Saturn Return Can Bite Me

Why I can't change

"Why is it so difficult for some people to change? They remain stuck in the same negative relationships/habits/jobs for decades. It’s clear as day to others that they need to evolve. But they don’t.

I did a very quick survey of the natal charts I have on file. Specifically, I looked for commonalities in the charts of people I’ve known for years who have remained stuck. What I found was that all these people have planets in their 12th House."

And suddenly that explains everything...

"The 12th (naturally ruled by Pisces) is the most difficult part of the chart to access. It represents the subconscious, the hidden, the secret. Having planets in this house is similar to glimpsing something out of the corner of your eye. When you turn to look at it, it vanishes. So any behavior symbolized by these planets will be just as difficult to pin down."

And of course, this is my chart ruler in there.

"Basically, the 12th House is a blind spot. How do you deal with it? If 12th House planets are making aspects to any other part of the chart, this is the access route. For example, Sun in the 12th trine Moon in the 4th can find clarity through emotional (Moon) connections to the past (4th House). Talk to your Mom. Revisit childhood friends/events. Will it be painful? Guaranteed. Awareness of the 12th means sacrificing something, even if it’s your illusions. Also, look at the ruler of the 12th. Aries on the cusp of the 12th House would make Mars the ruler. What’s happening with this planet in the chart? Action, independence and instinct (Mars ruled areas) would be the keys to unlocking the mystery."

Hm....so, my big one for that would be Mercury in the 6th (opposite Pluto), or maybe Uranus (1st) or Neptune (2nd). Chart ruler is Venus in 7th.... So thinking about the day-to-day practical shit in life would cover the Mercury bit. And yeah, that's what I'm running into now. Realizing that I have to postpone the move because at the very least, my driving alone is probably not up to handling 4 hours a day on the freeway or whatever at this point.

As for the 7th house, yeah, partnering helps the situation, when I can find one.

I do worry about what will happen to me if I don't move on my own, though :( I've got one planet in the zap zone (Jupiter) and two planets (Mars and moon) in the "positive Uranus zap zone."

The Sagittarius lunar eclipse and how it literally went for me.

On Thanksgiving night, my laptop was having issues. It's been doing this weird thing where the power would go off if I touched the right side of my laptop, even briefly or accidentally. I had brought it to my aunt's house and was trying to use it on the couch...so it was blowing out a lot. And finally it just refused to turn on any more.

Naturally, I freaked out. The laptop is 3 years old (as of guess when, Thanksgiving) and while it could be in the range of early death, it really shouldn't be yet. But I've had a screen blow out before and I know that's not fixable. It's not like I was likely to find someone to diagnose it over the weekend...should we be trying to immediately do a Black Friday sale to get a new laptop...oh shit! I was thinking that was the second house eclipse issue right there: sudden financial hosing.

But I got lucky. The laptop turned on the next day, and I figured out that it was plugging my ancient mouse into the laptop that was blowing out the power. Without that mouse, it's doing just fine.

As for the actual day, I bizarrely managed to avoid spending money at craft fairs all day long. I bought my mom a ring for Christmas at her request and that was it. Alas, the restraint didn't last at the NEXT DAY's craft fair, mind you, but it was kind of amazing that I didn't really fall "in love" with anything, or buy more alpaca roving the way I did there every year.

Eclipse fears

The next eclipse is on my moon...and oh god:

"Eclipses closely conjoining, opposing, or squaring your most stressed natal planet or aspect can coincide with dramatic external events — the death of someone close to you, an illness, a job change or relocation, a great romance, a divorce; like depression. In any event these times or simply profound internal events,are often marked by events so dramatic they seem to take place in a dream state of suspended animation; when we regain consciousness the entire landscape of our lives have changed.

Look to “personal” planets, particularly the Sun and Moon, in difficult aspect to the outer planets (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) to find your most sensitive planetary combination. My Moon/Pluto square, for instance, is extremely sensitive to eclipse aspects, inevitably heralding profound events which force me to confront my fear of loss. On the other hand, eclipses aspecting my fairly happy natal Venus (trine Neptune, sextile Pluto) usually presage fairly pleasant transitions.

