It's almost time to begin my Saturn Return

What I learned from a Sedona psychic

Last week, I saw a psychic. I wouldn’t call that sort of decision out of character for me, but it’s not something I’ve ever done before. 

It took 30 minutes to get to her space near Sedona from the camper in Cottonwood; a small office in an alcove behind a sushi restaurant. It was snowing and the wind was blowing and it felt like the perfect afternoon to huddle over a table covered in tarot cards and crystals. 

She shares my mother’s name and I thought that was the first good omen. She also shared with me that she is 55, old enough to be my mother, and as I do with nearly all women over the age of 50, I turned to her like a daughter to a mother. 

Her hair was dark black, long, and framed her face in a wild halo of frizzy curls. Her eyes were the palest blue, nearly silver and if this were fiction, I’d say that her appearance was a little heavy-handed. 

I took off my boots at the door and followed her to a quiet room where we both sat cross-legged on high-backed chairs, looking at the cloth-covered table. She walked me through how the hour-long session would go and not dissimilar from a therapy session, asked me what brought me in today. 

I wanted to say what I said to my therapist when she asked me the same question a few years ago: I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be here. 

But I did have one small question. “I am coming up on my Saturn Return,” I said to her.  “And I want to know how much it’s going to fuck me up.”

And I suppose this is the point at which I should tell you what a Saturn Return is, and inform you that I’m not certain if I believe that the planets’ placement at our birth and movement throughout our years can influence our lives, but I’m not not certain. So take this with a large grain of salt. 

According to astrology (should you choose to follow that brand of spirituality), your Saturn Return is the period of time in which the planet Saturn ends up back in the same part of the sky that it was in when you were born. This takes about 27-30 years, which means you’ll have 2-3 Saturn Returns in a lifetime. 

From what I understand (again, should you subscribe to this belief system) Saturn is a difficult planet. It is a father figure, representing responsibility, hard work, reality checks, restriction, boundaries, mortality and loss — you know, all the light stuff about life. 

Your Saturn Return is a moment of transition from youth to adulthood. It will push you to take responsibility and explore your growth edges. It’s a time of leveling up and facing life’s challenges. The focus of your Return depends on where Saturn was when you were born, which sign, and which house it was in (if you’re interested in learning this for yourself, I get most of my astrology info from Chani).

When I lived in Bellingham, Saturn Return became something of a joke in my friend group. Some of us were coming up on our first Return, some of us were well past our Return living out its lessons, and a few of us weren’t so far away from our second Return, hoping, I imagine, for the chance at a third. None of us were fully convinced it was a real phenomenon, but it felt believable enough to keep the joke going.

We kidded that Saturn Return would be a great name for a TV series following the stories of women at different points in their lives (hello, TV producers? I'm available for hire). We kept a notes document on our phones for different Saturn Return ideas and quotes that could be perfect for the series. Apparently, I once said, “I heard your Saturn Return doesn’t suck as long as you’re not a fucking idiot,” which was promptly written down in the notes app. I think what I meant was if you haven’t been a childish, irresponsible mess for the past 29 years and have done some inner work, your Return won’t be as much of a shock to the system. I’m sure I said it with so much confidence, still a year or two away from my own return.

Now, sitting in front of the psychic telling her I’m just a few weeks from the start of my first Return, I couldn’t help but wonder, But have I been a fucking idiot?

I think a lot of people come to psychics with a list of very specific questions; Is my partner a good partner? Will I get the job? Should I move to a new state? Etc. Because I don’t particularly care for the binaries of yes-or-no questions, I found myself coming to her with this one vague idea — Saturn Return! WTF is it?! — and just hoping she would speak wisdom to me for the next hour.

So consider me properly spooked because when she dove into my particular Saturn Return, she informed me that it is all about finding home, putting down roots, securing stability, and building a foundation for a life. It’s about creating private, sanctuary-like spaces that make me feel safe. It’s about family, domesticity, and creating traditions. 

Which is to say, it’s about everything that drove me into the camper and on this grand adventure in the first place. 

My Saturn Return begins on March 8, and I return to Boulder on March 12 to start looking for a more permanent home. The timing could not be more eery. 

At a lecture a few months ago, Alison Bechdel said that every writer has a “soul story,” the topic they keep returning to, no matter what it is they think they’re writing about, it’s always in some way tied back to this original story. As soon as she said it, I knew that my soul story was about home. It’s the thing that always fascinates me, always eludes me, always lurks behind my decisions and emotions.

The psychic offered me so many other savory bits about my life, but I’m holding those things more private. Blurting them out feels like they might lose their magic. 

What I can say is that she told me that moving back to Colorado will feel like a great exhale, a deep unburdening. And I cried when she said it because I didn’t realize how much I needed it to be true. She sees a hard couple of years coming to an end, and the cusp of something incredible beginning. I don’t care whether she could really see into my life, or if it was all a ruse, I am determined to make her predictions come true.