Transitory Times

 Image based on a photo of a Westclox Big Ben clock taken by JVGJ

When I was teaching myself astrology, one of the things which fascinated me the most (and which still fascinates me) is how planetary cycles overlap and mark significant passages in our lives.

Learning transits – and the clockwork nature of planetary transits – helped me understand why life works as it does. Why people develop as they do. Why certain age groups go through what they go through.

Your chart is individual to you, yes. But there are also transits we each experience at particular age – like the famous Saturn returns at during year 29, again just before we’re 60 and increasingly, yet again just a bit shy of reaching age 90.

Like I say, there are many transits which are famous with astrologers. But there are one set – a confluence of three – that are SO famous that even mainstream society knows about them. Society calls them “The Mid Life Crisis.” Astrologers know them as Uranus opposition Uranus, Neptune square Neptune and Pluto square Pluto.

As a young and naive astrologer, I dutifully read all about this fearsome trio and dreaded the day I would get there.

And then that day arrived, and I realized – even in the middle of the muddle – that this was a period all about getting more real and realistic with ourselves about life.

The best quip anyone ever used to ‘define’ Uranus opposition Uranus was when they said it was like the ‘flipping of a record.’ For those of you born in the post-vinyl era, this may not make sense, and I’d say that it was like flipping a flapjack except flapjacks don’t have grooves. There’s a quality to the Uranus opposition where we experience our turning ourselves entirely around. What once didn’t seem to be important suddenly strikes us as vital. What once seemed terribly important comes to be anywhere between secondary to totally senseless.

Pluto square Pluto is a life challenge. For many of us, something outlives its function. Or we meet up with a defeat. Pluto’s symbolism is a process which reveals where our drives, fascinations and cravings are less about what we’re chasing and more about our inner vulnerabilities and sense of lack.

And when Pluto square Pluto gets tough, it’s that lack which rears up and bites us.

This is not to say this time can’t represent a victory – it can. But when and where we are victorious, it is because we have proven to ourselves (not to others) that who we are at our core is not merely truly worth our own respect, but the real deal.

Pluto square Pluto will often ‘out’ us to ourselves about the lies we’re living. And yes – sometimes the trick is to know the denial from the real deal truth. But then, that’s Pluto square Pluto all over.

Whatever that means is your business. And whatever you learn at this point in your life, you’re unlikely to ever forget.

Neptune square Neptune involves a test of your willingness to feel your own feelings about life, about who you are (or have been) in life, and how courageous you are (or aren’t) when push comes to shove and life asks whether you’re going to give in and resign yourself to compromising something about who you are or whether you’re going to stand up for who you believe you really are.

Or should be, if you could get past all that reluctance - which is often what Neptune square Neptune is about: an event or situation which does get you past your reluctance by imposing the logic of necessity is the mother of invention.

So my mid-life transits came and went…and as I went on working with clients and studying the charts of my friends I realized that their mid-life crisis transits didn’t come up in the same sequence as mine did.
In fact, for some of them, it wasn’t even close.

Mind you, I’ve been thinking about this on and off for probably over a decade. Then I finally sat down and diagramed it all out.

 
So....what exactly are you looking at?

Starting with January 1st of the 4th year of every decade, I took the positions of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and then went to look at when said planet hit the degree of the square – or in Uranus’ case, the opposition.

The question I asked was ‘how old would this person be at that point?’

What this tells us is part of why generations differ. And how they differ. The big “difference” being Pluto with that difference entirely due to Pluto’s highly elliptical orbit, what we find is that there are generations (the 1924-born Pluto in Cancer group and those born in the 2000s) where Pluto isn’t in the mid-life crisis equation.

This suggests that the ‘crisis’ point (which is ‘our’ crisis, not a world crisis of course!) really is about who we think we are – which is the Uranus part of the deal. But apart from that, the fact that there are plainly generations who face all these transits at one time. And there are others which get to deal with Pluto somewhere down the line as an entirely separate issue.

As someone born in the mid 50s, I know these transits hit me pretty much all at once. Then I look at my father’s 1920s set-up and know from the ages implied that they correspond both to his two broken marriages and the rise and fall of his rather stellar career.

Then I ask…’how close is close?’ How close do these transits have to be in order for them to manifest in our lives as a period when we just feel like nothing lets up?

That, I don’t know. But I can tell you that having known a bunch of people who fall in the ‘I was born during the 60s or 70s’ barrel, to have Pluto’s square falling before your Uranus opposition seems to be all about the chance of doing it wrong before you get it right.

