SECOND SATURN RETURN AT 57/58/59 YEARS OF AGE

At some time during these next three years Saturn will return to its natal position for the second time in your life. Saturn takes between twenty eight or twenty nine years to complete its journey through the zodiac and the years which have passed between your first and second return will have taught you how you view this planet.

For some, Saturn is a symbol of repression, loss and hardship. Hard won battles against an invisible foe who stretches your resources and robs you of your will, your youth and your vitality. For these people there is a fear that one’s intended pathway will be derailed, interrupted or completely destroyed under a second Saturn Return and the rebuilding process will take years of patience as they slowly travel the road to recovery.

For others, Saturn will represent dedication, commitment, integrity, and responsibility. It seems as though Saturn’s reward for one’s hard work is an even heavier load of hard work. But what seems to be an almost never-ending workload comes with it a sense of achievement, a lifetime of tangible rewards, and retrospectively traceable steps that led to this moment in time so that when you look back you can follow the story of your life through the tough decisions that have been quintessential Saturn moments. The Sun may be what we leave behind as our legacy, but we didn’t get there without the opposing force of Saturn to drive us, to make us feel guilty when we procrastinate, or to make us feel like a failure when we didn’t reach our own crazy and unrealistic expectations.

The second Saturn Return will occur when you are profecting through the final three houses in the chart. You may have already begun the process in the ninth house when you turned fifty six, but it is these three years – 57, 58, and 59 – that mark your passage through time and remind you that you have already lived the majority of your expected lifespan. 

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Profections: Moving Forward Through the Houses

57 years old : TENTH HOUSE

At fifty seven you may be in conflict with Saturnian figures such as employers or those who have control over your working life. Sometimes you  are the Saturnian figure and the battle comes from those who feel that it is you who is trying to control them so that your relationship with employees, or those ranked beneath you, may be sorely tested in this year.

The tenth is the house of occupation, public life, and accountability and identification of one’s value within society’s ranks. This is not a house where we can hide and any actions or attitudes we hold will be questioned, labelled and dissected in this house. This is the place for your ‘five minutes of fame’ and whilst we think we might crave celebrity status, there are many times when a person has gained notoriety for all the wrong reasons. Gained it, and immediately wished they could crawl under a rock to hide.

Tenth house is also the house belonging to mother so if her health is failing or you are noticing increased signs of aging it may be that you need to make some readjustments to your own life in order to assist her passage into old age.

58 years old : ELEVENTH HOUSE

Your social groups may have changed greatly since you last visited this house twelve years ago. Our evolution as an adult means we often out-grown the friends, activities, conversations and behaviour of those with whom we spent our twenties, thirties and forties.

Your closest friends may still remain, but they are described by the seventh house, not the eleventh, especially when the eleventh lies alongside your public status house. As we change jobs (and relationships) we connect and disconnect and although we have good intentions to ‘stay in touch’, a lack of time, opportunity, or shared experiences, means that sadly we often leave behind our eleventh house friendships. 

59 years old : TWELFTH HOUSE

The last house in the chart is also the place where we spend the final year in a twelve year cycle. The profections match Jupiter’s return at each of the twelve year spots of 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 years of age. Next year will be a new beginning and so the year which precedes it, is one for letting go and making room for change.

It’s one of the reasons that the twelfth house is often useful for withdrawal and contemplation on where you sit in terms of personal growth. Sometimes we let our fears and anxieties get the better of us but it’s only a reminder of night terrors when we were children and when everything in the dark seemed frightening and unfamiliar.  

The twelfth is a ‘dark’ house which receives no light from the Ascendant, and often there are varying shades of ‘darkness’ involved in this year. This can be a range of happenings which are totally unexpected and unplanned for, and although they can lead to your release from a commitment so you can move into a new life, there can be a sense of loss, abandonment or grief attached to the ‘how it happened’ rather than ‘why it happened’.

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Profections Summary for 57: 58: 59 years of age

Firdaria: Time Portions Belonging to the Planets

Most people who have passed through their twenties will remember vividly the events that describe their own personal version of the first Saturn Return.

