Cloud Study by JMW Turner; Astrology glyphs by Bradley Naragon
“The fisherman draws fish that he never saw from many fathoms beneath the water, the miner brings gold from the depths out of the earth, through which his sight cannot pierce. In this wise has God taught it.
As there is nothing so occult that it shall not become manifest, so the same must be made known. Be it in the celestial firmament, in the sea, in the earth, all things must become manifest; but through man who discovers all things.”
— Paracelsus (born with Saturn in Aquarius) from his preface to Magia Emblemata et Prognostici
“The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.”
— Susan Sontag (born with Saturn in Aquarius) from At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches
Saturn in Aquarius
Saturn enters Aquarius on March 21 or 22 (depending upon your time zone) where it will remain until shifting retrograde back into Capricorn on July 1, 2020. Saturn will return to Aquarius on December 16, 2020 where it will transit until March 7, 2023.
On 21 March 2020, Saturn will return to its airy, outwardly directed home of Aquarius for the first time since 1994. With a western wind at its back, Saturn in Aquarius will slowly turn its steady gaze and cunning thoughts outward into the farthest reaches of society so that it may reorder structures, reform connections, and develop innovations. In Aquarius, Saturn will swing its scythe into unknown terrain, harvesting knowledge that is removed from mainstream paths and beyond the norm. Whether the vision of Saturn extends beyond the known boundaries of outer space, such as in the work of Carl Sagan who was born with Saturn in Aquarius, or into the vast unknown realms of inner space, such as in the work of Carl Jung who was born with Saturn in Aquarius, Saturn contemplating within its own temple of Aquarius unlocks potential for mining knowledge from the outermost frontiers and borderlines of thought.
Saturn in Aquarius is comfortable removing itself from the busyness of civilized culture to contemplate matters and incubate wisdom within the protected space of a hermit. Whether in the hermetic writing and magical art of William Blake and Marsilio Ficino, the groundbreaking prose of Gertrude Stein and Anaïs Nin, the music of Leonard Cohen and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the poetry of Robert Frost, Rainer Maria Rilke and Pablo Neruda, or the pioneering primatology and anthropology of Jane Goodall, human history has displayed a long list of people born with Saturn in Aquarius who were willing to follow their inner genius for guidance rather than conform to the consensus boundaries, barriers, and judgment of civilization. Although we have already experienced twenty-seven months of Saturn securely expressing itself in its nocturnal, cardinal, earthen home of Capricorn, there will be a noticeable difference in the way Saturn directly expresses itself in its diurnal, fixed, airy home of Aquarius.
When looking back from the future at the ingress of Saturn into Aquarius in 2020, it will be impossible to separate it from the global outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic. In many ways, we couldn’t ask for a more helpful ingress at this time for the ringed planet, as Saturn leaving Capricorn to enter Aquarius brings a change in significations that will promote scientific responses to find cures and restrain the spread of the coronavirus, distribution of effective information for protection and containment, and a vast reordering of societal structures and institutions to deal with the devastating impact the corresponding economic fallout will have on individual lives. However, Saturn does not bring swift solutions and tends to deliver its blessings after enduring periods of time that feel bleak and burdensome as we deal with the heavy weight and pressure of whatever issue Saturn has focused attention upon.
In fact, more so than COVID 19 being linked to the entrance of Saturn into Aquarius, it will forever be known as a defining event stemming from the conjunction between Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn on January 12, 2020. Richard Tarnas in Cosmos and Psyche masterfully described periods of Saturn Pluto as bringing an “irrevocable termination of an established order of existence” and “a widespread sense of victimization and suffering under the impact of cataclysmic and oppressive forces of history” that make previous periods in hindsight appear naive and full of indulgent denial. Yet Tarnas also described “the Saturn-Pluto complex” as “press[ing] the psyche, individual or collective, towards the forging of a deeper and stronger structure of moral consciousness” that calls forth “personal and collective determination,” “intensely focused, silent, strenuous effort in the face of danger and death,” and “a deepening capacity for moral discernment born from experience and suffering.” While some think that bats, animals of Saturn in traditional astrology, are the source of COVID 19, it’s also clear that humanity bears responsibility for its spread and will need to be resolutely accountable to the defensive, restraining, containing counsel of Saturn for the greater good.
