Bodies of Work - Saturn Transits Pt. 1

This is post One of a series of posts on Saturn Transits. The text below comes from a PDF book I wrote in 2019, titled, “Bodies of Work: Creative Exercises for the Saturn Transit.” In this post, I share my experience with my first Saturn Return.

The Saturn transit known as the Saturn Return, that takes place approximately every thirty years from ages 27-31 and 58-61, when transiting Saturn returns to it’s natal degree in the birth chart, is the biggie, the whopper, the earth shattering, life changing, can’t-go-back-ever time of your life that you’re either going to love or hate and you better make all the right decisions (or at least think you are making the right decisions based on the information you have) because what happens to you and what you choose to do throughout this period of three to five years is going to affect you for the next three decades.

How about THAT?!

And, you know what else? 

For some of us, this is a story that is one big planet of a LIE.

I remember hearing endless stories about this pivotal period of life for the first seven years of my 20’s during the approach to my first Saturn Return.

“This is when you get married, have kids, experience the big career breakthrough, buy a home, find The One!” (I cackle.)

On the flip side, 

“This is the period when you get divorced, lose a parent, break ties with family, die from drugs, murder someone, move away from everyone you know, transform your identity, are diagnosed with a life-altering illness, burn out from your career and/or step into a giant pile of shit.”

So, I made sure I was as mentally prepared as I could be for any and all of the above, with the exception of murder. (No matter how vindictive my Scorpio stinger can be, I wasn’t planning to murder anyone ever.) I also needed this transit to shake up some overdue shit in my life, and I was willing to take any of the shake-ups. (Remember, I’m a Scorpio, and a Scorpio with Pluto on a Scorpio Acendant. You can send me to hell and back and somehow I will rise.)

When I finally made it to age 27 (the fringe age of the Saturn Return) I took a big deep breath and waited for the life-altering curveball. 

And....Nothing.

Ok. 28?

Nothing.

It’s got to be 29, then?!

Nothing.

30?? I’m in the heart of this thing now, come’on Universe!

Nothing.

“But, life is so bland!” I argued.

31? 

Nope. Nothing exciting to see here. 

WTH?! Why does everyone else get their pick at the good stuff early, and I’m stuck here in life limbo forever? At least strike me with some of the harder course correction. I can take the hard stuff!

And then, the Return was over.

My Saturn Return was, pardon my language, boring as F*ck. And I have a STELLIUM (three or more planets in a house or sign) that should have been activated in the conjunction process.

What was going on here? 

I kept thinking back to the what an astrologer, who provided a natal/progression reading of my chart somewhere around the ages 26 - 28, said to me. I was told the years following a Saturn Return feel lighter, more romantic, and like a breath of air.  At the time, I thought, “Great! This means something is going to happen to me during this transit, and then, in my 30’s, I’ll finally be able to fulfill my dreams!” From the outside, my life was privileged with a capital P, but I was a tortured soul growing up, and I longed for spiritual reprieve. I also longed for financial and career momentum. The roadblocks up to that point had been plenty.

It wasn’t until I turned 32 years of age did my life experience an earthquake – one of many that were to come in close succession. Oof, was it rough.

During the Return, Saturn passed through my 12th and 1st Houses. (My natal Saturn is in my First House btw.) When I was 32 and had fully exited the Return period, Saturn crossed into my Second House of values, material security, and finances.  

In the first year of the 2nd House transit, I was on the receiving end of a deep betrayal of friendship and my creativity. The experience felt like being blindsided by an asteroid, and the astroid kept moving full speed ahead without any concern while the little rock of I was floating far off into space, waiting for any gravitational pull to anchor me into a new existence.

Although I was knocked way off course (I know, I asked for it) the experience taught me about what I value most in friendship, peership, business collaboration and community. As a result, my creative-business path and identity made quite the pivot.

In the second year of Saturn transiting through my Second House, my entire life changed in a minute – both astrologically and in watch-time. One afternoon, I decided to walk away from my home, pets, relationship, income, belongings, and all security and ideas of “security” I held at the time. With Sagittarius on the cusp of my Second House, I got in my chariot (aka the taxi) and set off for a new life. (Those horsey legs on Sag wanted me out of there, fast.)

To sum up the 2-2.5 year period of this transit...it was devastating – and also, a much needed cleansing; I was forced to rebuild from scratch spiritually and materially. Saturn moving through my Third House also wasn’t the François Boucher painting I had envisioned after the Return. The landscape was that of a tundra with four seasons of freezing rain. I have finally begun to thaw as Saturn nears the mid-way point of my Fourth House and also wraps up it’s transit Saturn-natal Saturn square from December 2022.

It has been four and a half years since Saturn finished up tour in my Second House, and I still have not fully recovered financially. Though, I’ve finally recovered major parts of myself, whew! And that’s what Saturn is really trying to teach us to do. Saturn wants us to take responsibility for/in the areas of life where we let things get out of control, or, where we never had any in the first place.

 So, why is it that the transits after my Saturn Return rocked me so hard, and the journey through the Return was uneventful?  

Well, I believe my personal experience with the Saturn Return differs from the stories I was told because my chart is unique.

And so is yours.

And so is everyone else’s.

We are not all going to have the same level of challenge within a transit. The exact same things are not going to occur to all of us.

First House challenges were the norm for me with other gnarly natal placements stationed there. Maybe I had burned up that karma. Or, perhaps that karma was pre-scripted to shift over the lifetime, not a few years. The dark night of the soul is my everyday. I also didn’t have the tough aspects that were to come as Saturn transited through the houses that followed. In Houses Two - Four I had a ton of life work to do. (More on those transits specifically, and the rest of the wheel, in the next post.)

Remember, it is important to look at the whole chart. All details matter.     

Astrology is not a one-experience-fits-all approach. Astrology is observation, analysis and prediction of patterns. The full manifestation of an aspect or transit cannot be known until after that time has been lived. And it’s this awareness of patterns and possibilities that (hopefully) gives us the vision to make life happen for us rather than to us when these transits come around.

Note: In the above, I reflected on my first Saturn Return which takes us from the early developmental years when we explore and experiment with life, to the later chapters in life when what we have accomplished and who were as people in our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s is under review. The second Saturn Return encourages us to think about what we are leaving behind. What is our legacy? What impact have we made…and do we want to course-correct or change the narrative of our existence in the last 20-30 years of life?

One of my most favorite books on the process of life review is by Barbara Sher, “It’s Only Too Late If You Don’t Start Now.” This a great read for anyone in the second act of life who may be thinking…they missed out on their window to accomplish their dreams or do the things they really want to do before death comes knocking.