I spent my formative years in the mountains of North Carolina. A place so rural I couldn’t see our closest neighbors and people burned their trash or buried it because trash pickup didn’t exist and they couldn’t be bothered to head to the dump. I used to take walks on the mountain behind our house and brush snow off the limbs of the tree saplings because I worried they would bow under the weight. It was a pretty existence, but also a lonely one.
Being in the country, I yearned for the hustle and bustle of the city. The people, the activity, the culture. Give me the complete opposite of what I experienced growing up. It’s no surprise I’ve spent my adulthood in one city after another: Washington, D.C., London, San Francisco. I started to disparage the charms of nature, associating it with boredom and isolation. But then something funny happened. As I hit my Saturn return, a time when a person heals all of their childhood stuff and really comes into their own as an adult, I found myself wanting to be outside again. I wanted to walk among the trees and brush snow off the limbs of saplings. Cities started to become symbols for all that’s wrong in the world. Places filled with destruction, selfishness, greed. Places that brought out the absolute worst in humanity.
This picture! How could I not use this? Beautiful.
I started to hate cities, even though I live in one. I started to look upon all that the city offers with disgust, viewing every piece of trash and graffiti as a personal affront. Give me nature and beauty and the great outdoors. My life though is all about integration and learning the middle way, so now I’m coming to love both nature and cities. To see the benefits of both. Last night I saw “Arcane,” a contemporary ballet in San Francisco. It was stunning. My inner child exclaimed with joy and wonder and I was reminded, there are great things about the city. There is art and music and connection. There are things in the city that I cannot find in nature.
Originally, this post was going to be about how nature is awesome. How it can improve your outlook, and your focus, plus strengthen your immunity. But really what this post is about is finding beauty in all things. Understanding no person, place, or thing is all good or all bad. That everything has its pluses and minuses.
One of the things I love about my spiritual path is how it emphasizes that everything is God and everything comes from God. That means nature is the divine and cities are the divine and emotions are the divine. We cannot escape God nor can we find God because that’s like saying we found air – air was there all along, we just didn’t realize it or weren’t still enough to feel it.
What I’m coming to understand is the importance of embracing everything, of accepting everything, of allowing everything. The more I do that, the more I move past duality and start seeing everything as an expression of an infinite, loving consciousness. The more I do that, the more I’m also able to embrace all parts of myself and experience what unconditional self-love really means. And there’s nothing more beautiful than that.
I dream of a world where we embrace all that is. A world where we understand everything has its pros and cons and no person, place, or thing is perfect. A world where instead of looking for perfection, we accept things as they are because we are able to see the beauty in everything.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
As always, I only speak for myself, so while the title suggests I know the "real meaning of the Saturn return," I can only relay my own experience. Disclaimers yo — they're important.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Saturn return, it's when the planet reappears in the position it was in at the time of your birth, which takes roughly 27-31 years. Most people speak of it with groans and derision because it's the butt-kicking time of life. It brings about big changes and strips us of all things that no longer work. There is also speculation the Saturn return had a hand in the 27 club (aka, musicians who died at 27). Ultimately, the first Saturn return is about entering adulthood, which has been the case for me.
This is the planet responsible for so much.
It may sound silly to say that because I graduated from college years ago. I've been in the working world for nearly seven years supporting myself. Haven't I already been an adult? I thought so too. What I didn't realize is Saturn's job is to shine a light on all the dark spots of my past so I don't have to hide from the shadows. It's Saturn's job to give me perspective on my past and help me let it go so I can fully reside in my power as an adult woman.
When Saturn started to make its presence known in my astrological chart in October, I noticed all this stuff with my inner child began to surface. I realized my fears and insecurities came from my childhood. I noticed there was a lot from my childhood I had to heal.
On Friday I saw a physical therapist who specializes in integrative manual therapy, which basically means she manipulates my organs to reset them to normal. She reflected back to me I've been carrying around a ton of fear and anxiety; it's been living in my body since I was a kid. The sweet part is she gave me a process for letting it go. She suggested I meditate on a mudra (a hand gesture) that's already been a very important part of my life. This hand gesture has A LOT of significance for me, so to have someone else instruct I use it myself is the equivalent of admiring the way your favorite musician plays her guitar solo only to realize you can play her guitar solo too. (Please forgive the analogy, I am VERY tired.)
I'm so grateful for my Saturn return because it's unearthing all this buried crap I didn't know I had. It's excavating the rubble from my life so I can move forward rubble free. I also find it interesting this process of growing up, of coming into my own, is taking place in Washington, D.C., the city where I first started to transition from adolescence to adulthood. It's incredibly sweet that this last period where I'm cementing my adult self should also take place in Washington, D.C. I'm laying my demons to rest and trying to wipe my slate clean. I have no idea whether this post will mean anything to the rest of you, but I wanted to share my experience. It's shown me my life is full of bookends and even when I'm undergoing hardship and change it's for my own good.
I dream of a world where we see the good in our lives. A world where we understand deep change is for our benefit. A world where we realize we're given the opportunity to let go of all things that do not serve us. A world where we release the burdens of our past and welcome the brilliance of our future.
Another world is not only possible, it's probable.