We saw previously the great importance of Saturn’s first return around the age of 28, which forms the symbolic birth to adulthood, the break with our past cultural or family patterns, and the necessity either to break with, or to consciously choose what we want to perpetuate.
There is the tendency to reproduce this pattern a little during the second Saturn return, which will therefore be able to bring up even things dating back our 28 years old, and these can be experienced again on the same “mode”, the same degrees of the chart being activated : tensions, blocks and unblocks, will find a similar expression.
But the difference here is that it’s no longer like the first Saturn return as “son of”, that is to say more or less in opposition to the social heritage (and where one must symbolically succeed in “killing the father”); but more as a “father or grandfather of”, that is to say as a holder of certain rules, habits, traditions, conventions (the point of view is reversed), as a guardian of the old world, of an old reality which will have to gradually give up its place and fade away…
It’s the archetypal figure of the “old wise man”, as it can be found in the different traditional cultures, and to whom one comes to ask for advice to know what “the elders” used to do ? what was their vision ? what does the ancient knowledge of the past say ?
This is obviously transposed through the figure of our grandparents, who represent this generational trait with the forces of youth and have a very important social function of transmitting values in this respect…
It’s therefore important to analyze your Saturn in your birth chart in sign and house, to better understand the symbolism that will be activated.
Native Saturnian fears are once again put in the forefront, but this time it’s mainly about entering the “age of transmissions” and focusing on the “perpetuation” aspect.
That constitutes an entrance in the age of maturity, symbolically the last part of the life which will last all the next Saturnian cycle (nearly 30 years until nearly the age of 90 years), that creates a necessity at the same time to form an assessment of the past cycle (thus of what really sprouted during the incarnation, of the social individual), to determine now what should be passed on to others, what should remain socially self-sustaining.
Understanding your second Saturnian cycle from 30 to 60 years old : what should you pass on ?
In the course of life, the “personal” has expressed itself by confronting the “collective”, and it’s thanks to this confrontation that we have been able to refine our individuality, that we have had to renounce or detach ourselves from certain things in order to move forward. Personal evolution here reaches a form of essence, which must serve as a basis for what will be passed on to others…
In the General Cycles, this second Saturn return thus forms a different trial and a challenge, much more “internal” in a certain way.
The personality may have accumulated a lot of knowledge and experience in the previous cycle, and here it may be necessary to develop the wisdom to exploit this and guide others in this direction, accordingly…
But it’s also likely that part of the next Saturnian cycle will also require along the way to “unlearn” what has been learned !
It’s really necessary to avoid as much as possible to crystallize on the bases, believing that they are the only possible ones, this is an important risk of this phase, for this reason it will be important to maintain an open door to the evolutionary energies requiring to pass to a new phase : to find a receptive and simple state, the purest and most stable possible around our personal bases.
Understanding “retreat”, evolution of the connection with time
It’s not insignificant that the legal age of the “retreat” is thus fixed approximately around this astrological phase, symbolically, a form of “retreat” works with this second Saturn return but obviously it does not imply “sterility”…
In some cases, “contemplation” may take up more space, as another connection with time is established, and as it develops, the rhythms of life may change accordingly, allowing us to better “enjoy things”, to accompany them in their growth, to savor them, to “take our time”, to get closer to nature, to see our grandchildren grow up sometimes more than we have seen our own children, etc.
At times, it’s also the “illness”, which makes its appearance or aggravation and forces precisely these different realizations, comes to impose the change of rhythm and this new relationship to time, even if it can also work in certain contexts of Depression (especially if things feel imposed)…
It’s common to say that time is subjective and that it tends to accelerate as we get older, what is certain is that it represents a central evolutionary axis and that Saturn is the planet that directly represents it.
Heading for the north node !
Arriving at this part of life, at the karmic level the northern lunar node can naturally take more and more importance, willingly or unwillingly…
This one representing the fundamental development axis of life, it may be good to make an assessment of the karmic achievements that have been made in relation to it, and some refocusing if necessary (see the axis of the nodes in signs and houses).
This requires a rapprochement towards this “goal” and towards a better synthesis around our our seeds of incarnation (Sun, Black moon, etc), depending also on whether we are very far away from it or if we have already been able to work on it in different ways, and if we are more familiar with the north node.
There may be a certain acceleration of things now and in order to get closer to it, perhaps it will be necessary to understand more things, more quickly, and to realize the necessary evolutions accordingly (there is no age limit in terms of possible awareness).
Behind all this is the realization of the entire birth chart, the important thing being to try to minimize the regrets (“ah if I could/should have done that”), therefore to try to enter a phase of the fullest and most complete expression of energies, in their sublimation.
Opportunity is really given in the best of cases to find and express “the full meaning” of things, to try to purge the maximum of karmic charges weighing on this incarnation, to reach the highest possible stage of consciousness of our life (hence also the development of wisdom).
2 main axes will be important to achieve these things :
- The first one being that of “knowledge”, since here, in a way, we can reap the fruit of all the different learnings that we have been able to make during our existence…
- The second being that of “acceptance”, a principle that follows from the previous one, since many life choices will have already been made, and we cannot go back on them now, it will also be a question of knowing how to recognize and accept them, of knowing how to pick all the fruits that will come, whatever they may be !
This last point is very important but also the least obvious… Because of course here our “inner judge” insinuates itself, coming to compare, to evaluate, to confront, to remember, by doing so it makes us enter fully into “duality” and opens wide the door to regrets, it refocuses on the personality and the ego, on subjectivity…
Whereas to “accept well” it requires on the contrary, at a certain level, a full and complete submission to “what is”, knowing how to take a position in the third person, to step back, and just recognize the things that have been achieved for what they are, without judging them, welcoming them.
Wisdom allows us to know how to relativize, to understand the emptiness of our own human Manichean value system, which by essence is mired in its subjectivity, but this requires us to move towards parts of full and complete objectivity that make us touch “the divine”…
In the end, therefore, to accept is very much a matter of “voluntarily submitting” to the various transcendental and metaphysical currents that have marked out life and forged destiny.
Saturn can have a very healthy channelling and structuring function on all this, and if the planet is well lived, as the “guardian of the threshold”, it could teach us everything there was to know about our path, but now it comes to form its last important lesson, to “make us forget”…
This second Saturnian return should therefore not be especially feared either, it just represents a certain step on the whole path of evolution, leading to certain detachments…
Global and sociological level
It’s interesting to note, on an anthropological level, that this 3rd Saturnian astrological cycle, roughly 60 to 90 years old, really corresponds to the last years of life expectancy that humanity has been able to gain over the past centuries.
Until recently, around the years 1700/1800, a person who reached the age of only 50 years, was considered “old” and “at the end of life”…
This really implies that at the evolutionary level, humanity has globally reached a phase of maturity necessary to develop a “new stage of evolution”, a new generic phase of life, where the phase of the Uranus return, around 84 years old, represents a very important step ! (and it forms a little the apogee of the current average life expectancy)
From a humanistic astrological point of view, it’s very important to understand this logic, which is in perpetual adaptation : astrological cycles are “unblocked” as soon as humanity is ready to live them…
It has been so with regard to the different transpersonal planets recently discovered, and it’s also so with regard to this 3rd general cycle of Saturn, that more and more humans reach and live, the whole development of this “3rd age”…
If you have testimonies about your experience of Saturn’s second return, don’t hesitate ! 🙂