hey starstuff. ok, so i’m getting closer to distilling exactly why i became an astrologer. thanks for coming on this journey with me, it feels nice to be witnessed. in some ways, it’s a big long story, and in other ways, it’s actually quite simple. 

i became an astrologer because following astrology has helped me give my life meaning and remember the concept of impermanence, and should it resonate for others, i wish only the same support for them. it has a way of putting into context otherwise arbitrary experiences, and shows me where i’m growing as a spiritual being having a human existence. and with the growth patterns i’ve noticed in myself over the past 10 years utilizing astrology as a tool of guidance in my life, i can see that i’m always evolving into myself more and more. just like any spiritual journey, it is indeed like one big labyrinth, where i keep coming back to the place where i started, once again facing these mysterious karmic lessons i have to keep butting my head up against. but as a result of the experiences i’ve had along the way, with each cycle and transit, the understanding of my self only deepens, and the mystery only becomes more intriguing. and i’m learning now, in this phase of life, motherhood, wife, auntie, entrepreneur, neighbour, friend, that the better i understand myself and more grounded i feel in being exactly who i am, the happier i am, and the better person i am when showing up with the people in my life. and that’s really what’s important to me. i just wanna do my best, you know? life’s too short to linger anywhere unhealthy for too long. 

i want to emphasize that i’m not a professionally trained astrologer, as in, i don’t have any certificates on the wall. i’ve attempted to take classes in the past, and i’m open to trying again in the future, but so far, the best way for me to learn is by contemplating astrology in my own life, and then doing the same for others by reading their charts. i know deep in my bones that my paternal grandmother passed the ancestral baton to me. her daughter, my aunt, is a witchy woman unto herself, but astrology doesn’t seem to be her jam. and for whatever reason, the message landed loudly with me when i came through a massive period of initiation in any young adults’ life, called the saturn return.

what in the world is this saturn return i keep referring to? i often read for people going through their saturn return, and i’m positive it’s because mine was so impactful. let me ask you this: what happened to you when you were about 29 years old? i guarantee something fairly substantial happened to you. you got married, had a kid, graduated from schooling, lost a family member, changed careers, met your partner, bought a house, travelled to a far away land, moved to a far away land, left an abusive ex, attempted suicide, and so on. whatever happened, it would have been a period of time that began with some sort of elation, and landed you squarely in your life like a tonne of bricks. it’s like the last gasp of our free-falling 20s into reality, and it’s always accompanied by some sort of reason for frenzy. because the hammer of saturn is about to hit the surface of your life, and whatever is unnecessary going forwards for your soul’s growth gets shaken from your foundation. it all just falls away, often harshly, and accompanied by some pretty tough life lessons. so while it begins with a high, the climax of your 20s ends with a thud. we get so grounded in our reality, like the brisk teacher walking around the room and grabbing the back of your head to redirect your eyes to the page in front of you, when you had formerly been looking out the window with daydream eyes. look at it, he says sternly. look at it all and shed whatever isn’t serving your soul. time’s a ticking. you’re a third of the way through this incarnation. what are you here to do with this one purposeful life? he’s not the destroyer of things like pluto, so if you keep your head in the sand at this turning point, and refuse to drop whatever is holding you back from maturing, then saturn continues to present new yet intimately familiar material for you to learn the lesson. you’ll remember it like continuing to hit the same brick wall with your forehead with every decision you make that doesn’t demonstrate some learning or maturing has occurred. there’s a lot of “facing things” during this time of life. there’s nowhere to hide your shortcomings. it’s a humbling time, laden with growing pains. friendly reminder: it doesn’t stay like this forever. for some people, it’s a noticeable bump in the road that eventually becomes a distant memory. for others, it’s a period of time that takes a while to integrate into everyday living. i was of the latter group.

