There’s not a lot out there about the long term effects of outer planet transits. I got into astrology when I was a child. I’m getting old now. This puts me in a position where I can see how these things play.
I have my personal experience to draw from. For example, I have had Pluto transit conjunct my sun. I’ve also had Pluto transit square my sun. But I’ve also witnessed what’s happened in the lives of my clients; many of whom I’ve know for twenty years or more.
There is such a thing as losing a ten year chunk of your of life. This is more common than people realize. It can manifest in a number of ways…
You may marry poorly or take the wrong job. You can get drunk for ten years, suffer a devastating loss or just go through a time that is so out of character for you it can be seen as something akin to temporary insanity.
The current stress in life from the pandemic, which followed the Saturn Pluto conjunction, and various other sundries had traumatized many and taken them off track. The stress makes people ill, mentally, physically an spiritually. When people are ill, they shut down in various ways. Blink and see the years go by as there is a transformation underway.
The person going through something like this is not going backwards, ever. You go through something and then come out the other side. Your name is the same but you’re not.
People with stelliums or a good number of their planets in aspect are more likely to have a period like this in their life. Basically an outer planet transit comes along and whoops! It’s like the person joins a cult or something else radical. They’re cast into some drama or maybe they wade into. Maybe they’re influenced or seduced. However it happens, it happens.
The majority of people I know have had a period like this (myself included). For the people who would say no time is ever wasted, I can see that perspective but it’s not helpful in the near term for those who wake up one day with awareness they’re on top the wrong mountain or have driven themselves right into a wall.
I wrote this fourteen years ago. Look at all the comments and the variety of the stories. You’ve really got to be patient with people sometimes. They can utterly transform themselves and their lives… but have a crazy period in this process.
Have you ever lost 10 years of your life? Tell us!
Check out your Personal Transit Report
I did, to depression and anxiety. Basically my entire 30s.
I’ve never been so glad to turn 40, believe you and me. This past year was a halfway-house period for me, and I have a couple more big fears to face down, but I feel like I can do it. I know I can.
My future looks bright, feels bright, like a shiny chicken.
feel like i’m just starting.
i’m cracking again. but i think it’s just a shell falling off.
disorienting.
but i haven’t felt this alive in awhile. maybe ever.
i spent sixteen years (at least) too stuck to an idea i shouldn’t have. though i learned a huge amount from it, i let it get wrapped up too deep in my head. took it too far, i guess. have spent awhile untangling myself of what doesn’t make sense to me.
expect that will continue for some time yet.
I’m now facing the consequences of having made some choices over the past few years that I am greatly regretting. I had a fantastic opportunity and I feel like I blew it. It’s not too late to make a course correction, but I’m feeling very stuck.
Yes – married poorly, lost 10 years. I console myself by saying that I had to learn a lesson about undoing some damage from my childhood that I might never have learned otherwise. Viewed that way, it’s a relief I’m still relatively young and already past that particular mistake. There are far-reaching consequences I still have to deal with, but I don’t think I could have dodged the karmic bullet, so I’m just glad I’m still here and kicking, sadder but wiser. I could have lost a lot more years in that relationship!
Hm. “Lost”, no, but I had about ten years of being a lightning rod for stuff landing on me, plus the whole dying dad thing.
I’ve lost at least 10 years, and am still on top of the wrong mountain, peering around for a way down, wondering if there is time to begin again. Or even a way. Sad thing is I’ve known for a long time that it was the wrong mountain.
I think I’m at the tale end of the lost ten years of my life. I feel less and less lost all of the time, I suppose, but there are five years that I literally can barely remember. My mind was somewhere else entirely, and my body kept on keeping on, for what little that was worth.
Hi Elsa.
I have been reading your blog sometimes, but never left any comments, so this is the first time.
I have loads of planets in Pisces (sun, moon, venus and mercury). So when the Pluto was in Sagitarius, my life was awful. Besides, I have natal saturn in Gemini…which did not help. I think that, to be honest, the whole thing started when Satun was transitting Pisces last time (1994/5). And I actually kind of ‘died’ when saturn and pluto were opposing in 2001, which was the culmination.
