Midlife Transits

First, some housekeeping. I’ve started adding a brief weekly astrology overview to my Facebook page on Saturdays. So hop on over there each week if you want a quick and dirty lowdown on the week ahead, as well as occasional links to things that relate to what’s going on in the skies these days.

I’ve also started a weekly astrology radio show/podcast that will be up each Tuesday. The idea is to talk to people about not only astrology but related spiritual disciplines and how astrology and other healing modalities can be used for effective action in your everyday life. Topics are designed to be suitable for beginners and more advanced astrology students both. The first show is up now and so far it has been fascinating, at least to me.

By the synchronicity of the universe, this week’s radio podcast also happened to be a topic on one of the blogs I visit: Donna Cunningham’s Skywriter.  Donna had a whole series on the 12th house. Take a look at this Q&A post and follow the links below it to related articles if you want a whole wealth of information on this maligned and mysterious area of your chart.

My podcast focused on only one portion of the 12th house’s many meanings: NEPTUNE, THE SUBCONSCIOUS, AND SELF-UNDOING.  Specifically, we talk about the relationship between the 12th house and the subconscious ways that we shoot ourselves in the foot. We also talk about the relationship between Neptune and hypnosis and whether or not hypnotherapy can be a good remedy for 12th house problems. My guest was a hypnotherapist, Clare Taylor. You can find her on Facebook here. It was a really interesting discussion.

I also thought I’d add to the wealth of 12th house information by giving some information on how a 12th house influence can manifest in your life. I’ll take a look at Venus in the 12th house, Venus in Pisces, and Neptune in the 7th house–all of which can manifest in similar ways. (Because Neptune, the 12th house, and Pisces are all related energies and because Venus rules the 7th house of relationships.)

Of course, many of you don’t have any of these placements. But I’m including the list just to show you how one little natal placement can have such a large variety of meanings over the course of a lifetime. Think about your own Venus, 12th house, Pisces, and Neptune placements. What can you learn about your own nature from this list?

Venus in the 12th house, Venus in Pisces, and Neptune in the 7th house can manifest as:

• Difficulty feeling loved
• Hidden artistic and/or musical talents or interests
• Being too ‘nice’ as a form of self-undoing
• Placing a strong value on compassion and sympathy
• Problems with balance, hearing, or the throat (Venus rules balance and the throat)
• Attracting Piscean or Neptunian people into your life
• Hidden laziness
• Hidden sensuality
• Love of fantasy
• Love of solitude or nature
• Love of sleep as a Venus indulgence
• Lack of possessiveness
• Lack of interest in material goods or objects
• The desire for unusual or open relationships
• Dislike of relationship commitment (vague Neptune in the house of committed relationships)
• Romantic attraction to artists, alcoholics, or people with drug problems
• Romantic partners who keep secrets
• Partners with strong psychic or intuitive abilities
• Romantic attitude toward marriage
• A strong relationship with God or spirituality
• Projecting a ‘halo’ or saintly aura (12th house influences near the Ascendant)
• An empathetic or even empathic relationship toward everyone
• Hidden mystical experiences
• Difficulty relaxing unless one is alone
• Behind-the-scenes charitable acts
• Falling in love with a person in prison or with a chronic illness
• Satisfying and enjoyable work in a 12th house institution such as a hospital, hospice, mental health institution, etc.
• Feeling loved by God or the universe
• A love life or financial life that improves with time as one taps into the 12th house gifts
• A lifelong quest for love, money, or spiritual satisfaction
• Secret admirers
• A willingness to embrace a wide range of spiritual practices or beliefs
• Placing a strong value on a holistic approach to life’s problems
• Love of the ocean, sailing, or water sports
• An affinity for hypnosis and/or working with the subconscious mind
• Love of photography
• Preferring to play a ‘back-up’ or behind the scenes role rather than being front and center
• A soft voice
• Lack of discriminating taste
• Feeling one loves all things equally
• Addiction to shopping
• Spending money on spiritual or artistic pursuits
• Idealism about love or money
• Attracting a ’soul mate’
• Money from working behind the scenes in film, dance, or an artistic field
• The desire to keep one’s relationships private
• Not being aware of who is attracted to you
• Attracting others as a downfall
• Being perceived by the public as spiritual, spacy, or artistic
• Being addicted to love
• The ability to express love through artistic means
• Associating love with sacrifice
• Becoming a victim of people who say they love you
• Saving someone you love
• Carelessness in relationships or the opposite, excessive caring
• Impracticality as a downfall
• Lack of greed
• Placing little value on common sense
• Idealizing ’spiritual currency’ or spiritual values over worldly success
• Preferring contemplation to action
• Tendency to give in
• Desire to go with the flow
• Belief in universal values rather than individual differences
• Being ‘too flexible’ as a downfall
• Seen as being hard to define
• Glamorous image
• Deceptive image or feeling you are not seen accurately
• Being idealized by others
• Subconsciously seductive
• Having a relaxed appearance
• Appearing to be casual or relaxed about relationships
• Taking an ‘easy come, easy go’ attitude
• Immersive, all-consuming relationships
• Looking for a spiritual rather than sexual partner
• Detachment about possessions
• Spirituality as a resource
• Diffuse or muted emotions
• Carelessness with money
• Lack of concern with financial security
• Believing ‘God will provide’
• Denying oneself material comforts
• Refusal to play favorites

As it happens, I have all 3 of these placements!  In keeping with the 12th house desire for privacy, I won’t tell which of these manifestations apply to me.

“Fear is afoot everywhere, and polarization prevails. Faith in institutions – corporations, government, the media – is down. Americans are angry, and they long ago grew accustomed to expecting the resolution of problems in very short order, even if reality rarely works that way.”
–From an AP story on the oil spill, dated May 30, 2010

BP Oil Spill, Part 2: In which we learn that yelling at someone to do something does not actually get something done.