This can happen anywhere from twenty seven to twenty nine and the focus houses in profection will be just one part of Saturn Return’s story, as will the sign and placement of Saturn in the birth chart, any aspects it shares with the other planets, and where it rules through its two signs of Capricorn and Aquarius.

This is the point where I have to say that astrology never ceases to amaze me. I’m not sure whether the length of time you spend on astrology is directly proportional to the notion that nothing in this universe is a mistake or a coincidence. Random moments of chaos conform to patterns beyond our comprehension and the notion of ‘kismet’ seems not only possible, but totally unavoidable. Kismet describes two seemingly independent events coming together to create our destiny, and can occur at any moment; at the turn of a corner, at a glance in the right direction, or a path we take that we do not understand but feel compelled to take at that split second. The word itself comes from the Arabic word kismat meaning ‘division, portion, lot’, and you can think of kismet as your lot in life, outside of human control and a terror for the modern scientific mind.

If you have been following The Firdaria Diaries over the past few months and been paying close attention you will notice a certain cosmic design reoccurring whenever there is a changeover from one planet to the next. The planets follow one another in an orderly fashion and this particular pattern conforms to what is known as The Chaldean Order of the Planets. This is a little more obvious in the short-term Firdaria lords but the long-term Firdaria also obeys the same rules: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Daytime charts are obliged to begin the process at the Sun and night-time charts with the Moon, but other than the starting point at birth, the same Chaldean Order is always observed in the Firdaria.

Occasionally whilst taking the journey through The Firdaria Diaries at certain ages we have seen crossovers in the Diurnal and Nocturnal Firdaria that seemed to be merely chance or accident at the time. For instance, a change in major Firdaria lord at similar ages in the 18 – 20 group, at the 30 – 32 ages, and again at the 39 – 41 time of life. I’m not mathematically inclined so I suppose given the number of years allotted to each of the planets, statistics might show why this is possible, but three times is a little more than a coincidence. Or the freaky odds that at 44 years and 8 months the two lords Saturn and the Sun would alternate at exactly the same age (see 5^th January 2020 blog).

When day-timers experienced the first Saturn Return in their late twenties the major Firdaria lord was Mercury.  During the same years night-timers lived through their own Saturn Return via Jupiter’s major Firdaria and the active participating planets, i.e. Mercury and the Moon as short-term rulers.

At the second Saturn Return the two major Firdaria lords are reversed: day-timers will be passing through their Jupiter Firdaria whist night-timers will be occupied by the machinations of Mercury.

These two planets, Mercury and Jupiter, share an interesting connection in astrology. Together they rule the mutable signs of the zodiac as Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo, and Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Pisces. If you start at either of their feminine signs and work your way through the zodiac, their masculine rulerships are ten signs away, and this means they create their own fate or destiny according to ancient astrologers. Kismet again.

They rule opposing signs – twice – and they are considered to be natural enemies in a civilised kind of way. Their animosity is not as vicious as Saturn’s oppositions to the Sun and Moon, or as sexually energetic as Venus and Mars, but they are definitely uncomfortable with one another in the scheme of things. Jupiter’s excesses frustrate Mercury and Jupiter perceives Mercury’s obsession with detail as pedantic, small-minded and boring. Mercury gets bogged down in the earth mutability whilst Jupiter dreams and fantasizes through the water mutability. Mercury is all thought and process and talk when it rules the mutable air sign of Gemini whilst Jupiter aches to take action in its mutable fire sign. Placed in each other’s signs, these two planets are in detriment and the chart owner with any of the four detriment possibilities falls into the trap of either a constricted Jupiter or a Mercury that is out of control at the worst possible moment.

So how does this information relate to Firdaria? And why is it significant that Jupiter and Mercury will play such a major role at the second Saturn Return?

I simply have no idea, but I’m going to throw out an opinion, or maybe take a wild guess – after all, when can I find a more auspicious time to un-pick my life (twice) and examine it under Saturn’s microscope than under the influence of either Jupiter or Mercury?

