It’s been a year of sustained intensity, my friends, and the changes taking place are like the underside of icebergs: bigger than we imagine and largely invisible, which makes them difficult to comprehend and more difficult for that reason. If you’ve ever seen the underside of an iceberg you know how exceptionally beautiful, otherworldly and vital they are to the health of our world. So similarly, it helps to remember how much is going on beneath the surface in the space below language, especially when things are challenging.
We and the world are changing and although we may feel as if things are out of our control, we have mysterious power to influence these glacial transformations with our thoughts and actions now. As the Sun in Leo lights up the Moon in Aquarius today at 10pm AEST for the second time this lunar month - this time at the critical 29th degree - we reach a pivotal moment of culmination and readjustment. The Saturn/Uranus pulse is amplified by the Full Moon’s conjunction with the Greater Benefic Jupiter, which emphasises optimism, maturity and insight, and the Sun in Leo encourages joyous self-expression of the inner solar child regardless of chaos and restriction.
The year-long square between Saturn & Uranus, the two rulers of Aquarius, is shaped by conflict between old ways and conservative or authoritarian views, and rebellious, progressive drives towards the future. And although Aquarian energy is forward-looking, optimistic, social, and socially distant, intellectual and innovative, it’s also ruled by Saturn, the mystical dictator of material reality whose heavy influence can be felt in the nation’s lockdowns and curfews, and in the fear, loneliness, isolation and mental health issues that many have been feeling acutely, particularly over the last month. As the planet of chaos, upheaval, revolution, revelation, breakthroughs, insights and liberation, Uranus is utterly antithetical to Saturn. Saturn is as slow as time. But when Uranus happens, everything is changed instantaneously, forever.
William Herschel’s accidental discovery of Uranus in 1781 upended our scientific understanding of the solar system by doubling its size overnight. Herschel’s discovery also coincided with the American War of Independence, and closely preceded the French Revolution, the birth of the United States, the colonisation of Australia, and the wholesale dispossession of First Nations peoples in this country. There’s no going back when Uranus happens, but there is opportunity to build towards an as yet unimagined future. Saturn in Aquarius has the momentum to build from the Uranian rubble with its sights set on horizons of freedom and justice.
This weekend, however, chaotic acts of rebellion against authority are predictably highlighted. Full Moons naturally accelerate such energies but Jupiter exaggerates recklessness and self-righteousness, and Uranus is trining the god of war, Mars. These are all positive aspects, however, which suggests that the situations unfolding are unlikely to devolve dangerously. But they also point to something more powerful: the courage to take radical action and innovate our thinking in order to break free from our own personal limitations. This is enhanced by a Grand Trine between Saturn, Venus in Libra and the South Node in Gemini, all of which suggest greater ease and maturity, discipline and optimism for cultivating fairness, beauty and open-mindedness in our relationships with others.
It’s worth mentioning that the Nodes of Fate have been moving through the signs of their ‘fall’ since 2020, which makes them both challenging and critically important. The South Node is associated with decrease; in Sagittarius, sign of opinions, it suggests our least painful pathway through this time would involve the continuous questioning and elimination of long-held, over-zealous and outmoded beliefs. The North Node is associated with increase and in Gemini, sign of facts, data and diversity, suggests a curious, non-judgmental appraisal of information and an acceptance that the full reality may not be clear for some time should help us stay sane.
Neptune, planet of higher consciousness, compassion, illusion, projection, delusion and manipulation is also approaching an exact opposition to Mercury, planet of the mind on Wednesday. We’ll be greatly assisted by cultivating conscious awareness in any way we can. Listen to the voice of your solar child. Breathe brightly coloured light. Listen to transcendent jazz while you wash dishes. Walk to the sound of the wind. Make visionary art. Journal. Think like a tree and feel the obstacles in your environment making you more beautiful over elongated measures of time. Dream into your cherished future.
