Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I’m your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I’m an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I’m going to give you your weekly horoscope and no bullshit, mystical advice for living your very best life.

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How you doing? How’s it going over there? It’s time for another Astrology Hot Take, and this Astrology Hot Take is on a topic that I’ve kind of covered before but not totally, and I still get questions about it all the live long day. So I want to talk to you about The Christ Year. 

Now I should preface this by saying that I am not an expert in Christ—in fact, the vast majority of what I know about Jesus Christ I have learned from the 1970 something musical, Jesus Christ Super Star by a Jewish man named Andrew Lloyd Webber. So I’m really the opposite of an expert on anything Christ related. 

And if you stand for Christ, that is wonderful and beautiful, and I just want to say when I talk about The Christ Year, I mean, I’m not trying to talk about Christianity or any of the Jesus loving faiths. And I want to hold space for how important that figure is for so many people’s spiritual and religious value systems. And I just want to take a moment before I get into it to just heart you if that’s your faith, and hopefully this is in no way offensive. It is simply a tool for understanding the cycle of one’s first Saturn Return. 

Okay. So I’m going to talk to you today about The Christ Year, which is the thirty third year of every human’s life, and it is the culmination year of the Saturn Return. So there’s a lot to say about this. Essentially, what I’m doing is talking to you about the first Saturn Return. 

Now I say the first Saturn Return because we all go through multiple Saturn Return’s in our lives, if we live enough years. The first one happens at around 29, and the next one happens 29 years after that, and then 29 years after that. So you can go through, I don’t know, three, four, depending on how long you live, Saturn Returns. 

And I shall also say I’ve done a couple episodes about Saturn and the Saturn Return in the past. If you haven’t already heard episode 93, it’s an Astrology Hot Take about Saturn, and it gives you a good foundation and understanding Saturn in your birth chart and Saturn by transit. I also talked about the Saturn/Pluto transit on episode 82 of the podcast, and that’s not specifically about the Saturn Return, but it’s very Saturn heavy, and so that might be useful if you’re trying to dig into Saturn. And then finally, I did an episode about the second Saturn Return, and that was episode number 65.

Let’s start at the beginning—the first Saturn Return. Now the first Saturn Return is a transit that is really massively important, and that’s why people tend to know about it, people talk about it. Basically, what happens in your twenty seventh year of life, you start to feel like you’re running out of time. You start to feel like you need to get your shit in order. You need to tighten up your adulting. You start to look around you and see the ways in which your friendships don’t really match you anymore, your community doesn’t resonate with you anymore. Maybe you feel like you haven’t attained goals, or maybe your responsibilities are kind of increasing and getting more demanding. 

This period, this feeling of I’m running out of time; I need to get my shit together, it builds up until the transit of the Saturn Return itself. And that can happen either when you’re 28 or 29 years old. It does not happen when you’re 27. It does not happen when you’re 30. I mean, it could maybe, maybe pop into some of your thirtieth year, but it is generally 28, 29 years old is where it happens. And it can last anywhere from a couple weeks to about a year. It just depends on how frequently, if at all, transiting Saturn Retrogrades over Saturn in your birth chart. Because when we say return, what we mean is when a planet in the sky returns to the exact degree of the same sign of a planet in your birth chart. So it takes about 29 and a half years for Saturn to move all the way through the zodiac, and therefore, it takes about 29 and a half years for the Saturn Return to occur. 

Whenever I’m taking about, for instance, your Saturn Return or any transit really, what I’m talking about is math. Because astrology is a lot of math. So if you were ever to look at something called an ephemeris, which is a text that you can now get online, but it’s a book that tracks the movement of the planets through the zodiacal degrees, so through the zodiac signs and the degrees of each sign. So it tracks all of those things. 

So, basically, when we’re talking about transits, whether it’s your Saturn Return or that Mercury and Mars square I’ve been telling you about, we are talking about the exact moment when the planets meet by degree. When I’m talking about an exact hit of a transit, if your Saturn is let’s say at 23 degrees of Capricorn, then whenever transiting Saturn hits 23 degrees of Capricorn or 23 degrees of a sign that forms an aspect—and many different signs can form many different kinds of aspects, so I won’t list them all—but whenever you find that 23rd degree Capricorn is getting activated, that means your Saturn’s getting activated. 

So when the Saturn Return occurs, honestly, like I said, could last a couple weeks if Saturn isn’t Retrograding on or over your natal Saturn. So the Saturn Return occurs, and in that period, which could last an undisclosed amount of time—you need to know—you need to consult an astrologer, or you need to know how to read an ephemeris to determine exactly the dates of your Saturn Return—some shit goes down. 

For some people, it’s very material—something happens. For other people, it’s very internal—something happens. Regardless, the first Saturn Return is when you truly become an adult, and there’s something that you mature in yourself. And usually, it’s because you have to. Usually, it’s because you feel like your hand is forced. Traditionally speaking, people get married. They get divorced. They graduate. They go back to school. They have some sort of really physical, material thing occur where they become more a part of society as an adult. 