Saturn will remain within the fifteen degree orb that Richard Tarnas in Cosmos and Psyche used to define archetypal eras of outer planet conjunctions for the rest of 2020 and most of 2021, with Saturn beginning to leave the orb in April of 2021 before returning with its retrograde and not leaving the orb for good until December of 2021. While this means we still have an extended period of time ahead of us to deal with the fallout from the Saturn Pluto conjunction, there will be a noticeable degree of difference once Saturn is no longer co-present with Pluto in Capricorn. Saturn will initially spend a few months in Aquarius, from March 22 through July 1, until returning to Capricorn to deliver a final lesson with Pluto and Jupiter in the sign of the Sea Goat from the beginning of July until December 16 when Saturn returns to the terrain of the Water Bearer.
Thus from March 21 through July 1, we can benefit from Saturn being separated by sign from Pluto and put into place new structural supports to address whatever has buckled under the weight of Capricorn pressure, as well as gain foresight regarding the larger issues and changes we will face at the end of 2020 when Saturn and Jupiter form their great conjunction in the first degree of Aquarius. Major difficulties corresponding with Saturn in Aquarius will be obvious immediately, as there will be only a week before Saturn will welcome the raging red star of Ares into its Aquarian home. Mars will enter Aquarius on March 30, form a conjunction with Saturn on March 31, and then move into a disruptive square with Uranus in Taurus on April 7 that will trigger the waning square aspect between Saturn and Uranus that will be a dominant astrological theme of 2021 (see below for more details on the Saturn Uranus cycle). As a result, the dramatic discord we will need to endure at the end of March and beginning of April will deliver a preview of the larger ideological conflicts and changes that will be taking shape across global societies in the years ahead.
Aquarius by Salvador Dali (born with Saturn in Aquarius)
Water Bearer
If, Ocean, you could grant, out of your gifts and dooms, / some measure, fruit or ferment for my hands, / I’d choose your distant rest, your brinks of steel, / your furthest reaches watched by air and night, / the energy of your white dialect / downing and shattering its columns / in its own demolished purity.
Not the last wave with its weight of salt / crumbles the coastline and produces / a truce of sand encircling the world: / but tugging gravity, the pull of force, / the far-flung potency of waters / and the still solitude replete with lives. / Time, no doubt, or brimming crucible / of movement, primal unity / that death has left unsealed, green viscerae / of all-consuming oneness.
Of the drowned arm which lifts the water drop / only a kiss of salt remains. A humid fragrance / of drifting flowers clings where humans / bathed along your shores. Your energy / appears to glide away unspent, / seems to return to its original rest.
The wave you part with, / bow of identity, starry feather, / was only foam when it fell to pieces / and returned to be born, unconsumed, / Your whole strength clambers back to its origins. / You surrender nothing but mangled spoils, / husks your carriage swept aside, / the rejects of your abundant labor, / the shreds of afterbirth.
Your statue throws its shadow beyond the furthest wave
Living and co-related like breast and garment / of a single being and the breaths he draws, / in the matter of light haled from the deep / meadows uplifted by the waves / create the naked membrane of the planet. / You fill your own being with your substance.
And fulfill the curvature of silence.
The cup trembles with your salt and honey, / the universal womb of waters, / and nothing is wanting in you, as in the flayed / Crater, the unpolished pit: / desolate summits, scars, adhesions, / protecting the mutilated air.
Your petals throb against the world, / your submarine crops tremble, / the smooth algae brood like a menace, / the schools navigate and propagate / and only the dead lightning of scales / rises to the thread of the fishing nets / a wounded market in the distance / of your crystalline totalities.
— The Great Ocean by Pablo Neruda (born with Saturn in Aquarius)
Both of Saturn’s constellational homes of Capricorn the Sea Goat and Aquarius the Water Bearer are found within the great ocean of the heavens that also includes Pisces the fish, Cetus the whale, Delphinus the dolphin, Eridanus the river, Pisces Australis the southern fish, and Hydra the water serpent. The second century CE, Hellenistic astrologer Vettius Valens described Saturn as “given to seafaring” and “practicing waterside trades,” and just as ancient cosmology perceived the Titan river god Oceanus as encircling the known world, so was Saturn known to contain the limits of human thought within its rings. Mythic figures associated with Aquarius have a connection with bearing water sourced from the divine, such as Ganymede the cup bearer in Greek mythology, or Hapi who measured and tended the ever enlivening waters of the Nile River in Egyptian mythology.
Saturn can be held responsible for bearing the divine waters of Aquarius due to governing the sphere of the heavens at the threshold between the planets and the sphere of the fixed stars beyond which resides the immortal, divine realm of the archetypal zodiac. While the 12th century astrologer Abraham ibn Ezra gave “the power of thought” to Saturn, the 17th century astrologer William Lilly described Saturn as “profound in Imagination,” as Saturn has long been viewed in astrology as being the most potent for deep contemplation that tests the limits of known boundaries. The 10th or 11th century author of The Picatrix wrote that Saturn further rules “profound sciences” and the “science of laws” that seek “the causes and roots of things and their effects.”
Yet there are many differences in how Saturn operates within Aquarius in contrast to Capricorn, including that while Capricorn is known as a bestial and semi-vocal sign, Aquarius is known as a humane and vocal sign. This means that Saturn’s significations are more focused within issues concerning humanity in Aquarius, including in the use of scientific thought to address humanitarian concerns and communicate findings. For example, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring when Saturn was in Aquarius in 1962, calling for an end to the devastating environmental impact of humans using pesticides. We can expect significant scientific and technological developments during the passage of Saturn through Aquarius, as well as imaginative innovations in all fields of the arts and humanities.
Aquarius is also a fixed sign in contrast to Capricorn being a cardinal sign. Thus while Saturn tends to be more of an initiator of enterprises in Capricorn, it becomes more of a sustainer and solidifier of stability within Aquarius. Due to the long co-presence of Saturn, Pluto, the South Node of the Moon, and eclipses in Capricorn in the past year and a half, we have had to strike a balance between releasing and shedding the aspects of our lives in states of decay and decomposition, while initiating new visions of growth as our sense of purpose became honed within the Saturnine tests of what will endure. Saturn in Aquarius will be an ally in building upon the gains we have already made, as long as we work on what is necessary to achieve longterm goals rather than short-term rewards. However, the fixed quality of Saturn in Aquarius is not only more resolute, thorough and steady than in Capricorn, it can also be more stubborn and slower moving. It will be important to realize when we need to let go of the perspectives, dreams and plans we have been overly attached to so that we can refocus on new directions to follow that will lead to needed innovations and reforms.
The Lord Answering Job in the Whirlwind by William Blake (born with Saturn in Aquarius)
“Behold, I raise myself up also to you, aged Saturn . . . Powerful of sickle, aged, ripe, slow, cautious, inspiring, sickle-bearing, sorrowful, wise and judicious, deep, the one who enters, who examines, who scrutinizes, ye whose head is full of thoughts, ye who contemplate. Lord of the Ages, cultivator of the fields, inventor of the scythe, ruler of the helmsman of the aeons, instructor in Eternity’s course, measurer of the intervals of the months, leveling impassable eternity with the length of time, father of the parent of the gods, bestowing and removing all things under the devouring maw of time, he who orders all things which come into being, preserver of those things which endure, remover of all things which perish.”
— Giordano Bruno, Cantus Circaeus: The Incantations of Circe (1582) translated by Darius Klein
Air Triplicity
One of the most important differences between Saturn’s expression within its two homes is that Capricorn is part of the earth triplicity, whereas Aquarius is part of the air triplicity. This is hugely significant because Saturn rejoices in air signs and is the diurnal ruler of the air triplicity, meaning that Saturn is the primary ruler of placements in air signs in astrology charts cast during daytime hours. As Saturn is also considered to be a diurnal planet, it further resonates with Aquarius being a diurnal and outwardly directed zodiac sign like all air signs are considered to be. Demetra George in Ancient Astrology wrote that Robert Schmidt of Project Hindsight speculated “that since the triplicities were originally associated with the winds from the four directions, a planet in its own triplicity, especially if it was its own triplicity lord, indicated that this planet had powerful winds at its back spurring it on to the completion of successful enterprises.”
It’s worth considering the place the sphere of air holds within the sequence of the spheres of the elements utilized in traditional astrology. Earth is the most dense and solid element that is the most resistant to change, while fire is the most subtle and elevated element that is closest to spirit. Similar to how Saturn rules the planetary sphere at the threshold with the celestial fire of the sphere of the fixed stars, the element of air is in an intermediary place in between the celestial heights of fire and the condensing descent of the water and earth elements. Likewise, Saturn in Aquarius is a threshold guardian between the numinous and the incarnate.
Since Capricorn is an inwardly directed sign of dense stone and heavy, earthy matters, we will notice an increased capacity for flights of imagination to escape the confinement of our circumstances while Saturn is in Aquarius. Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro in their text On the Heavenly Spheres described the air element as possessing “lightness and the capacity to penetrate,” “great mobility,” “a unifying role,” and characterizing things that display “great agility and flexibility.” The capacity of air to unify and flexibly respond has a tempering effect on the rigid significations of Saturn that can reject and create separation. In combination, Saturn can utilize the unifying nature of air to coalesce new material forms from far reaching vision and articulate its meaning so that others gain understanding. Within society, Saturn in Aquarius can correlate with the creation of binding laws and theoretical structures that hold together and sustain vast material realms, such as the United States Constitution that was created in 1787 when Saturn and Pluto were close together in Aquarius.
Most importantly with regard to how astrology measures historical eras, the entrance of Saturn into Aquarius signals that we will ultimately experience a great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the first degree of Aquarius on December 21, 2020. The cycle between Jupiter and Saturn that regenerates every twenty years has been the paramount astrological cycle to pay attention to when analyzing changes in historical eras since at least the 3rd century CE within Persian astrology. The ending and beginning of cycles between Jupiter and Saturn have long corresponded with the death of old kings and the emergence of new orders in governance as well as revelations within fields of thought and belief. While there is a smaller cycle of Jupiter and Saturn forming conjunctions every twenty years, there is a larger cycle of Jupiter and Saturn forming conjunctions every two hundred years within the same triplicity that correspondingly demarcates larger changes in dynasty and thought on vast collective levels.
For example, there were conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn occurring in air signs from the beginning of the thirteenth century until the beginning of the fifteenth century, in water signs from the beginning of the fifteenth century until the beginning of the seventeenth century, and in fire signs from the beginning of the seventeenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Since 1802 the Saturn and Jupiter conjunctions have been occurring in earth signs, with the final true conjunction in a tropical earth sign occurring on May 28, 2000 in Taurus. After the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius in 2020, there will continue to only be true conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn in tropical air signs until 2159. Yet when based upon the “mean” conjunction utilized in Ptolemaic astronomy that is based upon the average length of each planetary cycle (click here for an article by Benjamin Dykes on this) we will not shift from the air triplicity era into the next era of the water triplicity until the year 2219.
Looking back upon previous transitions from the eras of Jupiter and Saturn uniting in earth signs into air signs, we can see how previous eras and empires of consolidated material security became disrupted leading to dramatic changes in distribution of resources as well as in collective ideas and communication. The previous air triplicity era that began in 1206 involved the mongol invasions of Genghis Khan that created the Mongol Empire as well as the Black Plague that decimated Europe in particular. Going further back to the previous air triplicity era before this from 412 – 610 CE, history reveals the fall of the Roman empire. The previous air triplicity era before this from 383 – 185 BC involved the conquests of Alexander the Great which brought the empires of Egypt, Greece, and Persia together under common languages and trade networks.
