The progressive moon in the natal houses

The progressive moon in the natal houses

Progressive moon position related to natal chart houses is a significant indication of change in the course of our life, abandonment of old activities and beginning of new ones. Especially in the transition time from one house to another, we are in a period of change which can cause insecurity, especially if it is combined with eclipses or transits on the progressed moon.

The sign of progressive moon plays a significant role in trends and habits we are going to develop for the next two or three years. In relationships it is important to know the course of partner’s progressive moon, in order to predict possible changes that he will want to make, so that we can be prepared for them.

Indicatively, the position of progressive moon in a house can bring tendencies as above:

In 1^st house: A period that indicates a new chapter in the life of a person. After the grief of 12^th house, the person seems to leave behind the pessimism and become more active again. Although the energy, for the time being, is without purpose, it has a testing nature. The person acts for the sake of acting, just to feel alive, to get away from previous period’s failures. The person discovers, also, talents and abilities that he didn’t know he had. Period of exploration of sexuality also.

In 2^nd house: At this time, the person goes through financial turmoil. Maybe he will need to do a second job to respond to liabilities or perhaps he has to learn how to control his expenses. Maybe he is at a stage when he gets his first salary and so is able to consume “big” for the first time (like to get a television or computer on his own money). Given that besides psychic energy, the Moon also creates vacillation and fluidity, the point here is to create a stable balance between income and expenses.

In 3^rd house: The person makes his first steps in a new society. If he is a child, maybe he goes to school for the first time, if he is older maybe he moves out to a new neighborhood or to another city.  A period of exploration, allows him to get to know better his new region. Also, maybe, he gets a means of transport or a driver license for the first time.

In 4^th house: The person examines the issue of his residence. It may be the first time a young person leaves his family’s home in order to live in his own house, or maybe someone leaves a small apartment to find something better. Personal space becomes important; the person spends plenty of time at home alone or spends money on home or for his quality of life generally. If his partner, for example, has a progressive moon like this, she will probably want relocation or a redecoration during this time.

In 5^th house: Time of erotic experimentation. An individual makes a lot of acquaintanceships, occasionally in parallel, mostly of short duration. The person maybe considers the issue of a descendant for the first time, while coming generally closer to his sexuality which he becomes familiar with or is confronted with.

In 6^th house: The person emphasizes a lot on his job matters. The job becomes very important and he is very much involved in it. He draws self-confidence and acceptance from work. At this period he probably is connected more closely to colleagues from work. Perhaps, the person indentifies more with what happens there and takes it more personally.

In 7^th house: A good position for smoothness in relationships. We are going through a period during which we pay attention to our partner and our relationship and we support it. We pass a lot of time with our partner and maybe we get married or move in with him. The progressed Moon sign, is an indication of how we pass our mutual time together (for example with Sagittarius, we travel a lot with him).

In 8^th house: The person goes through emotional difficulties. Separations happen, changing relationships from one to another, financial and emotional closures which usually cost a lot. At this particular period we cannot hide problems under the carpet, so if our partner has his progressive moon in 8^th house, we ought to put all issues on the table.

In 9^th house: The person begins to become more active mentally. He might write his first books, take his first courses and start to teach for the first time. Also he begins to become active ideological (for example to join a political party) and come out of his shell making professional travels or travels for studies or training. If the partner has his progressive moon in a house like this for instance, he might wish to travel.

In 10^th house: The person shows a mood to take on many responsibilities. A lot of work and many new jobs at this time. If this is your partner, you have to be prepared for many hours of absence from home. It’s a period of particular exposure with relevant ease on behalf of the person to undertake this role.

In 11^th house: The person appears willing to offer in a more altruistic way. He becomes humbler and more democratic, while creating groups around him or participating in them. Compared to the previous position of the progressive moon, the person now avoids positions of authority and avoids being the one exposed the most. He can develop healthy friendships.

In 12^th house: A mood for the person to withdraw from the spotlight, to rest and decrease socializing with a lot of people. If the person was social before at 11^th house, it may seem to his own people that something is happening to him, because now he drives friends away and reduces going out as he did before. A melancholic attitude may arise. Perhaps, he has to deal with his health. Karmic issues may come to an end in his life. Childhood dreams, a job of many years, a parent may depart with this position.

