Where Jupiter expands, Saturn contracts. The planet of Saturn is devoted to order, the observance of temperance and sage advice. Take, for example, two long sips of warm goat’s blood. Then pass it along. Give your hooded, black-fanged brother his even share.

Kronos, Titan of Heaven, may be a useful guiding parable. —A God caught devouring his freshly born children whole and after a ten-year war, going to prison for generations. Greedy boy. The high price of excess.

Saturn in the first house is about order, the obedience of authorities, fathers (gluttonous cannibals excepted) and GIANTS. If you have Saturn in the First House be sure to bend your brow to all Giants when you pass them on the Golden Road. If the Giant or authority’s stick/cane looks worn or splintered, offer to wax it. Small kindnesses will be rewarded in this life or the next (or the next.)

The First House sways and shifts in pace. High, layered melodies swill through its halls like wine spilling from the cup of Dionysus. Drink deeply, but not too deeply.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goblins. Thousands of them. In sewers and under bridges. Writhing in aqueducts and in the gilded gutters of the Golden Road. Do they have jobs? No. But they make do, and so can we all. The path towards dwelling inside transport infrastructure and an all-sludge diet is usually swift and almost always slippery. Saturn in the second house (or poor house as some have come to call it) is marked by difficult finances. It would be unwise to risk or spend frivolously. Try a low-risk treasury bond instead of a flutter on the stock market. Now may be the time to question your spending: Do you need that industrial-sized can of Resin plus ‘Giant Cane Wax’? (for example). There’s a sort-of unofficial mantra for the second house, called ‘Shake and Tremble’, a song of solidarity for the underprivileged. It growls and swaggers like a vintage motorcycle, its kinetic pace and jangling guitars warming the bones of all second-housers that hear it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The third house will call upon you to think about how you communicate with others, you bastard. If you talk over people, never listen and treat others like emotional Clydesdales—as if they only exist to haul your ‘baggage’ behind them while waiting patiently for overdue rent—then now is the perfect time to repair your fraying friendships, David. Now is also the astrologically correct time to stop playing that song you play at ear-splitting volume 13 times a day. You know the one: “The start and the end is upon us and now we’re beginning again.” It’s a wonderful song—delirious and catchy, with harmonies as smooth as freshly loomed cloud. And you’re ruining it for everyone.
[PS – Just because you steal bread a slice at a time from the middle of the loaf doesn’t mean that I don’t notice David. I have to buy it for my gluten thing, it’s expensive. Cut it out.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may notice many wondrous things as you journey the Golden Road. Ash and Elm will be shivering naked in the autumn air and bloody frays erupting in the thickets. The near-constant smell of burning hair may hang thickly upon the breeze. If all of these things remind you obliquely of your mother, fear not. For Saturn in the fourth house is a time to reflect upon family, nurturing and indeed, the mother. In this period:

- If your mother is a gnome/insurance broker/cave troll, do something spontaneous. Meet her at work and take her to a movie or bone ritual.

- If your mother is a graphic designer/anesthetist/hobby witch reward her work with compliments. Even brief words like—“I love your concept on the Crown Lager campaign” or “I wish I could incant a 100 year curse like you Mum” will not go unnoticed.

- If your mother is a dragon, then you too are a dragon and can basically do whatever you like. However the fourth house is the time of the dragon flame-oath, a song cycle called ‘First Light’. It’s a slinky dance number seething with arpeggiated synthesizers and a crackling dance beat. It’s quite irresistible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to turn that frown upside down, as they allegedly say. Blood sacrifice, vanquishing the houses of your father’s enemies, plague—you’re always waiting for a ‘proper’ reason to have fun. But why wait?? In the fifth house even an allergy-infested cave lycan with medical-grade sun sensitivity may find themselves a little lighter. Which is a sound reminder—lighters. Carry them. And if your mood begins to dip, simply look about and remember—you may always use the world around you to rekindle your joy. Well-known arsonist and street performer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, had Saturn in the fifth house, as does Shakira. Both love(d) fire and were basically happy, finding fun Whenever, Wherever. Most interestingly the working titles to all of their unfinished works were the same, all titled “Pause Repeat”. It’s regarded as some of their best stuff and usually features beautifully crafted harmonies, and loose galloping dance rhythms, all particularly wonderful. The similarities between both artists are uncanny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

House six. The halfway house. And like all halfway houses, the sixth house is filled fairly evenly with temptation and self-denial. Much has been made of the perils of temptation, but with Saturn slouching around the 6th house, we can finally turn our attention back to ourselves. Maybe you do deserve shorter hours, that matrimonially asphyxiating hobby…a manservant?
[NB- As per the folly of personal choice, your chosen reward may not be represented above. Although it’s unlikely. The algorithm I employed to arrive at these choices is near perfect, representing the desires of 98% of the planet’s human occupants.]

So think less about painstakingly amassing your fabulous, fabulous wealth and think more about what you really want. There’s a song called ‘Reflections’ that comes to mind that really says it all. It’s an infectious rolling synth journey, with the kind of brassy stabs and staggered beats that make festival crowds feel like they’ve taken all their drugs at once. (And if hoarding vast sums of personal wealth does happen to be what you really want, then you’re in luck in any case: “Try to live a perfect life, paint a world in gold”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The astrologer claims that the seventh house “rules partnerships and marriages.”

The marriage counselor claims that it is astrologers’ failure to take responsibility for their relationships that accounts for the high levels of divorce within their profession.

The unhappy couple claims that marriage counselors in their bid for a “completely open environment” open up a pandora’s box of compacted emotional sewerage, too heavy for any relationship to bear. So dumping the relationship and calling their lawyer becomes not unlike dropping the hot skillet burning their hands.

