JM at Raging Universe is a poet and artist as well as an astrologer. She was kind enough to post the links to recent articles on Saturn from Raging Universe:

Saturn and Success

In most cases, Saturn sets up a sort of barricade. My view is that this wall is constructed for the purpose of confinement in order to encourage contemplation. We learn to calculate our actions and we learn how to do the job in the best way through this slow steady learning process. Transits of Saturn tend to slow things down for this purpose too. We try everything to get past the wall…we thrust the battering ram, try to sidestep, climb up, ignore, try to dematerialize and pass through, stay trapped behind, or try explosives. Nothing works until the time arrives for the wall to come down. Despair can occur believing one can never get beyond it, but if the work continues through the life, it will happen.

And the Walls Come Down

Saturn often erects a wall while the work is going on, and once construction is complete, and the system can function successfully, the wall comes down. The effective governing begins. Every individual is at a slightly different stage of evolution, and for some, now is the time to recognize the needs, and start to prepare to take the lead in whatever realm is indicated. Leo and the Sun are at the center of a system in some way, somewhere. Everyone has a Leo sector in the chart, where Saturn has been training us. When he goes into Virgo, it will be time to get to work.

And I particularly like what she said in this recent article:

The subjects of alchemy and mining have come up often at RagU lately and I think they describe an aspect of this planetary combination. This little hard-working sprite [depicted in the illustration that accompanies the post] is deep in Saturn’s concrete reality mining magic and forging the ego through Leo’s fires. A strong sense of self and identity are basic to the Neptunian ideal as manifest on the upper earth. Many know the difficulties of the spiritual path in this dense, often distracting life, but after this gels in our psyches, the road might get slightly easier for some.

Many spiritual disciplines teach the abandonment of ego, but this is impossible. Use of the ego is the aim. This is one of the main lessons of these times, from my perspective. The alchemy of ego transformation for it’s ideal use in the rock solid earthly realm. A great achievement. The possibility of real grace.