Midlife Transits

A lot going on in December. First, there’s a lot of jolly energy in the sign that represents your spouse, partner, or best friend. Then there’s a lot of leader-y, organized, gruff but strategic energy in Capricorn. Then Mercury throws a tantrum because people aren’t paying enough attention to him and goes retrograde on the 10th. (Listen to this podcast for more information on retrogrades and why Mercury gets more attention during his retrograde periods.)

Finally, there’s a potentially powerful lunar eclipse in your sign on the 21st, the winter solstice. Eclipses in your own sign can be exhilarating and exciting or they can be oppressive and abrupt. They can represent the sudden opportunity you’ve been waiting for or a bit of bad news you didn’t expect.

The news may not be about you specifically; you may learn that a person from your past has died or become ill. There are a lot of possibilities, including the possibility that this eclipse will pass by without notice. Eclipses are like little despots; they don’t let anyone else tell them what to do or how to behave, and they expect you to jump when they address you. It will ultimately be up to you to decide whether to jump and how high.

In spite of all the mixed influences, the bottom line for the month is quite simple. You gotta do what you gotta do. It’ll actually be quite clear in most respects. If you don’t feel compelled to do something, you won’t and you shouldn’t. If you do feel compelled to do something, you will and you should.

Venus retrogrades back into your solar 5th house in November, then goes direct on the 18th. The 5th house is the house of children, your own and others. Great time to reconnect with the young ones in your life.

Saturn’s in your 5th house also, all the way through 2012. This puts you in the role of adviser to younger people on their personal and practical problems. If you are young yourself, it puts you in a great position to get advice from mentors or people with more experience, especially if you have problems in your personal life. The 5th house is also the house of a person’s love life, and the reassuring voice of someone who’s been through the ringer with love can help you get perspective and peace of mind.

Yet another implication of Saturn in the 5th can be that of taming the notorious Gemini flirting impulses. The sign of Gemini does not naturally wish to settle down or be serious in relationships. The planet Saturn does. Saturn in your love sector encourages you to learn how to enter into a serious courtship.

Not that there won’t be any playfulness in your love life, not at all. There’s a boatload of playful Sagittarian energy in your 7th house of relationships. The sun enters Sagittarius on the 22nd–playfulness abounds then. Mercury enters Sagittarius on the 8th to stir up debate–although you’d be wise to remain neutral if the object of your affections gets too disagreeable about disagreement. Mars is also in your 7th house all month, and it’s the sort of influence that can get your significant other angry about imaginary offenses. Bottom line: your relationships are important this month, and they won’t be boring.

Only 2 more days of Virgo energy! By the 3rd of the month, you’re free of that when your ruler Mercury moves into Libra. That’s good for you because Virgo represents the moody 4th house in your chart, and you’ve had enough of that, what with Saturn whining in that sector of your chart until relatively recently.

Now the energy shifts to Libra. The sun, Mercury, Saturn and a new moon on the 7th will all highlight this sign. Your love life may get a boost or the effects may be rather subtle. The 5th house, which Libra represents in your chart, is normally an exuberant happy house. Saturn, however, is a rather subdued and even sad planet. It’s almost as if the energies can sort of cancel each other out. Instead of the highs and lows of love, you can get stability instead.

There are other possible effects of this emphasis on your 5th house. You could gain greater control over your love and dating relationships. You could find your life partner–make an intention at the new moon if that’s your desire. Or you could start dating someone older.

Sometimes the 5th house also relates to one’s children. Same principles apply–stability in their lives or your relationship with them. Or greater control (perhaps just the desire for it). Solving of problems in your relationship with them. Or even realizing that your kids are growing older!

On an unrelated note, Mars is in your 6th house of work this month. Time to perform on the job! Aggressive measures for maintaining your health are also favored.

On the 9th of September, Jupiter moves from Aries back into Pisces. In this shift, he moves from the area of your chart related to politics and society into the part of your chart concerned with your personal reputation, profession, and career. This, I suppose, is great news if you’re sick of contemporary politics. Jupiter and Uranus will team up to try to make your own career more interesting than anything going on in the  rest of the world. Could be fun.

Mars also switches signs this month, moving from Libra into Scorpio on the 14th. Mars in Libra encourages competitive play, games, and tests of skill, strategy, and endurance. It also favors witty conversation and socializing. Not too bad.

