Open Question: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - What Happened During Your Saturn Return?
Ask the collective
One of the regular readers here writes:
“I’d like to read about everyone’s Saturn Return experiences. I have a slight case of anxiety about mine coming up here pretty soon but I am ready. There are changes within myself I need to make and I hope my return will push me into it.
Has anyone come out of it with a positive experience, or did it take years after to realize the affects it had? I’m hoping to come out with more confidence and faith in myself.”
What happened at your Saturn Return (roughly age 27.5 -30 for the newbies)?
27 Responses to “Open Question: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - What Happened During Your Saturn Return?”
LOL - I was too busy with three babies to notice anything.
I wouldn’t count on your Saturn Return to “force” you to make changes. Your planets won’t force you to do anything - but they may make it easier or harder if you know the timing. Recognizing changes that need to be made is the first step - a gift from the universe - but if you don’t follow through, what good is it? If you know changes need to be made - just do it! If you wait for the universe to kick your butt you may be sorry. It’s always best to learn from the gentle nudges rather than wait for the “big” lessons. Those don’t come gently and are much harder to work through.
Good luck.
My Saturn Return was in Leo and it was a very positive time. I basically connected with the idea of audience and interacting with others. I got a lot more comfortable socializing and being myself, as creative as I want to be…and I even made a point of volunteering at a bunch of performance art events to empower myself.
I had my teeth straightened and went to a chirpractor (bones=Saturn). A good time to start taking care of your bones’ health, and your health in general, actually…
I feel like I really made friends with myself.
The only thing that rattled me was a nagging feeling like something bad was going to happen. Literally, I felt like war was going to happen when my SR began and that feeling was hard to get a handle on. I think it related more to my Taurean Sun’s resistance to change.
Everything can change in an instant.
An astrologer I consulted before my Saturn return told me to travel, overseas if possible, or to retreat and meditate.
So I did both. I was good for me psychologically. Very good.
I don’t know if I “learned my Saturn lessons” or not as is spoken of often in astrology books. I do know that long hard looks inside of oneself can be very useful.
That time prepared me for a huge lesson when I came home. One that was a part of my life before I left but was unprepared to learn until I had perspective. I learned that lesson AFTER my saturn return but the return prepared me for it. If that makes any sense.
Keep an open mind to life and your path. It’s not like a paved road. Life is more like walking through the woods and choosing the route with the fewest brambles and limbs in your way.
I don’t recall a lot of upheaval in my life in those years. When I was 30 I got a new job and moved a thousand miles…back to my old home town, to be close to my ailing parents as they got older and frailer.
I’ve always been notoriously oblivious to subtle nudges, so if there were Saturn lessons I suspect I missed them. It’s also possible I got to them early; I had a massive Saturn opposition of my six-planet stellium in Libra and Virgo just before my Saturn return in Taurus, and that was a time of productive changes for me in both my spiritual life and my work.
I have a Sun-Saturn conjunction so Saturn, I know. It’s like I’ve prepared my Saturn return all my life. And when it actually happened, I got my first computer and went online (it was before the Internet, the days of “online communities” with texts just scrolling), I quit my job of 5 years to become a freelancer, met a man I married only 6 months after meeting him.
That was 15 years ago and I am still a happy freelancer and still happily married to the same man. So I’d say it pretty much set the tone for the coming years.
Oh, typical stuff. I got my shit together, got married, wrote my dissertation.
My first baby was born as Saturn in Taurus and Uranus in Aquarius both made close hard aspects to my Leo Sun.
He was a few months old when my Saturn return happened.
It was an enjoyable time for me, as well as becoming a heck of a lot more responsible.
My father died during mine (during one of the exact degree moments, no less), so that’s pretty much ALL I was dealing with during that period of time.
Can’t say I actually did anything else big or memorable or life-improving, unfortunately. I missed out on that because the whole Death Thing had pretty much overshadowed everything else for the last ten years while he was sick. Now I still have to work on the other stuff…but I had put my life on hold until after Dad died anyway because it was too hard to worry about me on top of everyone else.
Now I don’t know what to do. But at least the big anvil finally dropped and I CAN move on…if I just figure out how.
Holy shit. My husband’s mother died, and he acquired a bit of money, so he ran off to hike in Australia and impregnated a tattooed, pierced, dreadlocked little piece of fluff on the hippie trail. All this without telling me where he was.
But this came after the ill-fated RV trip we took through the American West during which he tried to commit suicide in Cripple Creek. Okay, so when he came back from Australia, I WAS PREGNANT, TOO, so I had an abortion and divorced him. He eloped with said Feral Chick, and she left him three months later for her old boyfriend. Heh. Somewhere in there, I went through therapy and dealt with some childhood sexual abuse issues. And I starred in a B-movie. So, yeah, lots going on with mine. Thank God I lived through it.