For the diurnal person Jupiter points towards reflecting on the lessons learnt through experience: counting the successes, advantages, elevations and altruistic acts whilst acknowledging the failures, setbacks and pitfalls that have formed one’s philosophy on life. Jupiter is known as ‘the greater benefic’ and as such rules the things in life which measure our good fortune and those things that provide us with the greatest pleasures in life. Jupiter rules children, and it also rules great wealth. Even though these two significations are miles apart it is up to the individual to decide where these two Jupiter-ruled assets lie on their own ‘happiness spectrum’.

For the nocturnal person Mercury is the last of the seven planets in the list of seven major Firdaria lords. By age fifty seven the night-born has experienced Saturn during the puberty years, Jupiter during their twenties, Mars in their thirties, Sun in the decade of their forties and Venus through the early to mid years of their fifties. For those born during the night and who live life through the Moon’s hazy lens of emotionality, all of these previous planets are about action and reaction so Mercury is an interesting new entity to meet as the supervisor of your sixties. If the day-timers’ Saturn Return is coloured by Jupiter’s rumination on one’s philosophy, then Mercury’s Firdaria at Saturn’s Return should, by rights, give the night-timers a mind to order their thoughts and a voice to share the wisdom of their experiences. At last they can assemble and give viable order to concepts, hypotheses, abstracts and impressions that have been mulling around in their sub-conscious but have struggled to take concrete form. Hopefully Mercury’s Firdaria is the conduit that provides the freedom to finally express the night-born’s private world of feelings and imagination.   

Saturn’s Return at age fifty eight or nine acknowledges the movement of time and acquiesces that the majority of our life is now behind us. Whatever we thought life was going to be about at our first Saturn Return, many of the things we expected didn’t materialize, and many more that we were not prepared for, became the weft and weave of our portion here on Earth.

The sound of Saturn’s Return is the gentle whisper in our ear that we are on borrowed Time and if we are still here, then we had better relinquish our fantasies on ‘what should be’ and instead embrace the reality of ‘what is’. Otherwise we risk wasting the rest of our lot on wistful yearnings and bitter recriminations. Whatever the state of your body, your mind and your physical reality, be grateful for it. There are many thousands on this planet who did not, and will not, get the luxury of a second Saturn Return designed for the purpose of contemplation, reflection or spiritual readjustment. 

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Daytime Births 57 – 59 years of age

DAYTIME BIRTH  – Age at Birthday : 57 years

Major Long-term Lord: JUPITER        (Years)  

Minor Short-term Lord: VENUS           (Months)

The lead in to Saturn’s second return starts here with Venus taking orders from Jupiter on how to enjoy the better things in life. If you are feeling lucky and you are cruising through an easy routine in your career then you are wise to count your blessings and keep on cruising. If however, there are others who are enjoying the benefits of success and pleasure more than you are, then you might need to reassess your life and choose a new direction that suits you better. Your needs may have changed, your circumstances may be different, and your tolerance of other people’s selfishness, laziness, or lackadaisical attitudes to the job may be getting very short indeed.

Under most circumstances Venus coupled with Jupiter indicates a fabulous run of good times, social events and creative tasks performed with great gusto. However, there is another side to these two planets which is a little darker in nature and you may be the recipient of their casual acts of self-serving initiatives that border on hedonism. Getting caught up in the Jupiter/Venus pleasure machine is exciting at first but as neither planet understands limits or self-control, the repercussions can be damaging to body and spirit in the long run.

On another level Jupiter’s activities imply great ambition, advancement in the ranks, and pulling strings to gain an advantage or to win an audience for self-promotion. Venus represents all types of relationships, liaisons, collaboration, mutual benefits and any alliances, especially with women. One of Venus’ most polished ploys is to curry favour through flattery, ingratiating oneself into another’s company, or by obsequious behaviour. In other words, by fawning, toadying, or bootlicking to gain benefits from others deemed to be more elevated or powerful than oneself.