Mars in Scorpio is typically not as fun. It’s more about surviving on the job. In late October, Mars in your job sector will team up with Jupiter and Uranus in your career sector to try and make a bold move in your professional life. For the moment, however, it’s more about hanging in there and seeing what happens, especially around the 16th or so through the 23rd or thereabouts.

In astrology, the job sector is also the health sector, so if you don’t have much going on at work, Mars could take an interest in your health. The thing about Mars is that he is a bit reckless and not too careful. If you get all sporty in the first half of the month, you could pay for it in the 2nd half. A wee bit of caution with your body is advised.

Pluto in your 8th house spends almost the whole month nursing grudges against various other planets. He squares off against no fewer than 4 planets this month. In your chart, all of these dust-ups have to do with relationships in one way or another. The action is so intense that it sounds like a good month to just go into the backyard and do some gardening, hiding out from everyone. You’re better off connecting to something tangible, like the earth, than operating in your normal air sign arena of thoughts and conversation.

Another possibility is to escape through travel. Neptune in your travel house is one of the few major planets not getting involved in any major arguments this month. A nice long trip could even be a healing endeavor. Try to go during the first 2 weeks before Uranus moves back into your career sector.

If you must stay in the fray the whole month, prepare for an involuntary education in the ways of society, because ours is likely to be rife with conflict. If you are able to ignore the angst in the general population, then the aspects may take you on a more personal journey. What is happening during the first part of the month is that Jupiter in Aries in your solar 11th house is squaring off against Pluto in your 8th. Jupiter in Aries represents, on one level, your powers of reasoning and judgment, because that’s what Jupiter specializes in. Pluto, on the other hand, represents the volcanic sub-surface instincts that ruthlessly promote survival, no matter the cost. Pluto specializes in the non-rational and cares little for conventional wisdom and judgment. You can actually bulk up your rational mind during the first half of the month by challenging your own instincts and discovering what lies below them.

Toward the second half of the month, Pluto squares off against Saturn in the part of your chart that governs love affairs and children. The same dynamic applies, but is even more intense. The bottom line is that if you are going to engage with people on anything other than a superficial level this month, you’ll need to be ready to check yourself so that your reactions don’t become overly intense.

The bulk of the planetary action in July continues to revolve around your solar 11th house of your social life, friends, clubs, and casual relationships. All Uranus and Jupiter in this area of your chart want to do is be friendly and hang out. Is that so wrong?

Apparently, Pluto and Saturn think so, because they make frowny faces at Uranus and Jupiter for most of the month. Why is anyone’s guess. Saturn in Libra could have something to do with disapproving children or lovers, but what’s gotten under Pluto’s skin is hard to say.

If I’m going to guess, I’m going to guess that Pluto has gotten tired of Jupiter’s happy mask. Pluto digs on honesty in a serious way, and he is mindful that Jupiter and your sign of Gemini will both conspire to put on a facade of cheeriness that Pluto could be sick of trying to sustain. Pluto doesn’t feel like being cheerful. He just wants to get to the point and leave the bubbliness behind. It will be up to you to decide how much of Pluto’s honesty to reveal.

Perhaps you can get away from conundrums like these by spending the new cash that the eclipse in Cancer on July 11 is scheduled to deliver to you. Nothing like a shopping spree to perk up the spirits. I wish I could promise that all Geminis will see some sort of material reward in July, but not all eclipses affect all people in a sign. Still, some of you will have reason to celebrate, and that’s a good thing.

Lots of shifts in June. Eclipse season starts with a lunar eclipse in Capricorn on June 26. Mars moves into Virgo after spending about 8 months in Leo. Jupiter joins Uranus in Aries. Basically, the summer heats things up in an astrological sense. So let’s go over what some of this might mean for you.

First off, the eclipse: This eclipse series, which started last summer, has been more powerful than the one before it, in 2007 and 2008. You may remember the craziness of last summer. This eclipse happens to fall in your deep and mysterious 8th house, where the deep and mysterious Pluto is currently traveling. Sometimes that means that something surprisingly deep and mysterious will happen. Usually, however, it doesn’t. What it usually means is that something not all that deep or mysterious will happen that will later prove to have surprisingly deep and long-lasting effects. Example: woman got into a minor car wreck. Decided she got into it because she was going out to get cigarettes, decided to quit smoking, which had, of course, long lasting effects. Man finds out he needs minor surgery for intestinal polyps, which leads him to change his eating habits for the long term. Woman gets her purse snatched walking her dog, which leads her to move to a new neighborhood. Small things that end up having big effects.

