The midlife transitions are most definitely upon me!

But in a rather fitting tribute to Neptune, I’m snapping my way through it over here, so come and have a look if you feel so inclined.

First of all, apologies for using my own Nativity as the example here, but the fact is I know no-one better than I know myself and, of course, have first-hand knowledge of what any of these particular placements might mean.

Occasionally, I have cause to gasp aloud at the accuracy of detail in my own (or any of my family’s) Nativity. Yesterday, I all but stumbled across this particular aspect, which was one of those gasp-aloud occasions. Allow me to explain.

I have Mars in Aquarius in 9th House. Mars in Aquarius is, as are most Aquarian touches, a somewhat rebellious or non-conformist energy: Aquarius – rebellious. Mars – when angry. And that has certainly been my experience. Rouse my anger and watch me storm off. 9th House? Possibly abroad. That, too, has happened often. I have a natural affinity for languages, and when younger studied little else. I began travelling abroad to improve them at the tender age of 12 and my last stint was in my mid-20s. Often, the going abroad was the result of a break-up, an argument, or because I felt the need to strike out alone, a need for independence.

Then, of course, having children rather curtailed that habit.

Yesterday, though, I noticed that my Mars is conjunct Odysseus, which brought a very new, somewhat uncomfortable, but nonetheless accurate flavour to the whole deal. Odysseus: travel away from home; estrangement. It is also true that, whenever the heat got too much in my childhood home, I ran away. My mother loves to tell people I was six when it first happened. I am forty now. Nothing has changed. Well, that’s not strictly true, of course. Much has changed below the surface of it. After an extended period of great reflection and introspection, an intense quest for self-awareness and understanding, I have a much deeper understanding of the motivations of and reasons for both the ‘heat’ and the ‘escapes’. And it is reflected right here in the astrology. Mars conjunct Odysseus in Aquarius in the 9th House: extended periods of estrangement, perceived as rebellion, far from home. And let’s not forget the Mars – the anger, the striving for independence and autonomy – that are also to be found in the mix.

But it goes one step further. That whole bundle of energy squares Jupiter in Scorpio. Jupiter in Scorpio: anxiety about philosophy and judgement. What lies in Scorpio has a discomfort with the superficial; with Jupiter there, that discomfort increases: it wants to go deeper into the philosophy and will no longer simply accept it at face value. Jupiter square Mars: breaking away from restriction, rebellion against ‘superiors’, interminable arguments; Jupiter square Odysseus: the need to strike out alone, in the face of that judgement, on a quest for a philosophy, and so as to find some meaning for, and give some meaning to, your childhood and your life.

Sometimes the accuracy of what is written in your Nativity, if only you take the time to stop and look at it, sends shivers down the spine.

1) Moon through the Signs: Aries to Cancer

2) Moon through the signs: Leo to Scorpio

3) Moon through the signs: Sagittarius to Pisces

4) Moon in Cancer: the Comfort Zone

In the meantime, there will be an article here in the not-too-distant future about the asteroid Odysseus in conjunction with Mars.

Service announcement over.

(Normal service will continue here).

We have a magical collection of bottles and smells, essences and extracts in our house, and a small army of little brown dropper bottles to mix them in.

I have just mixed and sprinkled Juniperberry (for protection from negative thoughts) and Thyme (for courage and prevention of nightmares) on little Wilf’s pillow.

He wouldn’t go into his bedroom: he was too scared. He’s the only one of the five to succumb to bad dreams and he doesn’t have nightmares often, but when he does they’re humdingers. If they get enough of a grip over him, he will not settle until I have sat on his bed, smoothing his hair, talking to him about the humdrum qualities of the world outside; the rain on the pavements, the halo of the streetlamp, the headlights of the cars passing our sleeping house, going who-knows-where in the small hours of the morning.

So why Wilfy?

Wilf has Moon in Taurus in 6th House squaring Neptune in Aquarius in the 3rd. Moon (which amongst other things also describes dreams) square Neptune will provide an especially sensitive nature. In the 6th house, it is daily life, and in the 3rd, with siblings, that is triggering the difficulties. Don’t get me wrong, his brothers aren’t insensitive; they’re just not as sensitive as Wilf and living with them wears down his resistance. Moon is in Taurus and therefore ruled by Venus, and Neptune in Aquarius by Uranus. Venus / Uranus, amongst other things, talks of a love of screens. Wilfy, therefore, hides from the worst of the brotherly toings and froings by escaping into screens. Too much. And then come the bad dreams.

