Becoming Unbound: Field Notes from an Ongoing Saturn Rx

Reflections on grief, decolonization, liberation, and the slow unlearning of urgency...

Last time I talked to y’all, I was reflecting on my Saturn Return. It is STILL unfolding — and chapter 2 has been no fucking joke. It’s been equal parts heartbreaking & affirming.

Lately, my days are spent oscillating between pleasure-seeking and grieving. Sometimes it’s hard to sit very long in either.

An affirming promotion.
An upsetting breakup.
Disappointment from family/ex.
Validation of “not crazy” from therapy.

Ebbs & flows, all entangled, with plenty invitation to fish out higher meanings and purpose for myself. This ongoing process, has felt debilitating and dramatic. What anchors me throughout this refinement process is how committed I am to being earnest. More importantly — that my conviction be something I do for myself.

It’s been a habitual ritual, and very, very easy to shame, punish, blame. Throughout my excavation process I’m integrating that this has been an immature practice, and something that has been looping for a long time. People can be shallow and lacking of critical thought or nuance. Others can be unexpectedly lovely. Usually, life happens in a messy, non-linear, unclear, complex, and confusing way. Dynamic and dimensional. Much like you, or myself.

I cannot fault you for your drama without reflecting on my own. I cannot envy your artistry without understanding how much exists in me, too. The human experience is an interdependent one, and relationship is the modality with which we commune.

And yes, it can be difficult. Our world perpetuates incredibly binary and rigid thinking. Existing within it while still being very outside of its confinement, is a skill. Liberation is my practice. I thank my curiosity, my protest, my convictions and my pleasure-seeking, for they have led me to all sorts of delicious chaos & expansion.

These past 29 years have been riddled with epic stories that I very much hope to share with grandchildren someday. I’ll tell them about lovers, exotic travels, heartbreak, grief, mourning, and everything I feared in my process. I’ll share these fears with them — because I believe this is something my parents concealed only because their parents did, and then that pattern repeats. I suspect it would’ve helped me understand them better, had they been vulnerable. Or transparent? Or open? Or curious?

As I continue on, I forgive myself — because I recognize that I, like my ancestors, am making do with what I have. It has not ever been “my fault” that systemic oppressions play out the way they do, and yet and still, I do have influence and contribution to my community. My power resides within me so long as I am wholly embodying it.

** I insist to y’all: as dramatic as I can be, I have lived just as much as I have lost **

As this Saturn Return continues to unfold, I find myself more conscious of aging and mortality (my incoming silver hairs delight me!!). What do I intend to leave behind for future generations? What will be my legacy? How might thinking about this liberate me from stressful preoccupation of the present? What do I wish to eradicate from ancestral past?

If I am gentle and patient with myself, then I remember — there is in fact, no urgency. I have more time than (colonial) capitalism wants me to believe. Plants and nature remind us that seasons are as natural as one can be. Our grief, like time, does not have to be rushed nor linear.

I am not perfect, nor do I strive to be. Though I do not face everything with ease, I am getting better at accepting that I am doing good. It starts with allowing and trusting myself to just be. Not for anyone else’s validation/approval/understanding/applause, but for my own.

At the end of all this, I will be so loving to myself, and in turn, create more room for my own potential and the potential of others. And this is progress — because past versions of me would CLING my nails and sink teeth into something/someone for fear of loss. And yes, it can be intoxicating at times to feel the strength of your inner pitbull — but that pitbull likely got that territorial because of a trauma response. So there’s no need to perpetuate the warrior state any further, especially if it’s gotten tired.

Now is my time to sift through the dirt and extract all the medicine I can. My foundation is becoming rooted and stabilized. I’m accepting that growing, and being an adult, means taking more responsibility for your part in your own suffering, and the benefit is deepening your connection to joy & wonder.

The safety I dream of will only happen through me, and what I make space for. So by being committed to what my dreams and desires are — I am liberated. Freely imagining. Liberated and decolonizing…

If you catch me in my ongoing process, know that I’m in process, and I will not promise you more at this time.

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🌿 What’s Been Helping Me Lately

BONUS READ: I’ve begun my Herbalism for Grief Support Cohort, where we’re consistently reminded to decolonize ourselves, resist the urge to strive for perfectionism, and come as we are.

I can’t yet offer immediate solutions for managing all this personal + collective grief — but I can tell you what’s been working for me right now:

• Back to therapy (a privilege that allows me so much more patience)

• Routine health visits (my vessel is healthier when I listen)

• Deleting TikTok & Instagram off my phone (bye-bye doom scrolling)

• Reducing coffee consumption (this one’s kinda sad/hard)

• Astrology podcasts / spirituality (grounds me way more than the news — sorry, idc)

• Pre-meditated “random” adventures (usually something natural is involved)

• Working — I sincerely love my job, and this is exciting to express as an Aquarius

• Lunar planning (my most consistent ritual for the past 5 years)

• QUALITY TIME with loved ones (people who lovingly hold and sit with you — who allow you to be as you are — they do not judge/project)

• Journaling / Writing — getting communication out without the shaping of others is vital for recognizing your own voice

• Taking photos with my new old film camera — I need to archive all this shit, and it makes me feel like an anthropologist/ethnographer in the process, which the nerd in me loves

• Making playlists and Pinterest boards

• Petting my cat and telling him he is so handsome and lovely

• Saying no (or expressing boundaries altogether) — it’s feeling grown n sexy over here

• REAL TALKS (very little remaining patience for indirect/shallow conversation)

• COLLABORATION — because it’s beautiful to do things with people you respect/love/support