Saturday & Sundry Tales of Outer Planetary Transits

If ever I have serious doubts about the validity of astrology, at its core, I remember my personal experiences when outer planetary transits conjoined some of my natal planetary positions.

My natal Sun is at 6.46 Aquarius, natal Jupiter at 6.03 Pisces. At the time of these events and developments I was unaware of the planetary transits. With hindsight, I'm very glad of my ignorance.

Uranus transited Aquarius from mid-1995 to late 2003. Uranus' transit of Pisces commenced March 2003. My natal chart received a "multiple-whammy" during these transits. My second Saturn return happened within that time span, as well as a transit of Pluto to natal Venus, and Neptune's transit of natal Sun.

The story begins on 21 April 1996 on a Sunday evening, in a northern English city, at around 9.20 pm. Uranus on this date was a little past 4 degrees of Aquarius, 2 degrees from my natal Sun position. A partial solar eclipse had occurred on 17/18 April at, I think, 28 Aries. My natal Moon is at around 24.40 Aries. Transiting Mars was at 21 Aries.

On this Sunday evening my long-time partner watched TV in the living room as I prepared to take a bath. A fire, which, unknown to us, had started in a large adjoining empty building spread close to our second floor apartment (3rd floor USA-style). I heard a strange crackling noise, went to the kitchen to investigate. Flames licked the window. We realised what had happened, grabbed coats (I was only semi-clad), thankfully I also grabbed my handbag. We hurried down two flights of stairs, as fire engines drew up outside. As we reached the ground an explosion occurred above, probably from gas boilers in the building. We stood with two other tenants, thankful to be outside and alive, watched everything we owned, and our home for the past 23 years, disappear in an horrendous fire.

The whole block of buildings had to be demolished later. We still had our car, parked in a nearby garage, the few clothes on our backs and my handbag containing credit card and a little cash.

That was the start of a very difficult phase. Three days later my partner, probably still affected by shock, fell in the street and damaged his hand so badly that he needed plastic surgery and was admitted to hospital. I remained in a bed and breakfast place.

My work friends and my mother were a great help to us, both with contributions, and moral support. Our insurance helped a lot too, as did the result of legal proceedings against the owner of the adjoining building - but not until some years later.

Within a month or so we found another apartment, but it proved not ideal. We had one break-in during the year we lived there - those burglars were unlucky, we owned next to nothing!

In the early spring of 1997, as Uranus exactly conjoined my natal Sun, we moved into a rented house in a nice area. The whole episode had come to seem like a nightmare turned adventure. More changes were to come, however.

That summer of 1997, Uranus started its retrograde movement. My mother was diagnosed with terminal illness. This happened rapidly and unexpectedly, affected me deeply. My second Saturn return was exact in April 1997. Mum seemed fine when she visited us at Easter, by mid-August she had died. She left me a bungalow on the coast where she and my Dad had spent a good part of their retirement. On the day Mum died retrograde Uranus, was at 5.59 Aquarius, one degree from my natal Sun, 8th house.

I was nearing retirement. We didn't want to live on the coast, but after trying unsuccessfully to sell the bungalow, we decided we'd have to move there after all. In March 1999 we moved home, as Mars hovered at 13 Scorpio, Moon's North node in my chart which opposes natal Uranus/South node. Transiting Uranus had moved on now and lay 7 degrees from natal Sun, but Neptune was inching slowly towards natal Sun.

Soon after moving to the bungalow on the coast, my partner's health began to fail, both mentally and physically. He was much older than me, and we'd been together for more than 30 years. From 2000, until he died in the first weeks of 2003, I looked after him, heart breaking, knowing that I'd lose him painfully and slowly. Throughout this time, transiting Pluto was approaching my natal Venus at 19.59 Sagittarius, 6th house.

To help things along (or not) Neptune conjoined my natal Sun exactly from September to December 2001, and wasn't far away for months after that. Looking back, I can see that Neptune acted somewhat like an anesthetic, or some kind of drug which, along with the computer I'd just bought, helped me through what was, without doubt, the worst period of my life. I'm pretty sure that from time to time I acted as if I were under some kind of intoxication - which WAS purely astrological!

That first home computer of mine arrived along with Neptune in Aquarius. Because I was tied to the house, caring for my partner and unable to go very far for very long, the computer became something of a life-raft. I made a few on-line friends via message boards, and instant message programs, who, bless 'em, along with Neptune's intoxication, kept me afloat through those bad times. I doubt that I could have coped without the computer.

