Midlife Transits

Someone asked me the other day about transits being more powerful when the transiting planet is stationing, why this seemed to be so. I don’t have the answer to that question, but I think it often has to do with the fact that a stationing planet seems to move so slowly that it has plenty of time to deliver a blast of energy.

But if you don’t care about the jargon and just want to know what happens when a transiting planet stations in angle to one of your personal planets–take a look at Tiger Woods’s life these days.

In his case, Uranus in Pisces is squaring his Sagittarius moon. Uranus is the planet of ‘hey, let’s unexpectedly disrupt everything!’ and a Sagittarius moon tends to think to itself: ‘I’m really not sure I can be satisfied with just one person.’ When Uranus wants to disrupt a Sagittarius moon, outing it would be as good a way to do that as any.

Dropping the wife bomb on a philandering husband would probably be enough for a Uranus square that didn’t have much time to get juice in its grid. But Uranus stationed at the degrees of Tiger Woods’s moon (22 degrees) and is spending not quite 8 weeks there. That’s plenty of time to get juice in the system.

Tiger’s public troubles started when Uranus had only a few weeks at 22 degrees under its belt. It didn’t actually station until the beginning of December (right around the time when everyone figured out what was going on). It’s got another few weeks before it even gets to 23 degrees. The flaming spears of devil Uranus still have some heat on them.

The turning point has already come, though. Right around the time Uranus’s apparent motion stopped and then switched direction from retrograde to forward. The entire (very energetic) transit, which stretches back to 2008, will be over relatively soon. But the public’s perception of him has probably been forever altered. It’s not actually scheduled to stop getting altered until February 2010. For ol’ Tiger is not just facing Uranus’s wrath in square to his moon, but also in square to his Midheaven (reputation). The financial ramifications could stretch well beyond that, as Neptune is getting into the act and will square his Scorpio Venus in 2010. When it rains, it pours.

Supposedly, there’s a point to all this, at least from the point of view of Tiger’s chart. The point would theoretically be something like this:

Uranus in Pisces to Sagittarius Moon: Dude, grow up. Seriously. You’re playing around like an adolescent while people are making sacrifices for you. Namely, the person you are married to. Get a clue.

Moon in Sagittarius: I don’t want to grow up. You only get old once, but you can be immature and heedless forever!

Uranus in Pisces: The mother of your children is being betrayed here. You are warned.

Moon in Sagittarius: I don’t listen to warnings. That’s my nature! I’m Sagittarian. I have lots of good qualities and carelessness of danger is one of them.

Uranus in Pisces: ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

Moon in Sagittarius: What just happened? One minute I was having Thanksgiving dinner, the next minute I was lying in street and featured prominently in the tabloids.

Uranus in Pisces: Perhaps you’d like to reconsider whether it is time for you to grow up a bit?

If Tiger is smart, his moon will grow up a bit. That’s what transits do for us. They update our birth chart placements. What was fine and dandy for a young man or a teenager perhaps, is not so fine and dandy for someone with two kids and the net worth of  a small country to worry about. When Uranus comes around to update your birth placements by square or opposition, let’s hope you get the message before he destroys your car.

One final note: the supposed astrological marker for an athlete is Mars in the 9th house near the Midheaven. Sure enough, Tiger’s got it.