Midlife Transits

Saturn’s going direct in Virgo today. Take a look at this post if you want to see what that means in general. Below is information for your particular sun sign.

Here’s an example of how to do a short little horoscope for yourself using keywords. (I have a list of keywords on the Practical Astrology home page. Scroll down to see them.) Also, if this mini horoscope seems off, you can look at the one for your rising sign if you know it.

Okay, so our keyword for Saturn in Virgo is going to be gloomy or gloominess, since that’s what Saturn in Virgo has seemed to bring. If there are people out there not having a gloomy time with the Saturn in Virgo portion of their lives, they’re not telling me about it.

Saturn represents your solar 5th house. Not a bad house. Saturn may not have been giving you problems here. But if he had, the problems would supposedly revolve around 5th house matters like children or your love life.

So Saturn going direct could mean less gloominess around something having to do with your kids. Let’s say one of your youngsters has been reserved, withdrawn, maybe even kind of depressed lately. Around the 16th, you finally push a confrontation, and your boy finally lets loose with what’s been worrying him. Thus allowing you to reassure him and help him get less worried.

Or let’s say your girlfriend has been nagging you in Virgo-like fashion to do something responsible (Saturn) that you just really don’t feel like doing, because it would be a burden you think (more Saturn). Like maybe she wants you to commit! Around the 16th, you finally have it out with her. And you come to an agreement. She wins! You admit you’re committed to the relationship. And you feel a lot better because now you know you are secure in the relationship (Saturn=security), and you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Things like that can happen. Maybe not those exact things, but things like that. Again, take a look at Practical Astrology if these keywords don’t suit.

Saturn’s going direct in Virgo today. Take a look at this post if you want to see what that means in general. Below is information for your particular sun sign.

Here’s an example of how to do a short little horoscope for yourself using keywords. (I have a list of keywords on the Practical Astrology home page. Scroll down to see them.) Also, if this mini horoscope seems off, you can look at the one for your rising sign if you know it.

Okay, so our keyword for Saturn in Virgo is going to be gloomy or gloominess, since that’s what Saturn in Virgo has seemed to bring. If there are people out there not having a gloomy time with the Saturn in Virgo portion of their lives, they’re not telling me about it.

Virgo represents your solar 6th house.  Keywords for the 6th house are health and job.

So Saturn going direct in the solar 6th house on May 16 could mean: a break in the case regarding a gloomy matter about your health or job. Let’s say you were literally suffering from depression (can happen with Saturn in the 6th). Around the 16th, you tell your medical provider things are just not working for you. Your medical provider adjusts your medication and you finally start to feel like yourself again.

Or let’s say you have been applying for a new job. Nothing but gloom out there in the job market. Around the 16th, you get your first hint of a break in the case. A suitable job finally opens up for you to apply for!

Things like that can happen. Maybe not those exact things, but things like that. Again, take a look at Practical Astrology if these keywords don’t suit.

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.

A couple of days ago, I posted about Saturn in Libra getting all set to whine about the unfairness of the steps taken to bail out mortgage holders facing default. This trend seems to be picking up a bit of steam already, and, in line with Saturn as the planetary voice of conservatism, it is the conservatives who seem to be most concerned. I have heard it framed as a moral issue, that it’s not morally good to reward people who have been irresponsible in their choices.

This is a fair and legitimate argument under most circumstances. The human thirst for justice is part of what keeps society functioning. But Saturn is going to be facing Pluto soon, as I mentioned, and Pluto (dwarf planet or no) just blows Saturn out of the water. In a head to head contest, Pluto is more moral than Saturn. And Pluto says that collective survival is more moral than temporary fairness.

Pluto thinks our entire civilization is at stake, and by that he doesn’t mean the American standard of life. He means the carefully crafted standards of democracy and functioning systems of cooperation that have made Western civilization do pretty darn well for a long time. Pluto thinks that if we don’t address the collective needs for survival in rough times, the consequences will be far worse than if we let a certain portion of the population get away with unfairly taking advantage of the over-riding needs of society.

In other words, Pluto knows that some people will get an undeserved bailout even if they are people who caused the problems (cough, cough–bankers). But he doesn’t care, because getting through dire times is more important than apportioning Saturn-like responsibility.

This harsh Pluto stance is going to get harder and harder to swallow, and I imagine a lot of us will be gagging before the next couple of years are through. It’s a tough lesson humanity is going to be learning in the years ahead–but that’s material for another post.

I saw a story on ABC News this evening in which people were encouraged to complain about the unfairness of defaulting mortgage holders receiving assistance and incentives from the federal government to stay in their homes and keep their mortgage payments current. People said things like “I bought a house I could afford and made the payments. Where’s my bailout?” And so on.

This kind of complaining has only just begun to surface if Saturn has anything to say about it. Saturn’s rumbling and grumbling along in Virgo right now, where he’s been very busy encouraging what’s turned out to be an incredibly devastating crash of the real estate market. It’s no wonder astrologers of days long gone did their best to give Saturn a bad reputation (they called him a ‘malefic,’ which basically means really bad planet).  Planets that encourage devastating real estate crashes are not usually the most popular planets at the party, if normal people have anything to say about it.

But Saturn in Virgo is not as chatty as he could be. He’s just going along doing his work (known in economic circles as a ‘correction’ or in Saturn’s mind as  ‘what goes up, you over-optimistic deluded fool, must come back down to a realistic level as soon as I get ahold of it’). His work wouldn’t have been so devastating either, would have been just a natural and healthy correction to bring home prices back down to historically sensible levels, except that Pluto in Sagittarius was busy tossing prices so high into the stratosphere that any landing whatsoever was going to have to hurt big-time. No, Saturn’s not too chatty right now; he’s just going along with the new Pluto in Capricorn regime and encouraging people to downsize and save and do other sensible, dreary, frightened things.

But just wait til Saturn gets into Libra toward the end of this year. He won’t settle in for awhile, and he’ll sneak back into comfy Virgo before hauling his baggage into Libra for good, but he will dip his toes in Libran waters this fall. And when he does, expect some serious whining. Saturn in Libra puts a premium on fairness and he is not going to be in a good mood with the thoroughgoing Pluto in Cap economic overhaul.

He’s going to be in a very bad mood indeed. He’s going to be in such a bad mood (square) that we may feel the reverberations of the Pluto/Saturn dogfight well before it becomes exact. Pluto/Saturn dogfights are not supposed to be pretty, and they’re usually a good sign for ordinary human mortals to duck and take cover. In this case, Saturn is going to be furious, at the very least, with the unfairness and injustice of the new world economic order and how it’s being implemented. This means plenty of other people are too, and they’re probably going to be extremely vocal about it.

If these people get real mad, they may get more than vocal about it, and there are bound to be ugly scenes of one sort or another. Of course, given what we’ve seen already, you don’t need astrology to predict that. Wasn’t it Bette Davis who said “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride”?