A couple of months ago I wrote about personal planet transits and how they often don’t deliver much more than a good or bad hair day. Transits by the more slower moving planets are a different story and rarely fail to deliver their promise- good, bad or ugly.

Jupiter has flown through Pisces extremely quickly. By 6 June, 2010 he will be in Aries for a short burst before turning retrograde in the middle of July and heading back into Pisces where he will stay until January 2011. I will have more to say about this as it gets closer.

So far the whole Jupiter 1^st house thing has not delivered the way it should. Sure the opportunities have been there, but what with Saturn marching through my 7^th house with his great big jack boots, in recent weeks I have felt as if I am straining at the leash only to be pulled back faster than I can move forward.

Saturn at present is sitting stationary opposite my Moon. Saturn was last in this position in October last year and for the period of the transit I felt shocking. That makes sense given that the Moon is about your most emotional and instinctive responses- the real deeeep, soul type of stuff.

 In fact, the whole 12 months it took for him to oppose all my Pisces planets has been pretty heavy. By the time he had moved past the 1^st few degrees of Libra I felt as if a lead weight had been taken from my chest. It was like I could breathe again and feel again and be excited again and feel like dreams can come true again. But then Saturn came back.

This last part of the transit has been the worst and the hardest and the heaviest. This time the weight has been physical and I literally can’t breathe.  I have felt flat, fat, lonely, low and old.

Robert Hand writes about the Saturn/Moon opposition:

This is one of the most emotionally trying transits. It is frequently associated with domestic of professional problems, emotional depression, loneliness… difficulties with personal relationships, often leading to breakups.

This transit represents an “alienation crisis”, that is, a crisis brought about by the discovery that you have neglected your emotional and psychological needs. As a result you feel alone and disconnected from others, like an alien in the world whom no one else can ever adequately understand.

Absolutely, all of the above is relevant for the way I have been feeling.

However, in the background Uranus has also been conjunct my Moon. The textbooks (again Robert Hand) say that this transit is a time of enormous emotional and psychological turmoil. This transit may also bring that wonderful heart fluttering infatuated excitement. As with all Uranus transits you should feel alive.

This time, though, I have felt far from alive. Yes, the turmoil has been there, but what I have been feeling has been more of the Saturn opposition than the Uranus conjunction. Given that Uranus is the slower moving planet, why haven’t I felt it more?

I have this theory that the reason is simply that Uranus opposes both my Sun and Moon natally, and contacts both of my chart rulers (Neptune and Jupiter) by sextile. It is, therefore, a relatively easy natal opposition and a contact that I live with every day. Saturn, on the other hand, aspects no other planet in my chart (using standard same sign aspects). Any contacts by transit will and are felt deeply.

Jupiter will move in to join Saturn on my Moon over the next couple of weeks. This will coincide with Saturn moving direct from that spot. This should be a most positive transit, but given the other stuff happening up there, I am not that sure. Having said that, Jupiter/Moon is a pretty important transit for me. Natally in my chart the Moon and Jupiter are in what is called mutual reception: Jupiter in Cancer is in the Moons’ sign and the Moon in Pisces is in Jupiters’ sign. Natally the promise is there. But will it deliver?

In the meantime, there is a lovely transiting Mars/Venus trine playing out tomorrow. According to the automated personalised forecast I get from Facebook this is what I have to look forward to tomorrow:

Love ballads float through the air. The time favors soothing feelings while building reservoirs of romance for one another. A Harlequin-like honeymoon refreshes your love. Creativity reaches new heights. Be on the lookout for an inspiration that becomes your next line of work or sideline. Funny how you get wonderful ideas when you’re doing something you love.

mmmm… not sure that I will hold my breath for that one, but then again, one can always hope…

In the 3 or 4 months since I worked out how to measure the hits going through this website,  I have been amazed by 2 things:

• just how many people are actually reading my sometimes way too personal rambles and by doing so encouraging my use of cheesey song lyrics andPet Shop Boys songs to talk about astrology
• just how many people are fascinated by Scorpio and Aries! I have come to the conclusion that as long as I tag a post with the words Scorpio or Aries in them, the hits will mount up.

