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What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life

All astrology enthusiasts know to approach with trepidation-and respect-two of life's most serious transits. They are the Saturn return at age 28 and the Uranus-Uranus opposition, which generally encourages the mid-life crisis at 43. After considering those bits of energy, we generally zone out a bit and drift into the future with fewer expectations of crisis. We all certainly know that the Saturn return appears again at about 56, but I've rarely heard people stress over that transit as much. Perhaps it's because I'm only 52, and that is an ordeal yet to come, and perhaps it's because most of the people I counsel are in their 20s, 30s and 40s, but somehow those transits that hit after 43 seem less daunting, less difficult to confront, and in general kinder. It may just be that my nature is generally cheerful and I'm always expecting something wonderful to happen, but hey I felt that way when I was young too, and despite the disasters that have befallen me, I keep looking for the silver lining.

A better way to look at the situation of aging is to say that perhaps because age also bestows wisdom, that even the most daunting planetary configuration unleashed upon us will cause less trauma in middle-age than in youth only because we have the life experience to sit back, relax and to handle it with aplomb. Maybe. Or perhaps we just don't expect all that much to happen to people beyond middle age. This may not be true, but it does seem to be the expectation. I'm a movie buff and I find more and more that movies are being made about kids-surely a sign of my approaching dotage. The people my age in the film are the parents, comfortably ensconced in whatever reality suits the plot and they play supporting roles to the twenty-something actors who carry the story. There just aren't that many stories about spunky sixty year olds, I guess.
But it seems to me that just as much happens in the middle of your life as happens at the start. It must, mustn't it-or what would be the point? Whereas in youth we have a multiplicity of events and so many beginnings, in the middle things are perking along, humming in the background, and perhaps instead of all those life-bending events, we have thoughts, feelings, impressions, and life wisdom generated through them. In other words, by the time you're 45, you shouldn't need to be whacked over the head with a baseball bat to make sense of your reality and to grow as a person. Age is no guarantee of wisdom, however, and I see many middle-age people in disastrous life situations, and it seems to me it all comes down to whether you're paying attention or not. The more thought and introspection you apply to your own reality, the greater wisdom you will achieve, and thus there will be fewer life crises.

I took some time this week to make a list of the stressful transit that can befall a person after forty, and it was very interesting. No matter how long we live, or to what elevated age we sustain our life, there is always a boot coming from the universe to nudge us in different and hopefully better, happier directions. From birth to death, there will always be opportunities for growth, change and self-awareness and we can hear these clicks on our own time lines by noting the various planetary aspects. As each of the outer planets makes hard aspects to itself, that forms a checkpoint in your life. Pluto hitting your natal Pluto, Neptune hitting your natal Neptune, and so on will give you those larger than life nudges in the right direction.
First let's take a moment to consider the planetary energies and how they function in any chart. Then we can go decade by decade and look at what you can expect as you march into the future.

Saturn is the planet of Karma and earthly life lessons and here is where you get your report card. A Saturn transit helps you see how well you've been doing and what parts of your modus operandi need revision. Saturn provides the tune ups in your life and helps you make the most of your opportunities. Uranus is the planet of eccentricity, innovation and sudden change. When you've been clinging to a rut for far too long, Uranus will step in and generate the upheaval you need. Although you may feel its energy is disruptive, Uranus helps you move forward in your life and it gives you the courage to try new things. Neptune is the planet of spirituality, illusion and delusion, and it provides a kind of yearning for more as it transits your horoscope. Here is where your imagination gets free rein, where you dream of the best of all possible futures and where you envision what you might do if only…. With Neptune you are prodded to aim higher, try for something better and to create more magic in your life. Chasing after the magical rainbows that Neptune helps you envision doesn't always lead to capturing that pot of gold, but it does provide a rewarding feeling that life can be wonderful, if only you'd believe. Pluto, the planet of birth and death and extreme transformation, is always about change. It helps you release old energy, people and behavior patterns in your life. Hidden things emerge and must be dealt with thanks to Pluto's insistence. This is the energy that brings the many rebirths that occur in any lifetime.

Now, let's look at your life, decade by decade and see what to expect when.

Because my mother is a marvel at 87, I used her chart to look back and see just when those hits occurred in her long life. The exact year in question may be slightly different for you or for me, depending upon your own natal placements, retrogrades and so on. But these are the approximate ages at which these energy patterns will affect your life.
I always like to joke that the first Saturn return is like an astrological bar mitzvah. Not until you've passed this landmark are you truly an adult. The thirties are about building a suitable adult life. Just as the Saturn return provides a marking post between your life as a child, much of which was created by other people and the circumstances in which you lived, the thirties represent the life you're building for yourself, according to your own choices.
By the time you've reached the big Four-O, you have to face a terrible truth. You're not young any more. Not only are you an adult, but you're middle-aged. Your youth is over-or it should be over. One thing becomes increasingly clear-you can't go back to the womb-or the malt shop-or the football field-and ultimately you will die. At forty we all face our own mortality, and that is the cause of the mid-life crisis.

