Saturn Opposite Uranus: Changing Times — and Minds by Gary P. Caton homas Paine wrote in The Crisis: “These wrote his immortal words. Pluto’s ingress into T are the times that try men’s souls.”1 Capricorn is the crossing of the winter sol- Clearly, it feels as though we are currently liv- stice point, the absolute darkest time of the ing through similar times. Ever since Pluto solar year (in the Northern Hemisphere). Yet, made the ingress into Sagittarius, all three of there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel. In the transpersonal planets have been occu- 2010, a 15-year period of transpersonal empha- pying the transpersonal signs of Sagittarius– sis will end dramatically as the final Saturn– Pisces. The outer planets are called transper- Uranus opposition in Libra–Aries moves across sonal because it takes longer than the average the cardinal axis. individual lifespan for them to make a com- The intense polarizations we have plete revolution around the Sun — thus, they recently experienced from Saturn’s opposi- are seen as significators of collective issues. tions to Pluto and Neptune are then likely to Similarly, the last four signs of the zodiac are ignite. Saturn and Uranus are basically anti- all about collective issues. The first four signs, thetical principles. Saturn is primarily cold; it Aries–Cancer, are personal signs, where the takes away energy. Uranus is primarily hot; relationship is to self — through dealing with it excites. When hot and cold meet in nature, primal, instinctive, survival-based issues we have thunderstorms. The Native Ameri- (Jupiter and Saturn were in this part of the cans called this interplay the Thunder-beings. zodiac at 9/11). The second four signs, Leo– They believed that these beings brought vital- Scorpio, are interpersonal signs, where the izing energy from the Sky to the Earth — to be self relates to another through dealing with used by humans. In Western mythology, the social and relationship issues. Again, the last interaction of Earth and Sky is no less intense. four signs, Sagittarius–Pisces, are transper- Uranus was the God of the Sky. Each night he sonal signs, where the self relates to the col- descended upon Gaia, Goddess of the Earth, lective through dealing with universal, tran- and out of their frequent union came many scendental issues.2 monstrous progeny. Uranus was displeased So, just like the last time Pluto transited and stuffed the undesirable offspring back into the transpersonal signs (1749–1822), we have Gaia’s womb. Saturn was given a sickle by been asked to integrate some very high-order his mother (Gaia) to put an end to his father energies. However, this time, both Uranus and Uranus’s denial. Saturn castrated Uranus — Neptune have added their particular dynam- unleashing the Furies from the spilled blood. ics to the transpersonal emphasis. The focus In the final phase of this myth, Saturn cast the has been on the forest — not the trees. This severed phallus into the sea, and Venus was has been a time of corporate scandals, regime born from the sea foam that arose from Ura- Mercury Direct Mercury change, global war, and natural disasters — nus’s immortal flesh. not a time of anything “for the people.” After It is rather easy to see this stormy energy 2008, the transpersonals line up in reverse of the archetypal myths in action in the last planetary order (with Pluto in Capricorn, two sets of Saturn–Uranus oppositions in the Neptune in Aquarius, and Uranus in Pisces), 1920s and ’60s. Following the Napoleonic occupying the last three signs of the zodiac wars, European powers became increasingly in a transpersonal crescendo. Pluto will have intertwined, and pre–World War I Europe was returned to the sign it occupied when Paine a constellation of royal families who were 54 Mercury Direct related by marriage. No one imagined that Caroline Myss shows us that this process they could war against each other. Yet, when of questioning is integral even in the experi- the 1920s dawned, the old world order had ence of our most shining spiritual exemplars. been wiped away by Saturn opposite Uranus. In her classic book on archetypes, Sacred During the 1960s, we witnessed the release Contracts, Myss reminds us that Abraham, of the Furies, as the limiting (Saturn) govern- Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha walked a mental and entrenched, racist social forces path that is archetypal — which means it is the attempted to castrate the limitless (Uranus) same path that you or I must also walk.5 Even freedom-based approach of the civil rights these great leaders were not without their own movements. Of course, this process