The BP oil leak catastrophe started under the astrological influence of Pisces and Virgo. On May 27, Uranus moved into Aries and astrological phase 2 began. By June 6, Jupiter had also moved into Aries for a conjunction with Uranus. This shift was good in the sense that getting Uranus and Jupiter out of the sign ruling oil coincided with BP finally being able to contain some of the leak. On the other hand, Jupiter hadn’t stopped making the size of the leak bigger, at least officially. As of this writing, the official estimates of the leak size have ballooned enormously, taking an incomprehensible disaster and making it an enormously incomprehensible disaster.

The other thing the Aries energy has done is present a stark case for the ineffectiveness of yelling. Although the leak technically began under Pisces influence, Aries anger was butting up against this situation from the beginning. Aries is a cardinal sign, and cardinal signs feel entitled, maybe even obligated, to tell other people what to do. Pluto in Capricorn has cardinal energy too.

So the cardinal energy trotted into action when it got wind of this disaster, following its primal orders, and promptly learned what the clash of cardinal energy accomplishes. Nothing.

The President of the United States got angry and supposedly told BP to just ‘plug the damn hole.’ It turned out that when the purportedly most powerful man in the world yells at a corporation to do something, that doesn’t mean it gets done.

That little burst of presidential temper was only the beginning of the yelling, though. The public has yelled at BP. The public has yelled at the government. The government has yelled at the government. BP has yelled at journalists to get out. The government has yelled at journalists to get out. Journalists have channeled the yelling of others into various media outlets to feed it back to BP and the government. Commentators have called this a war. Ordinary people have yelled about the situation to no one in particular. Individuals gather on Facebook to yell or post videos of themselves on YouTube to yell. Congresspeople have yelled at whoever they can think of to yell at and will be hauling in more BP people to yell at momentarily.

Everybody’s the boss and no one’s in charge. Literally. There are swarms of government agencies and BP divisions and local government representatives swirling around the affected areas and all of them, apparently, have the power to block action, to pull the boss card. And no one’s in charge.

Getting things done takes cooperation. This is what Aries and Capricorn energies forget, in their mania for taking charge of things they can’t control.Too many bosses spoil anything.

Meanwhile, Jupiter in Aries energy brings out multitudes of enterprising individuals who want to be helpful. That’s the good part of Aries. It takes the initiative. It wants to help. Uranus in Aries brings forth all kinds of people with innovative and creative technical solutions to offer, some of them probably Uranian crazy, but all of them clamoring for attention. And yet these people get nowhere but on a fast train to Frustrationville as overwhelming corporate and government power try clamp the Plutonian lid on all that uncontrolled energy.

The astrological themes jostle against each other like symbols playing bumper cars. Pluto: power,  control, secrecy, wealth, conspiracies, resources, the underworld, cynicism. Capricorn: corporations, government, fear, delays, bureaucracy, reality, problems, bossiness, stonewalling. Aries: anger, initiative, drive, bossiness, energy, impulsiveness, hurry, impatience, individuals. Uranus: speed, technology, disruption, innovation, mass media, creativity, shortcuts, revolution, protests, the people en masse. Jupiter: generosity, expansion, optimism, catalyst. Squares: frustration, obstacles, problems, polarization, action.

It’s as if the universe threw a bunch of competing energies in a pot and gave them no one way to do anything but boil over.

That’s in the public arena, but I see this all around me in the lives of ordinary people. The impulse to tell other people what they ought to be doing is strong. The remembrance that telling other people what to do does not make them do it is not as strong. Frustration ensues. It seems clear what ought to be done, but no one else is playing along nicely. In our own lives, it can get easy to be at loggerheads and therefore in a logjam. The good news in all this is that it sometimes takes a logjam to get a person to become ready and willing to deal with underlying problems.

The bad news is that almost no one likes a logjam. It’s not fun to have planets challenge Pluto and point out to us that what we think we ought to have under control–isn’t necessarily something that we actually can control. It’s a wake-up call that other people have their own agendas, and their agendas count too. Aries is a sign that likes to think it’s right about everything. When Aries planets are under assault, we learn that thinking we are right is not exactly the same thing as actually being right.

As July gets going, Jupiter in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn will officially square off. By the 3rd week of July, Saturn will officially enter Libra and start playing the cooperation card. It’s scheduled to get mighty ticked at all the people who won’t sit down, shut up, and listen for a second. It will try to put the brakes on spontaneous anger as it opposes Uranus in Aries and then in August briefly squares Pluto. Saturn will have his work cut out for him, and there’s little to no chance he’ll be able to calm everyone down. But perhaps it’s important he try.

By late August, the dispute energy will slowly start to recede. Perhaps it’s a coincidence that all along the prediction has been that the oil leak won’t really be plugged until August. In the meantime, we’re all going to have to remember to breathe. Personally and collectively, we’ve been through stuff before. We’ll get through this. It may take us awhile to sort through what we learn, but we will get through it.

And in the end, we’ll all hopefully come out a little wiser.

“How did we get into this mess?”

That’s the question a friend asked me the other day, and it’s a question that’s generally applicable to astrology of this summer. Most of the outer planets seem to be asking, with something greater than exasperation, ‘how the bleep did we get into this mess?’ Although the Gulf oil spill is the largest and most visible symbol of the disarray in the skies, many of us have felt the energy in personal ways. Let’s take a look at what’s been happening using the BP oil leak as a guide.

On April 20, 2010 an oil rig known as the Deepwater Horizon located in the Gulf of Mexico exploded. At the time, Uranus in Pisces was opposing Saturn in Virgo. Neptune was lurking about in an inconjunct with Saturn. Jupiter in Pisces was hovering near Uranus, ready to pounce. Pluto in Capricorn was stationed ominously in a wide out of sign square to both Uranus and Saturn.

