I realized I hadn’t posted anything from the advice column for quite some time. I’m very interested in the way health issues manifest in the birthchart, and this was a good example.

Q: My mother has been really nervous, lately — and her jaws are tense. She has generally been in good health — with the exception of having to take thyroid medicine for the past year — and once in a while suffering from a migraine headache.

All of a sudden beginning last month every joint in her body aches, and she can no longer get out of the bathtub on her own. She has been to a doctor, and I think she has rhematoid arthritis.

My mother had a very traumatic background when she was young, and things were not easy for her when she was raising us. I think she has tried to soldier on, but I wonder if something from the deep unconscious is trying to get her attention.

A: The timing of your mom’s sudden body aches coincides with Saturn’s entry into Virgo. Alice has the Sun in Sagittarius which is so lighthearted and optimistic, but her Moon is in Virgo and it conjuncts the Midheaven which heightens the intensity of her emotions and transiting Uranus has been working on her Moon as well as her Midheaven. Uranus transits to the Moon can indeed be quite challenging and create a fair amount of nervous energy, and your mother’s chart doesn’t have a natural release for that energy. I sense that there is an energy imbalance here and a difficulty in releasing a charge from the emotional body. I started to say releasing emotions, but that’s not accurate – she has a grasp on her emotions. This is a more subtle thing that occurs on an energetic level.

Saturn in her chart squares her Moon, and this can be a heavy placement that brings about some heavy emotions, but her Sag ascendant, Mercury and the Sun don’t really like those heavy and sad places and tend to want to stay out of there. If she experiences a migraine there is likely an emotion behind it that can’t get out.

In September and October, transiting Saturn made a conjunction to Neptune in her chart for the first time, and her Neptune makes a square to her Ascendant so Saturn squared her Ascendant as well. As you may know, Saturn transits cause us to feel blocked and this has likely exacerbates the emotional blocks that reside in her chart anyway and just to intensify the Saturn effect a little more we have transiting Saturn beginning an opposition to your mom’s progressed Sun beginning in late September.

Saturn then went on to square Mercury in her chart in mid-October and over the six months Saturn will retrograde over that square to Mercury and pass direct again. I feel that there is a deep memory or emotion that has been buried for many years that is wanting expression. Saturn is pulling her deep within herself and she is resisting. As a strong Sag she isn’t comfortable there, but it would be useful for her to see where the emotion will take her. Energy work is certainly advisable for her right now – it might help to clear the blocks from her emotional body so that she can more easily access the memories that lie beneath. Perhaps it’s an anniversary of a tragic time or crisis, or something else but I feel there is a deep mourning that is looking to surface.

The transit of Uranus can make it difficult for her to relax enough to access this deeper material. I am a big fan of short-term use of small amounts of medication if that becomes necessary in order to calm the nervous system so that the deeper work can be done.

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I had an opportunity to do a follow-up visioncrafting session with this mother, and found that she was indeed using a glass of wine before bed to help to relax her. But still, she was caught up in old hurts and resentments that made it difficult for her to let go, and her heart and spirit were very contracted. In fact, she wanted desperately to start to let go of old clothes and possession that no longer suited her, but she was afraid to move forward. The arthritis that she was experiencing was the physical manifestation of this inability to move.

We worked together to adjust some of her beliefs to be more expansive and more joyful, and she said she felt better already. I hope this process has continued for her!