 If, under Venus’ wheeling and dealing, you are the one being replaced by another’s connivances then it’s hard to sit by and watch it happen. Perhaps the up-coming Saturn Return is about moving you from a place where you have become too complacent to somewhere that challenges your abilities and stretches your resources. If you are the one replacing, take care that your methods are not underhand, destructive or devious. Otherwise, there will be a reckoning in the next two or three years. If you are relying on your popularity, sound connections, or charming personality to get you through Saturn’s tough times, then you, my friend, are sadly mistaken. You will need to roll your sleeves up and work hard to keep the advantage you have gained during this present time. And be careful of any toes you have stepped on, on your way up the ladder.

57 years and 10 months

Short-term Lord Changes from VENUS to MERCURY

Long-term Lord: JUPITER         

NEW Short-term Lord: MERCURY

Two months before your next birthday Venus will stand aside and make way for Mercury to become Jupiter’s fifth short-term Firdaria lord. Now the real fun begins! I spoke earlier about the tension which exists between these two planets and day-timers will have the perfect opportunity to witness it for themselves during the next twenty months when Saturn returns to its original natal position in the chart.

The focus house remains as the tenth house for the next two months and your career, occupation, or public standing may still be under review at this time. The swap from Venus to Mercury means that some decisions may need to be revised or your true motives analysed at this point in time.

Negotiations for payouts, compensation or redundancy packages may be a possibility under a Jupiter Mercury Firdaria and the thought of changing career, or simply looking for a new job to support yourself, may be daunting at this age. Part of any Saturn Return involves assessing where you are in life and its approach is often accompanied by a sense of loss in security, job placement, anxiety over financial strain or fear that I may no longer play a valuable role in society. 

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DAYTIME BIRTH  – Age at Birthday: 58 years

Long-term Lord: JUPITER        

 Short-term Lord: MERCURY

The eleventh house is considered to be a house of mostly pleasant experiences. It often shows the people and things that sustain us through difficult times; friends who love and understand us, hope and dreams that may or may not be fulfilled, gratitude for good fortune, luck, and blessings in our lives, little valleys of happiness that save us and keep us moving forwards in the bleak times.

How fortuitous to find ourselves profecting to this house when Saturn returns home to its roost. The fact that Mercury is the current sub-lord for day-timers suggests that new ideas and plans are in formation, valuable connections, possibly rekindled from the past, are being made once more, and skills and talents accumulated over a lifetime are reinventing themselves into new possibilities. 

This may be the year in which you have a conversation that turns your life around. Saturn is the lord of Time and Place and a Saturn returning to its home position may create the possibility of being in the right place at the right time. Decide what is truly important to you and if you keep your eyes and ears open you may be able to take advantage of a simple exchange, or a fresh new idea, or a different point of view that leads you in a totally unexpected direction. Jupiter often surprises in its capacity to broaden our horizons, and with Mercury as the secondary ruler, there are many other ways out there that we have not encountered before. A Saturn return might be just the catalyst to cause you to pause, reassess, and with some adjustments, allow you to follow a pathway which is both exciting and original.

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DAYTIME BIRTH  – Age at Birthday: 59 years

Long-term Lord: JUPITER        

Short-term Lord: MERCURY

A twelfth house year often involves shedding old patterns and preparing the ground for a new cycle which begins next year on your sixtieth birthday. In order to do this, we often disappear from a busy social life, and like the caterpillar that wraps itself into a chrysalis and takes the time to prepare for the next stage of butterfly, the removal from life’s constant demands is one of the themes of the twelfth house year.

The twelfth house is a transitional state and if you can quieten your fears and anxieties, the Mercury Firdaria under Jupiter’s supervision is one where insights, intuition, and wisdom born of experience can become a cleansing or a healing process as you retreat from the world and replenish your spirit.

