Saturn in the Garden

part one of an essay on my Saturn Return and what it has meant for my personal mythology thus far

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Photo by Braxton Apana

Hi lovelies,

Have you ever had a moment when, after years of overthinking, self-doubt, succumbing to negative patterns, and even, at one point, descending into the sharp-toothed plunge of a “dark night of the soul,” you finally got fed up and said, “Okay, fine. Demons, I’m listening”?

Just me? Of course, when I did this, I couldn’t help but expect the worst—as most of us do when our personal demons are involved, whatever they may be. But then mine surprised me; this time, after so many years with their hackles raised, they bore down on me with gifts. (Who knew, but they’re actually kind of cute when they don’t bite¹.)

And that, I believe, is the power of the Saturn return.

So what, exactly, is a Saturn return?

If we look at the birth chart as a map, placing us just so within a kind of cosmic design plan, we can better understand how our lives may be affected by the positions of the planets and luminaries were at the very moment of our birth. Each planet will eventually make its way back to the position it was in when you were born; when this happens, it’s called a planetary return.

Of course, the outer planets, like Saturn and Pluto, for example, take longer to orbit around the sun, which means the effects of their movements create sweeping generational patterns.

Let’s get a few dates out of the way: The last time Saturn was in Aquarius was from 1991 to early 1994, and in Pisces from May 1993 to April 1996. If your Saturn is in Aquarius, well, then—you, too, just ended your Saturn return.² Saturn first entered Aquarius in March 2020 (yes, you read that right). As of March 7, 2023, it’s moved into Pisces, where it will remain until a brief retrograde back into Aquarius in August 2025 through February 2026.

Astrologer Chani Nicholas refers to the Saturn return as an “initiation into adulthood,” and she’s right. The first occurs between ages 27 to 31.

I’ve been writing circles around it for a little while now, my Saturn return. I see that now that I’m on the other side of it. It was an incredibly fraught time, as has been true for so many of us the past few years, marked by periods of acute spiritual growth, some more intense than others. It’s been uncomfortable, at others downright painful, and in some, nothing short of the most blissful fucking thing I have ever experienced.

And I know, too, that it’s been a part of my soul’s evolution. Above all else, and at risk of wandering into the realm of cliché, there is the sensation of a weight lifting. I will admit to my restlessness in the wake of this unweighting, this deescalation. I will admit to a feeling akin to sunshine spraying directly into the eyes, brilliant and cutting.

If Saturn is the boulder, then we are Sisyphus.

Despite his status as the taskmaster, the tough daddy, dare I say patriarch of the zodiac—and despite his concern with guidance and structure, frameworks, and oft-unbending rules—Saturn loves a good paradox. Despite his reputation, he is more than comfortable in Aquarius; after all, he rules it.

Every planet rules over one to two zodiac signs, and it’s said that when a planet is moving through a sign over which it reigns sovereign, it’s in domicile.

As I wrote here, Aquarius isn’t exactly the star sign we think of when we consider rules or structures, which has certainly made for a fascinating three-year period (to say the least). Equal parts overwhelming, exhausting, and tumultuous, too. Structures have fallen away, or been eroded. Societally, we’ve revealed certain barriers to be more like guideposts, and others as warnings: Sheer cliff face ahead. You may not be able to see it from your current vantage point, but that drop is steep, and once we’re in free fall, well. You just don’t know what’s coming next.

Saturn is a harsh teacher, there’s no doubt about that, but the good news is that he bestows incredible blessings, too, once those lessons have been learned. It’s just that first, he’ll push you to your breaking point.

Saturn be like: I know a spot, and then plunge you into a dark night of the soul 

I don’t write this to engage in any kind of “doom mongering”, especially if you are just entering your Saturn return; that is not and will never be my M.O. with anything astrology-related. That said, mine did break me. Certain parts of me. And I won’t get those parts back, but I would do it all again if I had to. Burn them at the sacrificial altar to forge new faces in the fire. I would taste the bitter medicine again and again. And maybe that ultimately brought me comfort in the difficulty. (Gave me a raging addiction to work and “busyness” and intellectualizing my emotions, too, one that I’m still untangling.)

