Now that I have a breather from that, I thought I’d post something in honor of Saturn in Libra, the planet trying to teach us all something about relationships. What follows is a planetary cheat sheet for relationships.

Here’s how to use it. Get out your chart and get out the chart of the person you’re interested in. That could be the chart of a love interest, best friend, spouse, child, boss, co-worker, etc. If you don’t know the birth time of the other person, use noon. You will need the day and date of birth. The place where the person was born is helpful too.

What you’re going to be looking for is the degree numbers in your chart that are close to or the same as the degree numbers in the other person’s chart. For example, I’m looking at my chart and a former boyfriend’s chart. I note that I have sun at 23 degrees of my zodiac sign and he has Neptune at 23 degrees of Libra. He has his sun at 14 degrees of his zodiac sign; I have Uranus at 13 degrees in its sign.

His Venus is at 1 degree; my Pluto is at 3 degrees. His Jupiter is at 12 degrees; my Venus is at 15 degrees. And so on, just looking for the aspects that are close in terms of degrees. Use an orb of maybe 5 degrees for this exercise.

For the moment, we’re not looking to see if the aspects are supposedly favorable (sextile, trine) or unfavorable (square, opposition). We’re not looking for what houses they fall into. We’re just looking for the planets that are activated by these aspects. (Don’t include planets that are one sign away from each other though, such as Aquarius and Pisces).

In my experience, here’s what the planets activated by aspect seem to correlate with in relationships:

Pluto: a powerful attraction or repulsion. Continuing feelings that don’t fade with time. ‘Karmic’ or important relationship with a purpose. Problems with outside circumstances.

Neptune: a romantic attraction. Tendency toward deception or a private inner life. Neptune person idealizing the other person. Infatuation, sometimes followed by disillusionment.

Uranus: instant attraction. On again, off again relationships. Emotional and mental stimulation. A need for space within the relationship.

Saturn: long-lasting relationship. An ability to solve problems in the relationship. Obstacles within the relationship. A practical ability to be able to coordinate the logistics of the relationship and get things done together.

Jupiter: compatibility. A point of easy contact and agreement between the two people. Shared sense of humor. An ability to get along regarding superficial issues.

Mars: sexual attraction. Ability to do things together. A point of friction that keeps the relationship interesting. Willingness to pursue a relationship.

Venus: a love connection. The ability to relax together. The feeling of being cared for. Physical attraction.

Mercury: the ability to communicate. Whether you find each other interesting. Understanding how the other person thinks. The ability to socialize with other people as a couple.

Moon: love. Emotional connection. Strong feelings for one another. Empathy.

Sun: compatibility. Ability to understand each other. Equality within the relationship. Long-lasting relationships.

This is a very superficial analysis and only the beginning of exploring the relationship through astrology (sometimes known as the study of synastry). But especially in the beginning of a relationship, it can be helpful to get a quick idea of what factors in each other’s charts are being activated. And let’s face it–inquiring minds want to know!

The past several months have seen more than their share of big news events. What is going on?

In this week’s podcast, we tackle some of the astrological symbolism behind world news today.

Some of the topics addressed include:

Can astrology predict earthquakes?
Why 2011 might be more rocky than the so-called doomsday year of 2012
Global structural reform
What does the Uranus square Pluto configuration mean to you?
Egypt, Libya & the Middle East
Union-busting in Wisconsin
The symbolism of the Japanese nuclear crisis
and more….

The guest is Scott Wolfram, an evolutionary astrologer and relocation specialist.

We’re living in interesting times. Learn a little bit more about them.

I’m blaming Jupiter conjunct Uranus, not to mention eclipses and Mercury Rx adding to the general confusion. You may know that Jupiter is a patron planet of travel, but did you know that he is also associated with the weather?

Now that he’s hugging Uranus in a tight embrace into January 2010, he’s expressing himself in a number of weather related ways. Pisces is a water sign so he’s enlarging the general disruption (Uranus) that precipitation can bring. In Pisces, Jupiter also loves chaos, and I suppose travel chaos would be a specialty for him. Uranus is the crazy planet, and with Jupiter at his side, it’s just really crazy. True to Jupiter form, the wackiness hasn’t really been lethal, but it sure has been forcing people to slow down when they weren’t expecting to.