At the moment, it is this ‘I was born during the 1970s’ group which is in the middle of their mid-life transits. As you’ll notice on the graph, their Uranus oppositions are a bit ‘pushed back.’ Imaged by the green blocks, the pattern of the age at which we hit our Uranus opposition is a nice ‘s’ curve (or sine wave, if you prefer) ranging between age 38 and 44, and people of the 1970s vintage are pretty near the top end of this range.

So they’ve already gone through their Pluto square. That happened (on the average) two years ago – in 2011. They either changed something or something changed for them. And now they’re moving into the period of the Neptune square – a time which is often confusing or which evokes insecurities depending on how truly realistic you are. Or how well you understand the difference between what life really is and how things really work as opposed to how you want it to work.

Or what you’re hoping you won’t have to face.

Or face up to.

The particulars in this come from where Neptune falls (natally and by transit) in your individual chart, of course. But as a theory, those born in the earliest part of the 1970s are feeling the Neptune fuzziness, those born in the mid-1970s are about to get fuzzed and those born at the end of the 1970s have a year or so to wait before the fuzzing begins.

When I look at this chart it suggests to me things like why those born in the 1920s have been nicknamed ‘the greatest generation.’ They didn’t get to the fuzzy and confusing parts of life or the realization they were on the wrong track until they were already in their 40s and life didn’t change the nature of their playing field at a core level until their early 50s. When I think of this as the generation which stayed in their marriages and who worked so hard to build the world they were living in, that makes sense to me as part of the home-hearth-cultural bent of Pluto in Cancer.

With their Pluto-before-Neptune-and-Uranus set up, I look at this chart and see the Pluto in Virgo Yuppies and the early part of Gen X / Pluto in Libra) having hit economic turbulence just when they bought into mortgages and debt loads as part of the cosmic process which will evolve (once they get through the Neptune square and Uranus opposition) into better understandings of the ‘them’ versus ‘the me.’ It’s always fascinated me that the Pluto in Virgo Yuppie challenge is so very much about learning the value of universality (as opposed to my possessions, my wealth, my whatever else) and that the generation immediately following (Gen X / Pluto in Libra) needs to learn more about being who they are as individuals without the branding, grouping and logo’ing.

I look at this chart and I see that by the time the latter part of the Pluto in Sagittarius Millennial tribe reaches their mid-life crisis time (around the year 2044) we will be back to a pattern which in looks is very much like that of the 1920s. Yet with the source energy being Pluto in Sagittarius, this group isn’t going to be about building the world, they’re going to be about making it work.

(Again, yes.)

Then I look at the pattern for those being born now and in the near future, the Pluto in Capricorn kids. They will experience the Uranus opposition and Neptune square at the same time, rather like those born in the mid-1960s did. And it’ll fall right around age 40, probably a little shy of that (making this a projection for around the year 2054). But their Pluto square? That doesn’t happen…give or take…until they’re sixty-two.

To me this speaks of the dawning of realistic space travel and the rehabilitation of our Earth from the perspective of a race which has learned better.

And that says a lot of very good things…and very tough things.

It’s of course to remember that these patterns have repeated countless times. The last time we had a ‘no Pluto square until age sixty-two’ generation would be one Pluto cycle back from January 1914 – or in the year 1767. So what happened 62-odd years later? That was the late 1820s, a time when the world (which is to say, the humans of this world) were redefining the map on a national (astrologically, Capricorn) level. It was a time when established trades were putting their abilities to work building (i.e., creating the Capricorn structure) which would lay in a provisional framework our modern world would one-half Pluto cycle later (Pluto in Cancer) grow out of.

And that’s the other thing I think about when I look at that diagram of transits. I think about how this moment we’re living in – the year 2013 – is the ‘mid-life crisis’ point for things which were set up in the 1970s. The 1970s was when lawyers and ‘things legal’ moved from necessity to a level of glamor and power. And forty years later, I think we’re seeing both the good and the not-so-good in that. The 1970s was when health care moved from the friendly family doctor who took care of most everything (and who you paid for yourself) to corporate medicine and soaring costs and the nightmare which health insurance has become.

We don’t know what will happen with those problems yet. But we do know that the Pluto square to that time would have come before a Uranus opposition which hasn’t happened yet.

But I think we all know something is about to give – which demonstrates rather well that on the astrological level you can look to any point in time and see where it will evolve from there.

