This is the year I become an adult.

I am turning 30. It’s the time of my Saturn Return.

First, let’s talk about the planet and archetype of Saturn.

Saturn, in his infinite wisdom and rings of ice, takes about 29 and a half years to make a full rotation around our Astrological birth chart, returning to the same position he was at in the sky when we were born.

Saturn comes back to teach us something we couldn’t have known without him.

Saturn represents our elders, our fathers, our ancestors, our fears, our boundaries, time, space, reality and simply life here on Earth. He is icy, cold and sometimes feels mean, but Saturn is also our teacher, and perhaps more so than other planet, he brings us on a journey of initiation.

I’ve been through a lot in my life.

I have experienced the fullness of grief and challenging times. I have lived inside confusion and illusion long enough to know the truth. So, when I thought I was over the confusing experience of being in my 20s, it wasn’t until Saturn returned did I realize how adolescent I’d been. I began to see Saturn’s purpose in my life.

For the first time ever, I’d begun to take my life seriously.

On the night of my 29th birthday that I broke through to a place I’d never been.

I had some patterns, habits and old ways of being that didn’t belong to me anymore. I thought that simply not doing them was breaking free of them, until Saturn took me down a narrow road to the final stages of my coming out the other side.

Throughout my life—often due to the influence of men—I’d been given many opportunities to give up my personal power. I am an intelligent person, and for a long time, my intelligence had been used against me. My pattern of behavior needed radical change.

I want to offer my story as a case study in Saturn.

Of course there are a compounding of influences, but for understanding and simplicity I am focusing on Saturn. It was only in hindsight that I could begin to unravel the experience of trauma and victimhood that played out in my life and that I kept locked up inside of me.

I did the things I was set up to do. I entered into relationships with others, with communities, with experiences that kept me and my life and body locked in this pattern of victimization. And the crazy part—all along I thought I was choosing for myself.

When Saturn came to me on my 29th birthday, he showed me all the ways I had been trained to follow the will of others, and lose sight of my own. My life had gotten to a point where it was in danger, spiritually speaking. I was stuck, hamster-wheeling my life in different versions of the same circle.

My Saturn Return provided me with a clear opportunity to see how I could either continue in the never-ending circle, or I could take a leap of faith and wander completely into the unknown—entirely open and vulnerable.

I made the choice without thinking. I leapt and I felt saved and terrified all at once. I was safe, for the first time ever. Of course I naturally thought everything would become easier after that moment, but in some ways my life got a lot harder.

First, Saturn taught me how to grieve. Not in the way where I’d lost someone else, seeing how lost I’d been. It was the kind of grief that made me know everything had been forever changed—wiped clean. I could start over. There was great relief in this, and also tremendous responsibility.

My life, for the first time, was my own creation.

I could manifest and actually use my own powers instead of giving my power away. I had been reborn, and this time as an adult. This took and still is taking time. Saturn taught me how time is a process and to give respect to the space it takes to move forward. He taught me how much I didn’t need to cling to patterns of trauma that still play out in my everyday life. Trauma takes time to unfold. It was no irony that all the lessons I had been learning about my patterns, my past, were constantly showing up during my Saturn Return—I was learning and unlearning about my own masculinity.

Saturn has helped me arrive at a place where I can begin to plan ahead for my life. Up until this point, I’d made choices that my future suffered from. Truthfully, I avoided thinking about the future, as it would force me to look at my life pragmatically rather than imaginatively.

My life is focused, right in front of me, and the dust has settled long enough for me to stand still, and then keep going.

~

Author: Jacquie Bird Day

Image: courtesy of the author

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock