Astrology Unbound with Evan Nathaniel Grim
Join your host Evan Nathaniel Grim as he unravels the mysteries of the universe and explores the limitless realms of astrology.
Astrology Unbound with Evan Nathaniel Grim
Is the Saturn Return Your Most Significant Life Event?
Evan explores whether the Saturn Return—the astrological transit occurring approximately every 29 years—truly defines who we are by examining both sides of this cosmic coming-of-age experience. Saturn's return to its natal position represents a significant maturation point when the consequences of our life choices become unmistakably clear.
• The first Saturn Return happens between ages 27-30 when Saturn completes its orbit around the sun relative to its natal position in your chart
• People undergo significant maturation during this period, confronting limitations and reality checks
• Pre-Saturn Return individuals often maintain a sense of innocence and infinite possibilities
• Post-Saturn Return individuals typically develop better long-term vision and risk assessment skills
• However, many creative artists produced their most innovative work before their Saturn Return, showing the benefits of hearing from voices who have not yet experienced this return
• Saturn transits at ages 7, 14, and 21 provide previews of Saturn Return themes
• Converting your natal Saturn degree to an age can reveal when your Saturn lessons began
• Personality types with strong Uranian influence may continue innovating after their Saturn Return
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Hey, there, it's Evan Nathaniel Grimm, and welcome to the latest episode of Astrology Unbound, and today I'm going to address a cornerstone of astrology the Saturn Return, and I'm going to be debating whether or not the Saturn Return truly says everything about you. Before I get into this, though, check out my Substack newsletter. This is where I post all of my manifestation guides also a cord cutting, ritual, intention setting rubrics and a lot more, and also my 2025 horoscopes are still available for download, and I now have an astrology course about mastering planetary retrogrades. We just got out of a pretty messy period of four months of Mercury, venus and or Mars being retrograde, so if you want to plan ahead for the next retrogrades and make them less of a headache, then definitely check out the course. It contains three plus hours of pre-recorded lecture material, which also is accompanied by slides, a workbook, and it will culminate with a live webinar on April 27th, and in that webinar, I will synthesize all the findings and also answer your questions, and so you can check out all of these things through my website, evannethanielgrimcom.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the Saturn return. I've addressed this many times on you know different episodes and different formats throughout my career, but today I want to talk about it through kind of a specific lens and also in the spirit of Saturn switching signs in about a month. So Saturn will be going into Aries on May 24th of 2025. And, of course, it's going to retrograde back into Pisces, but it will be in Aries off and on from May of 2025 until the spring of 2028. And that means people born with Saturn in Aries, whether they're born in the late 90s or the late 60s. You know you will be going through a Saturn return, whether it's your first or second, or even your third for some people. So let's talk about from a basic level what is the Saturn return, whether it's your first or second or even your third for some people. So let's talk about from a basic level what is the Saturn return? And then also I'm going to focus on the sort of different sides of the coin involving the Saturn return, so sort of some arguments for and against why the Saturn return really is the most significant transit that defines who you are, and I think there's some compelling arguments on both sides and I'll look at both and it really I think will open an interesting dialogue.
Speaker 1:So the Saturn return, it is a chronological transit, meaning everybody experiences a Saturn return approximately within the same age ranges return approximately within the same age ranges. So this differs from a transit that highly depends on, you know, aspects to a different planet. So like Saturn squaring your moon, that's not going to happen for everybody at the same age because that depends on where your moon is. But if you think about, like a Jupiter return, a Saturn return, you know, a Uranus return, these all happen at around the same ages because we're referring to essentially the orbital period of the planet involved. So no matter where your Saturn is when you were born, it's going to take Saturn about 27 to 30 years to return to that position by virtue of Saturn's actual again cycle and revolution around the sun. And same again for the other planets like Jupiter, uranus, mars and so on.
Speaker 1:But the Saturn return is special and kind of stands out from the other returns in the sense that among the seven classical planets, you know, in ancient times or historic times, you know, saturn was the farthest planet out that we could see consistently with the naked eye. So Saturn sort of constituted this judge or this lord of karma and it represented the passage of time, it represented our mortality and, if you think about throughout much of human history. What was going on between 27 and 30 was a pretty significant maturation and you know, life expectancy was off, you know, for much of human history in the mid-30s. So the Saturn return oftentimes signified, you know, the growing of gray hairs, the maturity of your wisdom teeth, and also a time when you know you've fully stepped into parenthood or maybe you've, you know, seen that responsibility almost all the way through already at that point in the again in the old days. And Saturn does judge symbolically, you know, our actions. It is the eye in the sky, the watchful eye in the sky. It has a ring around it, so it deals with boundaries as well and limits, and it is oftentimes the saturn return when we come to terms with certain limitations and certain reality checks. So think about saturn, the saturn return, as a reality check. But it's not in in the modern times when we're all hopefully living to the, at least the average, you know, life expectancy of. You know whatever early 80s most people will go through two and a half to three Saturn returns, and so it's not like just 27 to 30, you know that's not the one shot you ever have at mastering your Saturn placement, but you know, I always think about it through the lens of choices.