In the symbolic language of astrology, the events that followed have tragically been almost literal at times.  Uranus is Mr. Explosion, especially when he’s in a bad mood with other outer planets, as he was at the time. Hem in Uranus with constricting energies from other planets and all hell breaks loose. Uranus was in the sign of oil and the sign of the sea. Oil-related explosion at sea. Pretty literal.

Saturn is Mr. Safety and Mr. Let’s Do Things Carefully. In Virgo, he was in a sign related to workers, the environment and environmental regulation. Uranus beats Saturn in a fair fight, and even in an unfair fight. Uranus’s oil-related explosion at sea annihilated Saturn’s relatively weaker efforts to safeguard workers, the environment, to champion prudence and doing things right.

Uranus also relates to speed and technology. Pisces is also the sign of chaos, uncertainty, and ‘we don’t know what the hell we are doing.’ Saturn also relates to cost-cutting, delays, slowness, old ways of doing things, and the desire for order and procedure. BP’s demands for speedy drilling, combined with cost-cutting efforts, previous delays, and new technology for deep water drilling collided to create a swirling marine nightmare of chaos, uncertainty, and environmental degradation mixed with a desperate desire to get control of the leak using Saturn’s old-fashioned methods of procedure. Saturn’s reliance on precision Virgo-like engineering efforts was no match for Uranus’s burbling, gurgling torrent of oil spilling from underground.

In the stark mathematics of the universe at the time, the raw energy of chaos beat the pants off little ant-like human efforts to contain it. BP and everyone else responding to the disaster were in over their heads, not knowing what the hell they were doing, having unleashed a Pandora’s box of forces they were unable to control.

Neptune in Aquarius, the planet also associated with the sea and oil, in an unsupportive angle to Saturn, stood off to the side and said ‘I told you so. I told you were placing too much faith (Neptune) in new technology (Aquarius) for deep water drilling.’ Jupiter, the Great Expander, also in the sign of oil and the sea, piled on to make the disaster bigger and bigger and bigger with every passing day, vowing to continue until everyone got the message that things were out of control.

Pluto in Capricorn, symbol of wealth, corporations, and the riches of the deep, anchors the situation from his square position off to the side of the disaster, saying nothing. He doesn’t have to say anything. In Pluto’s world, the rules are obvious and brutal. You reap what you sow. Screw up and pay the price.

No one can accept this really, at least not quickly. The price is too high, too unexpected, too lingering. Pluto lessons are hard to absorb, and with Uranus and Jupiter upping the emotional ante, the hubbub surrounding the chaos makes it hard to identify reality. Even the size of the leak remained elusive, slippery, uncertain.

It would be way too much of a stretch to say that each individual one of us is in the same position with the regard to the universe–battling chaos, uncertainty, misplaced faith, and forces beyond our control. Not every single individual is saying ‘how did we/I get into this mess?’ But collectively, we are in a mess. Collectively, we have gotten in over our heads.

Collectively, we don’t know what we are doing. At the time of the initial explosions, no one in the entire world actually knew how to stop that gusher in a timely manner. No one.

We had pushed beyond our Saturn limits into uncharted territory.

Uranus and Pluto and Jupiter and Neptune and Saturn don’t line themselves up for disaster just for their own amusement, although it may seem that way at the time. They align themselves these ways because the alignments simply reflect the truth. If you get in over your head, unleash forces you don’t understand how to harness, you will experience harrowing consequences. The alignments bring to our attention the times when we have to up our game.

The simple truth, I suppose, is that we got into this mess as a result of choices we made earlier. BP is paying for its choices. The government is paying for its choices. All of us are paying for our long-standing choices to favor new oil exploration and technology over boring old things like conservation and reduced consumption. And sort of like a rogue wave, Uranus’s ocean explosion is sweeping up and destroying a lot of people along the Gulf who are victims of circumstances they can’t control. These alignments are like that. They are absolutely, positively not fair.

On the other hand, these alignments also represent turning points and tipping points. Painfully and slowly, we get the message. We figure out that we have to do better. We stop putting up with problems that we should have addressed long ago. The tide turns. We go in a new direction because we have to. We stop letting Uranus in Pisces kick our collective butts and we eventually get to work, building a better system.

That’s the idea anyway. Let’s hope it happens.

Uranus in Aries is a very dynamic energy; quite different in character from Uranus in Pisces, which wobbled along uncertainly causing various upsets. Uranus in Aries will charge ahead very certainly, causing various upsets, but bringing with it plenty of spunk and the potential for some quite effective action in your life. Uranus in Aries has so much energy and so much action potential that various other planets will get alarmed at various points during its transit of the sign and attempt to stop it. Pluto in Capricorn will throw up some mighty resistance; Saturn in Libra will beg it to stop and consider the consequences of its actions, and every other planet that enters a cardinal sign will whine and complain or shudder in horror. On the other hand, Jupiter in Aries will make its effects even bigger.

Some of this interplanetary conflict and expansion will affect you at various points; some of it will pass without a blip on your screen. But the interplanetary vibes are not our subject today. Our subject today is what Uranus in Aries can do for you when he’s in a good mood and unleashed. On his first go-round, Uranus will only rush into Aries and back out again over the course of about 11 weeks. He’ll really only settle in for an extended stay in Aries  (about 7 years is Uranus’s normal tour in a sign) as of March 2011. But the times they are already changing, so let’s take a look at what’s on tap for each of the signs as the new Uranian era begins.

