Midlife Transits

I’m conducting this workshop in Culver City tomorrow. It combines an introduction to astrology with the Life Phases system that I’ve been developing over the past 7 years.

Astrology in real life as the inimitable Elsa Elsa would say. Saturn has been opposing Uranus across my natal 6th house/12th house. That’s health and psychological functioning. I’ve been feeling like my  head is going to explode (literally) because my migraines have been flaring up and that makes me anxious.

In my solar chart (the horoscope for my sun sign), Saturn has been opposing Uranus across my 2nd house and 8th house. Those are the financial houses. Taxes bit me in the butt and hence I am over budget and worried about money.

The fact that it’s both is why I use sun sign horoscopes as well as birth time ones.

So what’s going on in your life?

Announcing the 1st International Astrology Day Blog Carnival
Welcome the Aries Ingress

The Cardinal T-Square:
Personal Challenges – Practical Solutions

A 3-Day World Wide Web Blog-a-Thon
March 19-21, 2010
Keys to Effectively Handling the Cardinal T-Square Challenges

Find out how you and your loved ones may be affected by the T-Square!

A blog carnival is an internet-based event featuring a large, permanent collection of informative articles on a given topic. Several blogs host pages with article descriptions linked to sites where articles are posted. This particular carnival celebrates International Astrology Day and presents a variety of useful essays about ways individuals can contend with the cardinal T-Square during 2010-14.

The three host bloggers showcase articles on how transiting Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto will affect individuals’ lives and what they can do to integrate the useful side of each of these energies. Authors for each day give readers ideas and problem-solving tools to tackle the inevitable challenges and get back on solid ground.

Friday, March 19:
So you’ve STILL got Pluto Problems?

Saturday, March 20
Take Care of Saturn and Saturn Will Take Care of You

Sunday, March 21
Uranus in Aries: Claiming a Self-Reliant Future

For descriptions of all the article collections and special features, here’s the link to the blogathon main page: The Cardinal T-Square of 2010: Saturn, Uranus, Pluto

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

a free report/chapter on an astrological topic–what would you want to read about?

If you’re in the LA area, check out my new location for in-person consultations. It’s at the Raksa Wellness Center in Culver City. In addition to getting an astrology reading, you can take a yoga class, get a facial, eat healthy food, experience Reiki or acupuncture and more.

I’m also available for telephone consultations, as well as consultations by email, instant messaging, or Skype.

I went to the Jay Leno taping on October 30 and saw John Cusack. He’ s the star of a movie coming out in November about 2012 being the end of the world. There are lots of predictions floating around the Internet about that year these days. Here is part 1 of my own expert predictions. Enjoy!

THE MOVIE: I predict the movie will be a big hit, with lots of neato special effects, a so-so story line, and, with all due respect to Mr. Cusack, generally mediocre acting overwhelmed by the visuals. Basis for prediction: the buzz is strong and the advertising extensive; the special effects really do look cool; these kinds of movies tend to do big box office; knowledge of the generally weak storylines of these kinds of movies and the difficulty of making lines like “whatever happens, we’re still a family” Oscar-worthy.

THE END OF THE WORLD: will NOT occur in 2012. Basis for prediction: The historical record for predicting the end of the world is quite poor. As of this writing, every single individual or organization who has ever predicted the end of the world has been wrong. This is the safest prediction I could make because, if by some chance, the world did come to an unlikely end in 2012, there would be nobody left to care about my prediction.

All right, I’m being glib. Let’s look at a couple of the reasons why a movie about the world ending in 2012 would even be made. Reason #1: is the Mayan Long Count calendar. The Mayan Long Count calendar begins in August of 3114 B.C. and, according to the latest interpretations, ends on December 21, 2012.

However, as you may notice, the world itself did not begin in August of 3114 B.C. and the end of the calendar does not indicate that the even the Mayans thought the world would end in 2012. The Mayans had an ingenious and complex system of counting time periods, one that gave them the ability to create numerical symbols for a series of days lasting over 5,000 years. That’s impressive.

At the end of the cycle, the digits in the Mayan calendar can roll over, sort of like a car’s odometer, so that you get the equivalent of a bunch of zeros. Our own system does something similar when the digits roll over at the end of a millennium. We get excited when digits roll over, and the Mayans that came up with the calendar may well have gotten excited when the digits on the Long Count Calendar rolled over, but that is different from the world ending.

The Mayan world ended (to the extent that the civilization that achieved so much essentially collapsed) in the same way that most things in this world end, rather slowly. It did not take place in accordance with the end of any calendar. If history is any guide (sometimes it is), our own civilization will eventually collapse, rather slowly. But not by 2012. Ecological degradation poses a far greater threat to our civilization than the Mayan calendar does.

Even if 2012 sees a gigantic volcanic eruption (could happen at any time) that causes massive problems, or an asteroid strike (could happen, although we would probably be able to see it coming if it was large enough to cause major damage), or an extremely large earthquake, the world would not end. Human civilization has seen a number of really huge volcanic eruptions (e.g., Krakatoa), massive earthquakes, and even the occasional asteroid strike. Human civilization has seen a whole bunch of really major disasters, but thus far, not only does the world refuse to end, but human beings refuse to die out. Things can get bad, and sometimes they do, but human beings take a licking and keep on ticking. For some, this is undoubtedly disappointing, but it’s true.