It is worth noticing that from our personal research we have seen that the progressive moon position in a house, displays several times supplementary results in the house system of equal houses. While external changes for instance may begin to manifest when the progressive moon reaches the cusp of a house in the Placidus house system, the recognition of this change is coming to the person when the progressive moon reaches the cusp of the same house in the equal houses system.

For example, a person with a 12^th house cusp on the 28^th degree of Aries in the Placidus house system and a 12^th house cusp on the 4^th degree of Taurus in the equal house system, may begin to have health problems by the time the progressive moon reaches the 28^th degree of Aries but he realizes and embraces the change or refocuses his attention to health, only when the progressive moon reaches the 4^th degree of Taurus. Likewise, a person with a 9^th house cusp on the 24^th degree of Capricorn in the Placidus house system and a 9^th house cusp on the 4^th degree of Aquarius in the equal house system, may begin to teach when the progressive moon reaches the 24^th degree of Capricorn, but may begin to realize that he is becoming a teacher and embrace it, when the progressive moon reaches the 4^th degree of Aquarius.

The houses and the human Psychosynthesis from a Jungian Perspective

The houses and the human psycho synthesis

In classical astrology, the houses signify the areas of our life in which things happen and outside events take place. If we view astrology, though, from a psychological perspective, the houses acquire a dimension of a psychological map which shows areas of our psychology in which internal psychic processes take place. These processes although initially internal, lead us to basically attribute thoughts, ideas and emotions to the external environment while in fact they belong to ourselves. 

Furthermore the fact that we choose to be occupied with one of those stimuli every time, while every other stimulus escapes our notice or we do not react to them, suggests that interactions and their meaning do not exist by themselves but are related to our esoteric psychology. 

From a psychological point of view, the horoscope expresses in its entirety what we call The Self in the psychology of Jung. With its psychological meaning, The Self is that part of our psychology we recognize that it belongs to us. This does not mean that in our soul there are no other parts that operate esoterically and produce results. These parts exist, but we do not recognize them as part of ourselves but as mere automatic reactions, inheritance factors and as third party influences which we do not want to integrate on our self, we do not accept them as part of it and we would like for them to not exist, if possible. 

The Self is made from two distinct parts. The conscious part is made up from Ego, namely the way we make our conscious decisions. The unconscious part is the one we do not comprehend and we cannot observe but acts and causes results and we recognise its presence from its effects. One part of this unconscious we accept as our own, even though we cannot control it (e.g. instances when we say “oh shoot, I did a blunder again, I forgot!”. So, this part we recognize as part of the Self. 

Generally speaking the Self is a working area where we try to come to terms with and bring balance to the environment’s demands, the unconscious effects from our training, our conscious thoughts and our unconscious impulses. Whichever out of them we do not accept as our own and we would not like to have it, we automatically place it outside of the Self.

If we consider that Self as the horoscope in its entirety, then the Ego is expressed through the fifth house of a person’s horoscope. The Sun, ruler of the fifth house sheds light to the self and guides us to its understanding and realization. Therefore, the question we pose to each other “What’s your sign?”, actually means “How your Ego is expressed, what about your creativity?” 

The Ego is also related to two other aspects of the realization of the Self, the 1^st and 9^th house. The 1^st house (rising sign) determines some specific data about appearance and bodily functions on which Ego will count on to be able to do what it is meant to do. The 9^th house is the house of self-realization through comparing ourselves to the others. It is the house where we compare ourselves to what could be our ideal Self, something already achieved by a person we admire in our social environment and who embodies what we ourselves could become. This ideal Self is constructed to a large extend by the environment we live in, our ideas, religion, role models and beliefs. So, the process of realization of our Self evolves through three houses, the first, the fifth and the ninth house. 

If we consider the houses of fire to describe the process of self-realization, then the houses of the earth are related to what we call personal conscience. When the Self, expressed through the houses of fire, gains the impulse to become something, when it goes away from Being and goes to Becoming, how does the Self operate, through which processes? The houses of the earth describe how we set goals (2^nd), how we incorporate them in what is the collective desire (public opinion, collective desires of the team we belong in, etc. 6^th house) and how we react to our achievements (10^th) or our failure, how we criticize ourselves, how we compare our self with what it should be. 

