Mid-Life Transits (Uranus square Uranus - 41 to 43)

This blog entry will discuss the second of the four mid-life transits, the Uranus opposition (when transiting Uranus is opposite natal Uranus).  Uranus roughly reaches the middle of its journey back to itself at 42 and opposes its natal position.  When this happens we get a shock to the two houses involved in the opposition.  In my case the lightening strike moved into and is going through my 5th House and reaching across to my 11th House.  The Uranus opposition started impacting me in March of 2009, but really walloped me August 28, 2009 when tSaturn was conjunct nPluto at the same time that Uranus had gone Retrograde and backed up over the exact opposition for the second time.  It was on that day that I had a severe panic attack on my way to help a friend and had to pull of the highway and call 911.  I'm still amazed that my body could experience that much stress for several hours and still keep me conscious.  I was thrown completely out of my preexisting state of life and it was not fun.

For several months after the initial incident I struggled just to cope with life.  Fortunately, I had already quit my full time job, but unfortunately, I could not quit my role as stay-at-home parent.  My life partner, Betsy, and my parents stepped in and kept me afloat as I worked through health problems that put me in the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack (about a week later) and through various stress and liver tests.  Every medical test came back negative and my physician, who did a wonderful job with his tools, told me that after he went down the list, the one on the bottom was "its in your mind."  At the height of the initial panic attack I was able to get some "medication" to help me manage the symptoms and function on days when I would enter extreme states of overwhelm.  I put quotes around the word "medication" because it in no way offered me a solution to the core problem.  And, I found, I only really needed it when, surprise, surprise, I was left alone with my daughter.  When I had human support, I did not need the "medication."  And here was my big 5th/11th house shake down.

The 5th House is, essentially, the area of our lives where we begin to establish our independence through our creativity ... it is, for me as an Astrologer, the house of the teenager energy ... creative, dramatic, full of one self, romantic, and playful.  The 11th House is our commitment to community and our authentic role in community.  The universe, without a doubt, brought me down a notch or 100 to teach me that individuals cannot actually "do it alone" and we really, really should not be as isolated as we are, especially in Western societies.  When profound crisis strikes we do not have the human networks in place to help us manage the crisis in a way that can be completely healthy and decidedly healing.  And if the crisis is "in your mind" as mine certainly was/is, then medical science is only helpful on a symptomatic level and not a curing level.  Yes we have psychology, and it is useful, but what we really lack is a mature spirituality to address what is essentially a spiritual transformation.  I thank Gaia for Astrology.  More than any other tool or process, working over my own chart or having other professionals give me input has kept me off the drugs and limited my use of therapy, which was very helpful because I had a therapist comfortable discussion both Astrology and Past Lives.

As it turns out I'm getting a chance to correct a past life that occurred 1500 years ago in India, when I was a priest and father during a plague.  In that life time I had a daughter, who is again my current daughter, Maya.  Her mother was not present; it was just her and me.  Due to my responsibilities and the situation of the plague I sent her away and could not forgive myself for doing so.  Not long after our separation, I committed suicide by drowning.  I was cruising along in my life as a father in this life time until she turned 4 and 1/2 and I am sure those past life feelings were activated (her Moon and my moon are almost exactly conjunct at 21D of Libra, for me hers is in my 11th and for her mine is in her 1st).  Suddenly I became deeply worried about what would happen to her if something happened to me and wham, instant, overwhelming anxiety.  Let me paint the scenario for  you.