I’ll start with the premise that although Uranus is often thought of as a mentally oriented planet, it often has an effect (in my experience) on a person’s literal physical energy. With Uranus in Aries, your little legs may actually want to walk faster, as Aries energy urges them to hurry up, time’s a-wasting. Aries values speed and so does Uranus, so the very pace of your life may speed up. Not everyone is going to notice this immediately, and some people may not want their lives to move any faster than they already do, but it can feel good to have more physical energy at your disposal. Uranus in Pisces wants to absorb stuff (including, unfortunately, toxins) but Uranus in Aries wants to do stuff. Pisces is a mutable sign, so Uranus in Pisces keeps changing its mind. Aries is a cardinal sign, so Uranus in Aries sets goals and marches off with a sense of purpose. It’s like a dog that’s just barely restrained by the leash. Where this dog will try to take you depends partly on your sun sign or your rising sign. (If you know your own chart, you can get a more precise understanding of where Uranus will be in your chart. Astro.com offers free charts.)

Aries and Aries rising: At some point, Uranus in Aries will try to imbue you with more physical energy in a literal sense. It may not last forever, but it will probably be fun while it lasts. Your personality may also get stronger or more vibrant for awhile, and Uranus may push you toward being more effective in your actions, to see the end game and not just the beginning game. Uranus will want you to do new stuff and set new personal goals. Uranus in your own sign is more a ‘free choice’ placement than it is anywhere else. You have greater latitude to choose your own path.

Taurus and Taurus rising: Uranus in Aries will be in the part of your chart that is normally devoted to subconscious influences. When your subconscious mind is very active, stuff can break through to consciousness. On the good side, stuff can break through that can help you put old demons to rest permanently. Therapy and self-exploration can be very effective. On the not-so-good side, stuff that doesn’t break all the way through can turn into insomnia and anxiety or even chronic discomforts. Uranus in Aries will want you to deal with your discomforts, physical or psychological, forthrightly and do something about them. Set goals and try stuff until you have solved the problem. Stuff that was okay to put with before, Uranus in Aries will not be okay with putting up with anymore. He’ll want results.

Gemini and Gemini rising: Uranus in Aries will be in your natal or solar 11th house here, and he’ll have lots of different things he could get interested in while traversing this section of your chart. He may stir up all kinds of activity, but I’ll focus on one area that will probably get attention before his stay is through. Uranus will almost certainly look at your friends because friends are a specialty of his. If he’s in a good mood with them, he’ll pump tons of energy into your friendships and group endeavors and he may have you getting involved in some very physical activities with them. If he’s in a bad mood with them and doesn’t think they’re worthy of you, he’ll pick fights with them, attempt to throw them out of your life, overhaul your social circle, start with a clean slate, have you form your own groups, and generally rebel against what he thinks are substandard networks and support systems. If you’re not a joiner, he may suddenly decide that you ought to be one. If you are a joiner, he may suddenly decide that whatever you’ve joined ought to be a lot more effective at whatever it is it is supposed to be doing. And because Uranus loves this sector of the chart, he may just get a kick out of doing things like setting a goal for you to have 2,442 Facebook friends by the end of the summer.

Uranus in Aries is a very dynamic energy; quite different in character from Uranus in Pisces, which wobbled along uncertainly causing various upsets. Uranus in Aries will charge ahead very certainly, causing various upsets, but bringing with it plenty of spunk and the potential for some quite effective action in your life. Uranus in Aries has so much energy and so much action potential that various other planets will get alarmed at various points during its transit of the sign and attempt to stop it. Pluto in Capricorn will throw up some mighty resistance; Saturn in Libra will beg it to stop and consider the consequences of its actions, and every other planet that enters a cardinal sign will whine and complain or shudder in horror. On the other hand, Jupiter in Aries will make its effects even bigger.

Some of this interplanetary conflict and expansion will affect you at various points; some of it will pass without a blip on your screen. But the interplanetary vibes are not our subject today. Our subject today is what Uranus in Aries can do for you when he’s in a good mood and unleashed. On his first go-round, Uranus will only rush into Aries and back out again over the course of about 11 weeks. He’ll really only settle in for an extended stay in Aries  (about 7 years is Uranus’s normal tour in a sign) as of March 2011. But the times they are already changing, so let’s take a look at what’s on tap for each of the signs as the new Uranian era begins.

I’ll start with the premise that although Uranus is often thought of as a mentally oriented planet, it often has an effect (in my experience) on a person’s literal physical energy. With Uranus in Aries, your little legs may actually want to walk faster, as Aries energy urges them to hurry up, time’s a-wasting. Aries values speed and so does Uranus, so the very pace of your life may speed up. Not everyone is going to notice this immediately, and some people may not want their lives to move any faster than they already do, but it can feel good to have more physical energy at your disposal. Uranus in Pisces wants to absorb stuff (including, unfortunately, toxins) but Uranus in Aries wants to do stuff. Pisces is a mutable sign, so Uranus in Pisces keeps changing its mind. Aries is a cardinal sign, so Uranus in Aries sets goals and marches off with a sense of purpose. It’s like a dog that’s just barely restrained by the leash. Where this dog will try to take you depends partly on your sun sign or your rising sign. (If you know your own chart, you can get a more precise understanding of where Uranus will be in your chart. Astro.com offers free charts.)

Cancer and Cancer rising: Uranus is now in the part of your chart where it gets ambitious. Previously, it was in the part of your chart where it hankered after higher education, and it may still have some work to finish up in that department. But now it sets its sights upon getting you attention, moving you up, convincing you to be an entrepreneur, changing your career, or otherwise eventually making a fairly radical change. At some point, it will probably get its way. Somehow or another, it wants to throw its energy into getting you into a higher position (in its opinion) than the one you are in now, although that need not be in a strictly career sense. If you can gain prestige for climbing Mt. Everest or something, it will take that too. But it will want you to do something public, set some goals that it thinks are worthy of you. If it thinks you are in the wrong field–it will try to push you out. You would probably be wise to figure out now what you really want, since Uranus is going to try to drag you in that direction anyway.

