Transits and Transformation: Turning Crisis into Healing
Art by Susan Seddon Boulet
As humans, we tend to think that happiness is better than sadness, that good luck is better than bad. We may avoid difficult confrontations and pursue more comfortable situations. When tragedy strikes our well-protected lives, we shout out to our god of choice: “How could you do this to me??” We believe that our birthright is the pursuit of happiness, and we spend our lives trying to protect ourselves from sorrow.
The soul, however, has a different journey. The soul travels an ancient evolutionary path that seeks wisdom and connection with the divine. Often in our desire to defend ourselves from discomfort, we erect barriers within ourselves. Often we become so effective in compartmentalizing our emotions we become cut off from our very selves, our soul and our spirit.
In astrological terms, the orbiting planets form geometric angles to our birthchart planets, or “transits.” Each transiting planet has its own nature, its own personality and its own purpose-calling upon us as the ancient gods they represent to bring forth something in ourselves that has been lost. The inner planets move quickly: a transit of Venus will encourage relationships and creativity, a transit of Mars demands that we defend ourselves appropriately. Easy Jupiter transits can bring financial opportunity, or liberate us from difficult situations, whereas the challenging transits can cause reckless and risky behavior. The outer, or transpersonal planets, including Saturn which acts as the bridge between the personal planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter) and transpersonal (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto), take much longer to traverse the zodiac and therefore their effects are felt for a longer period of time.
The planets in our birthchart also “progress” through time, particularly the […]
Photo from Psychedelic Adventure. On June 5th Venus will transit the Sun in a rare occurrence that will happen only twice during our lifetime. This astronomical event is a bit like an eclipse in that Venus will obscure a portion of the Sun during this transit event. Venus transits come in pairs, and the first of the current pair occurred in 2004. It’s an interesting coincidence that this major astronomical event corresponds to 2012, but it is not likely to bring about the end of the world. Much has been made of the fact that the June 2004 transit of Venus preceded the tsunami in the Phillipines by about six months, but other deadly tsunamis have occurred when there was no transit of Venus. I am having trouble finding any significant events that are tied to the Venus transit that occurred in 2004. Transits of Venus always occur on the Gemini/Sagittarius axis which is the axis of knowledge. Gemini learns through experience and assimilation, where Sagittarius is more about finding the One Truth and then disseminating knowledge to others, so some astrologers have predicted a great Consciousness Shift during the Transit of Venus. There is no doubt that consciousness is shifting and has been for the past 60 years or so, but I think it’s unlikely that the upcoming Transit of Venus will bring with it a a major event of the type that some are predicting. 