Astrology brings awareness of cyclical wisdom. We return to the same patterns on a measurable and predictable path, and this is one of the most practical ways to embody astro-awareness in your every day life. All planets and celestial bodies have a return, or a conjunction with where they began their cycle. This is like a marker for how to measure where we’ve come from, decide what we want to take with us, and choose with sovereign authenticity where to go next.
Most people tend to look at their Saturn return with a feeling of impending doom, like an ominous cloud lurking before them, bringing out all the potential fears and insecurities. Well, I mean, you’re not wrong necessarily… but there is also so much more available for us in such a potent time as this. You’re getting close to the fullest, strongest expression of your MAGIC. It’s all about finding what is in the way of your personal authority and confronting it head on.
The Saturn return that begins around age 29.5 and lasts until 31 is a marker of maturation, alignment, and wisdom. This is when you get to very carefully choose what prior conditioning you want to take with you into your future, as this is when you actually are laying the foundation of the next 29.5 years of your life (until the 2nd Saturn Return). Saturn is the ruler of Time, and marks these grand passages throughout our lives. Take a look at the squares and opposition moments of your Saturn cycle to see more major turning points in your growth and development.
Saturn rules Capricorn and Aquarius, and no matter the sign you have your Saturn, this energy is programmed into Saturn’s functioning. Innately for all, the Saturn Return means looking at personal responsibility, the alignment of your structure of reality, and how you come to re-parent yourself. What needs to be innovated about your structural foundations?
Saturn represents our experience with the Truth and Beauty Lab of Life. We get to feel into on a very tangible level exactly what it is we’re here to work with in this life. Saturn reminds us of how to stay true to our karmic and dharmic path, and how to release the chains of our past life conditioning.
What are you most afraid of? Your deepest desires are intertwined in that same space. With Saturn’s grace we can process our fear and overcome what is limiting us from our dharmic contributions in life.
RE-IMPRINTING! For the first 29 years or so leading up to our 1st Saturn Return, we are literally living out and re-imprinting the themes of our past life conditioning. This is so we can work with our karma consciously.
Where we have Saturn in our charts represents the promise we made upon incarnating into this body as to how we were going to make the world a better place. How do you feel if you know you are breaking a promise? Saturn is here to continuously remind you of that promise, which is indicated by the energy of the sign, house placement and aspects to your natal Saturn.
When transiting Saturn arrives and starts mingling with your natal Saturn, you can’t help but notice life starts to get a bit more serious. This is how Saturn gets his reputation of bringing heaviness, restriction, limitation or confinement. But that’s not all he’s about. If you look hard enough, you can see the friendly hand of a loving grandfather, mentor or elder who wants to guide you to your highest potential, so you can fully express out into the world the beauty they are able to see in you. This is how you keep that promise to yourself, because the way you make the world a better place is by being the lightest and brightest version of YOU!
What’s in the way of that most sovereign and aligned expression of yourself? This is a time to look around your life and take stock of what is working for you, what is clearly not working, and what is sort of somewhat in the middle, that you’re not quite sure of yet. Trust me, you’ll become sure by the end of the 2.5-year transit! Saturn brings refinement and elegance.
For me, I was blessed with having a daughter just before my Saturn Return, so I quite literally had zero time for anything beyond what was absolutely essential on my path. This is definitely the time to cut out the superfluous, to release any tendencies toward wasting your time, or money, or potential. You may notice that certain structures in your life are set up in a similar way somehow, to almost force you to make choices around your truest priorities. The choices are usually between past-life validation traps (take a look at your South Node), and consciously choosing the North Node path (your destiny, bliss and exploration of new ways to feel validated on your path).
There is a distinct difference in experience when it comes to the time right before the official Saturn-Saturn conjunction, and the time after that. This is the difference of the phasal relationship, similar to how we understand the dance between Moon and Sun. We know that just before the Moon is new, in the balsamic phase, all is dark, we’re in the unknown, more connected to feelings of uncertainty and fear, and finding the highest spiritual essence of the cycle that came before that is now ending.
This is exactly what it feels like during the whole year leading up to the exact Saturn Return. You are in a balsamic Saturn phase, which feels very much like ending something that you’re not meant to take with you. Sometimes, this manifests through the realm of relationship, or career, especially if you know something’s not truly aligned but you’re attached to some kind of limiting validation in that area of your life. This is a time to remember that what is essential is NEVER lost. And sometimes, things need to leave your life just for a little while, only to return in a higher form. This is a time to cultivate TRUST.
When we then move into the exact conjunction and the year or so after that, this is when we fully get to play with our new Saturn toys. These toys might look like new commitments, new levels of practical engagement with the world, new responsibility in relationships, career, and consciously creating your life to be what you really want it to be. In the new phase relationship of transiting Saturn and our natal Saturn, we are re-building our lives with the embodied wisdom of all we’ve learned so far.
