September 2009
The Secret of the Opposition
Their first exact opposition coincided with one of those heightened historical moments like the day JFK was shot or the day the twin towers exploded; a date our future selves will remember as a “Where-were-you-when…” event. It was November 4th 2008, the day Obama was elected. Where were you that night the world whooped with relief and danced in the streets?
For better or worse, it’s not so simple this time.
Thanks to the Super Conjunction that has dominated the sky in the months since the election, the issues are anything but clear-cut this time round. The purpose of the Neptune grouping has been to dissolve our outmoded sureties, and it has done its job well. Humanity is fogged in.
In this, the third iteration of the Saturn-Uranus opposition, there is no singular person personifying either pole. The planets in question are the same, the angle is the same, and the degree range is the same; but this time the Great Casting Director is not offering us two definitive archetypes in human form to make it easy for us. Something else is being taught here.
What we are being offered is a whole slew of polarized voices touting too many agendas to count, some of them so dubiously tethered to logic that their statements seem almost arbitrary. Conflicts are flaring all over the world and the manic American culture wars ramp up with each new hot-button issue .
The cosmic lesson here is not about choosing sides. It’s about the nature of opposition itself.
Extremism is built into the geometry of oppositions. But how this extremism gets acted out is a matter of the awareness – or lack thereof – of the parties involved.
When planets oppose, our typical reaction is to draw battle lines. We view the world as being composed of two camps staring down the barrel of each other’s viewpoint, each bristling with amped-up conviction. Each position is exaggerated by the stress created between the two. This is dualism stripped raw, which in its crudest state is not a pretty sight.
Unfortunately the crudest state is often what we end up with when the dynamic is acted out en masse.
Textbook case: the giddy exaggeration by the media and the political classes of the differences between the two ruling parties in the USA. In order to express their opposition to the Democrats, Republicans have seized upon the tactic of wildly inflating both their own Americanism (staging revolts dressed as teabags; weeping with patriotic fervor at town hall meetings) and their opponents’ un-Americanism, which they’ve taken to the furthest reaches. Unsatisfied with confining their accusations to mere ideology (“Obama’s a socialist), the polarizers are carrying the trope all the way home: impugning the man’s literal national identity (“He’s not a citizen”).
But in the presence of consciousness, an opposition can bestow a kind of breakthrough that no other aspect can bestow. Those who study their own natal charts know that this aspect can either set up an exhausting tug-of-war or inspire an epiphany. We tend to experience the former a lot, and only occasionally stumble upon a blissful glimpse of the latter. But we don’t need all that many glimpses to get the point. And once we get it, the nature of our reality changes completely. We start to see the whole phenomenon of opposition differently.
It is a law of astrology, no less than common knowledge, that opposites both attract and repel. Reiterated in every conceivable arena, from biochemistry to sex, this idea has been expressed in countless metaphorical forms. An example is the plot line we see so often in myths and literature whereby two archrivals put their animosities aside, and end up committing to a common goal.
Everyone who has ever heard such a tale intuitively understands that this is the wise way to handle opposition. From Jane Austen novels to children’s cartoons, a happy ending is guaranteed when two antagonists realize that underneath their apparent differences they’re actually very much alike. It’s a cliché, and it’s also true.
These parables echo the astrological principle of dualism, whereby the unified One splits into Two; for the sake of realizing it’s really One. (Question: So why does it bother to pretend to be Two in the first place? Answer: For the sake of coming back to the realization of its unity, thereby gaining awareness at a higher level.)
Western societies, whose group souls are relatively young, have a harder time with this teaching than do the older-souled traditions of the Eastern world. When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the sign of a superior mind was “the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time,” it was heralded as a brilliant new insight. But the spiritual lineages of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism et al have, since time immemorial, held this notion as axiomatic. Ancient wisdom understood paradox as a core principle of the universe. Perhaps the best-known visualization of this concept is the yin-yang symbol, representative of the inter-penetrating balance of opposites in the universe – a concept as hard-wired into the human mind as it is into the rest of Nature.
Herein lies the secret of the astrological opposition. Whether we are feeling its tension by transit or working it out as a natal theme, the 180-degree angle is asking us to view the two sides we’re looking at not as two separate conflicting energies but as halves of the same whole.