Mars in Virgo can also be kind of deep because it’s at the bottom of your chart, hanging out with the relatively deep Saturn in the same sign. Strangely, they also like to focus on  the small stuff. These two planets would be digging around for problems and/or opportunities in your home and family life. As in small stuff that bugs you deeply. Or small stuff that could be corrected for big gain.

Jupiter and Uranus in Aries–not so deep. They are making more of a lateral move out of your outwardly focused career house into your also outwardly focused  sector of social life and community participation. The real change that they are making is that they don’t care quite so much what other people think about your career or reputation any more. They care more about what you want. If you want to put lampshades on your head and dance around on tables til dawn, they will pretty much support you. Their motto is that while you may only be young once, you can be immature forever. Your job will be to figure out what kind of immaturity suits you best at this stage of your life.

As for the rest of the year, the energy of this month will be in play for much of the next 12 months, with a big exception. Energy will shift away from home and family and toward love, creativity and children. As it shifts toward love, creativity, and children, the deepness aspect gets depthier and depthier. Layers and layers of creative emotion will be there to be explored if you care to explore them. This is not exactly supposed to be easy, in the sense that the aspects are supposed to be difficult for all the signs over the next 12 months. However, your particular isn’t scheduled to be hit especially hard, and nothing especially negative is likely to happen based on your sun sign. It really is just a matter of how much exploring you want to do.

The inner planets are moving along at a good clip (with the exception of Mercury) as we go through May of this year. Venus will zip through your sign from April 25th to May 19. The sun will enter your sign on the 20th, so you’ll have plenty of personal Gemini energy to work with all month. Venus moving into Cancer on the 19th will also mark a shift in the skies toward a more compassionate and caring attitude than we’ve seen lately. For Gemini, Venus in your own sign and the next represents an opportunity to consciously place value on acts of caring, kindness and empathy all month.

Venus will also oppose Pluto on the 23rd. Pluto in Capricorn is located in a part of your chart where it can represent physical healing and regeneration. When Venus opposes Pluto, you may benefit from a small ‘healing crisis.’  It’s a good time for a physical detox program. The 17th is another good day for healing, albeit healing in more a spiritual or psychological sense.

In other news, Uranus will move from your career sector on the 27th into your solar 11th house. The 11th house represents a lot of things, but one of the main things it represents is sociability. It relates to activities such as getting together with friends, parties, and social occasions of all sorts. The most straightforward interpretation would be simply that you will be doing more of these things in the months ahead and that you will place more emphasis on them or at least that Uranus will want you to. He’s getting tired of thinking about your career and wants to see what’s going on with other people. In general, this is a less stressful place to host Uranus and more fun, so we’ll file this astrological development under the heading ‘good news.’

Probably the biggest news for Gemini in April is that Saturn moves from Libra back into Virgo. You’ve been through this drill before. Saturn is the sign of self-discipline, and Virgo is a sign that’s hot for self-improvement. As a client told me today, “My friends and I are all kind of tired of self-improvement and personal growth right now.”

You might be too, but there are just a little over 3 months to go of Saturn being in a sensitive spot in your chart. After August, you can give self-improvement a nice long rest. But in the meantime, you’ve got to make sure you’ve got your act together, once again.

Have a habit of running late? Time to break it once and for all. Or whatever your self-identified fault might be–it’s time for to use your intelligence in training yourself to achieve what you want to achieve in terms of personal habits. As it so happens, you’ll have lots of help this month from the inner planets. They’re all rooting around in your subconscious mind, trying to dig out the real reasons for why you act the way you do. By and large, they should be happy to share their information with Saturn, which could make it much easier for you shift things without having to use excessive force.

If excessive force is to be applied, it will come from Uranus, who is once again fighting with Saturn, still in your 10th house of career, still determined to bring about changes, no matter how doubtful you may be. Another spin on the month’s energies might be that reality is going to be what you interpret it to be–so you’ll want to get your story straight.