In this context, the 2^nd house is the house our personal desires are being born (I would like to be this, I would like to do that, I would like to learn the other), the 6^th house is the house of confrontation with our environment, the house where we should adjust our desire to the rules of the others, the house where our reactions of that adjustment will be visible, psychological reactions (stress) or physical reactions (overwork) and the 10^th house, which corresponds to the Midheaven, is simply what we call the voice of conscience, where by conscience this time we don’t mean realization of what we are doing but judgement, evaluation of our actions, our rating of ourselves compared to what we would like to be our ideal self.

If the earthly houses are connected with what we call personal conscience, the houses of the water are connected with what we call the Unconscious. The fourth house is the house of personal unconscious, the surface of the water, where the deep esoteric currents arrive to the surface and are expressed outwardly. The eighth house is the house of complexes, and by complexes we mean those concentrations of psychic energy we have deep in our subconscious, such as the pictures of Animus or Anima, pictures that rarely reach the subconscious’ surface, but still shape our everyday behaviour, even though we do not realize it. The twelfth house is the house of the collective unconscious, the house of archetypes, the house where we learn to recognise the paths of psychic energy flow of all the humanity since the world’s creation and with some of which we can identify with, adopting roles, behaviours and habits that do not belong to us, but are part of some archetype we chose to impersonate.

At this point and before we move on to the examination of the houses of the air, it is worth to see how the houses of the earth and water are placed in the chart, the houses of consciousness and unconsciousness and how they contradict themselves, expressing, humanity’s esoteric conflict in its entire spectrum.

On one hand, personal goals in the 2^nd house, tangible things we want to learn and possess and on the other hand in the 8^th, the things we subconsciously want to have but we will never consciously know it. In the 6^th house, the rules, social norms, behaving socially and coming to terms with the others in the outer world and in the 12^th the others as archetypes, as roles, which each and every one of us hides behind its superficial behaviour. 

And finally, the most important contradiction in our psychology; the opposition between our ideal self (10^th house) and our emotions (4^th house), between the “one I am supposed to be” and the “one I like to be”, the opposition between “have to or am obliged to” and “want to or feel comfortable to”, the Midheaven and “hypogeion” (a Greek term meaning literally our “basement” thus inferring to the 4^th house as the place where we keep hidden, everything we don’t want others to see, but it is also the place we feel comfortable as it is filled with our memories).

In the 10^th house we pursue our social recognition, our career, our goals, and our ideal ego. And then in the 4^th house comes a reaction by our self, an “I have had enough of my tiredness from work”, a desire to relax and a desire for love and warmth, acceptance of ourselves as we are, reaction to the pressure of “I have to” and emotional outbursts involving crying, anger and others.

It is very interesting to see how the psychological complexes of the water houses and earth houses correspond to the parts of the Self that Carl Jung called in his work, the Shadow, the Persona, Animus and Anima. Are there houses in the horoscope which can give information for these parts of the Self and how they act in the life of a specific individual? According to Jungian Astrologers, for example Karen Hamaker Zondag, the Persona is a complex of psychological influences which originate from the 4^th and 10^th house, but by extension from all the earthly and aquatic houses. The Persona, in simple words, is a role, an archetype we retract from the area of the personal (individual experiences we have pushed very deeply) or the collective Unconscious (8^th and 12^th house) and we adopt it as the image we project to the outside world (10^th house). But we also “believe” ourselves deeply to truly be that role, take it within us that this is true, and thus allow our emotional reactions to change as well. And we tell ourselves not only how to behave outside but also how to feel inside to fit in to this image we think of ourselves to be (4^th house).

Such Persona roles are the “femme fatale”, the “lady”, the “sophisticated”, the “good guy”, the “hero” and other similar roles and we adopt them not because they are our true self but because we are feeling inferior and not adequate enough. And they end up affecting not only our outer behaviour and self judgement but even our feelings. They overwhelm our Self completely, urging our real self to the side in a way that we live someone else’s life completely. 

The Persona is actually initiated by the desires of the 2^nd house. Once the “I would like to...” wish emerges in the 2^nd house, it shows we do not feel well with our current self (i.e. the 1^st house) and this is why we have to leave the “who we are” of the houses of fire to get to “who we want to become” of the earth houses. As a counter reaction to the Persona the 8^th house, wakes the image of our Soul Saviour, the Animus or the Anima, the Fairy that the man is waiting for or the Hero the woman is waiting for to save her.