Knowing that this would be a week when we’d be forced to slow down, like it or not, this week’s podcast is all about The Art of Slowing Down. My guest, Edward Yu, wrote a book on that very topic and he describes a phenomenon wherein learning can be instantaneous when we slow down enough. Pretty darn intriguing. And very Jupiter/Uranus–because they’re all about insight and instantaneous learning–even if they have to disrupt our patterns to make it possible.

“To tell the truth, I am lost right now. It’s like I don’t know who I am or what I want or where I’ll be in the future. I kinda know what I’d like, but I doubt that I can get it or how I will get it. I’m in a free fall, letting myself get deluded and anesthesized by fantasy by escaping into music and T.V.: “Crossfire”, “Dog Days are Over”, Deadwood & everything with dreamy Timothy Olyphant.

I am sucked into the words and stories and don’t really want to pull away because if I pull away, there is nothing really here for me to do or to look at. I’ve surrendered to the fog and it has swept me up and thrown me off a cliff. When I hit bottom I could land safely and get up and walk away as if nothing happened or I could shatter into dozens of pieces. I kinda want to shatter….so that I can pick up each piece and really look at it, throw away some, pocket some, try to salvage the remaining.

I can’t say that I like it but I can’t say that I don’t. I’m curious and confused and at times content with the utter unknown of it. But it does try my patience. I feel isolated, albeit self inflicted. If there are answers it seems they are here somewhere inside me so if I stay put long enough they’ll come, rather than getting out and about and among others.

But is inactivity counterintuitive? Isn’t taking action the way out? Not if the inner me keeps cajoling me to  ‘stay put’. So I stay and listen to “Dog Days are Over” and Brandon Flowers’ “Crossfire” a zillion times, hanging on the words as if an answer is in the refrain, the songs a sort of anthem for my search.

I watch Deadwood over and over, vaguely thinking I’ll learn something but really just caressing my mind by being in this faraway place with Black Hills Shakespearan characters and their schemes. They may be somewhat conflicted, but their wants and actions are so clear, so doggedly executed and I am fascinated by that and how this wild town creates itself, disposing of those who aren’t of use and how it’s figuring out how to form and become civilized, how to get along with the various personages who are making their place, their way, their fortunes amidst good and evil.”

Such a profusion of Neptune feelings in the description above: lost, unknown, undecided, free fall, deluded, anesthetized, fantasy, escape, dreamy, sucked in, surrendered, fog, swept away, curious, confused, searching for answers, inactive, caressing, figuring out how to form. It’s pretty amazing how dead on this description is.

Why you ask, would the planets throw us into such a state? Well, the answer is that often such a state is the precursor to inspiration, to a new level of clarity, to opening up to possibilities romantic and artistic and spiritual. It’s a form of divine discontent and enthrallment that leads us to somewhere we never knew existed. The Neptune sea sweeps us up to exotic new destinations, new frontiers, new homes. The attachment to a celebrity or celebrities, to a story, a movie, a type of music, etc. is very common during this kind of transit. It allows for a safe exploration of feelings that real life often has little use for. And the attachment in its own way heals and allows for the processing of emotions and experiences that the daily crush of demands don’t honor. Neptune allows the imagination to become a vehicle for redemption.

If you surrender to a Neptune transit, it can be almost ecstatic. It re-sets your priorities and pulls you out of mundane worries into a land of exalted emotion. Although strange and confusing, it’s a good thing. And worth enjoying–for it won’t last forever.

P.S. Thanks to our anonymous contributor!

Interestingly, Pisces is the sign of slavery itself and, during the last time Neptune was in Pisces, the big issue was the expansion (Neptune) of slavery in the US. Ultimately, however, Neptune performed its undermining function and slavery was permanently legally abolished in the US.

Slavery is not the issue of the day today, of course. Neptune & Pisces are also associated with such things as medicine, including holistic medicine and drugs, diseases, the poor, alcohol, shipping and the seas, charity, religion and spirituality, films, fashion, movies, glamor, illusion, deception, fantasy, oil, art, shoes, compassion, water, psychic phenomena, the subconscious mind, institutions, prisons, chemicals, escape, withdrawal, meditation, and sleep.