The ‘magic potion’ has not failed yet, I should add. We go into his bedroom where his younger brother is snoring happily, blissfully unaware of any upset; and sprinkle the drops over his pillow, with a couple on his jim-jams for good measure. Where before I could not persuade him into the room, now he snuggles up happily under his duvet, cheek buried in the glorious smell of his pillow, ready to drift off without a worry in the world. To my mind, that is the kind of magic worth making.

And today’s resolution? Fewer screens!

The first thing to grab my attention, of course, is the angry tee-square to Uranus from Mars opposing Pluto. Before you go any further, the feeling is one of flare-ups, anger, violence, intensity. But to look at that in terms of this country, we look at where it falls on Britain’s chart. And it is no surprise to find that it is across three of the angles.

Sitting up there for all to see is Mars in Cancer approaching the Midheaven – there’s the violence (Mars) erupting on the streets of our homeland (Cancer). But why? Pluto, below the horizon and therefore behind the scenes, in Capricorn, is approaching the IC and speaks of powerlessness and futility. In this country, we have created an economic and social divide that has become almost insurmountable. We have created an entire “underclass” of people with literally nothing to lose. And they are angry. The futility of life and envy of what others ‘have’ (Pluto speaks of powerlessness, envy and futility), has erupted (Uranus on the Descendant) into violence (squaring Mars/Pluto). Austerity measures (Capricorn), i.e. asking people who have next-to-nothing to accept even less, have spurred levels of violence we have not seen in this country since the ’8os.

And, since the planets in question haven’t even hit those angles yet, it seems unlikely that it is going to be over any time soon. Pluto doesn’t hit the IC until next March, nor Uranus till May. The role of Mars in this scene is to trigger the Uranus/Pluto square and the violence is likely to die down as it crosses the MC on 17th August. But it isn’t over. Uranus and Pluto, the slow-movers, are approaching their angles as Mars sprints around to its next contact: the Ascendant. In July 2012, this suggests, we will see a repeat performance on a larger scale as Uranus and Pluto are hovering over those angles, closer still than they are now.

I don’t think I could express my perspective more eloquently than this.

I think the title sums it up…

Humphrey has a new nickname. Well, it’s relatively new, anyway. We call him Mr Parker. It must be pretty obvious why. You can’t utter a sentence, snigger, put an open letter on the sideboard, without the Spanish Inquisition. And you want to watch a film with him? Forget it! A billion questions have been asked before the opening credits have finished rolling.

And he has been ever thus.

Why?

I think I know the answer to that one.

We all know inquisitive children, we’ve probably all been stuck on a train with a 2-year old who has just discovered the word ‘why?’ (and his parents who wish he never had). But this is more than inquisitiveness. This is a rather desperate and compulsive need to know. And being privileged enough to be his mother, it falls to me to notice the anxiety behind it. Anxiety, of course, always falls where Pluto lies.

Humph has Moon quincunx Pluto. It forms one arm of his Yod to Pluto from Moon sextile Saturn, which I have discussed previously. Pluto in the 4th (home life, opposite-sex parent) and Moon in the 11th (the mother’s group) – these are the two areas of his life that will not sit comfortably together, that are causing the friction in his life, that drive his obsessive need to know every detail of everything, so that he isn’t caught unawares. His mother’s family group opposing his mother and his home-life. I have mentioned many times the separation from my family, due to the ‘unconventional’ nature of my life now: Catholic and conservative -v- divorced and astrologer, and I mention it not as a tool for complaint or disgruntlement, but because it causes much anxiety for my children to know that acceptance simply isn’t there for their mother and stepfather. It is that anxiety that drives me ever deeper into their charts to try to assuage it as best I can.

This compulsive desire to know everything is something that, as his mother, I shall try to counter by attempting to foster in him a greater faith in the universe: a ‘Let go and let God’ attitude. After all, life is good. What is there to worry about? Don’t direct your energies at the bad stuff: let that go. Choose, instead, to focus on the good stuff, because that is where happiness lies. Be grateful for what you have, and don’t sweat what you don’t have.  Happiness is a choice. I can’t stress that enough: Happiness. Is. A. Choice.