Animus and Anima are our complementary sides usually in the area of the opposite sex, which we really look for to complete our real self and not the one we have adopted as a Persona. And since as a Self we have been totally taken over by Persona, we cannot (and neither do we want to) remove its dominance through direct confrontation. Therefore our salvation can only come from the Other, the complementary Other, the Erotic Other, which functions beyond rules, beyond obligations, transforming, reinventing and regenerating us. It is our only hope to find our true self again and when we find it we pretend to follow it reluctantly, when in fact we crave for it. And I know you do not correspond to my public image and my wants, I cannot willingly accept you as you are but if you are strong enough and convulse my life, I will thank you forever because I know that deep down I am meant for you and you are meant for me.

Animus and Anima are the psychological sides that none of us shows to the outer world but always remain hidden.  A man who is dominant at work but wishes for a dominant woman in bed, a woman who is aggressive as a man but deep down wishes for a man’s hug to lie in, our behaviour at work in the morning and our behaviour in the arms of the one we love are examples of the critical struggle that takes place inside between the adopted Persona and our real self; a struggle, during which each side is in turn triggered to balance the other. The more goals and dedication to success during the day, the more intense one’s desires in the moments he relaxes away from obligations. Social success walks side by side with erotic extremity, whereas less stressful lives are better accompanied by erotic tolerance. 

Other than Anima or Animus, our “Saviour”, in the 8^th house we also find our biggest enemy, our Shadow. The Shadow comprises all of those traits we would never consciously want to have, a personality we would never want to become, the “Evil One”. But at the same time it also has, all the characteristics we are secretly jealous of and we would like so much to have. This time, the Shadow is a representative of the same sex, who just like Animus and Anima, acts compensatory to our Persona. It is displayed in a sensitive girl who is secretly admired by a very successful businesswoman (who will never be like her) who in order to hide her admiration talks down to the poor girl. And also in the mucho man who is admired by a poor ordinary guy, who knows will never be like him and who is going to hate him for that and also, given the chance and if accidently in a position of power, will destroy him for that.

If these aquatic houses show us the structure of the unconsciousness, the houses of the air show us how the individual is manifesting all these influences in his relationships with others. The Self, brought to existence in the houses of fire, feeling inadequate in the state of “Being” and choosing to proceed into the state of “Becoming” gets involved in the eternal struggle between the conscious and the unconscious; but at some point, he manages to overcome its endless circle addressing himself to something outside of him, by addressing himself to the “Other”. The “Other” is the thing which he explores and first comes up against in the 3^rd House.

This is where he projects the content of his soul to the people he meets in the random and short acquaintances of his everyday life. Acquaintances of which he will select the person that will become a permanent partner and companion in the 7^th house and will endure further projections he has prepared for him. And if the 3^rd and the 7^th house show what we project to the others and the permanent partners in life and work, the 11^th house shows what kind of projections we perform to the groups we belong to and what we expect from them.

To conclude, the correspondence of the houses with the psychology of the individual could be described as following: 

Houses 1-7: Our existence, our appearance, our body, what we begin with, the others and their existence, their appearance, our relationship

Houses 2-8: Our desires and the desires of the subconscious

Houses 3-9: What we project everyday to the others. What the society projects to us as Ideal.

Houses 4-10: The climax of our efforts, our esoteric self judgement, the moments of relaxation and love, the emotion

Houses 5-11: The Ego as is expressed creatively, capabilities filled with originality, talents we were born with, creativity and self expression of others, their talents, and recognition of our talents by our friends and social circle.

Houses 6-12: The collective consciousness, the obligations to society, the rules of behaviour, the conventional liabilities and the social roles, as they exist as subconscious archetypes and affect it.

Return of the Planets Part IV - The Aspects of Chiron - Learning how to heal

Having addressed the Return of Saturn and the Opposition of Uranus in our previous posts here and here we ended up wondering "How about Chiron, though and how does his return participate to the crisis of the so called middle age?" *
( *photos in this post are native shootings by Vassilis Papadolias in the archaelogical site of Stonehenge England )
Before we enter presentation of the meaning of the return itself, let’s take a look at the aspects that he forms during the earlier years of man’s life, in greater detail.

