APRIL ELLIOTT KENT. Building a Bigger Career with Saturn in Sagittarius.

Transcription

1 APRIL ELLIOTT KENT Building a Bigger Career with Saturn in Sagittarius. Welcome to the secrets of I'm Amanda "Pua" Walsh, and I'm the co-founder of astrologyhub.com. For our next presenter, we're going to be talking to April Elliott Kent, and she's going to be talking to us about Saturn and Sagittarius, and how to build a bigger career in Saturn's sign at your birth indicates your current position in Saturn's 29-year cycle, and gives insights into how to best approach career matters in Make sure you stay until the end, because there's going to be lots of amazing insights for you, and also I just recommend that you grab a pen and paper, in case there's important dates that you want to note. April, are you here with us? I am here with you, Amanda. Great. It's so nice to have you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. All right, so let's go ahead and dive in. We're talking about Saturn and Sagittarius, and the thing was when Saturn was in Scorpio there for a couple of years between the end of 2012 until September of 2015, it was a pretty dark, difficult passage for a lot of people, and I know a lot of my colleagues and a lot of my clients have been really excited to see Saturn going into Sagittarius, because we automatically think of Sagittarius as kind of this astrological Disneyland, where everything's bright and happy and carefree, but we're talking about Saturn. Whenever we're talking about Saturn, you have to sort of tone down that Sagittarius imagery a little bit and think, "Okay, well maybe it's not exactly going to be Disneyland." The metaphor that I keep coming back to in thinking about Saturn and Sagittarius is sort of trying to get to the top of your own personal Mount Everest. Because Sagittarius really wants us to have an adventure. It's the kind of adventure that really takes everything you've got, and that there's no guarantee of ultimate success, but what

2 Saturn always wants to see us do is just work, to just keep taking one step after another. The kinds of adventures we have when Saturn are in Sagittarius are always really instructive, but it's never an easy path to the top of the hill. What I really wanted to do today is focus on everybody's natal Saturn sign, and I always made the mistake of equating the sign that Saturn is in in the birth chart with the house that it's in. I've come to understand recently they really are two very different things. Saturn, among other things, tells us about the way you approach your career, and not specifically even the kind of career that you're going to go after, but the way people see you in that career, your authority, the way people look up to you instinctively. The other thing that Saturn's sign tells us specific to Saturn in Sagittarius is where you are in Saturn's 29-year cycle. If Saturn's going into Sagittarius, it's a little bit of a different thing for a person born with Saturn in Sagittarius than someone born with Saturn in Taurus or Gemini or anything else. Does that make sense? It does, April. Okay, so that's where we are, and I just wanted to jump in right away and talk about people who are born with Saturn in Sagittarius. If you were born about 29 years ago, the last time Saturn was in Sagittarius, which was the end of 1985 through 1988, you were born in Saturn in Sagittarius and you are getting ready to have your first Saturn return. Saturn in Sagittarius, it's sort of like, in the coming year, it's like you're at the bottom of a new mountain, okay? It's taken you 29 years, but you've gotten to the top of the mountain and you've come back down and you're standing there, and you're going, "Wow. What is the rest of my life going to be about? What does everything mean?" The questions that you're asking are things like are you happy with your career? Do you have the sense that you're moving in the right direction in your life generally? Do you feel like a grown-up? When Saturn comes back to the place that it was when you were born, you become uncomfortably aware that you are actually mortal, that life has an expiration date, and we tend to think of the Saturn return as the conclusion of a large chapter of our lives, which it is. But we lose track of the fact that it's also a beginning. It's a time of sowing seeds. If we think of the lunar cycle, it's kind of like the new moon phase of the Saturn cycle. With natal Saturn in Sagittarius for the next year, you're really sowing the seeds of the desire for a much bigger life, and a bigger career. You may not be at the place that you might have wanted to be, but you're at the place that you need to be, and you're at the inception of a 29-year journey. At your first Saturn return, you're beginning to really realize that it's actually too late to do some of the things in life that you might have wanted to do. If you started out wanting to be an Olympic gymnast, and you're 29 years old and you aren't there yet, well probably you're not going to make it. That's a mountain that's not going to be available to you.