And of course, as so often happens, the synchronicity of choosing now to look into this is that, looking at his transit report, I see that the Moon is conjunct his Pluto by Secondary Progression next week: he needs to find a way to assimilate this now, quite urgently, to avoid an emotional meltdown.

And there is another side to this tale.

Humphrey also has an almost pathological tendency to secretiveness.

Allow me to relay a conversation with him (which is, frankly, like wading through treacle):

Me: “What are you up to?”

Humph: “I’m on my computer.” (Clearly, I can see that he is on his computer.)

Me: “Okay. And what are you up to?”

Humph: “I’m in Gmail.” (Clearly, I can also see that he is in Gmail.)

Me: “Okay. Doing anything interesting?”

Humph: “Just chatting to XXX [schoolfriend]“

Me: “Okay.” (Exhausted.)

I was not, I hasten to add, desperate to know, nor sticking my nose in where it is not wanted; simply checking my son was okay and happy on my way to another room. But it becomes a quagmire of around-the-houses Q&A when a simple sentence would have sufficed. Me: “What you up to?”
Humph: “Chatting to XXX”

How easy would that have been?! But the secretiveness leads a parent to suspect that there is something untoward going on, and to feel irresponsible to leave it at the first hurdle. It’s a minefield.

At first, I thought these two traits were linked. After all, a desire to know every detail about someone else’s life is the diametrical opposite of the unwillingness to share a single thing about your own, isn’t it? It is. Yes. But only coincidentally, as it turns out. (If you believe in coincidence… but that’s a conversation for another day).

What we have here makes no aspect to the Moon/Pluto/Saturn Yod, but is, instead, all about his peregrine Sun in Pisces in the 8th. Sun in the 8th ties in with our Moon/Pluto conversation above: Sun in the 8th will give us a child who is naturally inclined to ask more and deeper questions than his peers. More crucially, though, his Ptolemaically unaspected Sun is conjunct the asteroids Artemis and Eos. This is where it becomes a little more complicated.

Sun, as well as signifying our identity, also of course talks about our father. Artemis corresponds with the asteroid Diana and the contact creates a person who is only too aware of hunting and being hunted; someone who has an innate understanding of the survival of the fittest. This person is ducking and diving, dodging the bullets, being so evasive that you wonder what they’re running from. With Eos configured here too, we have somebody who is trying to avoid getting it in the neck for something that isn’t his fault. And sadly, with an acrimonious divorce and parental antagonism, this is something he has become all too familiar with.

As ever, I am blown away by the levels of depth and detail that our astrology can provide us with and, as ever, I am enormously indebted to this extra tool for parental understanding of a child’s psyche and the root of the trouble.

Sadly, I feel compelled also to add that I feel vindicated by it, too. Since blame is something that has been all too readily cast about like mud, to see that whatever my own personal choices might have been, this would always have been in his chart, enables me to shift my focus from the past and concentrate on ameliorating life now and for a better future.

However, I have attempted to drag myself into the technological age and, having recently set up a Facebook page specifically for AliceStrology, what I certainly do have time for is the odd bite-sized observation of the astrological variety, so should anybody feel like popping over to see me, you can make sure you don’t miss anything by clicking the “Like” button there and, as if by magic, I will appear in your newsfeed whenever I have found something to say.

Alternatively, those very same utterances will simultaneously appear on Twitter, and if you happen to be a Tweeter, you can find me by looking for @SurfingStars

I would also welcome any feedback or observations you might have of  your own, especially if it is relevant to the topic – we are all of us learning on this journey and you can’t have too much information (well, unless you have a 9 year-old Sun/Uranus son in your life, in which case you can definitely have too much information)!

I look forward to seeing you soon.

Alice

Wilfy has Sagittarius rising: he’s a bit of a goof-ball, which I say in the nicest and most affectionate way. His dress-sense is nothing if not interesting. Unique even!

Mars in Cancer: being taken for a walk by the (tiny) dog. He took home-made cookies (see Moon in Taurus) to share with his class, but the plastic container was ‘too heavy’ to carry the 100 yards

…and finally, Moon in Taurus: he wants macaroni cheese and banana cake for tea, and then we’ll snuggle up en famille and watch a film.

Happy Birthday Wilf.