Unless an eclipse triggers a “high tension” planet or aspect in your natal chart, or one of the angles, you are likely to experience it as a subtle or psychological influence. About every nine and a half years the pivotal planet will receive a solar or lunar eclipse conjunction or opposition, and each time you navigate this pivotal eclipse “season” you have another opportunity to face your fear — perhaps a fear of anonymity (the Sun), of disconnection (the Moon), of authoring your own life (Saturn), of sudden change (Uranus).

Not all eclipses are associated with what we think of as unhappy events. Many coincide with events which are joyous — a marriage, say, or the birth of a child. These eclipse events are in some ways more traumatic than tragic ones, because we don’t expect to be frightened or disoriented by them, and receive little support from others for our feelings (“For heaven’s sake, can’t you even enjoy it when something good happens to you?”). But the energy of eclipses is crisis, a crossroads, a turning point. Choosing something good for your life — a partner, a child, a high powered career — necessarily means closing the door on something else (life as a single person, total freedom, relative lack of responsibility). It’s normal to mourn loss, even loss that’s necessary to clear your path to joy."

Since mine is in the second house...you know, I know my money is going to go away if I am planning on getting a car and moving without a job. So I am planning on doing it to myself, really, eclipse or no eclipse.

Mine is equally stressed (in a T-square) and unstressed (two trines), so...yeah, it'll probably be bad. Giving up on having the amount of money I have been comfortable living on in order to move. Ugh. Not something I want to think about in the Season of Spending.

House of Aquarius

So I have Aquarius as my fourth house and frankly, it does not strike me as the "home and family" house wroth a damn.

Finally, this kind of makes that make sense:

"The House of your astro chart with Aquarius on the cusp?

It’s where you’re already living in the future and/or another dimension. Both concurrently? Why not?  Because it’s not like you consider the Time-Space continuum to be linear or anything.

It’s the area of life where you could be seen as sociopathic, your detachment is that advanced here.  Sentiment is not only naff, it clogs your aura, dampens your Qi, could even lead to candida.

The Aquarius house of your chart is where you’re bats but so brilliant. Everyone thinks you’re a flake in this regard but then wham; you were right all along. Beyond right – genius.

So Aqua in the 4th House means you bring this other-worldly consciousness to chez You, real estate and your attitude toward family of origin."

Yeah, I absolutely don't fit in with my family, or with the entire idea of a snuggly-wuggly warm home either. The entire concept is alien to me. Detached? Definitely.

Saturn transiting the 12th house

I have this problem myself right now.

We wrestle with illusion that we are in control (and lose). We make plans and have them dissolve, or never come together. It is, after all, not called the house of beginnings, but the house of loss. We lose steam. We lose momentum.

We can make any Twelfth House transit many times worse than it has to be by ignoring any insistent nudge that something in our life isn’t working. We can undermine our well being through avoiding anything that is clamoring for our attention, and for the Twelfth House avoidance comes in so many forms, flavors and varieties you may not even realize you’re  escaping.  Twelfth House Saturn time as a time to restore, rest, repair, eliminate what’s outworn, and examine any the energy leaks in your physical and material life and your psyche. Make plans, okay, but prepare to have them change.

Eventually, one way or another, Saturn will ask us to squarely face, and then be willing to lose, what is undermining our self-authority and draining our life energy — even if what’s undermining us is right for everyone else (a great job with benefits, a typical American diet, a status quo workaholic ethic) but wrong for us.

That last bit is what is getting to me...

And then she moves on to talking about the first house transit:

Saturn will finally cross my First House threshold in September, for the third and final time. Frankly, I have never so looked forward to a Saturn transit in my life! Sullivan calls this next step The Threshold Struggle, and from accompanying several close clients through their First House transit, the struggle is a process of becoming. It’s a time of integrating what’s been recovered about their self while deep in the Twelfth, and having that and bump against the personality, expectations of partners, work and community. Sullivan warns against anticipating what will happen then, pre-empting the natural unfolding of this delicate self-remaking process. Yet nothing can stop the force of a First House Saturn though there’s pressure and challenges… and how well we navigated the Twelfth House. If we lost the job (later realizing we hated it anyhow), at the First House, our Twelfth House pain, emptiness and despair begins to make sense, but hopefully before. The sooner we get on with the Twelfth House work of  losing what’s meant to be lost, the better. Loss precedes change, a change that will initiate a new 28 year cycle, which for many experiencing, is the rest of their life. For this reason and more Saturn’s Twelfth transit is momentous. The old life is trying to lose its grip. All we register, at least at first, is a fuzzy loss of control, and then a gradual breakdown from the way things were and the way things have always been…into what things will come to be.

