Wednesday Journal Entry, Week 30
March 15th 2023 – Karina Lafayette
What did I learn during this time? A lot. But probably the biggest lesson is that we’ve been lied to about what this time period is. Although admittedly, the song “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac finally makes sense.
We were lied to about the Saturn Return. Right before, lots of people told me it would be a time where you gotta grind and hustle, otherwise Daddy is going to punish you for not putting in the work. This transit isn’t as kinky as you’d expect, unless you’re into that. For one, you don’t grind and hustle, and you also don’t magically walk into your dream life. The point of your Saturn Return is to shed the old self: all the places, people, habits, and ideas that just aren’t working anymore. I had a lot more goodbyes than hellos, and said “no” much more than “yes”.
Right before my Saturn Return, I was working as a staff member at a homeless shelter. I was making a lot of money, had quite a busy life, and on the surface, had my shit together. I was also one of the mods of a Facebook group, while also juggling an online blog and doing astrology readings. Too much juggling but not enough real priorities. It’s like I wanted to prove something, maybe to the world, or just to myself- that I could be the person who has it all. And yet here I was, carrying everything on my shoulders, like Sisyphus.
Then in early 2021, my grandmother was undergoing treatment for chemo. A few weeks before she passed, a colleague of mine was found dead onsite from an overdose. During that same month, I finally went no contact with a guy who strung me along for three months only to decide he “just want[ed] to be friends”. One of my supervisors was also being a huge bully, constantly nitpicking as if I wasn’t doing my job, even though I started there before her. One day during a relaxed shift, I took two minutes to look at my blog, just to check out something, and she promptly decided that I couldn’t do that anymore, when no other supervisor ever complained. She also used to love hovering over me, as if to make sure my shifts were as uncomfortable as possible. As if our job wasn’t hard enough as is. Even then, quitting crossed my mind.
The last time I spoke to my grandmother on the phone, she told me something poignant, that literally shook my entire being and became the motivation behind me eventually leaving that job in social work. She said that she was angry, because she spent most of her life always focusing on what other people want, and never on what she wanted. I knew that feeling. Our lives mirrored each other. At twelve-years-old, my grandmother had to stop going to school so she could help around the house due to her father having epilepsy. In her late twenties, she married my grandfather because as she put it, “just wanted to move out of my parents.” She worked different jobs yet still managed the home while taking care of my mom, my grandfather, and her own parents when they were elderly. Oh, and she took care of me when my mom was working.
In my case, I was a parentified child, too. I was lucky enough to have an education and eventually graduated from college, but due to my mom’s mental health and addiction issues, I remember having the mind of an adult even as a kid. I didn’t think about going to parties or dating, I thought about money and chores, and being the best student and best daughter ever. My ex and I met in my early twenties and just like my grandparents, married quickly, only to find that like my grandmother, I was expected to be the caretaker, and was accused of being selfish just for wanting some affection and a moment that didn’t require the expectation of perfect.
My ex and I were married and divorced within two years.
Getting back to the period that led up to my Saturn Return, after my grandmother passed, I told my job that I needed a break to grieve, when in reality, it was my way of quiet quitting. The truth is, I didn’t have much intention to go back, but couldn’t quit up front because honestly… I felt guilty. My clients were people struggling with a lot of issues related to poverty and mental health, and how dare I, a healthy, able-bodied twenty-something with her future ahead of her, think about myself. Except for the fact that I didn’t have much opportunity to think about myself. People were so used to expecting me to be the responsible one who was there for them, but in that moment of grief, who was gonna be there for me?
Friends. I needed to lean on my friends. The problem, people with Saturn in Aquarius don’t have many friends, we have mostly acquaintances. Why? Because we don’t fit in. I’m not left wing or right wing. I’m not a goth or a social butterfly. I’m not shy but I’m not exactly the life of the party either. I’m not masculine or feminine. Oh, and I’m also bisexual, yet at the same time, I want a relationship that’s more traditional, but like- no gender roles. I also rock the boat, a lot, and am the one to say the most controversial thing, even when I’m also the quietest person in the room. Do you see my problem?
In my grieving period, I had the opportunity to really sit in my feelings and look at life from a real, honest perspective, uninterrupted from anyone’s opinions. In summer of 2021, I was also diagnosed with an iron deficiency which I wrote about extensively and to be fair, that was trauma of its own that I’m not ready to look at again, but that diagnosis pushed me even further into listening to what my body needed. It didn’t need me to hustle and grind, it needed love.
A few months after, by February 2022, I thought long and hard about my direction in life, and became mad when I saw how much we get on Medium as writers, which prompted me to start my main website, Persephone and Co. in March, almost exactly a year ago. Not a surprise at all since my Saturn is in Aquarius, the sign of technology. I figured, if a platform thinks it can profit off my writing more than I, the writer, then it was high time to prioritize how I wanted to show up as a writer. So I put the focus on having my personal space to share musings and make reading services available. Once the career area of life began taking shape, it was time for me to find a job again, and this is where Saturn taught me to set boundaries for real.
In August, I found a summer job at the Toronto CNE as an assistant for their lovely rides. You’d think something so fun would be a great experience, but it was actually the worst job of my life, even though I quit after the second day. If you want to read me whine about that experience, you can read on it more later by clicking here. During that period, I also left a bunch of Facebook groups, because apparently I was too opinionated for some people to handle, how very Aquarius for a Taurus like me. In hindsight, it was only a tiny slice of my Saturn Return as a whole. This article just seems to go on and on, and yet so little has been said. You had to be there.
A month and a half later, I got a contract for a company which amazingly enough, I already worked at several years before. The best part, Saturn was at the exact same degree as my birth chart when the contract started, and this you can’t make up. It felt like fate took me by the hand to show what I was made of. The first time I worked there in 2018, I didn’t finish the contract. This time, it was like my life came full circle. I even thought about quitting- again, not because the job was hard, but because it demanded me to learn certain skills. Luckily, I had an amazing supervisor named Melanie who saw my potential and pushed me to believe in myself. The colleagues overall were kind, but didn’t let me off the hook either.
And for the last hurrah before my Saturn Return finished, I started another website called Persephone’s Forum. It’s a social media site that’s kind of like Facebook, but it’s really not. It’s more for people who are just fed up of mainstream social media, who want a safe space where they can be themselves, and it’s especially for artists and spiritual people. But really, anyone can join, as long as you’re kind, and not racist, sexist, or discriminatory in any way, of course.
So yep, my Saturn Return wasn’t about the hustle and grind that people make it out to be. It was about slowing down and getting back to basics, and getting serious about my strengths, my weaknesses, and my values. Anyone who says Saturn is about all work and no play is a liar, or they just don’t understand Saturn at its core. There’s a reason Saturn is exalted in Libra, and it’s because this is the area of life where you need to find… balance. Its easy to overdo it, but sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is simplicity. There’s no need to “have it all” in order to be happy. This is where you realize that too much of even a good thing can be a bad thing, and that being your authentic self is what truly matters in life.
And it’s 3:33am as I finish typing. So yeah!
Karina
If you haven’t already, sign up at my new social media site Persephone’s Forum. Reading services will be back later this month.
And if you enjoyed this article, you might want to check out these:
It’s my Saturn Return, Here’s What It’s Been Like So Far
Saturn in Aquarius (2020-2023): It’s Not Just About You
Working with Saturn: Learning to Love Under Pressure
Tomorrow is Still Unwritten: Saturn square Midheaven
Persephone and Co. 
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