Now, as the world changes and what it means to be an adult changes and as life expectancy change, I think that we’re seeing more and more varied expressions and experiences of the Saturn Return, so that’s kind of cool, I think. 

But then your Saturn Return ends, and I say ends because technically speaking the transit itself is over. And then you’re 30, and you’re 31, and you’re 32, and now it’s been several years, and you just feel like, “Oh, my God. I’ve grown so much. I’ve moved on. I learnt the lesson. I did my Goddamned thing. I don’t need to worry about this. This is my past.” And maybe you’re 30 or 31 years old right now, or you’re 32 years old, and you’re just like, “Yeah, whatever was going on at 29, I really—I’ve put it in a box.” Or maybe you’re thinking, “I am still working it out.” Regardless, when you turn 33, what happens is you enter into a year where you have to deal with the consequences of what you did and didn’t do during your Saturn Return, both for yourself as an individual, but also as a community member. Because Saturn governs your place in society as an individual. 

So it’s your place in a system of interconnectedness, and it’s also your place of kind of being reliant on others and responsible to others—that’s Saturn for you. And, so, when the thirty third year hits, we have consequences. And those consequences are not exclusive to what you did and didn’t do. They’re really about what you did and didn’t do in the context of the world around you and other people and how it landed, or it didn’t. Do you know what I mean? 

So let’s talk a little bit about Jesus. So everything I’ve learned about Jesus, as I said, I learnt from the 1970 production of Jesus Christ Super Star by Andrew Lloyd Webber. And I don’t know if you ever saw the original movie—I didn’t see it on Broadway; I’m not that old—but, listen, the movie—amazing. Hippy Jesus, very impressive. And basically, when I watch that movie, I was like, holy shit; the whole process of the Saturn Return echoes the Jesus story, and in particular his ages. 

So it’s called The Christ Year because it’s 33. It’s the year that he was theoretically nailed to the cross. And I say theoretically because I don’t really know if this is a historical story or a fable or a myth. Personally, me, I don’t know if you’ve noticed on the podcast; I don’t really fuck with myths. I don’t really fuck with fables a whole lot. It’s not really how I relate to astrology or spiritual content. 

But all to say, the whole story of him coming into his spiritual powers and his activism—because really what was Jesus if not an activist for the people? So he came into all that shit, and in the movie version of the story it’s a little hard to tell—did he kind of get egomaniacal? Did he kind of—did he let the fame and the power get to his head? Or did people turn on him? Did his message go sour? It’s a little hard to tell from the movie. I’m sure those of you who were raised with the book version have your own true knowledge. 

But anyways, so when The Christ Year occurred, it was the year of consequences for him. So he had to answer to his role in society by societies standards. And, so, this is much of what happens in our regular lives is that 33 happens, and you start to see the consequences, not just in yourself but in the eyes of others. Because other people will respond to you in new ways at your thirty third year. They will have less energy for your bullshit. They will be more appreciative of your gifts, whatever it is. Probably it’s like a combo of both of those things, but that’s basically how this goes. 

Now the other thing about The Christ Year that’s particularly interesting to me is this thing that we see in a lot of spiritual pathways, which is like The Father, The Son, The Holy Ghost, right. This thing of the self and duty and spirit. That’s my interpretation of The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

This thirty third year is one where most of us find ourselves really confronted with a lot of material situations that are demanding our attention and energy. And those material situations may be amazing. It might be a year when all the shit you’ve been working towards comes together, and you have a lot of really exciting work in your life, or you’ve been working hard on relationships, and then you get into one, and it’s an amazing relationship. It doesn’t have to be bad for it to be Saturn. It doesn’t need to be bad for it to be hard. But when we’re in our Christ Year, things are hard because they’re important to us. Because they are kind of like really coming from the roots of our needs. 

And whatever we’re dealing with really smacks of consequence. Like we really have to answer for what we’re doing and what we’ve done. But the thing that a lot of people miss out on, which is a real missed opportunity, IMO, is this: we are meant to be activating our spiritual connections at the thirty third year. To move through the world as an adult in that saturnine way, through linear time, without having a spiritual center that we refer back to, that we check in with, without having a spiritual value system that we use to keep us humble and keep us grounded in our efforts, grounded in what it is we’re actually trying to do, if we don’t do that, then what we are doing is we are setting up our first adult cycle of Saturn—so approximately 29 years old until whatever, 58 years old, 59 years old—we’re setting it up in a way that may satiate the surface of our needs but not in a deep way our spiritual needs. 

