I've always been curious, what is more intense, a Pluto transit in your Sun sign or a Saturn Return?

Would the answer be subjective? Does it depend of how the person deals with the transit or return?

Please, I would like to hear your answers!

I think it depends largely on how the rest of the natal chart looks as well as what else is going on in the sky at the time. 

 I had a Pluto opposition to my sun AND Saturn conjunct my sun several years ago, triggering my natal t-square.  So there was a fairly challenging sky combined with very difficult transits all at once.  At the time I blamed it on Saturn but now that I know more about astrology I can see that the Pluto effects were probably the most painful.  Saturn was just work without rest for a long time.  Pluto burned a lot of things to the ground back then.

You have to figure how aspected are the planets that will be transited in the chart, because they will be asked to express themself.

Pluto transit lasts longer and has a different purpose than saturn.

Saturn is quicker but it talks to you directly.

As pluto was transiting my mars (wich is square my vines) I had bronchopneumonia.

I had pluto transiting my neptune (wich is trine to my venus-rising),

and I wanted too much of everything, starving for extreme and transcendental experience;

but I was an art student and that has been a mjaor resource, I also had a good use for that energy.

Good aspects might help to find a constructive way to express it.

As for my saturn it will happen after the sommer, and since I'm a sun saturn person I feel right now as if everything is very appropriate. I'm used to saturn.

wow lupa ..that most have been a very hard moment, did you have any other planet helping you out?

One of the hardest transits for me was the Saturn-Pluto square from about 15 or so years ago.  Pluto joined my natal Neptune and Saturn squared it.  I'm usually an upbeat person that recovers well from blows.  Not this time.  I went into a funk, very uncharacteristic for me, that lasted for a long time.  What was also surprising was no natal personal planets were involved in this transit.

The Saturn and Pluto transits were difficult in different ways.  Saturn transits are ultra real.  If I was trying to hide what was going on, I wasn't able to during these transits.  They were grounding and clarifying.  I wouldn't call them bad, though.

Pluto transits were like, borrowing Peter Gabriel lyrics, "digging in the dirt, to find the places we've been hurt."  These transits were very painful, and they've all been to personal planets or points (specifically, the descendant).  I came out of them literally rising from the ashes.  Something was gone, but something that was better for me eventually came in its place--even though it was hard for me to process at the time of the transit.

My Saturn return was actually good.  I was a parent, something I'd been wanting for a while.  It was a lot of hard work (Saturn), but very rewarding.

How you view these transits all depends on perspective.

Thanks guys for the response. tomaui and Lupa!

And Lupa, wow, I'm glad those years are over for you, that's one intense 

The reason why I am asking this is because I just got over my Pluto transit and I felt like it was the hardest years of my life. I'm curious to know what a Saturn Return will feel like compared to my hard transit to my Sun in Sag (1995-2008).

When Pluto entered Sag in 1995, I didn't feel anything.

But around 2000/2001, I started to get mood swings and rebel against the whole world.

My rebellion peaked 2004-2007, but by late '07 I became more flexible in my thinking and being. And 2007 and 2008, the last two years of Pluto in Sag, was, I felt, a time for me to heal from my Pluto transit and repair the damages I put on myself in those transit years.

Oh, and Lislioness, you too! Thanks.

glad to hear it's over

I lost everything during those two years or so and was essentially homeless.  There was nothing to do but keep trudging on.  My youngest child was born in the midst of that time.  The saving grace was a stellium of planets in Aquarius (including Venus)trining my stellium in Gemini and Jupiter conjunct my natal Venus in Cancer in the 8th.  What I needed appeared in the nick of time in most cases.  I learned to live with very little.  Thanks to Venus, most of the miracles appeared in the form of women supporting me and bouying me up. 

I had to let go of everything that didn't support me.  Family, long time friends...  I had to let go of the battle with my older children's father and let them go live with him.   I only had the resources to sustain myself and just barely that.  I didn't have any energy to listen to people telling me where I had gone wrong or what I should do.  Just had to live day to day and have faith that it would get better.  

 Btw, it did get better but it took a very long time.  I  have a good relationship with all of my children and my parents and sister.  I'm in a very happy relationship and am earning a living wage in a career that I love.  If I could go back I would tell myself "It will get better and you do not suck no matter what anyone says."

I'm happy for you

toni- i think pluto is usually hard no matter what, 'cause something is coming down. for me, i found i could ease some of the pain by not fighting it and not clinging to anything that was leaving my life with the understanding i was gonna come back stronger and way more powerful in the end.

saturn can be hard or not as hard, but it depends a lot on how grown up you are and how hard you are working. saturn can get lots done for you as long as you're willing to take total responsibility for your life and decisions. if you're willing to work with saturn, he gives you the paycheck for your labor at the end of your assignments. if you're a slacker, watch out! :)

please feel free to correct me if i am wrong"

 Saturn is the teacher giving you more MENTAL pressure that can get very intense.

