Saturn in the Chart of Louise Bourgeois
Since Ancient Mesopotamia, the planet Saturn, the furthest visible planet to the human eye, has been associated with hardship, delays, boundaries, and restrictions. Our inherent negativity bias makes us focused on all of the horrible things that will surface as we go through our Saturn Returns. Saturn is not always pretty, but it is more productive to embrace this transformational process rather than fear it. Fear is one of the many shadow potentials of Saturn. Saturn will return back to your natal Saturn position roughly from the ages of 27-31 and then again from the ages of 57-59. Ready or not, we will be become acquainted with the energies of Saturn during these times.
Our first Saturn Return in our late twenties marks a period of time that is crucial to our maturation. We discover that our actions have long term implications and we must reevaluate our habits and routines. We become more acutely aware that we will one day die and we need to rethink how we plan to spend our remaining years. In our second Saturn Return, we take stock of how we navigated the previous twenty seven years and make the adjustments that help us in our remaining years. If we are unaware of this process, external forces may appear and we will involuntarily go through these motions. It is observed that through this hardship, we come out on the other end wiser and more prepared.
Looking at the chart of Louise Bourgeois, I discovered that her chart and her legacy, are a beautiful example of an elevated Saturn. She was famous into her later years, her work exudes mastery overtime with great effort, she became her own authoritarian, and she channeled sadness into form, which are some of the highest octane manifestations of Saturn.
Born on Christmas day, 1911 in Paris, France, Louise Bourgeois was an Aquarius Rising and Moon, with a Capricorn Sun. Since she is an Aquarius Rising and Saturn is the Ancient ruler of Aquarius, Saturn is the ruler of her chart and is located in Taurus, in the fourth house. With her chart ruler being Saturn and her Sun and Moon signs disposited by Saturn, Saturn is the authority of her chart and she was therefore, an extremely Saturnian person.
Saturn is located in Taurus in the fourth house dealing with family, roots, lineage, and rules the first and twelfth houses as well. The first house is associated with self, physical vitality and expression, and the twelfth house is associated with isolation, places that are distant to the constructs of everyday society, and the unconscious. The first, fourth, and twelfth houses are potent places in her birth chart and they have a heavy Saturnian influence.
Saturnian people are often quite serious, are motivated by a lack from their childhood or by a past trauma. They wear black and they might have a classic style. They are willing to sacrifice and minimize in order to gain more over time. They may carry a deep well of pain that they channel into hard work, and in turn, become their own authoritarian. Louise Bourgeois was often photographed wearing dark clothing, sometimes with the pop of a white collared blouse. Her artwork is dark, heavy, and broody, both physically and conceptually and the topics she approached in her work - the unconscious, sexuality, and death, are the opposite of light and airy.
With Mercury ruling her eighth house, associated with death, sexuality, and psychology, and conjunct her Sun in Capricorn in the twelfth house, dealing with the unconscious, it is interesting to see how these eighth and twelfth house themes played out in her work. The correlation with memory and structure is also quite fascinating, as the memory of architecture was a continuous theme in her career.
A strong Saturn can be associated with issues of authority stemming from a distrust or absence of the “father-figure.” Liz Green writes, “The relationship with the father is immediately implicated, and there is the suggestion that some disappointment is experienced through him…It is a particularly significant contact for women because a woman’s relationship with men and with the masculine half of the own psyche is affected by disappointment and failure of her relationship with her father...She may develop hostility towards men, openly and consciously expressed.” This speaks to her fourth house Saturn, which is associated with difficulties around the family line or with the father figure in particular. Louise was extremely open about her distrust for men after witnessing her father having multiple affairs while her mother fell sick from influenza. She made work that involved concepts of domesticity and family, and even made a work titled, “Destruction of Father.”
Conceptually, her work exudes the themes of the twelfth and first house quite beautifully. The Ascendent lives in the first house, the house associated with one’s vitality, the physical body, and how one presents themselves to the world. The twelfth house has a very different feel. Before one is born and before expressing their individual characteristics after birth, they spend nine months gestating in their mother’s body. Symbolically, we undergo the same process before presenting ourselves to the world. Humans often prepare in some sense before going on stage and performing.
The twelfth house, at the end of the zodiac, also represents death before new life emerges in the first house. It symbolizes the period of time before we were born, where we are affected by the nutrients our mother puts into her body, her moods, and where we can feel any trauma she may have experienced in those nine months. It contains our earliest memories that only live in our unconscious but can be actively triggered throughout our lives in ways we will never understand. The twelfth house rules spirituality, monasteries, dreams, places that are far away from normal society. This can be a place where we find reprieve, and reconnect with ourselves. It’s also a place that remains extremely unconscious and we may never fully understand the planets that live in our twelfth house. A twelfth house Sun is very appropriate for an artist, who works behind the scenes, working out their unconscious traumas in a liminal state of mind.
The first house represents the idea of the new born baby. We are still very influenced by anything that could have occurred while we were in the twelfth house phase, we are still desperate for our mother’s care, and because of that, it is the most primal part of the Zodiacal wheel. We still very much need help, but we are also our purest form, uninfluenced by the outside world, reacting on a very primordial level. We are responding unconsciously from the first house.
While the twelfth and first houses can be quite primal and irrational, Louise Bourgeois twelfth and first house have the co-presence of a strong Saturninan influence, providing structure to an otherwise underdeveloped part of the chart. There is wisdom to Capricorn and Aquarius, two signs that live towards the end of the Zodiac, and both ruled by wise Saturn. Louise was able to use that wisdom, the rules, and the structure to give form to concepts that are otherwise formless - the unconscious, death, and memory.
Saturn is not the bad guy of the Zodiac. Saturn provides form and structure and hits us over the head when we get out of line. There is a heaviness to Saturn that not many people like to face. Saturn forces us to put in the work and to not assume we will be rewarded without being intentional. One could say that our society is suffering because there is a lack of Saturnian energy, but we need the energy of every planet and sign to create a healthy balance. We need the optimism of Jupiter to be met with the seriousness of Saturn. Too much Saturn can lead to melancholy and too much of Jupiter can lead to exaggerating or proselytizing.
Louise Bourgeois chart is a beautiful example of the positive possibility of a heavy Saturn influence in the birth chart. She took the pain of her past and funneled that energy into work that is now her legacy. Not everyone will have such a strong Saturn to lean on in their chart, but coming to terms with the energy and concepts associated with the planet Saturn is useful when we become lost, disorganized, or are flailing at life. Saturn is the wise elder who will guide you on the correct path if you are able to lean in and listen to what the planet is asking of you.