The first transit that hits in this decade is Neptune square Neptune. It hits somewhere around forty to forty-two. Just as the realizations you might have while dead drunk seem profound at the moment and ludicrous in afterthought, Neptune casts a hazy film over your mind to cloud your current reality just enough to nudge you to think in different ways. This is a time of yearning for magic and deeper truths, for starrier ideals and happier moments. You want the ideal now, and because the illusion of Neptune is prodding you to cast aside all logic, you may feel you have found it, just like one business mogul I know who ditched his marriage, his New York co-op and ran off to an commune in Denver at this time.
If we think back to the old days, forty was a ripe old age. Most people died in the old West at the fateful age of 28-the Saturn return. So if you made it to forty, it was time to cast your mind over your life and to seek some spiritual redemption, to find inner peace-and perhaps God, as you prepared for the end of your life. For those who dread the milestone that is forty, it puts life in perspective to remember back to those times, less than two centuries past, when forty was a time to prepare to meet your maker. If that doesn't make you feel young at forty, nothing will!

One thing this transit can do, is bring more spirituality and trust into your life and encourage you to apply that trust and hope to the future, and that would be a very good use of this energy. Say to yourself, whatever befalls me, I will be fine and there will always be a good and true place for me here in the universe. Try to find the good and the beauty in your daily life, and if there is too little of it, enrich your life by giving of yourself to other people.
The classic mid-life crisis transit is the Uranus-Uranus opposition, occurring at about 41. This is the one that breaks up marriages, ends careers, sends men to Corvette dealers and women to plastic surgeons. Clearly this is the transit in which we bemoan lost youth, confront death and try to run screaming back into the womb. Does it work? Ask all the newly single, balding studs with candy cane spines lined up at the chiropractor hoping to get a back crack after squeezing their paunches into all those teensy sports cars!

Although many people react to this energy by trying to experience the unlived fantasies of their youth, (think of the character played by the amazing Kevin Spacey in the riveting movie, American Beauty), the true purpose of this transit is to allow you time to reflect on yourself and your own choices. Have you built a life that allows your inner lights to shine? Have you chosen a lifestyle that brings happiness and radiance to your every day existence? Are you still interested in the future and flexible enough to allow it to happen? These are the questions you must ask now and if the answer is no, it will be time to break apart the structures in your life in order to find an existence that reflects who you truly are, deep inside.
The final big hit of the forties is the Saturn-Saturn opposition. This is either a time of reward or a call for rebuilding. If you've been working hard, profitably and happily at the lifestyle begun after the first Saturn return, then you will feel firmly entrenched in the good life. You will receive the respect of your peers and your superiors will reward you. But if things go badly now-you get fired or dumped from a relationship, it's a sign that you have made a choice that suits you badly and that it's in your best interest to look in other directions and to rebuild your life differently. Although most people regard such possibilities with gloom, and of course it's normal to feel badly if you've been dumped or fired, a good outlook would be one of joy because it means you've won a reprieve, been given another chance and this time you can find the happiness you deserve.

The forties provide us all with a chance to reflect on our life and with the assurance that it's not too late to begin again if we're not happy. It's a time for reflection, confrontation and enhanced confidence or change and renewal. Although at forty we know we're not young, most of us still feel and look young. By the time fifty hits, there are changes that are physical and mental and we begin to feel older. This isn't such a bad thing because it takes a lot of the pressure off. Somewhere during our forties, we get our crap together and stop worrying so much about peer approval; we confront our childhood and become true adults. But by fifty, people around us are younger. Your doctor may look like a kid, your children may inflict grandchildren on you, and those up and coming, determined underlings in your wake at work want something from you-your job. It means one and only one thing-you need different things than you did a short time ago. At this point you are truly in the middle and you realize there will very likely be fewer beginnings now-this is the time to continue, not to start afresh.

The first transit of the fifties is the Saturn square Saturn which hits at about 50. There is a sense of frailty-you know you're not as young as you used to be and you realize that if you haven't been health conscious before, you should certainly start now. This is when you start thinking about your future, about financial security, about eventual retirement and the things you want to do for yourself. The question you ask is whether or not the structures you've built into your life will sustain the life you will want to lead ten years from now. You look back over your life and decide if in your own eyes you're a success or a failure. You measure yourself against the image of what you hoped to become and wonder if there's still time enough left for you to get there if you haven't already done so. Time goes faster now and you realize that you'll be sixty in the blink of an eye. Despite these worries, you also realize how skilled you are and how much good experience is under your belt. No matter what the kids coming up now know that you never thought possible, their high tech knowledge is no substitute for your decades of experience. If you do need more skills or knowledge, this is the time to get it.

