Return of Saturn

The transitions of life’s second half offer a special kind of opportunity to break with the social conditioning that has carried us successfully this far and [onward] to do something really new and different.
-William Bridges, Transitions

The planet Saturn has officially orbited the sun one whole time since I was born. I am thirty years old. Thirty. There have been three decades in my life span. I'm no longer a twenty something. Being a teenager was not yesterday. Some of my friends have houses and children. Forty? Is just hanging out over there- waving at me with a grin, and beyond that; is a dark robed figure holding a sickle....

The wandering mind's eye has a zest for the dramatic, so I digress.

It turns out that the return of Saturn is only half of the celestial story. The other planet involved is Uranus. While Saturn has come full circle, Uranus is half way around it's orbit of the sun since the time of your birth. According to a great article I found on astro.com,

Saturn and Uranus embody antithetical properties and have strongly polarized characteristics:

1. Saturn embodies the positive agency of homeostasis and urges us to stay the same, to automatically correct any influence toward change, transformation, or upheaval. Saturn’s agency thus, is to maintain earthy, practical needs, even at the risk of calcification or depression. If Saturn is not honored in life, then it can bring a sense of soulless conventionality and psychological and physical stuckness to bear on the soul.
2. Uranus is the planetary medium which impels us toward change and acts as the inner agency for experimentation, growth, evolution and individuation. Too, Uranus is our inner witness, watching for opportunities to change habitual behaviors, disrupt the status quo and stir up any stagnant pool. If Uranus is not honored, then anxiety and manic behavior can irrupt, forcing one to “wake up” to what is required.

At the midlife threshold, we arrive at a crossroads - at which stands the god of change and the god of stasis. These gods, represented by Uranus/change and Saturn/stasis, begin a dance toward the future.

It is at this very threshold - the doorway between youth and old age - that we meet many facets of ourself which have remained dormant or sleeping, awaiting this moment in development for their proper time. It is in this threshold, this liminal place, where we are not who we used to be, but are not yet who we are to become. For most extraverted people of this era, this experience of liminal living is a most uncomfortable and at times, deeply distressing place.

Taken from: The Astrology of Midlife and Aging by Erin Sullivan: 

http://www.astro.com/astrology/in_midlife_e.htm

I have been trying to come to grips with all of this Saturn business but I still don't believe the words coming out of my own mouth when I say that I'm thirty. It's like my brain has to catch up with that reality. I'm slowly peeling back the layers of thoughts that make up my mind on the matter of middle age, starting first with those that are damaging or no longer applicable.

I always had this pre-conceived notion that thirty = adult...and adult = boring/old/boring. This conclusion was clearly the product of our society's constant obsession with ageism... right on par with it's ridiculous standards of beauty. At the very least I can say that I've left that whole two for one package at the door. Step forward from that and I have two other perspectives to consider for some guidance. One is the astrological point of view, and the other are the people I know who are there now or have been there already.

I've been lucky to know some incredibly inspiring and interesting adults. They've helped to show me that your 30's might very well be the absolute best time in your life. They are traveling, creating, learning, and doing. The people that I know who are in their thirties are the movers and the shakers! That's because at thirty you reach a turning point, where you want to let go of the things that are no longer conducive to creating the life you want to live. Without the weight of all that baggage there is so much room for growth! 

I do know a few people who made the misguided mistake of not getting to know themselves through all of the painful growth that happens in your twenties. It's these people who have that long fable'd and feared mid-life crisis. I already had mine, all the way through 25-29. So now that the breakdown is over, it's time for the breakthrough.

The lackadaisical days of putting it all off until tomorrow what should be done today are no longer. All of the excuses and hangovers are starting to feel really old and dull. The endless possibilities of my youth are still at my feet. This, coupled with a new found sense of urgency is bound to make things happen. Things are going to happen! And that? Is so exciting.