Midlife Transits

Happy Birthday Aries! The first half of April sees Mercury still lagging in Pisces, going direct on the 4th. Outer planet Neptune is here as well (as usual) and so is Chiron. Pisces is your solar sign of going within. With Mercury here, the indication is that if you want answers to nagging questions, however mundane (like ‘where should I go on vacation if I ever get one?’), you should consult yourself and not the travel magazines.

The continuing Pisces influence also indicates that until the 16th, you could do with a little down time, some quiet leave-me-the-heck-alone time. You probably know that better than anyone, but beware the temptation to just flop down on the bed the moment you get away from the hecticity that is your life. To really recharge yourself, you need to plan some semi-structured engaging activities. Something where you can really focus on the low-stress task at hand. Mere flopping, however well-deserved, will simply leave you feeling restless and discontented.

Why so? Because the early part of the month is also counter-balanced by the energetic sun in your sign and the hyper-energetic Uranus there as well. You’ve got to give your mind something soothing to do or work on because the restless Aries planets will give you no peace unless you’re doing something, even while you’re relaxing.

Not only that, when the sun is in your sign, people tend to pay more attention to you. Generally that’s a good thing, but with your active chart this month, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if the attention came in the form of being peppered with polite questions by everyone who needs to know your opinion or decision on something. It’s like you’re the director of the movie of your life and while many want to assist you, they cannot seem to make any decisions about how to do so without checking with you 5 times first. Not only that, but on the 4th, there’s a full moon in Libra that seems to bring a certain urgency to relationship matters.

Perhaps fortunately, on the 19th, the sun moves into Taurus, your money house. The questions may subside a bit and you can perhaps actually pay attention to your financials and see what’s up in that sector of your life. Your financial new moon takes place on the 20th, a good time to ask and get answers to your questions about your financial status.

Okay, now let’s look further down the road into your year ahead. Your ruler Mars turns direct on the 13th in Virgo, and remains in Virgo until early July. Whatever your life has been like job and health-wise, expect even more of the same until then. In July, your ruler resumes normal activity, speeding through the signs as if he’d never stopped to stir up activity in your work life. That’s Mars for you; once he’s gone, he doesn’t look back. You won’t be able to either, so if you desperately need to get some stuff taken care of employment or health-wise, do it before July.

In June, Jupiter moves from Taurus to information-gathering Gemini. Prepare to gather and dispense information like a maniac for 12 months, starting in June 2012. Saturn also changes signs this year. He moves from Libra to Scorpio in October.

While in Libra, Saturn’s in what’s called an angular house in your solar chart. What this means, in essence, is that Saturn doesn’t rest while he’s in Libra. He pokes and prods at your relationships until you’re just desperate for him to cut it out. That’s why it’s good news that when he moves into Scorpio, he’ll be much less attentive. I don’t mean he’ll just lay around doing nothing, but comparatively speaking, the shift in signs is like getting a vacation from Mr. Saturn.

The downside of this is that when Saturn’s in your 8th house (which is what Scorpio represents in your solar chart), sometimes your sex life takes a vacation too. If it doesn’t take a vacation, sometimes you get much more serious about it. Or you pay more attention to it. A lot more attention.

Meanwhile, Uranus continues its 7 year sojourn in your sign, and Neptune rests quietly in your solar 12th house. Neither of these influences is that new; you have some idea what your life has been like in 2011 and so far in 2012, and these planets continue in the vein they’ve already established. The action really comes from Pluto in your career sector.

This month, Pluto turns retrograde on the 10th. Around that time, things can suddenly die, specifically in your career life, such as major projects. In June and September, Pluto squares Uranus, in a perhaps successful attempt to cause as much trouble as possible. Ahem, I mean, in an attempt to facilitate change by rooting out and eliminating old structures that have outlived their welcome.

In real life, this can mean anything from a boss leaving your company to an overwhelming sense of pressure that your career path is squeezing the life out of your soul and pressing you into a box you don’t want to fit into.

The very general idea is that you will have a desire to protest or change something that you’re sick and tired of, and that it will take courage and judgment to decide how much protesting and change is in your best interests. The planets will do their best to muck up the judgment thing in the hopes that you will make the kind of fundamental and significant change that they love. You don’t have to do what they urge you to do; you do have free will–but you do have to acknowledge that something is happening, something’s in the air, and you need to decide where you stand in regards to it.

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