What’s YOUR ‘new year?’
Every year, around 1 January, transiting Sun squares my Moon. This particular transit generally puts me in a melancholy mood, and I rarely feel like looking forward to the future and being excited on New Year’s Eve. I tend to wallow in the past and ruminate on my errors. New Year’s has never felt new; I always feel very exhausted, like I’ve reached a low point (my work culminates in December and May). My birthday–in May–also doesn’t serve as a ‘new year,’ as I am often very worn out around that time as well.
My ‘new year’ is closely tied to my Midheaven. The Sun conjuncts my Midheaven every year around 24-25 August (right after it makes its first square to Mars and Sun and around the same time it makes its first square to Venus). I really feel a jolt of new energy around the same time every single year, and I consider that to be my personal ‘New Year’s’ celebration.
A question for any readers: are there any transiting Sun aspects to your natal planets that happen around the time that you consider your ‘new year’?
In Aspect: Transiting Saturn squares (Step 2 of the cycle)
During the early hours on Monday I will have my final transiting Sun square to natal Saturn before I begin that particular annual cycle anew in late September. On that day we also have the final exact opposition between Neptune and Saturn, an opposition that is squared by my natal Sun. While I will not have the final exact square aspect between transiting Saturn and natal Sun until 16-17 July 2007, the placement on Monday will be well within the 3-degree orb I use for transiting aspects.
I believe that the period bookended by this double square on the 25th and my final exact t Saturn square n Sun aspect on 16-17 July will actually be a period of gain, or at least culmination. I suppose that’s the nice thing for those of us with a strong Saturn; we tend to cope with some traditionally negative transits in a more positive way than some of our peers.
Given that Mars comes ten degrees before my Sun and Venus comes nine degrees after my Saturn/Mars, Saturn/Sun squares and Saturn/Venus squares tend to blend together for me. Indeed, for a very long time I believe that I attributed ‘life lessons’ that were actually a part of this three square cycle to my Saturn/Sun cycle, and only recently have I reconsidered what my Saturn/Sun might be trying to teach me.
My newer thoughts on the Saturn/Sun cycle are, by necessity, preliminary, but I think I will be able to stand by the general thrust of the comments. I have a seventh house Sun, and, when combined with my Virgo Midheaven and Mars in Taurus in the sixth house, I manifest some of the more extreme behaviors of a seventh house Sun. I have problems with balancing my own interests with my need to help, serve and feed from other people. Balance becomes a key word, especially since I have Saturn in Libra. I believe that the Saturn/Sun cycle, for me, is about learning how to balance the self with proper socializing.
The hits back and forth on my Saturn/Sun conjunction covered, more or less, my second year of college. My college choice placed me in a situation where I did not have a lot in common with my classmates, and during my first year it looked like I would continue my pattern of being a loner and associating only with people I knew. This period basically lined up with my Saturn/Mars conjunction, and it was not a happy time. However, learning to deal with the stress brought on during that time somehow allowed me to loosen up and blossom during the Saturn/Sun conjunction. That period was one of the happiest in my life, and the Saturn/Venus conjunction that followed it was happy, though its ending was bittersweet. However, I overextended myself in terms of socializing, scheduling things and “putting myself out there” for people, and it led to a disastrous collapse that had its roots in September 2004 and reached lows in May 2005, May 2006 and December 2006.
According to Hand, the first square in a Saturn cycle (or any cycle) after the conjunction can be understood as a first test of progress. Given the hard times I had during the Saturn/Mars square and the Saturn/Sun square (at least so far), it would appear that I have some lessons yet to learn.
I think that the startling experience that happened around the time of my Saturn/Venus conjunction colored my whole view of this set of three important conjunctions. Only now have I started sorting them out and addressing the Saturn/Mars issues which have to do with dealing with work, stress and maintaining my own health. Just recently I connected my two periods of extreme insomnia to the times corresponding with the Saturn/Mars conjunction and the Saturn/Mars square. In order to make the most profitable use of the Saturn/Venus square, I must spend the time between now and then addressing these Saturn/Mars issues and using what comes to light at the end of the Saturn/Sun period to focus on my own individual development.
