Midlife Transits

January 2010 marks the end of the astrological emphasis on Aquarius and your finances. Neptune will still be in the financial sector of your chart, fogging things up and influencing your tastes, but Jupiter leaves Aquarius for Pisces on the 17th. You’ll need to work harder for what you get this year than last. With Saturn in Libra up at the top of your chart, matters relating to your career or employment situation are on your chart’s mind, perhaps because you’re anticipating a change in finances.

Not to worry, though, there’s plenty of energy in your sign for the time being and it’s your birthday month. Not only is it your birthday month, but there’s a new moon solar eclipse in your sign on the 15th that is supposed to bring you goodies. It is part of a series of eclipses this year that are supposed to set you on the path you’ll be following for a decade or so. Jupiter in Pisces will be beneficial in its own way also, mostly in matters regarding your mental development.

As for 2010, it’s an unusual year. The only two planets that stay in the same sign all year are Neptune in Aquarius and Pluto in your own sign. Everything else moves around, including Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter. Usually things are a bit more stable.

In spite of the instability or perhaps because of it, 2010 is going to be a big year for many if not most Capricorns. Capricorns born during the first 5 days of the sign will have the most to deal with from the stars, but others will see big changes as well. Capricorns around the same age as Obama will see some help from Pluto, who will be their best friend during the year.

Overall, though, it’s a year when things can change so rapidly that it’s probably wise to check your horoscope at least every month. This may even be the year to get your personal chart done, so that you can have a shot at figuring out what the heck is going on. Change can be very exciting, but it’s nice to have some kind of map as to where it’s leading you.

No sluffing off in January! The skies are filled with Capricorn energy, from the sun to Pluto, and Capricorn expects you to do your chores. That means your homework, your housework, and your work work. Jupiter is moving away from dreamy Neptune in your solar house of wishes and into Pisces, where he’ll take a brief nap. The symbolism of this is to stop wishing, get your rest at night, and then get up and go get ‘em. Doing, not thinking, is the order of the day.

It’s kind of like you’re mountain climbing these days, in an astrological sense, as most of the energy is around the peaks of your chart. There’s even an eclipse in the sign at the top of your solar chart, Capricorn, on the 15th. This is the second in a pair. The first one, a lunar eclipse right at New Year’s Eve, occurred at the base of your chart. It dealt with the very basics of your home life, the foundation. If you didn’t feel a dose of energy in that sector last month, you may feel it in January.

As for the rest of 2010, this could well be an exciting year for you. Uranus and Jupiter will enter your sign, putting more of an astrological spotlight on your sign than you’ve experienced in a long time. The challenge will come from committed relationships, as Saturn in the sign opposite yours is likely to brook no excuses for failing to live up to your responsibilities in this area. It’s going to be quite  a year. Get ready!

One of the themes of 2010 for Taurus is changes in employment matters (and therefore probably changes in financial matters). Saturn is in your employment sector, and January starts out with Jupiter, Neptune, and Chiron in your career sector. Jupiter will leave that sector mid-month, and that could precipitate a change in your career status, hopefully a pleasant one. That doesn’t mean that your daily experience of your job is likely to be easy; Saturn indicates that you need to either work hard or attend to problems on the job.

If you employ others, your workers are likely to need extra attention not only this month, but throughout the year. Taurus folks who have been laid off may finally get a job as the economy upticks. On other hand, Taureans who are already employed may need to work extra hard to keep their boats floating in these rather uncertain seas.

On a more abstract level, this month focuses on your understanding of life. Your chart is starting to put some of the pieces of the puzzle together, connecting what were once separate ideas. Around the time of the eclipse on the 15th, a lightbulb may go on in your mind. This trend continues throughout 2010, making this a year that could see quite a lot of mental growth for you.

Some of you will also find yourselves doing more traveling than usual. Yet others will be motivated to sign up for some sort of serious program of study.