While there was a true conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in tropical Libra at the end of 1980, the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius in 2020 is the first one that permanently locks their cycle into an era of conjunctions in the air triplicity. From now until December, we will be experiencing the last gasps of the earth era that began in 1802 with a conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter in Virgo, a historical era that has coincided with the acceleration of the industrial revolution and human consumption of natural resources to create our modern civilization. From considering past cycles we would expect that as we exit the earth era and enter the air era, we will experience a great disruption of the past earth cycle that will eventually create new networks through which information and resources will be widely dispersed as part of an air triplicity era. One major player in this way has been the Internet, and so it is further interesting that the World Wide Web was first publicly released in August 1991 when Saturn was previously in Aquarius.
However, it has now become clear that COVID 19 is bringing about an incredibly rapid reckoning with the global economic structures that have been established during the past earth era. In particular, the United States of America with its present economic and healthcare structures is completely unprepared for the present crisis and will need to make unprecedented changes in systematic structure to address the fracturing of public health and finance that will result from the pandemic. Despite the national border closings and general social distancing, COVID 19 is an increasingly global crisis that will be uniting people from diverse cultures together under a common cause of how to survive the widespread calamity. With Saturn operating in peak strength in Aquarius, there is vast potential for a drastic reordering of systematic structures to eventually emerge from the dissolution of the status quo and the increasing amount of collective pressure that will be placed on those in power to respond appropriately.
Mandala 97 from Liber Novus by Carl Jung (born with Saturn in Aquarius)
Saturn square Uranus
“The divine appears to me as irrational craziness”
— Carl Jung (born with Saturn in Aquarius) from Liber Novus
“Even today people are largely unconscious of the fact that every individual is a cell in the structure of various international organisms and is therefore causally implicated in their conflicts. He knows that as an individual being he is more or less meaningless and feels himself the victim of uncontrollable forces, but, on the other hand, he harbors within himself a dangerous shadow and adversary who is involved as an invisible helper in the dark machinations of the political monster. It is in the nature of political bodies always to see the evil in the opposite group, just as the individual has an ineradicable tendency to get rid of everything he does not know and does not want to know by foisting it off on somebody else.
Nothing has a more divisive and alienating effect upon society than this moral complacency and lack of responsibility, and nothing promotes understanding and rapprochement more than the mutual withdrawal of projections.”
— Carl Jung (born with Saturn in Aquarius) from The Undiscovered Self
Last year when I was looking ahead to the sweep of astrological transits taking us through 2020 into 2021, the feature that gave me the most pause was the fact that we would be transitioning from a conjunction of Saturn and Pluto into a waning square between Saturn and Uranus, with Jupiter moving through conjunctions with Pluto and Saturn into a waning square with Uranus. Altogether this means that Saturn and Jupiter will be bringing the cathartic intensity of their union with Pluto into a volatile mixture with Uranus. Richard Tarnas in Cosmos and Psyche described the Saturn and Pluto cycle as aligning with “conservative empowerment” and “eras of international crisis and conflict, empowerment of reactionary forces and totalitarian impulses, organized violence and oppression.” In contrast, Tarnas described the periods of Saturn and Uranus in hard aspect we are entering now as involving “the exacerbation of tensions between authority and rebellion, order and freedom, structure and change” as well as “repressive revolution,” “erratically unpredictable authority,” “sudden collapse of structures,” and “grim awakenings.”
Saturn entering Aquarius on March 21, 2020 will trigger its waning square with Uranus in Taurus, but it will not become exact in 2020 as Saturn will station retrograde on May 10 at two degrees of Aquarius in order to retreat back into Capricorn. The waning square between Saturn and Uranus will become exact on February 17, 2021 at 7º14′ of Aquarius and Taurus, then again on June 14, 2021 at 13º07′, and for a final time on December 24, 2021 at 11º06′ of Aquarius and Taurus. Our first sense of what will be coming with this volatile transit will be felt from now until Saturn returns to Capricorn on July 1, with greater clarity coming once Saturn and Jupiter form their conjunction in Aquarius on December 21, 2020 that will be in range of a catalyzing square aspect with Uranus.
