🔥 When Saturn Comes to Town: Writing Through a Fiery Transit

What the Saturn-in-Aries cycle can teach you about ambition, transformation, and staying true to your writing path—no matter what (or who) shows up.

Photo of Saturn, downloaded from Unsplash

Greetings! If you’re new to the Writing Your Resilience podcast, welcome! I’m Lisa Cooper Ellison, a trauma-informed writing coach and author of this Substack. If you’ve been here for a while, welcome back. It’s wonderful to be with friends. I’m currently on my yearly July sabbatical. While I’m away, I hope you enjoy this series I designed especially for you.

A writing friend once told me there are only two stories: a hero goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. Everything we write is a variation on what that journey looks like or how we respond to the stranger’s arrival.

Whether there are only two stories is debatable; however, for this month’s series, I want to explore what happens when a specific stranger arrives in your town—Saturn in Aries.

Before I continue, here’s a quick disclaimer. While I study astrology, I’m not an astrologer. My goal is to introduce ideas and connect them to your writing life so you can live more abundantly and nurture your creativity from a place of ease and compassion. If you want to dive deeply into astrology’s many rabbit holes, be my guest.

For the rest of you, I’ll share some high-level information you can use even if astrology doesn’t speak to you.

What does Saturn represent in astrology?

Saturn is the planet associated with discipline, responsibility, hard work, limitations, and structure. It influences ambitions, the boundaries we set, and how we handle challenges. To learn more about Saturn’s role in astrology, click here, here, and here.

Here’s what you need to know: Saturn changes astrological signs (think Pisces, Gemini, Leo) every two and a half years, which means you repeat the same cycle of themes approximately every thirty years.

Aries’ Most Important Attributes

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac and the cardinal fire sign. It represents initiative, leadership, courage, and new beginnings. Ruled by Mars, the planet of action and war, any planet moving through Aries brings a surge of energy, initiative, and a desire for new beginnings.

Think fiery action, fiery ambition, and fiery combustion that can propel you into exciting new directions.

Why Saturn in Aries Is Significant

Saturn entered Aries on May 24, 2025 and will remain there until April 12, 2028. This transit is likely to usher in a period of intense self-discovery, challenging us to take responsibility for our desires and actions as we develop a more mature approach to conflict and confrontation.

How this transit plays out for you will depend on various factors related to your astrological chart, as well as some issues I’ll explore over the next few weeks.

While I will do my best to help you engage with this without knowing your astrological chart, if you’d like to know specifically how all this works for you, download your free astrological birth chart through Café Astro or try the Chani app, which is where I gather much of my information.

Why This Matters to Writers

We all go through cycles of rest and change. Understanding how these cycles play out helps us infuse more grace into our writing lives. For some, this might mean scaling back on writing to focus on other priorities—or at least lowering expectations in favor of ease so you can attend to what matters most.

For others, it will mean channeling your fiery ambition into new projects and taking your creative life to places you’ve yet to imagine.

The goal of exploring all of this is to help you deepen your compassion as you navigate the changes ahead and continue to grow and make progress in your writing life.

Next week, we’ll explore specifically how this transit might manifest for you. Until then, here’s your first assignment: Think back to the late 1990s, specifically 1997- 2000. Journal about the following:

• What significant events happened in your life?

• What themes can you identify?

• What lessons did you learn?

Personally, my last Saturn in Aries rodeo was a doozy. There were trials, tribulations, and amazing victories—all of which brought me to this Substack. Understanding what happened back then is helping me feel excited about what lies ahead, even if there are a few bumps in the road. After all, those bumps are what make life so interesting; they’re the reason I always—always—write on.

Warmly,

Lisa

Your Turn: What’s one significant event that you experienced between the years 1997 - 2000? What themes appeared? Share your thoughts in the comments. You never know what conversations this might inspire.

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Coming this Fall

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The Latest Episode of Writing Your Resilience:

Join me and Beth Docherty as we explore what your audience really needs and how to write about this without retraumatizing yourself or your readers.

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My Latest Appearance

I was recently interviewed on the Proffitt Podcast, where we talked about networking, market research, and the power of being a good human. What I shared about interviewing, intentional listening, and connecting with your audience can help you build your author platform.

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