We live along a major road, not in a neighborhood (not that it would help that much in the US anyway), and Betsy's parents live 5 states away.  My parents live over an hour a way.  We do not have lives where people just stop by regularly.  So here's a very real scenario; something could happen to me after Betsy goes to work early in the morning and my daughter would be without help until Betsy came home.  If I blacked out, there would be no one check on her and that thought horrified (and still horrifies me).  I immediately began to reach out to people and try to make changes that would prevent such a catastrophe.  But this is the common "nuclear family" life in my culture ... and it is, thanks to my Uranus opposition, unequivocally and fundamentally wrong.  Most of my life has been about "being the strong one for others" and "going it alone" and now I was face to face with utter horror of modern life and its disdain for family.  We need community, not credit cards and indulgent consumption.  We need networks of friends and family staying constant, gentle interaction because I can say, without a doubt, that being the sole caretaker of my child makes earning PhD like opening a Cracker Jack box and pulling out the diploma.  I don't write these words with a smile on my face.  Parenting is hard, parenting well is a monumental challenge. 

I suddenly and deeply felt the "rightness" of community, but not haphazard community.  What we need more of are intentional communities, thoughtful, supportive, with high expectations of members and the group. When I think of the best of an intentional community containing many parents, I think of "distributed responsibility," which helps take stress off of everyone.  This country and my culture sure as hell needs a better model.  With that in mind I began to look a radical (Uranian) ways of living that might put us in touch with this kind of community and help me heal with human support instead of pharmacological masking.  While we did not find one that suited us, we did learn a lot and have worked instead on building our relationships much more intentionally.  Its really a book's worth of material for each transit.  

At the essence, image you are a tree in a storm and lightening bolt strikes from the top of your trunk searing down and splitting you all the way to your roots, exploding all your trunk and limbs out into the storm.  That's what I got and what most people will get even if it all happens internally.  Now, image that occurring on the global scale to everyone currently 40 to 42 in every country of the world!

Mid-Life Transits (Pluto square Pluto - 34 to 37)

I've been trying to find my stride with this blog and have decided I want to take a new, more personal direction.  Other astrologers do an outstanding job looking at global events, namely Jamie Darkstar and Richard Tarnas come to mind.  I've taken a look at the US chart and have enjoyed writing about what I found there, which is mostly a lot of turmoil over the next 10 years.  The world is definitely going through some growing pains.  I've also started some posts on beginning astrology and how to get started.  I hope to continue those posts intermittently over the course of my writing time, hopefully another 40 or so years :-).  Maybe after I've posted on all 79 cards of the Osho Zen deck, I'll be ready to pick another deck and work my way through.  Another writing project to unfold over the long hall.

But for right now and the foreseeable future, I'd like to pick up a new thread and write more personally about the series of mid-life transits that are currently kicking my spiritual rear end.  I am currently 42 and if you are as well, then you should know my kind of struggle as well.  In fact, the full range of mid-life transits essentially run from 37 to 45, peaking at different times for different people based on the year of birth.  If you were born between 1965 and 1973, then you are at the beginning, in the thick of, or wrapping up four major energy transits involving the transiting energy point and the identical natal energy point.  These are: tPluto square nPluto, tUranus opposite nUranus, tNeptune square nNeptune, and tSaturn opposite nSaturn.  The severity and intensity of these transits will vary based on other birth chart aspects and transiting aspects.  Those of us lucky to be born in the 1968 to 1970 range of the time period got our Uranus opposition as part of a t-square involving tSaturn opposite tUranus square tPluto!

On a personal note I began the journey to my spiritual awakening/shift in mid-March 2002 when I could begin to be influenced by tPluto on my nPluto (allowing for a 3 degree Orb of influence).  In mid-March tPluto was at 17D44M of Sagittarius and the work of this transit began in earnest.  During this year I finally decided to ask my wife for a separation and divorce.  I had met my birth mother at the beginning of the year (we had been corresponding for almost a year, and we finally met in 2002).  tPluto's work was pretty dramatic in the year  plus leading up to the first exact opposition in January of 2004.  One year to the day after my separation papers were filed (August 13, 2003), I met Betsy, my life partner and soul mate and change rapidly followed suit.  We moved into together three weeks after meeting, we discussed having children and got pregnant in May of 2004, and bought a house (the one we currently live in) in October of 2004.  Maya, our daughter, was born in January 2005.

