Saturn's Return

The orbit of Saturn around the sun takes about 29 years which places it back in its original place at the time of each person's birth around the time they hit 29 years of age. It happens again at about 58 years old, and for those fortunate enough to keep on going, it continues to cycle into our lives in 29 year increments.

The return of saturn heralds an astrologically recognized phenomenon in our lives; a time period of turmoil and change, a transition between who we've been and who we will become.

Often, between the ages of 28 and 33, we experience a large amount of life change and uncertainty. Many marriages and divorces happen at this age, changes in career, lifestyle, beliefs, and location in the world. This is often the age at which people settle down or unsettle themselves. It can also mean re-nesting, leaving one long term situation to move into another. Fatal drug overdoses and suicides are also common at this time. This is the age when Jesus re-appears in the bible and begins his ministry, being crucified as Saturn moves out of influence.

This time period is a fulcrum point over which we are bent to the breaking point, challenging our psyche to cope, forcing us to make decisions even when we don't know that we are making them. Saturn opens our eyes and sends test after test our way, forcing us to a large choice through a series of smaller innocuous choices.

The big choice:

Saturn places you over the flowing river of an exceptional and tumultuous life, one as full of wonder as it is of uncertainty. A life full of learning and an accerlated path of life lessons. Its a scary thing to see, knowing not where it will take you but that it will take you through many rapids and over waterfalls. Above the river, you're hanging from one of many branches on a tree, a branch that has grown out through the course of your life and is marked by where you've been. The choice you have is to climb onto the branch that makes you feel safe, or let go and fall into the flowing river. For some, the choice is so frightening and difficult that they shut down, and continue hanging precariously over that river. All the while they know that it is there, and the louder it calls the more they cling to that branch and try to close out the sound of the rushing water.

As the Rush song goes, if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

So about every thirty years, Saturn comes charging back into our lives pushing us to make a decision, and it is a necessary part of the development of our souls.

We are here to grow, to learn to love without limits, to expand the consciousness of the universe as we expand our own. In clinging to the branch, we prevent ourselves from experiencing that growth. Saturn comes around to poke at us and try to wake us up, so that it can ask if we're ready to let go yet. There is no right or wrong of it, we each do what we must in order to carry on. There is only entropy and growth, marching in place or free running through the world.

It's all about risk. When we take chances, when we take risks, we open ourselves up to tripping and falling. We tend to think that tripping or falling are bad things, but it is only through them that we get the most amazing opportunity of our lives, one that shapes us, expands and evolves us into more than we had imagined possible.

Falling gives us the incredible opportunity to stand back up and decide to try again. It's not the failure, it's not the success, it is the experience and the decision itself. It is that moment that forces us to connect emotionally to our very souls and realize that we are more than this body and we are stronger than we thought, and because of that we can push forward. Every time we do this, we knock another tiny brick out of the wall between who we think we are and who we really are.

The strife in life is the most beautiful part of life, it is the pain which brings us opportunity and knowledge and compassion. The harder something is to do, the more worthwhile it is to do because it is the challenge itself that unlocks our potential.

When you see a challenge coming, take a moment to set aside your fear and examine it. If you take that challenge head on knowing that it is there to teach you something, you'll never forget the lessons you learn, but the fear you felt will fade out of memory before you know it.

If you are approaching one of the 29 year cycles in your life, keep a watchful eye out for the changes that begin to happen in your life. It won't be easy, and there will be pain, but it is oh-so-very worth it to let go of everything you're clinging to and see where the river takes you.