Yes, all of life is transitory.
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The 2012 Vice Presidential Debates

 

Official government photos of Vice President Joseph Biden (left) and Congressman Paul Ryan (right)

One of the things which strikes me as interesting about delving into new areas with astrology (such as politics) is how the obvious is not always so obvious.

Take this image from the Debate-Obama-Romney combined tri-level chart from the first debate:

A 7th house close-up from the tri-ring chart for the October 3rd (Denver, Colorado) debate between President Barack Obama (middle ring) and Governor Mitt Romney.

The 7th house is always the house of the audience, which is why it struck me as interesting thing to look at. How would Obama’s Neptune intersect with Romney’s Chiron?

As it turns out, Neptune’s infamous ‘invisibility’ factor was what seems to have come across in that debate. President Obama talked some about health care (which is what I took his ‘debate Neptune”) to be, but it manifested more…“obviously” as a lack of fiery rhetoric.

How should we have known that would be how Obama’s Neptune manifested? In the wake of the debate telecast, it occurred to me to run Obama’s transits.

And lo…there sat Mars square Nodes. The Nodes being our ability to ‘relate’ and Mars (energy, assertiveness) in square, this was the signal that whatever Obama’s intentions, they would go askew. And thus Neptune which could have indicated compassion and poetic oratory became snap, crackle, soggy.

Okay…lesson learned. From now on we look at the chart in question and the politician’s transits.

See? This is how all astrologers learn. So you...me...the presidential candidates - we're all learning together.

(Okay...the candidates? Not so much. But you and me? Sure!)

Now that that’s sorted out, here’s the tri-wheel chart for the Vice Presidential Debate scheduled to be taking place in Danville, Kentucky at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The inner chart is that of the debate’s start, the middle chart is for Vice President Joe Biden and the outer chart is for Congressman Ryan.

 A tri-ring chart for the Vice Presidential debate scheduled to take place on October 11, 2012 in Danville, Kentucky. The inner rung is the chart of the debate's dynamics with Vice President Biden's chart laid around the debate horoscope as the middle ring with the outer level being the chart of Congressman Paul Ryan.

In this chart, several things jump out. No, the first thing is not Congressman Ryan’s Neptune at 0 Sagittarius, though that does come in a close second. (See? I learn quickly.) Before I get to that wee (?) detail, the Ascendant-Descendant line – 29 Taurus/29 Scorpio grabs my attention. I’ve seen this line a couple of times in just this position of various charts and as anything at 29 degrees of any sign would suggest, there’s a note of intensity, maybe even urgency in it.

In terms of the debate’s chart, the Ascendant is Venus ruled. And the Venus in this chart is not happy – it’s at 10 Virgo in opposition to Chiron at 5 Pisces. The debate thus poses a question: what do we want to do and how can we do what we want to do (in the nation, in the world, with regards to our economy) considering the (Venus-Chiron) situation we’re in right now?

The Descendant of this chart – which is the cusp of that all-important 7th house – is at 29 Scorpio. Right away we know the audience expects passion – and let not any politician approach this debate without his passion vibe on ‘high’!

But Scorpio can also be a very…tricky…sign…in that any sort of ‘non-response’ situation (obviously the case with a televised debate since the audience will be sitting out there in audience-land)...that lack of face-to-face interaction can cause a ‘ramping up’ of convictions, an instinctive drive to 'make sure they understand' or to take control at some level...and it can get to the point where people blow themselves right out of the water.

Hmmmm….

Scorpio has two rulers. The first – the “choice” is Mars, and the outcome of those choices is indicated by Scorpio. The Mars of this chart stands in Sagittarius and conjunct Juno, a symbol of protection of hearth and home. And Pluto sits at 7 Capricorn in the 8th house. The Pluto part of this speaks to debt and the military and such…the 7th house Mars/Juno speaks more to supporting the nation rather than dictating to it... (however you define that).

Now we get to Ryan’s Neptune. And a lovely natal Neptune it is…

Congressman Paul Davis Ryan

January 29 1970 - 2:37 CST - Janesville, WI

 
Zero degrees of anything says that you’re prone to ‘starting’ things. Sagittarius rising says you’re willing to try something new. It doesn’t, however, guarantee that you know the right and wrong of it as Sagittarius is a sign in which we learn what works and what doesn’t work.

With this as Congressman Ryan’s Ascendant, he is defined as willing to suggest – but you shouldn’t think he’s thought the whole thing through in realistic terms. Sagittarius on an axis ventures and experiments but differs from Sagittarius as coloration of a planetary symbol which has ‘mass’ and therefore accumulates information and reflects before trying.