Now, we don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Often times it’s a mixed bag of how you’ve been conditioned that needs to stay with you. You can think of your parents, in all their love for you, and feel into what you’re grateful that they taught you. You can do the same with your teachers, mentors and anyone else who’s been a guide for you. There is so much gold here, and it’s often only the surface layers of distorted meaning that have settled on top that need to be cleared or renewed.
Specific things that many people need to let go of are general insecurities around self-worth. Many of us need to let go of guilt, shame and self-doubt.
Where were those seeds (accidentally) planted in you?
It’s your time, like the grim reaper, to go and dig out anything diseased or based on un-truth so you can be who you’re meant to be. You can take those diseased parts and compost them. Give them back to mother earth who so graciously can take something seemingly rotten and turn it into something beautiful, nourishing and life-sustaining.
While we’re collectively very achievement-oriented, your Saturn Return doesn’t have to be all about that. At its highest, this is a time to feel into the authentic beauty of life, and to get to play with your potential of adding more beauty, simply by being your authentic, empowered self.
You are your own master.
If you’re already past your 1st Saturn Return, congratulations! You get to be a guide for others walking the path. If you’re close to your 2nd Saturn Return, much of the same applies, only you get to do all of this from a heightened level of consciousness and with a lot more experience and wisdom! If you’re nearing your 3rd Saturn Return, I bow to you, and hope to arrive there one day in this life!
Saturn Return through the signs/houses:
The function of Saturn is to refine, measure, test, discipline, dedicate and master. You can look for both the energy of the sign and the house as these archetypes overlap. The sign is the HOW, and the house is the WHERE.
Saturn in Aries/1st house: mastery of Self, personal instincts, allowing yourself authentic creative expression, refining expression of passion, increasing personal freedom, mastering your relationship with your BODY
Saturn in Taurus/2nd house: mastery of personal resources, refining your priorities and values, making the world literally a more beautiful place (more aesthetically pleasing), mastering the ability to curate resources for yourself and others, increasing self-esteem/self-worth, releasing stagnancy
Saturn in Gemini/3rd house: mastering how you communicate to get your needs met, engaging with the relativity of TRUTH, becoming a master student or teacher, networking, sharing and expressing yourself authentically
Saturn in Cancer/4th house: becoming your own parent, learning emotional expression, allowing yourself to be vulnerable in a healthy way, releasing codependency, know yourself, and this creates natural, healthy, authentic boundaries that won’t feel like walls, master your self-care and self-love practices
Saturn in Leo/5th house: refining your creative expression, acknowledging and honoring your gifts, talents, abilities and sharing them, releasing the need for external validation, learning internal validation, living and leading from the heart
Saturn in Virgo/6th house: refining physical health and healing abilities, alignment with body needs, living up to your own expectations, refining daily work/life balance, releasing self-judgment or shame, mastering your craft, releasing sadomasochism, performing your right role of service
Saturn in Libra/7th house: mastering the art of relating, active listening, love languages, refining patterns of relating, releasing codependency, releasing blame or projection onto others, seeing your excellence in relationships, cooperation, establishing harmony
Saturn in Scorpio/8th house: mastering deep soul connections, aligning 3D realm with the evolutionary intentions of your soul, evolving your desires, mastering intimacy, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, merging with people that are aligned with your soul growth, releasing fear of connection with others
Saturn in Sagittarius/9th house: mastering your belief systems, releasing limiting beliefs, seeing how your thoughts become things, engaging with cultural differences, expanding perspective and capacity for TRUTH, learning to channel your higher self and hone in your intuition
Saturn in Capricorn/10th house: becoming your own parent, being your own authority, your own master, guiding others along the path of becoming their own masters, being a positive role model, mastering personal responsibility, owning up to your potential and dedicating yourself to your contribution to society
Saturn in Aquarius/11th house: mastering your connection with your tribe, releasing old versions of self, allowing yourself to change, opening up to more progressive ways of being and relating with the world, refining a cause, stepping into leadership power
Saturn in Pisces/12th house: refining your spiritual practice, honoring your psychic gifts, following your intuition so you can be of service wherever you are, integrating the past, grounding your energy so the world doesn’t drain you, facing your karma, listening to the messages from your subconscious (dreams)
Wherever you have natal Saturn shows what lessons and themes of mastery you are working with for your entire life. During your Saturn return, you will be measuring your progress in this area, and stepping into the next level of your contribution to society. We can always look to where Saturn is currently transiting to see what our biggest focus of mastery is, at our Saturn Return time or otherwise!
What are you mastering? How are you sharing this wisdom with the world? How are you making the world a better place simply by being the most authentic version of YOU?
Bowing across the space to you and your evolutionary journey,
nura
Want support in unraveling your Saturn cycles and story? Let’s connect for a reading!
