Moon, Neptune and Sun Progessions

I was playing around with progressions the other day when I noticed a little configuration in the mutable signs and houses. Last November my progressed moon conjoined Neptune in Sag in the third, squaring (within one degree) my progressed sun in Pisces in the sixth. November was not pretty. I was miserable after a brief relapse with drugs and was forced to get honest about a lot of stuff for the first time. The pain was great enough to make me change, and since then my life has gotten consistently better, in a way I've never experienced before. Oh yeah Pluto is also transiting my natal Neptune at al Nadir. "Inward transformation" they call it.

So I'm at a twelve-step meeting the other day and somebody mentions how he's seen a lot of people relapse after seven or eight years. I got to thinking... Saturn transits? Progressed moon? Probably some of both. But I did look for the last hard moon/Neptune/sun aspect, and it was a significant time for me. January 1999, progressed moon in the twelfth in Virgo made a T-square with Neptune (Sag, third) and progressed sun (Pisces, sixth). In January 1999 I went on a school trip to the Netherlands and started drinking and smoking pot in earnest. My personality underwent a major transformation around that time. In 1993 my progressed moon and sun squared, but it wasn't in aspect to Neptune yet. Drinking and drugs were not in the picture... I was also eleven.

So I'm quite inexperienced with progressions, but they seem to factor into how I handle difficult transits. Hard transits + hard progressions = bad news.

This progressions business sheds some light on my extreme Piscean nature. "Oh, Pisces," sighs Scorpio. I'm actually a cusper (Aquarius-Pisces) and I only have one other planet in a water sign (Jupiter in Scorpio). Progressed sun square Neptune, however... that's probably significant. And in that pivotal 1999 progressed chart Neptune was at the bottom of the chart, in aspect to practically everything.

Now if I could only figure out what to say to my friend who hasn't had a boyfriend since her progressed Venus conjoined Saturn, she got divorced and went bankrupt...

When Jupiter Opposes the Sun

Yesterday morning the Sun opposed retrograde Jupiter. My aunt (Aries, Scorpio moon) had a massive heart attack at the same time. Her birth time's a mystery; I'm tempted to say she's Cancer or Capricorn rising, which might place the Sun-Jupiter opposition in her 6th-12th house axis, but really I don't know. Scorpio and I have talked before about Jupiter's presence in some of the nastier events we've charted, and I've wondered whether it's only thanks to him that we've lived to chart them or if he actually made things a lot worse. The doctors said that less than 25% of patients who suffer the kind of heart attack my aunt did ever make it to the OR, so she's actually pretty lucky. Surgery lasted over six hours. Let's hope she makes it.

I Love the Taurus

Last night my Taurus gave me a good example of the second house association with "one's relationship to his or her own body." After a hot hot day at the beach, Taurus was still milky white due to frequent applications of appallingly high-SPF block (I think it was 15 or something). His freckles had, however, managed to come out a bit- maybe twenty or thirty of them on his body. I probably wouldn't have noticed, if Taurus hadn't given me a guided tour. He has an intimate awareness of the exact location of every single freckle on his body, and was able to locate them in a club with almost no light. Furthermore, he made the probable hours or perhaps days spent in self-inspection seem totally cute and natural, rather than self-centered and neurotic. Yay Taurus. Today Taurus is back at work earning money. I should mention that Taurus has a perfect Virgo Midheaven job. He's a pharmacist!

Neptune Square Chiron

Here's a transit that had me pretty paranoid for a while... The reading is a little vague and I tried to figure it out in a million different ways. One of my theories related it to my involvement in a 12-step program and my relationship with my sponsor, and I think that might have been how it played out. April 2005 was when I left the treatment center where I had been heavily involved in the steps, and got a sponsor who didn't want to work the steps right away. February 2007 was when I began seriously working the steps with a different sponsor, and started to actually feel some relief from the problems that had gotten me into trouble in the first place.