Since we are entering the waning square between Saturn and Uranus, it is important to consider when the seeds of their current cycle were planted. The current Saturn Uranus cycle began in 1988 at the end of Sagittarius, with Saturn and Uranus forming conjunctions on February 13 at 29º55′, June 26 at 28º47′, and October 18 at 27º49′ Sagittarius. At the beginning of the new cycle between Saturn and Uranus the Cold War came to an end, the Soviet Union was torn apart, and the Berlin Wall came down, with the demolition of the Berlin Wall completed in November 1991 with Saturn in Aquarius. In relation to the new meaning between Saturn and Uranus that was born during this period, the waning square of 2020 and 2021 is a phase of decomposition in which we must question and confront the societal beliefs and structures we have developed over the course of this cycle, reorienting toward what needs to be released and what needs to be built to address whatever the present collective crises expose as no longer working.
Remarkably, the waxing square between Saturn and Uranus in their current cycle occurred during the previous period of Jupiter ending and beginning a cycle with Saturn in 1999 and 2000. Saturn in Taurus formed a square with Uranus in Aquarius on November 14, 1999 at 13º04′ and again on May 13, 2000 at 20º46′ only two weeks before Jupiter formed its great conjunction with Saturn at 22º46′ Taurus on May 28. During the waxing square between the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Taurus with Uranus in Aquarius, Uranus was in the superior position due to being in the tenth place from Saturn and Jupiter. This means that within their tension, the volatility of Uranus was in position to overcome the societal ordering of Jupiter and Saturn. We can see the shattering impact of Uranus upon this cycle between Jupiter and Saturn in the terror and shocking devastation of the September 11, 2001 attack on the twin towers of New York City that led to widespread destruction and chaos in the Middle East region and wars that have still not ended to this day. There was also an overwhelming impact of Uranian technology such as the Internet on global societies that has required constant adjustments over the course of the past twenty year cycle between Jupiter and Saturn.
In contrast, the great conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius on December 21, 2020 will be in a superior square aspect with Uranus in Taurus. As a result, the new order initiated between Jupiter and Saturn will be in position to overcome the unpredictable disruption of Uranus. With regard to institutional changes initiated by global governments in response to the COVID 19 pandemic, it will be imperative to monitor decisions closely so that the established power structures do not use the crisis as a way to claim an even greater share of power and resources from the populace. As described in The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, the popular desire for rapid responses to collective disasters has led in the past to those in power taking advantage of people being in a state of stock by implementing free market policies that go far beyond an appropriate disaster response and disproportionately benefit those in power at the expense of the wider populace.
Hopefully, the configuration of Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius being in a superior square with Uranus can lead to radical, deep seated changes in societal structures that address societal inequities and bring about needed reforms and innovations within governments and community organizations. At the beginning of the Great Depression in the USA, Saturn in Capricorn was in a superior square with Uranus in Aries and it led to the New Deal. Negatively, the “repressive revolution” side of Saturn being in a superior square with Uranus occurred during the Reign of Terror in France when Saturn in Taurus was in a superior square with Uranus in Leo; however, during the Reign of Terror there was also a superior square from Pluto in Aquarius toward Saturn in Taurus and an opposition between Pluto with Uranus. In contrast, when the Civil War erupted in the USA, Uranus in Gemini was in a superior square with Saturn in Virgo.
