Midlife Transits

Well, I should have posted a bit more on the Cancer/Capricorn eclipse series before the lunar eclipse in Capricorn on the 7th of this month. But I wrongly anticipated that the lunar eclipse would be mild and favorable and then the proverbial stuff hit the fan during the days surrounding it.

Meanwhile, the solar eclipse in Cancer has already affected lots of people in my circle, so the energy kind of jammed up on itself. Some people were even affected by the upcoming lunar eclipse in Aquarius (on August 6). So, at least in my world, it’s all been a bit hard to sort out.

Still, this is an important eclipse series, so now that things have calmed a bit, it’s time to address it.

This eclipse series is scheduled to go through July 1 of 2011. Eclipses typically occur every 5 1/2 to 6 months apart. They come in pairs of opposite signs, two weeks apart. Sometimes two eclipse series will overlap. That’s what’s happening this summer, as we finish up the Leo/Aquarius series and start the Cancer/Capricorn one. So we’re getting 3 this season instead of the typical two.

We’re also getting two different types of energy and that will occur again during this Cancer/Capricorn series. That is, we’ll see mixtures of cardinal energy and mutable energy as the Gemini/Sagittarius eclipses kick in before the Cancer/Capricorn ones are done.

So, what about these Cancer/Capricorn ones? The first thing I note is that cardinal energy. Cardinal energy is represented by the signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. Cardinal energy started getting a boost last year when Jupiter and then Pluto entered Capricorn.

Cardinal energy will get even more of a boost when Saturn moves into Libra later this year. Then Jupiter will spend time in Aries next year. So will Uranus.

That’s a whoooooooole bunch more cardinal energy than we’ve been used to in the 2000′s.  We’ve had Jupiter in cardinal signs occasionally and we endured Saturn in Cancer during that decade. But the 10 years have been dominated by mutable and fixed signs–Pluto in Sagittarius (mutable); Neptune in Aquarius. Uranus in Aquarius (fixed) and Uranus in Pisces (mutable).

In contrast, the 1990′s saw consistent cardinal action until 1998–and it wasn’t until the middle of 1998 that we had a direct clash between cardinal planets (Saturn in Aries, Neptune in Capricorn). In other words, we’ve gone more than 10 years since seeing cardinal planets face off against each other, and that was nothing compared to the clashes coming up in the years ahead.

Cardinal signs are said to be  initiating signs that take charge and are ambitious, determined, and active. They’re important signs–they’re also bossy. When fixed signs clash, things get bogged down (a la the middle stages of the war in Iraq). When mutable signs clash, things get volatile (e.g., real estate crash). When cardinal signs clash, you can get outright fights that are hard to resolve.

It’s as though everyone at once decides that it’s time to take charge of his or her destiny on a personal to international level and agendas clash. Get ready to fight for what you want.

On a personal level, this series will affect you in a pair of opposite houses. Not all eclipses can be expected to bring anything interesting. Still, I have found that in general eclipse series in Cancer/Capricorn bring substantial changes for a great many people.

Below are the houses that are scheduled to be affected between now and July 2011. Note that eclipses more often seem to affect solar houses (based on your sun sign) than natal ones (based on your rising sign), but you can check out both.

Aries: 4th house/10th house–home and career.

Taurus: 3rd house/9th house–communication, relatives/travel and beliefs

Gemini: 2nd house/8th house–financial and property matters

Cancer: 1st house/7th house–personal goals and committed relationships

Leo: 6th house/12th house–work, health, and hidden matters

Virgo: 5th house/11th house–children, love affairs/ friends, goals

Libra: 4th house/10th house–home and career

Scorpio: 3rd house/9th house–communication, relatives/travel and beliefs

Sagittarius: 2nd house/8th house–financial and property matters

Capricorn: 1st house/7th house–personal goals and committed relationships

Aquarius: 6th house/12th house–work and health/hidden matters.

Pisces: 5th house/11th house–children, love affairs/ friends, goals

There are a lot more to these houses, so if you want more insight, you can look at the keywords and articles on my sister site Practical Astrology. Scroll down to see keywords and links.

