

This refers to all the non-personal planets from Jupiter on out. But first I’ll focus on the trans-personals Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.



Pluto has the longest, slowest, deepest action. Often its harder transits can feel as if life is saying ‘no’ to us, opposing us — even jerking something away from us — but we don’t know why.

Pluto wipes away attachment to the temporal to get us in touch with the power within.

It is important during such difficult periods to understand its process (transits to the natal chart). Pluto sets the context for the process that is attempting to empower you. Often this means being willing to let go of things, people, situations that we’ve held onto too tightly — transient things that can tempt us to dislocate our power into some ‘other’, or to ego-exert our power over in domination.

It means digging deeper inside ourselves and looking deeper into the unconscious below what is in play at the surface. When passions are too attached to a specific outcome, person, or thing so that we’re not creatively flexible, Pluto’s energies are working to our detriment. When we nourish a quiet, inner confidence to weather any storm and know we’ll be intact and stronger when it’s over we are in sync with the god-self that is Pluto.



Neptune in its stronger transits can feel like we need to say ‘yes’ to something important, even sacrifice for it, but we may have misgivings about exactly what and why, covering that with idealistic zeal. Sometimes uncertainty can keep us holding back a while until our understanding clarifies.

Neptune cleanses away excess ego to build confidence upon the basis of the spiritual and our power of creative, imaginative conception.

Its transits are best navigated with an open mind and open eyes so that we aren’t developing (or projecting) idealisms mid-stream that will not actually get us where we really want to go. It offers opportunities for spiritual and creative growth, but often on a conceptual level that needs to partner with more practical understanding of the actual application. With Neptune state of mind is everything.



Uranus in its stronger transits can either break open our lives into new patterns to get away from the nagging mundane life or feel like it is disrupting the very patterns we relied on to feel safe and secure.

Uranus leads us to true liberation of mind, but at times it can feel like outright rebellion is needed to free ourselves from what binds others.

There’s a certain amount of disruption and what can feel like chaos that needs to be allowed at times. This is how we keep growing so that our lives don’t mildew into stagnancy. Uranus’s influence can be liberating like a breath of fresh air, or it rattle us. Feeling rattled is usually just our insecurities getting revealed, and discovering we need to gain greater confidence in our ability to handle change (when it is unexpected).

We cannot block out the cosmic, forever waiting for it to be fashionable or mainstream. Sometimes we must trust our own eccentric longing, the discontent that says there is more than this … there’s something better for all of us. Don’t assume your specific liberation applies in same fashion to everyone.

These three trans-personal planets bring energies that change and grow our state of consciousness. But if we are living lives so focused on playing it safe or on material security we are unlikely to integrate these energies in a positive way. Instead, they’ll more likely feel as if they are working against us as fear-based survival consciousness influences our perspective and keeps ego overactive. (Ego is that preconceived notion of “I” that is constantly defending or projecting self from a place of separation consciousness.)



Saturn teaches in a more direct way and practical way. It often feels like the disciplinary parent saying ‘no’ — until we learn to parent ourselves and head off our lesser impulses in favor of maintaining the strength of our integrity.

A healthy Saturnine strength recognizes development takes place over time and growth is slow and comes through practice and experience. Condemnations or judgments of self or others are overlays of erroneous human attitude, not from Saturn’s teaching.

If we are open to the practical ways in which things are completed, fully realized — then we are more open to the ‘no’ or the ‘not quite’ that Saturn’s voice seems to bring most of the time in its harder transits. Those stronger transits may require us to work harder or longer than we expected to get the results we are after.

Just make sure you are not allowing yourself to be subservient, a slave working towards someone else’s standards and expectations (parents, boss, corporation, society). Learn your point of integrity — and stick with it as you learn.

Some of Saturn’s transits can encourage pessimism more easily than others by a tunnel vision effect in which we focus more on the problem rather than the constructive solution. But that is not the transit itself, but what we are doing with the energies that urge us to solve the problem. Our pattern with that is usually rooted in fear-based upbringing, a feeling of inadequacy or ‘not good enough’ that amplifies the negative we can feel with strong Saturn transits. Address issues, solve problems, yes — but no need to fall into feelings of failure or pessimism.



Jupiter brings ‘yes’ back into our lives with the confidence to try things with the expectation of success or growth. This is the much loved feeling of expansion and energy that can quite literally improve the circulation and oxygenation of our bodies in certain transits (to Asc, Mars, Sun, etc).

Jupiter energy says ‘yes’ — sometimes to everything. It is good to use its stronger transits to reaffirm what the real you feels like, what optimism feels like and hold to that as the more challenging times return.

Some of its stronger transits can encourage indulgence or over-confidence through a feeling nothing can go wrong (naive optimism) — such as Jupiter square Moon, Asc, Sun, etc. It is good to have positive, constructive objectives during these transits and set them up in positive fashion rather than allowing it to degrade into escapism or simple self-indulgence.

Expansion principle — its best growth is to move us outwards not merely in knowledge or more experiences, but to greater social understanding, community, group strength.

Summary

Obviously, these can occur in combinations that can seem like the universe is contradicting itself yes … no … yes … no … yes. We cannot necessarily navigate by cognitive, rational means. Nor should we navigate life by helpless reaction to what appear to be circumstantial stop and go signs. Intuition plays a big part — IF we trust ourselves and return daily to a place of peace and balance (and you don’t necessarily need astrology for that if you’re already on a good course for the moment).

This is where an overall good transit assessment can be beneficial. Otherwise, it is simpler to keep track of when Saturn is dominating and there are practical lessons to learn, and when Jupiter is dominating so you can move forward freer and with more confidence.

I do customized transit reports covering half a year or longer. Unlike other transit reports and interpretations I always include all transits in declination (parallels and contra-parallels).