And if the analytics of my podcast are right, the bulk of you who are listening to this podcast are not in your seventies or your later sixties, and the reality is you want to be thinking about taking care of that part of you—you as you age. Because the truth of the matter is money or fame or fucking followers or whatever the hell else—those things are valuable; those things are interesting. Accomplishment, having PHDs, or I don’t fucking know what people like to do—cars? I don’t know. Having things, engaging in the material world is really important, and it’s a lot more important to some people than others, and some people are a lot better at it than others. But at the end of the day, if it doesn’t bring you meaning, if it doesn’t feed your sense of connection and value in the world, it doesn’t do you a whole hell of a lot of good. 

So making sure that you are grounding yourself in your own spiritual value system, whether it is in a Christ based faith or an astrology based faith or like a deep fucking woo thing, or if you are really just into cats and you’re like, “I only listen to cats, and cats only speak to me under Full Moons.” I don’t care how you get there. The key is to be interested in and committed to having ongoing dialogues with yourself, with Spirit, and with people who can teach you about the world. Because Saturn governs The Father, and I don’t mean necessarily your daddy, and I don’t mean necessarily a pastor or priest or whatever—these two conventions around The Father. 

I mean guides. I mean non gendered guides. And guides that are—that have earned their place as guides in your life because they are vetted, because they have been protective and caring and good providers for you. So that might be a particular spiritual text that is not necessarily your religion, but whenever you’re in real pits and you turn to it, it holds you up; it provides for you. That’s a Saturnine relationship that you have to it. It’s a really great Saturnine relationship that you have to that thing. 

And, so, when we’re at 33 years old, and we’re in a rush to be that for everyone else, we’re a little bit missing the point. A little bit missing the point. Now, I’m not trying to say that 33 year old’s should not be teaching or providing for others—I sure as hell was doing those things at 33—but I am saying that that’s not the point of your Christ Year—to teach others. The point of your Christ Year is to have reciprocity between your ability to learn and to teach, to have the capacity to be in what you don’t know, and also to own what you do know, and to allow yourself to be in that duality, to be in that truth. 

The deeper you get into a field of study, the older you get, the more mature you are, the more you realize that you don’t know shit about that field of study, the more you know that you have so much more to learn or so much more to grow. It’s a state of arrogance to believe that you’ve got it all set—you’re good; you don’t need to learn anything more. And that’s actually a really lovely part of Saturn. 

And the Christ Year, if you don’t fight it, and if you’re not in too big of a rush to prove to yourself or to other people that everything’s fixed and everything’s working perfectly, the Christ Year is where you get to see where there’s still work to be done and where you can kind of enjoy the fruits of your labors. 

The Christ Year is not a year to be feared. I mean, honestly, astrology, life, none of it’s really to be feared because fearing it means you’re projecting into it before it happens. What you want to be able to do is to be able to say to yourself, “Okay. I’m in my early thirties, and I haven’t yet hit that Christ Year, or I’m somewhere in my twenties and I haven’t hit my Christ Year, and I’m just going to really pay attention. I’m going to know that between the ages of 29 and 33 that nothing is going to force me to integrate or focus on the lessons of my Saturn Return—nothing. I have to choose it.” 

And choosing it—it’s choosing yourself. It’s choosing to invest in creating a solid foundation for your adult life. And some people really don’t like the word adult. I love it. I’m a big fan of adulting in general. But I’ll just say this, adults are not only responsible, but they’re free. They can be quite unfettered, if you can figure out ways of adulting that actually works for you.

Now I want to say one more thing about this Christ Year. There’s something about the Christ story, about his thirty third year in the story that is very much about sacrifice. But he was forced to sacrifice based on something he truly and deeply believed in. This is a really valuable year to make sure that the compromises you make and the sacrifices that you make are not at the expense of your own integrity, your own spiritual beliefs and values, and your own wellness. 

There’s no way around the thirty third year being an intense year, and I really—I have seen it over and over again that the thirty third year is so frequently just as intense as whatever year it is that you’re going through your Saturn Return itself. 

But when you know yourself, when you’re willing to be humble and to grow, then as much as these life experiences can be painful, they’re not bad, actually. They’re not bad. Because you let go of something, or you work hard on something or somethings that you actually really care about. And you do it because you’re investing in tomorrow you. And tomorrow you needs you just as much as today you. So I really hope that this is a helpful bit of data on The Christ Year and your first Saturn Return.

As always, send me questions for these Hot Takes and questions about your life in general because I want to help you learn astrology, also live your best fucking life. You know that’s what I’m all about. 

If you want to know more about where Saturn is in your birth chart—what signs it’s in, what house it’s in, all that kind of shit, you can just use the free chart drawing tool on my website. It’s at lovelanyadoo.com. You can also hit it through ghostofapodcast.com, and just go to the free tab, and there’s free shit there, including a chart drawing tool. And then get my book and cross reference it, and you will know lots of things about yourself. 

But with astrology, you can literally study through all of your Saturn cycles, you can be studying until the day you leave this mortal coil and not have learned it all, which is totally delicious to me.