Perhaps what I remember as most profound for me during the time of my separation was a sudden desire to have a child or be involved in a child's life (Big Brother or even foster care).  That feeling was the most "out of the blue" experience for me, as I would have easily been voted by my high school and college classes as the person least likely to have children.  Somewhere in my heart I guess I knew I should not have children with my wife and once free of that relationship the idea had some room to percolate.  It would certainly take a book worth of writing to describe all the changes that occurred after a fairly stable period of life between 1994 and 2000.  Granted that period of time had some big events, earning my PhD, getting my career job, an affair, but over a longer stretch of time and associated with other key transits (namely my Saturn Return).  But nothing like the level and multiplicity of changes brought on by Pluto activating itself!

Throughout 2004 tPluto went square with itself three times (January <direct>, June <retrograde>, and November <direct>) before finally moving on out of  Orb (3 degrees) in November of 2005. So the full range of impact lasted from March of 2002 until November of 2005 (from the ages of 34 to 37).  tPluto was doing its work in my 2nd House of Values and Resources and, without a doubt, my values and resources shifted tremendously.  I went from being married and owning a home to giving that home to my ex-wife and paying support to living in a one bedroom apartment (I loved that apartment) to owning a home again (but instead of me paying for it, my partner Betsy did).  I got out of a failing and mutually unhealthy relationship, dated around, and entered back into a long-term relationship that, so far, has proven deeply healing and extremely healthy (and is not a marriage).  I did not realize that this period was just the beginning of a period that will span another three to five years.

At the heart of the transition was the squaring energy of nPluto in Virgo in my 11th House with tPluto moving through Sagittarius my 2nd House.  My community went through a radical change as I left my marriage behind and entered into a new, more spiritually invested relationship.  One of our first dates was to the Body, Mind, and Spirit Expo in Raleigh, NC where we had our aura photos taken.  We would visit the expo twice a year and soon after our first year of visits, I had gotten a booth to do tarot readings.  My previous community, largely made up of friendships around my marriage and my relationships with my co-workers dissolved and reformed in a community of spiritually minded practitioners, ranging from psychics to massage therapists to henna artists and fellow tarot readers.  I also completed the tattoo back mural of Pegasus flying over the ruins of the Temple at Tholos, a site for the Delphic Oracle.

Now that I write about these transformations, I really see the power of this transit and its broad and deep impact on my life.  If you are between 30 and 33 and feeling some calm after your Saturn return, fasten your seat belt for the first of the four mid-life transits because, change will be a-coming!

Mercury Retrograde 12/11/2010 to 12/30/2010

Mercury will retrograde from Capricorn back into Sagittarius energizing us to slow down on our goals and plans and review our intentions.  I like to think of Mercury Retrograde like the proofreading and rewriting phase of a school paper, article for publication, or writing a book.  We thrust ourselves into the creative writing process by developing an idea or story in our minds that eventually becomes a first draft, both manifestations of Mercury Direct.  After the first draft is complete, we should take the time to review the work and refine it because, very rarely, is a first draft sufficient ... and even email or Facebook comments can most often use a proofreading.  In general, at this time, we should all be feeling pretty good, or much improved, as all remaining energy points are direct.  Uranus finally released on 12/6/2010 and went Direct, following the release/Direct of Jupiter, Chiron, and Neptune.  When Mercury goes Direct on 12/30/2010, every energy point will be direct until Saturn goes Retrograde on 1/26/2010.

Mercury gets a bad rap when Retrograde because we live in the Western mindset, which is a frontier, forward moving, go hard at all times mentality.  So, when a natural rhythm to slow down, proofread, review, take inventory, check safety protocols, check the service on your car, comes up and we DO NOT do any of those procedures or follow any of those actions, we usually get a mess, a wreck, a bad business arrangement, a faulty contract, and broken this or that.  As I've studied Astrology more and more and found myself getting more and more in tune with my body, I'm observing more of the patterns.  Last night I laid down on the sofa at 7PM, moved to the bed at 9PM and got up at 7AM.  Now, normally, I will fall asleep around 10:30 or 11PM and get up, like clock work, at 5:30AM ... not so on the first day of Mercury Retrograde.