3 You begin to realize for the first time that there are some mountains that are too tall or too far away for you to conquer, so this means, because Sagittarius is a sign of philosophy, this means adjusting your philosophy of life to accommodate a new reality. Now, if you're closer to 58 years old, and you're at your second Saturn return, you're transitioning into what we have traditionally considered retirement. More and more this doesn't mean that you won't work at all. There are lots of people who have done some of their finest work after the second Saturn return. But it does mark the time in your career when you begin to ease into the role of mentor, of elder, of teacher, of sharing the wisdom and knowledge that you have with others. With Saturn in Sagittarius natally, you have plenty to offer in this regard, so at the second Saturn return, the mountains that you decide to climb might have to be a little bit smaller, or a little bit closer than the ones at your first Saturn return. The stakes feel a lot higher, because you're starting to see, "Wow. I'm not going to live forever." That's Saturn in Sagittarius, people. Now, if you were born with Saturn in Scorpio, or Saturn in Capricorn, you're at kind of a semi-sextile phase of Saturn's cycle. For Saturn in Capricorn, you're getting really close to your Saturn return. You're going to have a Saturn return in a few years. If you were climbing a mountain, you're almost to the bottom of the mountain. You've been to the top, you've had a lot of career success. The last 14 years have been really pivotal, and you're making your way down the mountain, and you've almost reached the bottom. As I say, a few years from now you'll have a Saturn return, so right now you're in the process of letting go. It's a time of letting go of some of the career ambitions or dreams that have not come to pass, and maybe some that you're beginning to realize were just not right for you. This phase in Saturn's cycle for you is kind of like the balsamic lunar cycle. It's kind of dark. It's a time of letting go. What you're letting go of is the idea of achieving particular things in a particular way. You're beginning to say goodbye to the adventure that you've been on in preparation for a new one that's going to start in a few years. Now, if you were born in Saturn in Scorpio, as I said, you've just had a Saturn return some time in the last few years, and you've started your climb up a new 29-year mountain. You're at the part of the cycle where the changes and the insights that you've gained at your Saturn return are being sort of consolidated. They're sort of being made part of who you are. It's like you've had a big meal and now it's being digested and becoming part of you. You're a lot tougher than you were a few years ago. You're probably a little more sure of yourself. Since we're talking about Saturn in Sagittarius, you probably are feeling a little more optimistic career-wise than you were a couple of years ago. But you're at kind of the beginning of a long career cycle. It may not be entirely clear where you're going to end up, or even necessarily exactly where you're headed in the year ahead. This is a year really for just sort of pacing yourself and conserving your energy for a long climb ahead.

4 If you were born when Saturn was in Aquarius or Libra, eventually Saturn in Sagittarius is going to make a sextile to your natal Saturn sign. Sextile is always an aspect of opportunity, so you're going to have opportunities for adventure and learning and education to make your life and your career bigger. As my teacher used to always say, though, the sextile offers you opportunities, it offers you blessings like a trine, but only if you're willing to do the work of a square. It's still a lot of work. Now, people who were born with Saturn in Aquarius are probably more inclined to take advantage of these opportunities in 2016, because while Saturn was in Scorpio, it made a square to your natal Saturn, so you've got some momentum. You've got some energy going. People who were born with Saturn in Libra need to really take advantage of networking opportunities in 2016, because when Saturn goes into Capricorn in a few years, they're going to get a square to their natal Saturn position. Then they're really going to be in a position to do something with the contacts that they're making now, but you have to really get out there now and be doing the network, and meeting people, and getting new skills, and this sort of thing. Brush up on your resume. The sextile is the moment in the journey, the 29 year journey where you have the opportunity to change the route that you're going to take a little bit, and to talk to other people who are going up or down the mountain and can share some information with you about what you're going to experience along the way. This is a part of Saturn's 29 year cycle that's about sharing information, and paying attention to what is shared with you. If you were born with Saturn in Pisces or Virgo, you are in the square phase of Saturn's cycle, so Saturn and Sagittarius, eventually in the next couple of years, is going to make a square to your natal Saturn. This is a really perilous part, or a pivotal part of the Saturn cycle, because you've got momentum. You're moving and you're trying to get to the next level. If you were born with Saturn in Virgo, this is the first really tough part of a journey that began at your Saturn return, which was back in 2007 to If you were born with Saturn in Pisces, you're going to get a closing square from Saturn in Sag. This is when you're going to make the last hard push on a road that started way back in the mid-90's when you had your Saturn return. Both Saturn in Virgo and Saturn in Pisces are really going to be pushing in 2016 to see tangible results, to make some kind of career breakthrough. For Saturn in Pisces people, this is really about getting out of a rut, because for you, Saturn in Scorpio made a trine to natal Saturn. For Saturn in Virgo people, you got a sextile from Saturn in Scorpio. If you took advantage of the opportunities that were presented to you, if you did a lot of networking, made a lot of contacts, developed new skills, 2016 is the time to really push and do something with those. This is a really critical moment in the Saturn cycle, so for Saturn in Virgo, it could determine what else will be possible to you over the next 2 decades. For Saturn in Pisces, 2016 is really about feeling that you're finishing this portion of your career journey right, and leaving everything you have on the playing field, so that you don't

