Navigating A Saturn Return

Crossing over to the other side of 25 and it’s almost as if the world tells you that you’re 30. The generation jokes about how 25 is a quarter-life or a mid-life crisis if you’re planning to stick around only till your 50s. It’s an odd phase - so much potential keeping you up at nights and no clear direction in the morning to progress to. Frustration seems to ride shotgun picking the worst possible tunes while you go down a bumpy road. Sitting at the back, self confidence and anxiety are debating over who stopped you from blooming to your fullest self yet. Well - it’s not you, nor your countless emotions. It is Saturn - the astrological taskmaster in the cosmic universe. What the heck is it? The concept of ‘Saturn Return’ is actually a milestone as its orbit passes through the 12 zodiac signs and returns to the exact place where it was when you were born. Just as the moon takes about 28 days to finish its orbit, Saturn being on the far side of the asteroid belt takes far longer, about 29.5 years. In our lifetime, we can expect to witness this twice (thrice if super lucky) - when we’re hitting 30 and another when we’re touching 60. Once returned to its original spot in accordance with your celestial chart, Saturn sticks around for 2-3 years ruling over your years from 29 to 32 with great power and force. What happens exactly? The return of the taskmaster can be perceived as your true alignment with everything the planet symbolizes - wisdom, discipline, karma, resolve, and indisputable growth. In the shadow of Saturn, we live our lives still familiarizing ourselves and building our identities. The period of return merely calls to question (quite harshly) the decisions we’ve made and whether we want to stick with them as we enter ‘true adulthood’. Thoughts around your career, long-term plans, key relationships, major habits tend to take place and often leave you exhausted. You can’t seem to find head or tail to break this down the way you’ve managed to conquer things of the past. Should I be worried? Absolutely not. Saturn practices tough love and appears occasionally, so take it with a pinch of salt if it can’t be your therapist about it. What it does do is help you see reality a bit more clearly - albeit bringing you discomfort to all the things that probably won’t make up your future life. Trust the process and choose to lean in on the life lessons with patience so that you can come out gaining strength and wisdom. Growing pains, burnout, stretched hours, unforgiving incidents all happen to you just so you can metamorphize or hone yourself into your concrete identity. My Saturn Return Journey I stumbled on the concept a little too late, right after I celebrated my 30th birthday. By then the raw and ugly parts of the return had happened and reading up on the concept still helped - it made my experience less isolated. From when I was 27, I was dreading not just my job but the career and industry I dutifully stood by for eight years. I had gone through a string of confusing relationships (in hindsight) that never really made me walk away with a lesson, just more confusion on how one is supposed to love. I had self-image issues, I couldn’t make time for the things that brought me happiness. More than once I didn’t value the precious life I was given, more than thousands of relevant conversations happened but none helped. In this journey of Saturn Return, I’ve learnt a few things: a) It is tailored for you- You’re the main character in your storybook. It is not just anyone’s Saturn Return, it is specifically yours. Sure, everyone your age might be going through it too, but the planet is returning to the very complex and accurate spot to sync in with you. It does that with minute differences in degrees for each person so believe that your journey is unique. Your challenges, your day-to-day growth, the subtle shifts are all a play of specific permutations and combinations. It’s honestly magical once you believe the universe is tailoring this transformation for you.

b) It has to come from within - You can’t go shopping or Google a ‘Saturn Return Kit’. Remember, it is not a ticket to a new phase of your life, it is a creative process that you must endure and put in the hard work for. What makes it easier is to practice listening to yourself, carving out chunks of time to catch the realizations and ground-breaking ideas when they come to you. Habits like journaling, documenting possible paths for yourself, and sharing your inner conflicts with a trusted friend are tools to arrive at clarity. c) Don’t be shy to experiment - It’s a great thing that we’re gifted the good side of Saturn for a few years. It is a period of being equipped with strength, resolve, fearlessness, and inspiration. That said, Saturn doesn’t hold all the strings to make opportunities magically appear. You must take the baby steps, and then the huge leaps if you want to change the life you’re living. Experiment away and make friends with the new person you are becoming. Might even have some fun while you’re at it? d) Stand against the tests - What really got me going during my Saturn Return were the situations I was put in, where I acted out of some mysterious context. Identifying these situations for what they are rather than upsetting your progress in your 20s is key to surviving Saturn too. Let go of the things that no longer work for you gracefully, without shutting any of the doors permanently. Love can be tested, love can break - so make sure you communicate well and look within too if there are questions that need surfacing. The closing line on this chapter is actually one word. Control. Saturn Return is a great way of working out a visual blueprint and inching towards your best life. It is a transformative process to accept what has got you till here, shed some burdens, detox from the things that bring distress, and reclaim your power. Hold yourself accountable and not Saturn - the astrological taskmaster is just there to lend you powers from the universe that we’re all connected to. The rest is 100% your special journey and pure growth.