also led doubts, fears, questions, and “stuck places” to the emergence of Venus — which we saw in on their paths. In fact, the word “question” a flowering of the arts — culminating in “the contains the word “quest.” Both are derived Summer of Love.” The upcoming Saturn– from the Latin quaestus (to ask or seek). Uranus oppositions will even occupy the same It can be construed, then, that the initial signs (Virgo and Pisces) as the last two sets, purpose of an opposition is to bring a until both planets cross the cardinal axis in person to a state of disorientation — 2010. only from there can the individual be Saturn is initiated into new levels of awareness. primarily cold; Opposites Instruct In short, without some sort of stressor When planets are opposed, it means to induce anxiety (an anxiety to which it takes away that we are being challenged to develop our there is no immediate solution), growth energy. Uranus is awareness. The opposition, by nature, is an is simply not possible. It is from the anx- aspect of tension. Nowhere is this more evi- iety of disorientation that growth and, primarily hot; dent than at Uranus’s opposition to its natal indeed, spiritual awareness are born.6 it excites. position when we are in our early forties. We The Buddha had to witness sickness, stand at the nexus of our existence — half of old age, and death before he could follow his it before us and half of it behind us.3 At this spiritual path. The opposition can ultimately point, many people no longer want or need to be seen to represent the “call to adventure” respond to the parental/societal programming (to quote Joseph Campbell) whereby “destiny of the first half of life. Yet, the rejection of this has summoned the Hero and transferred his programming entails a huge responsibility to spiritual center of gravity from within the pale redefine ourselves and our place in the world. of his society to a zone unknown.”7 Dane Rudh- The anxiety this can evoke is clearly refer- yar explained the process of the opposition enced in the familiar term “midlife crisis.”4 in a very similar way: “There is for man … a Unlike the square, where we are often beginning in the darkness (unconsciousness, forced to choose one path over another, the that is) of instinct, and there is a beginning in opposition often presents no clear way out the full light of conscious intelligence … Form, of a situation. We are hit from both sides in revealed in a moment of lucid perception at a barrage from which there is no obvious the ‘full moon’ phase of any cycle … gradu- means of escape. It is easy then to become ally releases its meaning or significance as the besieged by doubts and even guilt — think- moon decreases in light.”8 ing that the situation is somehow a result of We are collectively undergoing a series a karmic mistake we’ve made. What are we of oppositions. Because of the transpersonal to do as we find ourselves pinned down by nature of the planets and signs involved, this forces that seem to surround us and arrest represents an extremely heightened transper- our movement and development? Well, in my sonal crescendo. This means that the call opinion, the first and best thing we can do is to adventure toward transpersonal or spiri- to give ourselves a break by recognizing that tual awareness is sounding on several levels. this is a fundamental part of the process of As Saturn opposed Pluto from the personal being human. to transpersonal signs of Gemini–Sagittarius June/July 2008 55 Saturn Opposite Uranus in 2001, we in the United States were faced Pearson recognizes two “pre-heroic” with the grim reality of acts of terror on our archetypes, which describe a phase of nascent home soil. Saturn’s opposition to Neptune awareness, where one has either not clearly from the interpersonal to transpersonal signs of heard the call to adventure or has refused to Leo–Aquarius gave us pause to ask: “Is there a answer it. The Innocent is one who exists in a higher path?” Is the suspension of habeas cor- state of unity with the cosmos. This may be pus and indefinite detainment of the accused due to a happy childhood or romantic or mys- a higher or a lower resolution?9 Is an indefinite tical experiences. The Orphan is one who has state of war a real solution, or just an Orwellian fallen from this state of unity and is seeking to justification of a primitive path? Saturn’s return to the safety of innocence. The orphan oppositions to Uranus begin in the interper- wants to be rescued by someone else. Essen- sonal to transpersonal signs of Virgo–Pisces, tially, the orphan is one who refuses the call but eventually we return full circle to the per- to adventure.