What the Saturn Return looks like in theory.
What does it look like to grow up a little bit?
Week Ahead Astrology:
At this point most of the biggest stuff has already happened (oops)
Tuesday morning we saw Saturn move into Pisces - there will be a brief moment later this year that Saturn moves back into Aquarius, but generally speaking it’s going to be Saturn in Pisces for the next three-ish years.
Early Tuesday morning there was a Full Moon in Virgo. Recommendations would be to pay attention to how you can clean up, tidy your space, and take care of yourself. If you have a Virgo heavy chart, that’s also going to be a lot of energy. You might feel crazy, sorry!
On Saturday we’ll see Mercury step into a sextile with Uranus. You might have crazy ideas and crazy communication, especially because Mars is simultaneously squaring Neptune for the last time in a while. Careful with your criticism or commentary so you don’t cut too deep 🥸
I was going to use the momentum from the post about Erika Jayne to start a sequence of posts about gay villainy, astrology, and the enneagram. As I sat with it though, and looked at the weeks ahead in astrology, I decided to write a little more theoretically about the Saturn return, both a review of the Aquarian and a look ahead at the Piscean. We’ll get back to gay villainy during Pride 🏳️🌈.
The Saturn return is when Saturn completes a full cycle around your birth chart. While there are two to three moments that Saturn has exactly returned to where it sat at your birth, the whole time that Saturn is in that sign is considered your Saturn return. The other key piece to consider is the house or area of your chart that Saturn lives within.
Chris Brennan did a thorough breakdown of the principles behind interpreting a Saturn return here (that website also has a series of “Saturn Return stories” which is very fun if you’re interested). I won’t repeat it all, but the basic pieces to pay attention to are:
What sign is the Saturn return happening in?
What house is the Saturn return happening?
What houses does Saturn rule in your chart?
How do the other planets in your chart interact with Saturn?
I talked a little bit about the natures of the signs Aquarius and Pisces and how Saturn might interact with those two signs in my last post. Generally speaking, Saturn in Aquarius might push harder on your ideas, firming up your core beliefs and shedding the ones that don’t have substance for the long haul. Saturn in Pisces is going to combine structure and boundaries with shapeless water, dreams, and confusion, pushing those of us with this combination in our birth charts to reckon with what internal dams we’ve built or neglected to build.
I want to focus on the idea of “place” in the Saturn return and reflect on how Saturn will manifest in different houses in the natal chart. If you don’t know which houses Aquarius and Pisces fall in for you, you can use this list for reference:
Aries Rising: 11th House Aquarius/12th House Pisces
Taurus Rising: 10th House Aquarius/11th House Pisces
Gemini Rising: 9th House Aquarius/10th House Pisces
Cancer Rising: 8th House Aquarius/9th House Pisces
Leo Rising: 7th House Aquarius/8th House Pisces
Virgo Rising: 6th House Aquarius/7th House Pisces
Libra Rising: 5th House Aquarius/6th House Pisces
Scorpio Rising: 4th House Aquarius/5th House Pisces
Sagittarius Rising: 3rd House Aquarius/4th House Pisces
Capricorn Rising: 2nd House Aquarius/3rd House Pisces
Aquarius Rising: 1st House Aquarius/2nd House Pisces
Pisces Rising: 12th House Aquarius/1st House Pisces
There are literal piles of books written about the many meanings within the houses of an astrological chart, so there’s no way I’ll cover it all here. That being said, here’s a basic list to start you thinking:
The First House: Self, appearance, your body, your vitality
The Second House: Money, possessions, what you own and carry with you
The Third House: Communication, education, siblings, local community, writing
The Fourth House: Home, the living situation in general, family, parents
The Fifth House: Creative pursuits, children, love, pleasure
The Sixth House: Health, daily work, service, pets
The Seventh House: Partnerships, relationships, marriage
The Eighth House: Shared resources, taxes, inheritance, debt, death
The Ninth House: Philosophy, religion, higher education, travel
The Tenth House: Career, public image, life direction and purpose
The Eleventh House: Friends, social groups, social movements
The Twelfth House: Spirituality, isolation, secrets, limitations, endings
So the basic formula for considering your Saturn return is: meanings of Saturn + meanings of the sign + meanings of the house. You’d also want to consider how the other planets interact with Saturn for you, but the focus would be Saturn’s place in your chart and the overall theme of “growing up”. Whatever combination Saturn creates, the common theme for all Saturn returns is a shift in maturity, which is where it can get a bad rap.
