Saturn returns are a sort of spiritual boot camp. They occur roughly every 29.5 years and are characterized by pivotal personal change and transformation. Saturn returns ask us to grow, to claim our inner authority, and to become more of who we truly are.

Any loss can trigger grief and all loss begins a three-part process of transition. Knowing how to navigate these transitions is key to creating a bigger, better next chapter.

We all face multiple, major transitions throughout our lives, times when our identities dissolve and we have to re-form and become someone new. The transitions can be delightful or they can be wrenching. Sometimes, they are both. Here’s how to survive the passage.

We’re almost there my friends. We’re at the finish line of 2020: the craziest, weirdest, most tumultuous, contentious, painful, scary, exhausting year that most of us have ever seen.

I live in Southern Oregon, in the valley where, a few days ago, two towns burned to the ground in one of three wildfires that surround our beautiful valley. It's worse, even, than the fires we had in 2018. Or 2002. And those were dreadful.

Two weeks ago, I was about to get to writing a little something about gratitude for this newsletter when the unexpected randomness of Life happened. My companion, Baci (whom you may recall from his recent celebrity appearance in this column) had a disc rupture, leaving his back legs paralyzed.

It seems everyone I talk to is dealing with something serious and vexing. Maybe it's life at middle age. Maybe it's living in a toxic and stressful world. Maybe it's just the roll of the dice. I don’t know. But I do know that such levels of suffering provoke some serious contemplation.

“Time sure does fly, doesn’t it?” It’s what I think just about every day. Time is flying faster and faster. There must be something about picking up speed once you go over the metaphorical hill.

I hate snakes. Hate is a strong word, but there it is. So imagine my excitement this time last year when we entered the year of the Black Water Snake. I knew it was going to be a wild ride, and not just because I hate snakes: I knew it because a year whose symbolic energy is turmoil and transformation ain’t going to be easy.

Four years ago, I began writing a book.* I had something close to a first draft when I took it to a writer’s group. That first day, one of the members arrived late; she looked as if she had just been spit out of a terrible tornado and plopped, disheveled and wide-eyed, into a corn field. The cause of her distress? She had just published her first book.

First, I want to thank the many kind people who have inquired about my well-being since last month’s column. Here’s the update: I’ve tried everything from shaman to MRI and I’m still in pain, the cause of which remains a mystery; but I did discover that I have three disintegrating joints in my neck, so at least I got something for my trouble.