More to the point with this particular Ascendant-Neptune, the ruler of Sagittarius in Ryan’s chart is a Jupiter Scorpio conjunct Ixion (doing the same thing over and over until you totally undo yourself), Arachne (entanglements), and Atropos (endings) – all conjunct the 12th house of faith-versus-despair.

A close-up of Paul Ryan's 11th house and 12th house cusp

Taken together, especially with Scorpio being the sign of debt and passive income (which would include pensions, royalties, Social Security, Medicare, etc.) its clear where Congressman Ryan’s thinking comes from.

But does this accurately reflect his life of the United States as a nation? That would be my question. The 12th house of someone's chart can represent their understanding (intuitive or otherwise) of a complicated situation. Then again, the 12th (and Scorpio, for that matter) can represent where we face, feel and can't deal with our fears, real or not.

So this becomes one of those 'is it real, or is it mental Memorex?' sort of questions. Considering Ryan's chart, the Aries Mars in the 4th asserts for the people (and his family. And in areas of real estate, most likely.). But with Mars ruling itself (Mars rules Aries) there is something like an 'echo chamber' effect which in the 4th house can have Mars assertion focused for the sake of being focused.

And Uranus is in the area of this natal Mars. Do you call it insight - or do you call it contrarian rebelliousness? Mars is not all that graceful in the 4th - this needs to be a personal call...echo and all!

As for Congressman Ryan’s transits on the day of the debate, he has Mars trine Mars (good energy), Mars trine Chiron (will he aim at the nation’s vulnerabilities or show his own?), Ceres (the planner) entering the 8th house (he’s got a plan!) and Sun opposition Chaos – the wildcard which with everything else says he’s likely to be quick on his mental feet and willing to come up with answers on the spot.

HOWEVER…barely 24 hours later we have transiting Neptune (retrograde) square natal Neptune. Neptune being Neptune, it’s hard to say that the day before and after aren’t affected, though the real ‘what am I doing?’ questions which generally go with this – one of the famous “mid life crisis” transits won’t happen on the day of the debate.

But what does it say that it does happen the day after?

Hmmmm…

Meanwhile, Vice President Biden is bringing Juno to the 7th house party (she’s a bit of a demanding date, but…) Anyway – interestingly, Vice President’s natal Juno is also not all cupcakes and roses.

And yes, Vice President Biden also has a Sagittarius rising.

Vice President Joseph Biden

 November 20 1942 - 8:30 EWT (+4) - Scranton PA 

So if nothing else, I'm thinking we shouldn’t expect a quiet debate. No library hush is likely here!

Biden’s natal Juno is in exact opposition to his natal Saturn, which I would take to be part of the ‘bull in the china shop’ quality Biden is so well known for.
As for Vice President Biden’s transits on the day, he has Venus square Juno (the desire to please in spite of difficulties), Mercury semi-sextile Ixion (either the tendency for foot-in-mouth or receiving stern warnings against same) and (of all things) Mars conjunct Ascendant – the ‘bringing it all to bear’ on the situation.
He also has the Sun in a nice sextile to Deucalion, indicating a desire to operate with decorum (which is probably good if you’re going to be on live TV!), Venus square Saturn (conservative values or valuing conservative plans of action), Mercury trine Black Moon Lilith (the ability to block out what you don’t want to deal with/think about) and Mercury semi-sextile that audience-7th-house-Juno…a sign of some difficulty connecting with others present at the time.

A day later, Vice President Biden has a major transit too: Saturn opposition Moon. Saturn opposition Moon is seldom an emotionally peaceful transit. Regret is common and anger not unheard of.

But as with Ryan’s Neptune square, we can’t know that either of these transits have to do directly with the debate.

Still...they might - either directly or otherwise.

And there is one other fact to consider here - namely that October 11th is the date of a transiting Saturn/Neptune trine. One one hand, this could well represent the dissolution of decorum. A little taking off of the masks, perhaps?

But there is that other side of Saturn-Neptune contacts. Though they can represent artistry of high order, they can simply expose the kind of self-delusion which we associate with 'addictions' mental, emotional, physical or otherwise.

It's going to be interesting, this debate. And just a heads up on the next one - in being scheduled for Tuesday, October 16th, that coincides with the stationing of Hybris, an asteroid very much known for arrogance.

Who will be calling who out on what when? 
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