So I think that this has been a very long death and rebirth cycle (1995 till now), which I could not live an ordinary life, and I feel that I am just coming out from it.
Thank you for your article.
Well, not ten years.. buy maybe seven or so.
I guess that happened while Pluto in Saggitarius but specifically with Uranus (and Neptune)in Aquarius squaring my Sun.
It all changed when Uranus entered in Pisces. I was like… wow!! WHO is THAT person??? What in the world I was thinking!!
Now that Pluto changed to Capricorn (7th)…this is actually happening so well… working that out
Welcome Tatiana!
I lost 10 years on a dead-end job. Eight of that ten years, I was dead emotionally, life was a rut and I sort of gave up.
I just looked at my transits during that time. Pluto was in opposition with my Mars almost entire period. And Mars is a ruler of my chart and my 6th house.
The way my chart is laid out, Pluto has been transiting something or other (usually multiples) in my life pretty much since age 10 or so, and will continue to do so for the remainder of my life. Add to that that my chart is heavily Plutonian to start with and, well, losing chunks is a natural state for me. The chunks have changed over time, but it’s been one after the other, and often, like I said, many all at once.
And that’s just Pluto, ~one~ of the outer planets. If you add the other ones, well, you can imagine.
So, losing chunks? I know all about wipe outs, write offs, and fresh starts.
It’s exhausting as all hell. Draining. But by now I know I can, and will, and do ~survive~ ***ANYTHING***.
T’would be nice to get to a point of *thriving* though, not just ~surviving~.
I’m working on that one.
Was it Tam who said recently (something like) “You can throw all the planets you want at me, I’m not staying down?” 🙂
I’m under the gun of a Pluto to Saturn transit right now (by conjunction), and embarking on a Pluto square to my four-part stellium that will last the better part of the next decade.
Not letting it stop me. Quite the opposite. I’ve got irons in the fire on every major front of my life, and although I may not end up where I thought I wanted to (or where I’m aiming), by now I have full faith wherever it is I land, it will be *GOOD*.
I’m doing my part. Hanging by the skin of my teeth, but doing my part.
Yep–and even if you know the astrology behind it, it feels like you have no choice but to disconnect from things for a long time. It especially sucks when you’re younger-I’m 25, and I’m scared I’m losing my youth or something, but it feels impossible to just hang out with new people and goof off even though that’s what everyone else is doing. I hope I’ll be fun when this is all over by 30ish. But at least before then Uranus will kick in at times. That should be err…interesting.
Elsa, you just took the words right out of my mouth! During Pluto in Sag (I’m a Sag), I went through the worse time in my life.
The years that were bad were 2001-2009. I’m just right now getting back into my old self again.
That’s 8 years!
They were awful.Double sag here
Y’know today SA Neptune goes exact on my Sun and reading this couldn’t be better timed. With Asc/Sun/Merc in Capricorn and Moon/Venus/Mars in Aquarius I feel like I’ve been happily (Pluto in Sag) wandering aimlessly (Uranus in Pisces)for so long! I’ve moved so much, and experienced a lot but have accomplished SO LITTLE! This kinda gets under my Cappy skin.
I know that one day I will look back on this time a few years from now and wish I could have such freedoms!
I will be hitting my first Saturn return (and natal Saturn is Conj. Pluto on my MC) around the same time Pluto crosses over my Asc and with Uranus entering Aries I have no doubt I will be completely re-born and come running out the gate!
Hi all
My first time commenting too. Just wanted to say what an amazing group you are and Elsa, not to sound shallow, but I adore you – as much as you can someone you’ve never met 🙂 You’ve all really helped me think about things more deeply and tho’ I’m an astro-novice it really helps understand whats going on.
And yes, i too feel like I’ve wasted large parts of the past 10 years by taking a couple of very wrong turns mainly in relationships, so Pluto Sag could be guilty.
me: Sun 21′ pisces (along with merc/venus), 0′ cancer (natally sq pluto) moon, 23′ virgo rising. I havent got the subtleties of the aspects but I know when it hurts.
Oh yes. Seven years of depression and procrastination. It was probably Pluto conjunct my moon-neptune. (Though I don’t feel it’s right to blame ‘the stars’ when I could have done better myself…)
I feel I’m on year 3 of treading water
I think the last two years has been transiting Saturn in my 12th. I’ve been isolating to my considerable detriment.
