Transcript of Radio Show: Saturn Square Uranus, Order and Freer Minds
(If you wish to listen to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Podcasts)
Today I want to examine the most significant planetary alignment of 2021, the waning square of Saturn to Uranus. Their synodic cycle of relationship is 45 years, that is from conjunction to conjunction. Their dynamic and integral interrelationship holds together the experiences and contrasting qualities of conservative versus innovative energy-forms.
Saturn
The planet Saturn represents or holds the energy-form of Traditions, Institutions, and what we experience as the Status Quo. It is the vehicle for our appreciation and attachments to those realities in all the parts of our lives that have stood the test of time. Our very existence and livelihoods, our present culture and civilization, are here precisely because of what was made and passed down to us by our ancestors. We own them so very much for making the world that we have today.
From the perspective of Saturn, what is old has proven its worth and so we should preserve and maintain that way of doing or being as much as we can (“if it is not broken, please do not fix it!).
And yet, the whole of Creation is the Journey and Evolution of Spirit, moving through forms of manifestation that are the vehicles for the innumerable spiritual monads for their progressive self-realizations. The whole Universe is growing; the whole Universe is constantly changing, and over-time evolving and unfolding into ever more perfect forms that are indeed the “Song of Spirit”.
Uranus
This is certainly true, “for there to be growth, there must be change”. One of the Avatars that informs and shapes those changes is held for us by Uranus, which is the Avatar of Higher Consciousness or Freer Minds. The Ancient Teachings hold that on one level of our understanding, the story of Spirit, and the luminous Song of Spirit is the saga of Consciousness; that every particle of Creation is part of the One Mind of the One. In effect, the whole of creation is alive and conscious, and each one of us is like a little star of consciousness in the One Consciousness that is Creation.
Uranus elicits and promotes our growth and therefore much of the change we experience in our reality-forms, and it does this by expanding the range and depth of our thought-forms. Uranus as the “Awakener”, breaks through the boundaries of our present-day ideas, concepts, and beliefs. It shatters the self-created shell of our circumscribed space which defines and differentiates that which is real and knowable from that which is false or unknowable for us with our more limited understanding at any one time.
Uranus rules the ability of a freer mind to experience a more inclusive understanding of what is “really real”. As such, it operates as the “Contrarian”, as that instrument that provides our spiritual capacity to see beyond our self-cast shadows that blind us to the “Greater Reality” that is truly present all around us, but of which we can only perceive and understand within a limited range of manifestations and dimensions.
Saturn/Uranus
What does this mean for our present consideration of the Saturn/Uranus relationship? It is that as much as Saturn will hold us to that which has stood the test of time, Uranus is there to remind us that every single part of this Creation was at some point “NEW”; what is now a tradition and truth was at some point a new or better Idea or Formulation or Procedure or Method.
Saturn reminds us to treasure and preserve what we have; but Uranus reminds us that we are only here because of change, because some energy-form in the past moved beyond the old into something more. What we will find in the dynamic interweaving of Saturn and Uranus is the beating heart of our journey as we balance Preservation with Innovation, Tradition with Invention, the well-worn path versus the path not yet taken.
What we should find is that the conjunction (or New Moon) of Saturn with Uranus should be a moment when some new idea or ideas, some contrarian or innovative seeds would be released. Then over the next 45 years the hierarchy of ideas and forms would go through various stages of conflict and/or integration until the next conjunction.
Saturn-Uranus Cycle
For the last 170 years, the series of conjunctions occurred in 1852, 1897, 1942 and 1988 (with the next conjunction due to arrive in 2032). We often cannot see at the conjunction or New Moon what has started, but it does become apparent at the waxing square. What we would expect to see is that at the waxing square there would some formation of a conflict or struggle between the New and the Old.
1852 to 1860
For example, in US History, (and just focusing upon one but a major consideration of our ever-present struggle to extend equal rights to all US citizens), we could see the conjunction of 1852 being understood with reference to the waxing square of 1860-62. In one prime example or area, the 1852 seed would be the ever-enlarging understanding about the evil of slavery leading to the formation of the Republican party, the election of Lincoln and the Civil War that followed in 1860.
In a similar manner, we would expect the next moment in the cycle, the opposition of Saturn and Uranus to be rather climatic and stark, revealing the integration of the old and the new in some new fusion, or by “failure” a breakdown between the old and new ways. In our current example that would be the late 1870’s and the failure of Reconstruction and the reinstitution of servitude for the former slave population through segregation and terror.
1942 to 1951
More recently, the Conjunction of 1942 was more definitively revealed by the waxing square in 1951-52, as the struggle again between traditional ways and the push towards greater freedom witnessed the birth of the modern civil rights era, with local and state governments on up to the Supreme Court moving to break up the segregation (in the South and the North). Following that, the opposition (like a Full Moon) of Saturn with Uranus in 1965-67 witnessed the most consequential Civil Rights laws being passed and enforced since the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.
2021, The Waning Square
But what about our period? We are at the other major aspect of any cycle, which is the waning square of the cycle that began at the Saturn/Uranus conjunction in 1988. If we look at the previous times of the waning square, we can discern a fundamental pattern of meaning. Those previous moments to ours were 1930-31 and 1975-77. If a waxing square is known as a crisis of building, a choice about which path to take from an inception point, a waning square is known as a Crisis in Consciousness. What do we mean or why do we call this square a “crisis in consciousness”?