The Aspects of Chiron – Learning how to heal

The aspects of Chiron do not happen to every person at the same age. As with Pluto, the orbit of Chiron is elliptical, so from generation to generation –in a shorter cycle than Pluto though – the time that Chiron stays in each sign, changes. While i.e. he stays in Aries around eight years, in Libra he stays a little bit less than two, which results in a situation, where one person born with Chiron in Aries experience his first Chiron square in his twenties, while another person with Chiron in Libra has already experienced its first square when he was six years old.

This difference in the aspects of Chiron is responsible – among other factors of course – for the difference that is observed between generations in the age of their maturity. At least this is what many astrologers claim, highlighting that this is responsible for the parents complaining that their children have spurted a lot while they at their age did not have similar experiences. It is also responsibe for the strange sympathy that develops between children and their grandparents as the maturity squares of Chiron’s happen to coincide when the in – between generation is omitted.

Chiron according to experiential astrologers acts in the best way when it forms sextile aspects with its natal position. During the first sextile of our life we might become interested in the supernatural or have our first unusual experiences. We may pose our first questions about what comes after life. We might read our first metaphysics book, to discover there is something called astrology or psychology or something else, which, if one occupies themselves with it he feels relief in his pain and can heal his wounds. We discover as teenagers (if that is the sextile’s time) in what we are good at, if we are good athletes or good artists. We find out which is our creative pastime, that through which we feel capable of expressing ourselves creatively and be of service to other people as well. The discovery of the road which leads us there happens momentarily, like a revelation, like an inspiration, like an enlightment, one which opens entire roads towards the future. In a few moments, the person knows the way he will proceed with his life for the next years.

During the first square of Chiron, on the contrary, people feel their first bad emotional experiences. The first clumsy relationships, the first break ups and wounds, the first work failures, a feeling of awkwardness towards the things that life demands of them and some fears regarding what will become of them. If again the square happens at a young age – especially if it happens before the first square of Saturn in the first seven and a half years, the unusual experiences cause a lot of fear to the child and it is important to have the proper help and support.

Οn a more external level the square of Chiron can make a person feel that he doesn’t relate to his environment. He may feel that he has no relation to this and want to be cut off. It is the age of teenage crises or the first youth when we want to avoid the pressure of the house where no one understands us and everyone hurts us.

If anyone wonders in his life which were the periods he was coming into conflict with his environment, that words like wounds were being exchanged, that mistakes and faults in the manifestation of love and emotions were constantly happening, most probably he will find himself in front of a Chiron Aspect period. Through our wounds we learn to understand the emotions of others, to put ourselves in their place and understand their behavior. It is something, though, we learn progressively and while we grow up and through many situations we would not want to often remember. The emotional maturity, the lack of emotional rush, the ability to be there for people who need us or help them stand on their feet are the abilities that experiential astrologers connect with the return of Chiron, that happens when we get to 50 years of age.

During that age we can finally say that we have experience. And what exactly is, in reality, that life experience, but the experience of the wounds that others or we caused to us, the experience from the mistakes and our haste, the experience from the time we awkwardly stood across a person or a situation that needed us but we could not help them. Chiron’s return closes a cycle of experience that allows to a person to be emotionally mature and know the way in which he will succeed in helping other people. The focus on "how" (how one will say a nice word, how he will make an observation, how one will communicate with others) is the lesson that is attributed to Chiron from the experiential astrologers and the lack of knowledge of this way is what Barbara Hand Clow calls Lack of Mastery.

The age of Chiron’s return is the age after which we finally acknowledge that people are experienced to teach, to guide, to train us and our children in the reality of life. It is the age that moms show their daughters how to bring up their children and the professional manages train their successors. It is the age of the major result with the less effort and the bigger caution, the age that one is supposed to have their bigger financial comfort than they will ever acquire in his life and wonders about his existential matters while programming how to train his successors. The age we are looking back and recognize our mistakes and think back on situations, which if we were young, we would definitely want to do another way.