The most popular post on the site from a repeated hits viewpoint is a piece I wrote months ago about Venus in Scorpio. Now, I find Scorpio planets in a man as sexy as the next girl, but not a day would go by when I don’t get hits to the site as a result of google searches around Venus in Scorpio, Moon in Scorpio or Scorpio Men and Scorpio Women. Other popular google searches are around Aries men- talking to them, annoying them and keeping them. Other than that, Venus in Cancer and Venus in Pisces round out the fascination with water signs- strangely enough other signs find it difficult to understand water. Taurus men are also the subject of interest- how to talk to them, how to understand them, how to get them to talk to you.

Over the last 3 months, the top 5 posts have been:

Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights and Venus in Scorpio

Great Expectations- a silly little piece about when minor planet transits don’t deliver all they promise

So Does This Mean We Are getting Married? Venus in Cancer

Holding Out For A Hero- Venus in Aries. This one was one of my faves (mainly because it is my Venus), so glad it made it to the list.

The Stars & The Sun Dance to Your Drum and now its Pandemonium- The Sun in Aries. This one is my absolute favourite. My daughter complained because the song was blasting out of itunes for the week before & the week after.

Also high on the list were 2 other of my personal favourites:

La Vie En Rose- Venus in Pisces. I wrote this one on the plane to New York after I had watched Sabrina (both versions) as essential NYC research & then 2 movies featuring Paris while on the plane. I had the Tony O’Connor/KD Lang version on my ipod & it just feels like falling in love. Paris just feels like falling in love.

Is Bigger Better? Jupiter transits of the 1^st house. In fact the Jupiter house transit series has been surprisingly popular.

A very large proportion of google searches are around relationship questions, so presumably thats what you are interested in. Uranus and Saturn transit questions are also popular searches and I have had a few email enquiries too around Uranus transits in specific. I have also had requests for more descriptions of Moon signs. I welcome the emails and suggestions… just not sure how I can keep up with it all!

Anyway, to everyone who reads my rambles… thankyou!

Hong Kong from Victoria Peak. Pic by me.

The perfect steamed Xiao Long Bao, or Shanghai Pork Dumpling is a truly rare creature. The dumpling skin must be translucently thin enough for your teeth to bite cleanly through to the succulent pork within, yet strong enough so that the slightest movement by a stray chopstick won’t cause the hot broth within to leak out of the dumpling and through the slats of the bamboo steamer instead of bursting into your mouth. The minced pork filling has to be perfectly juicy- not just a glob of dried out pork mince made moist by the steaming soup. 

Even the size matters. The perfect dumpling should fit neatly on a Chinese soup spoon with minimal overhang. Just enough to gently push it into your mouth with the chopstick in one go so that the flavours can all be experienced together. Shredded ginger is a must, as is the merest touch of vinegar- which is added to the ginger… & not the other way around.

But I digress…

I started drafting this post in the bar of the Mandarin Hotel, Hong Kong. Not that I was staying there- just that I had been shopping in the Central district and was considering what I would have for a late-ish dinner- fragrantly spiced curry on saffron scented rice or perfect steamed Shanghai Pork dumplings (Xiao Long Bao) from Crystal Jade next to the hotel. The Bar was calling to me. Dumplings won.

I was drinking a classic Martini (gin, dirty, with an olive) and stupidly in this beautiful bar in this beautiful city a tear rolled down my cheek. Not because it is flipping sad to be sitting alone in a bar in a wonderful city- I am used to travelling alone. And it isn’t martinis that make me cry- my husband makes them for me regularly. It isn’t even cocktails that do it- although other than in bars in New York when I absolutely had to order a Manhattan, I don’t make a habit of drinking cocktails in bars on my own. In fact the last time I sat in a hotel bar drinking a martini on my own I felt as low as it is possible to feel. That was 3 years ago in Brisbane- light years away from Hong Kong.

I had been offered what was (on paper) the dream job and was absolutely and irrationally hysterical as a result. I called a girlfriend who sympathised and patronised just the right amount. I had another martini, and then staggered upstairs to my hotel room where I gave way to the most dramatic of dramatic dramatics. I then rang someone who I shouldn’t have and spent the next hour being dramatically and uncontrollably hysterical. I was at rock bottom and Jupiter was on my mid heaven. I should have felt on top of the world.

