For those of us who engage in predictive astrology of any sort, one of the greatest challenges is determining how an upcoming aspect will manifest. It's easy enough to grasp the broader archetypal contours of Saturn crossing over someone's Moon, say, but what if you wish to know more precisely how that upcoming trend will materialize? And what prescriptive measures should we offer a client if we see a difficult trend coming up and they ask for ways of counterbalancing those energies?

 

I'd like to look here at a simple technique many of us are probably familiar with already but which we may not always take full advantage of. I'm referring to the practice of looking backwards to see what happened during previous passes of a transit to better understand what might occur during upcoming contacts between those bodies. To illustrate what I mean, let's take a look at a few case histories.

 

The Teacher

I recently had a woman come to me who was about to experience her fourth Jupiter return at age 48. It was natally positioned in Gemini in her 9th house, so I wasn't too surprised to learn she was a professor at a local college. But what would this upcoming Jupiter conjunction bring for her?

 

Based on the symbolism of these placements, there were many possibilities, of course—publishing, traveling, teaching, religious studies, and so on. But I wanted to pin it down a more specifically, if at all possible. So I asked her if she remembered what happened twelve years earlier, specifically when Jupiter last came around to that same spot?

 

Fortunately, she remembered clearly, and said she received an award for her teaching at that time. In addition, she also went on a long-distance trip to Japan as part of a research project. Pressing her a little bit further, I asked if she could recall what happened during the Jupiter conjunction prior to that one, when she was just 24. That's when she graduated from college, she explained, and when she went on another important long-distance trip, though that time to Europe.

 

Based on these tidbits of information, I could safely suggest this could likewise be an important (and positive) period in her teaching career, but also a time when long-distance travels would be likely, not to mention beneficial. As it turns out, she already had a trip to South America booked, which was a continent she'd never traveled to before. She was somewhat nervous about the trip, however, and it was actually a large part of the reason she looked me up, so was naturally relieved to hear what the horoscope suggested about that time-frame.

 

The Entrepreneur

Saturn cycles are longer-range in duration than Jupiter ones, so for that reason can trigger more profound, long-lasting developments. Case in point: a year ago a businessman in his 60's came to me with Jupiter and Venus conjunct in his horoscope. In a few months transiting Saturn was going to be conjuncting that natal pair, and he knew just enough about astrology to feel nervous about what this might bring!

 

I took a look back in the ephemeris to see when that particular transit last occurred in his life, and found it was in 1982. I asked, "Did anything important happen for you back in 1982, on either a professional or a personal front?" He thought for a second then said, "Yes—that's exactly when I started up the company I now run. It was a lot of hard work getting the kinks worked out, and there were some delays at the time, but the business has been running successfully now for nearly 30 years."

 

I pressed further, "Can you think of any parallels between what was happening back then and what's happening in your life now? For example, are you thinking of making any changes in your business, or even starting up some new business, like you did back then?" He said, "Both, actually. I'm downsizing the business I started back in 1982, and I've just decided to start up a new company. I'm opening up a chain of restaurants in the Midwest, and the first one will be opening later this year. This is a major transition period for me."

 

That was helpful info, and allowed me to say with some assurance that Saturn might not produce a setback or loss in his life (as he feared) so much as crystallize a major financial undertaking, or a shift in his business responsibilities. I suggested that the upcoming Saturn transit would probably bring much the same thing into his life now as it did for him back then. There would probably be a lot of hard work, possibly even delays, but the outcome would likely be positive for him (especially considering his natal Jupiter/Venus conjunction). As of this writing that seems to be exactly what's transpiring for him.

 

The Free Spirit

Sometimes, the half-cycles and quarter-cycles of planetary transit can be just as important to look at, especially with the outer planets, since they move so slowly that they might not complete a full revolution during a person's lifetime. As one illustration, consider the woman who came to me when transiting Uranus was about to oppose her natal Sun. To me, this obviously suggested that major changes could soon happen for her, either internally or externally, possibly both.

 

But what form would they take?

 

Now in her 60s, she could clearly remember when Uranus conjuncted her Sun 42 years earlier—180 degrees away from the opposition that was now emerging. I strongly sensed there could be some resonance between that period and this one, as Uranus now moved in to oppose that earlier point from her 20s.

 

When I asked her what happened back then, she explained how it was a time of radical change in her life: she moved away from home and family for the first time, in order to live across the country. Just as importantly, this also was a time when she decided on the career direction she's remained in until the present day—as an editor.