There has been a slow unpeeling, sometimes of what I thought of as certainties of my identity, my world. Each time that has happened, my world has expanded. Easy to think: Come on. Your world expanded in 2020? Yes and no. Since then, my perspective on what I thought was possible for me has not only expanded, but multiplied. The doors have blown open. And through it all, the building revelation of the following platitude:

The obstacle is the path.

“I can see you in your garden,” said N during a tarot reading, one in which she held stunning and illuminating space for me. My beautiful Scorpio friend, she is a gifted healer; she once told me that years ago, a shaman wanted to apprentice her, but she just couldn’t see herself leading that lifestyle, at least not at the time. (I could absolutely see it in the future, though. She’s brilliant, so perceptive.)

It wasn’t only that, in the literal sense, I learned my way around a veritable forest of leafy green houseplants over the past three years. N was referring to the garden where I was engaged in the work of manifestation making. Of sowing the seeds of everything I wanted to achieve. I was busy with the sowing of this new vision—of who I was and what I was capable of—and with proving to myself just how hard I could work, something I’ve written about before, at length; but it was more that that. This new version of me was proving, in a neck and neck race with her own potential, that she could do really, really hard things. Without giving up—on them or on my Self.

And I was planting my own mythology, one story and experience, one trauma and failed relationship, one possibility and lesson and timeline at a time. Digging my heels into the soil, I was learning not to fear the discomfort of getting my hands dirty.

I was to learn, too, that I couldn’t rely solely on trauma drive, at least not if I wanted to keep up the pace I needed to work full-time in the tech world, graduate from a MFA program³, build the world of my novel, and later, begin various other writing projects, including this lovely little newsletter.

Above all else, Saturn taught me patience. It bestowed me with the joy that comes from planting those seeds and waiting, patiently or not so much, for them to grow. After all, you don’t expect a plant to sprout or flower to bloom seconds after you bury its roots in the soil; you nurture it along, ensuring it has the right amount of light and water, harboring patience for it to grow, mature, expand.

It has also taught me so much about resistance—paradoxically, even, not to resist my own egoic sense of resistance. Toward “the obstacle,” toward mental blocks, and toward the ways I once stood in my own way. Accepting the resistance. Indeed, accepting the obstacle as the only way forward. To look it in the face, somehow, however you choose to do so.

Once I would have bared my teeth. Now I can go more softly toward it, recognizing that perhaps I even placed some obstacles myself, subconsciously, for what I deemed to be my own protection. Perhaps I did it because somewhere deep down, I knew I wasn’t actually ready to attract that which I thought I desperately wanted. In other cases, I simply wasn’t meant to.

There are so many spiritual teachings that tell us deep wanting will push the object of your desire away (whether that is a person, a physical object, what have you). But when we are wanting to bring something specific into our lives, we don’t actually want the thing itself, so much as we want to manifest the feeling we think we’ll have when it’s been attained. Significant other or relationship? Love. Six figures—or other specific number—in the bank account? Success, safety, stability.

I can’t say that I always exercise detachment, because hey, I’m only human. At the same time, though, I can say that I’ve detached from the urgency of immediate wanting, that feeling of extreme need our instant gratification society preaches on without fail, at least in the context of my goals. And I’ve learned to have patience while moving forward, even in slowness and in stillness, toward those goals.

I’ve had to. Saturn kicked my ass.

And it’s helped me to create a map of my struggle. So that when I came out on the other side, I could let the boulder fall from my back; so that I could come out at all, to wipe the sweat from my brow and feel unbelievably grateful, for the hindrances and hardships even if not for the pain. For the path forward through them. For the path I’m on now.

The writing is an excavating, always, and when you are digging, if you go far enough, delve deep enough, you’ll eventually hit bone. Or rock.

Maybe it’s that behind the boulder, when we’ve finally reached the peak, we find the garden, or else realize ours has been there all along. Simply waiting for us to cultivate it. Hoping against all hope that soon, soon, it’ll be tended. Maybe it takes and has taken its time, but my season to flourish has arrived, and besides, the blooms are all the sweeter for the enormity of what it took to harvest them. For that alone, I would do it all over again; though I am so very, very glad I don’t have to.

To be continued . . .

xx Kimia

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1. I mean, unless you’re into that kinda thing.

2. You can check what sign your Saturn is in here.

3. In December 2020, at that. Fun times.