5 end Saturn in Sagittarius feeling like you've wasted the last 22 years of your life. If you were born with Saturn in Aries or Leo, you're going to get a trine to your natal Saturn from Saturn in Sagittarius. If you were climbing a mountain, this would be the moment when you find a little tiny ledge, and you set up a cot, and you rest and you enjoy the beautiful view. For Saturn in Leo people, this is kind of a year of well-deserved rest, because Saturn in Scorpio probably kicked you pretty hard. If you made a push back in the last couple of years, you should begin to see some rewards in 2016 from all of the pushing, and all of the hard work, and all the determination that you showed while Saturn was in Scorpio. For Saturn in Aries people, you're coming off a quincunx aspect from Saturn in Scorpio to your natal Saturn. The quincunx is often an aspect, and it sort of feels like nothing is working quite right, and things are kind of frustrating. You're feeling like, okay, you're climbing the mountain, but you could fall off at any moment. While Saturn is in Sagittarius, I think you're going to feel that a sense of resolution and stability in your career become a lot more possible in But don't get too complacent, because when Saturn goes into Capricorn next, you're going to get a square to your natal Saturn, so rest up, just don't fall asleep. If you were born with Saturn in Taurus or Cancer, you are kind of in the quincunx phase of the cycle, so this is the part of the cycle when you are forced to choose between options that often seem imperfect in your career. Saturn in Taurus people, you just have the Saturn opposition from Saturn in Scorpio, so you got to the top of the mountain and you're just beginning to climb down. You would think that it would be as easy as just retracing your steps. Whatever worked to get you to the pinnacle of career success, you think, "Well, I should be able to do the same sort of things and that will work fine." But what you usually find at this point in Saturn's cycle is, "No, the things that worked before don't necessarily work." You might have to make some adjustments, either in exactly what you're doing, the situation in which you're doing it, or something like that. Now, when Saturn goes into Capricorn, you'll get a trine to your natal Saturn, and you'll probably feel more confident and more relaxed, and on more stable footing. Saturn in Cancer people just got a trine to natal Saturn from Saturn in Scorpio, so it's kind of like waking up from a nap and feeling sort of grouchy. When Saturn goes into Capricorn, you're going to get an opposition, so if you were climbing a mountain, this would be the moment where you're almost to the summit. You're almost to the top. But between you and the top there is this 40-foot sheer wall, almost like glass, with no strong place to put your foot, so it sort of feels like it's hard to see how you're going to get to the top. Finally, if you were born with Saturn in Gemini, you're going to have a Saturn opposition while Saturn is in Sagittarius. This is the point where you've kind of reached the summit. You started out on a path about 14 1/2 years ago, with your Saturn return, and you've kind of taken that almost as far as you can take it. You can see where you've been, you can see where you're headed, and you have the satisfaction of having