Coincidentally or not, one of the most common predictions about the effects of global warming is a rise in sea levels. If there’s any placement that would encourage a rise in sea levels, it would be Neptune in Pisces. Neptune, the planet that melts, would be more than happy to melt glaciers and increase its dominion over the oceans by making them bigger. Indeed, Neptune with its gigantic holistic approach will be likely to increase global concern with the environment and the entangled effects we all have on it. This is good news for people who care about the environment; it may be bad news for those who fear a ‘one world’ approach to anything.

Compassion may become an explicit value, idealized and promoted in unlikely places. Again, good news for people who value compassion. It may be a bit more difficult for those who are not naturally compassionate and who distrust it as a weakening influence. Neither Neptune nor Pisces is the least bit afraid of weakness and vulnerability; in them they see spiritual strength and the power of surrender to prevail. That may be a bit hard to swallow for those who have built a life on appearing strong.

But what about Neptune in Pisces’s effects on the individual zodiac signs? Neptune in Pisces will theoretically be excruciatingly delicious at times for those born in water signs or who have planets or angles in water signs (although Neptune conjunct a planet in Pisces may be a bit more ambiguous in its effects). Earth signs and planets will also benefit from the Neptunian magic of exquisite sensation. Nothing feels better than a good Neptune transit. Other transits may be more practical, but for sheer transporting emotion, nothing beats Neptune.

Those in mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) or with planets therein may not find Neptune transits quite as thrilling, at least at first. Or it may be exponentially more thrilling, with a Neptune hangover and disillusionment to follow. Neptune’s like a drug, and under the influence of it, we sometimes fall in love with things that are not quite as wonderful as they seem at first. We fall in love with people, ideas, churches, gurus, quests, must-haves, dreams, fantasies, the unrealistic and the unobtainable.

Neptune’s purpose, at least one of them, is to lure us cleverly out of our comfort zones with the promise of easy, ideal riches–emotional, spiritual, or material. Once out of our comfort zones, Neptune abandons us and we are lost, forced to create a new path through uncharted territory.

That sounds pretty alarming and sometimes it is, but if Neptune didn’t lure us, we’d stay in metaphorical Kansas and never venture into the land of Oz. We learn a lot in Oz, even if it’s not what we expected, even if it’s only that reality is a lot better than we used to give it credit for. Neptune encourages gratitude, devotion, colorful adventures, hopeful dreams, fresh starts, and vivid memories. It allows us to do things we would never do in our right minds and opens up new worlds to us.

Neptune also encourages stuckness. Neptune is nature’s pause button, and it slows things down far more than Saturn. Neptune processes the whole, not the pieces, and the whole takes a long time to digest. During a difficult Neptune transit, you may feel like you are going nowhere at zero miles per hour, stuck in the same old fog and uncertainty for an anxiety-provoking stretch of seeming endlessness. Because Neptune’s not one to discriminate or distinguish but accepts all things, it’s hard to make out landmarks, so that one may feel overwhelmed by the inter-relatedness of issues in your life. On the good side, when Neptune solves a problem–it can solve a whole bunch of them at once, due to its holistic approach. Out of the fog, you arrive magically at a destination you only vaguely knew you were aiming for.

If you fight Neptune with enough skepticism, you may not fall victim to its wiles and deceptions. You won’t be tricked out of your money, your heart, your ideals, or your property. And you’ll miss the hallucinogenic trip through Oz. Is it better to lose a little and gain a whole new perspective or to keep yourself safe and avoid the quest? It’s up to you to decide.

Neptune will never be in a bad mood with you. It may affect you strongly and at some point it probably will, but it itself remains unaffected by human vagaries. It glides along, sprinkling its fairy dust and intoxicating anyone intrigued by its sparkling visions. But it will never chide you, nor blame you, nor yell at you. It simply is. Your reaction to it is your own choice.

In many cases, I have time to prepare by meditating on the chart before the reading, but in this case it was spontaneous and is presented warts and all. It was edited slightly for time and to delete some personally identifying details. There are always things that could have been done differently or followed up on more thoroughly, but time is always a factor and at 1 hour we couldn’t go into everything in detail. I’ve never given a consultation yet that I thought was perfect!