With Mercury Direct in Capricorn we should all have been feeling, in our thinking, a desire to pursue or establish goals and achievements based on the house occupied by Capricorn in our charts and aspects of Mercury in Capricorn to other energy points in our chart.  This period should have been like the creative idea bursting out onto the first draft of the page.  Now with Mercury going backwards in Capricorn and into Sagittarius, we need to spend the next 19 days reviewing, proofreading, and revising our goals and aspirations in those areas of our lives.  Use this period to slow down and take your time, including in your Christmas shopping ;-).  But most of all, especially if you like to have a New Year's goal list, go over it twice, maybe four times.  Think about your long range plans for 2011, which will, based on energy movements for the year, be pretty quiet compared to the fireworks planned for 2012 and until 2015.

Happy Holidays to all!

Tarot Meditation Card for the Day - Osho Zen Tarot - Ace of Water, Going With the Flow

The Ace of Water is always a positive card to draw, even if executing the message is difficult

This card is difficult in its simplicity because we often do not want to accept certain flows of emotion, especially if a situation calls for us to let go of and emotional situation that is obviously flowing away from us.  Drawing this card at this time in my life is profound because I have been battling anxiety that arises from my constant worries about the state of the world.  You would think that, as a child of the 80s, and thus a child living at the peak of the cold war and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, that I would have used up my worry quotient a long time ago.  There was no movie quite as frightening as Wargames even though it was a story told mostly as a comedy.

Little did I know or could I know what real worry feels like until I became a parent.  And now, I would have to say, this time is different.  At no point in human history have we actually come close to having a profound negative impact on the entire biosphere, but we are reaching that point.  And for all my Zen studies and "trust the universe" spirituality, I have been acutely attuned to  the out of control behavior of our species at a truly global level.  I am, to say the least, having some trouble going with the flow when it looks like the flushing of a toilet.  But, if it is ... the flushing of a toilet ... then I need to get on board with the flow and try to enjoy the swirl.  More to the point this card asks us to look at how we placed ourselves in life.  I, for example, did not choose to be a policy decision maker, either as a corporate CEO or politically elected official.  I have no designs on the White House or even Mayor of a small town.  I will be buffeted by decisions out of my control because, spiritually speaking, I didn't come here to make the effort to play at that level.

When I sit with that knowledge, I begin to see more clearly the real flow of my life, as a father, a teacher, a counselor (through Astrology and Tarot), a partner, a son, and a friend.  Drawing this card tells me not only to go with the flow, but to go with my flow and I like my flow very much.  When or if a flush comes, I'll adjust my flow, but trying to satisfy worry over the untold future really is a pointless endeavor.  Find your flow and go with it!

Tarot Meditation Card for the Day - Osho Zen Tarot - Ace of Rainbows, Maturity

I am glad I drew the Ace of Rainbows, Maturity, today.  The card is beautifully positive.

"The distinction between the grasses and the blossoms is the same as between you not knowing that you are a Buddha, and the  moment you know that you are a Buddha.  In fact, there is no other way to be otherwise.  Buddha is completely blossomed, fully opened.  His or her lotuses and petals have come to completion ..." (159).  Interestingly, in the Osho Zen Tarot, the Ace comes at the end of the sequence, not the beginning.  When you draw this card you are asked to think of all the completions you have attained at this time in your life and how they have blossomed.

Specifically, for me, I relate the card to my journey in education.  In 1996 I earned my PhD in English from UNC-Greensboro and began a career that spanned 11 years and, apparently, concluded in 2007 when I retired from UNC.  In the three years since, and actually two years before my retirement (2005), for a total of five years, I have not taught in a university setting.  I had considered that my teaching career in that venue was likely finished.  However, about six months ago I decided to dust off my Vita and polish it up in an attempt to look for a teaching position.  I knew, without a doubt, that it would be a long shot for me to get a position having been out of the classroom for five years and out of the academy for three.  Fortunately, several of the local community colleges allow you to put your Vita on file, giving one the opportunity to be contacted in a time of need instead of seeking a standing position.  Such was my luck.