At 54 or so, Neptune trines Neptune, and although it's not a hard transit, it's worth considering since Neptune (and Pluto) move so slowly that a trine is significant. This is a good time for reflecting on your choices and the life you have lived. Maybe you haven't achieved all you thought you would in the material realm, but it's quite possible that with some honest reflection, you will see that you have grown so much in a spiritual, Karmic, emotional sense that you can look at your life and yourself and rejoice. You realize now that you're not King Tut and you can't take it with you materially, but what you've achieved in terms of life lessons will be on your spiritual resume eternally and your efforts to give love and make the world a better place make you a better person and a stronger spirit.

By 57 or so, your second Saturn return hits and it's time to reflect on the life you've lived so far. If you've worked for decades at a job that provided little more than financial sustenance, you will probably grab that gold watch and get the hell onto a golf course somewhere. But if you've been on a path that has rewarded you, it will feel wonderful to look back over all you've achieved and to think about where you want to go next. The reaction of other people to you and your life's work is meaningful. This can be your chance to accept awards or to mentor someone else. Or it can be a new beginning of a different phase of your life, one in which you head in different directions. You realize that life is short and you want to make the most of it in every way you can. You're not willing to linger in a meaningless status quo because you realize this is it and that you have to think about tomorrow.

Pluto trines Pluto at 58 and this, of course, is a call for new beginnings. The idea that life is short is very important in this transit as well as in the Saturn transit above. Conflicts always arise because of Pluto transits because we tend to bury the stuff we don't want to confront-who can blame us? Then Pluto comes along to unearth whatever prickly emotional issues we haven't wanted to face and that forces us to gain some emotional perspective and the much-dreaded life lessons that are unpleasant but so necessary are inflicted upon us. If you're ready to retire, you'll have to confront the death of your accustomed status quo and to find a way to build a new routine. Perhaps you have a mate who wants one sort of retirement while you prefer a different lifestyle. And maybe you will have to confront the fact that you've grown a bit detached from each other and some open combat will help you both learn who you are all over again.

The fifties are about reviewing your life, taking stock of where you stand and what you've accomplished, sort of like inspecting the balance in your checking account before going on a spending spree. This is where you look to see what sort of foundation you've built for yourself and how it will hold up for you in your old age. There's a distinct awareness of the need for security because there is a sense that you can't work forever and that someday you will be old. There's also a sense of hope for the future because as you approach the sixties, there's a feeling that soon there will be time for yourself, that you deserve some fun, some freedom and the ability to invest yourself in the joy of living and after many years of being a worker bee, that you should now have some peace and pleasure. The fifties are sort of a bridge between the difficult working world of your youth and the leisure retirement time of old age-sort of like a period in which you anticipate loosening your belt or removing a girdle.

At about 63, Uranus squares Uranus and this is a time of change and reorientation. Although one of the manifestations of this energy could be enforced retirement, another one is a joyous new beginning of the fun life you know you deserve. Certainly there will be changes now. Your life is moving forward, and it's up to you to choose in what direction. If you cling to the status quo of going to a job simply because you can envision no other activities in your daily routine, that enforced retirement is a possibility, simply because it's important for you to think about who you are and to allow your external life to become a reflection of your inner truths. Another feeling that goes along with this energy is the sense that you've worked all your life, dammit, and now is the time for you to do what you please, time to concentrate on yourself and your own interests, whatever they are. It's time to attempt that hobby you always wanted to try, to travel, to learn new things and meet new people. It's time for a second childhood, shared with your grandchildren.

Also around this time, Saturn squares Saturn and it's certainly a time in which you consider if you really want to be working. Perhaps you want to work at something different, more challenging or less stressful. Perhaps you discover that you've accomplished everything you set out to do when you first tried to conquer your world. Whatever you conclude, it's a time for revisions in your game plan, for endings and tidying up the strings of the life you lived before so you can live a less demanding life as a senior. Perhaps you want to scale down by selling a large residence and moving into a smaller one. This is another one of those gold watch transits, and it's up to you to create a future that is just as full as your past, only one that suits the person you are now rather than the person you were decades ago.

By about 69, Pluto inconjuncts Pluto and this is a time for creative change. If there are issues from your childhood, it's much easier to confront them now, because you have the wisdom of experience and the ability to look back over your life and recognize all your previous foibles and frailties-and yes, your successes and triumphs too. The things that used to bother you so much bother you less now because you're wiser and more mellow and more inclined to live and let live. If you're one of those crotchety old people, this could lead to some confrontations with youthful members of your family in which you try to get them to cut their hair, or whatever seems right to you. Chances are they won't want to follow your rules at all, and this is your chance to see that love is a better choice than being an enforcer of silly rules. Live and let live and see the good and truth in all things and you will be happy and well loved.

