Not a lot of people talk about the Jupiter opposition that happens during your first Saturn return, I think, because we don’t talk about oppositions as much as returns. Returns are dramatic! We don’t know what the hell is going on during a return because we are trying to figure out how to grieve the person we were while simultaneously figuring out who we want to become.

Oppositions, on the other hand, are the points in a planet’s cycle when it is able to look back on the return period and see things that it could not see during the return. You get a Jupiter opposition about six years after every Jupiter return. It just so happens that you’ll always get a Jupiter opposition during the first Saturn return and a Jupiter return during the second Saturn return.

You’re reminded of the Saturn opposition, of yourself when you were an awkward and angry fifteen year old, during the first Saturn return. But you’re also reminded of your second Jupiter return at the same age—of when you were a lost and bewildered twenty-three or twenty-four year old.

I’ve found that a lot of the things that we typically associate with a first Saturn return, which we don’t typically associate with a second Saturn return, are actually about the Jupiter opposition. We think of first Saturn returns as being about achievement, about culmination, and about success in a way that we don’t think about with the second Saturn return.

We tend to think of aging differently when we are twenty-something going into our thirties than when we’re fifty-something going into our sixties. Maybe that’s part of it. Or, maybe, it has something to do with the difference between an opposition and a return.

I’ve found that any celebration around success or around accomplishing things is not related to Saturn’s cycle but to Jupiter’s. If we celebrate anything during the first Saturn return period, it tends to be things that we began in our early twenties. It tends to be precisely the same things that confused us the most when we were twenty-three or twenty-four. The opposition of a transiting planet to its natal placement tends to be the time during which it understands itself to be meaningful. The return of a transiting planet to its natal placement tends to be when it is taking apart meaning—when it breaks itself apart.

There are a lot of things that we confuse with the first Saturn return—there’s the progressed Moon return and nodal reversal at twenty-seven that throws us off and makes us consider our childhoods with a depth and perspective that we didn’t have when we were growing up. A lot of people think that they’re begun their Saturn return at twenty-seven because it’s such a chaotic time, when you’re getting cut by the eclipses and asked to stop assuming that your old defense systems will always be necessary. There’s also the Jupiter opposition, which happens either exactly during or a little after that first Saturn hit.

If you want to know more about your Jupiter opposition—look at your natal Jupiter placement. Think about who you when you were twenty-three or twenty-four during the last return. Think of all the things that you fumbled through and what existential anxiety you found so debilitating when you were too young to know what the hell you were doing but too old to qualify as “youth.” Look at those things and look at how you’ve grown since that period of semi-youth, semi-adulthood.

If you were born on a parent’s Saturn return, as many of us are, you’ll find that you might also have a Jupiter that opposes the Jupiter of that parent. You might go through the Saturn cycles together but find that you live through the Jupiter cycles conversely. This means that, when you’re learning your hardest lessons, your parents might be the most stubborn they will ever be. It means that, when that parent is learning their hardest lessons, it’s when you feel the most resolute.

We don’t know anything about a planet when it returns—returns are not about definition but about deconstruction. We cut ourselves down during a return period. We get rid of things. We find ways to fail. Oppositions are a little different—oppositions are those times when you have earned the right to look at a planet. You will be able to see, not your Saturn, but your Jupiter clearer than you ever have during your first Saturn return. Enjoy it.