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 1^st house while Uranus is in your 4^th, 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 4^th 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 1^st 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.