Take, for example, the Black Plague in the mid-1300s. That was big. It killed close to a hundred million people, and cut the population of Europe about in half over the course of a couple of years. That’s huge. Think of a hundred million people dying in the US now; that would be a big deal. Yet, the world did not end. Europe didn’t even end. And the Mayans, for all their skills, apparently didn’t have a lot to say about it.

The bottom line is that we humans tend overestimate dangers and underestimate our own resiliency to deal with things, both large and small.Whatever happens in 2012, we will deal with it.

Reason #2 for predictions of the end of the world can be found in religious and spiritual sentiment. Most cultures and religions have some way of accounting for the beginning of the world and the end of the world. Maybe not all, but most. One of the things that sometimes goes along with strong spiritual or religious feeling is a longing to escape the boring realities and struggles of life here on earth to more quickly join God or experience the afterlife. A desire for justice against all the bad people in the world (and there are always plenty of those) plays into this as well.

That doesn’t mean that everyone who is religious or spiritual is worried about the end of the world in 2012. Most aren’t. In fact, some devout Christians emphatically speak against such talk on the basis that we humans are not given to know when the end of days will occur. But….among those who do worry about the end of the world, the reasoning often has a distinctly religious, spiritual, or ‘prophetic’ cast. There is the belief that something otherworldly, mysterious, and uncannily accurate is at work, and that we have only to look for the coded signs to see unprecedented disaster ahead.

Astrologically, you could call this too much Neptune or drinking the Neptune kool-aid. Neptune is notorious for misleading people. Whatever validity such feelings may have on an emotional, symbolic, or even spiritual level, they do not translate into literal physical events. Again, the record on these predictions is incredibly poor. Disasters happen that aren’t predicted, and those that are predicted don’t. No matter how strongly we may feel about things, we haven’t exactly unlocked the code yet.

Finally, there is the hodgepodge factor. Lots of people who are worried about 2012 aren’t especially spiritual or even prophetic. But they hear about all kinds of theories, including Planet Nibiru or other things, and it just increases their already present sense of worry.When people are exposed to a hodgepodge of evidence that seems to trend in the same direction, people have a tendency to place a lot of weight on that evidence and to believe that the evidence must be true. In other words, the fact that there are supposedly lots of different, unrelated reasons to think about 2012 makes it seem to people more likely that something really huge will happen then.

Since there is legitimately plenty to worry about in the world today, some people just take the hodgepodge all the way over into imagining a doomsday scenario. Give people like this a firm date, and they’ll latch onto it.

Then people get locked into a kind of reasoning in which they say to themselves “why would I be thinking or feeling such things if they weren’t true?” As one person quoted in an ABC News article said: “[My predictions] are so spectacular, they can’t possibly be wrong.” Most of our worries and fears, however, are wrong. And thank goodness for that!

BUT WHAT ABOUT PREDICTIONS FOR SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT?

My predictions for that are in the next post.

Simon Baker

The last time Uranus was in Pisces, in the 1920s, public interest skyrocketed in offbeat things like seances, spiritualism, and Theosophy. Given that the modern world is already drenched in New Age stuff, it seemed hard to believe that Uranus in Pisces would make seances more popular this time around. True, shows like Medium and Ghost Whisperer have found their audiences. There are also a lot of shows about paranormal stuff on cable television. So there has been a bit of interest in these sorts of Uranus in Pisces type things over the past 5 or 6 years, at least on TV.

And now that Saturn’s in Virgo, we get a show like The Mentalist, about a former fake psychic and con man who’s turned to crime busting. Saturn in Virgo is the enemy of Uranus in Pisces, and it disapproves of all that mumbo-jumbo stuff. Hence, we get a skeptic on TV. It happens to be the most popular new show on television this year. I suspect that has a great deal more to do with the fetchingly eye-candy nature of the star, Simon Baker, than with the fact that the plot line makes him a skeptic. Still, Saturn in Virgo’s got to be happy to get its day in the court of public television opinion.

But a couple of TV shows hardly seems like a dramatic manifestation of Uranus in Pisces, given that people have always loved a good ghost story. The real impact of Uranus in Pisces is to be found, I think, in the belated recognition by mainstream Western medicine that people who need to be healed hate much of its impersonality, brutality, and lack of spiritual content. As the following AP story demonstrates (link) alternative medicine has now found its way into many nooks and crannies of conventional medicine.

Saturn in Virgo, guardian of old-line and traditional thinking, lover of bureaucracy, and general party-spoiler extraordinaire, doesn’t like it though. As you’ll see if you read the article, all sorts of skepticism is brought forth. Saturn in Virgo is suspicious of all this alternative stuff, and perhaps rightly so when it points out that big business will take over anything, including the hawking of spiritually-based healing.

Saturn in Virgo may bring up some objections, but he won’t stop the train. Uranus beats Saturn in almost any contest, hands down, and alternative medicine is likely to be here to stay. And a lot of people are glad about that.