Conclusion

The study of returns of the planets during human life hides lots of surprises of realization. The reflection on our personal experiences (through the prism of the things we are reading) when we are learning about  planetary aspects leads to personal revelations as well and is by itself a “chirotic” procedure. The experience of the astrological influences in our life, gives us a tool of understanding what is happening to us and what is required from us. It also helps us find a way out to situations in our lives, find our way and face every moment’s challenges. The return of Saturn, the opposition of Uranus and the return of Chiron helps us to realize the most critical points of our lives, helps us to set our targets, to mature as individuals, to healthy share our experience with the environment and to communicate knowledge and experience to the next generation, as is demanded by the tough reality of life. 

In other words these symbolic lessons help us to mature as people, to evolve spiritually and offer to our fellow men the result of our own experience. So, it is worth it to deepen our individual knowledge of those returns and examine what we can get from them and how we can use their teachings to face the challenges of life.

Return of the Planets Part III - Opposition of Uranus – Achieving emotional balance

In the years between thirty and fourty, man continues ahead on the trails of the process we saw in our previous post ( here ) , trying to set his goals and do something important with his life. Approaching the age of fourty, though, a different type of developments starts to happen within human psychology. Anxiety begins to  mount, the tension, unexpected events, factors that cannot be controlled, dependence from
people and things we cannot control (spouse, family, children, friends, co workers) put us, among other things, in front of a set of emotional challenges of how we can manage to hold the balance in our relationships. It is not an accident that between the age of thirty five and forty many marriages go through a crisis. Many parents are confronted with their children’s puberty but also accept the first calls for support by their parents. All these needs increase the emotional tension in the psychology of the adult, build up anxiety and lead to a feeling of having lost our life’s purpose.

This tension comes at its highest, according to most astrologers, at the age around forty two years, an age when the opposition of Uranus to its natal position takes place. This opposition has a purpose to teach us how to balance our emotions internally and how we can manage our relationships and our communication with other people well. Linking astrology with metaphysics, some astrologers place the crisis of Uranus actually in the astral plane while the crisis of Saturn in the physical plane.
Alongside the influence of Uranus, latest generations happen to experience around the same age, the square of Pluto to their natal position. An aspect which in older generations took place at a later age, in latest generations, because of the elliptical orbit of Pluto, happens during middle age. The square to the natal position works alongside the influence of Uranus but with different results. This aspect forces the person to subject to restrictions he hadn’t had in the past. It forces him to experience situations so limiting that in order to preserve his emotional balance, he is forced to leave behind him people and things that were very important in his life so far and move forward counting only on his personal will. In contradiction to the Uranus crisis which teaches us how to redirect the tension of the emotion, the crisis of Pluto teaches how to harden our heart to withstand the pressure. 

From a more evolutionary point of view, the aspect of Pluto makes us maybe less “humane” from what we consider politically correct and many astrologers say that the square of Pluto is an aspect used only by people who couldn't stand up to the task of responding to the challenges of Uranus. My personal opinion, however, is that Pluto and Uranus are similar in what metaphysics calls first and second aspect of divine being. So, there is the way of will and the way of love for anyone to survive in the astral world, to say it in metaphysical terms. Each and every one of us can choose his own way or be affected by both of them, without one being better or worse than the other.

In any case, the person who manages to overcome the opposition of Uranus has learnt to control the tension of life. He has learnt to channel his emotional anxiety, to relax and ground the “electric” - according to the metaphysics – energy of Uranus with “chirotic” actions as New Age astrologers call them or in other words with alternative practices  such as yoga, massage, spiritual hobbies, crafts, etc. The secret of this process is for someone to understand that they must operate as a conductor of emotional energy. Words, actions, emotions and spiritual energy must go right through us and leave and not stay inside us, accumulate and become anxiety, stress, complexes and a cardiac arrest. 

Learning how to act as “conductors” in our lives is the teaching of Uranus. To learn, that is, to let all the offences we experience every day to go right through us and leave (meant on an emotional level implying non identification) instead of keeping them inside, to recycle and strengthen them. And the grounding of these energies takes place according the so called experiential astrology by using alternative practices that allow relaxation, expression of emotions in a creative way, understanding of things that happen to us subconsciously and the silence of the mind.

How about Chiron, though and how does his return participate to the crisis of the so called middle age? Before we enter presentation of the meaning of the return itself, let’s take a look at the aspects that he forms during the earlier years of man’s life, in greater detail.