Lunar Eclipse 2007 over Sydney © Jenny Rollo

If you’re curious about the astrological effect of eclipses, read on because this has been one hell of an eclipse season. I’ll be using Sarah Palin and her recent announcement that she quit her job as governor of Alaska as an example. But first, some background.

Officially, the eclipses for this mid-year take place on July 7, July 21, and August 6. But eclipse season typically starts about a month to 6 weeks before the first eclipse of the season. The keynote of an energetic eclipse is a sense of shock or surprise.

This season has already delivered more than its share of shock in the form of the death of Michael Jackson. That feeling you got when you first heard the news–that’s an eclipse feeling.

That kind of sensation can show up in your personal life too. Already I’ve heard from a number of people who’ve encountered shocking events in their own lives. Sudden realizations and personal changes can also be signs of an eclipse in your life, and I’m hearing about those too. Changes in outer circumstances fit the bill, too–and yup those are occurring for people around me. These changes are affecting everything from job status to relationships to income to living situation to family and friends to…a bunch of stuff. This is all the more noticeable because the past several seasons have seemed awfully quiet.

For a closer analysis, let’s take a look at Sarah Palin’s situation. Palin is an Aquarius. She’s got Mars near her sun (that feisty reputation), and Saturn near her sun (beloved by what’s referred to as the conservative base). Last year when she was selected as the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, she was undergoing a transit of Neptune conjunct her sun (the meltdown that she seemed to undergo after her sudden rise to fame–Neptune will melt anything it can get its hands on).

Now she’s undergoing Neptune conjunct her Saturn (apparently melting her sense of obligation to her job and maybe making her idealistically think that she can accomplish things without a job). And she’s not finished with Neptune conjunct her Mars. So she’s had plenty of stuff going on astrologically.

And…she’s an Aquarius with an Aquarius Mercury and very possibly an Aquarius moon (popular with the public). So that tends her toward the unorthodox and the unconventional right there. So add those things up and we’ve got plenty of astrological excuse for some odd behavior. Neptune by itself could easily have pushed toward being a bit too unorthodox for her own good.

But now let’s add in the eclipses. The eclipses in 2008 and early 2009 have been in Palin’s sign and in the opposite sign of Leo. An eclipse series spans a pair of opposite signs over the course of about a year and a half or two. Eclipses usually seem to operate in solar houses, that is, based on your sun sign.

So an eclipse series in your own sign relates to very personal changes taking place over the span of a year or two, changes that will affect your life for about a decade. Solar eclipses typically relate to starting something new, lunar eclipses to giving something up or losing something, some sort of ending.

Well, Palin, in spite of her troubles with Neptune, has most definitely undergone very personal changes. Although she didn’t become VP, being nominated changed her life in ways that probably will affect her for at least a decade. She became a national figure.

The last eclipse in the Aquarius series takes place on August 6. Right on schedule (about a month before the eclipse date), Palin is ending something. And in a surprising, eclipse-y way (that fits with her impulsive Mars-like way of acting). This final eclipse in the series wraps up a journey that she took very rapidly, from obscure governor of a non-Continental state to a person with potential Presidential aspirations. That’s what eclipses do. They take you on a long and important journey very quickly. And they interact with whatever important transits are going on in your life at the time.

Now, for most people, the journey isn’t quite that dramatic or public. It can be as simple as journeying from not being a parent to being a parent. But you travel a great distance in particular area of your life at a faster clip than you’re used to.

The eclipses of this July are in new signs–Cancer and Capricorn. And so we’re all tumbling toward a new journey in a new area of our lives. If you want to learn a little bit more, you can look at your July horoscope.

To craft your own interpretation, count round the zodiac starting with your sun sign to find Cancer and Capricorn. The number of signs is the solar house number likely to be affected. (E.g., Cancer is the 4th house for Aries, 3rd house for Taurus.)

The eclipse in Cancer is a solar one (new beginnings); the one in Capricorn a lunar one (endings). To look up house meanings, scroll down the Practical Astrology home page. And let the journey begin.

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.