TV Astrology: Switched At Birth

So I'm a big fan of Switched At Birth, which is rather ridiculously good for a family show. People are sympathetic and mostly sensible and you feel for everybody and it's awesome. I highly recommend it (go look on Hulu, the pilot's online).

Anyway, the recent episode "The Persistence of Memory" was just plain excellent. AND it also featured one of the switched-at-birth characters finding her birth certificate. Of course, Daphne's real birth certificate is actually for Bay, so... it's Bay's birth time and information. The show has stated the two girls have the same birthday, so I'm interested in looking at their birthday. Alas, Daphne's actual birth time hasn't been mentioned yet, so I'll have to guess.

For those who haven't seen the show: Bay Kennish is a brunette teenage artist type. She's tempestuous, dabbles in getting into trouble, and seems to move quickly when it comes to men. She's the one that got raised in a wealthy family but originally came from a poorer one. She's the one whose birth time we'll be looking at. Her birthday twin, Daphne, is the strawberry blonde athletic type. She's generally sweet and more of a people pleaser than Bay, a wee bit of a showoff herself at times, and has been deaf since the age of 3. She was the one born to the rich people, but got raised by a poorer mom.

I totally guessed that Bay must be a Leo rising, and by god, she is! The drama is very obvious with her. (Plus she loves Frida Kahlo. Both she and her biological mom Regina are really into bright colors.) I'd guess Daphne is probably born around 6 a.m., making her a TRIPLE Libra. Both of them are at least double Libras (sun and moon), but Daphne is clearly the one more interested in making sure everyone gets along.

Both of them have a lot of planets in Libra, with a Libra Moon/Chiron conjunction. That says "mommy issues and pain" like nothing else, which totally fits with the swappage. They both have Sun conjunct their Libra North Nodes, which I think bodes well for them learning Libra issues of partnership and cooperation. Certainly both of them pick up love interests left and right and are very attractive girls! Passionate too with Venus in Scorpio. They also have a Mars/Pluto conjunction, which I find kind of nervewracking. That does tend to bring on... well, physical accidents, maybe being a bit of an anger/violence magnet. That hasn't played out yet on the show, but it's a TV show and you never know when a show might resort to something crazy. I think it bodes a bit better for Daphne (rather than the uninterested Bay) that she is into sports, so she's got an outlet for physicality. (Bay, on the other hand, does graffiti and fake ID's.) They both have Mars in Sagittarius, which in my experience tends to mean that they're both going to be SUPER interested in travel. They both have Jupiter in Sagittarius, which should be pretty lucky. They also have a Neptune/Uranus conjunction. Saturn is in Pisces.

Looking at the placement of the houses in Bay's chart for certain, most of them are below the horizon. Nothing in the first or second houses, but the Libra stellium is in her third house of communication and siblings. I find this funny considering that she biologically has no siblings, but by adoption she has a brother and Daphne is probably more or less an honorary sibling. The Moon/Pluto conjunction lands in her fourth house-- trouble in the family, indeed. Jupiter is in her fifth house, so she has luck with creativity. The Neptune-Uranus conjunction is in her sixth house, so I'd imagine that could be ... interesting... in her work life. The planet of dreaminess and imagination combined with unusual events should mean she has an interesting art career, even if I doubt she'd get massively famous for it what with most of her planets not as on display as her Leo rising. Saturn is in her eighth house of other people's money. Maybe that's an indicator that the money she grew up with wasn't hers, after all.


