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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She Thinks Astrology

 A mosaic pavement from a 6th century synagogue at

Beit Alpha (in Jezreel Valley, Israel) representing the zodiac.

Here in the pause between celestial doings, I've been thinking about how Neptune is evidencing its transit of Pisces. As many times as I define Pisces and speak about Neptune here on the blog it doesn’t seem to say enough. And we have some twelve years yet to go with Neptune in Pisces.

I suspect we're all going to get tested - most of all against our own willingness to accept reality for what it is, and to feel ourselves really existing. Neptune teaches that life throws things in our path so that we will feel and we will accept reality...and Neptune symbolizes all those things we do to escape, deny, avoid - and everything we use to escape, deny, avoid.

Known as a symbol of dissolutions and dissolving, Neptune draws us into our escape then melts away the sense of having escaped. And in doing so, it teaches us that maybe we don't really want to escape, because its so painful to realize what isn't real, true and valid.

Then there's the fact that Jupiter is transiting Gemini at the moment. This is a concept by itself, of course, but its made even more important by Jupiter being the ‘entry ruler’ of Pisces.

As ruler of Sagittarius, Jupiter represents the search for and the acquiring of knowledge. Or understanding. It's everything we do and everything we use to push back boundaries, explain our perspective, learn to learn and to test our our ideas.

Big red Jupiter is about increasing our world so that we have more of a world real, mental and spiritual to live in.

As ruler of Sagittarius, Jupiter represents the idea, the experience, the understanding of knowing. But in Pisces, Jupiter represents how much we know about feeling. Thus with Neptune, Jupiter serves up the 'one' of the one-two 'punch' which is Pisces. First question: do we know our emotional selves? Or how to deal with emotionality? We think we do, of course - but do we?

The saying 'oh, I can deal with this' is the Sagittarian sort of 'Jupiter knowing' we think about as we get ourselves into something. Then comes the Piscean education - the test of how much we really know about how we feel, how we could feel, how we deal with feelings (or try to escape from them), and what comes of that which we choose.

Life is after all, full of choices. And most of those choices end up about being what we 'do' to ourselves - our emotional selves.

That would be why Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac, allegedly. Some call Pisces the 'trash can' and where all the 'refuse' of life ends up being thrown. I tend to disagree (and no, not because I'm a Sun sign Pisces!). My take on this is that in the "end," humans are emotional animals. How well we deal with emotionality and our own relationship to emotions (that pesky Piscean thing) ends up defining everything from whether we end up in jail, end up poor but peaceful and happy or whether we end up dissatisfied.

There are no finite answers - only how we feel about our own answers.

So Jupiter is in Gemini, a sign where Jupiter tends to represent the overstepping of bounds, or the talking too much, or the taking on too much, or the over-thinking of the thought. Jupiter in Gemini can be all talk no action, doing things totally unthinkingly, being thoughtless, not thinking things through...it's a test of excesses in whatever direction we go.

Natively, Gemini squares Pisces. So this is a true time of testing for us, greatly on an emotional level. Or about how we handle (or don't handle) our emotions or emotionality. Life will tempt us to overrun or overestimate or even think we can “get away” with things. Or maybe underestimate ourselves. Or our ability to cope.

It sounds rather like a test of both our humanity and our maturity, don't you think?

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I was also thinking about Pluto and Uranus. With it’s orbit of 84 years, the last time Uranus was where it is now (in Aries) was the late 1920s…another time of world economic upheaval. Aries is a sign of the physical and the "I Am." And whatever sign Uranus is in, it tends to give us the quivers. 

I can see that. A lot of us feel insecure. And that does seem to go right along with that Neptune-Jupiter, Pisces-Gemini thing.

That last time around, a number of people jumped off the bridge...

Seinebrücke bei Asnières by Van Gogh (Summer 1887)

...that was their reaction to not being able to cope with feeling their lack of stability and "worth."

But back in that day (the late 1920s) Pluto was in Cancer. Today it’s in Capricorn - the opposite sign to Cancer.

So if you’re thinking WWIII is about to erupt? I'd think probably not. But I would put good candy money (candy is my wagering medium - I usually use bubblegum) on a 'war of economic stratas'....otherwise known as ‘class warfare.’ I think we're seeing that now - or at least the rumblings of the discussion of the discomfort with that sort of thing.

And its interesting that it all comes down to money. I'm not knocking money...it has its place. And goodness knows it's necessary to survive with now that it seems to have moved from a "placeholder" for value to a thing which people seem willing to trade their very soul for.

But again, that's about security. That's about identity. That's about a sense of personal worth which ultimately comes from our ability to deal with our own feelings.

The problem with being human is that humans are fallible. It doesn’t matter what we do, if humans are involved, there’s a vulnerability quotient built in. That old rule – complete power corrupts completely – strikes me as really applicable here.