January is Capricorn month. That means there’s an emphasis of the basics of everyday survival for everyone. Party time is over. An eclipse on the 15th highlights this theme. Attend to business, especially in joint financial matters, as the overall economic outlook is still rather difficult. Your ruler Mercury is also retrograde in this same sector of your chart that deals with marital finances, until right around the time when the eclipse takes place. This indicates that a reversal could take place mid-month. Hopefully, it would be a positive reversal, such as your spouse’s financial situation unexpectedly improving.

After the 19th, the emphasis shifts slightly to the less difficult energy of Aquarius, as the sun moves into that sign. In your solar chart, Aquarius is the sign that represents your beliefs, your spiritual practice, even your daily rituals. Time to get back to your meditation routine or whatever similar practice you use to calm your mind.

At the very end of the month, there’s a full moon in the creative sign of Leo. Leo in your solar chart represents skills, crafts, and daily self-expression. This would be a great time to complete a creative project or to indulge in some artistic play, just for yourself.

As for the year ahead, it’s a good one for Geminis with a scientific or technical bent (which many of you have). Energy in Capricorn, Aries, and Libra puts a focus on the more rational elements of life at which you excel.

It is what it is. 2010 is a year of changes for Cancer, changes that will happen on their own timetable. Let’s take a look at some of them. Jupiter will move from Aquarius to Pisces this year on the 17th, although sun in Aquarius will keep the Aquarian theme going into February. This heralds changes in joint or marital finances.

On the 15th, there’ll be an eclipse in Capricorn, the sign opposite yours. There was an eclipse in Cancer at the very end of December. This pair suggests changes in relationships, perhaps major changes, such as getting married or engaged. Mercury is also in your relationships sector all month. He goes from retrograde to direct motion right around the time of the eclipse. If things do not seem all that promising when it comes to relationships at the beginning of the month, take heart. That can change quickly at mid-month.

The other moon event of the month is a full moon in Leo, the sign of children, at the very end of January. This could bring minor changes in personal finances or matters relating to your own children.

The big themes of the year have to do with those aforementioned relationships, which are scheduled for something of a transformation, and an emphasis on your solar sector of travel abroad and then changes in your career. The emphasis on travel begins right away. Stay tuned for developments on the career front in the summer.

How to get a job or how to keep a job. Those are the questions for January. There’s an eclipse in your job sector on January 15th. Eclipses can work so quickly that you end up saying to yourself ‘how did that happen?’ This is a new moon solar eclipse, good news for those of you who have been job-hunting for awhile. You may finally get the job you need.

Mercury is in this same job sector of your chart all month, and he switches from retrograde motion to direct right around the time of the eclipse. If things feel like they are going south at the beginning of the month, take heart, they can turn around on a dime in the middle.

But wait, there’s more. Venus is also in your job sector until the 18th, increasing the chances that you’ll get some sort of a gift or present from the universe in the job-related sector of your life.

At the end of the month, your annual full moon takes place. This can be a bit depleting, so you may want to stay home on the 30th, especially if mid-month was exciting and fast-paced.

As for the year ahead–well, let’s just talk about the first 6 months for now. You’ve got great energy from Mars in your own sign until June, plus, you’ve got Jupiter in the sector of your chart that deals with non-ordinary income. That means things like benefits, pensions, annuities, insurance payouts, royalties, etc. It seems that you’re about to get some sort of money somehow. That’s pretty good news. In fact, you’ve got one of the best year ahead outlooks of any of the signs. Be glad. I’m sure you deserve it.

This month, there’s a dust-up between Saturn in your solar second house and Pluto in your solar 5th house. Saturn in the 2nd relates to money. It means (most often, not always) reduced income or the need to make serious purchases, such as buying a car. This  trend has been in effect since October, so some of you have already made a big purchase.

The 5th house represents pleasure, kids, love, creativity. The dust-up indicates that your financial obligations are at odds with your desire to enjoy yourself. On the one hand, there’s an eclipse in this same 5th house that indicates the possibility of new love or a fresh start in some creative or pleasurable area of your life, especially since happy Jupiter is entering your 7th house of relationships. Indeed, a major theme for all of 2010 is relationships.