It is because the opposition that proceeds it is like a Full Moon; it is the revelation for that cycle of manifestation. Whether that revelation was a “triumphant” or a “sorrowful” moment, it will be at the waning square of the cycle that we must come to a reckoning. We face a choice about which ideas, beliefs, truths, (and the actions that follow from these), will be the ones that resolve the crisis that we now face.
1988 to 2008
In some fashion the Ideas and Ideologies that formed and guided our path from 1988 led to the revelation of the opposition or Full Moon of 2008-10. That was certainly a memorable moment, as the world dealt with the mortgage debt crisis and all economies and cultures faced the results of how well or poorly their journey of humans was faring at that point. What we saw then was how unfair and unequal our way of meeting one another’s needs was here and equally around the world. There were massive attempts to salvage a broken economic order, to make some reparations and attempt some fixes. And so, we continued along our path after these adjustments were made as if all were now fine.
Given what has happened in the past year, almost all would have to agree that we failed to really address the yawning gap of good growth that should be for one and all in 2008-2010, and that our system of meeting one another’s needs failed in 2020, but in a far more devasting manner.
From 1980 to 2021
In this moment we face a turning once again. And the beliefs that had shaped us since the 1980s up to now are being tested. What is the message? For me, the mantra of “the less government the better” is now officially over. We have seen that when we let the private, so-called “free market,” (whose only value of consequence is “quantity”), when we let the unregulated and self-interested actions of individuals determine all other values in our world, the eternal values of beauty, kindliness, equality, equity, and justice are diminished and spoiled. When we seek only quantity, we turn away from our most essential value and duty which is to love and cherish one another and this beautiful Earth.
Personal Message of Saturn/Uranus
What I have been examining here are the Mundane or Worldly effects of this alignment. But you might want to know, what does it mean for each of us in its more personal or individual effects?
For all of us, no matter what our individual chart might indicate, we are at a moment where we need to hold together and apply in an integrative/balanced manner our respect for tradition and yet equally our openness to innovation. We must not react with fear and hold onto that whose time has clearly passed, nor be tempted by the thrill of supposed freedom by leaping with abandon into the unproven and untested. The way of Spirit is always the “middle path”, the royal road of wisdom, humility, and love.
Saturn/Uranus in Chart
For each of us, we can look to see where Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus are in the wheel of our own chart. We can see the message they hold by what houses are connected and interrelated by the influence of Saturn in one house, while Uranus is in another. For example, if Saturn is in your 1st house while Uranus is in your 4th, it would indicate that you are feeling or being asked to define most clearly who you are, to clarify and firm up your “Presence”; to find and project outwardly the essential and special quality of you that makes you “you”. Meanwhile, Uranus in your 4th house is reminding you that you should always be open to freeing yourself from (or redefining) those elements at the root of you, (family, ancestry, culture, and civilization) that would limit the authentic quality of your presence in the 1st house.
On the one hand you want to break “free”, while on the other hand you need to remain rooted. Yes, it seems they are in conflict, and that you must choose one or the other. But in spiritual truth, the only way is the “way through both”, because each of these qualities are necessary to each other and to you.
You cannot be absolutely or perfectly free to do or be or behave as you wish. You must be shaped, formed, guided, and attached to those truths which have stood the test of all time. Number one in these is to, “Love one another”; number two is to, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
In this case you would be striving to free yourself to a more perfect form of self-expression while being guided by your essential anchor of unconditional love rooted in our human family.
Saturn/Uranus to Natal Planet
If we were to consider the alignment of Saturn and Uranus to a planet (or planets) in your chart, then the meanings for you would be more focused upon that quality of your being. The degrees of their exact alignment will be in the fixed signs of Taurus and Aquarius, at 7, 11 and 13 degrees.
Let us say you had Saturn and Uranus each aspecting your Mercury this year, what might that mean? On the one hand, Uranus would be eliciting the necessity to free your mind from prior constraints (or restraints), and evince a more contrarian, questioning and disruptive influence in your thinking and messaging. But Saturn would be weighing in with the equally insistent pressure to hold to convention and normality out of fear of being challenged by authorities and the weight of belief residing in the old ways of thinking. But, of course, what you must really do is hold them together and find the “third way” through reaction and fear versus overacting and rebellion.
Saturn/Uranus in Signs
We can also derive both personal and universal meanings from understanding the message of this alignment of Saturn and Uranus by the essential nature of their position in Aquarius and Taurus, respectively. Saturn in Aquarius is the test of Social Consciousness and Conscience, and the essential meaningfulness of our very own individual nature is formed, nurtured, and guided by our companions and our communities, that we are all made by and are part of one another. Uranus in Taurus is calling each and every one of us to remember the true nature of value, which is that within each and every particle of creation is the source of life and consciousness for every one of us, and that is Divine and Unconditional Love.
The truth is, we are all precious, beyond any finite measure, and one could say that the essential part of our spiritual journey is to hold this truth in our hearts, so that we will treat one another, and all creatures great and small, with that same unconditional love that made you and me.
