Saturn as Feminine and Crone

This is the second post in which I am exploring the ramifications of viewing Saturn as feminine, and also considering symbolism related to Saturn as Old Crone.

In my previous post on Saturn as Feminine I quoted a passage from the Hellenistic astrologer Dorotheus, in which Saturn is classified as one of the feminine planets. This created some striking arrangements of Saturn with the other planets, having some of the distinctive symmetry and balance of much of traditional Western astrology.

In this post I want to consider further how the symbolism of Saturn is linked to feminine symbolism.

Here is the quote from Carmen Astrologicum by Dorotheus:

“…the feminine planets are Saturn, Venus and the Moon, the masculine ones are the Sun, Jupiter, and Mars.”

When I first saw this quote I wondered if Saturn might originally have been associated with an Old Crone goddess figure or figures, that then was turned masculine in a later cultural development.

What I want to do in this post is to consider the nature of Saturn and feminine symbolism, and see how they combine.

Man and woman – man associated with spirit, woman associated with the body or form. The body is that which gives structure, contains, delimits, links us to the earth.

Feminine can be considered symbolically as form, as container, as that which gives shape or embodies. Receptive. That is one of the foundation meanings of Saturn, that which gives form or shape. Saturn rules the skin and the bones, the parts of our bodies that give structure and shape.

The body is the part of us subject to time, limitation, and ultimately decay and death. If we just identify with our “spirit” – whatever that loaded word ultimately means – we can pretend we are beyond limitation and immortal. Tie our existence to a physical body and we are subject to time and death.

Time, death, limitation, structure, form – all of these are key concepts linked to Saturn.

In astrology, just as Saturn is form, solidity, structure, and the body, Saturn is also Time and all it entails – growth, aging, decay, and eventual death. Saturn gives us the form at birth, and Saturn frees us from the form when it has outlived its time and is ready to die.

The traditional image of Saturn as aged figure in a cape holding a scythe, is a classic image for death, and also for harvest – the scythe is the reaping blade.

I don’t think the Grim Reaper death imagery of Saturn was originally masculine. In older mythology there are many goddesses who are associated with the passage out of life into death.

For instance, the goddess Hecate can be viewed as midwife of both birth and death – she brings us into physical existence and she ushers us out.

Consider this description of the Greek Goddess Hecate (quoted from http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/greek_goddess_hecate.htm)

“Not only was Hecate called upon to ease the pains and progress of a woman’s labor, but especially to protect and restore the health and growth of a child.

Similarly, Hecate played a role that, in contemporary times, we would describe as “hospice nurse”, helping the elderly make a smooth and painless passage into the next life and staying with them, if need be, in the otherworld to help prepare them for their eventual return to the earth in their next life. “

Think of the town wise woman who shows up in households for the big transitions, birth and death – the experienced old woman who walks in the door wearing her black cape, and who probably spent a fair amount of time walking to houses at night when people needed her assistance then. She’s had experience in dealing with these events, she knows how to help, and she knows the proper rituals for each.

Also, don’t forget that deaths during childbirth were common, so the midwife would deal with both routinely, sometimes both at the same time. In our modern minds birth and death are held separate, but I suspect that was not always the case at all. None of this hiding stuff away in hospitals – birth and death were played out right there in the home.

The messenger of mercy and the Angel of Death – when that old woman showed up at the door, Death was present.

All of this complex of symbolism regarding form, limitation, time, harvest, death and so on, aligns with feminine rather than masculine symbolism.


There is another side of Saturn that you get to know as you get older – it has to do with a certain wisdom born of age and experience, and a compassion from that. I am going to describe that here as Understanding.

I was discussing this topic with a wise friend of mine. We were talking about Qabalah, and in that system, Wisdom is considered masculine, and Understanding is feminine. She came up with this wonderful observation that I would like to share here.

Maybe if the masculine is about wisdom, than Saturn and understanding belong to the feminine – so understanding is the receptivity of wisdom?

You know what I think she touched on there – if you were Catholic you would associate that kind of understanding with Mary – the kind of total, wise, open-hearted receptivity that understands everything, accepts everything, forgives everything, and loves everyone who turns to her for understanding.

There is also a whole streak in Catholic devotion about Our Lady of Sorrows, and Mary as being a mother who had to endure watching her son be subject to the worst kind of degradation, suffering and death, while keeping her heart open. That then means an understanding that is full of compassion.

That is so perfect, because Mary is another form of the great mother. I think that kind of compassionate understanding fits with Saturn as Crone.

That fits with my experience of people who age well, meaning they have learned the lessons of Saturn. You get a warmth, a mellowness, an acceptance, and a great deal of compassion. My word for people who age well like that – they have a certain sweetness of heart. They have accepted their own faults, limitations and vulnerabilities, and they sweetly accept the faults and vulnerabilities of others.

They have come to terms with everything that Saturn stands for – difficulty, limitation, darkness, time, aging, vulnerability, disease, loss, death – accepted it and turned it into sweetness of heart, into compassion.

Compassion and understanding in this sense comes from experiencing, and accepting, everything that Saturn has to offer. It is worth considering whether lack of compassion is related to refusing to accept or come to terms with Saturn kinds of experiences – that’s not me, it’s someone else, and it’s their fault.

This is a kind of understanding and compassion that is completely without condemnation or accusation. To understand all is to accept all.

That is Understanding, at its highest and most beautiful. That is also the finest expression of the kind of Understanding which is related to Saturn.

That is Saturn as Crone in the highest sense.


Hopefully I have given you some material to meditate on and explore.