On the other hand, there’s a long-term trend toward financial pressure, as Uranus is now bearing down on your 8th house of debt, preparing to enter there in June. I suppose the message is enjoy yourself now, but prepare for the future and look to managing your expenses, even if you do fall in love this month! Finally, a reminder that Mars in Leo has got your subconscious mind vrooming along with energy. You may want to keep a dream journal or record your inspirations.

As for 2010, if you can keep a clear head when it comes to relationships and money–you should do all right.

This month, there’s a lot of energy in the sign of Capricorn. That’s the sign that cares about all those practical new year things like paying off your holiday bills. Money may be a little tighter than it was last year, thanks to Saturn in your sign, but things should be manageable. There’s a solar eclipse this month in the part of your chart that relates to home and family; something new is brewing there. It’s possible that you’ll get some ideas for dressing up your residence a little bit or making it more comfortable.

Conditions at work should be improving, and your social life looks to be hopping all the way through June. Libras involved in freelance work in creative occupations may see a decline in receipts this year, as economically beneficial Jupiter leaves your 5th house of creativity on the 17th. By the same token, Libras who’ve been spending a lot of money on their kids should see expenses ease. Expenses and receipts should both go up for those who hold regular hourly or salaried jobs as Jupiter makes this switch. Regardless of your own personal circumstances, Saturn in your sign asks you to watch your pennies. Small amounts add up, and if you are careful about the small things, you should be able to afford the big ones.

As for 2010, the most exciting trend is likely to be Uranus finally leaving Pisces and your work sector for awhile this year. He’ll enter the sign opposite yours and will focus on your relationships. You’ll do a lot of growing in this area, but you’ll probably be glad to get a break from the pressure your sign has been feeling on the job for quite awhile.

There are two different areas of focus in January for Scorpio. One is the little stuff, the stuff of daily life and the ordinary business of life. You may see a subtle or large shift in everyday matters around the time of the eclipse on January 15. It would be the structure of your activities that would be most affected. If your daily life is not affected, relationships with siblings, neighbors, or extended family relatives (cousins, etc.) may be.

The other focus has to do with residence and property matters, as Jupiter leaves your home sector on January 17. Scorpios who have been searching for a place to buy or an apartment to rent could get a lucky break this month. Some of you will also want to finish up home improvements before Jupiter leaves this area of your chart.

Career matters continue to be important, although there aren’t likely to be major new developments. This is a time to pay your dues in your career and keep momentum going.

As for your 2010, one big change starts this month when Jupiter moves into Pisces. This is likely to bring happy events, perhaps a new love affair, plans for children, progress on a creative project, or something else that you enjoy. In the summer, the focus switches to employment and health-related matters, but that’s a ways off, so we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

January is mostly a very common sense month. It’s all about the practical decisions of daily life. For Sagittarius, this includes decisions about individual and joint property as these are two areas highlighted for you in 2010. This month, some new energy comes in with regard to individual property via an eclipse in Capricorn on the 15th. Joint property matters were highlighted at the eclipse of December 31, but some of the energy may be present this month as well. Use your natural intelligence in all financial matters.

On the other hand, your sign is also benefiting from the long stay in Leo of fiery Mars. This is more interesting to you because it highlights the non-common sense your sign is blessed with and highlights your prophetic powers.  Jupiter also leaves independent Aquarius this month, on the 17th, a shift that will tone down your revolutionary rhetoric somewhat. This shift also decreases the emphasis on language and words in your chart, as well as on public-minded or community activities. Hopefully, you have found some acquaintances who share your interests during the past year that Jupiter has been in this sign.

As for 2010, at last there’s some good energy in your home and family sector. Your home can now be your fortress, your refuge, your haven. If you haven’t found your dream home yet, you have until June 2010 to find it. Get cracking!

