I feel like I’m on the cusp of a major life transition/rebirth.

[Phoenix44]

The last two years have been profoundly transformative and healing but like I was living my life backwards, and by this, tying up all the loose ends of my childhood. I feel I’m very close to overcoming major life-changing lifelong obstacles but the pull of my next transformation is getting stronger daily and although I welcome it in one sense, I am sad that I can’t stay here and finish. Can anyone see this and help me understand it.

[Noel Eastwood]

Hi Phoenix, I'll try to answer your question by first highlighting some features in your natal chart. Your 1st house is loaded with Pluto conjunct your Virgo Ascendant which is a very powerful placement. Pluto can easily dominate that house all by himself. However, he has some friends next to him, Jupiter and Mars, who form a 1st house and Virgo mini stellium. Throw Uranus into the stellium from the 2nd house/Libra and it is even more powerful in driving your 1st house needs. The needs of the 1st house are mostly in the direction of self expression. Give your sensitivity this 1st house can be a bit of a burden because you can find yourself fighting battles of your own making. But, your allies in that house can easily overwhelm those who try to take you down.

This house suggests that you are very emotionally sensitive, passionate and driven in everything you do. I would hazard a guess and say that the self examination you mentioned is based around your 1st house stellium which is your driving force throughout your life.

Add to this is Sun and Neptune conjunct in the 3rd house of communication. This suggests that you think about things a whole lot. The 3rd house can indicate someone who processes intellectually but will sometimes struggle to engage their gut and heart. Fortunately your 1st house stellium and particularly Pluto draw upon your deep feelings to assist in understanding your internal conflicts and worries. I see your journey to process and heal your childhood as combining both of these processes - emotional and intellectual.

Your Moon is in Gemini and conjunct your MC in the 10th house. This too is going to assist in your contemplations and meditations on healing your past. You have a Grand Cross, that big square shape in your chart, is formed by Moon > which is square Pluto, Jupiter, Mars and I'll include an out of house conjunction Uranus > which is square to Venus in the 4th > which is square Chiron in the 7th house > which in turn is square Moon again.

The Grand Cross pattern suggests that you have had a tough life but that you also have been given the strength and conviction to overcome any obstacle. It is shaped like the walls of a castle that are designed to protect the individual's soft heart inside. I find that people with a Grand Cross are beautiful souls who have lived life to the fullest and give back to their family and community freely.

OK, let's look at your transits... Pluto is just entering your 6th house of health and responsibility. This is a Virgo house and as such embraces those same qualities held by Virgo. Saturn is in the 7th and approaching an opposition to your Ascendant which means that it is conjunct your Descendant. Saturn crosses your Descendant in April and moves out of orb at the start of next year. Saturn's transit suggests that you are in the process of tidying up your Christmas card list. In other words you will be sorting out who give to you making you feel good and whole Vs those who take from you without giving back anything in return. Be prepared to start cutting those dead branches off your tree of life. Meanwhile Neptune is conjunct Chiron and Chiron is approaching Saturn.

Uranus and Jupiter are in your 9th house opposing, on and off, your Sun. I feel that it has been Uranus that pushed you to go on this particular healing journey since around July/August of 2021. He finally moved out of orb in March of last year.

Right now it is Jupiter's turn to do some work on your Sun (self-esteem, confidence, health, vitality and focus on the path of the heart). Jupiter first crossed opposite your Sun in August last year and finishes in about a month. Where Uranus will stimulate excessive worry and put many barriers up for you to climb, Jupiter can excite your senses and help you find insights into issues. Both will stimulate worry which can be channeled into contemplation and meditation on pressing issues. In other words they stimulate you to do your inner work and for healing.

Basically these transits are not going to trigger too much drama, what I am leading up to is that you have always been a seeker of truth and insight, always looking to heal those aspects of your life that remain wounded. With Pluto and the loaded 1st house your life path is to heal and learn. I call this the mystic's path because the path itself is a journey to understanding yourself which leads to developing strategies to embrace your pain and to then heal it.

I hope this has helped.

[Phoenix44]

Thank you so much Noel for your reply and insight. It is so appreciated. The theme of my life has seemed to be the Tower Card and the Phoenix rising. The last two years have been an interesting twist on it, though. The whole of my life, let's say I lived my life unlike the rest of my family. In fact, they called me the “white” sheep of the family. I seemed to have been born with high morals and an overactive conscience that never allowed me to do the wrong thing, or too afraid to do the wrong thing because of the possible consequences or karma. I never fit in because I could never be like them or do the things they did. I judged them and held myself above them. But they had fun. They lived and laughed and got in all kind of trouble but had so many fun stories to tell. I did not. I lived a very good girl life. A very safe and cautious life. I know all the reasons that was important to me but it left me with no understanding of their actions or motivations. Until two years ago.