I do not intend this material to replace the usual traditional understanding of Saturn as masculine – that has been too deeply embedded in astrological tradition to be lightly dismissed. However, I do think these associations of Saturn with feminine symbolism do provide a fruitful alternate perspective, and give much food for thought.

14 thoughts on “Saturn as Feminine and Crone”

  1. After having read both articles I think you are making a very good case in order to at least consider the concept of Saturn being feminine.

    I’m experiencing right now a Second Saturn return (coinciding with a Jupiter return) so the subject is of special interest to me.

    However, being an astrology student for only a few years I still have to come to understand a lot and right now I wonder how the change of gender would lead to a change in delineation of a natal chart. Are you maybe planning a third part with some examples?

  2. Thank you for your comment

    >> Are you maybe planning a third part with some examples?

    I was not planning that, but I think that is a wonderful idea. I will give that some thought, and some time this Spring I will do a post on how Saturn as feminine could work out in chart interpretation.

    I am on the shady side of my second Saturn return, and Saturn is also Lord of my Ascendant, so this has great personal interest for me also. I may also do a post on how Saturn as feminine affects how I view my own chart.

  3. I would love for you to continue your exploration of Saturn as the feminine. It astrology, we don’t have a good place for the crone, which is an important part of a women’s life.

  4. Charles, excellent, thought-provoking article. I easily accept some of it (as a Cap Sun at age 75) such as crone, aging, receptivity, form, structure, earthiness…. but not settled yet about wisdom being masculine and understanding being feminine. Where in that is intuition/right brain which in my mind is more linked to spirit & wisdom and feminine along with age and showing the way like the Hermit in Tarot. However, the Hermit is described as an elder person usually a male with wisdom, illumination and clear vision in one reference. In another, the Hermit is associated with the Hebrew letter Yod and the Sense of Touch and Virgo, the Virgin (both seeming feminine), but the rest is very masculine including reference to The Father.

    So the question all this raises for me is what are the key reasons to split between masculine/feminine in the first place. I recently heard Jerome Bernstein share Carl Jung’s diagnosis of the Western mind as “dissociation”, that is focused on left brain and having lost all connection with the right brain, feminine, earthy, spiritual side of life beginning with blaming Eve for being kicked out of the Garden of Eden in the first place! Obviously the difference between masc and fem is of interest. Please keep writing and exploring. Lovely challenge!

  5. Thank you for the link to your article.

    My sense at this point is that the feminine side of Saturn was taken into the goddess Rhea, so what we contact here is actually an expression of Saturn/Rhea combined energy. I think that touches on something of what you are expressing in your article.

  6. Indeed, Saturn is feminine. In occult practice, it is the higher octave of the Moon. Like the Moon, it rules over cycles of life (the Moon rules monthly cycles, Saturn the karmic life cycle). The Moon rules the home via the fourth house, and Saturn rules the human family via the tenth. Saturn is the matriarch of the solar system, being the highest entity from our solar system (Binah) on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The Earth is a feminine planet, in a balanced system, ruled by the matriarch (Saturn).

  7. This is a great article. Imagery is important but I still think gender simply implies whether a planet is hot or cold: active or passive. More principle than personage. Nevertheless let me consider Saturn to be Hecate so that I can think about this creatively.

    Lets say Hecate has just entered Capricorn, an Earth thus feminine sign. Capricorn is also a cardinal sign, so its modal quality is something on the move and initiating (giving out). This is unlike the sign of Aquarius, a masculine Air sign, which holds things together like walls and laws. Now lets say Hecate and the Moon Goddess are in Capricorn and it’s night time. I now know the Moon Goddess is in her detriment but also in her triplicity. So although the Moon has no power and is subservient to Hecate, Hecate till makes use of her light.

  8. This is in relation to my previous comment above. Mars is also exalted in Capricorn. This is a dignified Mars of right action, so the essence of a surgeon or nurse.

  9. Hi,
    I am writing a book on Saturn and found your post from November 27, 2007 on the Student of Astrology Website by Charlie Obert and loved what you wrote. Wonder if you can add more to Saturn as feminine.
    Thanks so much. Please visit my website at http://www.dustybunker.com for information about me.

  10. As we all know, Saturn = Kronos. How interesting the phonetic similarity between Kronos, and Crone. “CRONE-os.” Thought of this last night and had to come back and comment this.

    In addition, there are obviously several different aspects of the mother, some benevolent-sounding and some malevolent-sounding. Of course, benevolence and malevolence exist only within our subjective perception, and both lend to each other, cannot have one without the other; that being said, the malevolent Mother manifestation is sometimes known as the Devouring Mother archetype.

    So, that being considered, and with this idea that Saturn may be an aspect of the divine Feminine/Mother, let’s recall the myth of Kronos — the “father” who devoured his children. What if Saturn is, in a way, the devouring mother archetype? We are born of the dirt of the Earth, and yet that very same dirt will one day swallow us whole again. She will digest us and make us anew in the regenerative power of the “dark” aspect of the feminine cycle. Death and rebirth, to me, are associated with the regenerative powers of the feminine, and also Saturn. With a key theme of Kronos being the devouring of his children, it seems like a fine possibility that Saturn is Kronos is the devouring Mother archetype.

    I don’t know, seemed interesting to me!

  11. While I travel with my 2nd return and while I sleepwalk in awareness I loved reading your musings with Saturns Feminine ‘side’ as I feel both since alchemising my personal journey. Just felt to come and thank you thank you thank you kindly 🙏💞

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