But it's not about what we do - that's not the power I'm referring to. I'm talking about that grit-teeth, clenched fist thing we do with ourselves when we want to get past those feelings or emotional dealings we really don't want to face.

Astrological squares are defined as challenges. The square from Uranus in Aries to Pluto in cardinal signs now...as back in the 1920s asks us what are you willing to do about it?

Both eras made us vulnerable through hard economic times. But I'd say that's not as much about money as survival. For some, it's their plans or their self image which gets shaken. For others, its that sense that life is just going to go along reasonably pleasantly and they don't have to try. They don't have to care. They don't have to pay attention or be involved.

Squares represent times which can beat us down or which can motivate us like nobody’s business. And here we have two of them - Pluto against Uranus and Jupiter against Neptune.

My money (mental and bubblegum) is on Neptune-Jupiter. For one, the Pluto-Uranus square is going to be over long before Neptune's done transiting Pisces.

Again, it's that Pisces thing. Apparently we live in a time when though we are moving into the airy and theoretical, technical Aquarian Age, we need all the connection to our emotionality to get there.

And in fact, that makes sense. Why so? Because of the wheel of this incoming Age...

 

In the wheel of an Age, the sign of that Age goes on the Ascendant. That puts Pisces on the 2nd house - the house of security, self worth, talents, self respect and investment in self.

But as I say that, lets remember...Pisces can also be a sign about insecurity, dissipation, addiction, evasion, denial...and the 2nd house can be the house of selfishness and materialism and all those things we try to do or have instead of having self worth and any real sense of human security or personal satisfaction with the person we are.

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A friend of mine (another astrologer) wrote asking what I thought of having Saturn and Neptune in trined water signs. (Saturn is currently in Scorpio and as we've been discussing, Neptune is in Pisces).

I wrote her back that I thought this was a time when the (Saturn) realities about what we're doing as individuals was going to be coming out. Saturn being the ruler of governmental Capricorn and co-ruler of corporate, economic and income-ruling Aquarius, I also said I thought this would be a time when we would be seeing what societal and social mechanisms (as above) are doing doing or not doing to help, hinder or collude with us when it comes to how well we do or don't deal with our emotions.

There are certainly enough flaws to go around, too. I worte a piece the other day on my 'other blog’ (Writings from the Hart – it’s linked in the sidebar) about  prescription painkillers, and there's one factor in all that which I think pertains in particular to my girlfriend's question. We're used to blaming addicts. We're not so good at people who are part of groups or employed by or running organizations or corporations acknowledging they have any blame.

There is this squicky edge where profit... wealth... politics... status...insecurity...becomes the trip-wire which ends up committing murder.

I think we're going to see a deal of that.

But the faster we can learn, the faster we do recognize that we do need to have feelings and feel them? The more human we are, the more humane we're likely to act.

So I'm all for this difficult confluence. Not that I'm not having my share of angst and headaches - I promise you, I am! But if this is the passage and the growing pains I have to do endure and which others are going to have to flail through so that we all come out the other side better and more caring, responsible, attentive human beings?

Then I'll bite. I'll eat a bowl of Neptune and Jupiter and even sprinkle some Pluto-Uranus on top.

Danse de Nomades by Vanecha Roudbaraki

(2007, Acrylique)

Saturn connecting to Neptune often indicates addiction. In Scorpio, Saturn is likely to turn up everything from sex to debt to issues of power (and abdication of same) to issues of corruption, badly managed responsibilities, the whole maggot-ridden enchilada.

(No insult meant to enchiladas, obviously.)

I’ll take two helpings of societal exposing, please.

Saturn moves faster than Neptune, so this is reality ‘catching up’ with whatever illusions or delusions or simple mistakes have been made. There’s no way to compensate lives or time lost in lives...that, I know only too, too well. And that cost is sincerely tragic – as it is whenever lives get compromised when they didn’t have to be.

Still...hard times do teach compassion. And that gets me back to thinking about Pluto/Facies. The complications we each face are very real. The problems we each are each going to encounter going forward are also real.

Hopefully we can remember that life presents us with situations which are about reality and the world and how life works on its surface...but also about what we need to learn inside.

And if we learn that inside part, no matter what happens on the outside, we win.

These times aren't all that easy. Nor - evidently - are they intended to be. Still, the answer isn’t quitting. I learned that a very odd way…and no, I’m not telling you how that happened.

Why not?

Because your way has everything to do with you and how you experience your feelings, whatever they may be.

What I will say is this: I’ve ended up learning far more from facing my feelings than by running from them. I’ve learned the most from recognizing the difference between those two very things.

And that to get past the problem, first I have to accept that the problem is truly real.

Then again, I am a Sun sign Pisces.

So that's all for today. And not to worry...by the end of the week the astrological parade you're more used to will have recommenced.

Final word for today: astrological squares teach that by teaching ourselves to take things in hand equally and evenly, we can build for the future. Two positives build well, one negative undermines all.

I wish you all the positivity you need.
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