With that said, below are some of the things we touched on. If the astrospeak at first goes over your head, scroll down a bit for some interesting manifestations explained in plain English.

Her main concern in the natal chart at the moment was a cardinal T-square between Pluto in Libra, Mars in Aries, and Moon in Cancer. All 3 placements fell within the Gauquelin sectors, so this is quite a planetary tussle within her natal chart. Her ‘phase of life’ is Mars in Aries. (For an explanation of phase of life and how to calculate it, refer to the podcast and the previous one on Vedic astrology.) Her Mars in Aries placement is conjunct the Descendant on the 6th house side. In her life it seems to correlate, as expected, with work, health, and relationship matters. Her natal Mars is activated by solar arc direction but not by transit or secondary progression. She spontaneously mentioned a number of Mars issues, including concerns about her health, her relationships, her tendency to initiate and not follow through, as well as feelings of excessive heat.

There are a lot of approaches we could have taken to her Mars concerns, but we focused on the dynamics of the conversation between Pluto, Mars and the Moon.

We also talked about her natal Neptune in Sagittarius in the 3rd house (Placidus houses), which is in a trine to her natal Mars. We briefly mentioned Chiron conjunct her sun in Taurus in the 7th house, her Jupiter in Leo in the 10th house, and her Saturn in Virgo in the 11th house.

Interesting manifestations of the planets: (some of these are mentioned in the podcast, some came out in later conversation).

Neptune in Sagittarius in the 3rd house: Neptune is often related to music or artistic leanings in a chart, and that seems to be the case for the client. A cookbook interpretation of Neptune in Sagittarius in the 3rd might be something like overseas relatives or artistic siblings. This client is the first I’ve come across, however, to use Neptune in the 3rd to make up an imaginary (Neptune) language (3rd house). She also prefers to sing (Neptune) in a foreign (Sagittarius) language (third house).

Mars in Aries in the 6th house: Particular forms of exercise (6th house) make her feel militant (Mars, Aries). She specifically relates this to her father, who was trained as a military (Mars) physician (6th house).

Moon in Cancer in the 9th house conjunct MC: The client expressed an attraction to jobs that involve serving food (Cancer), nurturing people (Moon), and serving them within a certain philosophy (9th house). She is going to school (9th house) to study Ayurvedic nutrition (Cancer). She finds it difficult to finish (Mars square Moon). Her mother (Moon) was an educational (9th house) prodigy (graduated medical school at an early age) known for her cooking (Cancer). Her mother can be extremely critical at times (Moon square Mars and Pluto). Her mother’s accomplishments act as a shadow looming over her (moon conjunct MC). She is taking steps toward public visibility (moon conjunct MC) but has many hesitations (moon squared by Mars and Pluto).

These are the kinds of specific manifestations of the symbolic language of astrology that cookbooks with their limited space cannot really address. This is why it is good to study real chart and look at how resourceful charts can be in expressing their energies in a given environment.

In this particular case, we could follow up by focusing more specifically on relationships and how to negotiate the charts dual drives for independence via Mars and Aries and relationship via sun in the 7th and Pluto in Libra conjunct the Ascendant. We could also delve more deeply and more practically in terms of exercises to deal with the blocking action her Mars feels from the Pluto influence and that her moon feels from both Mars and Pluto. During our initial session, she already began to identify some of the real life circumstances and thoughts that her Pluto represents. As with anyone, Pluto can be an asset or a real problem.

As with all people, the astrology of her chart simply provides a language for expressing, clarifying and analyzing what’s really going on in her life and what she experiences on a daily basis. These circumstances, feelings, and experiences could also be expressed and analyzed using other types of terminology. The value of astrology is partly that by externalizing the competing desires and feelings as planetary symbols a person can look at them objectively and start to figure out how to make choices about how tot handle them. Astrology also offers something few other disciplines do: information about timing. It can a guide a person as to when the ‘right’ time to deal with certain inner conflicts or impulses might be and when it’s okay to just wait for things to unfold. At the moment, the time is ripe for this individual to develop tools to deal with all 3 elements of the t-square.

