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Saturn Return: Beginnings

I mentioned on the last dark moon that the Morrigna told me to take a step back so that I could more fully immerse myself in my first Saturn Return. My plate was already close to full, and I needed space.

Well. If I use the outline of one of my favorite local astrologers, Alan O’Connor, and I use +/- 3 degrees of my natal Saturn, this Saturn return started on February 10th and will continue until July 26th before finally moving out of those degrees… Only to come back as it retrogrades in November, and from then until it goes direct and passes completely beyond in mid January 2020. So, I suspect it’s going to be an interesting year.

The first Saturn Return is usually thought of as a time for growing up, for figuring out your priorities in life, for getting into alignment with your Great Work or Soul Purpose, if you believe in that type of thing. (I do, mostly. That is, I believe I’m here for a reason this go ’round, but I’m agnostic as to whether or not that’s a universal experience.)

When Scott went through his first Saturn Return a few years back, he sort of tugged us into place as a family, in our own place, and with a child. And our home life is good, balanced, stable, so I’m grateful to have a pretty decent foundation to start from as I explore further. We’re like that a lot in other things, too – he’s the Land to my Sky, and we both meet in the Sea. Which is not to say that he didn’t do any exploring – Scott was actually the first one to say that we should create Serendipities now, instead of leaving it to be a daydream or maybe a retirement project.

So we’ve both been exploring some already, and that exploration and the work I’ve been doing as I get more deeply involved with the local community (both seen and Unseen) meant that I came to this Saturn Return already pointed in the right direction, already changing and being changed as I seek better alignment. But that doesn’t mean the work ahead of me will be easy. Far from it, I expect. I have already been struggling. Instead of big, sweeping changes, I’m finding myself drawn to smaller details.

I’m finding myself needing to plan more, both because I’m having a hard time remembering things lately, and because I’m juggling too many things in my head to do my usual style of intentional manifestation. I’m cluttered, and it’s exacerbating my anxiety disorder. So, I’m trying a new planner system, and I’m trying to take better notes, and so far it seems to be working fairly well. I did some mind-map planning for where I want Serendipities to be in two, five, and ten years (and, spoilers, we have Big Plans). I have a new anxiety workbook I’m working through that’s based on some of the cognitive behavioral therapy techniques I learned as a teen, because I need to brush up on them.

Also, I’ve started a shadow work tarot prompt challenge, which is designed to be done every day for a whole month, but I’m spacing it out to twice a week or so, and I’m doing art journaling as my integration of each tarot prompt and answer. I try to do shadow work as it comes up, as I realize there are parts of myself that could use integration, but the prompts of this challenge are very broad and it feels like a good way to make sure I’m not missing anywhere. Again, I’m looking at fine details. There are a few larger things I have been working on for some time (most related to trauma processing), but I want to be sure I’m not missing smaller things, lest they cause hiccups along the way. When I started the challenge and the art journaling, my first impulse read to share it, but something made me hesitate, and I realized that if I started sharing, I’d feel compelled to continue, and the expectation of an audience would change the whole tone of my work. So I won’t be sharing it at all, with anyone, and that feels a little odd for someone who’s generally fairly open about all aspects of her practice.

Depending on how things go, I may continue blogging about my Saturn Return experiences every Dark Moon. But for now, it felt fitting to fill the space the Morrigna left for me.