Greetings one and all to another rousing week of summer 2010. It’s a fine week for the intrepid heavy weights, with Jupiter retrograde exactly opposite Saturn the day this is posted, and the last (in this cycle) square between the ever-loving Saturn and Pluto on the 21st.
Other sky signals happening now include Mercury stationing retrograde, Venus conjunct Mars, and Neptune opposing the Sun — all on the 20th. Uranus has also just moved back into Pisces, and the Sun enters Virgo on the 22nd.
I’m just going to offer a few thoughts about Jupiter and Saturn, then link to several astute bloggers on some of the week’s other topics.
My friend sent me a link yesterday to a New Dimensions radio interview, Preparing for Global Change, with a gentleman named Marshall Vian Summers. I thought his ideas were curiously in sync with the current Jupiter-Saturn opposition.
He spoke of the importance of really looking at your situation and noticing what is bothering you. He called this “appropriate discomfort,” which I thought a good image for the opposition. Summers spoke of stability and strength to weather change and the resiliency to absorb crisis. He also has an interesting idea on the “four pillars” that will bring balance into your life; though not exactly parallel, they do resonate with the four angles in the horoscope. (If you’re interested, you can listen to the interview for free until August 18.)
As astrologers we know that the opposition (180º) symbolizes the ability to contain paradox; it offers the gift of maximum objectivity. In this particular planetary pair, we could say it is the maximum tension between feeling remorseful and incomplete and feeling open and generous; between accepting reality as it is apparent right now and recognizing what is blossoming from this very moment.
In the Greek telling of the tale, Zeus (Jupiter) deposed Kronos (Saturn) as ruler and liberated his father’s imprisoned brothers, Poseidon (Neptune) and Hades (Pluto). Zeus escaped the fate of being swallowed and was rewarded with thunder and lightning. Zeus was gifted with the magnificence of thunder and lightning and became the God of the Sky; this story hints at the possibilities in our own Jupiter experience.
This opposition is the culmination of the conjunction of the two planets in May 2000 at 23º Taurus. (If you’re feeling brave, look back to that time and see if you remember how much money you had then.)
Today’s aspect is at 2º27′ Aries/Libra. This is the middle of three opposition aspects in this cycle. It was previously exact on May 22, 2010 at 28º Pisces/Virgo and will be complete on March 28, 2011 at 14º Libra (at the U.S. Sibly 10th-house Saturn return, but that’s another subject).
People born in 1930-1931, 1951-1952, 1969-70 and 1989-1991 have the Jupiter-Saturn opposition in the natal chart. I am living in close quarters now with someone born with the aspect. I have been marveling these past few weeks at how much steadiness this person displays. There is the familiar tendency for emotional pulls — way up and way down, elation and despair, shall we say — but as the opposition has come upon us, I can feel a tremendous resiliency and firm resolve.
He actually said to me last night, “I am learning if I just wait, good news will come.” Saturn, of course, implies waiting, and we can think of Jupiter bringing an expansion or release — a version of thunder and lightning when tension between the two forces is held.
My dear friend, Graca Medeiros, a very gifted Brazilian astrologer, spoke once about the absolute bull’s-eye-on-the-target of the energy lining up precisely at an opposition. I’ll never forget her saying, in her always passionate and melodic voice: “I love the opposition.”
Just in case some of you haven’t discovered Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology, he will always keep you open to the thunder and lightning on the horizon.
Rob Tillett has a thorough article on the upcoming Mercury Retrograde. He includes the Fixed Stars that are involved at the station and the Venus-Mars conjunction on the same day.
Astrologer Elizabeth Jones has an uplifting look at Uranus Re-enters Pisces ~ with Gifts in Hand? at her site.
Michael Lutin’s Daily Fix includes, “What an odd week this is going to be,” “The Mel Gibson effect” and a short video straight from Saturn-Pluto.
Boots Hart looks at current aspects in Celestial Edge Play; she calls Jupiter opposition Saturn “a new high in lows and a new low in highs.”
