Why Saturn Retrograde is Coming to Bring Back Everything it Took From You, Tenfold.

I’m a fifth-generation intuitive astrologer who has delivered hundreds, if not thousands, of readings for people — including celebrities, professional athletes, tech CEO’s, and your favorite musicians.

And yet, I no longer write about astrology.

But something about this Saturn Retrograde in Aries had me crawling out of my metaphorically-decrepit chamber of semi-retirement with a burning desire to write about it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Saturn, it’s that she certainly has a way of commanding the attention of any room that she’s in… even if that room is my own head. The nagging, aching sensation in my body to write about her (err… his, since Saturn is technically male) makes me feel like a junkie itching for a hit. Only, instead of a dose of the fictitious, blackout-inducing drug, Infermiterol (as pulled from Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation), it’s something arguably less potent… but equally as consuming.

Astrology.

Before we get into this Saturn Retrograde, why it’s significant, and my perspective on it, as someone who has Saturn in Aries, nataly (and is therefore going through my own Saturn Return), I think it’s only appropriate that we address the elephant in the room, which is why I decided to take a step back from writing about astrology in the first place. And to keep the answer short-and-sweet, it’s this: I hate what astrology content has become.

Scroll through TikTok at any hour of the day (or night), and you’ll inevitably be hit with a rage-baiting, fear-mongering “astrologer” who either tells you to watch your back out of fear, or prepare for a major windfall of money… which, spoiler alert, astrology isn’t going to do for you. I understand the game and why they play it — it gets them a plethora of likes, shares, and comments that boost their post in the algorithm, drive up their follower counts, and inevitably lead to people panic-booking readings. It’s a lucrative system that can create a very well-oiled machine, if one plays their cards right. But to me, it feels like nothing more than another snake oil salesman in a better suit. Most of the astrologers on the internet are spewing you bullshit for likes and comments. Their readings, overpriced regurgitations of information that they garnered from ChatGPT. If I sound jaded, perhaps it’s because a part of me is — but more so than that, I find myself exhausted. Not just of seeing the content on my feed (which a simply “block” will fix), but of having to pick up the pieces. When I was still offering 1:1 readings, I would hear so many stories of people who saw an astrologer that they found online who instilled so much fear and worry onto them. The ethics of such rage-baiting work may be questionable, but the real-life consequences are not.

As such, I found myself no longer desiring to buy into the system. For the last year or so that I was creating and sharing astrology content, it felt like I was doing it just to appease an audience. The posts would flop because I wasn’t rage-baiting, I wasn’t having fun with it, and half of the time that I spent in a reading with someone felt like I was doing damage control. I was genuinely burnt out and bored with the game. And so, I quietly took astrology off of the table.

But as evident by this essay that I’m writing right now, I obviously have not lost my love for it. In fact, I find myself drawn back to it deeper, during certain astrological moments in time. Back in February, during the Lunar New Year, I found myself drawn to writing about themes of the Fire Horse, and although that’s Chinese astrology rather than Western, it’s adjacent enough for this conversation.

And now, as we find ourselves just over halfway through the Fire Horse year, I find myself inexplicably drawn to this current Saturn Retrograde in Aries, which began on July 26th.

To understand this Saturn Retrograde, you need to understand retrogrades as a whole. A retrograde is nothing more than an optical illusion, which occurs when a planet appears to be spinning backwards on its orbit, from our vantage point here on earth. Now, it’s important to note that the planet isn’t actually spinning backwards — this is scientifically impossible. Rather, it just appears so, from our perspective. Perspective is the most important thing to consider, during a retrograde. For example, during a Mercury Retrograde (in which Mercury is the planet that appears to be spinning backwards on its orbit), it’s important to dig deeper into things, before accepting them at face-value. Themes of communication and collaboration are highlighted under a Mercury Retrograde, which is why you should always do a double-take when signing or sending a contract during this time… and why you should really think before you speak.

But while retrogrades can come with difficulties, they aren’t here to punish us. Rather, they’re here to help is consider the world from a new perspective. Mercury Retrograde asks us to look at things with more intention and to consider the power of our words. Saturn retrograde, however, is a little more nuanced.

While Mercury is a faster-moving planet, changing signs approximately every 3-4 weeks, Saturn is much slower, only changing signs approximately every 2.5-3 years. It takes anywhere from 28-31ish years for Saturn to make its way through the entire zodiacal wheel, hence why, at any point during that 28-31ish year time-period, you’ll experience your Saturn Return. A “return” is simply a phenomenon that happens when a planet in the sky returns to the exact position that it was at, at the time that you were born. As you can probably gather already, a Mercury Return happens much more frequently. A Saturn Return, is a much bigger deal.