Speaker 1:So when you're, you know, really young, you're in your youth and even let's go back to, like, elementary school, when they ask you who you want to be when you grow up, you can say whatever you want. You can imagine yourself as an astronaut or a firefighter or a musician, and truly you do have a fairly infinite set of possibilities at that time, when you're like seven or eight years old. But every year that goes by you make a set of choices, you develop a sense of autonomy and you really do exercise your free will. But every time you make a choice you do change your future trajectory in big and small ways. So, like when I graduated from high school, I chose to go to Northwestern. That put me into Chicago. My decision to go to that college completely, you know, didn't like restrict my field of possibilities, but it did constrict it a little bit. And then my choice of major further restricted that field. So my decision to get a philosophy degree with a minor in economics was definitely blocking me out from, let's say, going off to work at NASA. At least it made the odds very small. So anyways, then I moved to New York, then I'd pick a certain job, and another job and so on. I choose to date a specific person.
Speaker 1:All of this eventually sort of crunches together and leads to a crossroads between 27 and 30. And it will depend, obviously, on where your Saturn is by sign and house and what aspects it's making to other planets. But everybody will be confronting similar adult themes at their Saturn return. So, whether it is to, you know, choosing whether or not to get married, whether or not to have a child, whether or not to buy a certain house, whether or not to, or how to deal maybe with even a certain health issue, you know, the Saturn return just adds a serious undertone to your life and also forces you to reckon with the, again, the consequences of actions. But then you see how the web of all your actions has kind of led to this moment. This confluence of factors, the Saturn return, really is a sobering time. It does force us to mature in big and small ways and again, this is very rudimentary.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs of the Saturn return because I think that's for a separate class that I want to teach. But also the angle of this podcast episode is not really meant to like educate people on what a Saturn return is. It's more opening. The question about whether or not your Saturn return says everything about you. And I think it's a really provocative question and a worthy question, because you know some of you who are listening maybe haven't gone through one yet, and other people have and they're like you know.
Speaker 1:You know instantly what I mean when I talk about the Saturn return. You know you can think back to those ages of 27 to 30. And you know you might roll your eyes, you might laugh, depending on what you experienced. And you know I was just walking outside, honestly, before this episode, and I was like you know, in some ways I do think there's two types of people in this world. Like you could, you could separate the world into people who have gone through the Saturn return and people who haven't.
Speaker 1:And I do think it's worth questioning whether or not we should even be taking advice from people who haven't gone through one. And there's a lot of people on social media ranging from life coaches to manifestation experts, astrologers, obviously, and everything in between. You know financial talking heads and people who claim a certain expertise but like people who have never gone through a Saturn return and they're doling out this really firm advice without necessarily again having been tested in that way by Saturn. It's like why? I mean, you know this isn't again an open question but it's like you could argue, like why trust the judgment of someone who hasn't been judged by the Lord of Karma themselves? Right, and I'm not here to say that argument is definitely true. But I think it is a legitimate question to ask. And the reason I ask it is because you know the Saturn return is an experience, it's a lived experience, it's something you can read about and it's something I can talk about and articulate. And you can again. Let's say you're 25 and you've never gone through a Saturn return. Maybe you've seen an older sibling go through it, maybe you've heard from me about it and what it feels like.
