meant to be. This is a really tough journey. Much of this work will happen before your first Saturn return (around age 28) so you may experience pain quite young.
Don’t let this aspect get you down. Even though Saturn conjunct North Node can feel a bit depressing, try to remember that everything is happening for your own good. You will come out the other side a stronger and braver person!
You are probably ambitious and driven with Saturn conjunct North Node. Your goals are very important to you. However, this “end result” might end up looking different than you pictured. Don’t be alarmed if your goals shift and morph as you change your mental patterns and views.
You may encounter teachers, mentors, or even parents in your life who push you towards your North Node and teach you how to achieve your goals. However, never forget that you must maintain your sense of independence and ultimately figure it out yourself. Otherwise, Saturn will hit you where it hurts.
Over and over, you will want other people to solve problems for you. It’s your instinct to rely on others. But you’ll find that this method never works for you, at least not in this lifetime.
Learn to take personal responsibility for yourself and for your journey to your North Node in this lifetime. No one will show you the perfectly illuminated path. This is something you must find yourself; by doing this, you will also realize the immense strength that you have inside.
While Saturn conjunct North Node can be a bit of a lonely placement, it’s necessary to understand that you don’t need others to accomplish anything. Focus on working towards your goals and you’ll develop friendships that don’t revolve around this placement more easily.
Saturn Trine North Node (Sextile South Node)
The Saturn trine North Node aspect indicates that you’re here to live a very serious lifetime. Your lessons will focus on accountability, responsibility, and stability.
You will need to learn a lot of your lessons by yourself and take complete responsibility for yourself. Luckily, these lessons aren’t totally foreign to you. In fact, you already have this sense of individuality because you’ve learned some of this in a past lifetime. Now, you can put these skills to good use with your current lessons.
This Saturn trine North Node aspect indicates that you may not like to be rushed. You know that slow and steady wins the race and this is how you live your life. You probably make progress best when you’re working on your own, at your own pace.
This is a beneficial placement, though it isn’t very exciting. Saturn trine North Node gives you a sense of stability as you learn your lessons. You’ll find that your lessons in this lifetime feel somewhat familiar, so it’s easier to push towards those North Node qualities.
However, the Saturn trine North Node aspect can also suggest that you have burdens in your life that push you towards your North Node, particularly burdens surrounding responsibility. You may be the “responsible” one in your family or may need to become a caretaker for someone else. While these roles don’t feel totally foreign to you, they may feel limiting or heavy.
Just remember that all these lessons are moving you towards your life’s purpose. Everything that happens here is for a reason!
Saturn Sextile North Node (Trine South Node)
The Saturn sextile North Node aspect indicates that you learn your North Node lessons at a slow and steady pace.
It also means that you have lessons in responsibility in this lifetime. With Saturn sextile North Node, you have the opportunity to learn how to take responsibility for yourself. Should you choose to learn this lesson, you’ll find that you’re quickly moved towards your soul’s purpose.
You will also find that when you take responsibility for yourself, you feel a lot happier. This might be foreign to you but will enhance your life.
Bear in mind that you may also have the Saturn trine South Node aspect (though not always). This aspect is all about burdens. You may feel burdened by the emotions of other people, the financial situations of others, etc. Typically, this aspect indicates that many of the burdens you bear are not your own.
It’s important with the Saturn sextile North Node aspect that you shed your burdens but embrace personal responsibility. This means learning not to take on the burdens of others but to take responsibility for your own emotions and actions. Release any codependency but still treat others with respect. Learn to stick up for yourself and say what you mean without playing games.
This aspect pushes you to be very clear with others. You probably have a tendency to deal with the burdens thrust upon you, but then your own emotions come out sideways, so you end up hurting yourself and others. In this lifetime, you must learn not to accept burdens that are not your own and instead take responsibility through owning your feelings.