At 28-years-old, I am currently in the midst of my first Saturn Return (we have 2-3 throughout our lifetime, depending on how long we live), which is a topic for another day. But given this, I have Saturn in Aries — conjunct my sun, nonetheless, in my 12th house of the spirit realm and the subconscious. If you’re reading that and have no idea what it means, let me sum it up for you like this: part of my karma in this lifetime is to be able to sit in deep discomfort with resilience and pull through the intuitive wisdom and healing. By no means is it an easy path to walk. Yet, it’s the conduit for me being arguably good at what I do, and gives me the vocabulary to act as a sort-of translator for big, spiritual moments of discomfort, between you and the universe.

And as a translator, I’ll be the first to say this: Saturn Retrograde in Aries does not come in quietly. In fact, she’s here to return everything that she initially took with her.

In order to understand this, I want you to think back to May 2025, and the themes that were going on in your life, during that time. That’s when Saturn initially entered Aries, after spending the previous 2.5 years in the deeply emotional sign of Pisces. Saturn in Aries felt like a reprieve from the depressive depth of Pisces, which forced us to dig into our unconscious shadows and bring them towards the surface. Aries energy, unlike Pisces, is bold, brash, fiery, and unwavering. Whereas Pisces — the last and oldest sign of the zodiac — can be thought of like the wise old sage, bringing with her wisdom and knowledge and empathy from all of the other signs (there’s a belief that those who are born with their sun in Pisces have lived lifetimes in all of the other signs, first), Aries is known as the baby or toddler. They move through the world with a sort-of reckless abandon, that reminds us that where there’s great risk, there’s also great reward. Aries often lacks the inhibition that stops the other signs from doing things, which can lead to massive payoffs… or, them falling flat on their face. While Aries might sometimes mitigate or underestimate the risks, they certainly do understand them. But whereas fire commands a trail to blaze, Aries is willing to create that path themselves.

When Saturn entered Aries, it connected us deeper to our hearts, as if to ask us, “Is this the life that you truly want to be living?” The world became incredibly uncomfortable in a way in which you could no longer bypass or ignore the areas in which you were settling. The problems in your relationship, that previously got swept under the rug, began to unravel on the surface. Your over-spending and money issues became too big to ignore. The areas in which you were no longer happy with what you were doing (hence, me with astrology) went from nagging to physically aching. It was as if the saying, “you can run, but you cannot hide” truly came to life, in the form of a reality in which we could no longer escape from — fitting, since Pisces rules over escapism and imprisonment.

What happens when you can no longer escape? You must begin to face whatever is showing up for you. From May until almost-July 2025, we were tasked, collectively, with the start of facing those patterns. But when Saturn retrograded back into Pisces in July, where it remained until February of this year, our task became different. Now, it wasn’t just about sorting through the physical manifestation of our own settlement, but the emotional tolls as well. Karmic lessons played out at an alarming rate, to help us close loose ends. Relationships came to a sudden halt or close (sometimes for forever, sometimes not). And it seemed as if everyone entered their own version of a pivot season, as they dealt with the emotional intensity surrounding the weight of their settlement. This is exactly the type of pattern that Saturn is designed for. While Saturn does rule of institutions, foundations, tradition, and structure, Saturn will also be the first to tell you when and where you’re not operating in alignment.

This is why the Saturn return can be as jarring or as blissful, depending on your current state of alignment. Alignment, in this case, referring to your coherence with both your intuition and God’s plan. If you are out of alignment, then major Saturn transits will be more jarring, as you’re forced to take many hard-left’s, in order to get onto your intended path. Where Saturn can be a little more gentle, is when you’re already living in alignment (for the most part) with the path and plan that God has you on. If you’ve been playing small, and your soul-calling has more for you, then you will be forced to level-up. Similarly, if you’ve been biting off more than you can chew, and part of your soul-lesson is presence and slowing down, then you’ll be “forced” by the hands of Saturn, into learning how to let go. Understanding your North Node placement can help you to determine what exactly that lesson is for you — but again, that is a conversation for another day.

But what’s important to note, is that during this Saturn retrograde into Pisces — and even after, once it entered Aries again on February 13, 2026 — it might have felt like the Universe was constantly taking from you. For you see, Saturn in Aries doesn’t come lightly. In fact, it commands a full ego death.

