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Even the best astrologers and psychics couldn't have predicted the amount of chaos and confusion that 2020 revealed. And the astrology of 2021 doesn't magically just get better or easier--as we have already seen.
Collectively, this past year put us face-to-face with our responses to mass uncertainty and inequity. It clearly highlighted the elitism (Saturn) at work and inherent in our power structures including capitalism (Saturn and Pluto).
Last March tens of millions of people lost their jobs with the rates highest among racial and ethnic minorities particularly Black and Latinx workers who were also more likely to die from COVID-19. Meanwhile billionaires saw their wealth increase 40%.
During this time, I often struggled with the contentment of my own life and the feelings of discontent about the world around me. A push and pull between outward and inward, of personal safety and yet my nervous system rattled by the suffering of so many. I felt the overwhelm of uneasiness and yet the underwhelming day-to-day life of bird watching and solitude. So much individual healing happened in my one-bedroom apartment COVID-cocoon and yet my rage seethed at the frustration of what was happening beyond by apartment complex with constantly blooming flowers and kind neighbors--many of whom were unable to pay rent.
For many, astrology can offer a reprieve and relief or semblance of a type of certainty or knowing things will change eventually--not for me. As an archetypal astrologer, I see astrology more as a pattern recognition tool that we can look for themes without attempting to fully predict how things may go. It reveals itself in the levels of society and our individual lives. Relief doesn't happen to me until we have explored the impact of the transits first. Until we have wrestled with collective unconscious archetypal dimensions being mirrored back in the sky. As with personal transits, the beginning phase may highlight more of the tensions rather than the integration. I suppose I'm ready for the shifts and preparing myself for the worst, first.
The Pluto-Saturn and Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions certainly took the cake for the most visible astrological aspects of 2020. With Pluto's desire to unearth and shift power, along with Saturn's need to keep things the same and offer us solitude and slowness. 2020 wasn't a curse, it was a reckoning an reminder of how the current structures fail so many.
At the end of 2020 the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction captured the sights of many in the sky though we may or may not have noticed that greed and righteousness Jupiter can help us see in our hearts.
And 2021 has a new player planet--Uranus. The planet of change, insight, creativity, and restlessness. An archetype that concerns itself more with the collective and masses rather than the elitism of Saturn.
On February 17, 2021 Saturn and Uranus have their first of three exact squares in 2021--an alignment signaling a tension between new and old ways of being and thinking. Though this dynamic will be in relationship or orb until 2023, the current exact angle can give us a sense of the struggles we may navigate throughout this time period. While this impactful, perhaps challenging aspect occurs every 22 years, this phase certainly has its own unique difficulties. On a collective level Saturn and Uranus in many ways are opposites, their values in tension with one another. One prefers novelty while the other prefers safety.
Depending on your personal lens and natal chart you may root more for Uranus or Saturn during this time, or like me find yourself torn between the two. The North Node in Gemini's goal may be to help us see where we experience things in opposition and instead hold the multi-dimensionality of both realities. While they may at first seem competing realities of tradition and innovation, we may instead find the our intentions (Saturn) can creatively align (Uranus).
Below are exact dates over the next year and more that will be phases of these themes become more and more present, I also added my own hopes for the future in the Uranian spirit:
17 February 2021 (initiatory)
15 June 2021 (co-existing in tension)
24 December 2021 (new structures emerge)
1–12 October 2022 (perhaps an integration of both)
As astrology comes alive in both personal and collective levels, we can almost always see it in both places mirrored in our inner psyches as well as the world around us. I go into some suggestions for both below.
Collective Astrology
A theme already seems to emerge of a push and pull of the constriction of the past meeting the potential of the future. The question of 2021 will hopefully be how to create new structures that support more people. Some themes to expect in 2021...disruption of status quo, resistance to change, tension between new and old. While Uranus asks us to evolve, sometimes more quickly than we are prepared, Saturn invites us to slow down and be intentional. It may be more pragmatic. Uranus shifts and awakens consciousness and with Saturn may awaken us to the importance of bringing the old with us. The discernment becomes which Saturn structures support and which ones are oppressive and constrictive (um hello capitalism). How can we be creative in the restructuring and take as many people into account as possible?
Personal Astrology
Energetically Saturn is heavy and Uranus is quick, may feel it in our bodies where our nervous system is both overwhelmed and underwhelmed. As Saturn being the medicine for Uranus and Uranus the anecdote to Saturn...Like a balance beam between commitment and freedom, Saturn and Uranus keep us grounded in reality while still seeking newness and daring to dream of a different future. For those with this planetary combination in their natal chart, this year and timing may bring up their own personal tension between the need for stability and the need for change. In every chart they are competing values and needs, and with Saturn and Uranus it can be more obvious where these two meet. If you don't have Saturn and Uranus in aspect, look specifically for the location in your chart for where around 7-13 degrees Taurus and Aquarius are, and also at the angles to them such as Scorpio and Leo, this may reveal what parts of you may get activated with this transit over the next year.