This week’s question comes from Stan in California:

My finances are shot, I’m collecting unemployment, and I have no interest in getting my license to start my own private practice in clinical psychology, as I have “burned out” on being a clinician. I want to make a shift to academia for the intellectual stimulation and challenge and be in a place where I can teach. I know I have the ability and experience and that I need to refresh my knowledge base. Yet, in the last six months, I don’t feel like I’ve done enough, read enough, or retained enough to feel to feel as knowledgeable and as confident in an interview as I felt when in grad school. All I know is that I don’t feel like I’m making progress. Have I missed a sign post and thus headed in the wrong direction? I feel that there are some positive energies in play, yet I don’t feel that I have been able work with them. What am I missing?

Pat’s response:

Stan, first let me say hello to a fellow Aquarius/Rising Aquarius! Second, I can tell you that your natal chart indicates an innate talent for psychology, and you can have a powerfully transformational effect on your clients. In fact, you might even be a little scary for some people, as you can see deeply into their psyche.

This also means, however, that you can burn out easily, as you may have difficulty keeping your own psychic boundaries intact. I would say, off the top of my head, that your best solution is daily physical exercise. This will help you blow off the psychic clutter than you pick up from confused and wounded people.

If you’ve seen your chart, you may know that the rare conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron, and Neptune is taking place right on your Ascendant. This alignment is opening doors on deep healing. As you probably know from your work, this can be a painful process, and in your case, it is going to continue for the rest of the year. I don’t think you will be able to see your way clearly until this process is over. By next January, you will have a much better idea of your direction, and you’ll also have Jupiter in your first house to help you find great opportunities for advancement.

Aquarius is the sign of the future, and many of us are ahead of our time. I believe that your unique role will be in finding new perspectives on human psychology that will help heal humanity, starting with yourself. One of the topics I’ve written about extensively is the wound between male and female energies on the planet. You have a close conjunction of Venus and Mars in your first house, and Uranus (your ruler) currently is transiting these planets. Uranus is the Awakener, so I believe that you will be awakened to the dual nature of this energy in everyone, and this new information somehow will be of great use to you in your practice.

The very best of luck to you, and thanks for writing!

Neith’s response:

Stan, as Pat noted Jupiter-Chiron and Neptune have just crossed your Ascendant and are now in your first house. The other transiting planet in your first house is Uranus in Pisces, currently stationing at 26? Pisces preparing to come back over your natal Mars-Venus conjunction. This is a great deal of activity in your first house stressing the possibility of doing a major overhaul of your image among other things.

Your natal Mars-Venus conjunction is also the tip of a Yod, or Finger of God, with Pluto in Leo in your sixth house sextile the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Libra in your eighth. This pattern pulls together the elements that make you an excellent psychologist from compassionate Pisces to transformative Pluto and to have Uranus about to make its second pass over the tip, it makes complete sense to me you feel the need for change. The third and final pass will come during the first three months of 2010.

It is likely Neptune crossing your Ascendant has obscured matters because Neptune is extremely good at that. My recommendation would be to see if you can sort through the mish mash of expectations, both yours and those of others, over the next few months and see if you can work with those that put you, the nurturer, first. This is all part of an ongoing theme in your chart where Neptune and Uranus are pulling you in different directions. I’m sure you are familiar with the concept of nurturing the nurturer but this is my sense of what’s needed now.

Perhaps when Jupiter moves back into your twelfth house at the end of July and reduces the cacophony in your first house, it will be easier to find your sign post. Jupiter is pretty darn loud at times.

Best of luck in finding your way into academia!

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