The complex aspect patterns here are bewildering.  For example, how does that Grand Cross among Pluto-Mars and Saturn-Node work out (and is that really a Grand Cross?), especially with the Earth Grand Trine involved as well.  And how does this obviously important Mercury fit in here; it doesn't make any aspect, yet it's the final dispositor!?  I'd appreciate your input about how to organize and prepare the horoscope analysis for this 60-year old lady.

First of all, note the hemisphere emphasis pattern: the retrogradation above the horizon calls attention dramatically to what is below the horizon; the Northern hemisphere is emphasized clearly.  Immediately, we expect significant unfinished business in the early developmental times in the home.  These have to be checked out to appreciate the beginnings of development.

Next, we check the parental axis: Neptune is conjunct the 4th, diffusing personality development, suggesting confusion in the early home.  The tightness of the conjunction even suggests something critical at the actual birth period that sets up tremendous insecurity issues.  This has to be discussed.

This deduction is corroborated by the fact that Neptune rules one arm of the parental axis, the 10th.  Neptune is conjunct Venus, ruler of Libra also in the 4th.  Internal consistency to what we've first surmised -- unfinished business in the early home causing development problems -- is building up.

Second, we check the Saturn and Node keys (father relationship, mother relationship, when pronouncedly involved).  Here Saturn is retrograde: there is enormous probability that the father was somehow taken out of the picture very early in the life, or was there and passive, or so tyrannical -- any combination -- so as not to have given the guidance of authoritative love.  Additionally, the Saturn retrograde is placed in the 11th signifying a tremendous need for love.

Third, Saturn's position on the Nodal axis (or square it, within 2 degrees normally) suggests strongly that the mother ran the show, was all-pervasive.

The analysis is building that there was a tough time in the early homelife. [This client actually responded: "Yep!  My father disappeared as soon as I was born. My mother was the only thing left, but she worked all the time; I raised myself." Her delivery was dry as a bone; clipped and short.]

The fourth consideration is that the mind is everything here, a dot-every-I cross-every-T intelligence; quick, glib conversation, terrific persuasion, but with minimal emotional registration probably (Venus in Virgo etc.) with the education undoubtedly interrupted. (While the significator of the 9th House, Uranus, is not under conspicuous developmental tension, at age 18 -- the time the astrologer should check very carefully -- there was transiting Pluto conjunct the Moon, ruler of the Ascendant, while transiting Saturn squared Mercury and crossed the 7th.  This lady married precipitously to get away from the home; a familiar pattern.)  The interrupted education defeated the potential of the mind to bloom; took away credentialization; diminished resources; isolated the ego in development.

The fifth consideration is that the organism developing in the midst of all this self-reliance and the lack of relationship modeling in the home, is going to need defenses, and here we have the classic defense mechanism of the Grand Trine, in earth, a closed circuit of practical self-sufficiency. Since neither the Sun nor Moon is involved within the Grand Trine, it operates independently from the mind-dominant Sun-Moon blend.  She sets herself up as dry, independent, self-contained.  What does that do to relationship? [Note that Saturn retrograde rules the 7th.]

This lady actually said, "I have no emotions, not even pain·".  How is that related to the early home bewilderment, isolation, etc.?  this is the track for analytical discussion.

There is much more here that would be covered in the discussion·the Mercury isolation, the health profile reflecting the accumulated developmental deficit combing with the aging process and the second Saturn return at 60! · measurement keys for the future, like the growth of spirituality with tr. Neptune opposing Pluto throughout 1999·and why that is important ·