Time for another Ask the Astrologer question! A couple of times a month, I answer a question in a way that aligns with what you might hear in an actual astrological consultation. This is not your usual advice column, and not your usual astrology column, either.

To continue this, I need to hear from you! Currently, there is only one more letter in the queue. So this feature doesn’t disappear completely, please ask those questions!

If I start hearing from more of you, it will continue and may even become a weekly feature. See the bottom of this post for ground rules and how to submit.

I want to get married someday, but I’ve never found anyone suitable. My Saturn return is coming to an end, and I‘ve realized that the people I attracted before my Saturn return were chitty chats, somewhat younger and all prone to cheating and manipulation and lies; they were all boys who didn't want to grow up and were quite selfish. What kind of person would be best for me as a marriage partner? - Maredica

I see why you want to get married, and it’s not just because wanting to get married is a social norm. You have your Sun in Libra, the sign of partnership, including marriage. That Libra Sun and your Venus are both inside your seventh house of marriage and partnership, and your seventh house ruler, Mercury, is right at your descendant (seventh house cusp), which makes it essentially a seventh house planet, although it’s technically on the sixth house side of the cusp. 

While a Libra Sun alone wouldn’t necessarily make marriage a strong desire for you, all of those placements together do. They all reinforce a theme of marriage/partnership as a key part of your life path.  Much of your personal growth happens through relationships with others, especially of the partner variety. You also have a busy tenth house, indicating that career, or perhaps public reputation, is your other main area of focus.

That doesn’t mean you need to be in a romantic relationship at every stage of your life. You do need partner relationships in your life in general, and in the long run, being married would probably serve you well, but what kind of partner relationship is most important to you when may vary. Perhaps your primary relationship is a romantic one at certain times in your life. Perhaps there’s also a best friend, who is another kind of partner to you. Perhaps you have one or more people who share your work, whatever it is, and partner with you in that way. There may also be times in your life when you take a stop out from being in partnership, in order to regroup and perhaps develop other parts of yourself. It sounds like this is one of those times.

To have a good and lasting marriage, you will need someone who’s more mature, more respectful, and more ethical than the previous boyfriends you’ve described. But that doesn’t mean your previous boyfriends were wrong for you. They were who you attracted at a particular stage of your life, because of where you were and who you were in that stage of your life. And they fit perfectly with your chart.  

Your seventh house describes the kind of person you need and attract as a partner, in very general terms. Virgo can describe someone who’s highly responsible, honest, and detail oriented. Virgo can also describe someone who’s very nitpicky and nagging. Or someone who’s deeply dedicated to their work. That might mean a dedication to the job they make their living at, but more often it means a dedication to work in the sense of their craft: their unique personal way of serving their society. 

This may be someone who is deeply dedicated to a hobby, or to a skill that they use for everyone’s benefit. Maybe they’re a good cook who likes making meals for all their friends. Maybe they’re the person who can fix everything, and helps friends and neighbors at no charge whenever something breaks down. Maybe they’re a highly dedicated (and probably highly organized) parent. Maybe they do something for themself that results in something others enjoy, like writing stories or songs or creating works of art. In a relationship context, this is usually someone who shows caring by doing things for their partner.

But who you attract as a partner is not just described by the sign your descendant is in. Planets in the seventh house also have some say, and so does its ruler. When there’s a planet right at the descendant, it has the most say of all. Since Mercury is both your seventh house ruler and the planet right at your descendant, who you attract will always be a Mercury type.

Very often, people with Mercury at the descendant tend to have younger romantic partners. It’s not universally true, but it’s common enough to be a known correlation. Mercury indicates young people. Mercury is the youth planet.

Consequently, Mercury is associated with immaturity. So far, you have been attracting immature Mercury types. The boy who won’t grow up. The cheater who thinks only of himself. Being a “chitty chat” is a Mercurial characteristic. So is lying and manipulating. Mercury is amoral. If he can get what he wants by exercising his cleverness, that’s good enough for him.

There is also a mature version of Mercury. That’s what the boy who won’t grow up becomes if something makes him grow up. A mature Mercury type may have a naughty streak, but he knows how to be considerate. He may be talkative--Mercury types have a gift for gab--but he has something of substance to say and knows when to shut up. He’s found a purpose in life that gives him grounding and depth. For a Mercury type with significant Virgo traits, that purpose is typically a form of service or an artistic pursuit. The real hallmark of a matured Virgo Mercury type is that he’s motivated to serve others (Virgo is the sign of service), not just himself.

Possibly, you see something of yourself in the description of a Virgo Mercury type, because your Virgo Mercury is one of your most personal planets, and as the ruler of the house that contains your Sun, it has a very strong influence on your personal development. Sun is the primary indicator of what motivates you, makes you happiest, and drives your personal growth. Planets that have an influence on Sun, as your Mercury and Venus do (Venus being the ruler of your Sun’s sign and Mercury of its house), have a lot of influence on how your personal growth is shaped and what feeds it.