I'm going to do an imaginary house placement for Daphne with a Libra rising to see how that plays out. It'd give her the stellium of planets in her twelfth and first house, so she is more publicly prominent than Bay despite Bay's Leo rising. (Indeed, her deafness may make her more noticeable in public.) Venus and the Mars/Pluto conjunction fall into her second house. Maybe the Venus in second means that she'll get money via love-- or that she was the one destined to be a rich girl. Except for the Mars/Pluto kaboom. Jupiter falls into her third house = luck with communication and siblings. Hm. Communication is an issue with her, being deaf and all, but for the most part she seems very skilled at all of the methods she uses to do it. The Neptune-Uranus conjunction would fall in her fourth house, and Saturn would fall into her sixth. I'd imagine Daphne will have a harder time getting a job. As for dreamy + unusual, maybe that describes the home life she grew up in, or the unexpected windfall of turning out to be from rich people?

Anyway, this may all be a lot of bull, but it's kind of fun to think about.

The two faces of Venus

"These are the two faces of Venus and they do not get along. Taurus says “I should be able to look after myself.” Libra says “But I’m not complete without someone else.” Technically, Taurus and Libra form an inconjunct. This is an aspect that joins two signs with so little in common that a huge amount of adjustment is needed for them to get along. So what does that say about the planet that rules these two signs? Loving yourself and loving someone else is not a natural fit.

The search for security (2nd House) needs to start with yourself. You won’t find what you need (2nd House) by projecting desired qualities onto someone else (7th House). The adjustment involves owning (2nd House) those projected qualities (7th House). In other words, think about what you admire/crave most in other people. Now look inside and you’ll find that quality."

Your Scorpio House

"So your Scorpio House – the one where it has Scorpio on the cusp – is where you’ve got secrets people would not believe…NOT that you’re going to be sharing them anytime soon. It’s where you’ve died and rebirthed yourself. Your Scorpio house is where you’re obsessive, no matter how much of a flake you might pretend to be about the affairs of that house. It’s also where you’re most likely perfectly happy to employ sexual wiles and/or the occult to get your desires realized. It’s kind of like where you’re Darth Vader. Or a Witch. Old-School. You do what you need to do but retain perfect composure the whole way through. Your Scorpio house is also where you have schemes going on (permanently) and a secret shit-list of people to whom you will one day be ‘rubbing it in.’ It’s also where you’ve got the most seductive mystique going on."

Hah. Very interesting reading when it's your first house. The witch thing, especially.

April 2011 birthdays

So somebody I know had a full moon baby yesterday. I've been saying all along, "man, this kid is going to have an interesting life." (And probably not in the good way, more like the child is going to be a massive hardass. I can only hope he finds a way to use it for good rather than evil.) Naturally when I found out the birth time I had to do a chart.

• Capricorn rising, Pluto rising. Hoo boy, kid's gonna be INTENSE.
• Aries stellium in 3rd house... and there's a whopping T-square between Pluto at the apex, the stellium at the bottom and the moon/Saturn at the top in the 9th. His mom is very nice, so I'm sorry to see that moon/Saturn conjunction there.
• And Mars/Mercury/Jupiter are all conjunct/opposite that moon/Saturn conjunction. So the kid's going to have Mars/Saturn AND Moon/Saturn. Darn it. With a whopping Aries stellium. In the third house, and the kid has a ton of siblings. HOO BOY.

...Yeah. I kind of feel sorry for the parents here. I suspect this kid is going to be a walking drama bomb, in charge of everyone, at BEST. Nervewracking.

Manifestation and the natal chart

So I'm going through the archives of the Practical Astrology podcast and was just listening to this one. While the actual audio of the main segment of this episode is uh, pretty bad (I had my volume cranked as loud as it could get and could still barely hear most of it), the end part is much clearer and talks about how to see what your chart says about the topic.

Tips for checking on how manifestation is for you in your chart. Look at:
1. 9th house = beliefs, principles, laws, what your chart wants to believe in.
2. Jupiter = what can be done effortlessly, given as a gift. Don't have to work for it.
3. Sagittarius = lead yourself or be led into things that can manifest in abundance.
4. Venus = attraction
5. 2nd house = income
6. Taurus = money
7. Squares/oppositions to those in chart = where chart has a conflict about manifesting effortlessly or about money or what you should believe in.
8. Neptune = chart is confused about something and doesn't know what to believe in

As for mine, I'd be great on the manifesting except for, of course, the nasty squares to everything and Neptune being in the 2nd. No wonder I have issues with believing.