Quadruple Scorpio actor Jodie Foster has succinctly defined the Saturn transit experience. Okay, fine, not as such. But these recent comments to Interview magazine were as Saturn Return-esque as you can possibly be without definitively stating it.
“JODIE FOSTER: …I felt these huge shifts the day I turned 30 and the day I turned 60. And 60 was the best shift of all, because I was struggling in my fifties. I was sort of like, “Am I ever going to do anything meaningful again? Is this all there is?”
And there’s that awkward phase where everybody who’s in their late forties or fifties is very busy getting all plumped and shooting shit into their face. I didn’t want that life, but I also knew that I couldn’t compete with my old self.
So my fifties were tough. Then something happened when I turned 60. I was like, “I figured it out. This is good.”
There was something about going back to the work with a different attitude, I think. About really enjoying supporting other people and saying to myself, “This is not my time. I had my time. This is their time, and I get to participate in it by giving them whatever wisdom I have.”
Somehow it’s so much more satisfying to be a part of a team that’s doing something awesome than it is to be all on your own trying to jump up that hill and make something out of nothing while everybody’s like, “Is it going to open well?”
And the pressure I had being a leading lady? Gosh, it all disappears the minute you say, “No.” It’s shocking how great that is.”
The Jodie Foster Guide To Aging In Hollywood – Interview Magazine
The whole interview is definitely worth a read. Foster’s natal Saturn is in Aquarius, the 2nd house and on her South Node FYI. Thoughts?
Image: Gottfried Honegger
Awesome sharing, much appreciated and still grinning 🤸♂️
Triple Scorp & Aries, Quad Virgo @ 56 years! Spent 5 years reading, immersing & listening to local Indigenous culture with intension to spend 30 years elevating heart ventured Indigenous genius, which today took flight 💥🙏Lx
💗 heart centred
Thanks Myst – Jodie is one of the all time greats. A woman who never fit into the categories society tries to fit us in. As I’m turning 60 next year this is encouraging and inspirational!
There is always hope. 😊. I suspect that we are all more attractive than we realise. And with your four Scorpio placements, need I say more. 😊
And she will then find that older folk who don’t care other than being their good genuine selves and sharing their hard earned wisdom are super hot. Such refreshing energy to be around.
Signed a triple Scorpio in mid 50s who has always dated older.
(And big yes to supporting the younger folk too. We can’t compete with that energy and why would we want to?)
😊
These reframes of ageing are exactly what the world needs to hear. 🙌🏻 So interesting that what she says times right in with her Saturn Returns. Speaking of mature scorp women, there was a blog here once about a scorp woman who explored Antarctica or a far flung region and wrote a book about it and I think it was timed with her Uranus opposition or other transit? I always wanted to get my hands on that book but can’t seem to find any trace of her on MM’s blog or the web. If anyone can remember who she was, that would be great.
Was it this one?
https://mysticmedusa.com/astrology-transits/chiron-return-inspo/
Thanks so much, Mystic! 🙌🏻 That’s the one.
Wonderful and yet there is the other side of the coin. If I remember correctly Angela Landsbury, achieved world wide fame with Murder She Wrote at 59 years of age.
Love Jodie and her views on feeling the ‘right age’ now and on the beauty of being part of a team. A few years away from my Saturn return myself, here. On some days I look ten years younger than my actual age and on others I look ten years older… Or was it always this way? No, maybe not in my 20s.
I worked at a University when I was 36-56 so I kinda had my Saturn Return early – though I’m officially in it now with Saturn in Pisces. There’s nothing like being surrounded by youth to hasten one’s sense of sexual and social irrelevance. But once I let go of that struggle, I really settled into exactly what Foster describes. I found so much joy in being an elder – in being the team member who uses my wisdom and smarts to help the next generations navigate their journey. I’ve felt so happy and rewarded, even cherished, in this role. I’m so grateful I didn’t let my vanity and desire to hold onto the past prevent me from experiencing the most rewarding part of my life.
Sorry but this is a huge subject for me as I’ve been working in one uni for the last 8 years and have attended two others for the last 6. I’ve never experienced such toxic, absurd, or just flat-out unprofessional behaviour — and I was a woman in tech before Pluto went into Cap. I’ve had zero sense of being an elder, and, quite frankly, zero sense of any respect at all. The kids I deal with (either co-workers or fellow students) don’t want my “wisdom” or “smarts,” they think I don’t have any (they interrupt before I can even talk about whatever I’ve done in my life, or they turn to talk to someone else). This is particularly true when dealing with, soz, not soz, Millennials (as opposed to the GenZ kids). To be fair, it’s been mostly women I’ve been dealing with. They literally act like middle school mean girls. Some of it was qualitatively as bad as getting beat up in middle school for liking Duran Duran. This is partly a function of the generally toxic academia seems to foster everywhere (people who never leave school never grow up, apparently), but I’ve observed it in other settings besides academia. I’ve reluctantly concluded, after more than a decade of dealing with this shit, that Millennials generally don’t think someone has any wisdom or smarts unless they are famous or rich — and if they don’t know who you are already, you may not get a chance to reveal to them that you’re either. The fact that you’re older and moving in an orb in contact with them means that you must have done something wrong in your life, prima facie.
