The saying is Jack of all trades, master of none, but the rest of the couplet is Oftentimes better than a master of one.

The Jack-of-all-trades is often confused with the term dilettante. They are not the same thing. A dilettante has a superficial interest; they don‘t get their hands dirty. They can‘t produce or do the job when the task requires them to do it. For example, they may be interested in say, publishing an e-book and know how it is done, but it is the jack-of-all trades who actually does the writing, the editing, the producing, the designing, the promoting, the sales, and keeping the books.

We like the jack-of-all-trades when they become successful entrepreneurs, but not before that. We fear for them. We wait for them to find their niche, but we overlook the fact that often, they carve it out for themselves.

A preponderance of planets and angles in the mutable signs and planets in the cadent houses in a natal chart tend toward becoming a jacks-of-all-trades, especially when there is a lot of Virgo energy. But to go from dilettante to jack-of-all-trades, this person must have some fire and cardinal energy, too. It also helps to have an irritated Saturn, because it makes you learn through experience, and that is what a jack-of-all-trades does. It also helps to have Aries energy and a strong Neptune, because being too stupid to say no to the things you want to do is part of it.

Law is perhaps one of the least innovative professions in America. They are not just slow-adopters but slow adapters. I found this out while trying to get an internship this summer. I worked for a start-up company making a product for lawyers instead. And why not? There is gold in these streets, and lawyers are too busy or too narrowly-focused to stoop over and pick it up. While it was not the perfect gig for the narrow trajectory of being a law student, it was a nearly perfect gig for me personally.

I am now nearly addicted to freelancing. I mostly do astrology work, but I also write. Am I a sell-out? Keep in mind that most astrologers are first introduced to the art through articles and horoscopes. Someone needs to take on the heavy lifting to write these things well enough. At this point, I may be a lousy cog in a machine. I always have been, but now that I have been essentially working for myself for years, I am less able or willing to conform to corporate expectations. I have just landed a law clerk position in a very small private firm that — guess what? — handles both plaintiff and defense work, and just about everything under the sun. There is no one-shot trajectory even when I go for the traditional and expected.

But some people are amazing like that, though, and they need and want guidance and structure and LinkedIn and for their co-workers to get them a grocery store cake on their birthdays. They make good, loyal employees who won‘t bat an eye at signing a non-compete because they wouldn‘t dream of competing. I‘m not talking about artists and dreamers working a day job to fund their real lives; I mean just your average basic bitch and basic bro working for the weekends, car payments, and vacations. The role of employee in the post-Industrial world is made for them.

See, I have Chiron in the 2nd house in Taurus, and no planets in Leo, which rules the 6th house. Libra is intercepted in the 7th house, and my Venus is in Capricorn. I have always been secretly fascinated with people who lack ambition and independence, who simply stay in their hometown, fit seamlessly into workplaces, hang out with their friends whom they‘ve known since elementary school, clutter their social media feeds with pictures of things of no importance or artistic merit. I have no idea what it is like to be happy with the entirely material and conventional, to be a cog in a machine and be satisfied, to be comfortable in any group setting.

However, being a cog in a machine no longer offers the rewards it used to, like a pension, regular raises and promotions, and increased benefits. And the longer you stay in the same position at the same company, the more likely you are to stay there, if not in the same company, but in the same position. You can no longer wait for your talent to be recognized, or for someone to give you an opportunity to shine. You have to go for it.

Uranus moved into Aries in 2011 and will be there for another two years. During this time, we experienced a new life, with new rules, and new expectations. We have to create new selves to deal with the insanity around us, lest we become part of the insanity. This is also part of the deal with Uranus: join us, or flee for your lives.

And this is the irony of Uranus: you think you‘re unique, but you‘re really not. You are part of a much, much larger group of people having a cyclical experience. Americans are all unique (if you‘re white, that is; everyone else is forced to be an ambassador to their ethnicity) and precious, and mostly defensive about it. But even when you think you‘re unique, you‘re really not. Sometimes that is a blessing. The children of parents from dysfunctional families/with parents with certain mental illnesses, for example, find comfort in knowing that there is someone out there who actually dealt with the same things that otherwise isolated them from other people.

When Uranus is in Aries, we are completely surprised and dumbfounded when we are confronted with the reality that we are so much like other people. We may be precious snowflakes, but we are still snowflakes, and one snowflake alone is not the herald of the new season.

Saturn is in Sagittarius, and it is time to get serious about not being serious, or at least, make a commitment to not making a commitment. Or, to really take an inventory of all of our sacred cows and decide which ones to topple. We have to shift from faith in the investments others make in us to faith in our own spirit. Upon this rock (Saturn) I shall build my church (Sagittarius) and all the powers of Hell will not conquer it (again, Sagittarius).

As I wrote, the dream of college, work, company loyalty, retirement, and pension is over. Now, we are expected to hustle all the time. We have to network. We have to do amazing and interesting things. But not really. After all, any Renaissance person who has ever had to deal with LinkedIn and piecing together a professional identity from all of their various interests and activities knows that we still resist the idea of seeing life as an exploration. What we have to do is try, succeed and never fail or change our minds. This is how you earn not the admiration of your peers. It is not, however, how you earn the keys to Heaven.

Jupiter is about to leave Virgo. This is a time of abundant work, and hopefully, finding merriment in your work. Any freelancer and Renaissance person who wants to put bread on their table has, at least once, cast a wide net. The more you can do, the more you can reach for. Today, I have only three jobs. This is down from five. Hopefully, this increases my value to the people you will partner with later on in the month, when Jupiter moves into Libra.

….some people will feel these transits more than others. The jack-of-all trades, the person with a preponderance of mutable planets and angles, is feeling it now. Sometimes, the greatest thing we can be, those of us who are like this, are being the person behind the greatest people in the world. We make good coaches, tutors, teachers, and gurus. We can help people, and sometimes, we can mean the world to someone. We can mean the difference between success and failure, even in a small way. However, we ourselves don’t often become the celebrity or the hero. We are the remember him? Remember her? people. In a world that prizes the knight but not the blacksmith who made his armor, his sword, or his shield, or the one who raised and cared for his horse, the nurse who healed his wounds, or the teacher who taught him how to fight, we are always behind the curtain.

And yet, there is so much work to be done behind the curtain, because so many people want to become the knight! Meandering from one task to the other, learning on the way, picking up the slack, or just showing up at the right place at the right time with the skills needed to get the job done,