Good new for Aquarius. Although Jupiter is leaving your sign on the 17th, he’s moving into Pisces and your second house of material needs. Your ability to provide for your own such needs should get a significant boost from what it’s been over at least the last couple of years. If you have any important personal tasks to finish up, try to get them accomplished before Jupiter leaves your sign. On a related note, buy yourself some new clothes and put forward your ideas while Jupiter is still on your side.

Jupiter in Pisces, meanwhile, has a number of implications. One is that it increases not only your financial abilities, but your other resources, including your physical powers. Jupiter is also related to mental growth, legal issues, and ethics or basic morality. All of these will play a role in your values over the next 6 months.

Saturn in Libra will also be affecting your abilities in 2010, but he’ll focus more on your competence or skills, especially as they relate to areas like writing or publishing. The other big news for 2010 is that Uranus will leave Pisces for awhile and enter Aries. This will also take a big load off your financial situation and will energize your writing or communicating abilities even more.

Lastly, a note about the eclipse in Capricorn on January 15. It occurs in the part of your solar chart that relates to withdrawal and retreat, so you may experience a desire to isolate yourself for awhile and just chill out alone. You may also get some insight into your own unconscious drives. Repressed issues can have an effect on your long-term health, so you would do well to pay attention to anything that surfaces. Finally, a hidden enemy sometimes comes to light during this type of eclipse.

Happy New Year, Pisces! Jupiter enters your sign this month, on the 17th, and that’s generally considered happy news indeed. Jupiter is often beneficial in a financial sense so you may see an increase in this area while Jupiter is in your sign. Jupiter will be there from January 17 through June 5. Then he’ll be in Aries until September 9. The back to your sign for the rest of 2010.

Saturn in Libra in the deep and mysterious 8th house also squares off against Pluto in your social 11th house during the second half of the month. Saturn wants to do things like curl up in the house with a good book and explore the depths of the past or the psyche, while Pluto wants to put the stress on your friendships and social obligations. Pluto will probably win because he’s got an eclipse on his side, one that occurs January 15. The eclipse is also in good angle to Uranus in your sign, so there may be a bit of excitement in the air.

As for 2010, it’s quite a year. Uranus will leave your sign briefly for the first time since 2004, taking away both pressure and excitement from your sign. Uranus in Aries is forceful, and will have an impact on your finances. The weightiest influence of the year is Pluto in Capricorn, urging you toward power in how you relate to society. Saturn and Neptune will be influential, but in a more subtle way. But the single most dominant energy of the year is that of cardinal dynamism. Cardinal signs have lots of energy, are inclined toward action, vigor, and force, while putting a premium on effectiveness. We can all expect a more dynamic year in 2010 than in a long time.

Signs that are having difficult Pluto transits this year and next are Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. In all cases, those whose birthdays are within the first 5 days of the sign are the most affected or have been the most affected. If you have any natal planets within 2 to 7 degrees of these signs, you are also going to experience a challenging Pluto transit in 2010 or 2011. Since I fall into that category, I thought I’d resurrect this post I wrote some time ago.

A reader wrote in to ask if there’s a way to work with difficult Pluto transits rather than against them.  There are ways, and I’ll use this space to mention a few of the ones you don’t hear about too often.

So…what can a person do to work with Pluto energy instead of against it? I don’t have all the answers, but here are a few thoughts.

1.  Figure out what the heck the purpose of the transit is and start implementing it immediately.  How do you figure out what the purpose of the transit is?Sometimes it’s obvious because your insides are screaming with it.  “Get out of this marriage!!!” your miserable soul shouts at you.  “Get a different job; this one is killing you!” your gut keeps growling at you.  And so on. 

Pluto transits are so often about giving things up.  Often they’re about giving up things you don’t want to give up because it will be scary or difficult to do so.  A limiting friendship, a business partnership, a career, a home, a way of approaching life, a romantic attachment that will never work, a toxic relationship with a parent or sibling.  There are an awful lot of things in life that a normal person doesn’t want to give up even though they’re not good for him or her.  Pluto tries to force us to give them up.