Uranus didn't leave Aquarius until late 2003 and before Pluto left its conjunction with my natal Venus another adventure awaited me. Still reeling from the loss of my partner, I met my (now) husband. At first he was an e-mail penfriend, then, during a short holiday in the USA we met in person. He later came over to the UK, spent time there, and we eventually married. I sold the bungalow, went through the rigmarole of visa and immigration hoop-la, arrived in Oklahoma, USA late in 2004. Events seem rapid, with hindsight, but at the time it didn't feel that way. Life seemed to be proceeding in ultra-slow motion.

Uranus conjoined my natal Jupiter at 6.03 Pisces in February 2005, just after we had bought a house in Oklahoma and moved from my husband's previous home. I'd already bought a new computer, soon afterwards astrology software followed, and a box of secondhand astrology text books. Much study and experimenting ensued.

Jupiter, the publishing planet, danced around the vertex in my chart (natal Mars conjoins this sensitive point). I started blogging. Other astrology bloggers were kind enough to notice my blog, and offer support.

Summing up: the transit of Uranus through Aquarius was a little like a tornado passing through a small town. When that planet first entered Aquarius I had a Mum, a long-standing partner, a home of many years, and a job. When Uranus left, none of those remained. Amid the chaos in my life, Uranus, ruler of technology,left something for me to hold on to - the computer, which became my life raft, eventually guiding me across the Atlantic to a new way of being and, incidentally, to blogging.

What indicates "astrology at work" is the timing, the way events dovetail with transits. Skeptics might respond that there are "ordinary" reasons for these events. Maybe so, but there are no ordinary reasons for such exact timing.

Now, bringing this tale right up to date in 2018, as Pluto conjoins my natal Mercury in Capricorn, I've needed surgery for a small breast cancer, discovered following a routine mammogram, as described in previous posts. Hello Pluto - it brings me no pleasure at all to see you again!

Music Monday ~ Idol Shock - 'Bye Pia ~ Was Uranus "at it" again?

As your friendly neighbourhood Idol junkie, which in some people's view makes me a numbskull without two half brain cells to rub together (they could be right) I shall use Music Monday this week to report that American Idol brought viewers one of its "shock" eliminations last Thursday night.

One of the judges' favourites, Pia Toscano, received the lowest number of votes - or so we were told. She was eliminated from the Final 9.

Pia had been riding high since the live shows began a few weeks ago. She has a super voice - of the "diva" genre. Pitch perfect, never a bum note. Celine Dion is probably her personal idol. I admired her talent but found her performances boring - my husband grew tired of hearing me complain about this. Perhaps the majority of voting viewers (of which I'm not one) agreed with me.

The week's "theme" was Songs from The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Pia, who had previously relied on ballads chose to sing River Deep Mountain High. Oh my! Tina Turner she ain't! She gave a creditable rendition though, but visions of Tina's loose style, so different from Pia's kept invading my mind.



Pia was visibly shocked to be eliminated. She is reported to have needed some aid from a medic. The judges appeared shocked too. Their comments:

Jennifer Lopez (In tears): “I have no idea what just happened here. I’m shocked. I’m angry. I don’t even know what to say.”

Randy Jackson: “We’re all in shock, I’m gutted.”

Steven Tyler: “A mistake is one thing, but a lack of passion is unforgivable. But This is America. They’re wrong.”

Pia will have no problem finding work from now on. She's a beautiful young woman with a voice - and looks - to kick-ass on Broadway or Las Vegas. In fact, before I'd finished drafting this I spotted a report that she has already been signed up by the recording company Interscope, chaired by Idol mentor Jimmy Iovine. They aim to release her debut album "as soon as possible". Hmmm.

I'll take a look at her (12 noon) chart, to see if there's any astrological correlation with her shock exit. She was born on 14 October 1988 in Howard Beach, New York.

Something hit me in the eye right away. Look at natal Mars at 1 degree Aries! Transiting Uranus - planet of the unexpected - was right on that very degree on Thursday night!



It's useless to try to embed a video of Pia singing live on American Idol - it'd be blocked due to copyright. I found this very short clip of her singing The Prayer outside of her Idol performances. I've also posted a video featuring her studio version of River Deep Mountain High in case that manages to avoid the copyright police.

PS~~ The four contestants (Scotty, Casey, James & Lauren) with a Uranus/Neptune conjunction linked to personal planets in their natal charts, as outlined in my earlier post, link below, are all still standing - going strong in fact.
http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2011/03/uranusneptune-conjunction-in-charts-of.html

TRANSITORY ADVENTURES with Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn.