Jennifer, I’m so sorry for your loss. You’ll find your way, I’m sure of it.
my mother died as my first saturn return kicked in and by the end of it, i had married the ‘wrong’ person and was pregnant. now, it’s the very beginning of a second return and i find myself revisiting the person i was before the stuff hit the fan the first time…working on my writing that i had left behind, giving myself permission to enjoy astrology and meditation. in some ways i feel like i had a 20+ year detour from my essential being, and now can’t stop from ‘being myself’
i became a (single) mother unexpectedly, lived on fumes for a few years, learned how to thrive under adversity, as well as trust the universe to carry me through the hardest moments.
i’ve also gained a great deal more self confidence (11th house saturn = massive fear of group/social situations) and have learned how valuable the extended group of people in my life to me, even if i don’t see them as much as i used to.
it was difficult, but illuminating, and i feel so much stronger, resilient, and together now. you never know how capable you are until you’re tested, and saturn’s good at doing that to you.
mine only just finished up about six months ago, so i’m sure i could tell a more complex story later on. but i’m glad i went through the forge so to speak… and glad it’s over… for now. saturn keeps coming around to check and see if you got the message. i guess they all do, one way or another.
Saturn return in cancer 9 house 2003-2004:
I stopped working as a lawyer and began studying astrology, met lots of “millionnaire people”, split up with a guy and met another guy: a “long lasting relationship”: we are now very close friends.
My 1st Saturn? Second baby, divorce from an abusive, self-important Leo, a lot of lies and games and tricks to untangle myself from, changing in ways that made his friends uncomfortable, and my relatives exerted more and more effort to “control” me, much to my chagrin. Glad it is over.
Well, depending on your orbs, I’m either in the very tail end of my first SR or just past it. My natal Saturn is conjunct Sun and Merc and transiting Saturn went from opposing my Moon immediately to conjuncting Sun and then the rest of the she-bang.
After supporting my fiance through nursing school, I decided to take a year off from working then go back for my degree (unknowing that my SR was impending at the time). During the year I was a house-bitch (it’s affectionate, I promise), I got paranoid about him cheating on me with a co-worker and was generally subterranean about my self-worth in general. Once my year was up, I started getting everything together to go back to school and it was delay, delay, delay… It seemed that if there was an obstacle I found it. So I went back to work at a piddly job to occupy my time where I promptly either fractured my foot or tore a ligment, we’re not sure. Somewhere during that time we moved to a condo we bought.
Now, having said all that, I don’t think I learned anything from my SR. I’ve spent the better part of two years feeling like a complete waste of space. As soon as Saturn started leaving, though, I felt an abrupt lift in my mood. I no longer felt like hiding in the bed all day and my self-esteem bounced (mostly) back to normal. And I just got notice last week that I got into school. 
Still, though, my SR was crap and I’m glad it’s over. Of course, my Sun getting hit thrice before Saturn finally went direct for the last time may have contributed to all this.
I know it’s not comforting, but that’s my story. Hopefully yours will be… better? easier?
Sorry about the long post, guys, I guess I needed to vent. 
Avery! not that it’s any of my business, but where is your Saturn? (I love the word feral-brings back find memories)
kashmiri: Sorry, I just now read your question. Uh, Saturn is conjunct my Sun in Aries in the first. The bastard. Naah, it’s actually not such a bad thing after all. Saturn puts the brakes on, shall we call it, my irrational exuberance.
Wow, looking back at the RV-trip comment I posted brought back a lost memory… We were in Cripple Creek ostensibly so I could do research on the book I wanted to do about those who knew Linda Goodman. I got completely diverted off that path in like TWO DAYS because of the immediacy of my ex’s profound problems. I never revisited that thesis, completely abandoned it, but maybe it’s time to do that now. It occurred to me that I had left an important job undone when she died. She was the one who introduced me to astrology when I was just a kid. A really weird kid.
I landed a job right after that hippie-impregnation episode at a place where there was an espresso bar in the lobby. It just happened to have been run by the guy who, as a kid, Linda paid to take care of her goats and get them back onto her property, should they get into mischief, which was often.
Wow. Freaky retrospect night, this is.
Whoa, I never even knew L.G. was an Aussie! You know, I had extremely weird experiences in Australia myself, WEIRD. Years before me, my sister did…and still years before us our father did. The Outback is one of the most energetically charged places on earth, I think
9th house saturn in cancer. I met a guy, moved in with him, realised I could no longer rely on men to look after me. Moved out. Got a full time job, started uni as well, left uni and then started home study which I picked up again this year. Most significant change - lived with a girlfriend who had just got divorced and we healed together. I stayed away from men for years and just learned to be self sufficient. Learned that I am really driven by a quest for knowledge in this lifetime and that travel and learning are as necessary as breathing for me.
Going through it right now. Teh voice in my head is making me clean. A lot.
(Saturn in Virgo in the 6th)
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I was living a life other than the one I wanted…so I left. I left my six yr long relationship, switched careers, moved 3k away from family and started over. It was also what I wanted…it wasn’t hard to do. It was hard leading up to the break up but we were open and honest with each other and entered counseling but it was too late. I would say my saturn return was full of change, but I am soooo happy now!
Best and sorry if this is too much. It was just my experience…many friends I know did not go through all the change I did. I was on the wrong path for a bit…so it was warranted.