Hmmm I hadn’t thought about this. I had the flu on New Years Eve 2000 and that entire year was horrible. I had a lot of problems on and off until 2004 when the bottom dropped out. So I hope this is year nine!
wow! this is one of the best points I think Elsa’s ever made because it’s so true and seldom remarked on.
I have about half my chart starting at zero fixed and continuing on through 20 degress fixed. First, it was Pluto, then Neptune, just to name the biggies.
The Neptune and Neptune/Saturn of last year have been the longest years of my life… quicksand, all the normal day-to-day routines, gone and still gone.
All I can say is: who knew? Though I’ve studied astrology for 20 years, I didn’t see this coming even as I watched and lived it… know what I mean?
i often wake up and ask “where am i?” and “who am i?” The outer circle has sunk many of my ships … how long? since 94 … but who’s counting.
nice to read the phenomenon is not unique.
i fell into the rabbit hole of my south node for a while – south node in pisces in 8th house conjunct chiron….not 10 years – but enough
I was just looking back through the late 80’s and early 90’s for transits and so forth. I don’t see any transits that would have been that tough. Still, I spent those years in a haze of booze. I’d go up to the library and check out a stack of novels, then stop off at the package store for whiskey. So I suspect it was more that I hadn’t learned to live with the dimensions of my horoscope. There’s a certain amount of escapism present. Mercury conjunct Neptune in the 3rd, and Venus conjunct Jupiter in the 12th. Plus, I have four planets in fire, including the moon. Escapism plus impulsiveness. I mean, back then, if I felt like having a drink at 10 a.m., I’d just do it. I came out of it in ’93. Sober ever since.
Yes. And thank you Elsa – it does help to hear I am not alone in this feeling. I’ve been saying it for about a year now – that’s I’ve suddenly woken up and realized I’d been sleeping for more than 10…eep! gulp! could it be – possibly 14 or 15 years? It seems that my 29 year old Saturn return paved the way and then oddly it wasn’t that Pluto touched my natal chart planets – the (Big) Sleep or Petit Mort? ha… it was definitely sexual – like passion just took over, mind left the body. . . the unconsciousness began as Pluto left my natal planets (bucket pattern: Neptune, Pluto, Moon in Virgo 3rd; Mercury, Sun, Venus in 4; Neptune and Mars in Scorpio)shifted into Sagittarius midway through my fifth house. Or maybe just all that Action that I’d experienced just did me in and consciousness gave up for awhile!?
Yes. And thank you Elsa – it does help to hear I am not alone in this feeling. I’ve been saying it for about a year now – that’s I’ve suddenly woken up and realized I’d been sleeping for more than 10…eep! gulp! could it be – possibly 14 or 15 years? It seems that my 29 year old Saturn return opened the way and then oddly it wasn’t that Pluto touched my natal chart planets – the (Big) Sleep or Petit Mort? . . the unconsciousness began as Pluto left my natal planets (bucket pattern: Neptune, Pluto, Moon in Virgo 3rd; Mercury, Sun, Venus in 4; Neptune and Mars in Scorpio)shifted into Sagittarius midway through my fifth house. Or maybe just all that Action that I’d experienced just did me in and what I’m thinking was being asleep was just a massive, necessary PAUSE.
Since 1995 when pluto hit sag whacking my stellium in virgo. Still don’t feel completely out of the woods yet!
Trying to post a reply to eldil that isn’t appearing so I will try once more and just say — Me too, eldil. Stellium in Virgo here too, also this hit me in about 95 and I also feel still blown off the path but am trying to recover step by step thru sheer effort. (And sweep off some Neptunian fog too.)
I actually felt like i lost seven years of my life so i took them back. I changed my age by seven years and i live like the youth who i was suppose to be. I also feel like i’ve been in an ivory tower these last few years since I hurt my back and i’m now recovering better. I’m really becoming a whole new person realzing now that I don’t have to live my life for anyone else but me.
Strawberry Fields really articulated what it was and is like for me. Plutonian stuff, plutonian life…a constant.
