The Alchemy of Parting Ways
Two people decide to part ways after thirty years of living together. For the astrologer, this event holds a special meaning: it is often the outward symptom of an inner transformation. And when this breakup is written in the skies of two people according to completely different logics, we are presented with a powerful lesson on the nature of life cycles.
Two Planets, Two Destinies
Born five months apart, Nicole and Édouard (fictitious names) are not experiencing the same separation, even though they share the experience of it. Their respective birth charts reveal two distinct, even opposing, processes that intertwine around the same event.
The unique feature here is that both present a more or less wide conjunction between the Sun and Mercury. It is these two planets that will be affected by major transits, with the planets sixty degrees apart.
For Nicole, Pluto is transiting over the natal positions of her Sun and Mercury. For Édouard, it's Uranus!
If we were to look for verbs to characterize this period:
- Pluto: To transform
- Uranus: To liberate
Two slow-moving planets, two transits that happen only once in a lifetime. Two radically different meanings for one and the same event.
Nicole's Deep Transformation
Pluto rarely crosses the Sun, and not for everyone. For Nicole, this transit spans several years (2024-2027-2028), marking a most intense psychological period. It is not the surface being transformed here; it is the very essence of who she is, her relationship to existence, and her vision of life that are undergoing a complete metamorphosis.
The external symptoms are clear: communication conflicts, struggles, but also an irresistible urge toward understanding. The anxiety is immense, but it is accompanied by a new capacity to dive boldly into dialogue and deep searching. It is an introspective time that requires courage.
What makes this period particularly rich is that, for Nicole, it coincides first with a Saturn return, and then with a Jupiter return. Roughly every 12 years, Jupiter returns to its natal position, symbolizing renewal and opportunities. For Saturn, it is a 28–29 year cycle, marking the major stages of adulthood.
After this Pluto transit, after this descent into a psychological underworld, Jupiter heralds a rebirth. Their paths diverge today, certainly, but it is so that new horizons may open up.
The suggestion is clear: if psychoanalysis is an option, now is the time. This is, in fact, what Nicole confirmed to me, having started therapy a few months ago. Otherwise, it could manifest as deep work in the fields of psychology, communication, or other self-understanding disciplines, becoming not just beneficial, but essential. Pluto demands that we dare to dive deep.
Édouard's Liberating Effervescence
As for Édouard, who is slightly younger than Nicole, his second Saturn return is just beginning. It is a transit of sobriety and stripping away, marked by time (Chronos) and its demands. But to this is added something much rarer and more revolutionary: due to apparent retrograde motion—let's not forget that astrology is geocentric (the planets appear to revolve around the Earth)—Uranus crosses his natal Sun (2025-2026-2028) in three successive movements.
Where Pluto crushes and transforms, Uranus liberates and emancipates. It is an intellectual earthquake, particularly powerful for a Taurus accustomed to stability and the concrete. The core identity (the Sun) meets the planet of disruption and illumination.
This translates into an effervescence of ideas and stormy intuitions striking like lightning. Creative projects may demand to be born. A voice of one's own emerges, distinct from any ancient authority, whether paternal, authoritative, or traditional. It is intellectual emancipation.
But Uranus also scatters. Ten brilliant ideas a day and not one comes to fruition. An overstimulated nervous system, restless nights. The temptation to change direction every two weeks. Therefore, the freedom Uranus offers is not the absence of structure, but the ability to choose one's own structure.
Whether Édouard initiated this separation or not, this Uranian energy certainly played a role. It may have said the "basta" that needed to be said.
A Crossroads
At this precise moment, Nicole and Édouard stand at a crossroads. Nicole is descending into the depths to transform. Édouard is rising toward a new intellectual freedom. One is navigating grief, the other emancipation. She will be alone with her questions; he will feel his mind become electrified.
And yet, they share the same event.
This is how, according to astrology, separations do not seem to happen by chance. They appear written in the sky long before hearts break. They are the symptom of a maturity reached, a lesson completed, a cosmic necessity demanding to manifest. It was not written that these two people were going to separate, but that they were going to experience a moment together whose roots were perhaps not nourished by the same soil.
What Comes After
For Nicole, in ten years, the map of the heavens promises an encounter. A person who will bring her into a relationship whose richness she cannot yet fathom. But until then, Pluto asks her to dive deep.
For Édouard, the ten degrees separating his Sun from Mercury constitute a zone that Uranus will transit later (late 2027-2028). This will be the completion of the renewal, the moment when his thought and way of communicating will have broken free from old chains. Uranus promises a rediscovered originality.
The Role of the Astrologer
As astrologers, we do not judge these separations. We recognize them. We see that what is breaking today was written from the very beginning. And we understand that two beings who part ways do not experience the same thing. Each lives their own transformation, at the cadence imposed by their planets.
This is the beauty and the tragedy of these separations that happen "late in life." It is never a simple goodbye. It is a rite of passage, an alchemy. Two paths parting so that each person can finally become who they were destined to be.
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