Saturn's Day in Practice

Saturday carries Saturn's significations: structure, discipline, limitation, and the acceptance of consequence, following the qualities classical astrology assigns the outermost and slowest moving of the seven classical planets, historically read as the greater of the two malefics alongside Mars. Older astrological and magical handbooks recommend Saturday for undertakings concerned with endings, boundaries, long term commitments and any work that calls for patience and the acceptance of limits rather than expansion or pleasure.

Because Saturn was read as the sternest of the seven planets, later tradition reframed its harshness as the discipline of a teacher rather than simple misfortune, and Saturday inherited some of that reframing: a day suited to sober, deliberate work and to bringing matters to a proper close, standing at the far end of the week from Sunday's associations with vitality and new beginnings and completing the same cycle those beginnings opened.

Sources A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion with Grimoires: A History of Magic BooksOwen Davies