Saturn Transits + the Nightmares Come to Life
An analysis of my life lessons and how to find your own
Life has been challenging lately. It’s felt like all of my nightmares are coming to life and there is no way to escape them. But this entry isn’t just about all the horrors, it’s about how I’m attempting to figure it out and navigate it differently than all the other challenging times in my life.
Right now, I’m going through a Saturn transit. You may have heard of your “Saturn return” that happens at around 28-29. Well, that’s the big one, but we all have similar Saturn transits that occur approximately every 7 years. And depending on what’s happening in your chart, those transits might range from a little challenging to very, very hard.
The first part of this post is to analyze my own Saturn patterns but at the end I’ll share more info to help you find your own patterns.
When I was 7, I got a bad case of mono (Epstein Barr virus). I had to take over 3 months off from school. I remember my mom frequently fearing that I was about to die because my fever would get so high that I’d be shaking and talking out of my head. This was my first experience with being struck by a life-altering health issue.
At around 14, my mom broke her neck in a serious car accident and almost died. I felt very conflicted about forming friendships with kids at school or being a “good” Jehovah’s Witness who didn’t associate with “worldly people.” I was in a very heavy, suicidal place and was on a few psychiatric medications. Then, my weight ballooned to the highest it’s ever been in my life (over 100 lbs more than I weigh now).
At around 21, I had a psychological warfare-style break-up, I felt abandoned and betrayed by the closest friend I’d ever had, and I was extremely uncertain about the degree I was getting and the career I wanted. I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt and taken to a state psychiatric hospital that was infinitely more traumatizing than the breakup. I went on even more psychiatric medications. This delayed my college graduation by a year, initially, because of the hospitalization, but the next semester it was because all the medication made it difficult to think and retain information.
Around 28-29 (my “Saturn return”), I had taken a leap of faith into a career and social group that I thought would make me happy but surprisingly made me suicidal. So I went off the cocktail of psychiatric meds I’d been on for years and did ayahuasca. The journeys were life-changing and trajectory-altering. Then I had an Epstein Barr (mono) reactivation so severe that I was basically bedridden for 8 months, followed by an exploding appendix. I came out of this time with a completely new understanding of myself, health, and reality.
Now through March of 2025, I’m in another Saturn transit. I have been trying to fix an underlying nervous system issue that makes me especially sensitive to stress. Meanwhile, I’m about to lose my source of income, no one is responding to my job applications, the economy is a dumpster fire and I live in the most expensive city in the world for some reason, my 17 y/o cat’s health has become erratic, and the other night I woke up to her howling in pain and my entire apartment covered in trails of her blood. I’m not sleeping, socializing, or taking care of myself, and at times I’m so consumed by anxiety that I’m completely frozen. I’m also struggling with the sudden loss of two trusted health practitioners (for Bearface and I) that have always supported us through challenges but have now seemingly abandoned us.
So, to recap: the themes of health issues, depression, and suicidal ideation are all constants in this 7-year pattern. Interestingly, this time I’m seeing it through a different lens. I notice that the strong underlying desire is to flee my life. Not through death, but by setting fire (symbolically) to everything that isn’t working. Looking back at the various versions of myself that I’ve been throughout my life, this is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I know I didn’t want to truly end my life as much as I just wanted to set fire to everything that wasn’t working.
I didn’t have the emotional intelligence or ability to sit with my dark feelings long enough to understand the difference between these two things. Because now, it feels very clear that the purpose of this time is for me to consciously release attachment to the things in my life that aren’t working and perhaps, have never worked, and move in a new direction.
Knowing what I know now, I’d have done everything differently at each 7-year marker.
At 7, I never would’ve wasted time going to the regular, worthless family doctor. I’d have gone to a functional medical doctor who could’ve given me holistic whole-body support to halt viral replication and support my immune system.
At 14, I should’ve gone all-in on my friendships at school and formed real, lasting relationships instead of being a weirdly avoidant religious freak. I should’ve trusted my internal knowing that God doesn’t give a fuck about anyone abiding by archaic religious rules. It would’ve been life-changing to have friends at school that I could lean on while not knowing if my mom was going to die.
At 21, I should’ve realized I dodged a bullet with the ex-boyfriend and not taken any of his psychological torture to heart. I should’ve looked deep within myself and realized political science and law were not who I really was at my core. I was a born writer and entrepreneur. I literally wrote books and had several small businesses, for fun (!), as a child.
At 28-29, I should’ve realized the entertainment industry and the comedy scene were worlds of illusion, dysfunction, and extreme unhappiness. I shouldn’t have taken it so hard that I did all the work to break in, actually got in, then immediately wanted out. I shouldn’t have thought there was something wrong with me that I didn’t want any of it after I got it. It was just a sign to move on and find what I did want. Also, I probably should’ve done slightly less ayahuasca because as healing as it was, I think it may have thrown me into the mono reactivation by maxing out my nervous system.
