By Amy Herring

A planetary cycle refers to the path of any planet around the zodiac and its position relative to its natal position when you were born. Saturn, for instance, takes 29-1/2 years (roughly) to make it around the sky and return to the position it was in at your birth. As Saturn makes its way around the zodiac, it will make a square to itself, an opposition and another square relative to the place it was when you were born until it finally returns to the spot it started in at your birth. These squares, oppositions, and the return mark significant passages in your life. What’s particularly exciting about planetary cycles is that they are something we all experience, and at the same time in our lives as everyone else (more or less, with some exceptions). We all experience Saturn returning to the point it is in our natal charts at around the age of 29½. We all experience Uranus opposing the original point it is in our natal charts at around age 42. These events, no matter who we are or when we are born, manifest at about the same time in everyone’s lives, so there is something we can learn about the natural unfolding of a life by understanding these cycles.

Let’s take an example and explore the one we most often seem to hear about - the Saturn return. As I said, Saturn takes 29½ years to get around the zodiac once, so you have your first Saturn return at about that age. Add another 29½ years and you are 59 ish and experiencing a second Saturn return. At about 88 or so you’ll experience another if you’re still alive and kicking. Let’s focus on the first Saturn return.

First, we have to understand Saturn and the basic human lesson and motivation that it represents. Saturn is the part of us that needs structure in our lives, the part that needs us to set healthy limits for ourselves and helps us develop self-discipline and self-respect through long term effort. It encourages us to mature, to be realistic, and to get the job done. When we are true to our Saturn, we are acknowledging and creating our own reality and taking responsibility for what we create. While ‘fun’ might not be exactly the right word to describe these experiences, we grow wise and strong under their influence. The location of Saturn in our chart shows us where we need to develop discipline in order to gain the rewards in that part of our lives.

Saturn always brings an encounter with reality. It’s the planet that sits us down and says, now look, this is the way things are. Saturn teaches through limitations, but Saturn is not about moral judgment or chastisement. It doesn’t present limitations for punishment. Saturn is merely ‘reality’ - the reality of living in a physical body on a planet and in a society with natural laws. You must work within those laws to get the results you want as Saturn governs natural, karmic cause and effect.

So when Saturn returns to your natal chart’s Saturn position, it’s a wake up call, a reminder. Saturn represents the clock keeping time, and its return corresponds with an internal understanding that we aren’t going to live forever. We’ve spent enough time building dreams, messing around, gaining some experience and just plain figuring out who we are as we should be doing in the first Saturn cycle (before the first return) and now we’ve got to make some decisions and get on with it already. Saturn says to us - you have all these dreams, and they’re good dreams, but now which one are you going to take responsibility for and make come true? We may want a thousand things, but we cannot manifest a thousand things in our limited time on this planet and our limited resources as a human. Saturn will now be asking us the question “what are you going to do? It’s time to make it real.” As Steven Forrest has said, we recognize that we can no longer keep saying to ourselves ‘when I grow up,’ because we are grown up, or at least getting to that point where it sounds ridiculous to keep saying when. At some point, you need to pick a direction and commit to it to continue on the path of a meaningful life. That point is the first Saturn return.

If we answer this question: “what are you going to do?” in a healthy way, we commit to a path that we can say we truly care about. It doesn’t mean we need to predict or solidify our future and never alter our course, but it does mean that we can take our greatest dream and work on translating the details of that dream into reality. We can choose the direction, the path, with intent and self-knowledge. Some of the details from the fantasy world may have to be sacrificed, but if the essence of the dream is still carried forward, then we are on the right track. We have hopefully spent our lives up to this point experimenting and discovering who we are, so the idea is that we have adequately prepared for the important decision making process that happens internally at this time. One can especially hope that we have been in touch enough with our feelings and our true selves that we can answer that question with some experience and wisdom that we gained from that personal journey.*

To be able to do this, we need to negotiate internally at this time. We must keep one eye on the needs of our heart (our moon) and one eye on the realities of life (Saturn). If we don’t keep these balanced in ourselves, we are in danger of answering the question “what are you going to do?” in an unhealthy way. One possibility of a misstep is to succumb to the lie that life is a downhill slope from here and we’d better just get real and get the corporate job and the shiny car and sell our souls to survive, because that’s what ‘mature’ people do. Here we find someone who is a self-proclaimed ‘realist,’ who thinks maturity is only about leaving behind the idiot ideals of youth; someone who considers themselves above all that silliness now. The second possibility of a misstep is in postponing the decision; to try not to grow up yet. Trying to keep our options open forever doesn’t prolong youth; it just means that our lives are going on without us (and usually not very merrily)! Here is where we see the Peter Pan complex, the 39 year old stuck in a 25 year old mentality, reluctant to commit to anything and winding up with nothing.

Either the wrong decision or a lack of one can lead to strangulation of the soul, and eventual death if it’s not revived. Youth and all its potential are now glorified as the shining moments of our lives. We start to become more cynical and find bitterness in nostalgic moments where sweetness was, because we feel like the ‘glory days’ are over. Life has made our default decisions for us, because our hearts gave up too soon at the negotiation period.

During my first Saturn return in Cancer in my 6^th house, I had to come to terms with the reality that what I do every day creates my life. I find it very difficult and ever so tedious to do the things I need to do daily to fulfill long term goals. Even the daily maintenance of living is tiresome to me. I can power through something in a few days, even in a couple of weeks, but when it comes to doing something every day in order to see results for a long term project, I have a natural lack of desire to follow through. This is where my Saturn work lies - in the daily effort to achieve a goal, not just a whirlwind of activity where I can reap the benefits after a few days work while I’m in the mood. I also realized that I had to take responsibility for my health, which is one of those things where lack of daily effort can lead to long term and sometimes irreversible negative effects.

On a much deeper note, I saw that I was constantly yearning to be taken under someone’s wing, perhaps due to a lack of a strong male influence in my adolescent years. I had always tended to gravitate toward older, wiser men (Saturn) whom I looked up to, almost to an embarrassing level of worship. I wanted to be guided the way an apprentice is by a master, to be presented the way a debutant is at her coming out party, to be sanctioned the way god bestows grace and authority on his chosen one. I was looking for a compassionate (Cancer) authority (Saturn) to take my hand and guide me (6^th house). It was during my Saturn return that I recognized the need to become my own authority, to stop waiting indefinitely for the approval from dad, teacher, or god. This was hard to face, because I had to come to terms with the reality that I cannot go back into the past to get that nurturing I craved. I would have to settle for myself as my guide, my presenter, my master. I recognized that I could find teachers along the way that could help, but that I would never be the child in the strong and capable hands of her father to show her how to navigate the world. I am still coming to terms with this reality and I occasionally still bonk my nose on this wall, but I can honestly say that life has been better now that I recognize the person that will hold my hand and guide me to my goals is me.

*There is a point in time in our lives when the secondary progression of our moon returns home to the place it was at the time of our birth. This progressed lunar return precedes the Saturn return by a couple of years, representing a return home, a refresher course in remembering who we are and re-centering ourselves emotionally, in perfect preparation for the decision making process that follows. If we take the proper time to feel during this phase, we can make the right decision when it comes time to do in the next phase-the Saturn return.

About Amy:

I have been studying, teaching, and reading for clients as a counseling astrologer for over 11 years, currently in the Seattle area. I am finishing my level 2 certificate as an apprentice to Steven Forrest. If you like what you read, check out my website at www.heavenlytruth.com for more.

Amy Herring, ©2007

Please do not reproduce this document or any part in it without permission.

References & Inspiration: Steven Forrest private lecture & The Changing Sky / Steven Forrest. Bantam Books, 1986.