Friday 31 July 2009

Saturn and Uranus in aspect with the Lights - The prize of consciousness

Both these planets are associated with the sign Aquarius, no matter how valid this association is. However, they seem to represent two conflicting energies, as Saturn is constantly trying to silence Uranus and Uranus is constantly trying to overthrow Saturn. So, what happens when they both aspect the Lights and, in particular, when each one aspects a different Light?
If - perhaps simplistically - we view the Moon as the conditions that make us feel at ease and at home, our personal way of relating to other people and our connection to the world of instincts, and the Sun as that voice that keeps calling us from afar and never stops calling us until we decide to follow his path, we can attempt to delineate these aspects. With the Moon in aspect to Uranus, the world of instincts is foreign to you. You just can't understand emotional behaviour. You watch other people crave for simple things like security, tenderness and stability, but you can't relate to that. You feel like an outcast and you prefer hanging around with people who, for some reason, display "abnormal" behaviour. Relationships become difficult because other people soon realize that you do not connect to them like you are "supposed" to, but instead you keep them at a distance. The word "empathy" is not included in your vocabulary. You may be able to offer sound advice to your friends, but when they simply want a shoulder to cry on, they go to someone else. You feel that all this disgusting emotionality and clinginess is what keeps humanity from truly progressing. If, however, you also have the Sun in aspect to Saturn, things can get a lot worse. You may be an outcast, but you hate yourself for it. You don't want to be different, you just want to fit in, even if you are temperamentally unsuited to it. You try to do the done thing, what you think is expected of you, but you do it awkwardly and other people see right through you. Very often you go against your own nature, trying to satisfy social demands. You may dislike the idea of marriage, for example, but you end up getting married nonetheless. You don't like children, but feel you have to have them. This is a very tricky combination and you may spend your whole life trying to find the right balance.
On the other hand, with the Moon in aspect to Saturn, it is very hard for you to step outside the boundaries of normality. You feel that the whole world consists of autocratic parents whose sole purpose in life is to teach you the virtue of discipline. You mistrust eccentricity and believe it's just an excuse for those who refuse to face the hard facts of life. You feel at ease around people who know what they want out of life, you respect authority, you are good-mannered and you can't stand cheeky and impudent people, especially those who have ideas quite above their station. However, if you also have the Sun in aspect to Uranus, every once in a while a little bell rings in your head telling you to break free from all chains. You don't want to listen to it, because you fear what's going to happen if you say goodbye to the solid ground you walk on. Life, however, has a way of messing with us, the moment we least want it to. One day you realize that there is a part of you that is not universally acceptable. It dawns on you that you have more in common with the people you pretend to hate than you originally thought. You realize that even though you sought the friendship of normal people, they actually bore you. But you don't want to go over completely to the other side, because you dread social exclusion. You can't fully embrace the uranian spirit because it clashes with your saturnian predisposition. Tricky, indeed.
Can something be done to solve this dilemma? A modern astrologer would urge you to integrate both these aspects of your personality, but is that truly possible? What you seem to gain from this dichotomy, however, is consciousness. By being unable to completely identify with either of these two warring functions, you cannot lose yourself in the oblivion of ignorance. You cannot pretend to be just one thing and the hell with everything else that doesn't agree with you. But when you sit alone in a dark room at night with no one around to distract you, you hit upon an absolute truth about life: That consciousness and happiness are incompatible.

5 comments:

  1. My doctor and I enjoyed the luxury of time to speak of such things and we agreed that perhaps unconsciousness makes for happier people: however, neither of us would have undergone a lobotomy in order to test the theorem!

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  2. No, I don't think we should push it that far. Happiness and lobotomy don't go hand in hand. Because this would lead us to say: "I'm conscious, therefore I'm special". And that's pride. "Happy" people just don't feel any opposing forces fighting inside them for supremacy. If I have 5 planets in fire, a strong Jupiter and a strong Uranus and Saturn is tucked away in a cadent house with no aspects, then one part of me is especially strong, I identify with it and I'm never in doubt. This doesn't mean that I'm stupid. But if I have planets in all the elements, a square here, an opposition there etc., then I have a strong internal conflict. My level of consciousness may eventually be raised, but what a price to pay!

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  3. I have both the aspects you mention, i.e. moon-Uranus and Sun-Saturn, and I can identify with the general idea, however , their efects are not so conflicting.
    I don't find the emotional independence of Moon-Uranus in conflict with the responsible and organized nature of Sun-Saturn, and I do the ''right'' ( satunian) thing only if I wish to do so.
    Possibly this is so because both aspects are ''easy'' in me. I suspect , in the case where they were both ''hard'' aspects,Moon-Uranus would be more unruly and emotionally unpredictable, while Sun-Saturn would push for extreme conventionality, and being ''proper''- whatever that means - thus creating an internal conflict.
    Still, the exact nature of the aspects is coloured by the sign the moon-or the sun- is in. For example, a moon in Pisces opposition Uranus would still display soppy sentimentality at times, and be extremely hard at other times, while a moon in Virgo would not normally have huge ups and downs in their emotional behaviour.

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  4. Yes, perhaps more than the nature of the aspect, the sign the Lights are in play an important role in the delineation of these aspects. A Sun/Saturn conjunction in Aries is very different than the same conjunction in Capricorn. Still, if the Moon is configured with Uranus, even the most die-hard Capricorn does not feel completely free to embrace Saturn to the full.

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  5. I have Moon trine Uranus and Sun opposite Saturn.

    The Moon/Uranus is the tighter one and is the tightest aspect in my chart almost tied with Moon square Jupiter. Uranus is angular, and the Moon is succeedent. The Sun/Saturn is at a 5 degree orb almost tied with Sun trine Jupiter and occurs in the 3rd/9th house axis, which are cadent.

    Given this, the Moon/Uranus dominates, and the Sun/Saturn is more in the background.

    BTW, what if both lights are also in aspect to Jupiter along with Uranus and Saturn?

    Jupiter and Uranus in my chart are in parallel aspect.

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