Each time such a struggle rears its head, we make a choice. Will we see it as a contraction or a paradox?
Being mired in a contradiction is exhausting. Whereas when we hold the two poles as a paradox, we experience a revelation. At that moment we become the comic strip character with a light bulb over his head.
Consider how this theme manifests for people who have a Uranus-Saturn opposition in their own natal chart. Over the course of their lifetimes, they will get one chance after another to realize that their inner adolescent (Uranus) and their inner adult (Saturn) are both an aspect of their larger self. What usually happens is that the person whose chart it is [in astrologese, the native] identifies with one of these poles and projects the other.2 The projected part of the self gets cast as the bad guy. He, she or it becomes the opponent.
If the native is being honest with herself, she knows that the tug-of-war she feels is fundamentally internal. But to the extent that she perceives the opponent to be fully external — embodied by someone or something else – she stakes her ground, digs in her hooves and wages war.
The Saturn-opposed-to-Uranus native who engages in the dance of projection may encounter a series of characters who embody individuality and freedom (qualities of positive Uranus), or unreliability and craziness (not-so-positive Uranus). Meanwhile she herself will be identifying with the Saturn qualities, of responsible realism (positive Saturn) or repressive negativity (not-so-positive Saturn). In this state she will go rounds with the other person, who’s mirroring her Uranus back to her. She will hunker down deeper and deeper into her Saturn, as she bumps up against the Uranus energy in the other guy.
Or, she may line it up the other way. She may project her Saturn. In this case she would find herself up against a straight-laced constricted type (or, positively, a realistic authority figure), while feeling herself to be the rebellious teenager. If she takes that route, it is her own inner defiance that will wax extreme; usually until it becomes dangerous or absurd enough to get her into trouble.
Either way, the two forces will collide in an equally-weighted contest.
An astrologer (or a Jungian psychologist) would see right away that both forces reside within the person with the natal opposition. Both the Saturnine energies at play and those of Uranus are the native’s own. How could they not be flip sides to the same coin? They’re both part of the same chart. The astrologer’s counsel would be to embrace both the wild-and-crazy part of the self, and the sober, adult part of self; and get them to work together.
Needless to say, it’s much easier to see this dynamic clearly when we watch it in our clients and friends than when the battle is our own. But the whole point of being born with an opposition angle – and most charts have them – is to crack this code. It is just one more of the cosmos’ little tricks to get us to know the essential self, despite its myriad mazes and disguises.
Through projection, such dramas involve us with a person or agency in the outside world who acts out a part of ourselves that — for whatever reason — we can’t see alone.
But it’s no less tricky for a group to learn how to honor Saturn when it’s stuck in the self-image of Uranus. Saturn governs the worthy precedents that a society would do well to keep (the cohesion provided by family traditions; the contributions of elders, the value of working hard; the safeguarding of things that still work), but which modernity pressures us to disdain. For example, books have been around for a long time, and still seem to do their job quite well; but a digital reading machine is bound to threaten their existence sooner or later, simply because of the conceptual lure of being new.
And consider the innovators of the electric car, who have been tutored in the tricks of the trade from old-schoolers in Detroit. In order to create a successful business model (Saturn) to support the emerging technology (Uranus), eco-pioneers have sought out those with decades’ worth of experience in the car business.
It’s so simple, really. But until more and more people realize its meaning, the opposition will be played out in the tedious old way: by setting up oppositional agencies (political parties, religious viewpoints, school cliques) to slug it out; all for the sake of getting the collective mind to work through the illusion set up by that 180-degree angle.
In a classic case of oppositions manifesting as unnecessary struggle, the lunar Eclipse of early August brought out polarization of the least inspired kind in the process of confirming Sonya Sotomayer to the US Supreme Court. In theory, the white male legislators who felt her wise-Latinahood constituted a threat could have embraced her fresh perspective. In turn, their own more institutionalized viewpoint could have been acknowledged as part of the conversation. It wasn’t the transit’s fault that it was set up as a Her-vs.-Them game. How these things play out is always up to the degree of awareness of the participants.
Each time this transit peaks, the world gets shown something different about the archetypal polarization between the New (Uranus) and the Old (Saturn). Far from characterizing either planet as bad or good, the cosmos is inviting us to play a game of two-kids-on-a-seesaw, trying to find that magic point of equilibrium where complete balance is reached.