The sixties are a time of acceptance of yourself and of planning for a future of peace. Chances are you won't have fulfilled all the dreams you had as a child when you were planning your future. Unless you're a millionaire astronaut ballerina married to a movie star with your own line of sportswear and a profile by Barbara Walters, you've probably lived a smaller life than the one you imagined at eleven. But you've also lived a life filled with small moments of richness, of love and tenderness, of memories that make you weep and smile, details that as a child you could never have imagined. And more importantly than that, you've grown so much as a person that you can look back on that starry eyed child and smile in amusement. Small lives are the norm, but they can be very rich and very beautiful. By your sixties, you're in touch with the wealth of complexity and pleasure in your own.

Saturn opposes Saturn again at about 71. This is the sort of transit that leads to one of those five generations in the same family photos in the newspaper. You've lived a long time, watched people come and go and this is what you have to leave behind-a group of people who wear your face and share your expectations of life. It can also be a period in which you focus on health issues, on financial security for your family by examining your estate and on what you need in your old age. Perhaps you are widowed and don't want to live alone any more. Perhaps you're the life of the party at your retirement community. Whatever physical manifestation of this energy appears in your own life, it's a time of reflection and of looking back at all you experienced. It's fun to review those scrapbooks, to dust off the favorite knickknacks or trophies and to say, well hey, I was quite something, and to realize that whatever you were, you still are right now, deep inside.

By about 78 or so, Saturn trines Saturn and brings you the concerns of aging. Is your body strong enough and healthy enough for you to do all you want to do or do those aches and pains require a lot more rest than you expected. It can be hard to reach this age, because you watch friends and loved ones leave this world, but you realize that well, ok, life moves on, but I'm still here and that can be a rather triumphant feeling. Look to the young people around you now, because they need your advice, your wisdom and your willingness to give them time and attention and love. You are someone valuable and everyone will see this about you if you let them.

It's a real landmark to reach your eighties. It means that you've been around for most of a century and can look back over times far different than the current day. It also means you're made of good stock, are sturdy physically and have the sort of even temperament that lets things slide without ruffling your feathers too badly.

At 82, Neptune opposes Neptune again, and surely that is a time of religious and spiritual awareness. You spend time reviewing your life, thinking about the deep truths of your existence and what it all meant to you. It's also a time to grow closer to God and to spirit, if you're so inclined. It can also signify that you've grown a bit dotty as they used to say in the old days and that you can't remember things as well as you should. It seems to me that becoming a fanciful old person filled with memories that never happened and goofy ideas could be rather enjoyable or at least charmingly whimsical. It can also indicate an increased need for medical attention.

Also at about this time Uranus conjoins Uranus and that is another period of rebellion, of breaking down structures and trying new things. If you've lived on your own all this time, you might opt to go live with a child, and at this age you could have a child who is by now widowed and in need of your company and emotional support. What you don't want to do is to be saddled with the cares of everyday life. You've grown old and now you want to do whatever you please, and that usually doesn't include doing chores. You like watching your television shows, finding amusement in the antics of the younger people around you and in thinking about life and how amazing it can be. If you're one of those rigid old people, you might learn that it's better to be a bit freer and less rule oriented and a much younger person could come into your life to point the way. High technology is a marvel now, and even if you can't fathom how anyone can work the new gadgets that have overrun life, it's fun to see them in action.

At about 85, your third Saturn return arrives and the people in your life throw a party for you. It's a great feat to have lived so long and everyone is proud of your stamina and derring do. Children frolic at your feet and can't imagine the million years that have passed since you were as small as they are. And you look over the people who are coming up behind you, struggling as you have struggled and you shake your head at the mystery that is life on this planet. Who would have thought you could make it so far or so long? To you it seems like a minute has passed since you went to your first dance, yet it also seems like forever since you first fell in love. Life is a whole panorama that lies before you and you have the right to be impressed with yourself and all you've experienced. You're a person with gusto and you deserve some praise.

There are always patterns all through life. There is time for visions and revisions, as the poet T.S. Eliot wrote in "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock." While we're living it, life seems like an unbroken line, day after day, but really it's more like chapters in a book, with confrontations, upheavals and restructuring. That is the basic pattern of the transits of the outer planets. Life is our choice and as we live it there is always time to review, accept or change, abandon one course in favor of another and to begin again anew. That way we have the full opportunity to be the person we are, deep inside, to express the self that existed at the moment of our birth, the self continuously refined through life's adventures and to become the self we hoped to be when we chose to incarnate in the first place.

If you live beyond 85, you shouldn't have to worry about transits. Just take life one day at a time and enjoy it all, just like my great grandfather, a Maryland farmer whose goal was to make it to 100. He hit 99 somewhere in the 1960s and was a marvel for his day.

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