Speaker 1:But it's that classic analogy of like the experiment of Mary in the black and white room, mary can study everything she wants about the color red. Like in this thought experiment, mary lives in a black and white room and you know she is covered from head to toe in neutral attire and so she has never experienced the color red. She's living in this box and yet she studies everything about the color wheel, the color spectrum, she understands the mechanics and the science behind how we see color, what constitutes the color red, and so on. But then she's released from this box let's say it's during her Saturn return and she sees a red rose in the forest and she plucks the rose and she says, aha, that's the color red. And this is the experiential wisdom, the experiential knowledge that comes through, versus an empirical, logic-based knowledge of, like I understand how something works, I can sort of cognize it, but until she sees the color red it could be argued that she's not actually an expert at the color red. And again, this is just an open discussion.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I watch videos from people who state things so plainly and firmly and, you know, with certitude, and then I think about like well, I wonder what they would say on the other side of their Saturn return a few years from now, and how would they speak about this topic armed with the wisdom of Saturn, again, in any field? I'm not trying to pick on like astrologers or any particular person here, but it just is an open question In some ways. You know, again, the Saturn return defines us and I guess I want to add in like kind of how that would happen. So again, the honest answer is you don't know until you've been through one. But, like just to kind of try to explain it, before you're in your Saturn return, there is a sense of being at least slightly I don't want to say blissfully unaware, but there is a bit of innocence to your life where, even if you feel like you've had a really harsh life up to now you've had maybe you have Saturn conjunct your moon or something, or Saturn on your ascendant, like, even if you have a really tough Saturn placement, there is some semblance, I think, of innocence or insulation from the full scope of consequences and maybe even like just a slight insulation from the full scope of consequences and maybe even like just a slight insulation from the full scope of responsibilities that you may be taking on in your life.
Speaker 1:So I guess, just anecdotally, pre-saturn return, my life was very much surrounded by all kinds of friends and there was a social network and I had all these acquaintances, friends of friends and everyone. I was hanging out, mostly with people in my same age range, people who were around again, people who had not gone through the Saturn return yet, and it was very easy to kind of invite people into your space and vice versa, and everyone was sort of seeking something. It's almost like people were trying to search for life's answers together. But also people could throw caution to the wind a little bit more easily. People were very freeform and kind of like letting loose and having fun and again sort of indulging in this sort of innocence, whether they were conscious of it or not. And then something weird happened between 27 and 30, and it was steady throughout that time. But eventually people sort of disperse and certain people you were friends with just disappear. In some cases it's because well, in my case it was because maybe they left New York City because they were done with you know the lifestyle. They wanted something a little bit more suburban and more stable, et cetera. Other people got married or had children or you know they just they wanted to go back to school or something.
Speaker 1:After the Saturn return it's not that the whole concept of friendship disappeared, but it wasn't quite as much of a cauldron of social activity, right. It didn't feel like people were sort of coming and going through all the motions of your life. And it's because everyone in that group went through their Saturn return, so everyone had to suddenly get serious about something and no matter how social or asocial you are, I think that friendship is a vehicle through which people can sort of like observe almost scientifically the effects of a Saturn return, because up until about 27, there is a sense that everyone's kind of going through the school of life together. Even after high school there's that period from 18 to 27 when you know you're still learning, you're still learning and you're a sponge. But after the Saturn return there is a sort of rigidity that is added to someone's life. And not to say that everyone is the same, you know, some people continue to innovate and crave flexibility in their life. But again it is kind of a line of demarcation the Saturn return.
Speaker 1:After the Saturn return, I do think people are suddenly more discerning and they also have reasons to almost fear taking certain risks, or they do crave more stability. Actually, and Saturn does have a lot to do with our fears Because again it not only ties back to the mythology of Cronus but it also deals with that theme of, like the ring, being around Saturn and suddenly wanting to be kind of enclosed. And Saturn, you know, even reminds me of just like the four walls around us. It's like we want to live in a consistent home, but that also reduces our mobility. That's sort of the energy of Saturn, and so I'm obviously painting this almost like in a maybe negative light, but it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1:I mean, after the Saturn return, people also feel as though they actually have perspective on their life. They have this sort of like inexplicable wisdom about things, and it does allow them to do more with less and get more things done more efficiently. I just noticed like people after their Saturn return they can kind of anticipate what the drawbacks of a decision would be and they can keep track of, like different stakeholders in a situation, like a lot of managers, for example, in companies have gone through a Saturn return. A lot of the best managers have already experienced that coming of age transit where they become aware of their naivete and they suddenly take a certain stance in life that minimizes the risks of being naive about something, meaning they try to arm themselves with as much information as possible and they attempt to sort of position and posture themselves to have a wide view of all the benefits and risks. So I think that that's probably the easiest way to summarize a Saturn return is that people become much better at doing a cost-benefit analysis with anything, and that's primarily because their long-term vision improves. And from that perspective I think you could make a strong case that people who haven't been through a Saturn return may not be as effective teachers or mentors as people who have gone through one.