6 reached the top. But you also know how hard it was to get there, and that the only way to get back down the mountain is to cover the same ground without falling down. It's telling that before you have an opposition, you always have a quincunx, and you have a quincunx after the opposition, so adjustments have to be made. On the way up, maybe you realized you were not going to be able to reach the top exactly the way you hoped, and on the way down, you have the awareness of everything it took you to get to the top, and how much work that was. It's kind of less work going down, but you still have to watch your step. That's all the Saturn signs, and it's been really helpful for me thinking about Saturn moving into Sagittarius in particular, and thinking of it in context. When Saturn goes into a new sign, everybody asks. "What's it going to mean? What's it going to mean for me?" It's not as simple as just saying, "Well, Saturn in Sagittarius means this one thing for everybody." It really is relative to where you are on your Saturn journey, so there you go. April, I love the analogy of climbing Mount Everest, and that's not only relevant this year with Saturn in Sagittarius, right? That's for a couple of years, and I think we're really feeling a lot of it this year, because it's still kind of new. It peaked in there at the end of last year, but then it did have to do that retrograde into Scorpio, and everybody started to get a taste of Saturn in Sagittarius, but then we all had to kind of take a step back. Then this last September it went in there, it will be there for a couple of years, but it's still feeling kind of new to us, and I think we're trying to get our bearing, and saying, "Well, what's this really going to mean?" The first year of Saturn in the Sun, I think's really intense. Definitely saw that with Saturn in Scorpio. Is Saturn... Your focus for this talk is on our career and how this is affecting our career, but it affects other aspects of our lives as well? Absolutely, and Saturn is always, we always consider it a career planet, and Saturn wants us to use Sagittarian things to get to where we're going in our careers. It's more education, it's travel, it's taking a chance, having some great adventure, but that is true of everything in your life. To more or less of an extent, it will be sort of career-focused, depending on where your natal Saturn is and what house of your chart it's in, what kinds of aspects it's making. Obviously, I think for people, for instance, getting the conjunction, like the Saturn return people, born with Saturn in Sag, or the Virgo and Pisces people who are at the square, or Gemini at the opposition. These are really critical moments in the path, and they will tend to express themselves outwardly, so we will tend to see more, probably, big career decisions or changes in direction in the career in the coming year, if that makes sense. It does. Now, so for those who don't know where their Saturn is in the chart, is there a way to sort of give a little bit of a general idea?

7 Well, it's pretty easy to find your natal Saturn placement. You just calculate your chart. You can go to astro.com. You can go to I think it's alabe, A-L-A-B-E dot com. Any of those places, you can just calculate it and find out in a second where your natal Saturn placement is. Then you can also substitute if you don't know that. You can substitute to some extent your Sun sign for all of this, but I think it's much more... It's probably better to use your natal Saturn. Awesome. April, can you give us some examples from clients that you're working with of some of the changes that they're going through, or that have happened since we entered into this new phase? It's been really interesting, because I've talked to so many clients about the last time Saturn was in Sagittarius for them. Most of them are old enough to have had some kinds of distinct experiences going on then, but even the people who were really young when that happened, they can remember things that were happening in their family, for instance. This is 29 years ago, so we're talking the end of 1985 through the end of What was really impressive was how often it came up, people talking about, "Well, that is the time I decided to go back and finish my degree, or to get a Masters," or "This was the first time I traveled out of the country," or "This is the time that..." Oh, what were some of the other Sagittarius adventures? We always think education, we always think travel. One woman did talk about having a really intense religious breakthrough, and Sagittarius is one of the signs that's associated with religion. I think really it's kind of... The overall idea is that there's a yearning for something bigger. There's a yearning for an adventure, to make your life, your career more allencompassing, and to dream bigger for yourself. Wow, well I can say I'm kind of excited about my placement now, versus the last few years, because my Saturn's in Leo, so that's really good news. So nice, but can you see how you might not be at the point you're at now and doing this work that you're doing for instance, is probably going well because of the work that you did while Saturn was in Scorpio, or sometimes it's an internal breakthrough that we go through with the square, that makes us go, "Oh!" Because you have no choice but to push through and make something happen with it, because it's so uncomfortable. It's like an itch you have to scratch. It sounds like you did good work, and now you're in a position to just sort of... Not kick back, but for some people it's about kicking back, but for some people it's now it begins to flow. It flows because of all the work you did while Saturn was in Scorpio, so well done, Amanda. Thank you, April. Yeah, it did feel very frustrating and it was a period of like, "Wow. I have all this to give, but I have no outlets to give it through." You know? I have nowhere to put my energy. It was a really interesting experience for a few years there, and yes, it is exactly what it is. It's this feeling that there's a flow now, but the thing that always just amazes me, the more and more I learned about astrology is all of these different cycles