About two months ago I got a call from the head of Wake Tech's Division of Continuing Education to teach a GRE Seminar.  I was most thankful for the call and very interested in the opportunity.  Since retiring and going through all that I have gone through, I felt and currently feel that I have a much more profound understanding of my profession ... a greater Maturity ... if you will.  I was 24 when I taught my first college class, Beginning Composition at UNCG in 1992.  Looking back, I can hardly believe the university turned me loose on a group of students, several of whom were older than me at the time.  In all, and on the whole, I think the experience was positive for everyone, but now, with so much more life under my belt (a marriage and divorce, retirement from a career, the birth and primary care of my daughter) I feel just mature enough to be teaching :-).  My GRE course was a great pleasure to teach and now I have two English courses out in front of me for the Spring semester of 2011.  

I am glad that teaching is not done with me, and feel, instead, that maybe now I'm mature enough to really do great work in the classroom.  It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

A Great Time of Transition: 2008 to 2015

The most powerful constant in the universe is change.  The second most powerful constants are various cycles. Some are large, like the 25,800 year cycle of the Earth's "wobble" (on its axis) that causes the precession of signs, which has lead to the split between Tropical and Sidereal astrology.  In Tropical astrology, if you are born between March 21 and April 21, you have an Aries Sun sign.  Thanks to precession (since 600BCE), when Tropical astrology was calculated on the 0 point of Aries, if you were born between March 11 and April 18 (in 2007), your Sun Sign would actually be Pisces.  Some are small, like your birthday.  All occur in linear, forward moving time in a constant state of change.  There is no permanence, just change ... in various shapes and sizes and intensities.  We are currently living in a period of intense change.  Human and planetary history is filled with easily identifiable intense periods of change, whether we are looking at World War I or the Ice Age, the Discovery of Penicillin or Volcanic Eruptions and Earthquakes, or a host of other significant events.

Human history has entered another period of significant change and transition, beginning with the Great Recession at the start of 2008.  In recent history, the 20th Century, we can mark the great periods of transition with inventions (cars, planes, space flight, the Internet), wars, social upheavals (the 1960s), and so on.  In all those cases we can find key transitions occurring between Energy Points in the sky as part of large and small recurring cycles.  One of the most profound relationships in astrology occurs when Uranus and Pluto transition at significant angles with one another.  The last such significant transition occurred in the 1960s when they were conjunct and their energies merged in the sign of Virgo (Tropical) and Leo (Sidereal).  Today they are in a square relationship, which will be exact 7 times between 2012 and 2015 and involve the signs of Capricorn/Aries (Tropical) and Sagittarius/Pisces (Sidereal).  As with all situations involving large and complex energy, the impact of the energy can be felt and active outside the "ground zero" time frame.

For this reason, we are still "heading towards" the reckoning of and repercussions of the exact squaring that will occur between 2012 and 2015.  The "aftermath" will likely last well into 2020, when Pluto begins to end its travels through Capricorn (T)/Sagittarius (S).  For most of the world, this will continue to be a time of great instability, which is not particularly comfortable, but very necessary for growth and/or readjustment.  In fact, spiritually, humanity is likely to experience spiritual growth through a readjustment to physical limitations.  The lesson of cycles is the lesson of living within a closed system.  Closed System thinking is radically different from Frontier/Constant Growth thinking.  A Closed System reality can appear to be a Frontier System if the participants in the system are unable to see the boundaries of the system as a whole.  In the current vernacular a phrase that is gaining ground is "the End Game."   And a word is growing in use: Austerity. Within a large closed system, small skirmishes occur that reveal to various members of the system the closed nature of the system (species extinction, contamination of water supplies, destruction of usable land, global warming).  But in all of human history, the overall boundaries of the system has not been reached or breached at the whole level.  We are living the age when we can finally begin to see the boundaries of the whole system and how close we are getting to them.

