Last night I went to a birthday party for someone I have known for over 30 years, since I first moved to North Carolina.  A large group of us that were involved in the same meditation group relocated to North Carolina at the same time, but because I left that group in the mid-1980s there were quite a few people I haven’t seen for many years, so there were people at this party that I hadn’t seen for years.

As many of you know if you’ve been following this blog for some length of time, I like to say that I have one of the hardest charts I’ve ever seen.  Saturn and Neptune straddle my Sun and square Uranus.  My Moon conjoins Pluto and the South Node at the IC, the root of the chart, and the whole mess squares both Jupiter and Venus.  And I just discovered recently that the Black Moon Lilith, a new tool in my astrological arsenal, conjoins Pluto and sets off that whole configuration.

If all of that makes no sense to you it doesn’t matter: suffice it to say that I had an extremely challenging interior experience and a great deal of psychological pain for much of my early life.  Since my first Saturn Return I have been on a path of healing, and since I’m now in my second Saturn Return that path has lasted for the past 30 years.  During this time I am glad to say that the hard work has paid off and resulted in a much happier individual than the one that started out on this planet back in 1952.

Over the past couple of years I have reconnected with three of my very closest friends from whom I was estranged for varying lengths of time because of my own inability to express my needs and my certainty that no one really loved me.  It’s a fascinating process to begin a new relationship with an old friend that necessitates stepping out of the patterns of the past and the reactions that became embedded in that relationship and begin anew as the person I have now become: a person of greater confidence and self-love.

One person at the party last night was my ex-husband who was rather a victim of my desperation and agonizing lack of self-worth.  I hadn’t had a real conversation with him for quite a long time and my interaction with him provided a mirror to me that showed me how much has really changed in those years (20) since we were together.

I have often thought of working on a suicide line because of my own experience that life can and really does get better if we can stay open and work to heal the challenges that we are given.  Unfortunately there is no easy way to navigate a difficult chart – you can’t just ignore the problems and hope they will go away.  You have to do the hard work of healing because on a soul level that is why you came in with the chart you have.  But the benefits are so enormously gratifying.

I don’t often see how far I’ve come in my life.  People that I have only recently met think I’m just lucky to have such a nice life – they have no idea what it has taken to get here.  And no small part of this healing has come from my current husband, for whose patience in my healing process I am exceptionally grateful.  But the healing did not come easily, and much in myself had to be confronted and dealt with in order for this marriage to succeed.

We can’t help but live as though the world revolves around us, since we are “in here” and everyone else is “out there.”  The people around us are always a mirror of who we are inside, and our old friendships can be the truest mirrors for how far we’ve come in our lives.

Here’s the thing about aging: You just don’t get these experiences of growth and healing without it.  My mother always says “youth is wasted on the young” and it’s true that young people have no appreciation for their vibrant energy and the world of possibilities that await them.  Maybe it’s just that cranky old Saturn sitting right on my Sun that has taught me this, but to me the greatest gift is surviving to this age and being a witness to the transformation that has been my life.  And there’s nothing particularly special about me – anyone can do it.  All it takes is the courage to walk through the fire of your own emotions and the tragedy of your story, and allow your soul to take you down the path to that divine being that you truly are.