Your 2nd Saturn Return
What to Expect
Astrology as a guidance tool for midlife.
Astrology, an ancient tool, provides surprisingly resonant guidance. Astrology can bring vague ideas to the surface, shine a light into the shadows, and paint a picture that helps you remember something you thought you lost.
Saturn in your astrology chart.
While your whole chart provides a deep look at your identity and your path in the world, sometimes it’s helpful to look at certain areas of your chart. One such passage in midlife is your Saturn Return. (Note: I wrote about the various passages of midlife here if you’d like more context.)
Saturn isn’t a particularly popular planet because it demands that we slow down and really get the lesson. I’ve come to think of Saturn as a summer school teacher. You’re the only one in class and you’re looking longingly out the window at your friends playing outside. But, you’re stuck in summer school with the topic you like the least. You’d really rather not learn it, but Saturn, your teacher, is not letting you out until you do the work and really learn what you most need to know.
It’s time to turn towards where you feel least competent and do your work (good times!). That’s the way forward when Saturn makes an appearance in your chart.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing because it prepares your for the next leg of your journey. But “fun” is not generally associated with Saturn.
What is a Saturn Return?
A Saturn Return is when Saturn has made a full trip around the Sun and has arrived back where it started in your Natal Chart, which happens every 29 years or so.
Our first Saturn Return occurred in our late twenties. It encourages us to “put away childish things” and get real about where we’re going. Looking back, I can recognize that shift in me in my late twenties. I’d had enough of my emotionally bruising twenties. I needed to get serious and get my shit together — I decided to do an MBA. I got into a different kind of relationship. I moved out of my basement apartment.
Your second Saturn Return is similar. It’s time to get real about what’s next. During this midlfe passage your focus shifts away from personal accomplishment and to what you can give back. It’s a shift from ambition to meaning. How can you take all you’ve learned, all you’ve accumulated and help others? You may or may not be in a position to do this in the external world, but this is what starts to shift internally.
Saturn Returns occur between 58 and 60. They’re different for everyone depending on your Astrology chart. You can go here to calculate your own. (It spits out a complex summary, but the key, for now, is your Return.)
Your 2nd Saturn Return. What it looks like in more detail.
You’ve outgrown yourself yet again. It’s urging you to take a new look at your purpose, and perhaps even the work that will be your focus for the rest of your life. You might think you’re done, but Saturn is not done with you.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you need a new career, but if you think that you will just continue on the trajectory you’ve been on for the rest of your life, your Saturn Return shows you that your plan has problems. You always have free will, so you can ignore Saturn, but Saturn doesn’t make that easy.
Who you are and what you’ve been doing so far has unnervingly lost its lustre. It’s not wrong; it just doesn’t do it for you anymore. But what does? That becomes the question.
What doesn't work at this time.
If you don’t pay attention during your Saturn Return, you run the risk of being stuck in time with the world passing you by. In an attempt to stay young and cool, you actually end up trying too hard and end up being really uncool.
What does work.
You can’t hold back time. It marches forward without our permission. The more you can make peace with who you are now and your place in the world, the more engaged you are in your own life and the more fulfilling it will be.
How do you stay relevant? Can you accept that you’re not part of the kool kids gang anymore, but are an expert, a teacher, a sage? Can you take on a new role, maybe even one that doesn’t exist yet, and add value in a new way? What would be authentic for you now?
There’s also something important to recognize – midlife for us is different than it was for our Moms or Grandmothers. We have a lot more time ahead of us. Our health is often better. We’re overall more youthful. The world is different. Our use of technology is a game changer. Saturn encourages us to look at all that time ahead of us and make a plan.
Letting go and moving on.
It can be difficult to suddenly be less relevant, to be retired when it’s not your choice, to feel invisible (as many women in midlife do). But, dwelling here and trying to fix that means butting up against what is.
Saturn is telling us to let all that go and turn towards what is true for us now. It’s asking us to face what’s in front of us and to spend our energy on what’s next, not on what’s been. Embracing what’s next invites in new energy, new ideas, new connections, long-forgotten passions. It’s not easy to turn away from the familiar and towards the unknown. But, that is the key.
One door closes and another opens. Saturn encourages you to find the door that’s right for you, and go through it.
