Saturn and Uranus: Bumping Into Reality

Saturn and Uranus: Bumping Into Reality

If you follow astrology at all you are likely aware of the Saturn square Uranus configuration that has set the tone for so much of our astrology climate this year – the first exact hit was February, the second in June, and the final exact hit is late this coming December, just a few days after the Capricorn Ingress. I want to talk about the usual way that these two planets are framed, and the limitations and blinds spots of that framing. After that, I want to take this same configuration and rephrase it in several different ways, to give us different perspectives on what is going on.

Tradition and Innovation

I took the title of this section from an upcoming astrology conference. It embodies much of the usual understanding of the two planets. I want to examine it here to get at some underlying kinds of assumptions that our culture currently makes.

The usual interpretation goes something like this.

• Saturn represents the past, Uranus is the future.
• Saturn is old-fashioned, Uranus is new and modern.
• Saturn is resisting change, and Uranus represents the forces of (inevitable?) change and progress moving forward.
• Saturn is the old age, Uranus is the New Age.
• Saturn represents restrictions, and Uranus is the bursting through restrictions – almost always with the assumed value judgment that bursting through restrictions is always a positive thing.

Note that this way of framing Saturn and Uranus is actually quite recent. If you look at earlier modern authors, prior to about 1950, you do not find this sort of implicit political framing to the two planets.

This modern interpretation fits in with our current cultural religion – Progress.

The Religion of Progress

Our culture assumes a model of ongoing straight line progress, a line of continual growth and improvement, where change is good, by definition. Also by definition, newer is preferable to older, and modern preferable to traditional, old-fashioned or outworn.

There is a curious blind spot or contradiction here: often the glorious future we are heading towards is thought of as open-ended and undefined, a place of unlimited potential. If you think it through this doesn’t fit with the idea of progress, since that concept only makes sense in reference to a defined goal – progress is all about progress towards something, or progress in a specific direction. If you have no target to measure from, you have no way of measuring any progress.

The Obsolete Religion of Progress

Part of what I am maintaining here is that this cultural assumption of ongoing straight-line progress is in the process of collapsing, falling apart. And, part of the particular stress of our time is due to the effort made to push forward with an increasingly untenable idea of progress while we start to see all sorts of signs of things breaking down. The model of progress is cracking.

I’ve talked about this theme in previous posts, and I want to briefly reference them here before exploring further in this essay.

In this essay on The Shape of Our Thinking I contrast the linear, straight line model of progress with the cyclical model that underlies astrology.

In this essay, on The Dangers of Positive Thinking I explore how this straight line progress model ties in with the mania in much modern astrology to put a positive spin on EVERYTHING.

Uranus and Saturn – Bumping Into Limits

Our entire economic model depends on the assumption of perpetual growth, that the economy will keep continually expanding. This is only viable when economic growth is fueled by an unlimited source of energy. For a couple of centuries we had the fantastic economic growth fueled by a manic consumption of our planet’s fossil fuels and energy sources – oil, coal, natural gas.

Those sources are not unlimited, and the increasing economic expansion is colliding with a decreasing supply of fossil fuel. What we call the naturally sustainable sources – sunlight, water and wind power – cannot keep our economy going at anywhere near the same rate, and switching over to them will involve economic contraction. That reality, of economic contraction, is something we are not ready to admit yet, and the current plans for “sustainable energy” all come with an increasingly high price tag that fewer and fewer people will be able to afford.

Note that the people pushing the “sustainable energy” movement as it is currently being implemented are for the most part the very affluent who can afford the much higher price tag.

What we see today is an increasing tendency towards a an ever-smaller group of people consuming ever-larger percentages of our energy sources. The very rich get ever richer at the expense of more and more people getting ever poorer – and that is not sustainable. Consider France in the late 1700’s, and consider Russia in the early 1900’s. Compare that to the United States today.

We need to wake up to the fact that there are all sorts of hard physical limits we are bumping into. Limits of growth of economy. Limits of consumer consumption. Limits on population growth, and so on.