Leo and Leo rising: Uranus here will be in your solar or natal 9th house and that covers a lot of ground. I’ll focus simply on the knowledge and information aspect of it, since Uranus does love knowledge and information. Uranus in Aries in the 9th tends to love knowledge and information it can get by going places, doing things, and experiencing stuff first-hand. Goodness knows where it will try to take you, but it tends to be hot for adventure. It also likes news, journalism, stuff that is up to the minute, and info that it can use immediately to make snap decisions. It will frequently try to persuade you to take up an intellectual project that will ultimately prove to be of great benefit to you, even if at first it seems unlikely. For example, it may encourage you to finally figure out how to do math, even though you used to think you were stupid at it. Don’t worry; it won’t take you too deep into a subject; it will just set a goal that you’ll finally figure out how to balance your checkbook or pass statistics class or whatever it is that you need.

Virgo and Virgo rising: Aries represents your solar or natal 8th house, a house that represents way too many things to go into in a single post. So I’ll pick an area that is often overlooked in discussing the 8th house–sex! More physical energy for sex. That can be one benefit of Uranus in Aries. Another benefit can simply be more of it and more interest in it. A stronger sex drive, a more assertive sex drive, a more experimental and open-minded approach to sex, more willingness to initiate sex, fewer inhibitions, more exploration, more willingness to learn and grow in this area of life. Not a bad thing for most of us.

Uranus in Aries is a very dynamic energy; quite different in character from Uranus in Pisces, which wobbled along uncertainly causing various upsets. Uranus in Aries will charge ahead very certainly, causing various upsets, but bringing with it plenty of spunk and the potential for some quite effective action in your life. Uranus in Aries has so much energy and so much action potential that various other planets will get alarmed at various points during its transit of the sign and attempt to stop it. Pluto in Capricorn will throw up some mighty resistance; Saturn in Libra will beg it to stop and consider the consequences of its actions, and every other planet that enters a cardinal sign will whine and complain or shudder in horror. On the other hand, Jupiter in Aries will make its effects even bigger.

Some of this interplanetary conflict and expansion will affect you at various points; some of it will pass without a blip on your screen. But the interplanetary vibes are not our subject today. Our subject today is what Uranus in Aries can do for you when he’s in a good mood and unleashed. On his first go-round, Uranus will only rush into Aries and back out again over the course of about 11 weeks. He’ll really only settle in for an extended stay in Aries  (about 7 years is Uranus’s normal tour in a sign) as of March 2011. But the times they are already changing, so let’s take a look at what’s on tap for each of the signs as the new Uranian era begins.

I’ll start with the premise that although Uranus is often thought of as a mentally oriented planet, it often has an effect (in my experience) on a person’s literal physical energy. With Uranus in Aries, your little legs may actually want to walk faster, as Aries energy urges them to hurry up, time’s a-wasting. Aries values speed and so does Uranus, so the very pace of your life may speed up. Not everyone is going to notice this immediately, and some people may not want their lives to move any faster than they already do, but it can feel good to have more physical energy at your disposal. Uranus in Pisces wants to absorb stuff (including, unfortunately, toxins) but Uranus in Aries wants to do stuff. Pisces is a mutable sign, so Uranus in Pisces keeps changing its mind. Aries is a cardinal sign, so Uranus in Aries sets goals and marches off with a sense of purpose. It’s like a dog that’s just barely restrained by the leash. Where this dog will try to take you depends partly on your sun sign or your rising sign. (If you know your own chart, you can get a more precise understanding of where Uranus will be in your chart. Astro.com offers free charts.)

Libra and Libra rising: The conventional wisdom is that Uranus in the sign opposite one’s own is unsettling. That is what it is supposed to do sooner or later, unsettle you. It is supposed to change things up. You’ve picked someone to be in some sort of relationship to you (doesn’t have to be a mate or spouse, could be any sort of relationship) and then the person develops a new energy they didn’t have before. You respond. In the process of responding, you change. You gain the opportunity to learn how to take more effective actions than you knew how to take before, because you are facing new situations. The part people don’t like is the instability. They fight to get it back. That’s perfectly fine. It’s the process of fighting to get it back that forces you to learn more about yourself and become more of yourself. It all works out. It’s a kind of resistance training. Speaking of which, getting plenty of exercise during this transit will probably help.

Scorpio and Scorpio rising: Aries represents your job and health sector, but I’ll concentrate on the jobs aspect of it. Uranus in one’s job sector often correlates with a lot more job movement in all kinds of ways. Sometimes your own job will remain stable, but your co-workers will come and go, or there’ll be a lot of turnover at your workplace. Often you’ll switch jobs, or the workplace will become a lot more busy, or your work will involve a lot more running around. Uranus in Aries will generally set a goal of improving your work and work environment but will often engage in a lot of experimentation before settling on the right situation, and he may get all entrepreneurial, part-timey, or free-lance happy in the process. You may also have to learn a lot of new techniques to keep up with Uranus’s upgrade plans. In general, it is wise to figure out what you really want from a job and set out to get it, because Uranus is going to try to go after it anyway. You might as well be a willing and conscious participant in the process.

Sagittarius and Sagittarius rising: Uranus in Aries in the Sagittarius chart just wants to have fun. What fun means depends on you; it could mean playing soccer, playing poker, creating effective ads for upscale magazines, splashing in the pool with your kids, or partying in the Hamptons with an eligible bachelor. Its purpose is to try to make you feel free and special and happy. It won’t succeed all the time; that’s a pretty tall order. But when it does succeed, it will be a wonderful thing.

Uranus in Aries is a very dynamic energy; quite different in character from Uranus in Pisces, which wobbled along uncertainly causing various upsets. Uranus in Aries will charge ahead very certainly, causing various upsets, but bringing with it plenty of spunk and the potential for some quite effective action in your life. Uranus in Aries has so much energy and so much action potential that various other planets will get alarmed at various points during its transit of the sign and attempt to stop it. Pluto in Capricorn will throw up some mighty resistance; Saturn in Libra will beg it to stop and consider the consequences of its actions, and every other planet that enters a cardinal sign will whine and complain or shudder in horror. On the other hand, Jupiter in Aries will make its effects even bigger.