From Astro.com, to which I subscribe:

Negative conclusions ***
Valid during many months: This is an extremely critical influence, made more so by the fact that it often remains unnoticed for a long time. Your belief in the good of something could lead you down the wrong path. Therefore it is important that you remain unusually sceptical of any miracle-cures or people who try to persuade you that they have all the answers to your life's problems. Even if such promises seem fairly plausible and believable, you would be well advised to resist any powerful outside influences for the duration of this aspect. If you can be more open with those close to you this may lead to many new insights, while also relativizing some of your misunderstandings regarding what some people purport to be. This will create a basis of trust, which will allow others to be more open and authentic in return.
A unexpected meeting with someone you havn't seen for a long time, or some remark made by your parents or partner could trigger memories of a painful incident in your past. At that time you may have felt ridiculed, misunderstood or even deeply despised. Even if this incident occurred decades ago, the feelings of shame, fear or inadequacy associated with it could be awakened once again, giving you the opportunity to discuss the matter. This influence will make you much more understanding and tolerant of your own and others' failings, helping you to accept these as an integral part of human existence. Only by doing this will you ensure that charlatans and self-proclaimed gurus have no influence over you.


Transit selected for today (by user):
Neptune Square Chiron ,
activity period from middle of April 2005 until beginning of February 2007.

And Now for My Solar Return

As I mentioned before, my solar return last year was pretty accurate. I read that planets on the ascendant will present especially powerful transits over the course of the year, and I had Saturn retrograde sitting right on the cusp... Yikes! I had a slew of Saturn transits this year. And I worked my ass off. And got some amazing results. The sign of the ascendant (Leo) was interpreted as a portent of creativity and time with children, both of which proved true. The sun, ruler of the ascendant, was in the 8th, conjoined with Uranus and squared to Mars and the moon. There were some tough lessons to be learned there, and I really dragged my self-delusional piscean feet. In fact, I didn't take action to change my self-destructive patterns until late November, about when my current (2/20/2007) solar return probably started to send out vibrations.

So I'm excited about this year's solar return. Libra ascendant, Venus in the 6th, sextiled to Mars but squared to Pluto. Grand trines between Saturn, Jupiter and moon, as well as Saturn, Pluto and moon, capped off with a sextile to Neptune. Mars and moon are squared (these two have been arch enemies ever since my natal chart) and Mercury retrograde will conjoin the sun. So I don't expect a walk in the park, but I do think it wil be a good year. I expect developments with my current boyfriend (Taurus, Scorpio rising, Pisces moon...), whom I've been seeing for a couple years now. The difficult lessons I learned last year resulted in some very positive changes that have made that relationship even more important to me.

The 2007 solar return has some striking similarities to my 1997 solar return. Grand trine with Saturn, moon and Pluto in the fire signs, topped by a sextile to a cluster of planets in Aquarius. In '97 the moon, on the cusp of the solar return 4th, opposed solar return Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and Uranus at midheaven. Saturn also opposed Mars, while Mars trined Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. It was a huge year for me, felt most intensely in terms of home and family. A couple of months before my fifteenth birthday, I came out to my parents. The following year, with many other memorable experiences, was one of the most important in my development to date. With the moon on the cusp of the 7th in the 2007 solar return, I think the relationship with my boyfriend will be a directive force, at least in emotional landscape.

For now I'm not getting too much into the placement of the solar return in the natal chart. I'm not that good. I also get in over my head when I play around a lot with house rulership. There are flashes of brilliance, but things get muddy too quickly. I definitely want to get better at rulership questions, and I have a few burning questions that I'll probably post about soon.

More on This Eclipse Business

I also found it interesting that we stumbled upon this lunar return chart on the full moon, exactly a month before the eclipse.

The Lunar Return

So... Here's our first task. Virgo Moon and I decided to do this when I almost gave her a panic attack on the phone at work due to my comments about her upcoming lunar return, on March 3. A big fan of solar return charts after mine last year proved right on, I recently got interested in lunar returns. Last month my lunar return was within a few minutes of the new moon on January 18th. Indeed, I have been extremely emotional and have overreacted to just about everything for the last two weeks. My moon transits (which I usually ignore, given that I've had twenty-five years to experience them every month) have felt like a roller coaster. So when Virgo Moon reminded me about the eclipse in Virgo next month, I decided to check her lunar return. It's going to be within a few minutes of the eclipse! It's going to fall right on her natal 1st/7th house axis (sun within a degree of the Ascendant), and on the cusp of the lunar return 2nd/8th house axis. On the cusp of the lunar return 1st/7th (though not in major aspect to the eclipse) will be the opposition between Saturn and Neptune.

So we're wondering how this is going to play out.

hi.

welcome to our experiment.