Uranus is just finishing up whacking people with planets in late degrees of mutable signs and is looking forward to resuming the ability to pounce on people with planets in early degrees of cardinal signs next March. Since I happen to be one of those people with planets in early degrees of cardinal signs, I thought I’d respond to a reader query and venture a few unconventional thoughts on dealing with the most unconventional planet in the astrological system. Without further ado, a few strange ways for getting the upper hand on a contrary planet.

#1: Panic early. Uranus can be a rather hysterical planet and he loves speed. Get the jump on him by panicking as soon as you realize you have a Uranus square, opposition or conjunction coming up. There’s a bit of reverse psychology to this so bear with me.

Think of your worst nightmare under the upcoming transit. Let’s say Uranus will be conjunct your Descendant and opposing your Ascendant. Your worst nightmare is that Uranus will try to break up your marriage because you’ve seen that happen with Uranus in the 7th house and you’re a Libra, so you hate that idea. Panic productively by figuring out what you can pull out of your hat to prevent that. Does your spouse need more freedom? Has tension been building? Do you need to talk some things through? Could you separate briefly if things are really rough these days? Could you be more assertive now so that you’re not overwhelmed with anger later? Brainstorm; worry if necessary. Uranus loves brainstorming.

But here’s the magic of this trick. Uranus wants to surprise you. If you’ve already prepared and anticipated, there’ll be no surprise if the transit brings stress to your marriage. Uranus hates that; he hates to be predicted. So he will leave your marriage alone. Now admittedly, he will do something else, such as shake up your Ascendant by having you dye your hair shocking pink (Uranus loves shocking anything). But you can live with that. Better your hair than your marriage.

The same sort of reverse psychology is necessary if you’re actually looking forward to the Uranus transit (some people do). Let’s say you are thinking to yourself that Uranus squaring your Capricorn Ascendant is going to loosen up your Capricorn serious way of presenting yourself and you think that’s going to be great because you’re tired of being perceived as a Capricorn instead of the wacky Aquarian sun that you feel inside. Don’t count on it if you’re counting on it. Instead, announce loudly to anyone that will listen “I’ll bet you Uranus will attack my sensitive Cancer Descendant instead of my Capricorn Ascendant; I just know it. I can feel it. I’m sure of it. I’m intuitive that way. It will be awful.” Uranus will overhear you and say “Aha! Guess who’s going to get a big surprise when I go after the Capricorn Ascendant!” Mission accomplished.

Now this may seem crazy, and it kind of is. But I have experience with Uranus and in my experience Uranus really does hate being predicted. I have seen this technique work on more than one occasion. What you worry about doesn’t happen. If you don’t worry at all, you get whacked upside the head. Either way, Uranus achieves his goal of keeping you on your toes and engaged with your life, thinking about the possibilities instead of relying on the same old routine. By the time you’ve finished worrying about your marriage or whatever, you’ll have already achieved what needed to be achieved, the greater independence, the not taking it for granted, the willingness to take a look at it. Without the drama of being blindsided.

#2: If it’s too late to panic in advance, take a look at what kind of Uranus transit you are going through. There are at least 2 major kinds. One is internal and the other is situational. The internal ones make you feel like you are going crazy, partly because nothing’s happening and you want something to happen. You feel restless. You want to quit your job, flee to Europe or Tahiti. You want to dump your girlfriend, dump your friends, move across country, start a new life. You want to get married, force an issue, make a bold move, have a breakthrough or do anything rather than endure the same old situation that you’ve been putting up with forever. With Uranus in Aries, you will frequently want to scream at someone, because that’s what this placement encourages.

There are 2 ways you can handle this situation. One is to make whatever radical change crosses your mind. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it’s rough. If you’ve been thinking of ending your marriage or quitting your job for 4 years now and you haven’t been able to get your butt in gear, it’s probably time to take the plunge. Some people find it very hard to do what they’re planning unless forced by major stress. Uranus is helpful to these folks. Do try to prepare as much as possible for the major move you’re going to make because Uranus rarely sticks around to help you pick up the pieces. You’ll need to be responsible for yourself once the change is made. But if you understand that, you can use Uranus productively, even though you will be beside yourself until you make your move.

The other way is to get at the underlying boredom and need for excitement and re-engagement with your life that underlies the desire for radical change. Find a place and a way to scream on purpose, instead of by accident. Try not to entertain the idea that you will be able to get away without any metaphorical screaming or yelling at all. You will need to pitch some sort of a fit, even if you do it privately, because Uranus will not let up until you do.