Breaching the whole boundary system would be catastrophic for humanity, no so much for insects.  The breach may occur without human activity in an Ice Age way, but even with Global Warming reaching high levels, its unlikely that we are yet in a position to break the ecosystem in an apocalyptic way.  Though it is certainly within our power and ability (think Wall-E).  During this next major transition we are very likely to have to face readjustment to consumption/resource uses as more of the world wants between 70 and 80 degree homes in the winter and summer.  The financial crisis is a "shot across the bow" of the ship, and let's hope its not the one named Titanic!  Though, that story is an apt metaphor.  People did survive the sinking of the ship ... a much smaller number than would have survived if precautions had been taken, warnings heeded, and safety protocols followed.

Big transitions have a common earmark; they reach into the common levels of human experience.  Not just one group feels the impact, but members of all groups while certain groups especially feel the impact  across almost all members (usually the poor or lower classes).  While many of the rich are getting richer during this process, quite a few have also lost everything and quite a few are experiencing economic decline.  Granted their total assets may now be worth 900 Million instead of 2 Billion, but loss is loss.  I went to a job interview recently and one of the other people interviewing said something interesting, "being early is the new on time."  I have to wonder if this transition will be the one that nakedly reveals that we do have limited resources that we are using as if they are unlimited, which is really the behavior bugaboo we need desperately to overcome and reverse.  Its fine to think of solar power as unlimited energy, wind and water as renewable, but not oil and gas.  This transition period is likely to be marked by the outside world exerting pressure on behavior change internally at a mass scale.  Much in the same way the Great Depression or American/French Revolution time periods exerted change.

We are all, definitely, in it together.

Jupiter in Station, Turning to Go Direct

Did anyone else begin to feel it today ... the energy of Jupiter stopping its retrograde motion to begin moving forward again tomorrow?  I certainly did.  Yesterday, I was talking to Betsy, my partner, about feeling a shift, a positive one.  And today the feeling just grew stronger.  Astrology is all about motion - cycles, approaching and separating energies, Lunation phases, ingress from sign to sign, and retrograde/stationary/direct.  What has made this time in life so very profound and interesting is convergence of many kinds of motion.  Alone any one of these patterns holds significance, but when they converge, big shifts happen.

This December will hold especial power as all the energy points, at two different spans of time, will be direct.  Unfortunately no major legislation or meaningful global/state/local decisions will be made.  But we should have some very positive feelings around the holidays.  It will be a good time to think out "next steps."  What do you want your next steps to be and can you chart a positive route to achieving them.  There's still a number of big cosmic storms on the horizon and the largest of all will be Pluto in Capricorn squaring Uranus in Aries for 3 years between 2012 and 2015.  From every level, it will be good for all us to use 2011 as a time to save, rest, and prepare ... not only in terms of the most obvious financial crisis, but in terms of spiritual development.  We have not seen the last of the Tea Party negativity or protectionist thinking.  These energies will be amassing for the 2012 election cycle.

They must be challenged, but not in the same vein as they present.  We must challenge them in our daily lives by being caring, helpful, and supportive of our community, family, and fellow human beings.  We must show by example that we understand the kinds of fundamental changes in behavior that we all need to make with regard to our use of resources and what each of us rightfully deserves to take from the earth to meet our needs.  I encourage everyone to fully enjoy the tremendous amount of positive energy that will flow once Chiron and Neptune (the last two energy points still retrograde) go direct (even in the face of a Mercury retrograde through the middle of December).  Mercury will retrograde in December, but it is always the same meaning ... slow down, reassess, review, and rest.  

I urge all of us to spend deep time thinking of New Year's resolutions to put forth on January 1 and to reassert on March 21, the first day of Spring.  2012 will be tumultuous and how we prepare in 2011 will be essential.