There's a story I told back in 2007 which I reckon is worth repeating. If I ever have fleeting doubts about the validity of basic astrological principles I only have to recall these events to dispel such qualms. My (true) story describes the way transits of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, along with a Saturn Return, directly affected my life. Re-reading this, for editing purposes, I experienced a weird feeling that it's not about me, but about somebody else. It was definitely me though - me pre-transitory evolution!


Background: My natal Sun is at 6.46 Aquarius, natal Jupiter at 6.03 Pisces. Uranus transited Aquarius from mid-1995 to late 2003. Uranus' transit of Pisces commenced March 2003. I received a very identifiable "multiple-whammy" from these transits. My second Saturn return happened within that time span, as well as a transit of Pluto to natal Venus, and Neptune's transit of natal Sun. At the time of consequent adventures I was unaware of any planetary transits. With hindsight, I'm glad of that ignorance.

The story begins on 21 April 1996,on a Sunday evening around 9.20 pm, in a big city in the north of England. Uranus on this date was a little past 4* Aquarius, 2* from my natal Sun. Another astrological ingredient not yet mentioned: a partial solar eclipse had occured on 17/18 April at, I think, 28 Aries. My natal Moon is at 24.40 Aries. Transiting Mars was at 21 Aries.

My long-time partner watched TV in the living room as I prepared to take a bath. A fire, which had started, unknown to us, in an adjoining empty building spread close to our second floor apartment. I heard a strange crackling noise, went to the kitchen to investigate. Flames licked the window. We realised what had happened, grabbed coats (I was only semi-clad), thankfully I grabbed my handbag (purse) as well. We hurried down two flights of stairs, as fire engines drew up outside. As we reached the ground an explosion occurred above, probably from gas boilers in the building. We stood with two other tenants, all thankful to be alive, and watched everything we owned, in our home for the past 23 years, disappear in an horrendous fire. The whole block of buildings later had to be demolished. We still had our car, parked in a nearby garage, the few clothes on our backs and my handbag containing credit card and a little cash.

That was the start of a difficult phase. Three days later my partner, probably still affected by shock, fell in the street and damaged his hand so badly that he needed plastic surgery and was admitted to hospital. I remained in a bed and breakfast place.

My workfriends and my mother were a great help to us, both with contributions, and moral support. Our insurance helped a lot too, as did the result of legal proceedings against the owner of the adjoining building - but not until some years later.

Within a month or so we found another apartment, which proved not ideal. We had one break-in during the year we lived there (those burglars were unlucky, we owned next to nothing!) Then, early spring 1997, as Uranus exactly conjoined my natal Sun, we moved into a rented house in a nice area. The whole episode had come to seem like a nightmare turned adventure.

More changes were to come, however. That summer of 1997, Uranus started its retrograde movement. My mother was diagnosed with terminal illness. This happened very rapidly and unexpectedly, and affected me deeply. My second Saturn return was exact in April 1997. Mum seemed fine when she visited us at Easter, by mid-August she died. She left me a bungalow on the coast where she and my Dad had spent a good part of their retirement. On the day Mum died retrograde Uranus, was at 5.59 Aquarius, one degree from my natal Sun, 8th house.

I was nearing retirement. We didn't want to live on the coast, but after trying unsuccessfully to sell the bungalow, we decided we'd have to move there after all. In March 1999 we moved home, as Mars hovered at 13 Scorpio, Moon's North node in my chart opposing natal Uranus conjunct South node. Transiting Uranus had moved on now and lay 7* away from natal Sun, but Neptune was inching slowly towards it.

Next stage: Uranus into Pisces, Neptune into Aquarius, Pluto in the wings.

Soon after moving to the bungalow on the coast, my partner's health began to fail, both mentally and physically. He was much older than me, we'd been together for more than 30 years. From 2000, until he died in the first weeks of 2003, I looked after him, heart breaking, knowing that I'd lose him painfully and slowly. Throughout this time, transiting Pluto was approaching my natal Venus at 19.59 Sagittarius, 6th house.

To help things along (or not) Neptune conjoined my natal Sun exactly from September to December 2001, and wasn't far away for months after that. Looking back, I can see that Neptune acted somewhat like an anaesthetic, or a kind of drug which, along with the computer I'd just bought helped me through what was, without doubt, the worst period of my life. I'm pretty sure that from time to time I acted as if I were under some kind of intoxication - which I see now purely astrological.

That first home computer of mine arrived along with Neptune in Aquarius. Because I was tied to the house, caring for my partner and unable to go very far for very long, the computer became something of a life-raft. I made a few on-line friends via message boards, and instant message programs. Bless and double-bless 'em, for along with Neptune's intoxication, they kept me afloat through those bad times. I doubt that I could have coped and retained sanity without the computer.