 Pluto works more on the emotional and spiritual level .

As far as I'm understending Pluto brings you back to your karma, it has to do with trasformation and it goes as deep as it gets, no matter what.

You might be forced to feel the deepest pain, or the oddest obsession.

It's all supposed to pay off (but I'm too jung to say that out of experience)

My pluto is conjunct my mercury, and I'm just realizing right now how that "dye and rebirth" process was present in my way of thinking.

As for saturn, it is mental but very concrete. It's much more predictible: he's demanding but on concrete matters.

Hope that makes sence.

My saturn return was some of the happiest times of my life. My pluto transit with my sun from 1995 to 2008 was ghastly. It ended with the death of my  youngest sister and brother.

Pluto and Saturn together are brutal.

flip58,

That's terrible, I am so sorry for your loss.

((flip))

Thank you for the kind thoughts.

just reading this thread....so sorry, flip  

What if you are going through both a Saturn Return AND a Pluto square Sun? How do you discern between the lessons of both?

No death at this point... Although the deterioration of my health is apparent and I have this great fear of dying.... emotionally and mentally. Think... walking zombie. 

I'm hoping to hang on to those little shreds of hope that I can resurface, as I always have.

Depends on your chart and how you handle things best.  Saturn, I handle better because it's a slow, steady pressure.  You see the warning signs before they hit.  For instance, I've lost my job twice now within the last six months.  Saturn's been transiting my 10th house.  I saw the loss coming both times and just didn't know when the ax was going to fall.

Pluto just...surprises you.  It's in my 2nd and I suspect, in cahoots with Saturn.  I don't like nasty surprises.  I don't deal nearly as well with surprising loss as expected loss.

Still, I always feel better when both of these are in direct motion.  I can literally feel when one of these is in retrograde and it's like being locked in a box with only one air hole.

I am sorry for the troubles I've read about in this thread.  They are so terrible. 

Oooh, I hear you on the "oddest obsession." I am having such issues with that right now. Two of 'em. One of them would be a total life-wrecker-upender (I'd have a drastically different life with almost nothing in common with the current one) if I went there that it terrifies me, it would make me a TARGET for people and that scares me. The other one is just ridiculous...as in, everyone in the world would laugh at me, call me crazy, and tell me I'm a total fool if I went after it. It's excruciatingly embarrassing, near-impossible to do, and probably would not at all go the way I want it do if I chased down that one. And I'd have to do #1 in order to go after #2.

Sigh. Folks, I don't know if those are callings or just me being crazy. How do you tell the difference?!

Saturn in my 10th did not have me lose my job, surprise, surprise. It was an expected loss in the sense of my dad, though. But that was a relief by the time it came about.

Just to let some of you know. When Pluto left Sag on November 26, 2008, I didn't feel a difference.

I first felt a difference this May. I can feel the weight lifting off of my finally. I should feel great by the end of this year. I guess you have to wait for a few months for Pluto's energy to sink in. I guess it wouldn't be realistic to expect it to work right away.

flip58, I am also very sorry and concur re Pluto transits to the Sun.

One of the reasons why I have so much respect for Astrology as a science and for professional astrologers is that life and how it's turning out in the real world can't be explained any better. 

Is it self-fulfilling prophecy that I prepared for the Saturn retrograde almost one year in advance? I can't tell ordinary people about this and I didn't.  I took stock of my resources and prepared to weather out the recession with which I believed was far worse than what the common individual assumed. 

I wasn't surprised, when I received a pink slip on 31 Dec 2008.  I saw it coming and I prepared myself for the consequences and the lessons that I have to gather from it. Detractors and supporters alike surfaced at the same time.  It was a crazy time in my life but the one event I did not forsee was the major argument between me and dad.

In restrospect,  the Saturn retrograde taught me so much about when and not to trust. Friends became enemies and an enemy became a lover!

When Saturn turned direct, things actually looked better because the "love-hate" relationship became for keeps when he "bullied" me to a corner and asked me to lay down my cards and get serious....

He has no idea that I have doubts because it is an unlikely relationship that blossomed in a saturn retrograde....I was just waiting for both of us to wake up, shrug and move on.

When we became a couple the following aspects on our natal charts are present (astrodienst source):

Progressions to Natal planets (all in conjuctions):

mine:

prog sun and venus conj natal mars, prog jup conj jup, prog sat conj merc/ven/sat, prog pluto conj pluto, prog chiron conj chiron, prog cupid conj uranus.

his:

prog moon conj pluto, prog ven conj vertex, prog jup conj jup/Asc, prog sat conj sat, prog nep conj nep, prog pluto conj pluto, prog chiron conj chiron, prog part of fortune conj MC, prog Asc conj sat, prog MC conj moon.

