In Tamil, the word Śani (சனி) refers to the planet Saturn; the slow-moving teacher, the keeper of time, the father of karma. It is a name that carries the weight of gravity, discipline and consequence. Lessons that cannot be taught, that cannot be passed down, that certainly cannot be skipped.. only lived.
Shani is not the softest of planets, nor is it forgiving, but it’s one that really tears through you and opens you up to vulnerability, patience and surrender.
My name Shanee was simply a name. A sound, a syllable picked seemingly at random to match my older siblings name. Growing up with it, that connection to time, was brushed past; I mean yes, I was often referred to as being very slow, so dreamy, too emotional, my favourite, “there’s a darkness in her”. (Man, the things we used to say to children!)
But names, like symbols, have a way of revealing their meaning over time, as we slowly grow into them. Remember that darkness “they” spoke about? Well, I will go on to spend many years in them (foreshadowing!). As I start unraveling memories, and inherited stories and question the narratives that were thrust upon me, I would come to befriend my shadows and sit with them.
I did not choose my name (at least not in this timeline), nor was it chosen for me. But perhaps it chose me.
Mythology
Across mythologies (Vedic, Roman, Greek, and astrological traditions) Saturn is the archetype of structure and boundaries. He is the archetype that says, “You WILL meet yourself fully. And when you do, you will evolve.”
If Jupiter is expansion, Venus is pleasure, and the Moon is emotion, Saturn is the part of life that asks for depth. Saturn is the one who helps us build something that lasts.
His initiations are through hard realities, not illusion.
His transformations are through hard truths, not comfort.
It is through Saturn, we learn that growth cannot happen overnight and time is not something to outrun.
In astrology, Saturn takes roughly 29 years to orbit the sun, marking each cycle as a threshold: a reckoning, a maturation, a quiet accounting of what we’ve built in truth and what we’ve merely imagined and the illusions we perpetuate.
Whether or not you believe in planets is irrelevant. You can feel it. There’s a certain rhythm to the way Saturn moves; slow, deliberate, almost cruel in his precision.
He is what meets you when life asks, “Show me what you’ve learned.”
Cycles
Foundations. The first Saturn cycle (in mystic language it is called a return) ends around age 29. For most, it is the time when the scaffolding of youth collapses and the real architecture begins. Our borrowed identities start to dissolve, the ambitions we inherited, the roles we performed, the illusions we mistook for purpose..
Saturn asks, “What is real? What will hold under pressure?”
When Saturn returns, he strips away everything ornamental leaving you with form, function and truth. He leaves you with JUST yourself.
Integration. The second cycle following the stripping bare of the first, is when we start to rebuild. This time (hopefully) from truth. Less trying to prove ourselves, more being present. Less wanting to see and be seen, and more clarity in how we see.
In this season, we learn to collaborate with time. We learn that mastery isn’t about control, instead it’s about a relationship with time. A complete surrender that is referred to as devotion in faith groups. When discipline meets devotion, craft becomes mastery.
Saturn is often misunderstood as a punisher. No. He is a liberator. If we can pull ourselves out of our Stockholm syndrome long enough, we will see that he is actually handing you back your blueprints so that you can release yourself from your captors, once and for all, and build something worthy of you really are.
By the time we’re age 58, we will TRULY start to see, that real creation can only begin after the illusion dies.
Mastery. The third and usually, final cycle is about continuity. A life refined into wisdom, distilled through embodiment. We no longer measure life by milestones, but by meaning. Few reach this stage consciously, but when you do it is luminous.
Here, Saturn’s lesson complete the arc. He asks, “Have you made peace with time?”
Shadow of Time
Saturn is also the keeper of endings—discipline, duty, death, decay. Through his lessons we are forced to face what cannot last, and in doing so, to recognise what is eternal.
Under his watch, our ego-built empires crumble, titles fade, and roles evolve.
What remains is essence, that quiet, unshakable truth beneath identity.
To live under Saturn’s governance is to live honestly. It is to accept that some truths arrive only through time, and that beauty, like wisdom, must carry weight. Just as healing is not linear, wisdom is not aesthetic.
The Architecture of Becoming
Saturn doesn’t destroy for destruction sake. He is an architect tearing down the foundations that are not sustainable under the pressures of weight and time. And if you look closely, if you examine between the cracks, you will meet the version of your being that is timeless.
Foundation over facade, he is the invisible force and structure beneath your becoming.
To call my publication ‘Saturn’s Daughter’ is not to stake claims of wisdom, but more simply, and acknowledgement to self, that I am a student of time. For me, and for everyone around me (including you, reading this right now) Saturn is here to anchor us from lofty illusions, to weigh us down in truth, to mirror back to us our flaws, and teach us patience and grace through consequence.
I write this to remind us that we are;
Meant to be builders, not escape artists.
Here to bear witness, not be vagrant.
Storytellers of the long arc between who we were and who we’re becoming.
And if there’s one truth Saturn has taught me, it is this:
The art of becoming lies not in a single moment, but through cycles of them.
It is architecture.
And time, though slow, is a beautiful architect.
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