Oh sure, they bitch about fighting heteronormativity and capitalism, but they have no problem imposing heteronormative, capitalist expectations on older people — and more so on single, older women who don’t have kids. The kids thing, in particular, is problematic for them. There’s been a couple of us in my post-grad journey, and we’ve noticed that they relax a smidge when they find out that we *have been* married, but we are very confident that they would feel much more comfortable with us if we had children. Shows how narrow their framework is — older chick, must be MOM. I notice they are a teeny bit better when I’m have a legitimate “position of authority” over them (i.e., teaching a class, or producing some festival or event), but not much.
It’s a weird heteronormative thing (though it’s also affected by your race and class): You can be a young chick full of piss and vinegar, and you can be a crazy old lady, but not when you’re middle-aged. I think they think we’re supposed to be “dignified” or something? Screw that. I literally gave a speech at a conference in London two weeks ago defending older people’s right to participate in rock n’ roll (whether or not it actually exists anymore is another discussion altogether). People say it’s a young person’s game because it’s about anger, but why the fuck do they think WE are not angry? I mean look around. Aside from everything else, I’ve been having a hot flash basically non-stop for a month. I’m pissed off. People cheered.
Oh, and while I’m ranting: That whole meme about people forgetting GenX? It’s totally true. We GenXers keep having to remind people in our classes that we are not fucking Boomers. It’s maddening.
(Caveat: I have Pluto Rising and Moon conj Uran in 1H Libra, so I get shit anyways. Though when Pluto was in Saggo, it seemed like all this shit had gone away, so I assumed that everyone had just grown the fuck up, and I was having fun. But then Pluto went into Cap, and with Libra Rising, that Pluto / Saturn shit was all square my First House. It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly people started being fuckin’ morons all over again.)
Oh wow I could have written this myself. As a Gen Xer recently restructured out of a workplace by a 30 year old new boss I am going through all kinds of emotions, mostly rage and a lot of grief. I worked in a particularly youth oriented industry and there was a moment where I was fighting for my job and realised there was absolutely nothing I could do about it, forces much bigger than me were in play. My workplace was toxic, casual ageism on a daily basis. It helped me to notice that what was happening to me was a microcosm of a broader systemic problem in a dinosaur organisation fighting for its own relevance in the contemporary world. All this happening under the laser beam of my second Saturn return in my 7th.
I find it interesting to look at the language of Foster’s comments, the foregrounding of what has been lost and what isn’t said. I’m not criticising her at all, I have long admired her talent and singularity of purpose. I’m curious about the language and what that might say more broadly about women, power and visibility. What isn’t articulated is that a stellar talent and impressive work ethic has built significant economic power. Foster is now able to give younger artists work opportunities and perhaps that has something to do with how easily she is now able to pass on her wisdom. Nobody was interested in my ‘wisdom’.
As I live my own private middle-aged cliche, I find myself being drawn to the work of female punk artists from the 70s – the Slits, the Raincoats etc, and finding inspiration in what those incredible women are doing now. I heard Gina Birch on a podcast say something like, ‘we’ve always just done things our way and we’re going to keep doing it’. As a first-house Pluto-Uranus conj Gen Xer I am acutely aware of how my personal power has always made some kinds of people uncomfortable. It also means my core competency is reinvention. Here we go again!
Jodie and I weee born exactly 14 days apart on the west coast of the US – our Scorpio signs are the same, although I have Aries rising to her Sagg I have Aquarius moon to her Virgo. Same south and north nodes. Her article could have been written by me. I am now 61 and feel I’ve been through similar crucibles at the same time. I have 2 beautiful adult daughters and while it’s often depressing to realize I don’t turn a single head anymore, I am happy to pass the torch to them and would never go back. It’s the ultimate freedom to disengage, to truly stop giving any energy to external expectations….
You may turn a head yet. I am 58, do not dye my hair prefering a natural look, and last year was wood collecting for kindling from a massive offcut bin in an industrial estate. I was in my scruffy clothes naturally as sometimes you need to climb into the bins to retrieve the wood. A young man, a fellow collector extremely handsome with a clipped beard came up and we started chatting about wood collection. He asked me out for a cup of coffee. I asked how old are you. 27 he replied. I replied in turn, I am old enough to be you mother . He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said, Chemistry is chemistry! 🌞
Ha, words to live by, @Brunnie!
😊
I hope you took him up on that offer!
Sadly, no. 🥴
BRUNNIE get it grrl! (Or not is also totally cool it’s your call xo)
Hahaha! X
Ha! There’s hope, you say?
Reply to Scorp4 above. I still don’t have the hang of this new reply technique. 🥴