Planetary cycles

In Asteria 1 we addressed planetary cycles even briefly, as well as presented a table for it. These cycles reflectas transits over someones natal chart, thus influencing people's lives to greater or lesser degree. We also mentioned in the book slower planets usually have a greater and lengthier impact on people than faster transiting ones. Let us consider two such examples, Jupiter and Saturn, the slowest of the seven classical planets.

Jupiter takes about twelve years to return to its position in someone's chart. That usually marks the beginning of puberty, a period of sudden grown and development. I'm referring to how things used to be, for in the past several decades things like gmo have made their impact on the human body. Nowadays it's not unusual for me to come across teens who are above my height, often far beyond my volume. I'm just over 6'1" and almost 155 pounds.

At any rate, Jupiter, the planet of growth and expansion, is the catalyst for this sudden growth of the body. Not only that, but it also causes changes in the mind, for children usually start pondering philosophical and religious concepts at around that age, even in a shallow manner.

Jupiter makes it's second return at around twenty-four. Around this time people usually graduate college, a form of higher knowledge. While physical growth has usually ceased by this time, mental growth continues an an accelerate rate. After the agitation of their teen years, people are usually in a position to fully formulate the principles and values they would further apply and live by. They do this based on whatever psychological, philosophical, religious and socially moral and ethical concepts they had come across in some form or another, but also on what they had encountered within their own family as well as outside of it.

Saturn, on the other hand, can take more than twenty-eight years to return to its location at the moment of someone birth. This period know as Saturn return is, although much feared by many, a necessary one for it puts everything the person has experienced and learned so far to the test. But before this period occurs, Saturn has other tasks.

At seven Saturn squares its position in the chart. This is the time people usually start school, a crucial step on their road in life. The child steps out of the comfort of his or her carefree years, regardless if they had gone to kindergarten, and enters an area in which they will learn about responsibility and accountability. 

Naturally, people learn a great deal in school, but at school is the first time they encounter a kind of authority different from that which also nurtures them physically and emotionally at home (and I am of course using a generalization because there are also cases of orphans and those who are born into disjointed, chaotic or toxic families). It is that former authority which will impose onto them to become responsible through its various written rules and codes, at the risk of becoming accountable for their irresponsibility.

At fourteen Saturn opposes it's position in the chart. I don't know about other countries, but this is the age when people from my neck of the woods receive their ID card, something they will make use of for the rest of their lives. Unlike the birth certificate, a document that states you came into this world, the ID identifies you as a member of society, for lack of better words. Beside your name, gender, etc, it contains the important and often talked about in conspiracy theory circles, code that will basically find its way into any institutional database. I'm talking of course of the SSN as in the US, CNP as we have here and so on. People thus become cogs in a huge bureaucratic structure and there's no need for me to even begin to detail what that implies.

At twenty-ome Saturn again squares its natal position from thee native's perspective. In countries like the US this marks the legal age of adulthood. Once an adult, the person is deemed completely responsible for his or her deeds. Whereas a crime such as theft would be punishable to lesser degree when done by a minor, an adult is punished more severely because it is considered as being far more aware of rules and regulations, as well as having a more developed set of personal values.

As mentioned before, Saturn then returns to its initial position in the chart. This transit will have the individual unlearn more or less of what he or she accumulated so far. Some things will be viewed in a different light, some of them will be adjusted, while others discarded altogether. This entire process of recapitulation is triggered by factors brought into the person's life by the transit, these factors often being unfamiliar and, at least from the person's perspective, present insurmountable obstacles.

Thus, in order to overcome those obstacles the person will have to shed what is of no use and acquire that which will allow their safe bypassing bypassing. The process one undergoes during this period allows them to step into maturity, being more or less prepared for what's to come.

These cycles continue but I will stop here because I think what was said suffices to stimulate people's intellect in way that will allow them to figure out how things might occur further on. I also do not wish to make this a lengthy article.

I do want to end it by saying that anyone interested in understanding their life in more depth, past, present and (at least some insights into the) future, they can start by doing even the most superficial research into astrology. There is no need to learn placements, aspects, dignities, the whole nine yards. Suffices to look into planetary cycles to gain a better understanding of what they will probably experience in some form or another at different stages throughout their lives.

For anyone interested, Señor Shaman's article from Asteria 2 is a good place to begin, especially since it contains a diagram depicting cycles based on more than just transits.