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.

After Michael Jackson’s death, some people immediately and understandably asked me about the astrology aspect. Some people asked about MJ specifically, others about the weirdness of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson dying on the same day (soon after Ed McMahon). Of course, I thought about the astrology too.

But truth to tell I was too bummed by Jackson’s death to have much heart for the astrology of it. I wasn’t much of Michael Jackson fan, other than the fact that Billie Jean is one of my favorite songs of all time. And, like almost everyone else, I liked many of the songs from his heyday and would defend them when they weren’t cool in my circle. I also liked his quote about studying Fred Astaire and saying that one thing he learned from Astaire was that all the great dancers were angry dancers.

Michael Jackson was one of the best angry dancers of all time in my opinion.

But I also felt bad for him and disturbed by him as his times in the spotlight got progressively weirder. The past several years seemed to be just one battle after another for him. I sure did wish he hadn’t all those plastic surgeries. I cringed at pictures of him as a youngster in the Jackson Five, thinking about how unhappy he was during those times, and how drastically he altered any physical trace of that young person from his being.

I remember that he used to eat at a Sufi restaurant on Third Street that I liked and that he was about a block away from me when the infamous Pepsi commercial accident happened. One of my acquaintances was involved in the television movie about his early life.

But these things don’t amount to being a rabid fan–they’re just instances of being touched by his presence as a towering show business talent like so many people were. But you don’t have to be a rabid fan, it turns out, to be shocked and bummed out by the death of an icon.  It almost seemed disrespectful to go running for astro charts, as though they can make the death any more comprehensible or less sad.

So I’ll be a little more general. I’ve not made much of a study of sudden death in astrological charts. Death of any sort is not my astrological specialty; that’s for sure. But still, one encounters death in astrology as one does anywhere else. My limited experience with sudden death points to the following factors in most cases I’ve run across.

8th house involvement. Uranus involvement or sometimes Mars instead. A higher than expected number of occurrences during eclipse seasons. In birth charts, there will often be markers like Uranus in the 8th house or 12th houses, Mars in the 4th or 12th houses, or some sort of repeating theme in the chart that indicates violence, accidents, or something similar.

Another thing I’ve noticed is not exactly astrological. It’s that the person seems to have almost ‘used up’ their life energy as shown in the astrological chart. They’ve accomplished so much of what the chart seemed to indicate by the time of death, that it’s almost as if they’d done it all, done what they came for. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the death often shows up very strongly in the charts of people around them, sometimes more strongly than in the person’s own chart.

But none of this is predictive. I’ve seen plenty of people with the same factors, and they live very long lives. I’ve seen people get through the most dangerous astrological times of their lives and come out on the other side into astrological sunshine.

At any rate, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of a reliable birth time for Michael Jackson, so  I don’t really have a trusthworthy chart to analyze anyway. I suspect he had Uranus in the 8th or 12th house, by transit and natally. I suspect that the triple conjunction of Neptune, Jupiter, and Chiron hit one of the angles in his birth chart, given the circumstances of his death, and that Uranus being at the 26 degree mark as well placed his chart under additional stress.

But I could easily be wrong. And in the end, it may not really matter nearly as much as the wishes of people all around the world that he’s now in peace and that his contributions to our lives be remembered and celebrated.