so for me, saturn is in scorpio in the 10th house in my birth chart, and that’s where it “returned” to when i was 29 years old. what i want to focus on the most, is that my saturn is in the house of ambition and success, your life’s work, and your reputation. and i like i said in my previous post, while astrology has been subconsciously apart of my life since i was very young, it really landed in my life during my saturn return. the catch is, in order to get to the place where the gravity of my saturn return really started to influence my life in the realms of ambition (and in my case, being an astrologer), i first had to address some of the other things that house refers to in the zodiac, and that’s father and authority issues. wherever saturn lives in your chart, it’s a place of the long haul and hard work. there is nothing fleeting or easy about saturn. endurance, perseverance, and patience are good qualities to show up with in that place in your chart. and, for me, it’s been nothing but a long haul to get to even this place: the beginning. 

and yes, for me, my father and authority issues were the first to be addressed. and damn, if that wasn’t the roughest period of my life. but i got through it. i had to address that trauma, i couldn’t keep carrying it around with me, you know? and that’s the gift that my saturn return brought me – i released a bounty of burdens. it took a really long time to process it all. but in tandem, all the way through, it’s because of these times of distress that gave me the opportunity to learn my craft. it gave me the opening to explore and apply this incredible tool, and find out, hey, it’s really strange, but this actually works. talk about having saturn in scorpio. these generations have the potential to take extremely hard lessons and completely transform through them, a brand new person on the other side. there’s a certain level of dedication and discipline to my saturn placement. it’s also dark and shadowy, gritty at times, but there’s a part of us that loves that shit. it means change is a-coming. and anything is better than some of the pain we’ve seen and felt. it’s a determined presence, and i’m grateful for it. 

so after my saturn return, i definitely had authority issues to address as well. mainly that i had never known my own, and so projections onto others who did was something fierce of a burden to shake. i still struggle with it. but having saturn in my 10th, in scorpio, means that i’m naturally inclined to have some pretty strong leanings towards knowing and exercising my own authority, especially in combo with some other placements my chart possesses. but those qualities had never had the space to express themselves when i was kid, so it all felt pretty foreign to my being. in order to get there, i was tasked with doing some hardcore renovations internally and externally. i rearranged everything. it was like i was moving house, and getting rid of anything that wasn’t going to be with me at the new location. i can’t emphasize the pain here enough. i had to cut ties with my family of origin. it was not fun or lighthearted in any way. the grief was tremendous. i felt like i was dying from the sorrow almost daily for a time. and writing this, i still have tears in my eyes. as they say with grief, you don’t heal from a loss, you just learn to accommodate it into your everyday reality. and my reality, brought to me by my saturn return, was that my family was toxic and that there wasn’t room for my lived experience within their ideology for how our family appears to the world – their reputation, also a 10th house theme. and so i split, so that i could heal in healthy and loving environments. i’ve thought about this situation for thousands of hours of my life. it’s been all-encompassing for years at a time. and you know what? i moved through the transits. it got better. i made a choice that has proved to be beneficial to my lived experience, thanks to following my intuition, and watching the stars. they have never ever let me down. 

i should say, many times over, that astrology isn’t the medicine for absolutely everything. it’s always operating in the background, one way or another. but i’ve learned when i’m in a place where my ephemeris (the book astrologers use to see where the planets are) isn’t the right salve for what i’ve got going on, and it’s important to make the distinction. and so astrology isn’t a replacement for anything like counselling, western or herbal medicine, financial or legal professionals, or hands-on healing. however, without a doubt, it is an excellent complement to them all. if we’re all tuned into many realms of existence at any given moment – mental, psychic, physical, emotional, etc., astrology would provide information only from the astral realm. and each realm influences the other, so there’s a possibility that astrology would be a useful tool at any and all moments in life. every individual deciding for themselves what resonates and feels like medicine is what matters the most. 

if you want to look up where your own saturn lies in your natal chart, check out this link: https://cafeastrology.com/saturnsigntables.html

more soon, thanks for joining me on this journey. your presence is appreciated.

listening to: ben böhmer’s live above cappadocia in turkey in cercle (a dj in a hot air balloon creating soul-nourishing tunes, it’s incredible).