When you learn astrology, you will be taught to see things from the ascendant sign, the regular birth chart. No one stresses on the importance of the birth Moon chart which, in my opinion, is more significant. Material things are seen from the birth chart but their emotional contexts are from the birth Moon chart. A strong birth Moon chart helps you make sense of the material world in a balanced manner.

Saturn with Moon in the birth chart will have other physical and material interpretations, but in this post I am writing on just the emotional context.

Saturn is restriction, fear, dullness, depression, work load, tight schedules, karmic implications, practicality, pragmatism, etc. The negative emotional patterns from past lives which you are required to work on. He creates situations where you pay off your karmic debts and learn life lessons. The Moon is your astral body, your emotional states, intuitive self and your Mind. He allocates energy received from Sun to the other graha. He the fastest graha, Saturn the slowest. Moon at Ajnya chakra, Saturn at Muladhar. Their natures are dissimilar so if they get together they create conflicts.

Saturn aspecting or conjunct your birth Moon is an restrictive combination. All your energy is consumed in rebalancing your karmic debts. Your debts are sitting right in front of your Mind, staring at it, demanding attention and resolution. And the changeable Mind cannot bring itself to focus on this elephant in the room. It tries to change the subject and aggravates its problems. Even if this Saturn is exalted or a benefic for your ascendant or your Moon is exalted or everything is aspected by more benefics, he will oppressively influence your Mind. He will scare you out of your wits on the astral, subconscious, dream, intuitive etc levels, until you decide to resolve the emotional issues he represents. 

Significantly Saturn will not let you trust easily in the parts of life that he controls, because you have been emotionally betrayed several times in your past lives here. You carry the energy of hurt within your astral self and subconsciously expect others to hurt you even now, as the pattern repeats.

And Moon does not let your Saturn work effectively, interferes with his planning and execution process. You tend to leave projects halfway, ie do not have the mental energy to take projects to their logical conclusion. The changeable Moon is too fast for the slow Saturn to handle.

Saturn and Moon both interfere with each other’s mode of functioning. This negative pattern from your past has come to the forefront in this life, so try to resolve it now. If you do not address it this time too, it will repeat in your future lives.

About 33% of the population has this combination ie serious trust issues linked with an inexpressible fear. There are four possible positions, 

• Saturn Moon together
• Saturn aspecting Moon with his 3^rd aspect ie placed 11^th from Moon.
• Saturn Moon mutual aspect, opposition.
• Saturn aspecting Moon with his 10^th aspect, ie placed 4^th from Moon.

Saturn conjunct Moon 

This indicates a severe emotional restriction, you cannot find deep satisfaction in anything. Maintaining active interest for longer periods is difficult, mental tiredness is common. Everything is duty for you, there is no satisfaction. This constrictive energy pervades throughout the astral self/ environment, thus the entire material life is afflicted. The past life connect is that practically everyone betrayed you, so trusting others now is difficult. Also you have not been true to yourself ie have compromised your own integrity for some selfish reason in the past, so now you cannot trust your own self either. You are serious, mature, etc on the outside, but very alone, anxious, worried, afraid, non-confident on the inside. You feel separated from yourself and everyone else in some undefinable way.

Consider the sign and the house counted from the ascendant sign. Eg Virgo can mean a negative impression from a life where you were required to serve, perhaps a servant who was beaten to death, or a wife whose husband did not allow intimacy. Saturn in Scorpio can mean sexual harassment or death during delivery. Saturn in the 12th can mean someone who was never given the time to rest and sleep, overworked to the point of death etc. 

If you get a combination like this in your practice, the personality will at least be willing to work on himself. Saturn’s influence on the Moon makes the Mind more amenable to following schedules etc once convinced. And once the Moon cooperates, the karmic balance will be resolved. This will be easier after both Moon and Saturn mature and during the trigger Dasha and transits.

Saturn Moon in opposition

Saturn’s 7^th aspect is detrimental in a different way. The emotional connect with your 7^th house, ie your beloved, your mirror, your fill in the blanks, your missing half, your dark half, your connect with your divine Self, the one that you seek the most, your personal spiritual practice and all your one to one partnerships is affected. For most of us, 7^th is the loved life partner, so Saturn makes it difficult to trust the spouse. You are scared to do so. Saturn in the 7^th is an expectation of separation, hurt, anxiety etc, ie you subconsciously expect your 7^th house things to kick you in your face. So you try to cover this fear in several ways, eg being cold or dutiful or overly responsible or try to provide your spouse all material things etc as per your chart’s tendency. Overall very meticulous with these 7^th things, you take them seriously. If you trust these things/people, they might betray you on the emotional level. Trusting again, ie opening yourself again emotionally is difficult. 

Emotional betrayal is more intense. This is when you trust someone, do everything that you can think of for him, put this person above yourself etc till one fine day he does/says something that makes you feel that he is not worth it. He may not realise what he has done. But it tears into your soul, your mind cracks and the world turns dark. Saturn in the 7^th from the Moon completely drains the energy of your astral personality/ environment. He hits your emotional balance very deeply in a way nothing else can. And even if you continue your relationship, the emotional trust may never come back.