After one too many stupid and way too personal arguments, I declared to no one in particular “that’s it… I’ve had enough. I can’t do this anymore. I need a new job!”

Jupiter, as we know, provides opportunities for expansion and growth if you look for them. So look I did- seek.com.au… and applied for the first role that a narrow portion of my skill sets met. Three interviews and three days later I was offered the role. It was at that point that I felt the handcuffs being locked around my wrists.

Twelve years earlier, the same thing happened. I was a Branch Manager for the bank I worked for. At just 28, not only was I extremely young, but also the only female in a very male dominated environment. I actually enjoyed the job, the challenge, the customers, the responsibility of that little branch and the people in it.

Changes were occurring- the Bank was looking to take a lot of responsibilities out of the branches to free the managers up for sales focused effort. (Pluto had just moved into Sagittarius and the emphasis was on expansion). I declared to no one in particular “the day that they take the credit responsibilities away from us is the day I look for another job.”   They did, so I did. Before the ink was dry on the change memos I had a role in the new centre where all the credit functions were being centralised. This role lead to a National Operations job and eventually to some project management and process re-engineering experience. Jupiter had crossed my Midheaven.

If Jupiter crossing the Midheaven is so great for professional and personal expansion, why did the opportunities that came my way in 2007 scare me so completely? I had wound professional into personal and was feeling unappreciated, taken for granted and discarded- both personally & professionally. I thought I needed an escape route and one was presented to me. As with all things Jupiter, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the opportunity presented will be the right one. I asked for a new job & I got one- it didn’t necessarily follow that it would be the right one.

As frightened as I was, a very large part of me was feeling pretty chuffed and just a tad smug that I had landed something else so quickly. I felt that if I accepted the job, my talents would be appreciated far more than they currently were. It was this arrogance (and the fact that at that point I probably would have gone to anyone who said that they wanted me) which very nearly tempted me into accepting the offer that was dropped into my lap. But, as Robert Hand writes in his Planets in Transit, this sort of negative energy can “lead to your total downfall when Jupiter is out of this area of your chart. Metaphorically speaking, Jupiter can represent real growth or the growth of fat. Make sure that for you this is a period of real growth.”

When I looked beyond the raw emotion, I recognised that what was on offer was in actual fact a very narrow sort of growth and one that I would have to deal with after Jupiter had left the 10^th. The day after my hysterical outburst in that hotel I caught another flight to Perth. Only from the distance and space provided by being out of phone range could I make the decision that I needed to make and see the opportunity clearly- particularly in view of where I wanted to be in 5 years time. I had just started studying astrology seriously and knew I wanted to write. The time involved in re-establishing myself would have effectively meant putting that dream aside forever.  I said no. The money would have been nice though…

When Jupiter is in your 10^th you will be busy, possibly busier than you have been in years. The temptation may be to accept every opportunity that is thrown your way. Expansion can be quick- sometimes too quick- not giving you time to think about the consequences. Sometimes under these circumstances we say yes without consideration and then deal with the fallout later down the track. When Jupiter is conjunct the Midheaven it is also forming challenging aspects to the 1^st, 7^th and 4^th houses. What happens here in the 10^th will have an impact on your relationships, your home life- the roots of your foundation- and your image of self.

I drafted this post the day Jupiter crossed my ascendant- the perfect time to be travelling for professional reasons. Also the perfect time to expand my physical body- not in a good way…hence the Dumplings!

If your Sun or Ascendant is in Gemini, Jupiter will be in your 10th house while he is in Pisces.

And this is my final word (:)) on Taurus…

I haven’t been able to breathe this week… literally… In fact, talking & breathing is currently the equivalent of multi-tasking… and we all know now that there is no such thing as multi-tasking. Sleeping and breathing at the same time has also been a challenge.

Aside from the annoyance value of not being able to breathe, I am truly angry and frustrated. All the hard work I have been doing at the gym has just been un-done & will take at least a few weeks to get my lungs back on track. Patience is not something I excel at.

