"Know thyself"
"Nothing in excess."
One might think that by understanding and trying to live by
these wise sayings one could avoid the great troubles in life. Perhaps they
help; but still we suffer. Our understanding of these wise words change as
we age, but life often plays some nasty tricks on us in the meantime.
Perhaps this is why we have Saturn Returns—it’s a chance to get it right
this time.
Folks who understand ‘just a little’ astrology, view the
coming of the Saturn Return with raised eyebrows and deep sighs. But then a
little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Saturn is the archetypal symbol for a
way of being, or a process that slows us down and makes us take a cold hard
look at reality. It can feel like the voice of the inner critic. In ancient
times it was seen as "the old malefic" and its passage in the chart was
viewed with some suspicion. It has roots in the idea of melancholy, timely
delay, and the demands of a wise old teacher. For astrologers today, it is a
topic we are endlessly exploring with our clients.
However Saturn also represents the arrival of the harvest
and our reward for hard work and effort. It brings a good harvest if we’re
willing to wait. Its passage in a chart---especially at the time of the
Saturn Returns-- marks a time when we have an opportunity for deep change
and life-changing rewards. Not so bad!
There are two Saturn Returns that happen to everybody—the
first is between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty, and the second,
between the ages of fifty-eight and sixty. It’s necessary to consult the
ephemeris or your astrologer to find the exact date for you, but the feeling
of the Saturn Return saturates this whole time period. Astrologically
speaking the first return is when we truly come into our adulthood, and the
second is when we come into our maturity, or elder years.
It’s true that our culture sees the age of twenty-one as the
time of our becoming an adult—but not for astrologers. For us it’s
twenty-eight. And you may get your Social Security at sixty-five, but it’s
at the second Saturn Return at fifty-age that your true personal and
social security comes up for review. Saturn Returns can be times of rough
passage-- or harvest--and they’re usually a bit of both.
The good news is that although Saturn’s passage in our lives
may mark times of plain hard work and great self-questioning, it’s also a
time when opportunities present themselves and the rewards are great.
Procrastination is suddenly over. The old lover is finally gone—and there’s
someone on the horizon that looks really good. We’ve landed the new job, and
now the work is profound--- and hard. We’ve become pregnant, and we’re not
feeling too great. That’s the feeling of the first Saturn Return, but look
what’s coming! If you follow through with your new vision, you’ve taken the
first steps towards a true new beginning.
The first Saturn Return, in the late twenties, is
often marked by these kinds of personal milestones. The navigational tools
are twofold: you must take a chance now, and you must give it all you can.
If you are willing, you will be rewarded. Saturn asks us "Whose movie am I
in?" and then challenges us to be the director and author.
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could just read some
‘manual to life’, and have the ghost of "Christmas Future" come to us to
show us the way? Instead, we are called to become our own ‘author-ity’---to
truly become the author of our life.
We are being asked now to re-write our personal life scripts
with our own spiritual muscle. Not always so easy, especially when our life
drama is full of projected characters that no longer reflect who we really
are and what we are becoming. Psychologists and astrologers know how the
human unconscious has ways of conjuring up people, events, and situations
that challenge us to the bone. We call it projection, and at times it’s a
graceful synchronicity. At other times, it’s as if we’ve conjured up whoever
or whatever we most wanted to avoid. It’s almost as if the unconscious
‘hires’ other people to play out parts of our life stories—this one is the
boss, this one the victim, this one the unfaithful lover. At this point in
your life you’ve probably "had it" with some of these people/roles and it’s
time to write them out of the script of your life drama.
At each Saturn Return we are challenged to take back our
projections and to look at the drama of our life as our
responsibility. It’s too late to blame anyone anymore.
The Second Saturn Return, in the late fifties, is
also a time that calls for concrete actions in the real world, but it can be
more subtle and sometimes more insidious. If we don’t do what needs to be
done now, we may not be given a second chance. If we put off our yearly
physical exam and don’t stop the spread of some nasty growth, it may be too
late later. If we take a stiff upper lip and deny the fact that "the job
is killing me, but I must wait till retirement age," it may indeed kill
you.
As the body ages, depression and physical difficulties
inevitably arise, yet as the body becomes less an object of vanity it’s a
chance for the Spirit to rise. This is also the time when we may feel an
uprising of irritability as a few old habits have the chance to rear their
nasty heads again. This is because now is the time to cut them off—to be
done once and for all with it. You may ask yourself: why am I dealing with
these same issues again? The answer is---because you’ve almost resolved
them. And the last straw can be the hardest. The hallmark of the second
Saturn Return is that if you deal maturely with the old pockets of
unfinished business you gain the gift that will last till the end—the gift
of wisdom.
And how do you do that? Priorities need to be clearer, and
metaphorical closets and basements cleaned. There is a need to look at what
we feel disillusioned about and let the illusions go, lest these old ghosts
feed on us and make us bitter. It’s a time to slow down and allow more
sweetness and companionship into our lives, and to let the wild dogs of
ambitious willfulness fight elsewhere.
This is the beginning of wisdom. And as we acquire that, we
will be called to ‘mentor’—to pass the gifts of our learning and expertise
along to the folks at their first Saturn Return. So what are the tools
needed to successfully navigate these waters? For either "Return" there are
several:
"Dig deep; the water—goodness—is down there.