As always, this next iteration of the transit takes place in a sky where the other planets have changed positions since the last time it peaked. Last November was many transits ago. For a start, the Super Conjunction had not yet done its work on us. We are not the same world that we were before Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune met up in the sky.
Immediately following the mortgage crisis last fall there was a rare unanimity of popular opinion about reining in the titans of the finance industry. This was an example of an explosive shock (Uranus) inspiring realistic, common-sense solutions (Saturn). Such as holding the big guys accountable for their crimes, and re-instituting the good old-fashioned values of caution and regulation.
More Rounds Ahead
This see-saw will go through many more ups and downs before the game is through.
Neptune’s contribution to this year’s transit picture involves disillusionment in the strictest sense of the word. That is, the planet teaches by taking away illusion. It exposes the fantasies we’ve been laboring under. Only the bewitched can break the spell; through free will. But human nature being what it is, the deeper the disillusionment, the more loath we are to shake it off and wake up.
As I have written elsewhere, the Super Conjunction is hitting the USA’s Moon spot-on. For a year now, Americans have been getting slammed in the face with evidence that their government is being held hostage by their financial industry. The realization may not fully register until the dollar follows the failing Euro and loses its sacrosanct status as a world currency. For a people (Sibley Moon) as financially obsessed (Pluto in the 2nd house) as Americans are, this will be a profound humbling (Neptune).5
During the Uranus-Saturn exactitude of mid-September, Saturn is at the same degree of Virgo as Neptune is of Aquarius (an inconjunct). This suggests we will be called upon to actively implement the understandings new to this year. This month will be like a mid-term exam.
Venus (money) is opposing Neptune (mutation) on the day of the third exactitude. Money is mutating, by natural law. In its old form it has nowhere to go.
This calls to mind something Barbara Hand Clow wrote early in 2009 about humanity moving away from money as a mode of exchange. ”In our world today,” she says, “people have substituted money for their own power and energy, and now everything is bankrupt.” What would happen if we held this power in a non-consumerist way?
Consider the return of bartering. Consider the Freecycle network, said to be already five million strong. Embodying true Saturnine conservatism with Uranian ingenuity, freecyclers are keeping 500 tons of material a day from the dead-end of landfills.
Saturn at its highest means holding onto that which has proved its effectiveness over time. Uranus at its highest manifests as human ingenuity born of urgent conditions. How do we put these two together?
This is what we are finding out. This is why the Goddess gave us two years to learn the ins-and-outs of this opposition: part of it to be taught while the Cardinal Cross is starting to assemble; and part of it to be taught when the Cardinal Cross is in full flower.
Our first step, as a society, towards mastery of Saturn-Uranus is to acknowledge the dysfunctions being revealed.
It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing what you’ve always done and expecting it to be different this time. By this measure, insanity is asking Tim Geithner, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers to fix Wall Street. You don’t repair a wrecked system by allowing those who wrecked it to fashion policy. You don’t fix health care by leaving intact the insurance industry’s choke-hold on the American public.
Putting Uranus and Saturn together in a creative way boils down to the same thing on the personal level as on the collective level. We use our common sense to determine whether something is broken or not. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it (Saturn). If it is broken — especially if it is radically broken — use radical tools to fix it (Uranus).
And do so with speed and courage.
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Notes:
1 That is, during this cycle. The opposition recurs every 35-40 years.
2 In this context the term projection does not imply — as it does in psychology — that the native is seeing qualities that don’t really exist in the other person (she may be doing so, but not necessarily). By the Law of Correspondences, we do indeed attract into our environment individuals who personify any planet in our chart that we’re not fully conscious of. And the more we deny the part of ourselves represented by that planet, the more likely we are to project it.
3 Karmically as well as historically young. See Soul-Sick Nation, Chapter Six.
4 In the words of Paul Merski, chief economist for the Independent Community Bankers of America: “There’s not a lot of profit motive in a $35, 000 loan stretched over six years.”
5 In The Atlantic (May 2009), Simon Johnson, citing a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, compares the USA’s quandary to what happens in emerging markets. If IMF professionals were free to speak candidly, he says, they would tell Americans what they tell Third World countries: that all attempts at recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking real reform.