Uranus didn't leave Aquarius until late 2003 and before Pluto left its conjunction with my natal Venus another adventure awaited me.

Still reeling from the loss of my partner, I met my (now) husband. At first he was an e-mail penfriend, then we met in person during my short holiday in the USA. He later came over to the UK, spent time there, and we eventually married. I sold the bungalow, went through the rigmarole of visa and immigration hoop-la, arrived in Oklahoma, USA late in 2004. Events seem rapid with hindsight, but at the time it didn't feel that way. Life seemed to be proceeding in slow motion.

Uranus conjoined my natal Jupiter at 6.03 Pisces in February 2005, around the time we bought a house in Oklahoma, having moved from my husband's previous home here. With a new computer, some astrology software and a boxful of secondhand astrology text books, much study and experimenting ensued.

With reference to this blog, around the time that Jupiter (publishing planet) danced around the vertex in my chart (my natal Mars conjoins this sensitive point), other astrology bloggers were kind enough to notice me; later Elsa added this blog to Astrology News (now Astro Dispatch).

Summing up: the transit of Uranus through Aquarius was a little like a tornado passing through a small town. When that planet first entered Aquarius I had a Mother, a long-standing partner, a home of many years, and a job. When Uranus left, none of those remained. Amidst the chaos, Uranus, ruler of technology, deposited something for me to hold on to: the computer, which became my life raft, eventually guiding me across the Atlantic to a new way of being - and accidentally, or incidentally, to blogging.

What shouts "astrology at work" to me in all of this is the timing, and the way events dovetail with transits. Skeptics might respond that there are "ordinary" reasons for these events. Maybe so, but there are no ordinary reasons for such exact timing.

I feel that I must add, in case a passing reader feels nervous about an impending transit, that I'm pretty sure Uranus transits to natal Sun do not usually result in the amount of havoc I experienced. These adventures were the result of multiple astrological events affecting my own individual chart and personal circumstances, in a way peculiar to me. It has been my experience that astrology never acts in exactly the same way twice.

"A Global Moment" - Being Like Water

Pluto is becoming ever more "dug-in" to its transit of Capricorn (translation from the astrologese = destruction/transformation of power structures) we are beginning to see people of the world reacting to the new atmosphere, "being water" - seeping through rapidly forming cracks.

Be like water making its way through cracks........ Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.
~~ Brue Lee.

Because Uranus is inching daily towards its upcoming transit of Aries (translation: energetic or aggressive forces of change and the unexpected) the atmosphere is set to become more intense in coming months. I believe that Tom Engelhardt's essay at Common Dreams (HERE) describes, non-astrologically of course, exactly how those planetary transits are starting to play out. I've posted just an extract below, but heartily recommend reading the essay in full.

This is a global moment unlike any in memory, perhaps in history. Yes, comparisons can be made to the wave of people power that swept Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-91. For those with longer memories, perhaps 1968 might come to mind, that abortive moment when, in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere, including Eastern Europe, masses of people mysteriously inspired by each other took to the streets of global cities to proclaim that change was on the way.

For those searching the history books, perhaps you’ve focused on the year 1848 when, in a time that also mixed economic gloom with novel means of disseminating the news, the winds of freedom seemed briefly to sweep across Europe. And, of course, if enough regimes fall and the turmoil goes deep enough, there’s always 1776, the American Revolution, or 1789, the French one, to consider. Both shook up the world for decades after.

But here’s the truth of it: you have to strain to fit this Middle Eastern moment into any previous paradigm, even as -- from Wisconsin to China -- it already threatens to break out of the Arab world and spread like a fever across the planet. Never in memory have so many unjust or simply despicable rulers felt quite so nervous -- or possibly quite so helpless (despite being armed to the teeth) -- in the presence of unarmed humanity. And there has to be joy and hope in that alone.

Even now, without understanding what it is we face, watching staggering numbers of people, many young and dissatisfied, take to the streets in Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Oman, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, not to mention Bahrain, Tunisia, and Egypt, would be inspirational. Watching them face security forces using batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and in all too many cases, real bullets (in Libya, even helicopters and planes) and somehow grow stronger is little short of unbelievable. Seeing Arabs demanding something we were convinced was the birthright and property of the West, of the United States in particular, has to send a shiver down anyone’s spine.

The nature of this potentially world-shaking phenomenon remains unknown and probably, at this point, unknowable. Are freedom and democracy about to break out all over? And if so, what will that turn out to mean? If not, what exactly are we seeing? What light bulb was it that so unexpectedly turned on in millions of Twittered and Facebooked brains -- and why now? our world?

Why now? Cycles, and cycles within cycles - astrological cycles that is.