In addition to being the sign of partnership, Libra is the sign of the artist. Libra’s imperative is to make things beautiful or better. When Virgo has an influence on this imperative, this making things beautiful or better takes the form of working on something beautiful, giving society something of beauty. Again, this can be work you do for a living or something you do just for personal reasons.

Your Sun is the ruler of your sixth house, which has a similar meaning to Virgo. Sixth house is the house of service. It describes how we serve our society. It also gives a general overview of the kinds of qualities we need our day-to-day work to have. Leo, where your sixth house cusp is, is a highly creative sign. Its directive is to do whatever brings you joy. Just as Virgo has a similar meaning to the sixth house, Leo has a similar meaning to the fifth: joy, hobbies. Your chart directs you to focus on some kind of work (Virgo) that creates beauty (Libra) and do this in a way that brings you joy (Leo). Jupiter on your sixth house cusp adds a joyful boost, and may also add a teaching message, because Jupiter represents teaching and scholarship. 

Creativity also gets a boost in your chart from dreamy Pisces rising and your exploring Sagittarius Moon. The array of that Sagittarius Moon plus change maker Uranus and dreamer Neptune in your tenth house seem to indicate a career in a creative field, or doing groundbreaking work in a Sagittarian field like, perhaps, higher education, law, religion, or foreign affairs. Saturn transited all of those planets in the run up to your Saturn return, which would’ve probably either turned you more serious about your work or made you decide your dreams weren’t realistic.

Perhaps you practice some kind of creative art: painting, sculpting, drama, dance, music, creative writing, photography, filmmaking, etc. Or perhaps you’re living this imperative through practicing a helping profession: psychotherapy or teaching, for example. If you are a teacher, teaching in a creative field would especially fit your sixth house. Law also fits the picture: Jupiter, Sagittarius, Libra, and seventh house all correlate in one way or another with the law field, and Virgo provides the attention to detail that all forms of legal work require.

It’s also possible that what you do for a living doesn’t really fit this picture. If that’s the case, you need to keep room in your life for your real calling, which is whatever you feel drawn to that fits your Virgo-Libra-Leo message. That doesn’t mean you should instantly quit your job, but it’s best to treat it as just a means of supporting your real work.

If you are doing whatever your real work is, whether professionally or personally, you are developing yourself. You are maturing. That not only helps you personally, that’s also what will, in the long run, help you find the right kind of person as a marriage partner. We attract partners who are at the same level of maturity, in the sense of personal evolution, as ourselves. If you always attracted immature partners before your Saturn return, that reflects your level of maturity at the time. Your immaturity might not have looked like theirs, but for you, it was immaturity, in the sense that some significant part of who you are to become was not yet formed.

Saturn return, which everyone experiences at the end of their twenties,* is a maturing time. It’s often a time to pull back, reflect, and refocus. Your reflection on your past relationship pattern, and the implication in your letter that you’ve taken a step back from dating, is very much a Saturn return kind of thing. This is a very good time to focus on yourself, your work (your real work, that is), and what makes you happy. It’s not a good time to be actively seeking a partner.** That doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t meet anyone suitable during this time, but if you do, it will be a case of the right person just happening to show up, when you’re not actively looking.

Despite the strong relationship message in your chart, you don’t need to rush into dating or marriage. What you really need is a good and lasting relationship. That takes time to cultivate and time to make yourself ready for. And if your tendency to have younger partners remains, that probably means you’ll have to wait for them to go through their own Saturn returns before they’re ready themselves. If a Mercurial boy who won’t grow up ever matures, his Saturn return is when.

When you are ready, you will find the right person. Your chart guarantees it. 

*Saturn takes, on average, 29.5 years to move through the whole zodiac. Sometime after their 29th birthday and before their 30th, everyone has Saturn return to exactly where it is in their natal chart for the first time in their life. This is a highly significant transit. 

**Saturn return is not a bad time to actively seek a partner for everyone. I say that in this case because the letter writer’s pre-Saturn return relationship pattern was not exactly a healthy one and not what she’ll need going forward. Saturn return is a good time to change previous patterns that don’t serve you. Because of the nature of Saturn, and the nature of what it takes to change a life pattern, that requires a time out from what you were previously doing. If the pattern you’re looking to change is repeatedly having romantic relationships that don’t meet your needs, that means spending some time single, focused on other things, and not actively looking.

Do you have a question for Ask the Astrologer?

This feature currently runs twice a month, and may increase if there are enough submissions. Click here to read the ground rules for Ask the Astrologer questions and here to submit your question. Pseudonyms are used for all letter writers, including the one above.

Interested in a more in depth consultation?

Contact Megan to inquire about current rates and availability. Consultations last an hour and a half for new clients and an hour to an hour and a half for returning clients. Available everywhere in the world by Zoom, Skype, or Google Hangout. For residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA, in-person options may also be available.

New to astrology? See an unfamiliar astrological term in the above post?

Look it up in the astrological glossary. If you don’t see the term you’re looking for in there, please drop me a line. The glossary is an ongoing work in progress.