Understanding my Saturn return helped me reframe turning 30

“Learning about it gave me a sense of control at a time when I felt like I didn’t have any.”

This is an edited extract of the chapter, ‘Saturn Return’ from Bridget Hustwaite’s new book, Figuring Out 30 (Penguin Australia).

It’s fair to say there was a bit going on for me in the lead-up to turning 30, but the good news was that I found out a name for all the shit hitting the fan! Yay!

Halfway through the book Of Gold and Dust by Australian jewellery designer and entrepreneur Samantha Wills, I came across a chapter called ‘Saturn return’. Underneath the title was the definition: ‘In horoscopic astrology, an astrological transit that occurs when the planet Saturn returns to the same place in the sky it occupied at the moment of a person’s birth; the influence of the Saturn return is considered to start in the person’s late twenties.’

My eyes were fixed on the final two words: late twenties. I dog-eared the page and continued reading as Samantha detailed how she had found it hard to make friends amid all her global travel, and how she had made the biggest mistake of her entire career by changing everything about her jewellery brand to try to fit into a new market: “Rather than staying true to who we were, I started to design products for who I thought we should be.”

When I look back on that sentence, I can see how it can be applied to so many things, like how we might try to design our lives a certain way in our late twenties, attempting to follow the script society tells us to follow as opposed to making decisions based on who we really are.

I paused on these words as I sat in bed, realising full well this was exactly what I was going through. Having a name for it excited me. Eager to learn more, I pulled out my laptop and typed ‘Saturn return’ into my Google search, and devoured article after article. Learning about it gave me a sense of control at a time when I felt like I didn’t have any.

When I started mapping out the first 10 episodes of my podcast, I knew I had to dedicate one to Saturn return. My launching episode was just me on the microphone, talking about what was happening in my life as I approached 30, and for the next instalment I welcomed my first guest, astrologer Natasha Weber.

I had been an avid online reader of Natasha’s horoscopes so I was lowkey fangirling to meet her for a crash course in Saturn return via Zoom. “It gets a bit of bad wrap sometimes!” she says with a grin, a giant star constellation adorning the wall behind her. Natasha describes the cosmic entryway into adulthood as an evolution of the soul.  “It’s about coming of age and learning lessons. But if you choose to ignore the lessons, that’s when Saturn return can come and kick you in the pants!”

Saturn return occurs approximately every 29 and a half years, coinciding with the duration of Saturn’s orbit around the sun, and typically spans a period of two and a half to three years. According to Natasha, Saturn creates mini-growth moments in seven-year increments, which are known as squares or oppositions – like cosmic jolts to keep you in check. “Every seven years, you pretty much get an opportunity for personal growth and to tweak your direction in life. And this will culminate at the return moment, around the age of 29,” she says.

However, anything in astrology that has a profound effect or evolution of the soul will also be in effect in the year preceding it and then ease off in the following year as well. It’s like a build-up and then a falling away. So for a lot of people, shit can start to kick off as early as 27 or 28. “If you deny those seven-year lessons or opportunities for growth and instead are clinging on to your youth, outdated stale patterns or behaviour that isn’t serving your growth and future development, when it comes time for your Saturn return, the accumulation of all of those years and moments can come back and bite you in the butt,” Natasha explains.

I was curious as to why so many people felt so blindsided by this period and why we didn’t tend to hear as much about it in comparison to the eclipses and retrogrades. For Natasha, Saturn return is more complex than other astrological events and to fully understand how it might affect you personally, you need to know your birth chart, which maps the positions of astrological points at a person’s birth.

So, what kinds of things can go down during one’s Saturn return? Although I was dumped, heartbreak isn’t necessarily a prerequisite. It can be anything from changing jobs, moving cities, ending friendships or taking on a greater financial responsibility.

My friend Sam told me she discovered Saturn return on TikTok: “I’m too online. I never thought I actually had a Saturn return but then I remembered when I was 29, I quit my longstanding job, ended a 10-year on-and-off relationship, ended some bad friendships and met my husband. So I guess I did! Good year. A lot of trash was taken out.”

Dating columnist Jana Hocking said her Saturn return entailed packing in her high-paying TV job for a low-paying radio gig, moving from Sydney to Newcastle, breaking up with a ‘dud dude’, getting a dog and dying her hair hot pink. “It really was a rollercoaster ride!”

Saturn return is like being met with the feeling you’re no longer who you once were, but you aren’t quite sure of who you are yet either. So yes, we are all Britney standing on the edge of a clifftop, singing, ‘I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman’. Seriously, though, Saturn return can be really tough for people, but Natasha is firm that if you step up to the responsibility instead of shying away from it, it can also bring incredible rewards and accolades.

“Saturn always rewards effort, hard work and discipline,” she assures me. “If you’re the type of person where that comes more easily, you’ll probably breeze through your Saturn return, whereas if you’re someone who wants to live a really frivolous life and it isn’t in your best interest, then Saturn is going to make you grow up really fast and that can sometimes be pretty painful.”

While I found comfort in the concept of Saturn return and enjoyed delving into its intricacies, I had one lingering question: when will I know it’s over? Will I simply wake up one morning, embraced by a new sense of calm and clarity? “Well, the funny thing about astrology is that once Saturn return ends you’ve usually got a Mars return or Venus return or something!” Natasha jokes.

Birth charts can help you grasp when you can expect your Saturn return to pass, but Natasha warned of the possibility of a potential double whammy: Saturn retrograde. Turns out Saturn might go retrograde at any time in someone’s life – even before, during or after their Saturn return. It doesn’t always line up with the Saturn return, though, because retrograde periods are just part of how planets move naturally.

When Saturn is retrograde in someone’s birth chart, it might affect them on a more internal, introspective level. But whether Saturn is retrograde or not during a Saturn return, the big ideas about growing up, taking responsibility and learning life lessons from Saturn are still important.

As writer, performer and astrologist David Odyssey wrote for Nylon, “At this point, an unstoppable force may be exactly what’s necessary to shake you out of the social, familial, and societal obligations which keep you in a perpetual child-state: Are you really going to spend the rest of your life with this person? Do you want to be in medical school, or do you just want your father to like you? Saturn will come to smash the juvenile attachments you cling to, for the sake of awakening you to your own authority, agency, and power.”

There’s no other way to put it: millennials and Gen Z are vibing hard with astrology. And I get it. Understanding astrological events can provide a sense of control and a community for people. I can’t scroll through Instagram without seeing a caption or meme on star signs and it’s a compulsory addition to my friends’ dating profile bios. And, of course, ol’ mate capitalism is catching on and cashing in on people’s growing fascination. According to Allied Market Research, the value of the global astrology industry went from US$2.2 billion in 2018 to US$12.8 billion in 2021. By 2031, it’s expected to rise to US$22.8 billion.

But it’s not for everyone. In a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne comedian Alice Tovey described Saturn return as “like whenever Toadie comes back to Neighbours, but for the sky”. Tovey deemed it all a bit silly. “If there’s one thing my generation likes to do, it’s blame interplanetary forces for our problems.”

I mean, fair point. But I’m going to do it anyway.

Find a copy of Figuring Out 30 here.