Saturn is your purpose in life. It's your life plan, the direction you take, the work you do. It's your goal, your objective, the lessons you must learn along the way. It is patience, honesty, trust, objectivity, and common sense. It's the structure of your life, the foundations upon which you build and how you build your life.

Saturn rules Capricorn and therefore retains all the qualities and characteristics of that sign plus the 10th solar house.

Saturn is constantly teaching lessons. It causes delays so you may learn patience, it causes trouble so you may learn to be honest with yourself and others and to teach you to be objective. It balances Jupiter's expansiveness with prudence, Jupiter's luck with practicality, Jupiter's enthusiasm with soberness and conservation - in short it is the opposite of Jupiter. Where Jupiter is the optimist, Saturn is the pessimist. Saturn gives direction to the rest of the planets. They will all operate according to where Saturn is placed and how it's aspected. Perhaps this is better understood by saying that your life revolves around your work or your objective.

Saturn offers a steadying effect to the rest of the planets and keeps your feet on the ground. For example, if you had Mercury square Neptune in your chart, meaning that you are too naive, too idealistic, then you'd need an aspect to Saturn to help steady you. It would add some common sense where it would be needed.