Saturn and Uranus – bumping into limits. That is part of what we are waking up to, and until we recognize and accept that, all of the talk of a “sustainable” future is a deceitful marketing gimmick.

Uranus and Saturn – Testing Structures

There is another complementary way of looking at this dynamic. Saturn represents existing structures, and Uranus introduces shocks and surprises that test the structure. If things are basically secure and stable then the structure will survive with some adjustments, and may even come out stronger. If the structure is weak or worn out or false – and by false I mean based on falsehood, based on deception – then the cracks and shocks to the structure can be catastrophic.

Uranus and Saturn – Control Is Cracking

Yet another way of phrasing this – Saturn is control, imposing restrictions, rules, limitations, regulations. This includes human imposed rules and regulations, and also natural restrictions and limitations we can do nothing about.

In the political and cultural sense, control, rules, limitations imposed by government, largely depend on the consent and cooperation of those going along with the restrictions.

Governments basically rule by consent, by consensus, and not by force.

The system can take a certain amount of push-back, a certain amount of opposition and discontent, and that can be dealt with by force. Force works, up to a point. However, past a certain point, no amount of force by itself can maintain control without consent.

Law and order are not primarily enforced by police; they are enforced by community agreement, good will and cooperation. When that community agreement collapses then sooner or later the control will fail and the whole thing falls apart.

Uranus and Saturn – More Control, More Opposition

Another tendency in this stressful Saturn/Uranus tension that we are seeing is an escalating cycle of violence and force – revolt against control, then force to put down the revolt, then more revolt, and so on. Again, past a certain point the system just collapses.

Uranus and Saturn – Lust for Destruction

This isn’t pretty to admit but I think it is part of what we have been seeing the past few years – a pent up frustration, dissatisfaction, rage, that seeks release in destroying things. Consider France in the late 1700’s, and consider Russia in the early 1900’s. Compare that to the United States today. Consider the scenes of the “Peaceful” protests of 2020.

Like it or not there is a very dark side to human behavior, especially in crowds. When things get too bad and people get too frustrated, the first instinct is not to figure out how to fix it. The first instinct is to find someone to blame and to start smashing things.

Uranus and Saturn – Denial and Shock

This slant on the Saturn-Uranus tension ties in with the positive thinking side of our culture’s belief in perpetual progress. There is an attitude that you should ignore signs of failure and continue to believe in the positive future you are picturing and moving towards. You mustn’t think of defeat, you mustn’t think of failure – hang on to your positive vision and you will prevail.

Push that attitude too far – ignore negative warning signs – and sooner or later things will get bad enough that you are forced into seeing them. The longer and greater the denial, the more radical and severe the shock of waking up.

Uranus and Saturn – Hubris Hitting Limits

Here I want to talk about a side of Uranus that Richard Tarnas pointed out. Uranus seems to be related to a kind of extreme, individualistic human pride that refuses to recognize any limits and strives for ever-increasing power and control. That ties in with our Positive Thinking attitude, it ties in with our long streak of industrial and commercial expansion, it ties in with our phantastic technological growth.

Uranus can be pride and arrogance, that refuses to recognize any limits.

“Reality is whatever I say it is.”

And there is Saturn, representing hard limits. Reality is not completely flexible and open to be shaped as we will. There are laws, limits, and sooner or later we bump into those limits. Pride goeth before a fall.

Uranus and Saturn – Hubris Meets Reality

Saturn and Uranus – Wake-Up Call

Summing up, basically I think we are in a phase where our entire cultural structure is in a gradually accelerating decline verging towards collapse, and not many people care to admit that.

It’s a good time to wake up – not to a glorious golden Great Awakening of love, peace and higher spiritual vibes – but of an economy, a culture, a way of living that is in the process of falling apart. The sooner we wake up and acknowledge that, the more we can use the time and resources that remain to do what we can to make it through what looks like an increasingly dark and challenging future.

“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”

– Ayn Rand

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Image of lightning strike by FelixMittermeier from Pixabay