On Thirty Five
Sex and the City, turning 35, and astrology hidden in plain sight
When Carrie Bradshaw said, I am thirty five and alone?
I felt that.
If being obsessed with Sondheim’s Company as a teenager, or Miranda July’s The Future as a young adult, or Sex and the City in the bleak midwinter of 2022 (age 32) taught me anything, it’s that turning 35 is meant to be an existential crisis. As I approach 35 myself—my birthday is March 4, mark your calendars!—I palpably feel where that existential crisis comes from. But what I’ve learned as an astrologer is that both the mythology and fear surrounding 35 have some astrological underpinnings. But is that fear (and the mythos) all in our heads?
Through a simple yet elegant technique from Hellenistic Astrology called Annual Profections, in which every year of one’s life is associated with one of the 12 houses, 35 is a completion year. 35 is associated with the 12th house, the part of the chart that the ancients called Bad Spirit. The 12th house deals with the unconscious and mental health, as well as self sabotage, sorrows, and hidden enemies. While the Saturn Return at 29 is when we leave our youth behind, and 33 (“The Jesus Year”) is when our now adult path reaches a culmination, 35 is truly the end of an era.
As a 12th house year, 35 is for wrapping up the 12 year cycle that started at 24. Sex and the City’s fourth season, in which Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte each turn 35 and have their own dark night of the soul, is a near-perfect illustration of what, astrologically speaking, 35 is all about. Art and media often do this: reflect astrology without even trying. It’s almost like astrology is a tool that mirrors something deeply ingrained in all of us, whether we know the mechanics of it or not. I often talk to clients who are turning 35 about how the fears about this year are connected to the societal urge to make it a milestone, when really it’s 36 that is the milestone. 35 is the space between.
The 12th house is one of the houses known as metakosmios or in-between places, and SATC Season 4 opens with three of the girlies deep in that in-between. Charlotte is separated from her husband Trey, yet having sex with him in hidden spots (a major 12th house topic) like restaurant bathrooms and party coat closets. Miranda, frustrated with her own dating prospects, gives up sex and develops an addiction (another 12th house topic) to chocolate cake instead. Carrie, single after Season 3’s disastrous blow-ups with both Aidan and Big, insists in the season premiere that she’d prefer to spend her looming 35th birthday alone (yet another 12th house topic).
Samantha, the only one of the four who is further along in the 35-44 age bracket (“Welcome to my box,” she tells Carrie as the girls fill out a questionnaire for a Single’s service over breakfast), insists Carrie throw herself a birthday dinner. But, due to a series of unfortunate events, on the night of her 35th, Carrie is left at Il Cantinori alone. The night also includes Carrie dropping her birthday cake in wet cement and being heckled by construction workers, Charlotte walking in on Carrie showering, and Carrie’s problematic ex Mr. Big showing up to haunt her in his limo at the end of the night. All things that can send one into a shame spiral. The 12th house is a place of solitude and despair, but also a place where we must develop boundaries. 35 is a year where we test these limits as an exercise to get to know ourselves.
12th house themes of privacy, boundaries and self-sabotage ripple through every episode of SATC’s fourth season, in ways both ridiculous: Miranda dating a guy who never closes the bathroom door, Charlotte being forced to mattress shop with both Trey and his mother, Carrie worrying about finding time for her “Secret Single Behaviors” when Aidan moves in; and profound: Miranda weighing whether she should have an abortion or not when she gets pregnant after a one-night-mercy-fuck with Steve. If the script itself wasn’t 12th house enough, during the mid-season break, 9/11 happened and the series’ “fifth main character” was never the same. Though the show like most of its set-in-NYC contemporaries had no clue how to deal with 9/11 dramaturgically—besides briefly becoming an “I <3 NY” tourism commercial—the event put an even darker filter over the series. Very fitting for the 12th house.
As I approach 35 myself, I see where it’s possible to, like Carrie, get stuck in the rut of “I am 35 and alone.” The 12th house is where we can choose escape, dissociation and defeat. But the 12th house is also where we learn to comfort ourselves. It’s where we put cycles of self destruction to bed. By the end of the season, Charlotte leaves Trey, Miranda finds a way to co-parent with Steve, Carrie finally tells Aidan how she really feels. I’m learning that there’s a fine line between overstepping boundaries and stepping out of my comfort zone. 35 is a year where I must learn to dance this delicate dance.
As Carrie monologues after Miranda’s mother’s funeral, “There’s the kind of support you ask for and the kind of support you don’t ask for.” Yes the 12th house reveals hidden enemies, bad habits and patterns of self sabotage, but it also gives us the gift of meditation, retreat and healing behind the scenes. As I turn 35, I hope I’m open and humble enough to know the difference.
It's my 35th birthday and the Full Moon in Scorpio and I think my 12th house might be on fire lol. I'm so glad I found this. Thank you 💗