And the transits on that day:

mine:

pluto transit moon, moon transit moon/part of fortune

his:

sun transit chiron, moon trans saturn, venus trans sun/merc/part of fortune, saturn trans MC, nep trans chiron, chiron trans chiron

I always feel that it's just like a dream and that I'm bound to wake up any moment now but it seems to get better each day.  And my cappy moon refuses to believe the "vanilla syrup" in all of this.

I believe that Saturn is a friend of mine and this is his gift.  It's just that my skepticism kicks in all the time....

Hard?  saturn.

painful?  pluto.

depends on whether you'd rather work or break or what, i think...

((flip))

my pluto/fourth house cusp crossing started with my grandpa's death... and it took me years to get back together... but that was... expected, i guess.

pluto sextile my moon gave me my son and a huge maternal betrayal.  but that was conjuncting my neptune as well, so i think neptune's where betrayal comes in?  it totally fractured my spiritual beliefs (for the better, eventually.)   more deaths in the family but none so close. 

Lotsa hugs to you Flip. Sorry I didn't mean to be so snubby :(

Tough transformation like death of an old self in a very painful way could also be the message of the Saturn retro....

I currently am experiencing Saturn transiting my 2nd house.  It will eventually conjunct my Pluto in Virgo (Pluto is a focal point of a t-square in my chart).  I am dealing with my house being in foreclosure among other things, but am hoping that things will look better when it gets into the 3rd.  It definitely feels like I've been shedding and mourning my former self.  Strangely though - I feel like I'm prepared.

Yeah seems like a lot of my current "troubles" have to do with a death of the old "me." My habits, my career, my health... and the one thing that changed drastically is that I now have a set of very supportive friends and family... I've always been "alone" in my life!

I think what's our common denominator, all of us who have "gathered" here, is the feeling of isolation that we have fought all our lives.  Not sure if it is safe to assume that during a hard outer planets retrograde we will find ourselves "reconnecting" and dip into the vast understanding that beyond the irrationality of what's currently going on, there's a group of like-minded individuals who are attempting to rationalize.

I wish I could tell my mom to slow down a bit coz it's a mercury retrograde or tell people to prepare for a pluto or saturn retrograde....at least specifically in that manner.  Last year I sat everybody down and made them list all the things that are basically important to them.  The purpose being, that in the months ahead of that we will be faced with choices to "shed off", downscale/downsize and GO BACK TO BASICS.

Like trying to recover a precious diamond ring lost deep in the murky waters without a diving equipment, I took a deep breath and dived in.  The ring represents the lesson of a lifetime that I had to bring back with me as I come back to resurface. 

It was difficult to say the least but it was worth the painful journey that it was and I was HUMBLED.   

persian_cat:

Going back to basics is the theme of Pluto, I believe. Yesterday, I decided to cragislist ALL my furniture before moving next week. And I've been ruthless on editing all my stuff, allowing myself only the stuff I need and love. I'm traveling light this year, and I think I will travel light for a while, considering I'm a very busy girl and all ;)

Worst transit of my life was pluto and saturn conj my sun. My experiences made me bitter for a few years & I don't ever want to be that way again.

I hear ya Jilly,

There's an after taste to transits that can last for about 1 or 2 years.

In your head you're like, the transit is done, but it's gonna take me a few years to get my feet back up from it again.It takes time to heal.

Agree with Toni.  I think it will take around two years to full recovery and reinstatement.

persian_cat, you're very deep. That's one reason why I think you're a Pisces and there's a something magical about your writing.

And yeah, thanks for agreeing with me.

Although I think Saturn Returns heal faster though. But I never went through one, so what do I know?

Toni that's my closely guarded secret! You spilled it here! I have my jupiter closely conjunct my juno and ceres in pisces in the 8th house.  With venus, merc and saturn all conjunct in cancer in the 12th house plus leo sun in the 12th as well.

I'm a water native as far as I know and I heal and nurture with words, be it written or through speech.  Counselling from intuition comes naturally to me especially when it comes to children and teenagers.  I have a special affinity with the young ones and those individuals who can't find their "inner child".

persian_cat, I'm sorry for spilling your secret!

My blunt Sagittarius self!

I have Pisces Ascendant, so I like your kind of writing.

I, on the other hand, am pure fire. I have Mars in Aries, Moon in Leo, and Sun in Sagittarius. But my Venus in Scorpio and Pisces Ascendant makes me more caring of others!

Nah. I'm very comfortable with this site and the people in it. In the days to come somebody should align all of our charts and who knows...maybe a star of david would just come up. 

What do you think? I hope Elsa and "cohorts" would consider this.