Here’s a link to something Mashable is promoting, a Summer of Social Good. The goal is to raise money for charities this summer through social media like Twitter.

To me, this is a prime example of the influence of the Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron conjunction in Aquarius this summer. Aquarius as a sign is often hot for social good. Furthermore, Aquarius is the sign of social networking through technology.

Put Jupiter and Neptune into this sign, throw in Chiron and mash them all together and you get something like this. Neptune provides the idealism; Jupiter provides the incentive to do good through economic means, and Chiron provides the urge to heal something grand–like society. And yes, this is a summer phenomenon, this conjunction. By the fall, we’ll have other astrological things to worry about. Like Saturn in Libra being in a bad mood with Pluto in Capricorn.

Another example of the conjunction zeitgeist, I think, is the fact that NBC is launching a show with the improbable title of “The Philanthropist” about a globe-trotting philanthropist who just wants to save the world and blow up some cars or stuff.

Stop Poverty

This is from my Twitter feed:

In astrology, the symbols for possessions and the symbols for values are often the same. What do your possessions say about your values?

You can weigh in by posting a comment.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, here’s my account info: http://twitter.com/practicalastro

Thanks!

Phoenix

From Lara Owen, reprinted from Mountain Astrologer magazine.

Phoenix Rising

It has a nice hopeful tone and deals with more transits than usual (including the Chiron return). It makes some things sound a bit easier than they are (believe me, following a pregnant woman’s diet will not by itself make hot flashes go away). But it has solid examples and a nice listing of midlife transitions for men and women and their effects on the various houses.

Walden Pond by Nicole Lawton

I literally got this from a mug that I saw in a bookstore but it fits:

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined. –Thoreau

It fits because this is what astrology readings are all about, as least as far as the way I do them. They are about helping people go in the directions of their dreams to live the lives they’ve been imagining. In some ways, that is what a natal chart is. It’s a map of your soul’s imaginings. Its dreams.

A natal chart is a legitimate map. Unfortunately, it is written in symbols that take a long time to learn how to decode. It would be so much simpler if we were born knowing the language of our maps and having them stapled to our baby garments! Then we could just refer to them as needed.

But since it doesn’t work that way, astrology is a valuable tool. There is nothing more joyful to me in life than when a client gets through a transit and achieves a dream. It’s wonderful. I love it. And I’m lucky to be able to do something I love.

This has nothing to do with astrology. I just liked it. Supposedly it’s from the Washington Post’s  contest where they ask readers to take any word from the dictionary, then alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and then supply a new definition.

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

2. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

3. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

8. Uno: What you insert, you know, while, you know, you are deciding what you will say next, you know.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is, like, sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Saturn

Saturn goes direct May 16. Saturn in Virgo been’s a pretty gloomy little planetary placement, coinciding as it has with the crash in the real estate market in the US, and, not so coincidentally, with the crash in real estate markets around the world. It’s not been bursting with good news, this transit hasn’t.

Not only that, Saturn’s been picking fights with Uranus off and on since it entered Virgo in September 07, and it’s hardly jolly to watch these two planets fight. They’re enemies from way back. Saturn is always suspicious, perhaps with good reason, that Uranus is out to overthrow everything he’s built. In fact, the last time they met, on election day November 2008, Uranus in the person of Barack Obama (Aquarius Ascendant, ruled by Uranus, representing change) soundly beat Saturn in the person of John McCain (Virgo sun, famous old person).

Saturn’s going to be in an even grumpier mood when he moves into Libra, since he’ll be greatly annoyed not only with Uranus when it moves into Aries, but also with Pluto in Capricorn. It’s easy to see why Saturn’s not the most popular kid on the astrological block, even if he does have all those neato rings to look at.

But…since Saturn goes direct on the 16th, lots of us may get a break from the gloom. May is already shaping up to be a relatively optimistic month overall, and Saturn going direct only adds to the general lightening of the atmosphere.

How so? Well, when a planet goes direct, people who have been affected by difficult transits from the planet in question often get a break in the case. For example, let’s say your sun is at 16 degrees Gemini. Saturn would have been in a square to your sun since October of 2008. The result could easily have been some kind of ongoing gloom about something having to do with your home. Let’s say it lost a bunch of its value in the real estate crash and that has left you feeling like your overpriced mortgage is more of a burden than its worth. It’s all you think about. How are you going to get out from under this mortgage?

And then…the Obama administration does something that’s supposed to help homeowners like you, and you tentatively and hesitantly apply for a refinance–and then worry. You get turned down and freak out. Then, just after Saturn goes direct, you pitch a fit with your banker, whine and scream, and your banker says, ‘I think we have a program that will help you.’ Lo and behold it does, and your transit of misery ends. Not so gloomy….the load lightens.

Not everyone will get a break in the case in the days around the 16th, but lots of people will. One little home mortgage modification doesn’t solve all the problems of the world; your house is still worth less than you’d like. But it sure does help. Even John McCain is bound to perk up.

Now, for an extra-special treat, I’m going to post little mini-horoscopes for each of the signs, so you can get a glimpse of what Saturn going direct might mean for you. Go to the free monthly horoscopes page for your sign and enjoy.