And now, I take all of these lessons that I’ve accumulated throughout my life and I look to where I am now. What am I not seeing? What am I holding onto too tightly? What does all of this suffering tell me about what direction I should be heading in?
If I’m being honest with myself, I know I need to work for myself. I’ve known it for years. Putting my safety in the hands of a corporation that doesn’t care whether I live or die will never be my most aligned path. And whenever I get a big, cool job I inevitably get a lot quieter and more cautious about what I say, which is the opposite direction I should be going in.
Similar to my own experiences with mainstream medicine, mainstream veterinary medicine isn’t working for my cat. It’s a band-aid model of treatment that never promotes actual healing. Just because the two people who helped us so much in the past have suddenly disappeared doesn’t mean we won’t find even better people who can help us if we keep looking.
Lastly, I need to stop isolating so much. I keep thinking it’s just a short-term way to cope and get by and I don’t want to bum anyone out with the heaviness in my life, but the few times I’ve talked to friends in the last few months have felt like they’ve brought me back down to reality in a way that I’ve really needed.
So yeah, I have to make some changes. I’m figuring it out. More to come.
DIY Figuring Out Your Saturn Lessons
If you found any of this interesting, then cool. It is interesting to learn from your patterns, live in greater alignment with who you really are, and find what actually makes you happy.
Here’s how to figure out your Saturn patterns:
Step 1: Know that Saturn is the planet of restriction, discipline, responsibility, structure, limitations, and life lessons. So look for any major themes resembling these Saturnian qualities that happened to you around the ages of 7, 14-15, 21-22, 28-29, 35-36, etc. The ages don’t need to be precise. If they’re a year or so off that’s fine.
Step 2: Look up your birth chart. This is an easy site to use to look it up.
Step 3: Look to see where this symbol is located in your chart. Specifically, look to see what house and sign it’s in. i.e. Is it in the 4th house in Sagittarius? 8th house in Aquarius? Something like that.
Step 4: Scroll to the bottom of your Cafe Astrology reading and it will explain the meaning of both your house and sign placement for Saturn (and every other planet in your birth chart). Keep in mind, it might be a bit generic. i.e. It will say things like “can bring up issues of security,” but it’s up to you to figure out what your unique security issues are. It will give you general themes but won’t spell out all the details.
Step 5: Once you have a general idea of what the themes are of your house and sign, do some detective work and think about what sorts of stand-out things happened to you around the age ranges I mentioned above. Specifically, look for any patterns where the same sort of thing kept happening. Maybe the same emotional patterns, same roadblocks, same external forces, etc. have felt like they’re chasing you throughout your life. Think about those patterns and how they relate to the house and sign descriptions of your Saturn placement in the 4th step.
Step 5.5: A slightly more advanced step would be to see what angles your Saturn is making to other planets in your chart and research what the meaning of those angles is. Info below on all the possible angles. For example, my Saturn is conjunct (i.e. next to) Uranus and opposing (i.e. across from) my Moon which means my Saturn transits are often accompanied by sudden, unexpected events and physical and emotional difficulties.
Step 6: If you had to go back and redo any of those phases in your life, what would you do differently? What do you now see was your blind spot?
Still want to know more about Saturn and how these cycles work? Wow, I can’t believe it, but I’ll tell you more. Here’s a diagram I had ChatGPT make for me to explain how this works.
So Saturn takes 28-30 years to make a full rotation and come back to the exact spot it was in when you were born. On the chart above, that’s Birth (Saturn) and 28-30 years (Return). But returns aren’t the only time planets create energetic interference in your life. Every time a planet makes a specific angle to a different area of your chart, it creates unique *energetic conditions.* The most challenging angles are squares (90 degree angles) and oppositions (180 degree angles). So every time Saturn moves to 90 degrees, that takes approximately 7 years.
At 7 years old, Saturn is squaring your natal Saturn. At 14, Saturn is opposing your natal Saturn. At 21, it’s squaring your natal Saturn, and at 28, it’s made the full 360 degree rotation and has returned to the same spot it was in when you were born.
Every planet does this but some planets are malefics (meaning difficult!) and others are benefics (meaning lucky or positive!). Every planet is moving all the time and constantly making a variety of either difficult or positive angles to where the planets were when you were initially born. This is what creates a unique tapestry of challenges and positive forces in each person’s life.
Interestingly, within the last two days I’ve entered a Jupiter return which is typically something that’s very positive. Jupiter is the planet of expansion and luck, so… maybe something good will happen while I’m also duking it out with this Saturn square Saturn. It’s common for people to have a combination of challenging and positive or lucky transits occurring at the same time, so this is just how it goes.
Ok, that’s it! Hope you can figure out your terrible life lessons and get your shit together before your next Saturn transit! Best of luck!!!