Lost In The Woods - A fire look-out's career is driving her to distraction!

Q. I am struggling to change my occupation. My present situation as a fire lookout provides a decent level of income but requires long hours in an isolated location, working up to 170 days straight without scheduled time off. I am tired and bored, but I cannot find work that pays as much in a year what I can make here in just five months. If I take a lower-paying job with better circumstances, I’d be forced to work additional hours to make ends meet. It’s a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” scenario. Regardless, I still have no time for myself. With Uranus and Neptune transits, it seems to be a time when any decisions I might make would be the wrong ones, with Neptune and Jupiter contributing to unrealistic expectations and to my inability to accurately discern circumstances. Then throw Saturn into the mix! What insights can you offer regarding a change to right livelihood and general life direction over the next year?

— Lost In The Woods

A. Your interpretation of your transits is certainly one valid perspective on the complicated and challenging dilemma you face. In the midst of an unhappy career, with no apparent way out, it’s natural to feel trapped and to perceive the outer-planet transits as part of the problem instead of part of the solution. So, here’s another perspective to try out: Welcome the challenge to be fully present with what is.

Outer-planet activation shakes us out of complacent acceptance of the status quo, which is a good thing. With transiting Uranus squaring your Sun (What was I born to do?), the transiting Jupiter–Neptune opposition straddling your Ascendant/Descendant axis (Where do I fit in?), and transiting Saturn squaring your Mars (This is such hard work!), anyone would feel perplexed.

Besides all this, in January, you entered the Balsamic phase (the final eighth) of the progressed lunation cycle.¹ Learn more about the Progressed Lunation Cycle from The Lunation Cycle: A Key to Understanding of Personality by Dane Rudhyar, Aurora Press, 1967 and in the article, An Overview of Dane Rudhyar's Approach to Cycles (TMA, 2/98), by Nicki Michaels. This 30-year cycle measures the ever-changing relationship of your progressed Moon to your progressed Sun, defining the unique structure of your life. The Balsamic phase is the time to contemplate and honor your past, while cleaning out your metaphorical closets in preparation for the new beginning that you long for — your Progressed New Moon — in December 2006.

Now, don’t panic. You won’t have to wait till then for things to shift. A sense of how you might redirect your career should begin to emerge next spring, at the waning semi-sextile (the progressed Moon is 30 degrees behind the progressed Sun). Meanwhile, immerse yourself in your process and ponder the possibilities. The isolation of your current employment can actually support you now; know that this won’t last forever. Think of this temporary discomfort like sore muscles after a good workout, allowing yourself to be transformed from the inside out.

Use the next year creatively. Form a personal support network, mine for possibilities online, find a spiritual mentor, work with a therapist or a life coach. Do whatever works best for you. Meanwhile, percolate on the question, “What was I born to do?” A creative solution will eventually emerge from within that will feel just plain right. And when that time comes, it will seem as elegant and as effortless as the moment when Dorothy discovered she could simply click her ruby slippers together three times to find her way home.