The past life connect is that, you were abandoned by your beloved husband/wife, maybe your husband married another woman, threw you out of the house, your wife died prematurely, your wife was cold to you, in any case, you were all alone. You expected happiness, instead were put in a terrible situation. These emotions of grief, loneliness, abandonment, betrayal, etc hit you severely and remained unresolved in your mind till your physical death. Negative emotions cannot be suppressed nor left unacknowledged. Doing this lets them to enter deep into your astral self. You were deeply tormented, especially on the emotional levels in your past marriages and are scared to risk opening yourself to a loved one again. Thus your Moon Saturn in opposition. Resolving this specific combination can be traumatic. As you start working on yourself, first the full blast of that past negative emotion hits you in its full form. You relive that pain, as if it is happening in the now, this can be very bad phase.

For resolving Saturn birth Moon opposition, first accept that this is a karmic script, you chose this experience in this life to resolve it once and for all. Most likely this current loved one is the same person in all those lives who hurt you in the first place. The two of you are tied by a confusing mix of deep love overlaid by this energy of betrayal. There are two options of resolving this, 

1. Accept that you will not be able to trust others easily. If you choose this option you will have to give your 7^th house things an outlet, ie find some internal emotional balance. Personal spiritual practice will help fill the emotional void that this combination represents. ie try to connect with your higher self within you.
2. Or learn to let go. Accept that some things are not going to be ideal. Try to see the positive in every situation. ‘Grow up’ emotionally in relationships, tone down your expectations. This too will not be so easy, support from your inner self and personal spiritual practice will be necessary.

One other possibility is that you were an ascetic in your several past lives. You died before achieving Moksh and want to continue your path now. Check for supporting combinations in your current chart. If this option seems right for you then try to actively do some spiritual practice so that you feel more satisfied internally.

In your practice, clients with Saturn Moon opposition will require more counselling than Saturn Moon conjunct. The 7^th is after all the bhavat bhavam of, the subtle drain on, the 1^st house.

Saturn’s extra aspects on Moon

Saturn with his 3^rd aspect on the Moon, ie placed 11^th from the Moon. Here this is a upchay position, so will improve with age if you address its concerns in time, if not, then upchay will make things worse, here on the emotional front. The emotional context of the 11^th house is damaged. You will feel emotionally burdened by your elder siblings, friends, groups, etc trusting them will be difficult, also they may betray you. You carry within you the negative experiences of trusting these people from your past lives, which creates anxiety and fear in these aspects of life. Gains will cause you emotional restriction, ie you will not be able to enjoy the successes that your personality/environment give you. You are emotionally dissatisfied with what you get. All this is in addition to the general restriction that Saturn has on the Mind. 

Saturn with his 10^th aspect on the Moon, ie he is placed in the 4^th house from the Moon. 4^th house things make you uncomfortable. The 4^th is the natural house of the Moon, ie Cancer is the natural 4^th sign of the zodiac. Any disturbance to the 4^th house/sign has an insidious impact on your Moon. So in addition to Saturn’s effect on the Mind, you suffer emotional stress from the agents of the 4^th, ie mother, residence, vehicles, landed property etc. Trusting your mother or anyone from your maternal side of the family may be difficult or even not advisable. Your past lives traumatic interactions with these things do not allowed positivity about them in your current life. The 4^th from the Moon is the emotional connect with the reason you incarnated yourself in this life. So the most tragic result is that here you question the purpose of your life and often feel low emotionally for no discernible reason.

However this does not mean that you should not trust these specific other people at all. If you have a strong ascendant lord/ sign, Moon has strength, Saturn is favourably placed and there are benefic influences then during the trigger Dasha and transits you can learn to trust. But be alert during the Moon mahadasha – Saturn Antardasha and the Saturn mahadasha – Moon antardasha as there will be some typical challenges during these two subperiods.

Saturn’s position is where you need to work on yourself, face your past karma, it is the road to real maturity. And here we have the emotional context which is more difficult to address. 

The solution is to first learn to trust yourself. This line is rather banal, but how do you actually do it? You can refer to self-help books and professionals but basically try to feel happy about yourself.

You can adopt this daily 1 min routine. Look at yourself in the mirror for 1 min and think of something which makes you happy. Your eyes, a favourite jewellery, a quote, a book, a photograph, a feeling, the sun, nature, a perfume, food, person, a mantra. Try to feel happiness as you look at yourself. Next try to carry this warmth within you for the rest of your day. Keep doing this till you start feeling genuinely happier or give it 21days at least. If you are happy about yourself, your issues with trusting yourself and others will gradually resolve.

A general solution to every problem is understanding it, acknowledging it, wanting to get over it and acting to resolve it. In Jyotish there are a few options, but all of them require a strong Dharma trikon. You can resolve issues by,

• intelligently modulating your behaviour, eg a self-love routine.
• doing your regular spiritual practice with Soham, Gayatri Mantra, Shri Sukta etc.
• engaging a Brahmin to do pujas for Graha shanti, ie the specific mantra of that planet is used to balance out its energy in your self/life. 
• giving the imbalanced energy away, ie Dana. However ‘charity’ is not Daana. You have to give away the mismatched energy to a Consciousness capable of absorbing it

So if you are suffering the energies of betrayal from times past with your Saturn and Moon, do try to resolve things within you so that you can live a more emotionally satisfying life.

(In my post on the 12^th house and emotional turmoil, I had mentioned a chart with Saturn 7^th from birth Moon and got several requests for more on this combination.)