If you can’t immediately tell what the purpose of your Pluto transit is by sheer instinct, move on to figuring it out astrologically.  My method is to look first at the house of the planet being squashed by Pluto.  Transiting Pluto squaring your natal sun in the 7th house–most likely Pluto is taking aim at your relationships.  What he’s usually trying to do is smash up your relationship template like a dinner dish.

It might be helpful to know why Pluto does this. In my experience, Pluto does this because your old templates are standing in the way of what you really want, the things you dream of.  You don’t necessarily realize this at the time (or at least I don’t), but Pluto does.  An unhealthy attachment to your aging mother might seem like a source of support and validation of your caring nature to you.  To Pluto, it might seem like the thing that holds you back from real physical and romantic connection with people of your own age.  Although what you have may feel like love, it may hold you back from the love you really want and are capable of experiencing.  You may not realize that you’re finally ready for a mature romantic love–but Pluto does.

If looking at the astrological houses doesn’t help you analyze the purpose, look at the planets involved and then the signs.  Transits to the sun, for example, often involve an update of identity or role in life.  They very often have to do with a deep inner sense of purpose.

Sometimes Pluto purposes are kind of abstract, so don’t feel you have to figure out some deep meaning to work with them. I recall having Pluto conjunct a planet in my 9th house once.  The 9th house governs one’s philosophy of life. I couldn’t believe I would be experiencing Pluto distress over something as simple as my philosophy of life.  Besides, I liked my philosophy of life. I thought my problem was related to my father or overwork or deep issues or the jerk in my life who was driving me crazy.  Then one day I was bitching and moaning and whining about my Pluto transit when I heard myself say “My philosophy has always been blah, blah, blah.”  The person I was with then snapped (in a rather brutal way) “And that’s wrong then, isn’t it?  Because other people aren’t always going to approach things as nicely as you do.”

Bingo!  The light went on. My freaking philosophy of life was wrong.  I actually started crying at that moment because I knew I was finally getting it, what Pluto was on about.  I updated my philosophy of life to take into account that no, other people aren’t always going to share my “nice” approach. Pluto stopped bothering me almost immediately.  What a relief! So don’t overlook the obvious.

2. Pluto’s lessons often have to do with the reality that other people can be bad, wicked, evil, unhealthy, toxic, or morally bankrupt.  I’ve come across many astrologers who swear that Pluto transits are always a manifestation of one’s shadow self, and that we are always just projecting our own bad qualities on to others when we have a difficult time with someone during a Pluto transit.  I’m tempted to acknowledge that this may be true on a deep level, but what I’ll actually say is that’s bull.

Sometimes Pluto doesn’t give a flip about your shadow self.  Sometimes Pluto just wants you to get it through your thick head that someone else’s behavior is morally unacceptable and you should stop accepting it.  Pluto is the most intensely moralistic planet there is.  Pluto believes in right and wrong.  The rest of us think we do and sometimes feel guilty (often for good reason) about our judgmental sides.  But in reality, our sense of morality is much more ambiguous.  Yeah, Mom’s a thief, Dad’s a child molester, and our siblings are sociopaths.

But…we kind of don’t look at it that way.  The situation seems so much more subtle and nuanced because we’re in the thick of things.  We have attachments.  Attachments that fog up our moral compasses.  We accept things because we don’t want to give up our attachments, ego-based ones and otherwise.  So even though the husband, wife, lover, boss, or best friend has betrayed you umpteen times and made it behaviorally clear that he or she feels no moral obligation to treat you with respect–you hang in there.  Then finally Pluto gets fed up with this, steps in, and essentially says “I will make your life miserable until you finally cut the damn toxic cord.  Enough already. Get a clue!”

