• The only certainty is change (that incessant gnawing feeling, its change, trying to get out!)
• What you think is important, probably isn’t (excess baggage fees are a complete waste of money)
• Hold on tight (to yourself)

Astrology tells me that with Saturn in Pisces, I am a reluctant Hero, but the way he connects to the Sun and Jupiter blesses me with a free, fighting spirit and a brave, creative heart!

Because I could hear the individual call of my own Astrological Saturn, and I understood that a call to adventure was being issued, I allowed myself to be drawn, instructed and coerced by “fate” to respond in a suitably dramatic, and even flamboyant manner.

 I had given up waiting for my partner to commit to me, and to commit to having children. I had given up waiting for the gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach to go away. I had given up on pacifying the roaming restlessness that I felt. I could hear the call, and it was time to go; I accepted the challenge! I “let go” of my life; I turned my back on it, and chose something completely different.

I was emigrating, and although it was not that far, I was still emigrating to a country where they spoke a different language, where the rain was prayed for, and where the muezzin sang from ivory towers five times a day.  I was leaving home for the second time; I was doing something different… or so I thought!

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Having sold, bartered and given away nearly everything I possessed, I departed like any novice hero, with well-wishing, teary friends, a heart full of hope, and unlike most novice heroes that I had read about, a rather over-sized travelling trunk! (always the romantic)

Of course, it wasn’t long before things began to go terribly wrong, and that was just the beginning…only an hour after leaving, there I was, the car broken down, standing on the side of the road clutching a kite, and waiting for a taxi to carry me and my impossibly archaic Edwardian trunk to Heathrow Airport.

I was actually wondering if I was meant to go at all!

Heathrow was mobbed, my trunk was something that should have gone on an ocean liner, not an airline, and I was stubborn. I was taking it with me, and I did pay the exorbitant surcharge.

Two years later, I left it and most of its contents behind me, although I must admit, it served me well, as the only piece of furniture in my possession; I still think of it, even now, its striped paper lining, the removeable shelf and the way it held my whole life (and was a useful seat and table) for that period of my life.

I did finally get there, and the next few years were some of the maddest, saddest, funniest and loneliest I have ever encountered. They pushed me out into the world, this reluctant Hero, and made me who I am today; I am lucky I didn’t fall of the edge entirely, but that is a story for another day.

The beauty of Saturn is his shaping ability, which, although painful and arduous at times, works to refine and transform you into a person who can withstand the trials of life, to form a strong container to carry you through the inevitable rough and tough times that come next, at mid-life.

The relationship that you form with the transits of Saturn informs the very structure of your life.

My travels have not ceased, and although I no longer tarry in the land of the “infidel”, I still live several weeks by horseback from the land of my birth.

I have watched Saturn closely ever since those “daredevil days”, and with deepening interest, as he has made his way around my chart.

I was a reluctant hero, naïve and gauche, heading into the unknown, learning about the world, and the different groups, peoples and institutions I became involved with whilst Saturn navigated my 10th, 11th & 12th houses.

I watched Saturn as he dropped below the horizon, moving through Cancer, as my soul finally found the children I would give birth to, helped me build a house, my nest in the mountains, the place where I kept my babies safe.

I witnessed my Hero battling with the dragon in the cave at the bottom of my chart, stealing the monster’s treasure (finally gaining my lifelong dream of an official qualification in astrology whilst juggling toddlers)

More recently I have watched my Hero limp back towards civilisation (for the journey home can often be the most dangerous), letting go of much of what I thought I had gained, as the load became almost too heavy to bear.

As I write this, I am now in the process of bringing the bounty home, back to be shared with others for very soon, Saturn will move back up over the horizon as I spend the next seven years disseminating all that I have learned, and then, what then?

For when I am sixty, the call will come again, and I will heed it, with the knowledge that I know three things for certain!!

“The only certainty will be CHANGE, for regardless of whether I want change or not, it will come and get me anyway, even if I hide under the bed.“

“ I need to travel LIGHT, because I can’t take it all with me, excess baggage fees are a complete waste of money, and I STILL LOVE FLYING KITES”.  

“This will be when I leave home again, maybe not in the same way, but certainly on another level. I WILL BREAK THE MOLD IN WHICH I HAVE BEEN SET, and once again, I WILL ANSWER THE CALL TO ADVENTURE”. 

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Postscript

I am now firmly embedded in my second Saturn cycle, drawing inspiration from my younger years (when I felt so old!); I am better at letting go of the things I no longer need, and am wondering if I even need “things” at all!!. The challenges are still there, but I feel the bumps are less intense, and my navigational skills are better (well, after all this time, they would want to be, wouldn’t they!!). I take inspiration from the everyday things I encounter, and the short conversations I have with my father, who is now firmly bedded down in his third Saturn return… I was the “event” of his own first Saturn return… old Father-Time has had a profound impact on both our lives, I think!