The big difference today is that..well, I’m conscious. As conscious as I’ll ever be, or more conscious than I ever was. I weep for the part of me that had no idea how to comprehend (let alone accept) my Plutonian intensity, especially during my Saturn Return and really all through my 30’s. And I have so much respect for myself, knowing that I survived my lost years. I mean, I am still here, I am using it as fuel now..and that counts for something today.
I really appreciate knowing that I am not alone. I’m grateful for the post and for all the replies here.
1992 – 2005, for starters. That’s when Neptune landed on my ascendent and traveled through my first house. Who was that masked woman?
I have to say it’s quite comforting to me to hear that something like this is quite common, because I feel “different”; removed from a “normal” life course. I’m usually not preoccupied with what’s normal, but I’m tired and I want a productive life back so that I can get settled.
I was with a sociopath for 5 years (during which time I was raped, and he accused me of cheating because I was away overnight), broke up with him and moved across the country.
Shortly thereafter it was discovered that I was seriously ill with a rare diagnosis. The Saturn-Pluto opposition that lasted 4 years or something in the early 00’s was on my Dcs-Asc axis square Sun/8th during that period.
It took me some time to see a doctor because I thought I was just exhausted after the “relationship”.
Then I was truly blessed to meet Mr. Scorpio (Sun conjunct Ceres) who did wonders for me in so many ways, and was with him for 5 years. I ended that relationship as well and we remain trusted friends. (At least I confide in him – but he’s in a relationship and doesn’t return much, which is as it should be). I don’t regret breaking up, since we’re simply too incompatible in too many areas, but the presence of someone like that is obviously sorely missed. I sound like a sponge now! But I’m not really.
Now I’ve been single for almost two years and am fighting depression – T Saturn is on my 8th house Sun. I’ve had my heart broken by someone I thought was the love of my life. Extreme jealousy (I’ve never lost my head like that – the guy’s Sun is on my Uranus!/NN/9th) triggered a depressive episode which has lingered as next to some heavy issues I find it difficult adjusting to single life: Sun/Virgo/8th, stellium in Libra, Moon in Taurus.
Minus the 5 years w/Scorp (2 of which I was still ill), I’ve “lost” at least 8 years. I’m 32 and haven’t finished my schooling! NN and ruler Pluto/9th;)
Needless to say… I’m in therapy:-)
I would have liked to sum up some of the lessons learned – because I have been able to put some of these experiences to constructive use, and I didn’t come here to moan (but which is what I ended up doing – sorry!) – but I’m just not having that kind of day. lol, how self-indulgent is that now:p I don’t recognize myself these days in general, plus T Venus in Cancer is on my Sun/Moon-midpoint/Pallas.
This entire thread has made my well up with tears. And yes, I feel like I keep losing time too, hopefully on the tail end though…just a couple more years to go.
I can remember “waking up” in my early 30’s after 10 years of bitter marriage and thinking, “what the…? Who’s life have I been living?”. It surely didn’t feel like mine.
It was pretty close to twenty years for me when Pluto was in Libra & Scorpio. Somewhere around the time I turned 21 until my early 40’s, the life I had envisioned when I started college was completely derailed. With all my personal planets & ASC in Libra, Scorpio & Sagittarius, I got slammed as all the outer planets moved thru those signs.
Fortunately i don’t have anything in early cardinal! Enough already!! 🙂
Oh wow Elsa. What an amazing post. Thank you. It is so comforting to know I’m not alone in this feeling. I’m very grateful.
I am just waking up after 10 years… And while I completely agree intellectually with the ideas of no wasted time / no regrets etc etc, in reality, the sadness and grief over those lost years is extremely real and so palpable. It hurts. It feels like failure.
FrankD, I love your idea of changing your age to reclaim the lost years! Thanks. I’m changing my age back, and going to make decisions from that viewpoint 🙂
(((everyone)))
it really does work to change your age. Its a whole mind set of a do over and this time your in control. I met a girl a few montsh back that did the same when i told her i had two ages she told me she did too.
Hi Elsa,
I have pluto in virgo conjunct my MC within 20 minutes. And Chiron conjunct my IC (lots of fun LOL!)