Some of this interplanetary conflict and expansion will affect you at various points; some of it will pass without a blip on your screen. But the interplanetary vibes are not our subject today. Our subject today is what Uranus in Aries can do for you when he’s in a good mood and unleashed. On his first go-round, Uranus will only rush into Aries and back out again over the course of about 11 weeks. He’ll really only settle in for an extended stay in Aries  (about 7 years is Uranus’s normal tour in a sign) as of March 2011. But the times they are already changing, so let’s take a look at what’s on tap for each of the signs as the new Uranian era begins.

I’ll start with the premise that although Uranus is often thought of as a mentally oriented planet, it often has an effect (in my experience) on a person’s literal physical energy. With Uranus in Aries, your little legs may actually want to walk faster, as Aries energy urges them to hurry up, time’s a-wasting. Aries values speed and so does Uranus, so the very pace of your life may speed up. Not everyone is going to notice this immediately, and some people may not want their lives to move any faster than they already do, but it can feel good to have more physical energy at your disposal. Uranus in Pisces wants to absorb stuff (including, unfortunately, toxins) but Uranus in Aries wants to do stuff. Pisces is a mutable sign, so Uranus in Pisces keeps changing its mind. Aries is a cardinal sign, so Uranus in Aries sets goals and marches off with a sense of purpose. It’s like a dog that’s just barely restrained by the leash. Where this dog will try to take you depends partly on your sun sign or your rising sign. (If you know your own chart, you can get a more precise understanding of where Uranus will be in your chart. Astro.com offers free charts.)

Capricorn and Capricorn rising: Uranus in Aries takes aim at your home. Sometimes Uranus in the home sector means literally moving a lot during the years that it is there, moving stuff within the home, doing renovations, improvements, re-wiring, structural work, energy efficiency work and so on. The thing about Uranus is that it wants to find the right place for you, or the right situation for you and it can be maddeningly picky and discontent, easily dissatisfied, and willing to try all kinds of things that seem promising but ultimately prove not to work. Sometimes you need to convince it that you do not need a television the size of an exterior wall in order to make your home life complete. On the other hand, if you put effort into deciding what would be the perfect home for you personally (not for everyone else, for you personally, because that’s what Uranus is interested in) and set yourself a goal of getting it, Uranus will help you eventually achieve it. And that’s pretty cool.

Aquarius and Aquarius rising: Uranus in Aries is in the sector of your chart where he wants to put a lot of energy into communicating. He could potentially try to persuade you to hop all around town giving talks or performing other activities that will have you sharing your Aquarian knowledge with people in your area. Uranus is your ruling planet and he is convinced you have all kinds of Uranian information to share these days that will just set the world on fire. His goal is both to have you do more communicating and to make you a more effective communicator. Your purpose during this transit is to share your thoughts and information and to get into discussions and engage in interchange with others.

Pisces and Pisces rising: Uranus in Aries will be in the part of your solar or natal chart that deals with money and money-making activities. Hence, you can expect a lot of energy to go toward money and/or the attempt to make it. For some the attempts will center around physical or sports-related activities. For others, the efforts will center around enterprises that require a lot of initiative. The idea is to focus on whether the initiatives will be effective and whether they will offer a good return. You can also expect Uranus in Aries to prod you to set financial goals and to keep setting them until you get the money thing right.

So one day a client undergoing a transit from Pluto to her natal sun emailed me a few songs that seemed to fit the transit. Little did we know it would become the beginning of an addictive game. Others got involved and for days we were emailing each other song titles at all hours of the day and night. The game broadened far beyond a specific transit to songs for each of the planets and so on.

Today’s edition honors the planet that started it all: Pluto. We honor his impressive reputation as the lord of the underworld, ruler of Scorpio, power player in the planetary pantheon, detoxifier, keeper of the most cosmic perspective, symbol of death, destruction and rebirth after encounters with either, and general bad ass among the planetary symbols.

Play along by submitting your own Pluto songs below. You don’t even have to know any astrology. Just list a song or two or more that you feel reflect those themes or other aspects of Pluto.

Without further ado, my top 10 astro songs for Pluto:

1) Bad by Michael Jackson

2) Dust in the Wind by Kansas

3) Hellhound on My Trail by Robert Johnson

4) I Got the Power by Puff Daddy

5) I’ve Got Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks

6) Mr. Self Destruct by Nine Inch Nails

7) Survivor by Beyonce

8 Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley

9) Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones

10) Toxic by Britney Spears

Surely you can come up with more–maybe even better ones.

Have fun!

Here is a link to an article I  wrote almost 4 years ago on the 8th house and credit card debt: http://www.thirdage.com/today/horoscopes/astrology-credit-card-debt.

This article is featured in Pluto Problems Got You Perplexed? Here’s What Helps! published by Skywriter as Part of the 2010 International Astrology Day Blogathon. The purpose of this web-based event is to create a permanent library of articles about how to deal with the stresses of the Cardinal T-Square of Pluto, Saturn and Uranus. The main page for the Blogathon collections is at The Cardinal T-Square of 2010: Saturn, Uranus, Pluto.

The article is part of the ThirdAge.com website that I used to write for. Now you can read my articles on various astrological matters here at Midlife Transits.  You can also contact me for a personal consultation or find me in Culver City, California (Los Angeles area) at the Raksa Wellness Center.

Here are some links to other articles that deal with issues relating to Pluto, the cardinal T-square, or other relevant matters:

Inside the Mind of the Cardinal T-Square

Got Natal Saturn  in Libra?