You can really speed up the difficult aspects of a Pluto transit by getting in touch with your primal sense of morality.  Cut out the ambiguity that Pluto doesn’t acknowledge as valid any longer, and just make a bold and definitive acknowledgment of your moral compass.  ”Such and such behavior is unacceptable to me and I will not tolerate it any longer.” (It can be behavior that took place in the past, by the way. Sometimes Pluto likes to brood over past injustices.) Clearly identify what you believe is right and what you believe is wrong.  This is one of the most effective and under-utilized tricks I know of to tame Pluto.

3. Understand the role of emotions like bitterness and hatred. Pluto is the patron saint of bitterness and hatred. When Pluto gets mad, he doesn’t just get mildly peeved, he taps into a primal well of hatred and rage. Naturally, this scares the living heck out of us mere mortals.  Very few things scare us like Pluto on a rampage, and the really scary thing is finding all the hatred and rage inside oneself (it can happen).  Most of us are pretty much convinced that we’ll be kicked out of society and left to starve if we experience or express the hatred, rage, and bitterness that Pluto blithely embraces. Yet we all have it.  So we might as well know what Pluto’s got in mind.

What Pluto has in mind is that hatred can be cleansing and protective. Hatred, in Pluto’s decidedly unusual lexicon, is the ultimate moral emotion. Hatred and bitterness are the emotions that tell us that something is so wrong, so hurtful, so against the laws of human decency that only furious rejection will save our souls.  Think of a kidnapping victim who sustains herself with hatred of her captors.  That hatred is the last bulwark of her integrity, her inviolate self.  Victims who don’t generate hatred become entangled with their victimizers and subtly began to adopt their values and beliefs. This is usually called the Stockholm Syndrome and it doesn’t just apply to hostages. It applies to workers in punitive corporations, people in abusive marriages, and everyone else who comes to subtly accept their own victimization by believing that it’s okay.

Hatred is not a politically correct emotion, and probably never will be.  But Pluto’s not a politically correct planet.  Pluto hates things that are fundamentally wrong, and he has no intention of changing his mind about that. During a Pluto transit, you can safely (usually, if you keep your head) tap into your own hatred and in the process cleanse your soul.  Sounds a bit high-falutin’ but my goodness I’ve seen it happen with almost miraculous results.  Pluto is not the planet of rebirth for nothing.  Rebirth, it appears, is not pretty–but it sure is impressive.

4. Cry.  Literally. Pluto doesn’t just hate the things that are wrong in your life (even if they’re not as dramatic as what I’ve described), he grieves. He grieves for all that you’ve missed, all that could have been, for time wasted, for hurts endured, for things that can’t be taken back, for losses sustained, and for goodness knows what else.  Pluto is the ultimate grieving planet. Sometimes, you’ve just got to grieve with him.  Just cry it out.  The things you have to grieve may seem very small–petty insults, annoying obstacles, personal character flaws; or very large–deaths, disasters, and losses of gigantic proportion.  Large or small, though, they’re yours. You owe them the dignity of a bit of grief.

Pluto’s ultimate aim is to take what used to work in your life but doesn’t any more–and get rid of it.  Whether it’s an attitude, a habit, a person, a situation, a place, or something else–the sooner you are willing to work to get rid of what’s no longer functional, the sooner Pluto will reward you.

And Pluto does dish out some pretty handsome rewards when he’s done torturing you.  So you might think of what you most desire and set your mind towards the idea that if you can fulfill your Pluto task, you just might get it.

Someone asked a good question recently. If all these people have learned how to tune into the Law of Attraction to attract wealth, why did we fall into the worst recession in decades? It is kind of ironic, isn’t it? All those people believing in infinite abundance, busy trying to attract riches of all sorts, witnessing the single greatest loss of wealth in human history (in absolute not relative terms). Literally trillions and trillions of dollars of wealth were lost during the financial collapse a year ago. I guess you could call it a cosmic joke. The universe does seem to love a good laugh at human expense.