After my fathers death, my mother ask if I would take her to our local VFW. Many of our uncles, aunts, and cousins went there and I felt it was a safe place for her to socialize. I had been a non-drinker my whole life and had only occasionally started having a drink on occasion at age 50, three years prior, so going there and having drinks with my mother a couple times a week was a whole new experience for me but I was getting to know a different side to my mother, her past and secrets and so it was worth it. There I met a man 18yrs younger than me that was so much like my father, only without the volatile and violent nature. After a few weeks, I decided he would become my first one night stand but, as is my nature, we have been in a fully committed relationship since and now live together. I have laughed and had more fun in the last two years than I have had in my whole life. And this man, very extroverted, has help bring me out of my shell and into the light, allows me to be fully myself, prefers me without make up, and with a little extra weight, loves my imperfections and quirks and allows me to feel safe to communicate anything and everything. So there has been so much growth and healing through him. Strangely, through this relationship, and equally, becoming a regular at the VFW with my mother, I have learned and come to understand so much about my father, his drinking, my mother and the decisions she made, the effects of alcohol, etc. This is simplifying is so much because the lessons and healing were on so many levels and so layered and interconnected. It allowed me to understand my parents and siblings in a way I couldn’t have done any other way or with any other people. And for this, I am profoundly grateful.

What I meant by it being like I was living my life backwards, was that I felt like this was what most people do when they are in their teens or early twenties, then they settle down, mature, stop drinking and going to bars. I started settled down and mature and not going to bars and drinking. And now I’m in a relationship with a 37 year old that seems even younger and we behave more like teenagers a lot of the time. Inappropriately affectionate, drinking and partying, and his inability to maintain interest in only one woman and my immature and jealous reaction to it. In this way too, he is very much like my father and all the lifelong work I have down to overcome, my jealousy, insecurities, possessiveness and fear of betrayal, evaporated, like I’m still in my teens and haven’t matured or evolved or healed as I had convinced myself I had. Everytime I have an epiphany or new perspective and feel I can let go and overcome it, we are tested again and I fail. Work at it, think I get there and we are tested again. Fail again. Tested again, fail. I feel I’m so close. If I could just get there, it would be the greatest life change of my life and I might then know peace for the first time.

I know change is coming again. I am not my natural self in a bar, drinking, getting drunk, fighting over his attention or actions towards another woman and working in a restrictive, non-creative, 9 to 5 job. I prefer to be healthy, creative, outdoors, exploring new (safe and healthy) experiences and traveling and that is what is pulling me. I’ve always known this was just a phase and that it would run its course and that I would go back to being me, just a little bit more whole and healed and with a greater understanding and forgiveness and less judgment of those that live that lifestyle. But my fear is that I carry the unfinished lesson of fear of betrayal and my unhealthy reaction to that fear, onto the next phase too. If I could just get there now… or is jealousy and possessiveness a permanent part of my journey this lifetime?

Thank you again for your time and insight.

[Noel Eastwood]

Phoenix, when you enter a long-term relationship with a younger, vivacious, flirting partner it will lift the scabs off your wounds putting you back in touch with your pain. Your 1st house is everything you have mentioned about caution, security, jealousy, need to find or create a safe space around you particularly when out in the world. As you know, the world outside is dangerous, especially to sensitives like you and I. Look up Pluto in the 1st house and you will start to understand what i m seeing.

Your Sun in the 3rd house is Air and your Moon in Gemini is also Air. Both Luminaries in Air sign/house will contribute to excessive over thinking issues, in other words - you worry a lot. Use your skills that you have honed throughout your life and go back to finding that safe space inside you. You will need to work on it, the mystic's path is narrow and slippery, but I have confidence that you will find it again and walking tall.

I have attached your chart too, I use the Whole Sign house system, just so you know

Phoenix - natal whole sign.jpg (336 KiB) Viewed 300 times

[Phoenix44]

Thank you, Noel. That was very helpful and encouraging. I’ve spent the morning learning about Pluto in the 1st house as well as Pluto conduct ascendant and it was very enlightening. I also subscribed to your YouTube channel to learn more. I’m fascinating by the combined perspective of psychology, astrology, tarot, and Taoism. Again, thank you for your reply and for assisting me on my path.

[Noel Eastwood]

Hi Phoenix, well done with the study on Pluto, he is very powerful in your life especially where he is sitting in the 1st house con Asc. The conjunction to Jupiter, Mars and Uranus makes him even more powerful, if that is at all possible. I can see that astrology will open you up to its knowledge and to some important personal insights. I also have a free newsletter that you can subscribe to, link is below in my signature. And pls let me know if I can help at any time, we have a student section here as well so ask away.