You have seven months to empty your mind of useless information and destructive thought processes so rather than seeing the twelfth house focus as a ‘nothing’ year when you feel invisible or powerless, instead change your attitude and be thankful for a year that may turn out to be a blessing when you look back at it from a future perspective. You are still experiencing Saturn’s impact on your life so be kind to yourself, and be kind to others, even if they vex you with what you see as trivial demands and small troubles.

59 years and 7 months

Short-term Lord Changes from MERCURY to MOON

Long-term Lord: JUPITER         

NEW Short-term Lord: MOON

From the second half of this year Mercury will complete its tour of duty and another planet will take its place. This planet will be the Moon which will govern over the next twenty months and carry into the new cycle at sixty.

The Moon has a much more agreeable contract with Jupiter than Mercury so this suggests a more comfortable period than the two years which preceded the Moon’s term. Jupiter is exalted in the Moon’s sign of Cancer and the friendship which exists between the two planets overflows into a relatively peaceful couple of years. This may be exactly what you have been waiting for, especially if the fallout from Saturn’s return has been particularly harsh.

It is still a twelfth house year and this can be your opportunity for letting go of past wounds and betrayals that hold you back and create pain for you. You may have cleared your headspace with Mercury but now it is time to heal your heart through the Moon’s Firdaria. Family issues may be at the forefront of your attention at this time and under Jupiter’s guidance the Moon may be able to make peace with those who have hurt you in the past or are currently causing your grief or distress.

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Night Births 57 – 59 years of age

NIGHT BIRTH  – Age at Birthday : 57 years

Major Lord: Years

MERCURY for 13 years – Start of New Long-term Period

Turning fifty seven is the year that marks the beginning of a new 13 year period for those born during the night. Mercury is the planet which signifies the mind, education, business pursuits, marketing and all intelligent thought (as well as the really dumb stuff). If you were born during the day Mercury’s thirteen year rule began at eighteen when your opinions were clear and uncomplicated, your mind was sharp, and your tongue was even sharper.

Most eighteen year old day-timers have the arrogance of youth to steer their cocky Mercury through so many varied ways of communication and can endure countless experiences recovering from the bad situations with over-confidence, devilish bravado and unlimited optimism. They can afford to take potshots at the older generation because their Mercury cannot possibly conceive of the idea of their own senior years and living young means living like there is no tomorrow.

Not an option available to night-timers caught in the nocturnal Firdaria. The mind has slowed a little, opinions are no longer divided into clear compartments marked Black or White, and caution has taught us to hold our tongue before speaking out and upsetting others with ill-thought-out opinions.   

Minor Lord: Months

MERCURY – Start of New Short-term Period of 22 months

In the rules of Firdaria the same planet which is the major lord always has the first shift for the initial short-term period. This means that Mercury will also take the lead for almost two years of its major Firdaria term and will be in charge when Saturn returns to its natal position at fifty seven or fifty eight years of age.

At age fifty seven Mercury begins its term at the same time as the profected tenth house is the focus in life. If the age description covers your present state then you will be making decisions that will have an impact on the next dozen years and the information you are seeking from professionals in your industry, your employer and your work colleagues may clarify what your next move will be so far as your future is concerned. However, all this added noise can be distracting and confusing and rather than helping with your decision, it is making it harder for you to trust your own decision-making process.

The good (or bad) thing about adding in Saturn’s movement is that the final decision is likely to be taken out of your own hands and circumstances are about to change leaving you little wriggle room to feel that you are in control of your fate.

If you are aware of your own natal chart then Saturn’s position in the chart will give you the details on how and why these changes will occur, and the placement of Capricorn and Aquarius will show the areas in life that will ultimately be affected in the long-term outcome.

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NIGHT BIRTH  – Age at Birthday: 58 years

Long-term Lord: MERCURY         

Short-term Lord: MERCURY

Mercury remains as both long and short-term ruler when the house emphasis shifts from tenth to eleventh house at age fifty eight. Regardless of whether you were born during the day or into the night time hours this house emphasises the people and hopes and dreams that sustain you and provide you with support and happiness. Other houses, such as the fifth and seventh, examine individual relationships and connections on a one-to-one basis.