Some examples of people with Saturn in Aquarius and Pisces to consider…
Yoko Ono with Saturn in Aquarius in the 5th House
When Yoko Ono had her first Saturn Return around 1962, she met her second husband, Anthony Cox, and two months later had her first child. The marriage fell apart quickly, but they stayed together for their joint creative careers. During their early years, Yoko had several artistic successes, debuting Cut Piece right as Saturn moved out of her 5th House, ending her first Saturn Return. I don’t know how she felt or how her internal landscape shifted during this time, but you can see the ways 5th House themes and Aquarian stubbornness blend in the biographical details.
For Yoko, her Saturn Return involved 5th House themes: she became a mother and grew her creative practice with the culmination of this early phase occurring right as Saturn shifted into Pisces. She might reflect on what boundaries existed or needed to exist, what social structures weren’t in place and needed to be to support these changes.
How else you might see a Saturn Return in the 5th House manifesting: creative challenges that offer you a chance to learn your creative needs, facing and healing (or beginning to heal) emotional wounds regarding pleasure, challenges with pregnancy (either it happening when you don’t want it or not happening when you do), or some combination of those.
Lisa Kudrow with Saturn in Aquarius in the 8th House
When Saturn entered Aquarius for the first time since Lisa Kudrow was born, she began taking improv classes at the Groundlings. This was a big shift from her planned life as a headache researcher, a profession she intended to inherit from her father. As she began building her career in acting and comedy, she supported herself by working on her father’s research team. This enabled her to grow her career, forming an improv troupe with Conan O’Brien and Tim Hillman and pursuing work in TV and film.
Right at the end of her Saturn return, Lisa was cast on the show Frasier, but as filming began, she was let go due to a lack of chemistry with the cast. She later reflected that she could feel it too, that she was terrified and knew her fear was hurting her performance. Shortly after this loss, however, she was cast on Friends. Obviously, this changed her life forever.
How else you might see a Saturn Return in the 8th House manifesting: loss, especially death, taking on or resolving debt, big shared purchases, especially with a partner, inheritance, especially of resources but potentially mental/emotional inheritance.
Viola Davis with Saturn in Pisces, Unknown House
Sometimes you don’t know your rising sign because you’ve lost your birth certificate or you don’t have documentation otherwise. While it is necessary to have a solid birth time for most astrological techniques and to get the extra depth of understanding “where” in your life things can play out, long term cycles like Saturn’s are still going to time out in significant ways that you can see regardless of the house.
For Viola Davis, the timing of her Saturn Return coincides with her transition from drama school to professional acting in New York. Her first professional role took place shortly before, in 1992, picking up steam over the course of the next few years and culminating with her Broadway debut in the play Seven Guitars the week after her Saturn return concluded in March 1996. While we don’t know if this corresponds to her 10th House of career or her 5th House of creativity or some other house, the cycle bears out that around this time there was a shift for her security and her place in the world.
At the core, whatever house it happens in, the Saturn Return wants you to look at yourself as an adult, not without frustration or regret or any other messy feelings, but honestly. The Saturn Return is a time to take responsibility and create solid ground for yourself to stand on.
If you’ve just completed your Saturn Return, how have you changed in the past three years? Were there any special themes connected to your Aquarius house?
If you’re just starting your Saturn Return, what do these ideas bring up for you? Do you already feel secure and stable in these areas of your life? Maybe there are already significant changes on the horizon — how can you prepare yourself mentally, emotionally, and by connecting with your community?
I’m still angling to get future issues of this out by Sunday morning. We’ll see!
I’m going to be looking around for more local mutual aid in Austin to be donating to and, in the future, aggregating what I find here! In the meantime, if you feel like joining me, I’ve set up a monthly donation to Little Petal Alliance to support their “Transition Fairy Godparents” services.
Always a lot of credit goes to the people who have been my teachers, both directly and through their freely shared knowledge, and so many books.
P.S. If any of this is confusing and you have a question, just let me know and I’d love to answer it for you! I’m still figuring out how to write with enough of the technical to be interesting without being overwhelming. I love your feedback!