I asked her, was she contemplating any major changes during the coming year? It turned out that she was considering another cross-country move, this time to the American Northwest. But she was also considering taking the literary skills she'd been accumulating since the Uranus/Sun conjunction four decades years earlier, and using them to finally become a creative writer herself. So rather than just assist others with their creative work, this was a time she could finally break out and give expression to her own literary voice.

 

Putting all this info together, I suggested that the current Uranus opposition was in some way a culmination of that earlier time in her life, and involved not just a desire for more independence and change, but was also motivating her to explore her own creative potentials as a writer. Based on all she related to me, I could safely encourage her to pursue those creative dreams further. Those opposing points in the Uranian cycle over four decades of time seemed almost like successive acts in a long-term stage play, and explaining it to her in this way seemed to help give her perspective on the course her life was taking.

 

A Lesson in Anger Management

Finally, an example from my own life. Not long ago I was facing a transiting conjunction of Saturn over my natal Mars. What would this bring? Would it manifest as exhaustion, or as a frustration of my desires? Might I even hit my head if I wasn't careful (something that's happened to me far too often, unfortunately)? How might I best prepare for this energy?

 

I couldn't clearly remember what happened 30 years earlier when this conjunction last fired, but since I kept a scrupulous daily dairy back then, I could go back and read what happened for me during that period in considerable detail.

 

There were a number of things which happened then, but perhaps the most dramatic was an upsetting confrontation with a truck driver while I was driving in my local neighborhood. I was on my way to attend a class when a large truck directly in front of me decided to make a wide turn to enter a corporate driveway. It abruptly came to a stop, blocking all lanes of traffic in the process. Because I was already late for my class, after waiting 20 or 30 seconds I impatiently decided to honk my horn, which in turn prompted the driver behind me to honk his horn as well.

 

Upon hearing this, the truck driver proceeded to climb down out of his cab, walk up to my car window, and grab me by the shirt lapel while letting loose with a string of obscenities. He was angry, to put it mildly, and seemed about to punch me in the face. This wasn't going well. Fortunately, I managed to calm him down with a forced smile and some friendly words, at which point he relaxed a bit and let go of my shirt. Through clenched jaw, he muttered how there was another vehicle blocking the driveway he was trying to enter, which I couldn't see from where I was, so he was stuck, too. He seemed just as frustrated by the delay as I was, and was understandably upset at the drivers behind him honking their horns.

 

The experience shook me up, since it could have easily turned violent, but what I took away from it was the importance of not reacting impulsively, and the need to be more aware of my own impatience in situations. Nothing wrong with honking one's horn, to be sure—I've seen them save lives on occasion—but thinking back on that occasion, I know I wasn't be as careful as I could have been, and could have waited a bit longer to see what was going on before relying on the car horn.

 

So what did this tell me as I watched Saturn coming around to cross over my Mars again? For one, I knew this could be a time when I needed to watch my emotions and anger more closely, and not react in a knee-jerk way to annoying situations. When the time finally came, I was definitely on my guard—especially while driving! (Understand, during a pleasant Jupiter aspect one can practically get away with almost anything, but under a stressful Saturn the smallest misstep can sometimes lead to disaster. The lessons the ringed planet imparts are meant to stick!)

 

As things played out this time around, nothing happened on the streets or highways, but what did happen was similar in symbolic ways. On a few occasions during this period I was around people who made emotionally-charged comments about politics and religion that pushed my buttons in a surprising way. Normally, these would have drawn me into heated debates, perhaps even arguments, and I could have easily let myself become upset. But since I knew what was unfolding in my chart, and remembered what happened the previous time, I chose to watch my emotions more carefully. I calmed down my breathing, and measured my comments in a way that actually proved far more effective in communicating my views than raising my voice and going on the offensive. I learned an important lesson by studying what Saturn taught me that previous time, and it allowed me to transmute these energies into something more constructive.

 

These are just a few examples of how this approach can be employed to flesh out your understanding of predictive cycles before they happen. If you've never used this approach yourself, you might begin by looking at your own horoscope and seeing if there are major transits happening in your life anytime soon, and if so, take a few moments to see what happened when they last triggered in your life. You might be surprised by the subtle ways the lessons of that period shed light on the situations you're entering into now. What's the old saying by Santayana—"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it"? Astrology teaches us to remember the past to better prepare for the future.

 

 

 

Reprinted from Dell Horoscope magazine, January 2014