Dealing with Difficult Pluto Transits

Saturn in Libra Horoscopes for the signs, Aries through Virgo & Libra through Pisces

Saturn

Note: This article will form part of the International Astrology Day Blog-a-thon, March 19-21. There will be links to an entire collection of articles on Saturn on March 20 at the following URL: http://mandilockley.blogspot.com/2010/03/look-after-saturn-saturn-will-look.html. Check it out!

If you were born between late November 1950 and late October 1953 and your natal Saturn is in Libra, you are either experiencing your second Saturn return or will experience it soon. The second Saturn return is a predictable astrological phenomenon that occurs for everyone between the ages of approximately 58 to 60. It marks the time when Saturn returns to the sign it was when you were born.

One of the issues that almost inevitably comes up during the second Saturn return is aging. Saturn rules the aging process, and it is obviously pretty normal for a person approaching their 60s to think about getting older. For the generation experiencing the second Saturn return in Libra during the next couple of years (Saturn will be in Libra, with the exception of a short break in spring and summer 2010, into October 2012), the second Saturn return will be impacted by the presence of Pluto in Capricorn and Uranus in Aries. Both of these other energies clash with Saturn in Libra and therefore throw issues into sharper relief.

Let’s look briefly at how Pluto and Uranus can affect, although not fundamentally change, the dynamics of the second Saturn return.

Potential dynamic #1: Uranus in Aries represents, among other things, a rush of youthful impulsive energy, the desire for heedless, even reckless change. You may feel that events in society are making you all the more aware that things are changing faster than you’d like. You may feel like, or even be accused of being, a fuddy-duddy who wants to stand in the way of change. On a more personal level, the opposition between Uranus and Saturn could make you even more aware that your body isn’t what it used to be, and maybe your outlook isn’t either.

Potential dynamic #2: Saturn is a pretty lonely planet by nature, and in Libra, the fear of aloneness can be quite acute. You might think about being lonely if you retire, about not having a spouse or companion, about losing friends to death or illness. You’re ‘supposed’ to think about these things during the second Saturn return, because Saturn, a realistic and self-reliant planet, wants you to understand your own resources and to plan for a deeper confrontation with yourself, now that typical life tasks such as raising children or building a career are essentially complete. With challenges coming at you from two important outer planets, you may even feel a bit isolated in your point of view on things, as though you have accidentally stepped out of the mainstream.

Potential dynamic #3: Confronting mortality. At the second Saturn return, you realize your actions have consequences because you will not be living forever. You need, in essence, to make the most of the time you’ve got. With Pluto in Capricorn closely squaring Saturn in Libra off and on during this cycle, you may feel that death and mortality are getting all up in your face these days.

So…how to confront these things? I have a few suggestions that should apply regardless of when your second Saturn return is. I’m not saying they will make the current times wildly fun or that they substitute for the hard work of being yourself. But at least they can give you something to think about as you face this important transition in your life.

Suggestion #1: Face the fact that you’re not going to be who you used to be and that’s a good thing. Do the Saturnian thing and prepare for your future. If fear of loneliness and isolation are creeping around the edges of your thoughts, run a movie of your future in your mind. Make it come out with a happy ending.

How wonderful could it be to be able to do what you want, instead of what everyone else wants? How wonderful could it be to be a mentor instead of an employee, part of a girls’ trip to Las Vegas instead of a doting wife, and so on. Play around with the pictures in your head. I can almost guarantee you that there are parts of your subconscious mind that are just itching to shed some elements of the identities you’ve built up. Remember, if society’s values seem to be morphing away from what’s familiar to you, that your values count too. It’s okay to speak up for your own Saturn perspective. Goodness knows, we’ll likely need it.

Suggestion #2: Learn something. Not something easy. Something hard. Something that could be of benefit in your community. Like how to be a volunteer mediator or arbitrator (great for Libra energy). How to speak Spanish if there are many in your town who do so. How to program a website. Okay, I know these kinds of things could be daunting, but there’s a big payoff. You will grow new connections between your neurons. Literally. New connections will help keep your brain healthy and your mood stable.

The key to Saturn’s heart is contributing your fair share to society (it rules the community-minded 10th house). It wants so much for you to leave some kind of a tangible contribution or legacy. Make it happy. Step up to the plate and make a contribution of a type you’ve never been able to make before. Not only will you make Saturn feel useful, you’ll soak up some of that restless Uranus in Aries energy, energy that also cares about society, learning new things, and making changes. It won’t exactly make you feel young again, but it will alter your understanding of what aging really is. Furthermore, since the clash between outer planets indicates that society is going through some fundamental shifts, any contribution you can make to the larger community helps us all by easing the transition a bit.

Suggestion #3: Confront mortality as directly as you can. Okay, this is hard for a lot of us, including me. But Saturn has every right to be curious about it, and so do you. It is only natural to want to prepare for something none of us are going to be able to escape. I’ll give an example of a woman I met who made exquisite use of the second Saturn return. She went to school to take classes in biomedical ethics. She learned how to give counseling to families who have to make end-of-life decisions for their family members. Talk about confronting an issue in a useful way. Talk about making a contribution to society. She got to satisfy the Saturnian (and Plutonian) urge to find out what death is all about and to prepare, but she also got to help other people in a very important way. And…she kept her brain, heart, and soul sharp by challenging them with a new activity. She participated in the changes in society rather than hiding from them.

You can do these things, too. Maybe in a slightly different way than I’ve suggested, but you can do them too. You just might find, as many of my clients do, that when the second Saturn return is over, you actually feel like you have a whole new lease on life.

Blogger Victoria Bazeley specializes in the astrology of midlife, the key time periods between age 38 to age 60. She has written for ThirdAge.com, started the website Practical Astrology and now blogs here at Midlife Transits. Become a Facebook fan!

Other Articles on Saturn and Saturn in Libra:

Got Natal Saturn in Libra?