Aries, as bold and brash as they are, also represents the ego and the sense of self. It’s about autonomy, independence, and staying true to who we really are. In order to admit that you want to pivot into alignment, you must first admit that a part of you hasn’t been living in alignment to begin with — and that admission requires a full surrender to your ego. Saturn’s careful taking of all that it asked of you wasn’t just to play games. Rather, it was to bring you to your knees in total and complete surrender. To be so relinquished of your ego that you are stripped down to the core of what it means to be human — wide, awake, and fully present in this life. It reminds me so much of the controversial ending to the book that I referenced earlier, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. While I’ll do my best to not spoil the ending, the book follows an unnamed, unreliable narrator as she tackles her grief, following the death of her parents, and decides to self-medicate and sleep for an entire year. The thought is that, by the end of the year, she will wake up refreshed and renewed. If you have any shred of self-awareness, the book is entirely, psychologically, disturbing on all accounts. But yet, I find myself unable to not think about the ending:

“There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake.”

It’s hard to understand the significance of the line without spoiling the ending, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

To bring it back to Saturn, the humility experienced within the last year feels like the moment of staring at yourself, blankly in the mirror, and realizing that you’re wide awake. This is your life, this is your reality, and there’s no running away from it. There’s no sleeping your way through it. It’s here, and it’s real, and the only way to face it is to handle it head-on. You cannot outrun the lessons that God has for you. And sometimes, in order to truly learn those lessons, you must be fully brought to your knees in surrender.

What if that was the purpose for all of the pain? For the loss? For the heartbreak? For the uncertainty? What if all of it was here to teach you, not just appreciation, but true surrender? So often, we neglect our spiritual foundation, until we find ourselves on our knees, begging for salvation and reprieve. Last November, I found myself in the midst of one of those moments of my own, sitting on my bathroom floor as God literally stripped me of all that I had. Wondering why, on earth, my life had brought me to this place. But it was in the midst of being cracked open to my deepest core, that I found myself moving through the world with a deeply embodied sense of trust and faith that I never had before. The softness and peace within my heart today can only be the result of having once experienced so much pain. The faith and trust that I hold right now is only because I dared to hold enough faith to walk myself through the darkness, and trust that there would be light, on the other side.

What if building the foundation to your new life, requires you to completely relinquish your old one, and trust that the faith that you learn is the exact tool that you need, in order to create the life that you’ve always been destined for?

The thing to understand about Saturn, is that it always reaps its rewards later. In other words, when it comes to understanding the lessons of Saturn, you must be willing to be patient. Just like a farmer might do a controlled burn on their land — allowing the vegetation to completely burn down before the soil can grow and regenerate again — Saturn works the same way. In order to bestow upon you the blessings that Saturn has to bring (which we will get into in a minute), it must first burn down everything that is incongruent with that reality. The more that you resist the breakdown, the more that you block your own blessings.

Which (finally) leads me to this Saturn Retrograde in 2026 — which started on July 26th, and continue until December 13th.

Instead of causing more havoc, this Saturn Retrograde is a period of balance being restored… for better or for worse. Everyone is getting their karma, during this time. Just as Saturn’s orbit has “changed” (again, not really), so have the wheels of fate. If the last year has felt extremely difficult for you, then this is a time where you’ll finally start to receive your blessings. If you found yourself on your knees, in complete ego death and surrender, then Saturn Retrograde is coming in to restore what was once lost. On the contrary, if you resisted the breakdown, surrender, and ego death, then this Saturn Retrograde will be a time where things only get harder. I say this not to instill fear, but to be very real about the repercussions of resisting a Saturnian breakdown. If you want blessings, then you must create the space to be blessed. If you want to receive, then you must first learn how to give — that also includes giving over things that you didn’t necessarily want to. This Saturn Retrograde is coming to restore balance, but what that balance exactly is, depends on what you were willing to sacrifice and give.

If you did take the path of sacrificing your own ego, then this period is one in which you are greatly rewarded — as the saying went earlier, with great risk comes great reward. To surrender is to inherently take a big risk; it’s to let go without knowing if what you’re leaving behind will ever come back. But to take the ultimate leap of faith (i.e. to surrender) is also to inherently trust so deeply in God’s plan. And when you do, you are rewarded with more than you could possibly ask for.

Let this Saturn Retrograde be a time of proving to you that your sacrifices were not in vain. Let yourself, in the space of your continued surrender, let your arms open wide to receive it all. Allow yourself to trust that what was taken from you will come back to you, tenfold.

And let life show you that the better it gets, the better it gets.

What if this retrograde is the beginning of life showing you that you were always worthy and deserving of receiving all that you’ve ever asked for?

Retrogrades only ask for a shift in your perspective.

Why not choose the one where everything works out for you?

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Grab one below, if you want to know what this Saturn Retrograde (and your spirit guides) have in-store for you:

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