Speaker 1:But now I want to explore the other side of this argument, why maybe the Saturn return doesn't actually define who you are. So let's look at the realm of art, music and creativity. Many of history's most prolific artists did release their most masterful work prior to their Saturn return. And look at well, unfortunately, a lot of musicians have died at the age of 27. You think about the 27 Club, but even if we set that aside for a second, you could look at pretty much every band, every artist, and look at their body of work before 30 and after 30. And in most cases what you'll see is either they were just pumping out so much creative content before 30 and then it petered out, or it was a steady output, and then, around 29 or 30, they published their sort of magnum opus and their most celebrated album, and then after that they either kind of go into maintenance mode and coast off of what they did there with their seminal work or, you know, they decline in quality, right. So from that vantage point you could argue that we need voices that are sort of pre-Saturn return. We need people to be giving advice and offering perspective, you know, before they've hit their Saturn return, because again the Saturn return can add rigidity and inflexibility to your life.
Speaker 1:And sometimes, even if someone is an effective leader or manager after the Saturn return they also have sometimes a more narrow view because they're almost deterred from taking certain risks because some of their fears were brought up during the Saturn return. Like maybe during a Saturn return someone's grandfather passes away and you know they buy a house and suddenly they just become aware of like finality and mortality and you know they realize that they have to make some really serious commitments in their life. Somehow that just creates a certain framing where they are a little bit more risk averse and they are aware of again the drawbacks and the negative side of things and the cost of things and the opportunity cost of certain things. Strong commitments this also sometimes scares them away from taking a risk or making, you know, a commitment to something a little bit more faith-driven. You know like, let's say, somebody commits to a house commits to having a family and then they commit to a certain corporate job all around the time of their Saturn return. That can make it very hard for them to suddenly say oh you know, I'm just going to switch to astrology and start making content on social media. It's almost like things have gone a little bit more brittle or stale after the Saturn return. So from that perspective, it's like maybe you should be prioritizing voices from people who haven't witnessed that sort of Saturnian effect and maybe even like drying out of some of their initial youthful hopes and dreams.
Speaker 1:Now, of course, there's other people who go through their Saturn return and they use that as fuel to just keep getting better and better at what they do and more authentic, and a lot of the best life coaches, manifestation experts and so on were already on a good track before. Their Saturn return helps them solidify their entire worldview and their approach to life, which can be very freeing for them, and it's almost like they have a foundation an even stronger one after that. Or people's Saturn return serves as a wake-up call and then they use that to realize how stagnant they were before their Saturn return and then they actually emphasize innovation. Now a lot of this again depends on where your Saturn is, where your North Node is and so on, and I'll do a whole class on that. And I've noticed, by the way, that you know people who are very Uranian, whether they have a lot of Aquarius placements or a dominant Uranus placement or even an Aquarius North Node. They just keep innovating after their Saturn return.
Speaker 1:So one of my favorite artists, bon Iver, just released his well, his latest album. I almost said his last album because there's some rumors going around that he might be retiring that project, although none of that is confirmed. But I was watching some of his interviews. This week, justin Vernon and I decided to look at his birth chart and he has like five planets in Taurus, which is really really unique, but also he has Uranus and Scorpio opposing much of that and, you know, not in an exact opposition, but I think it's pretty close to opposing his Venus in Taurus. I think the Uranian energy is what allows Justin Vernon to continuously innovate sonics and sounds that he's using. He'll make you'll make sort of creative sounds out of the drums. He'll run them through these processors and suddenly the drum becomes like this sonic instrument beyond just providing rhythm, it's almost helping to vivify the entire composition and he'll add in so many unique instrumentations and blend them together on top of his voice. And that's something that he's been innovating on consistently since his very first album. So you know again, this is great evidence that you know Uranian people can continue to thrive and challenge, you know, status quo ideas throughout their life.
Speaker 1:And there's another argument, by the way, that a Saturn return doesn't even guarantee maturity. There's plenty of people who have gone through a Saturn return who are still blissfully unaware, and I think that is true to some degree. But I don't buy that argument because I think there is still a very real experience, no matter what that argument, because I think there is still a very real experience, no matter what. And everybody, no matter how introspective or not they are, they have to make really heavy choices between 27 and 30. Like, even if they don't fully appreciate what's going on, it's like your hard wiring is changing, at least to some extent, and you have some implicit understanding that there are consequences to actions.