Return of the Planets - Part II - Saturn Return – The first turning point

The return of Saturn is the most common return and the one that has been examined the most from professional astrologers, researchers or content writers. This return corresponds, according to most of them, to the stage of life where we are thinking about what we have succeeded so far in life from a material aspect, how much social recognition have we gained, how successful have we been, whether we have managed to put our daily life into some kind of schedule and generally assessing our achievements. It is the age where we compare ourselves to other people and realize at which points we have fallen behind and at which one we are further in life. At the same time, though, it is also the stage we accept we are not as good as other people in certain things and it should not sadden us as much but on the contrary, it should make us examine those things we have achieved and count on those we can do well.

Saturn’s return is considered as the first crisis of redirection around middle age because having examined what one has achieved, it is possible to make important decisions in his life, decisions which may change the direction he has taken so far, completely. Someone might change profession, another one move to another house and another one might decide to get married and start a family. In any case with the help of this return, we ascertain our limits, determine how far we can go in this life and face the spiritual challenge of accepting that everything is finite.

If after Saturn Return, we have managed to realize the above, we enter a new phase in our life. In that stage, we are finally aware of our limitations, we are called to decide what to do with our time and the skills we have been given. What will be our basic goal? Our main purpose? The thing we would like to leave behind us. For the sake of this purpose we will start working, counting on the experience of the first return behind us and the self confidence gained by our first achievements.

If we have not managed to accept the fact that everything is finite, though, we start our life again from the beginning, searching for a job here and there, going from one place to the other and changing the people around us, without being able to commit to any relationship. The lesson of Saturn’s return, then, is also about being able to commit to someone. As our life is mortal and the resources and abilities we have are limited, the only way to achieve big things in our lives is to trust others. The  restrictions of Saturn makes us realize our limited abilities, but also show us why we need the others and teaches us, by lessons in practice, to open up towards them, to look for commitment, cooperation and common effort to achieve what we could never achieve on own own.

Besides, let’s not forget that Saturn was traditionally the ruler of Aquarius, so maybe the description above can also be concieved as a bridge of spiritual evolution from the sign of Capricorn to the sign of Aquarius.

Is that all that can be said about Returns of the Planets? Not really! There are at least two other major returns that need to be mentioned. To continue in this context see our next article about Opposition of Uranus here.

The returns of the planets and middle age crisis’ - Part I

The returns of the planets and middle age crisis’ - Part I

A special case of consulting guidance  that interests most astrologers is how the client can cope with the middle age period. Astrology, these past fifty years has significantly changed its image towards the average person and the first impression that it makes on public opinion is not exclusively as an art of forecasting anymore (an art more or less of clairvoyance based on “inherited” abilities) but also as a language of psychological quest and an art of self examination. 

Among other elements that this process has offered to those involved with this side of astrology, are the psychological interpretation of the natal chart, the interpretation of the signs’ and the planets’ symbols, as well as the realization that the effects of the planets are not simply events of natural significance but also psychological tendencies which exist within us and manifest as factors that try to push us to make specific decisions. 

Amid other phenomena studied by astrology the past years are the so called returns of the planets, namely the long lasting aspects formed by the outer planets during their transit to their natal positions in the personal horoscope. The most usual planetary return which is examined exhaustively is the return of Saturn which happens around the age of 29. Less importance has been given to the return of the nodes or the returns of the progressive moon, while limited are the references to the aspects of Uranus transits towards the natal chart. 

Α special importance has been given to the subject of planetary returns from a new generation of astrologers, who initiated during the 70’s and afterwards in America, a wave of thought directed to psychological healing, experiental  events and  a synthesis of astrology with alternative healing practises (crystals, herbs, astrodramatic healing, yoga, regressions). Among these astrologers names such as Jeff Green, Barbara Hand Clow and Martin Lass, are included.  

The purpose of this section is to give some thoughts to reflect on and suggest a possible relation between planetary returns and the development of  our own psychology. It will also describe the kind of challenges we are facing at every age, but mainly between the age of thirty and fifty years old, an age of turning points of our lives, evaluation of our past and drawing of a new course for the future. In this way, it will be revealed that through the crises of redirection we are able to gain a new level of self knowledge, which will allow us to evolve spiritually, to unite internally and become more useful to ourselves and the others.

To be continued...

Glyphs of the Planets and their meanings