Gryphon Astrology Blog

Question:

My husband and I are seriously thinking about relocating to another state, where my family is. We are also seriously low on money. He lost his job last year and has been working as a contractor doing home repairs and remodeling. We are holding it together, but just barely.

My brother and his wife have been taking care of my elderly mother and my sister (who doesn’t drive), but he may be transferred to another state next year. Either he will have to uproot my mom and sister and take them with him, or my husband and I can go there and the four of us can move in together (the only way we could afford to do it), Since their house is too small for all of us, we’ll all have to sell our houses and find one bigger - and we need some acreage.

I’m terrified. Not only are the logistics of this overwhelming me, but I will have to find another job - and I’m 57 years old. My steady income has definitely helped keep us afloat and I’m not sure how good a job I can get, going into a new town and being in a field dominated by people half my age.

So my question is this. Should we make the move? Are we biting off more than we can chew? If things go wrong and we go down, we’ll take my sister and mother with us. On the other hand, it could be the answer we all need.

—P.

Nina Gryphon:

Dear P.,

These tough dilemmas never present a clear-cut answer - if it was obvious which course of action was right, you would not have to ask the question in the first place. The horoscopes for these types of questions reflect the situation and will often given both pro and con testimony. The challenge is to tease out what the advantages and disadvantages would be and the relative merits of staying or moving. The answer is often “it doesn’t matter which option you choose,” or the pro/con testimony is very finely balanced indeed.

Below is the horary chart I cast for the moment I understood your question:

We must first see what is going on with the 1st house ruler (you). You are ruled by Mercury, which is in Virgo, the sign of its domicile and exaltation. So Mercury is pretty good where it is. We do notice that it has recently conjoined the malefic South Node, which most likely refers to your recent financial strains. The good news, of course, is that the worst is past.

In this kinds of questions, we will often find the person’s significator on the verge of changing signs. This reflects the situation at hand: the person is about to move into a new place (sign). So the current sign shows “here” and the upcoming sign shows “there.” Here, Mercury will shortly move into Libra out of Virgo. Mercury is a lot happier here in Virgo than in Libra, where it has little essential strength. More than that, shortly after entering Libra, Mercury will conjoin a highly unpleasant Mars in Libra (the sign of Mars’s detriment), which may well symbolize your husband’s difficult money situation being exacerbated in this new area and afflicting your own well-being. It may be that you may be forced to rely on his earnings in the new location, but the earnings will not be good. Mars rules the 8th house of the spouse’s money. So far, the testimony skews pretty strongly toward staying put.

We can also look at the 1st house as “here,” and the 7th house as “there.” The 1st house is afflicted by the presence of the South Node (and of course, the 7th house is blessed by the presence of the benefic North Node), which normally would argue for moving. However, as I said above, you have already experienced the difficulty of the South Node in the past, so its power to afflict you is largely moot. The 1st house ruler, as simply showing “here,” is this strong Mercury. The 7th house ruler, showing “there,” is a peregrine and cadent Jupiter, which is not strong either by sign, or by house placement. Again, this shows a pretty strong testimony for staying. OVerall, I would have to recommend that you stay where you are. The worst is behind you and the options for moving are not appealing.

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