I have my whole life been a medium for other peoples change process, I am to paraphrase Erin Sullivan a catalyst ( & yes it is even my profession Im a Business Analyst)
I have after a lifetime of ‘chuncks out of my life’ LOL! taken the view that some of us have to take resposibility for what was undone in the past. 10 years – a life time, you are all absurb as compare against what it could be!
Elsa, astrology is truly enlightening – but most of us keep all our entitlement and expectations firmly in place and stop the wonder of the planets to touch us!
BTW me too….
love & metta
Lesley
Thanks Elsa, this has finally let me work out what happened to me. Eight years ago I started to get ill, turned out to be a combo of underactive thyroid and Fibromyagia. I had never looked at the transits to my natal at the time, but it turns out transiting pluto was conjuncting my Neptune in the 6th which is natally squaring Saturn, so old saturn was triggered too.
I’m still not a1 but I am much better than I was in those first five years (I spent most of it on various meds some of which turned me in to a zombie and others did nothing and some gave me other side effects, I was even on that wonder drug Vioxx) and am starting to try to plan my life again and do something with it, because I’ve effectively been in limbo for 8 years unable to lead anything approaching a normal life.
So yes I’ve lost a chunk of my life and my youth, and it has gone very quickly.My twenties were to put it frankly crap, I’ve learned from them but the lessons haven’t been fun to learn. Now with my Saturn just returned, I’m hoping my thirties will be a better decade.
So thanks for pointing this out!
Tory
Thanks Elsa, this has finally let me work out what happened to me. Eight years ago I started to get ill, turned out to be a combo of underactive thyroid and Fibromyagia. I had never looked at the transits to my natal at the time, but it turns out transiting pluto was conjuncting my Neptune in the 6th which is natally squaring Saturn, so old saturn was triggered too.
I’m still not a1 but I am much better than I was in those first five years (I spent most of it on various meds some of which turned me in to a zombie and others did nothing and some gave me other side effects, I was even on that wonder drug Vioxx) and am starting to try to plan my life again and do something with it, because I’ve effectively been in limbo for 8 years unable to lead anything approaching a normal life.
So yes I’ve lost a chunk of my life and my youth, and it has gone very quickly,My twenties were to put it frankly crap, I’ve learned from them but the lessons haven’t been fun to learn. Now with my Saturn just returned, I’m hoping my thirties will be a better decade.
So thanks for pointing this out!
Tory
I lost the last 10 years to graduate school. It was absolutely the wrong choice for me, and as a result I’ve been floundering in higher education for a decade. Maybe it was Pluto in Sagittarius? I’m finally almost done now!
Very interesting..When I was 29 (1984) married to a taurus (didn’t know he had an 18 yr old girlfriend) it was early october and I was having a nite out w/ my girlfriend and we wound up in a bar and she introduced me to this very good looking Italian Aquarius man. Instant Attraction!! And got the courage to tell my husband that I wasn’t happy. He’d been cheating on me for a year and I wasn’t getting the “goodies” So I think he was very happy that I asked for a divorce. (some years later she cheated on him and divorced him ha ha)
Anyhow..6 months later I got pregnant. (had a lot of female problems so didn’t even think it possible) We married. He wasn’t who I thought he was. And when our son was one years old he got sick with a fatal illness. He died in 1995. And I spent those 10 years of my life just trying to care for my son and pay the bills and take care of my dying husband. It was like being in this long dark tunnel and all this scorpio in my chart is like “Never give up!!” someday there will be light..
So even though I survived I still feel like I lost 10 years of my life. It was sooo very hard and my son has no idea what I went through.
I’m gonna be 56 Nov.13th so I really never want to lose even 1 year of my life..
It’s so very important… How we live, how we choose the life that we live.. *)
I lost about six/seven years between age 51 and 57: no money, almost no work, living somewhere I didn’t want to be and feeling trapped there, locked in a weird non-relationship with a married man who I wouldn’t have as a lover but couldn’t avoid in the social context and who wouldn’t leave me alone; and then failing health so in and out of hospital and often ill, and putting on a load of weight. I could see no way out …
– but hey, I survived it and came out the end of the tunnel! Any other lost years (and I’ve had another one since) have only lasted about a year.