Saturn in Libra Horoscopes for Aries through Virgo

Saturn in Libra Horoscopes for Libra through Pisces

What Changes Will Saturn in Libra Bring?

This article is featured in Look After Saturn and Saturn Will Look After You as part of the 2010 International Astrology Day Blogathon. The purpose of this web-based event is to create a permanent library of articles about how to deal with the stresses of the Cardinal T-Square of Pluto, Saturn and Uranus. The main page for the Blogathon collections is at The 2010 International Astrology Day Blog-A-Thon.

The URL for the Saturn collection is: http://mandilockley.blogspot.com/2010/03/look-after-saturn-saturn-will-look.html
The URL for the main blogathon collection is: http://2010astrologycarnival.wordpress.com/

If you’ve got your natal Saturn in Libra, your Saturn return is staring you in the face these days. Today I’ll talk about the social and even personal importance of your second Saturn return in this sign.

If you were born between late November 1950 and late October 1953—you picked a heck of a time to have your second Saturn return. The second Saturn return is a much commented upon astrological phenomenon that occurs for everyone around the ages of 58 to 60. It signifies the time when Saturn returns to the sign it was when you were born.

Saturn’s been in Libra since November 2009, and it will stay there (except for a brief retreat into Virgo during spring and early summer 2010) into October 2012. So why is this a heck of a time for a second Saturn return? Because during most of Saturn’s current stay in Libra, Pluto will be in Capricorn and Uranus will be in Aries. Uranus opposes Saturn during this time and Pluto squares it. In blunt astrological terms, this means we are looking at a time period when three important planets are fighting each other tooth and nail.

What does this mean to you? Let’s look first at a really simple idea of what the second Saturn return can mean. The first time in your life that Saturn returned to Libra, you were close to 30 years old and you were asked to realize that you’re not going to die anytime soon and that what you do has consequences because it affects your future. You were supposed to grow up in a certain sense.

At the second Saturn return, you are asked to realize that you’re not going to live forever and that what you do has consequences because you only have a certain amount of time left to do what you came to do. You need to secure your legacy, fulfill your responsibilities as a member of the human community, and grow up into a hopefully wise elder.

Piece of cake, right? Of course not. The second Saturn return can be difficult because lots of people are not all that anxious to face mortality, don the mantle of wise elder, and accept their responsibilities to the rest of humanity.

One of the main issues during the second Saturn return is often challenges from the outside world to your particular Saturn style. No matter what sign your Saturn is in, part of the task of the second Saturn return is to use your innate Saturn gifts wisely, the ones that come with your Saturn sign. For your generation, society as a whole is scheduled to very overtly challenge your particular Saturn in Libra gift—and you need to stick up for that gift and do your part to help us all get through this rather momentous time of astrological transition.

For example, Libra is the sign of indecisiveness because its mission is to think through every decision with excruciatingly precise thoroughness, balance all factors, take into account all options, contemplate all ramifications and generally take forever to come up with the best possible decision. Saturn in Libra natally works real hard at this task, practicing it and practicing it until you think you are going to go crazy. It practices it until it gets good at it, better than all those other placements that breeze through to decisions without a second thought.

During your second Saturn return, people under the influence of Uranus in Aries are going to be manifesting the opposite approach. They’re going to be bursting with youthful impulsive energy, disinclined to think anything through, overly enamored with new technology while casting nary a glance at the potential implications, and they’ll be in a big hurry. They will look at you as hopelessly old-fashioned, excessively cautious, and as a stick in the mud.

Too bad for them. At your second Saturn return, it becomes your responsibility to stick up for the virtues of making considered, precise decisions, and worrying about the future impact of today’s rashness on tomorrow’s society. Saturn wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to thrust himself into the big planetary debate of these few years if he didn’t know that sometimes you’ve got to slow the pace of change the heck down and think about what you’re doing. For the next few years, your Saturn contribution is important.

Libra is also extremely concerned with fairness. Saturn in Libra worries about justice, the rule of law, negotiating through disputes, mediating conflicts, and generally using codified procedures to keep people from indulging their instincts to blow each other up and commit acts of violence. Pluto in Capricorn meanwhile, is going to be urging people to use sheer force and power to impose their wills, under the guise of necessity. Pluto in Capricorn will try to convince everyone that we don’t need the rule of law, fairness, and due concern with true justice because our collective security is in danger.

Tough. Your job as a member of the Saturn in Libra generation is to hold out for justice, law, and fairness anyway. To play up the importance of negotiation, procedure, and deliberation even when people want to run around like chickens with their heads cut off, shouting for vengeance, and making earnest mob-like efforts to manifest their baser instincts.

That’s a big important job you have there Mr. or Ms. Second-Saturn-Return-in-Libra. Now I’m not going to tell you that world leaders are going to phone you up and ask for your advice during troubled times. I’m not even implying that you need to be especially politically active. Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn will find you even if you’re hiding in a peaceful stone cottage in Vermont. You will feel the unrest in the skies no matter where you go.

Maybe it will be your spouse who goes off the Uranian deep end or the corporation where you work that will trot out spectacular displays of Plutonian injustice. Maybe your investments will go south when you don’t want them to and you’ll need to keep your head, even as your children have decided that now is a good time to suck you financially dry by laying guilt trips on you.

Or maybe nothing all that dramatic in your life will happen at all. Maybe the Uranus and Pluto influences will be subtle.

It doesn’t matter. Your chart has been waiting all your life to call upon the very Saturn in Libra qualities it has worked so hard to develop. If you’ve lost touch with your Saturn in Libra gifts, you will get back in touch with them now and learn to use them.

And that’s important. It’s part of your legacy. No matter what happens, this is your moment, your crowning moment perhaps, to display the integrity and values you’ve always had inside.

Go for it.

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.

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.