Saturn square Uranus' Strange Loops and Electric Riptides through the Zeitgeist
I've prepared a retrospective of the most important questions that Saturn square Uranus raised in its thesis phase. I also go into cosmic gumshoe mode, under the Gemini moon, so enjoy the intel!
The Sun in Pisces emerging from the Aquarius bromance is feeling positively heady. If this past month has felt like a faulty Sims patch, or like being trapped in an endless Tech Bros circle jerk on Club House, you’re not alone. Thank the Gods for the balm of mutable water hissing and bubbleshot under our slabs of ice. One can only dissociate while playing with Instagram filters for so long. Affect will finally bleed through rigid Aquarian conceptual containers, and we may all be Tin Men on a quest to reclaim the grail of our hearts.
The fracturing of the stellium is somehow encapsulated by this sequence from Andre Tarkovsky film, Solaris, as deep susurrations of the heart infiltrate the sterile cabin of a space ship:
Saturn square Uranus' shocking structural collapse will continue to be felt, as aftershocks, for weeks to come. Its next peak will be in the middle of June, in the height of Gemini season's frenzy of pollination. How interesting to see these first two ‘perfect hits’ coinciding with airy moments in time, suggesting that much of the disruption this year could be societal, rhizomic, and within the realm of ideas and communication.
With Uranus in Taurus, we’re also seeing countries, like Canada, being exposed by our addiction to outsourcing: our reliance on EU export chains, for the vaccine roll out, has seen us at the behest of corporate whims (Imma circle back on that k, babe). This weakness slowed our vaccination to a halt in February, though we are promised a lift soon. In any case, not being able to build and produce the Taurean things on home soil will be a crucial political vector this year (and onward), especially as vaccine nationalism sees countries turning inward.
Saturn square Uranus therefore proposes a frisson between the fragile structures and systems that support our corporeal existence and the accelerating abstraction of debt, the emptying of big cities, the ethical quagmire of vaccine rollouts on different time lines, and an increasingly blatant transfer of power from political elites to the technocrats. What do holding vessels look like in a world that’s increasingly mobile, virtual, airy, and charged with trickster energy (as Emmalea Russo puts it).
In short, the increasing complexity of our post Covid world--as much as Zuckborg would love us to be his virtual captives forever--is blitzing the basics of Taurean surviving and thriving: jobs, production chains, money, pleasure, shelter, (stonks).
A building intensity around these themes has been apparent since Saturn's ingress into Aquarius, but the exact square dished out an astonishing array of plot-lines, and tricky questions that will be unpacked all this year. To name just a few:
Ice storms and blizzards in America's deep south were an example of the disruptive strangeness Aquarius can bring, as if we've been plunged into an alternate universe. Lacking winter weather infrastructure, places like Houston have been in a state of emergency, though it was also heartening to see the rapid proliferation of aid programs over social media. Polar vortex aside, there was also an uptick in seismic activity, and a spectacular eruption of Volcano Mount Etna.
Facebook’s cutting Australia off from its ability to share news articles was a particularly blatant and punitive wielding of power. Naveet Alang, of The Toronto Star, asks: “What is to be done about the news business and big tech? That looming question, which has lingered around the halls of power and water coolers for years now, seems to finally be coming to a head.”
When we have informational monopolies, like Google, capable of pulling the plug on The Commons of an entire country, it’s not so different from early railway companies cutting off supply to certain towns, and those communities withering as a result (as Tim Pool pointed out).
Imagine the same had happened in The USA last week when aid programs were relying on Facebook to organize dispersal of warm blankets, food and heaters (you think our boomer parents are going to suddenly hop on Club House to organize!?). The need to wean ourselves off Big Tech has never been more pressing, but this weaving of new data-grids will not happen overnight, and for now they are key to our survival in volatile times. (Kidding, btw, about Boomers on Club House - I see you Eric Weinstein).
The passing of Conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh--a racist pustule of braggadocio and self-aggrandizement--felt like the square claiming one of its own. He has Saturn square Uranus in his chart, and exposed the potentially zealous, autocratic and rigidly dogmatic side of that signature (not unlike Putin, another native of the square!).
The successful landing of the Mars rover, Perseverance (an apt tagline for this transit) demonstrated the coincidence of Venus' overcoming square to Mars, as an incredibly tricky landing procedure unfolded, according to Nasa, with grace and aplomb. Mars is literally conquered, this week, by Venusian grace, as Acyuta-Bhava Das ciphered beautifully in his most recent astrology meditation. Saturn square Uranus is also a transit of pioneering technological breakthroughs. Along with the rover landing, we saw the first reconstruction of a rudimentary Neanderthal brain, and the levitation of metal plates using only light particles.
As I went into in my last Substack for paying subscribing, this transit can present a Faustian pact of dazzling scientific progress, or Promethean light thieved from the Gods—but at what cost? The internet fostering impregnable alternate realities is a murky karma being sown right now, as it was largely an algorithm that invaded the Capitol Building.