No matter what happens during the collective volatility suggested by the astrology of 2020 and 2021, an important guiding light in the darkness will be the work of Saturn in Aquarius native Carl Jung. Indeed, Carl Jung was born with Saturn in Aquarius in an opposition with Uranus in Leo as well as Saturn in Aquarius in a superior square with Pluto in Taurus. Richard Tarnas in Cosmos and Psyche brilliantly summarized the connection between Jung’s work on the shadow with the meaning of the Saturn-Pluto cycle that has led into the ingress of Saturn into Aquarius, stating:
“. . . The very notion of the shadow as Jung conceived it represents an intricate synthesis of the two planetary principles: from Saturn, the motifs of judgment, guilt and shame, suppression and repression, splitting and separation, denial, the inferior, that which is regretted and negated; and from Pluto, those aspects of the self that constitute its “underworld,” the instincts, the dark depths of the personality, the animal-like, the often ruthless and ugly, serving impulses for power, domination, lust, and other drives yet also representing that healthy instinctuality from which healing, wholeness, and a higher consciousness can ultimately emerge.”
— Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche
Although the Jupiter and Saturn conjunction in Aquarius in 2020 does not demarcate entrance into the Age of Aquarius written about by Carl Jung, some of his thoughts on the transition between the Ages of Pisces and Aquarius are nonetheless relevant. Jung did not describe an Age of Aquarius utopia similar to the 1960s pop song by The 5th Dimension, but rather described it as a pivotal transition in human civilization fraught with peril and necessitating a confrontation with evil. Liz Greene in Jung’s Studies in Astrology wrote that Jung “viewed the Aquarian Aion as the epoch when individuals would interiorise the God-image,” a development within humanity that Peter Kingsley in Catafalque described Jung as warning could lead to “uncontainable hubris and inflation” that potentially could make the world “end up worse than it already is.”
While Jung viewed the Age of Pisces as involving a splitting between the opposites of good and evil with Jesus as one fish and Satan as the other, he viewed the living image of the human, Aquarian Water Bearer as revealing the union of opposites within humanity. In Aion he wrote that in the Age of Aquarius it will “no longer be possible to write off evil as the mere privation of good; its real existence will have to be recognized.” Jung concluded that “the problem of the union of opposites” cannot be solved by “philosophy, nor by economics, nor by politics, but only by the individual human being, via his experience of the living spirit.”
We need to take to heart that it will be up to each and every one of us as individuals to be accountable in confronting our own shadow and withdrawing projections that scapegoat others. There is evil in the material world, in the realm of spirit, and we can further find the seeds of this same evil within each of us. Collective crises bring out the best and worst in humanity, but we each can claim the responsibility to make time for exploring the shadow cast by conscious awareness so that we do not direct our fears and frustrations at others or develop an overinflated sense of our own needs at the expense of others.
Saturn in Aquarius possesses the intellectual fortitude needed to persevere through times of lack and solitude, while devising ways to support those in need and acting with the best interests of one’s wider community in mind. May the return of Saturn to its airy home of Aquarius bring a supportive wind to lift our spirits and help align our choices and actions with patient wisdom and visionary innovations. As Anaïs Nin (who was born with Saturn conjoining Mercury in Aquarius) once wrote, “Only in the fever of creation could she recreate her own lost life.”
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Emblem 12 from Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens
References
Avelar, Helena and Ribeiro, Luis. (2010). On the Heavenly Spheres: A Treatise on Traditional Astrology. AFA.
Brennan, Chris. (2017). Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune. Amor Fati Publications.
Bruno, Giordano. (2009 edition). Cantus Circaeus: The Incantations of Circe, together with The Judiciary: Being the Arto of Memory. Translated by Darius Klein. Ouroboros Press.
George, Demetra. (2019). Ancient Astrology: In Theory and Practice. Rubedo Press.
Greene, Liz. (2018). Jung’s Studies in Astrology: Prophecy, Magic, and the Qualities of Time (Volume 1).
Jung, Carl. (1981, 5th printing). Aion: Researches into the Phenomenlogy of the Self. Routledge.
Kingsley, Peter. (2018). Catafalque: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity. Catafalque Press.
Lilly, William. (2004 edition). Christian Astrology. Astrology Classics.
Paracelsus. (2014 edition). Magia Emblemata et Prognostici. Ouroboros Press.
Tarnas, Richard. (2007). Cosmos and Psyche. Plume.
Gray Crawford 