It helps to know you CAN survive such things; so I’m posting thins to give anyone hope, who might need it to hang on in there
How odd, Frank! Just several days ago I decided to “do over” my age. I was feeling bitter over the time I wasted on my first marriage (twenties) and working like crazy (thirties) to raise two kids on my own. Pluto opposed or squared nearly everything in my chart from my early twenties until just a couple of years ago. I’m now in my mid-40s, starting a new career with a new husband in a new country while all around me, my friends and family are talking “grandchildren!”, “slowing down”, “retirement” and finally paying off the mortgage. But I feel like I’m just getting started again! Thanks to my Gemini sun, venus, moon and mercury trined by ascendant in Libra (plus good genes), I look a decade younger than I am and I’m in very good shape. So I thought, to hell with it. I’m 36, not 46, and I’ve still got a lot of living to do and more than enough time to accomplish all of my dreams. I know it’s silly, but this age “adjustment” of ten years (which is just for me–I don’t lie about my age) has lifted me out of a recent depression. I have no problem with my age–it’s the passing of time AND the many lost years that had me freaking out a few days ago. Thanks everyone for all your comments. It helps to know that there are others out there with regrets over poor choices and roads not taken.
I’m glad the age adjustment is giving you a new beginning it certainly did for me. My last ten years have been nothing but staying a float there have been so many obstacles. According to my chart Uranus will leave my second house for good on march 2011 and i can’t wait.
I wish I’d seen this a year ago. This is right around the time that I started to really sink into the deepest depression I’ve been in for a while… I was looking back and wondering why I hadn’t done this or that, wtf was wrong with me? I’d wasted most of my youth (mostly untrue, but I was thinking about college, and friends, travelling), other mistakes that I’d made, thanks to fear, or focusing on the wrong things.
I remember why I felt the way I did, and I remember how strong those feelings were – how deep they were inside me, and how real it all felt, but I also remember feeling optimism, hope, etc…
I need to read this properly later on (the comments). I commented elsewhere, that at 21, I went through Pluto opposing my Moon, Venus, South Node and Vertex in the 8th, and squared my Mars. I can see how it manifested, but I can also see how helpful it would have been, had I really used it – been in a position to really work with it.
And thank you for saying this:
“For the people who would say no time is ever wasted… yes I can see that perspective as well but it is not helpful in the near term for those who wake up one day with total awareness they are on top the wrong mountain or have driven themselves right into a wall.”
My Dad just said, “That’s life!” and my Mother told me that most people around my age are probably dealing with the same thing, but it doesn’t help – not when you can clearly see things, and wonder what the hell you were thinking during those times/years. I have most of the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, and know that my physical health also played a role, but it’s not big enough to be an excuse for *everything* (where common sense should have, and usually would have reigned supreme).
I need to get away from this computer… I keep writing novellas in your comments.
I feel like i’ve experienced too much trauma.I was off to a bad start early on.Alot of things were just thrust upon me(plutonian and otherwise)which I did not choose nor create,in this life time anyway.As a result i’ve made some extremely poor decisions,due to my out of control emotions.I’m making a conscious effort these days to THINK before i act.At times i feel like it’s too late.I wish i could be more optomistic.Am currently dealing w/harsh conditions,which i brought on myself.I wish everyone here the best in your future endeavors.So to sum it up I think I’ve lost more than 10 years,and it sucks.
Yup, I lost 11 years. From 2000 to about February 2011 I was in hell. All those outer planets in mutable signs nearly killed me! Of course not literally, Lol.
By February 2011, Uranus was almost out of Pisces and things just started getting better. I feel like a new life has began though and things just aren’t the same and will never be the same….ever.
Yep, 1996 to 1999, I just pulled right back due to weird emotional/health stuff. It was The Huber method that timed it perfectly….Age Point hit my Saturn in the 6th exactly in Jan of 1996 that time. Then again 2007 to right now. Had Saturn all over me this year. Had Solar Arc Saturn on my Mars in the 8th the last few years. Pluto squared my Mars in the 8th in 2005 and 2006, but it didn’t really affect me as much as i thought it would.
Pluto transit though my fourth house and oppose my sun. That was something else.