Scream in your car to loud music, as long as you aren’t transporting the kids and you’ve got the windows rolled up. Find a therapist or even an astrologer and vent like crazy. Find some new friends and take up new activities with them that blow off steam. Take a karate class and make a lot of ‘hai-yah!’ noises. Get a punching bag. Learn self-defense techniques. Write an angry letter to your congressperson. Take a strong position on something and argue it with someone who is tolerant of debate. Watch a lot of action movies and vicariously thrill at blowing up the buildings and blowing away the bad guys. Become a sports fan and yell for the home team. Join a bowling league and jump up and down when you roll a strike. Attend a demonstration and chant slogans at passing cars. Take up a righteous cause and work for it. Start fist-pumping when you overcome a challenge. Act on a impulse. Stay up all night making a ridiculously long bucket list. Tell off a bully. Use a swear word that shocks you. Do something! Let Uranus know that you got the message that you need to be more alive, even aggressively so.

Some or all of these things will be counter to your nature, or you aren’t really going through a difficult Uranus transit. The point is to realize that Uranus is just activating the natural vitality that comes with experiencing your own Aries energy. Consciously choose what you’d like to do with it. If you keep at this, you will eventually realize (with a sudden flash of insight if Uranus has his way) what it is you are really discontented with and why. Often what you’re upset about is all the time you’ve wasted putting off taking control over your own life. That’s a pretty big, if jarring, insight, and once you gain it, you can decide how to get back that control.

#3: If you’re having a situational Uranus transit, you’re not the one feeling restless. Instead, you’re feeling shocked and disoriented because Uranus suddenly ended something you weren’t planning to end voluntarily. Instead of quitting your job, you’re fired. Instead of dumping the boyfriend, he dumped you. And so on. This is the sort of thing that gives Uranus a bad reputation. He does disrupt people’s lives. It can be very rough when this happens. In between being upset and disoriented, there are a few things you can do.

For example, you can revel in your new freedom. Yes, it’s terrifying not having a job. But…for the first time in 15 years you can sleep in, visit the beach on a Monday, grow a beard, not have to pick up the hubby’s dirty socks, go on a date with someone new, wear what you like, and escape the daily grind that used to be your life. This won’t last forever, so take at least a few moments, every day, to savor it.

You can also take advantage of the opportunity to be objective and detach. When your world’s turned upside down, it’s too painful to be subjective. So don’t be. Instead, step back, way back, and look at the situation as objectively as possible. At least for a few minutes every day, put your feelings aside and evaluate the situation as if you were an outside observer. From an outside observer’s perspective, it was a lousy job and a terrible boyfriend in the first place. Uranus did you a favor. He just did it more quickly and abruptly than you were anticipating.

You can also let go of outcomes and expectations.  I got this tip recently from a client. She was thrilled with her disruptive and upsetting and infuriating Uranus transit, once she bounced back from the initial shock. She was thrilled because she realized she had been building her life around expectations and desires to control the outcome of her life that just were not working out. She wasn’t living any more, wasn’t able to see what could happen, experiment, learn, open up, etc. because she’d been too busy predicting things. Trying different things with the attitude of ‘let’s just see what happens’ is a perfectly valid way to handle a Uranus disruption.

Finally, you can go in a different direction and build on a new foundation. If it’s hard putting up with the disruption of a situational Uranus transit, it’s even harder to try to recapture what just went away. Something is going to have to be different. Decide what you’re never going to do again and what you’d like to do differently this next time around. In a way, Uranus doesn’t care what changes you make, as long as you go forward and not backward. As long as you are clear that Uranus will not actually help you become the master chef of your lifelong fantasy, that he will just give you the chance to act on your desires, you can decide not to re-board the train you were riding and get on one to a whole different destination.

P.S. Just because you fail the first time you audition for “Master Chef” does not mean you made the wrong decision. Uranus believes in experimenting until you get it right. He was the one who told Thomas Edison that he didn’t fail to make a lightbulb a thousand times, he just discovered a bunch of ways that didn’t work.

Good luck with your transits!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.