The word transit is short for transition.
This is what planetary transits are for. It is very easy to fall into the trap of viewing everything that happens to us as an external force giving us a hard time or punishing us for some kind of supposed karmic failing on our part.
But it’s not the case at all. All things must pass and move on. The one thing we can be sure of in life is impermanence.
We should not fear this as some kind of chaos of the unknown. Astrology shows us that there are clear guidelines as to what needs to and will change and even when those changes will occur.
Understanding our astrology and the timing of all this is the most important thing there is in life. It helps us get through the most painful losses and suffering.
Even with the tremendous grief of losing a loved one, we have to eventually find a way to move on, because we are still here and will ultimately have to find a new direction in order to cope with that loss.
I am often asked if someone’s death can be seen in their natal chart.
There are a number of famous examples where it absolutely could be, but I’ve found that it’s much more likely to be indicated in the charts of those people closest to them.
This is because transits are about change and preparation for the next stage of life. For the deceased person, their current life has ended, but their nearest and dearest have to live on with their life totally changed. So the transits for them would be identifying what is about to happen and putting that experience into the context of their whole life, past as well as future, in order that they might be able to understand such a powerful loss and what it means for them going forward.
At the beginning of November 2022, I had a first consultation with F.
As you can see, F has a very distinctive chart, with a Grand Cross involving 8 major placements, including her Sun, Moon and Ascendant.
The focus is very much on the 7th house as both Sun and Moon are closely conjunct the Descendant.
We talked a great deal about her having a very strong chart and personality.
I said that because her Sun, Moon and Ascendant were all so closely aspected, she would be likely to experience transits three times as powerfully as anyone else because each one would hit all of the main parts of her simultaneously.
I also explained that this 7th house focus meant that the major themes in her life would involve her partners and that her chief role would be one of supporting them.
She agreed with this assessment and that she’d experienced a demanding life but that she felt this was in order to provide spiritual support for other people.
At the time of the consultation, Saturn was at 19 Aquarius, so we know what was about to happen.
In the following 5 months, it would transit over her Ascendant and oppose her Venus, Sun and Moon. In fact the transit opposite the Moon is still in force.
So I alerted her to this very difficult time and told her that it would be focusing on her marriage. There was a need to expect significant difficulties arising through her husband, and we discussed that this would be a very important phase in her life when she would need to be prepared to experience a lot of trouble.
She was naturally concerned about this but felt that she was quite focused on learning whatever lessons were in store for her. Her main concern was for her husband’s own health.
I personally didn’t expect them to emerge from the transit still together although I didn’t put it like that, I suggested that if there was a period where their relationship was under strong pressure and they seemed to grow a bit distant from each other, it was ok to accept it and put it down to the Saturn transit.
Another factor in the Saturn troubles was that F’s teenage daughter, E has the Sun at 29 Aquarius (exactly conjunct F’s Ascendant) in square to Mars at 0 Gemini. So she would be experiencing the same transit.
If this transit had occurred in the chart of someone 30 years older, the death of a partner would be well within its power. As they were both in their early 50s, I did not anticipate exactly actually happened.
As F was worried about the upcoming Saturn transits, she decided to book another consultation for her husband as an Xmas present.
Just before Xmas, I received an email from her saying ” on 13th December my darling husband M took his life. When you told me my 2023 was going to be difficult, my first thought was M. While I did not get to him in time, I felt that my soul knew.”
It is now coming up to the first anniversary of M’s death and Saturn has been transiting backwards and forwards opposite F’s Moon.
We had another consultation last week and F gave me permission to write about her experience, because it might be helpful for other people experiencing similar loss and grief.
F has a very spiritual view of life and still feels a daily communication with M. She feels unready to move on but for the last week or so has started to have thoughts about building a new life. She wants to use M’s legacy to set up an esoteric centre where practitioners of all different kinds come together to help people.
We talked about this and started to look at possibilities for the future.
Because of the nature of F’s chart and the tendency for planetary transits to hit all her main features at once, we have looked at Jupiter moving through her Grand Cross in May / June next year and Uranus following it between 2025 – 27.
As both of these will be operating in her 4th house, it seems that this venture is the next step for her.
Over the last few years, Saturn and Uranus have been playing out a square aspect in Aquarius/Taurus. Since the beginning of 2022, Saturn has been ahead of Uranus.
I have a great many clients with placements in the 2nd half of the fixed signs who have been powerfully affected by these two.
What has invariably happened is that the Saturn transit has brought some obstruction or difficulty that has thrown them back to themselves and forced them to reflect on how things are going in their lives.
This is Saturn’s job. Its goal is your survival. It recognises that for whatever reason, your current life situation cannot continue in the long term. It needs us to stop, take stock and refocus our energies on the most essential things, downsizing in order to be able to keep going.
But Saturn also realises that we don’t want to give up things that we have grown accustomed to and will continue in our old ways unless we are forced to do so. So it does exactly that.
Many people find in this period of enforced loss and reflection that there are certain things about their lives that they need to change going forward. They have been able to use the energy of the following Uranus transit to do exactly that.
This is how planetary transits work in tandem.
We cannot compare one person’s experience with another’s.
The chances of having the Sun, Moon and Ascendant all within a range of 4 degrees is itself at least 1 in 2000. A Grand Cross is something that would only occur in about 1 in 60 charts. So F’s combo would be at least 1 in 100,000 so her Saturn experience was unusually powerful.
But witnessing her grief along with her capacity to survive the experience and begin to look at positive options for the future, can indeed be a great help and a teaching tool for all of us.
Just as Saturn would want it.
Posted on 9th December 2023
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