TMA frequent contributor Jessica Murray always has insightful commentary. Her new article, The Law of the Cure, is on WikiLeaks and the War in Afghanistan.
Jupiter-Saturn cycles are tied, of course, to large economic cycles. Three sites to inform you about current money matters are:
Richard Nolle’s AstroPro, Ray Merriman’s Merriman’s Market Analyst, and Arch Crawford’s Crawford Perspectives.
Have a good week, everyone. See you on the other side of Jupiter opposite Saturn and Saturn square Pluto. May all of our resources, visible and invisible, support us in becoming impeccable, flexible, steady, and trusting in all ways.
6 Comments
Thank you Mary- You write so clearly and well. I love all the explanation of the opposition. I do not understand them well and you have offered some helpful hints.
I spent the entire day editing all 100 pages of my deposition. “Now says”, “Should say” and “reason for change”. My Sun, as you know is 2 Cap, so I am having to go back in my past (25 years of it) and own up to what I said and did. One element of my personality that clearly stands out is my overactive Neptune, (my vagueness and equivocations). Saturn, Pluto and Jupiter on my Sun are demanding I be honest and clear. I am facing the music of my somewhat embarassing past and clearing it.
My Sun is in the 9th of law and the courts and the Sun rules the 4th, my home. My ex is suing me over my house. But on a deeper level the 4th is how I feel about myself. With Pluto in the 4th his purging effect is clearly evident. I am understanding this 5 year process as getting me closer to my essence, hopefully releasing another level of Neptune’s codependent behavior.
Mary, thanks for the comments on Saturn opposite Jupiter…in Libra and Aries (my 2nd and 8th houses). Last night, I experienced a rather curious and low-key-for-me juxtaposition of past and present attitudes about women. I attended a Mass conducted by a woman Roman Catholic priest in a private home. The group in which she is ordained claims to be the only one with apostolic lineage since their women bishops were ordained (secretly) by men bishops in good standing in the Church.
Thirty years ago I felt I had a calling to be a woman priest but when the young new pope was installed I knew it could not happen in my lifetime and so I left to join an eastern meditation group. Over time, I came to feel that the issues for me were not so much about women or institutions as they were about my direct relationship with Source.
Last night, as I participated outwardly in the group, I felt a deep inward clarity and stillness. The ritual was nice, but it was outside. No one could penetrate to the inner world.
I also have Moon Uranus in Aries, Venus in Libra….the Mars Venus Saturn Moon conjunction this past week caused the release of much sadness.
Mary, thanks for the blog; you keep me thinking.
This is a perfect continuation of the cardinal cross infused by Chiron-Neptune. In my view, the two most basic forces in duality are expansion and contraction…Jupiter and Saturn. Our “reality” depends on those forces being in balance. So, here they are while Neptune opposes the Sun, infusing our individuality with our essential unity, while our doing and being are together (Venus Mars conjunction), and as we approach the full moon. And, all the while we have Saturn squaring Pluto in Saturn’s sign. Contrary to the idea of mass crises creating wide scale chaos, we’re experiencing personal and global crises with a very interesting and unusual integration between contraction and expansion. And, my guess is that’s because the normally splitting effect of an opposition is dispersed by Neptune’s influence…and Uranus falling back into Pisces. We’re holding our center amid the storm.
Dearest Kate Plumb,
Thank you for your imput…what an honest description of the transits in your life..
Don’t be too hard on yourself..Neptune brings an inherent kindness as well as suggesting ‘codependent behavior.’
Much Love to you..
Thank you Mary. Your column is lovely, flowing and elegantly done. I felt calm and centered as I read it. Wonderful reminders here of how things work. And they DO work. Very well. Love, Claudia
Thanks Mary,
Just to put the icing on the cake in this cosmic journey I am getting clients this week born 1988 and 1993 whose birth charts coincide with those times in my life that I’m having to recall so vividly. Life is so much fun when you get to live it on so many different levels!!!
xox
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