Saturn Opposition North Node (Conjunct South Node)
The Saturn opposition North Node aspect (which goes along with the Saturn conjunct South Node aspect) indicates that the energy of Saturn is working against your soul’s lesson in this lifetime. You must release and heal from your past before you can truly move forward towards your North Node.
However, you don’t want to forget the lessons you’ve learned with Saturn conjunct South Node. These lessons were all about responsibility and authority, and these are important traits. However, these ideas may have become too extreme in your life. For example, you may be too focused on social status or societal authority to the point where you are not free to be different.
With the Saturn conjunct South Node aspect, you must also overcome your fear of failure. You tend to fear change because it’s unknown (meaning you can fail), but you don’t see that the true failure is not trying at all.
This aspect indicates a deep sense of inadequacy. However, you need to go backward (into the South Node) to heal before you can move forwards. Don’t run from these feelings – they never truly leave until you actually deal with them.
With Saturn conjunct South Node, you may seem mature in a societal way, yet you shy away from achieving emotional or spiritual maturity. You are bound to old methods and mindsets. Specifically in the house where this conjunction sits, your old ways of thinking keep you prisoner.
This aspect often stems from childhood. Through various types of trauma, you developed a very rigid worldview. This served you as a survival technique then but no longer serves you now.
Saturn opposition North Node will force you to work through these issues. You’ll find that you never achieve success when you adhere to your old ways of thinking. You must let go of the responsibility you feel to be “right” or “correct.”
With this aspect, it’s time to find a new way of thinking, even if it feels taboo. You must shed your old beliefs and find what you think deep in your soul.
Saturn opposition North Node does indicate that you can use the positive qualities of Saturn (responsibility, organization, boundaries, discipline, hard work) to move towards your North Node. However, you must find these qualities in yourself and utilize them to develop a new set of beliefs instead of simply modeling yourself after these qualities in order to achieve societal acceptance.
This can be a scary aspect because it requires a journey into the darkest parts of the soul. Many people choose to ignore this work and never move towards their North Node because Saturn holds them back. Try to remember that the pain of dealing with the fact that your old belief system is no longer accurate is much briefer than pretending. In fact, once you work through Saturn opposition North Node, you will feel an immense sense of freedom and will have absolutely no limits for what you can achieve.
Saturn Square North Node (Square South Node)
If you have Saturn square North Node, you may also have Saturn square South Node.
This aspect indicates that you take on self-inflicted burdens. You probably feel that you must take responsibility for other people in some way, but this is just a societal belief.
You may also want desperately to be accepted by society in a specific way (look to the houses of these points). In past lives or in childhood, you felt rejected, and now you seek the respect you believe you are missing. Still, you cannot get the respect you so desperately want. Your path isn’t to be seen by others in this lifetime, at least not in the way you initially want.
With Saturn square North Node, you naturally have a lot of discipline. However, you could find that you use this discipline for societal gains and recognition instead of working towards the highest version of yourself.
Developing discipline requires you to follow your own path, in a way that feels right to you, and in a way that moves you towards your Nodes. Anything else (for an ulterior motive) will backfire. You have a lot of natural discipline but you must apply it correctly to see results. Otherwise, if you use your discipline to try and get societal recognition, you’ll waste a lot of time for very little results.
Your discipline should focus primarily on healing your painful past. While you ignore the truths you don’t want to look at using society’s constructs as a shield, Saturn asks you to face them and be courageous. This is how you will achieve real success.
With Saturn square North Node, you will also need to realize that your burdens are self-inflicted and figure out a way to let them dissipate. You will need to stand up for yourself and take responsibility for your own life.
Once you have healed your past trauma, you can then push towards your North Node without pain. Many Saturn square North Node people are very successful, but they will need to first work through some of their issues before this success can manifest.
Sometimes, Saturn square North Node also indicates father issues. Your path (to your North Node) requires you to break free from your father and be different than he was in some way. This also requires that you deal with any trauma surrounding your father so that you can do this.
