EVERY SEVEN YEARS, transiting Saturn conjuncts, squares or opposes the position of Saturn in our birth chart, providing crucial thematic guidance for our ever-evolving soul. Scroll down to your age and see which bread crumb your ego is currently pecking at. (All ages approximate).
FIRST SATURN CYCLE:
Age 0/First Breath (Saturn conjunct Saturn): Knot of destiny defined.
Age 7 (Saturn Square Saturn): Child learns to discern between right and wrong, fantasy and reality, and learns the basic rules and the consequences of breaking them. Development of depth perception needed to cross the road unaided. First testing of boundaries and the status quo.
Age 14 (Saturn Opposition Saturn): The dawning of a definitively separate sense of self. First stirrings of healthy opposition to authority (puberty) and the creation of personal rules.
Age 21 (Saturn Square Saturn): Learning to deal with the world on its own terms and become accountable. Seeds of dissatisfaction birth new goals.
Age 29 (First Saturn Return): This is the threshold of astrological adulthood. Every planet in your chart has now been squared, opposed and conjoined by Saturn, enabling you to become free of indiscriminate rebellion against — or robotic allegiance to — one’s social and familial conditioning. The narcissistic sense of self yields to a greater soul direction and destiny. This culminating cycle of individuation often requires a painful severance from previously treasured work, roles and relationships that are discovered to be based on unconscious conditioning, not sovereign choice. As Lada Duncheva put it, “Most people re-discover their connection to a higher power and to spirituality during Saturn transits because the only one we can rely on for relief and help is a power stronger than us and we feel humbled and crushed enough during Saturn’s transits to accept it!”
SECOND SATURN CYCLE:
Age 35 (waxing Square): Second puberty. A less reactive, more lucid version of the boundary-testing Saturn square at Age 7. Do these new goals and roles set during my Saturn Return allow me to express the full spectrum of who I am?
Age 42: (Saturn Opposition Saturn). Midlife crisis. Individual reacts — maturely or immaturely — against the soul-inhibiting limitations which society has imposed upon his or her ego. Is my need to belong blinding me to my true values?
Age 50 (Waning Square): Re-evaluation of individual priorities and life-directions producing further refinements to the soul’s individuation process. A period of concentrated, steady effort to serve in accordance with our ideals, or a backslide into the collective norm (think: Baby Booomer who “sold out”).
Age 58-59 (Second Saturn Return): Now-or-never actions in the real world that demonstrate the wisdom of the elder. The deepening commitment to one’s chosen life service or a pivot into an entirely new, more soulful life direction. 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. You become an elder. As Elizabeth Spring put it,”Saturn rewards those that act and depresses those who procrastinate.”
THIRD SATURN CYCLE:
Age 66 (Waxing Square):The synthesizing and sharing of what aging has taught you. Confessing and breaking one’s prideful habits of consciousness while one is still relatively healthy and cognizant.
Age 73 (Opposition): “End-of-life crisis.” The humble acceptance of unrealized goals, unmastered wounds and the increasing embodiment of one’s spiritual faith. It’s never too late to leave a “legacy of presence.”
Age 80 (Waning Square): Coming to peace with God. Humble apologies and grateful goodbyes. Exuding a deep and steady presence of thanks for life’s infinite opportunities to awaken.
Age 89-90 (Third Saturn Return): The cultivated silvery repose of meditation and spiritually digested experience or the bleak gray of loneliness, loss and sorrow.
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