Anyway, today I hit rock bottom, which means a day on the lounge with a blankie, trackies and ugg boots, DVDs, IQ and feeling stir crazy and oh so sorry for myself. I cried through my favourite period drama until I realised that crying and breathing is not recommended. So, out came Ab Fab.

I randomly hit on series 4- the Detox episode. On a girls night out, which is every night frankly, because no one has a man, the girls are talking about how every racehorse needs a donkey (symbolically speaking) as 2 racehorses in the same stable would, as Patsy so eloquently put it, “kick the shit out of each other”. The girls then brought this around to attachments.

Magazine Girl to Katy Grin: Everyone has their crutches, their security blanket- being mean is yours.

Eddie: I haven’t got one

(all the girls laugh)

Katy: You’re fat. Surely you can see that, we certainly can’t miss it!

Katy: What’s yours Patsy?… Its obvious… the 60’s forelock. Put it back, lets see what you look like  under there….at least you can pin your fringe back whereas you (turning to Eddy) you can’t pin your fat back.

Eddy has an epiphany and decides to reinvent herself into a luggage-less version of herself. Her fat is her excess baggage. She embarks on a detox (nobody diets these days, darling) with the aim that in 3 weeks time she wants to be on the cusp of organ failure, an x-ray with a pulse…

Eddy for all her “out there” behaviour and spotlight hogging, swallows her real feelings and accumulates things around her to guard against tomorrow. When Pats says “your stomach is like a dog that doesn’t know when it is going to be fed next and just hangs around until you want to kick it,” she is talking about a reluctance to trust that abundance will continue. (Patsy, on the other hand, hasn’t eaten since 1974.)

Materialism, attachment, accumulation, fear of letting go- all of these are words associated with Taurus. It is no coincidence that the RSS feed on my personal email has lately been filled with other peoples blogs on materialism, living the minimalist way or getting rid of attachments.

 Like Eddie and Pats, our attachments don’t necessarily need to be materialistic. It can be anything that makes us feel safe, anything that makes us feel secure. I can totally identify with Eddie’s fat as security- those extra layers can definitely provide protection- they stop people from seeing the person under the layers, in a way they provide protection from temptation or exposure.

We can be attached to feelings, to goods, to a hair style, to the past. We can be attached to the way things are, the way things were or the way that we think they might be. We can be attached to a dream, a hope, or a vision. We can be attached to a lost love, the idea of love, the fantasy of a love. Not everything that we hang onto is, by definition, good. How many people do you know of in unhealthy relationships for whatever reason? How many people do you know who will listen to good advice and then pop their own roadblocks or excuses up? I’ll be the 1^st to put my own hand up for that one- on a number of different levels.

Getting rid or letting go of what we are attached to can be scary as it removes an excuse for moving forward. Holding onto that clutter or baggage can weigh you down physically or symbolically. It is there in the friend who insists on closure from her ex before saying yes to the guy standing in front of her.  It is there when we hold onto a job long past its use by date because the current one, for all its faults, makes us feel safe. I am doing it at present- holding onto words I have written for a book that I am too scared to have someone read because putting them out there will expose me without the layers of protection.  I know I need to let it go and trust, but with trust is fear of rejection as well. I will choose carefully and grit my teeth and hope that my trust is not misplaced.   

Wherever Taurus is in your chart will give you an idea about where you have problems letting go. (Check out my previous Taurus posts & the Scorpio Full moon posts). Look also at any Taurus planets and what they represent to you. Saturn is also the bad guy when it comes to fear- but that one is for an entirely different blog!

Anyway, back to Eddy… after 3 weeks on detox without so much as a sniff of alcohol, she has lost some weight and is feeling well chuffed with herself. The same group of girls in the same restaurant, but this time they are discussing Sex & the City.

“I’ll be Sarah Jessica Parker,” volunteers Eddy.

The others laugh and Katy Grin says “you’re still too fat!”

No one notices Eddy’s weight loss- that particular baggage was more important to her than it was to anyone else… as all good baggage usually is.

(Image sourced from telegraph.co.uk)

To manyof us, routine is a4 letter word. Yet, to Gilbert & George, contemporary British artists, routine allows them the freedom to create. Check it out here- All About Gilbert & George: In defence of routine.