The lawyer claims his large fee and saunters to his Porsche 918 Spyder convertible and puts on a song called ‘Vibrations.’ It starts with jungle ephemera—foraging birds, crickets etc. Most likely a frog or two. This is followed by paradisic harmonies and rubbery, carefree rhythms. The perfect primer for his forthcoming tropical holiday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traditionally Saturn in the eighth house was recognized as the house of death. Modern day astrologers have moved away from this line of thinking, believing it to be more about resurrection and rebirth—but they’re wrong. Saturn in the eighth house is the house of death. And speaking of tradition and houses of death, if you’re ever unclear if you’re at the morgue or the tax office, listen carefully for the Mortician Assistant’s Work Hymn, colloquially known as “Shot Down”. With thick drums, explosive percussion and a sort of electrified spaghetti western tinge, it’s the perfect work song. You may already be aware of the widely held view that the per-hour count of successfully embalmed bodies can triple while the Mortician Assistant’s Work Hymn is playing. I guess that’s quite a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ninth house signifies ideas, philosophies and rationalisations of the conscious mind. This house is an empty house. There’s a beautiful song I know that you can use to pass the time called ‘High Moon’. It’s an introspective, string-soaked wander through the reverie of nighttime—hot, sweet and electric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lend a hand at a soup kitchen, beautify your street with your elderly neighbours by tidying rubbish and planting indigenous trees and grasses. Start a small but merciless cult. For Saturn in the tenth house is a place for meaningful work and how you define your role in larger society. Some choose to define themselves as ‘altruists’. They’re easy to spot—there’s usually a thick glaze over the meat of their eyes and always seem inexplicably tanned. Many appear to built out of pure sinew. All that standing and offering up their seat on public transport I expect. Others, naturally, choose to define themselves as ‘God’. To these people I say: Congratulations and good luck. May you lead your vibrant new cult with a well-stocked armory and a heavy hand. If you must have a song to fill the air during your ‘sacred’ orgies—and you must—then I heartily recommend a song called ‘Beginning to Fade’, a slow-swaying tangle of treacle-y pop and heart-aching folk. There’s no other song better suited to soundtrack your highly questionable public sex.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chances are, you’re alone right now. I’m right, aren’t I? All of your colleagues have gone home without saying goodbye and Vince the cleaner (you know him by name now) has wedged open the floor’s door with a waste paper bin and is dragging his howling vacuum cleaner in. All the lights on the other floors are out, and you’ve taken your hipflask from your bottom drawer and have started to empty it into your slowly numbing face. But better this than spending hours home alone in breathless silence. But if you’re willing, the tide might be about to turn, because Saturn in the 11th house is about embracing your public relationships. You’re a social animal! Time to embrace it! Sally forth. Take to the Golden Road at night, drink a stranger’s wine, tip yourself into a nightclub/limousine, talk emphatically at a seething weekend cafe about…stuff. Have some terrible sex. And visit your family, they deserve your company too. Even if they are the ones who drove you to reclusion. And here’s a jumpy number to speed you on your way, featuring possibly the best bassline empirically estimated to exist. It’s called ‘4000 Years.’ You are dared to keep your hands off all the sweaty bodies on the dancefloor after this one. Bet you can’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being turned into genetic soup by warlocks, being impaled by the dull end of a spear at high speed, being partially eaten in your sleep by needy travelers of the road. The world is full of real risks. So beware the 12th house, where we are prone to fears, anxieties and insecurities, the origin of which are mysterious and even illusory. The Golden Road may be the perfect place to free yourself from such unwarranted anxiety. Knights of the Road aren’t afraid of how they’ll appear to passing strangers; they’re not concerned with the unremitting standards set from an early age by their mothers. I’ve never heard them utter the words ‘I’m just feeling a little down today’ except for when they have fallen in an actual pit.
[NB – Although most pits are filled with hand-sharpened spikes, so falling into one of these usually precludes the use of actual words]

The Road has been known to do certain travelers a power of good. When marauding, blood-sick zealots set fire to the walls around you, when lizards of the deep come writhing out of hollows with forked tongues and acid for blood, when you are challenged to Death Duels five or six times a day—you’re simply too busy to feel lonely and depressed. Desperate survival is the perfect tonic for your existential malaise in the 12th house. And while you’re fighting persistently for you life, why not enjoy some fine modern music? You’ve probably earned it. I advise the appreciation of a particular song called ‘Break the Glass’, a jangling re-imagination of late 60s psych rock that advises: “What does it matter? The world will still spin. Another day ends and the end will begin again.” Heed it well.

SATURN IN THE THIRTEENTH HOUSE (The House of Django Django)


 

We have reached the final house—the house of Django Django and presumably you are now finishing your journey along the Golden Road. But now is not the time for relaxing. Now that you a Knight of the Road, and have a brand new power/glory combination to gloat over, everyone will try and take your mantle from you. Now the real journey begins. Avoid swamps and low-lying marshes. Find an eyrie or vantage point from where you can spot approaching assailants. Sleep with one or both eyes open. Also—congratulations. While you set up your impenetrable fortress, why not put on some stirring tunes to motivate the workers? What about the near-Devo-ish number ‘Life We Know’? It’s a clap-along, basement rock insta-classic. The tambourine alone is sure to energize your minions like volts from a battery. But of course if this fails, use an actual battery. Not the most pleasant way to motive someone, via electrocution, but like your inevitably short rule, will be ‘terrible, but swift’. A credo for the modern authoritarian if ever there was one.

 

 

 

 

Django Django’s Born Under Saturn is available now where all insta-classic albums are sold | streamed.