8 that we go through, and that it's all for our good. It's all... The different cycles are eliciting different aspects of ourselves and then it's setting us up for the next thing, and then that's setting us up for the next thing, which is just really a great perspective to have as we navigate through life. It's a wonderful perspective, and that's the thing I love about astrology is the cyclical nature of it, and where you can always place yourself in a larger context. You can even go back to other times in your own life and say, "Oh, okay. I had a similar transit then. What did it bring my way?" Then you begin to really come to a deeper understanding of your own chart and what's it trying to tell you and how it's trying to guide you. Yeah, it's a terrific gift. Definitely. April, I was trying to figure out, when you were talking about the first Saturn return. That happens when we're between 28 and 30, right? Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's beginning a new cycle. Again, is that career specific or is it not necessarily? Well, if you talk to anybody who's having their first Saturn return, career and relationship are always the big things people want to talk about, but at those ages, they feel an enormous pressure in those two areas. It's worth remembering Saturn is the planet of career, but it's also exalted in Libra, the sign of relationship. The two things people are asking themselves at the Saturn return, especially the first one, is am I where I want to be in my career and what am I going to do? I'm ready to get serious about a relationship, one way or another. If they married really young, maybe they're reassessing it at that age. It is specifically a career oriented planet, but I prefer to think of it really in terms of calling. It's not necessarily what you're doing in your job, although hopefully it is. If you're doing something you're really happy about in your career at your Saturn return, you're generally much happier. It's the people who feel, "Man, I'm just not... I'm going to a job every day that means nothing to me, and I can't see a way out of it, and I'm not making enough money, and I feel like a failure." They feel like a failure in their whole life, but if you find somebody that makes a bold career move, and especially into something that's personally meaningful, at the first Saturn return, they generally sail through it and feel much happier. I don't think it's the whole story, but it's what we tend to focus on. Interesting, yeah, and is that first Saturn return, is that a theme that you're beginning that will carry out throughout the next 29 years? Are you sowing the seeds of a theme that you will be revisiting throughout that time? I think that's absolutely so, and sometimes people can't see it at the moment. Sometimes you have to talk to them a little bit and really dig a little bit to find out... Because they're not looking at it in that way. Sometimes they've gotten to the point

9 where they feel like, "Well, I've stalled out and I'm a failure and I don't know what I'm going to do." But it's like I said. They're actually at the starting point and they don't even realize it. All they're seeing is the doors that have closed, and the things they feel are no longer available to them. Right? Yeah. But if you talk to them a little while longer, you say, "No. You're at the beginning. What do you want to be doing for the next 29 years?" That puts it into a big perspective. Then they feel also like, you know, we feel like we have a lot more time to work with. It's not this nebulous thing of, "Oh, I'm 30 and I haven't gotten anywhere. My life's a failure and I'm getting old." You're like, "God, you're 30. That's nothing." But it doesn't feel that way when you're in it. I don't think you ever feel older in your life than you do at the first Saturn return. You know? It's like the first time when it really feels like you're mortal and you're actually not going to live forever, and it's quite sobering. Yeah, I know. I remember turning 30, and I did not think it was going to be a big deal, because I had never looked at 30 as like, "Oh no. I'm going to be old." But, I remember when I turned 30, it's like, "Whoa. This is harder than I thought it was going to be." For sure. There was that mortality aspect of it, so that's really interesting. Well, April, thank you so much. This is really fascinating and hopefully everyone... I wish I had reminded them to look at where their Saturn is before but you can always go back and listen again. You can take notes, because that's some amazing information there that we can all use to really navigate our career and our life this year, so thank you so much. Terrific. Thank you very much for having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, and so April is also very generously offering us all an ebook called Follow the Sun: An Astrological Happiness Project. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that, April? Well, it's this project I started after I read Gretchen Reuben's book, The Happiness Project, and I thought, "Wow. How can you apply that to astrology?" Really, it's a little ebook that first talks about the diurnal cycle of the Sun, and following your sort of natural energy patterns through each day. Then we talk about the transiting Sun as it goes through your chart each year, and then it goes a little bit into the progress Sun. It's not comprehensive, but it's kind of an introductory guide to these 3 ideas and how you can use... Because the Sun is the symbol of our vitality, our energy, our creative joy, and so it's a way of using the Sun and putting it into your chart and seeing how it can help you be happier in your day to day life. Fabulous. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

10 For anyone who wants to download that, you can do so right below this recording. This is also a reminder that all the recordings from our summit, plus the transcripts and the bonus offers are available for download right now. It's part of our upgrade package, and they're available right now for the early bird pricing. After next Saturday at midnight the price will rise and then a week after that we're completely closing the doors on this offer, so if you do want to own all the talks, have them on your computer, be able to access them throughout the year, continue to be inspired from all the talks that we've had, you can do so now and now is a great time to do it, because the price is the best that it'll be. Go ahead and click on the link below this audio for that as well, and I want to thank you once again, April, for joining us and thank you everyone for tuning in to The Secrets of 2016, and for making astrology a part of your life. I'll catch you on the next presentation.