Saturn Returned

Last year when I was really going through it, I would explain the chaos that was happening in my life and people would ask, "how old are you?" I'd tell them, and they would nod knowingly, "Oh it's your Saturn Return!" Seriously this happened several different times. (Only in the Bay Area. I know.) I had never heard of the concept, but when I started reading about it, it resonated so deeply, I couldn't believe it.

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia. I really like how it sums it up:



The Saturn Return is an astrological phenomenon that occurs at the ages of 27-30, 58-60, 86-88, etc., coinciding with the time it takes the planet Saturn to make one orbit around the sun. It is believed by astrologers that as Saturn "returns" to the degree in which it occupied at the time of birth—approximately every 29.5 years—a person crosses over a major threshold and into the next stage of life. With the first Saturn Return, a person leaves youth behind and enters adulthood. With the second Return, maturity. And the third and usually final Return, a person enters wise old age.

The first Saturn Return is famous because it represents the first test of character and the structures a person has built their life upon. According to traditions, should these structures be unsound, or if a person is living out of touch with his or her true values, the Saturn Return will be a time of upheaval and limitations as Saturn forces him or her to jettison old concepts and worn out patterns of living. It is not uncommon for relationships and jobs to end during this time of life restructuring and reevaluation.

But the Saturn Return is not all about painful endings. During this time astrologers note that goals are consolidated and people tend to gain a better vision of where they are going in life. There are added responsibilities and a person may reap the rewards from his or her hard work. Many major life milestones seem to happen around the ages of 29 and 30. This is why astrologers believe that the thirtieth birthday is such a major rite of passage because it marks the true beginning of adulthood, self-evaluation, independence, ambition, and self-actualization.



Like the excerpt says, I believe I was not living out all of my values and that many of the structures I had built my life on, were not making my life or my health sustainable. There are many examples, but one of the main ones involved not living out my values through my career.

At the social work agency where I was working, there was so much injustice, it was overwhelming. The injustices that had been done to my teenage clients by their parents, the systemic injustices of capitalism and racism, etc., and the injustices that we at the agency were carrying out, like repeat abandonment, racism, hypocrisy, and all and all, setting the children up to fail.

I have always been an idealist, and I apparently could not thrive in a system that is THAT inherently flawed. I literally did not have the energy to try and make change even at the agency level. My time was filled up by keeping my clients and myself afloat and the OVERWHELMING amount of paperwork we had to give to the government in order to get money from them. It was suffocating.

I did the best I could, but I had to get out. My mind did not know this. But my body sure as hell did.

Sometimes labels can be very helpful. Knowing about the Saturn Return phenomena made me feel less alone. It assured me that this was just an era and that there would be an ending point.

I would later find out (and am still finding out), that I was made to do something else. Something that is, in fact, in line with my values, something where I could still fight for justice but not in a setting that was so overwhelming, something that supports others while at the same time supports myself, my health, and is in line with who I was made to be.