Midlife Transits

A lot of people know that there’s an outer planet cardinal T-square coming up this summer. What that means is that Pluto will be in early degrees of Capricorn, Uranus in early Aries, and Saturn in early Libra. These energies clash with each other, creating a lot of stress. What not as many people know is that the stress from clashes between outer planets often manifests when there’s a considerable distance between the outer planets, often around 8-10 degrees from a square or opposition.

Right now, Pluto and Uranus are about 10 degrees from a square. Uranus is in late Pisces and Pluto is in early Capricorn, creating in effect what is a wide out of sign square. Saturn and Pluto are much closer to squaring each other, less than a degree apart.

Today, a man in Austin, Texas apparently deliberately flew a small plane into an office building that housed IRS workers. This link shows what was in his mind just before he did that.

You can see how his mind was banging around multiple points of conflict and couldn’t seem to find a resolution. Here are some of the planetary themes in his rant:

Laws and justice:  Saturn in Libra.

Government and taxation: Pluto in Capricorn.

Freedom: Uranus.

Greedy, powerful corporations: Pluto in Capricorn.

Healthcare, the drug companies, unions, and the American medical system: Uranus in Pisces with a little of bit Saturn in Virgo energy thrown in.

Accusations of totalitarianism: Pluto in Capricorn.

The corruption of big religious entities: Pluto in Sagittarius and Uranus in Pisces.

Grudges from the past: Pluto.

The system is based on lies: Saturn and Pluto.

The futility of trying to be independent: Uranus in Aries vs. Pluto in Capricorn.

Engineering: Uranus.

Anger over work and career issues: Pluto in Capricorn.

Time to revolt: Uranus in Aries.

Violence as an answer: Uranus in Aries.

Note that with an out of sign square, two signs are represented for each planet. In other words, if Uranus is at 24 degrees Pisces and Capricorn is at 4 degrees Capricorn, the square behaves as if it is both Uranus in Pisces and Pluto in Sagittarius, and Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn.

Note also that the man refers to patriotism, a concept associated with the remaining cardinal sign Cancer. Cancer is the release point of the cardinal T-square, the point at which a person can find some relief from the ’storm’ of planets in his head. In this case, the concept of patriotism didn’t offer any relief. In fact, it only seemed to make things worse.

Obviously, most people are not going to do something as terrible as fly a plane into a government building as the pressure of the outer planets mounts. But people are going to be under pressure, and some vulnerable people will feel that there is a storm in their heads. It will feel to some people like there is no way out.

It is important to remember that these squares do not last forever. It is not a good idea to reinterpret your entire past in the light of current bitter or despairing feelings.

Yes, there will be problems in our collective and in our personal lives. We do need to address them. And we can’t do that if we let the storms override our basic sanity.

Lynn Hayes, astrology blogger at Beliefnet.com posted a link to a website that lists birth dates for Richard Heene and Mayumi Heene (aka parents of ‘balloon boy’). Nothing in particular struck my attention about these dates except that both are currently experiencing sextiles from Uranus in Pisces to planets in Capricorn. Mrs. Heene is also undergoing a prolonged square from transiting Jupiter to her Neptune in Scorpio.

Balloon boy dad is getting all the press for being the mad scientist behind the alleged hoax, which he may well be, but it is Jupiter square Neptune that’s a more noticeable symbol for being off one’s rocker, at least temporarily. Jupiter square Neptune is the type of transit that can tell you — ‘hey,  you know what would be economically beneficial? A big fat lie! What could possibly go wrong? You’ll never get caught because this harebrained scheme is sure to be successful!’

Occasionally I get the feeling that these planets actually enjoy taunting mere mortals, and that they sit back in the sky, clutching their sides and ho-ho-ho-ing when one of us takes the bait.

Be that as it may, it is the Uranus sextiles that are my subject. If the birth dates on the website are correct (they may not be), then Uranus in Pisces is sextiling Mr. Heene’s Saturn in Capricorn and Mrs. Heene’s Mars in Capricorn.

Uranus has been in Pisces for a good long time now and it’s taken me what seems like forever to reluctantly acknowledge that sextiles from Uranus in Pisces seem to be a real bitch. I started suspecting this a number of years ago when people would mysteriously contact me right around the time a Uranus sextile was exact upset about something that had gone wrong.

Uranus conjunctions didn’t seem to be any better quite frankly. Now that might be understandable; Uranus conjunctions can be hard to handle. But a little sextile–the opportunity angle?

Except that with Uranus in Pisces, it seemed to signal an opportunity for something to go unexpectedly wrong. To take a sudden turn for the worse. For the house to flood, the boyfriend to call with bad news, the affair to be revealed, the check to bounce.

I’m beginning to wonder if Uranus in Pisces has done anyone any favors these past few years. Surely it has, right? I must have a skewed sample. Right?

Just because a couple of people involved in a wacky news event seem to have been undergoing Uranus sextiles doesn’t mean this normally harmless little angle is the spawn of the devil when Uranus in Pisces gets ahold of it. Does it?

If you know you’ve undergone a transit from Uranus in Pisces, leave a comment detailing the wonderful things it did for you and save the reputation of this unjustly maligned transit.

Or–leave a comment confirming that Uranus in Pisces in transit has been useless at best and at worst a sign that something is about to get all messed up.

Tell me what you think.

Saturn and Uranus are scheduled for the next round in their ongoing dispute in September. But traditionally, these planets don’t like to wait for an exact aspect before they start sniping at each other. They like to get ugly before the exact aspect and stay ugly until the aspect passes.

This time round, they’ve decided to get ugly over health care in the US. Health care is dear to the hearts of both these planets right now, as they’re in health oriented Virgo and health-oriented Pisces. Between the two of them, they’ve got people screaming at town halls, getting creative with Hitler-esque mustaches and inventive comparisons to Nazi Germany. Obviously, these two planets are not averse to jacking up the drama and throwing out wild comparisons if it will serve the cause of highlighting the radical differences in approach that these two planets take.

Uranus, our old friend and sometimes enemy, is on the side of change. He’s also on the side of freedom. He’s working both sides of the aisle these days, promoting change and the kind of quick holistic overhaul that Uranus in Pisces favors. He’s also promoting some heavy duty shouting in the name of freedom. Stirring up trouble keeps him from getting bored.

Saturn, meanwhile, is naturally terrified of change, of Uranus, of radicalism, and of messing things up. He’s working both sides of the aisle too. He’s encouraging conservatives (his core group of supporters) to resist any sort of change. He’s also encouraging reform of health care, but wants to take it slow. Saturn knows there are problems, and the screaming is giving him a headache. He wants to sit down and figure out how to solve the problems, Saturn style.

Meanwhile, the big pharmaceutical companies are on the side of change. This makes astrological sense as they are preparing for Neptune in Pisces. Pisces is the zodiacal representative for pharmaceuticals (and drugs of all sorts), and this sign is planning, when his ruler Neptune enters in a couple of years, to massively expand the reach of prescription drugs if at all possible.

Getting the uninsured insured will expand access to drugs for millions and millions of Americans. Making sure that people are not excluded from insurance due to pre-existing conditions will expand access to drugs for many more. Anything that changes the system so that more people can be covered is good for the pharmaceutical industry. It’s even worth cutting costs, Saturn style, right now, to prepare for a big expansion later.

I suppose my astrological betting money would be on change and freedom, with a little bit of Saturn restraint thrown in. Uranus won’t get everything he wants (which is probably a good thing), but it’s unlikely that Saturn could entirely defeat his momentum. Uranus has deep pockets this time around, and he’s a savvy player in the planetary lineup, even if his methods look rather chaotic.

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.