More joyfully, memes had hedge funders on their knees, screaming uncle, though the seemingly impenetrable Neo Liberal machine ultimately shut this rebellion down. Stock trading app, Robin Hood, which blocked GME trading and authored the death blow on the Reddit Revolution, also started its congressional hearings over the Saturn-Uranus square. Another plot line to follow.
Speaking of memes, a free floating simulacrum of ideas could also be part of what creates the malware of bb astrology YouTube personalities who are rewarded for presenting the ideas of their masters, and others in their astrological cohort, as if they were their own. Perhaps framing one's 'wisdom,' as downloads from a VIP lounge of angels and guides performs better on the feed. This isn't to say I don't believe in the rare individual who has a genuine and grounded relationship with spirit guides, but they are usually the last to hard sell you with it! (And trust that the woolatans are out, in force, this year).
In any event, our last New Moon dawned in a decan ruled by the 7 of Swords (theft, betrayal, lone wolf-ism), and what Austin Coppock describes as complex social knots, and drama circuits[1]. Plagiarism is a particularly egregious sin in my opinion, and something that happened recently to my friend @gray_crawford_astrology (who you all should follow). Srna Vuckovic practically copy-and-pasted his gorgeous writing into her own post, but thankfully we had @saturnandhoney on the case (who you should also follow).
These thieves should absolutely be outed and shamed, but perhaps we should also be questioning the strange algorithmic loops that reward robotic regurgitation of data before the astrologer has even gone through their first Saturn return, (and has perhaps had their heart cracked open by a hard knock or two). Why do we worship these visual surfaces with nothing of the soul, or integrity, underneath? Is there something in the endless, easeful scroll of curated echo chambers that has made us forget about root systems, dirt, and lonely hard grift?
Zoomers, it’s important to remember, have never known a life without these pocket panopticons, and seem to inhabit a world of free-floating signs and symbols untethered to causality, context or time itself. That’s their avacado toast to work through, I guess! (And I do love you mad meme jesters of the abyss).
Influencers, such as Maren Altman, larping as the one Uranian bringer of light to the masses--rather than establishing themselves in a sacred and Saturnian ecosystem of intellectual exchange, dialectic and apprenticeship--will realize that their empires are built on sand, like that of Ozymandias. Masterful curation, and honey-potting of crypto simps with ‘ahegao face’ only gets you so far...I'll leave that one there, though I'm sure many of you have already read *that* Rolling Stone article.[2]
On the darker end of Saturn square Uranus (and trigger warning for distressing content), I also stumbled upon the story of Iowa Select Farms enacting a secret mass extermination of their pigs due to disruption of production lines wreaked by the pandemic. See the domino effect here?
Glen Greenwald (one of our last great journalists) reported on the story for The Intercept, describing the horrific and inhumane methods to mass-slaughter the pigs who were left to slowly roast and suffocate to death in a compound filling with steam (something here of Neptune squaring the bendings too).[3] Their piercing cries were captured on a video I will never be able to watch. Greenwald tweets that The FBI have already been siced on the defiant, Uranian whistleblowers, and everything is being done to bury this story.
Euphemisms used by the company such as 'depopulation', and 'ventilation shut down', demonstrate the true banality of evil, and the fragility of a meat industry reliant on complex lines of production (many of which will be undone by the waves of this transit). I can only hope that the sacrifice of these beautiful, intelligent creatures (pigs can literally play games with joysticks) will see us questioning the status quo of inhumane factory farms. You can't outrun the karma police.
Ending on a more uplifting note (the cyberpunk is a lot, I know), Canada's annual 'longest hockey game,' to raise money for cancer research, coincided with the Saturn-Uranus cold snap. Pucks literally shattered like glass when dropped on the ice, and parts of equipment snapped off as temperatures plunged to -44. There were no fans, and no fire pits welcoming the players after their five hour shifts due to Covid regulations. Nevertheless, the loneliest hockey game in the world raged on for days--a reminder that the defiance of this transit can see the human spirit triumphing over even the most alienating of conditions.
To finish, a scene from the 2014 film Ex Machina, which is a sort of tragic farce about Tech Bros. Watch that one, along with Tarkovsky’s Solaris this weekend, for that Pisces-Aquarius blur. Oh, and the new Adam Curtis is on YouTube, which has A LOT to say about Saturn square Uranus through its chaotic Gemini weaving of cultural detritus, and Burial tracks. Enjoy Mercury direct this weekend blowing kisses at the Moon.
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Works cited:
[1] https://austincoppock.com/astrology-feb-9-18-aquarius-iii-solar-eclipse/
[2] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/maren-altman-astrologer-allegations-tiktok-1124328/
[3] https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-ventilation-shutdown-coronavirus/