Which brings us to another element of the month’s energies. Your communication skills are likely to be put to the test–especially with family members and/or with authority figures, government officials, bosses, and the like. Nobody is likely to know what’s going on, and you’ll be looked upon to sort through it all in a grounded, factual fashion. Fortunately, this is something Gemini can do with great skill.

This is your career month, Gemini. There are 5 placements that move through Pisces, your career sign, in March. There’s also a new moon in that sector on the 15th. Three of the placements come and go pretty quickly. Venus leaves Pisces by the 7th, Mercury by the 17th, and the sun by the 20th. Jupiter and Pisces last a little longer.

Of these, Jupiter is the most important one because it can bring long-lasting benefits to the house it travels through. It is often associated with learning new skills or even formally attending a school or university of some sort. If you haven’t yet signed up for any career-related learning opportunities, you’ve got plenty of supportive energy for that in March.

This trend can tie in with the eclipse series in Cancer and Capricorn that’s in effect in 2010. The universe can help you substantially increase your earning power this year if you’re willing to play ball. The earlier you act, the better. In fact, if you’re reading this February, get started now. Venus can help you. Next month, planets will start rolling into Taurus, the part of your chart where they take a nap. It will theoretically be a little bit harder for you to operate at your usual peak mental efficiency.

If you don’t have a traditional career, you can still indulge in recreational learning and/or schooling this month. You could even study an occult subject or a metaphysical one if you’re interested. You would probably greatly enjoy the process.

February is Aquarius month. That makes it your travel month. With a bunch of planets in Aquarius and Mars in the opposite sign of Leo, you’ll want to go somewhere, to get out of the house. If long travel is not in the cards, at least take some trips or get outdoors. It’s not good for your sign to go stir crazy during the winter months. Of course, remember to bundle up or at least wear a hat when you get out and about if you live in the northern hemisphere. Gemini is not a sign that tolerates the cold very well.

Aquarius is also the sign of friendships and group activities. A getaway with a small group of friends would be ideal, especially during the long President’s Day weekend, when a new moon favors getting out of town.

After the 17th, you’ll need to get out in a different way–to see and be seen. The sun will move to the top of your chart, the part where you are most visible. This is a lucky spot for you this year, and your career prospects are enhanced. With Venus in Pisces from the 11th on, make sure you look good when you go out. Invest in some new apparel if your image needs an upgrade. This is also a good month to splurge on Valentine’s Day; take your honey someplace swank or drop some hints that you’d like to do it up right this year.

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.

For some people, December is a predictably stressful time of year. If you typically get overloaded, you might want to force yourself to meditate or otherwise slow yourself down and step back from the hustle bustle. A lot of excellent aspects in the detached sign of Aquarius will support you if you do so, and the exercise could be marvelously healing.

This is also the time of year when the sun is in the sign opposite yours. This indicates you see the best of people and you see the worst of them this month. A little marital tension is par for the course. Once the sun enters Capricorn on the 21st, you have permission to stay home and decompress for the rest of the month.

You may also want to make a note to sneak away and spend some time on your own on the 2nd, when there’s a full moon in your sign. Get yourself an early holiday gift, and just take a bit of time to check in with yourself.The new moon that symbolizes getting gifts for others takes place on the 16th; useful especially if you are not buying the same old gifts everyone else is getting but are choosing more unusual or hand-picked gifts.

Finally, there’s yet another lunar event this month. A full moon eclipse in Cancer takes place at the very end of the month. This sign has to do with your values, your tastes, and your income. Some will not be affected, but some will come to a realization regarding these matters or get some surprising news.

Health month for Gemini! The sun’s in Scorpio, your health sign. Time to eat those fruits and vegetables, get your annual checkups done, and all that jazz.

It’s also relationship month, starting on the 16th, when your ruler moves into your relationship sign of Sagittarius. We’re talking exclusive, committed relationships here, not casual dating relationships. Nope, the dating relationship sector of your is a whole nother story. In fact, your solar chart is now firmly opposed to casual relationships and it may start pushing you toward marriage, even if you don’t want to be pushed. Saturn is taking your relationships very seriously these days and this is NOT the month to be caught playing around on your girlfriend or boyfriend. Trust me on that.

Another possibility is that you will have some fairly serious matter to deal with regarding your children. Saturn in your 5th house of children is squaring Pluto in the middle of the month, and that’s a stressful aspect. Fortunately, things are better by Thanksgiving, and you should enjoy your holiday.