SATURN RETURN

Like mercury retrograde, saturn return is one of the astrological events that many people have heard of. It has become a common ‘thing’ we refer to throughout life, and a time in which we, in basics, understand is a period of change and difficult growth.

What is a return?

A “return” happens when any planet completes its entire circuit through the sky and returns to the same place it was when you were born. Every time a planet returns to the same zodiac sign, house, position and degree it occupoed on the day you were born, you experience a “return.” For example, every year we experience a solar return on our birthday, when the sun meets the exact degree as it was of your birth.

Returns mark the closing of one cycle and the start of another, but they aren’t all grand or momentous cycles. Some are smaller, more frequent and familiar. For example, mercury, typically stays in each sign for one month or less, and only takes about one year to travel through all 12 zodiac signs. This means you’ll experience many mercury returns over the course of your life, none of them necessarily a signal of any broad life change. Saturn return, however, marks a big shift, a change and beginnings and ends of major movements of your life.

SATURN RETURN

Saturn is a slow moving planet and its travel through the sky take long; about 29 years to move through all 12 zodiac signs, meaning you can expect to experience a saturn return once every 29 years or so. This transit applies to everyone, and describes why you might undergo a major life shift, especially as you transition from your late 20s into your early 30s. Every 27 to 30 years, saturn returns to the same place and sign it was in, when you were born. This cycle is called the saturn return. That means that at the end of our 20’s, 50’s and 80’s we go through a saturn return. The first is possibly the most shocking and the most commonly spoken of. It’s the most shocking because it’s the first time saturn, one of the most challenging planets we work with, comes back to our natal placement, and shocking because it brings a reality check. Saturn return is a time where any karmic patterning we have not become aware or, or worked on healing will slap us in the face. Anywhere you’ve been cutting corners and not taken responsibility for your reality, will be brought to your attention.

The effects of the return itself can typically be felt the entire time saturn is in the same sign as it was when you were born, usually a period of about two and a half years, that will fall sometime between ages 27 and 30. During this period, you’ll be faced with challenges, and questions about the life you’re living and the life you want. Saturn returns feel particularly demanding because of the nature of saturn itself. It’s the planet of structure, duty, karma, restriction, limitation and hard work. This is the reason for saturn return’s bad reputation, and why saturn return is something that’s being feared by most. The change it’s bringing and growth it’s demanding, is not always easy.

During a return, saturn’s energy can pull at you in an intense way. It might ask you to know yourself in ways you haven’t so far. It might ask you to set limits for yourself. It might ask you to accept a new heaviness, a new maturity, a new sense of responsibility. Saturn return can offer you: new clarity, new perspective, and a new strength as you move into a new cycle of life. It requires maturation, alignment and responsibility. You have been restricted by the rules placed on you by your parents, teachers, bosses, mentors, and even society at large. Now, saturn is stepping in to ask some tough questions. Are you taking responsibility for yourself, your life, and your choices? Is your current life path in line with what you’ve always wanted? Are you honoring your obligations to others, and most importantly, to yourself?

Saturn’s themes tend to sound unpleasant, or at least less fun than most of the other planets. While venus, for example, rules love and money, and jupiter is the planet of expansion, luck and abundance, saturn is sometimes talked about as though it’s the planetary incarnation of the police or the strict and diciplined father. Saturn transits are never easy, simple or swift. Saturn reveals its wisdom and its ways, slowly. It takes no shortcuts and causes serious issues for those that do. Saturn isn’t a fan of the cult of youth, fast fashion, quick bucks, or for getting ahead without paying the price. Patience, hard work, boundaries, tough truths, difficult lessons, and putting in a lot of effort, are more typical saturn themes. It can often bring delayed success to a certain area of your life until you overcome the challenges associated with the planet. But that’s not all he’s about. If you look hard enough, you can see the friendly hand of a loving mentor who wants to guide you to your highest potential.

The sign and house your natal saturn is in, will show you where you are fated to learn life lessons, and where you’ll be the most affected by your saturn return. The sign (and element) is the HOW, and the house is the WHERE.

The first saturn return asks us to define ourselves for ourselves. Not for our family. Not for society. Not for any fantasy anyone else has of us. It’s a time of separating ourselves out from our conditioning and programming. The second saturn return occurs at the end of our 50’s, encouraging us to move into more of a mentorship role. Now we are supposed to turn towards those entering their first saturn return and offer the wisdom we have gathered since then. This is a time of moving into eldership, something our society desperately needs to cultivate an appreciation for. The saturn return that occurs at the end of our 80’s is one that gathers the wisdom of our life, distilling it into seeds to be left for future generations. 

Saturn in aquarius

On december 17, 2020, saturn moved back into aquarius, after being in capricorn since december 2017. If you have saturn in capricorn in your birth chart, congratulations! This is the end of your saturn return. You made it. And for every person whose saturn falls in aquarius, you're about to experience your saturn return - your life is about to get wild for the next three years! If you have saturn in aquarius, it means that for you, responsibility (saturn) means being committed to building a better world (aquarius). Those with saturn in aquarius are here to break rules and reinvent tradition. They will be confronted with their difficult relationship to authority figures and hopefully help us all break free.

With saturn in aquarius, your saturn return will be related to everything the archetype aquarius is and represents, as well as the element of air, which is the element of aquarius. To find exactly which area of your life it hits, you’ll need to find the house in which your natal saturn is. If saturn is in your 7th house of love and relationship, these are the areas that will most likely be affected. If it’s in your 10th house of career, this is were your saturn return will hit and shake things up. (For the better, even though at the time, it can feel for the worse..)

Saturn was in aqarius from 1991 – 1993 so those born at that time are now entering their first saturn return! If you have saturn in aquarius, like me, you are officially in your saturn return from the moment saturn entered aquarius, to the moment it exits. The entire 2-3 years of saturn’s journey through the sign it was in when you were born, will be your saturn return. However, the weeks and months that transiting saturn is at the exact degree as your natal saturn, will be the most informative, perhaps even the most intense, and definitely months to pay attention to.

Understanding this cosmic rite of passage can help you through this transition in your life. If you don’t know which sign or house your natal saturn is in, you can calculate your birth chart here. Read more about the zodiac signs here and here.