But the eleventh house looks at your group mentality, your peer and social groups as a whole and the groups which keep our society ticking along. Political groups, social conscious groups, humanitarian groups, special interest or community-minded groups, metaphysical groups, sporting, creative and gaming groups – the list goes on when you can find any gathering of individuals who seek to gain strength, power and energy through these alliances that link a common interest or belief system.

The majority of this year will link Mercury’s interests with group activity and it may be that you suddenly find yourself jumping from one special interest group to another. At this point in time you are merely spreading Mercury’s net far and wide as you explore possibilities and light one flame after another. As you settle deeper into Mercury’s Firdaria you will find your niche but for this year there is loads of jumping and very little commitment to a sole cause.

Which brings us to Saturn. This group activity is likely to be combined with Saturn’s movement over its natal position in your chart so there will definitely be some issues over control, responsibility, the allotment of duties and responsibilities, time commitments to complete tasks and a heap of frustration over who is doing what in the group if there is an end goal in sight.

Plus the tension between those people in the group who have a position of authority, as opposed to those who do not, but believe that they should be in control of the show. Even if your role in the group is not described by either of these scenarios (and here I want you to think very carefully, and be honest), you may think that you can stand aside and leave them to it but in the midst of Saturn’s second return their struggle is also your struggle and you will find it near impossible to stay out of the melee.

Saturn is all about boundaries, honesty, and integrity, so these principles will be brought into play at this time. Even if you decide to leave the group entirely to its own devices you will still experience Saturn – but this time in the form of isolation, grief and anger at being separated from the group and disillusioned by the fact that it has not delivered its promise and you are the one left out in the cold. Make your decision carefully, without emotion (always hard for the Moon-ruled nocturnal) and let Mercury guide you towards the most appropriate action and behaviour under the circumstances.

58 years and 10 months

Short-term Lord Changes from MERCURY to MOON

Long-term Lord: MERCURY         

NEW Short-term Lord: MOON

Mercury will finish its stint two months before the next birthday and the Moon will step in to take its place. The combination of these two planets was very important to the ancient astrologers as together they were considered to measure the worth and constitution of the individual’s soul. Much thought and study went into the scripts on Mercury and the Moon and the conflict between Mind (Mercury) and Heart (Moon) is a large part of the Greek philosophers’ discussions on Virtues and what made a man ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in their estimation.

If group involvement has been your focus during this year you may be feeling emotionally or physically punished by the events that have been aggravated by Saturn’s presence in your life. This may be the time when the event has been completed or your involvement has run its natural course and you are needing to move on to something new. You may think you are ready to leave but you might not be prepared for the emotional tug it creates as you make your final preparations to leave. If you have formed close bonds with others in the group, or you feel strongly connected to the philosophy that underpins the group, then the Moon, the planet of attachment, may mourn the loss.

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NIGHT BIRTH  – Age at Birthday: 59 years

Long-term Lord: MERCURY         

Short-term Lord: MOON

The change to twelfth house may mitigate the loss you have been feeling if you have separated from a group which is close to your heart. Leaving behind something which is precious to you is never easy but as you are preparing for a new twelve year cycle next year, it may be better in the long run to release yourself willingly rather than being forcibly removed from the group. The comfort of knowing that you are the one who has made the choice, rather than having it made for you, is one of the benefits of coming out the other side of a Saturn Return. Saturn is all about having the wisdom and intuition to know on a gut level when ‘the best possible timing’ occurs and even though Saturn does not always work well for night-borns, if you trust your Mind and follow your Heart, then with the right timing, you will be just fine and with luck, eventually rejoice in the highlights of the past twelve years.   

As a transitional year, the twelfth house profection will provide times of withdrawal, quiet moments of reflection, and an appetite for what is coming in the next cycle. Your short-term Firdaria lord is the Moon so if you need to find peace with someone or give a blessing that you have previously withheld then Mercury will give you the right words and the space for a conversation that you need to have, in order to move forward in your life.