The planets advance in the sky and articulate with our natal chart, giving a particular hue to each of our ages. Three very important periods are deduced from the progress of these cycles. We give you the keys to get the best out of each one.
At 28, letting go of the past? At 42, recovering the habits of a lost youth? Astrology reveals the map of our life and provides us with a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities of each moment. Each of our ages suggests certain challenges and learning.
Among the cycles of time that he perceives, he highlights three ages of particular alchemy between obligations and creativity and three periods of special articulation between responsible commitment and creative manifestation.
The challenge of being 28 years old: being in society
What was developed up to the age of 28 was what was inherited -emotionally and mentally- from our family matrix of origin. It will only be from this age when we will assume responsibility for our own gifts and talents to decide how to deploy them in the world, creating new forms. Turning 28 means recognizing yourself as a “ripe fruit” and entails a litmus test: maturity, along with the anguish that this leap into a new life can cause us.
If we try to stick to the personality structure of the preceding years, then we will not advance into the future; On the other hand, if we were encouraged to overcome it, this new stage will give us the possibility of forging a different, more unique, authentic and genuine life.
Personalities with an obedient temperament will demonstrate their growth by accepting risks and putting aside planned plans to bet on their own intuition. For their part, the personalities where the rebellious character predominated will have the opportunity to respond with maturity, encouraging themselves to sustain constructive processes and commit to carrying out projects.
If the personality remains rigid – in one case or another – the challenges that this moment calls for can generate psychological crises (or collapses). It is time to discover how flexible one’s personality structure is to allow genuine creative engagement to flourish in our lives.
The 42 Years: mid-life crisis and existential rethinking
The 42 years mark a time of exceptional rethinking about the level of commitment to the genuineness of one’s own life. This unprecedented moment offers a “complex clarity” about oneself, which invites us to make a 180-degree turn to be faithful to our most legitimate desires and develop those “unfinished business.”
It is time to free ourselves from prejudices to display what we intuit to be the most authentic and creative. We can get scared and react defensively by adopting an even more rigid and demanding stance, thus generating unforeseen manifestations by fate: situations of exile, rebellion, or abandonment.
Or we can also polarize ourselves by excessively identifying with the rebel – in a crude attempt to recover “lost youth” – and allowing fate to present a lot of limits or censorship.
The mid-life crisis represents the time to encounter the magnitude of one’s own shadow (in the words of Carl G. Jung), so it will be crucial to take it as a great opportunity to “wake up”, to become aware of what archetype up to now ruled his own life. And give us the chance to choose activities and relationships that are more genuine and less predictable or routine.
The 56 years: being in the mystery At the age of 56 the beginning of a new personality structure is heralded, which calls for trusting in the creative harvest of our lives and surrendering ourselves to a transcendent identity.
We will be able to embark on a path back to our origins. This will not mean retracing the same steps (which would mean a regression) but a new possibility of expansion: after all the paths we have traveled, now is the time to respond to who we are beyond the family and social roles assumed last.
In the more or less near future, we will have to give up our professional activities or put aside the role of supporters of the family, which may generate a feeling of uselessness or restlessness.
However, if at the age of 56, the acceptance of what has been done prevails and we show ourselves willing towards the new life that is beginning, then we will begin to move the paradox of, feeling solid and firm in the personality developed since the age of 28, feeling that we can no longer (nor do we want to) continue reproducing it into the future.
At the age of 28, we responded to the time of building our own social space and being visible in the world, prioritizing productivity and the generation of a home. At 56, on the other hand, we will show ourselves ready to free ourselves from this mandate (or we will feel that we are forced to do so). It will be time to trust in opening ourselves to a new quality in our life experience.
At the age of 28, we began to develop in society, and now, over 56 years of age, it will be time to feel prepared to give back to the community the fruits of our experience… It will be likely, then, that confidence and freedom to express ourselves without the need to be approved by others emerge. The time has come to transcend the person we have become and surrender to the discovery of a new dimension of ourselves.
This stage is an offer of freedom because a transcendent event happens: our children leave home and the parents will no longer be with us or they will give up their role in our lives. We will have plenty of time to dedicate to ourselves. We will have at our disposal an amount of energy that we previously used to fulfill (or rebel against) mandates or duties.
It will be a period of mysterious discoveries, from feeling freed from roles and obligations. The opportunity to go beyond social expectations stimulates permission to be faithful to that mysterious voice that always whispered to us from the deep center of the soul.