Since I turned 50 almost ten years ago, I declared on my past birthdays that “I’m not at the Halfway Point … yet”. As I moved past living to 114, 116, 118 I finally said to myself that 120 years seemed like the number. My upcoming 60th birthday, this August, may just be my Halfway Point.

This is not totally unreasonable. I have longevity in my family. On my paternal side, my grandmother, Pauline Martin, lived into her mid-90s. My grandfather, John Hillman got robbed by ALS but his mother Imogene lived to 100 years and passed in 1972 weeks after her landmark birthday. On my maternal side, Walter Shollin lived to 98 and never went to the hospital until days before he died and Tessye Dean lived to 94 and survived four cancer treatments until the last time around she never really recovered her strength.

I had some fun with a phone app called: “Lensa”.  For less than $20, during a 7 day free trial, I uploaded photos of myself and then the Artificial Intelligence creates images. This past month, I have been putting the final touches on my Masters of Arts Thesis for Rhetoric Writing and Digital Media Studies. I thought that I’d be using these illustrations to weave into the final written report but I took it in another direction. I have also been known to procrastinate in the middle of big projects, and this was a fun diversion.

In my first round with the app, the uploads were recent pictures and it picked up a lot of my Tiger Stripes (aka #MyWrinklesAreMyStripes) but all the themes (Egypt, Medieval, Space, Nature, Avatar) were so much fun I decided to see what younger pictures of myself would generate. They say the more you load the more accurate the AI will be to your likeness. I can state that some looked like me and others were not even close.

But In the midst of all of this, I discovered that I am at the tale end of a Saturn Return transition. Lots and Lots of synchronicities happening with all of this (like my Masters Program ends on March 7, they day that Saturn leaves Aquarius for Pisces – and a Virgo Full Moon about an hour before that). 🤩

If you want to know your own Saturn Status, CLICK HERE.

A really basic Saturn return recap for those who are not familiar: We are all born with our own personal Natal Chart with the exact locations of the sun, moon, planets and stars in specific locations within the sky.  I was born on August 19, 1963 with Saturn in Aquarius. It takes Saturn about 29-30 years to come around full circle by shifting about every 2.5 years. I had this aha moment the other day that it sort lines up with the Archetypes known as the Triple Goddess and many refer to them as Embracing the Maiden, Mother, and Crone.

I have added two more archetypes to my life journey: The Queen for this stage of my Elderhood and then after the Crone, I have added the Earth Citizen introduced to me by Ilchi Lee. After I had made my declaration at my 59th birthday I stumbled across his book, I’ve Decided to Live 120 Years when I attended a weekend retreat at the center he built called Sedona Mago. A very fun serendipitous moment. He built the 120 Steps Experience on the property. I don’t want to give too much away except I did note that my age at that time was 58 and there was a turn in the road before climbing the ascent to 120 years.

Ilchi Lee calls the first half of life the Cycle of Success, where we do all that is required to build our lives and the second half is the Cycle of Completion when we live the life we were born to live.

Ilchi Lee stresses that you can extend your life way beyond what most of us have accepted as our biological age limit, even up to 120 years. But the real question is, can we have not only a long life, but also a fulfilling one? Lee’s answer is a resounding yes, and it starts with the power of choice, a practice of self-reliance, and most importantly, a greater sense of purpose.

I am also learning a lot about Carl Jung’s Individuation Process. The concept of individuation is the cornerstone of Jung’s psychology and the reflective work we do as we mature.

Our life is like the course of the sun. In the morning it gains continually in strength until it reaches the zenith heat of high noon. Then comes the enantiodromia: the steady forward movement no longer denotes an increase, but a decrease, in strength. Thus our task in handling a young person is different from the task of handling an older person. In the former case, it is enough to clear away all the obstacles that hinder expansion and ascent; in the latter, we must nurture everything that assists the descent

Carl Jung: “On the Psychology of the Unconscious” (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology P. 114

Here’s my own age breakdown of the Saturn Return with some very fitting life moments:

• Birth to Age 29 – MAIDEN (I married at 27 and threw away the contraception at 29)
• Age 29.5 – 59.5 –MOTHER (My youngest just turned 21 years old last week) = 1st return
• Age 59.5 – 89.5 –QUEEN (I literally begin this phase in less than a week) = 2nd return
• Age 89.5- 117+ –CRONE (I’m letting my imagination run wild…) = 3rd return 

My 4th return of Saturn will begin on February 16, 2081 at the age of 117.5 and if it lasts the 2.5 to 3 transition years it usually takes, I will be about 120 years old and will reach the archetype and status of EARTH CITIZEN. I graduated from High School in 1981.

In addition to everything else I am doing, I am participating in a yearlong membership called Hagitude. It is based on Sharon Blackie’s book with the subtitle: “Reimagining the Second Half of Life”.

Menopause is a time between stories, when the old story fades and a new story is waiting to emerge: the ultimate revelation of who we truly are and always were meant to be. It’s a liminal time, when we hover on the brink of the profound transformation which ultimately leads to elderhood, and contemplate the work of gaining new perspectives on our life, of challenging and evolving our belief systems, of exploring our calling, of uncovering meaning, and ultimately finding healing for a lifetime’s accumulation of wounds. 

Join me and the Hagitude team on the great adventure of reimagining your journey through the second half of life.

https://hagitude.org