Or you could say it was those Law of Attraction folks themselves that precipitated the crash. You could speculate that their mass of thoughts of abundance just tipped the financial system right over into collapse and revealed it for the house of cards it was. You could say they thought us into a terrible recession. And they did.

Sort of.

Of course, most of the people scooping up false riches during the run up to the collapse weren’t practicing Law of Attraction folks. At least, they didn’t know they were. But they were believing in a world of infinite abundance just the same. They believed housing prices could never fall. That their mathematical models could never fail. That money was just there for the taking and it would never go away. That the economy would never stop growing. They didn’t believe in limits. They believed in infinite wealth.

They believed us right into collapse–because people aren’t supposed to believe in things like unlimited abundance. Housing prices do fall. Mathematical models do fail. No market economy grows uninterrupted forever. There is no unlimited wealth.

Everybody knows this. By the time the average person is two, he or she figures out that unlimited abundance isn’t feasible or realistic and he or she starts hearing and using the magic word ‘no.’ Because there are limits. The toddler can’t do everything and have everything. It’s precisely because everyone knows this that Law of Attraction gurus worked so hard to convince people to overcome their poverty consciousness.

Everyone sensible has a poverty consciousness and is supposed to. Because everyone has known deprivation. No one has ever gotten everything. (Not even Brad Pitt.) That poverty consciousness is not supposed to go away. It is supposed to inform our experience of life, not determine it, but inform it.

Astrology knows this. Astrology is a lot older than any of the Law of Attraction gurus and it is all about the human attempt to figure out and remember (often with great difficulty) what the average two year old knows. Which is what human life is really like.

Abundance thinking in astrology is indicated by the planet Jupiter. Everyone has one in his or her natal chart. We’ve all got abundance thinking and we’ve all got some form of abundance in our lives. Sometimes we recognize it; sometimes we don’t.

Poverty consciousness, or more upliftingly, the knowledge of limits, is represented in astrology by Saturn. We’ve all got Saturn in our natal charts. We all have a sense of limitation. Of scarcity.

The rule of thumb in astrology is that the further away from the sun a planet is, the more powerful it is. (More or less.) Saturn is further out than Jupiter and Saturn trumps Jupiter. We can fly high in our higher minds (Jupiter is the symbol of the higher mind), but we’ve always got to come back to reality (Saturn). What goes up, must come down. Saturn grounds us. He’s real life.

Consider that until the late 1700s, Saturn was the furthest planet known in the solar system. Saturn and its rings bounded human consciousness. Awareness of scarcity was the final arbiter of human destiny.

Then Uranus was discovered and science opened up the doors to further perspectives on the human situation. Collectively, we smashed through some of our previous limits, endured the Industrial Revolution, and learned to live with never-ending change (Uranus is the symbol of rapid change). Neptune and Pluto opened further doors.

But Saturn never went away. The principle of limits didn’t stop being valid. The awareness of scarcity is still an important part of our human legacy and we ought to respect it. If we don’t, quite frankly, we will probably do as many a previous species has done, and destroy the habitat that supports us. It is the awareness of scarcity that allows us to treat our resources and planet as precious and worth saving.

We’ve just finished up, in 2008, a long cycle of Jupiter abundance thinking, due to outer planets (Uranus through Pluto) transiting through the sign of Sagittarius since the 1970s. Sagittarius (ruled by Jupiter) is followed in the zodiac by Capricorn (ruled by Saturn). Knowledge of scarcity follows knowledge of abundance. None of us will see these outer planets in Sagittarius again in our lifetime. An era is over.

We’re now going through the last 16 years of outer planets in Capricorn. When Pluto leaves Capricorn in 2024, another era will end. Neither abundance nor scarcity will resonate in quite the same way.

But that doesn’t mean that Jupiter and Saturn will go away, nor the human imagination of abundance or fear of scarcity. Without the ability to imagine more, we’d never even try to create what doesn’t already exist. But without the knowledge that nothing is infinite, we don’t have the wisdom to responsibly use what we create.