Speaker 1:You know you can extend this to other returns. Like does an astrologer have to wait until they're 84 to fully understand a Uranus return? Like, maybe right. Like I've never experienced a Uranus return. Does that mean I can't, I'm not qualified to talk about it? That's not true either. In my opinion, Necessarily true. You know, you could say like, maybe I have to wait, maybe I don't, but I'm going to use this sort of as a vehicle to kind of round this out and talk about why and how I think you can kind of get clues about what you're supposed to learn during your Saturn return, way ahead of your Saturn return, about what you're supposed to learn during your Saturn return, way ahead of your Saturn return, so that you know and again, like you might come out of this podcast feeling like the Saturn return is like an ultimate arbiter of like who you are and how you navigate life. And Saturn really does deal with our manifestation efforts because it does apply pressure in a way that allows for manifestation.
Speaker 1:But I want to give you some tools along this path to your Saturn return so that your Saturn return is one, not a mystery. I want to show you that you already have gone through many moments of maturity ahead of your Saturn return. First of all, if you go by the degree theory that I use, where you convert the degree of each planet to an age where that planet you know plays a dominant role in your life, meaning you convert the age or sorry, the degree to the exact age that's equivalent to that degree. Then you can just look at your Saturn degree and if it's before 27, then your Saturn was activated before your Saturn return. So if you have Saturn at 15 degrees, age 15 will tell you a lot about how your Saturn operates, and also at the age of 15. In that case you probably would have sort of a miniature reality check. But also there are Saturn transits along the way to your Saturn return, like the opening square of Saturn at age 7, the opposition of Saturn at age 14, and the closing square at 21. So by 21, you theoretically already have a semblance of how your natal Saturn is testing you and you've already been pressured in some ways to mature Again. Track the degree of your Saturn, convert it to age and then also look at ages 7, 14, and 21 and reflect on all those times. And as long as you do that, I think that you will have a pretty clear sense of what lessons you're meant to be learning during your Saturn return and this can help you anticipate your Saturn return really well. And if you've already had your Saturn return. Look back to the ages of 27 to 30 approximately, but also, to be more specific about it, track when Saturn entered the sign that your natal Saturn is in. So the theory is that your Saturn return occurs from the moment Saturn enters your natal Saturn sign placement to the time that it leaves that sign. So I have Saturn in Capricorn, meaning from December 2017 until, I believe, end of 2020, that whole three-year stretch. I was in my Saturn return, even though my Saturn is technically at 21 degrees of cap. However, your Saturn return peaks when Saturn forms a partile conjunction to your natal Saturn, so in my case, when Saturn was at 21 degrees of Capricorn, which I believe was late 2019 into early 2020. Fun times for me right during the pandemic.
Speaker 1:I hope this podcast has been thought-provoking for you and I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on this. Do you believe that the Saturn return is an essential crossroads and sort of gauntlet that people have to walk through in order to kind of prove their mettle, you know, and prove their resilience and also prove their understanding of kind of what life is all about? Do you feel like the people in your life pre-27 are sort of not equipped with the wisdom necessary to be in positions of like management or authority, or do you feel like that's complete BS? Do you feel like people post age 30 are just, as you know, prone to making mistakes as people pre 27? Do you feel like it's sort of a mixture of both? You know, look at your own life. You know what was going on.
Speaker 1:I think maybe use friendship as an example, because, you know, by looking at the lives of your friends, you can see how Saturn operated for them. Like what did your social network look like before 27 and then after 30? How did people orient themselves to their own lives and to reality before and after those moments? Did you feel like people in your life remained young and free or did they feel much more weighed down by something? And then again, look at your own life. How do you operate before and after those times? And do you feel again like you can put your faith into people as thought leaders before they've gone through a Saturn return? You know, feel free to. You know, leave a. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I wish there was like a way to comment on the podcast. I mean, feel free to, you know, maybe we should actually, you know, do a discussion about this on my sub stack, cause I do weekly videos, live videos, through that. So I think I'll add that into my sub stack. You know, even just talk about this amongst your friends and family. You know what did the Saturn return mean to them, and do they notice a big difference in their life after? So? Thank you so much. I hope this has been a generative discussion. I'm Evan Nathaniel Grimm. Again, check out my sub stack, my horoscopes and also I will be doing more shows in Los Angeles, so look out for those announcements, enroll in my class about planetary retrogrades, which just launched, and make sure you enroll within the next week so you have time to prep for the webinar that I'll be delivering on the 27th of April. So thank you again, take care and I'll see you on the next episode.