When bad things happen – significant life-changing events – there are usually several different astrological influences in place all pointing in the same direction. So they build up a critical mass (so to speak) which forces/accompanies a radical shift.
At the moment, we are on the wearisome last lap of several years of the disruptive, collapsing-old-structures, Uranus Pluto. There’s also tr Uranus conjunct Eris in 2016/early 2017, bringing discord, vengefulness and melancholy; plus destructive Algol this month opposing Mars on one leg of an explosive Yod to Uranus (and Jupiter).
Just to add volatility to the mix this year, there is the Saturn Neptune square. At its most negative, Neptune dissolves Saturn’s yearning for security and stability. So common sense flies out of the window and conspiracy theories and paranoia take hold. What used to feel like solid ground, turns into a swamp, so there are no secure footholds. Boundaries and limits, which are Saturn’s building blocks and necessary to maintain functioning daily life, get blurred, eroded and in some cases disappear altogether. The crucial separation between sanity and madness, the unconscious and conscious mind begins to feel less clear cut.
From an observer point of view, it induces panic. And it also, more crucially, tips over the edge those whose mental balance was already fragile. Without the other influences, their psychological implosion could just turn out to be a personal tragedy, not one affecting the wider world. But their anger and sense of victimhood (which paranoia always brings), has been offered an outlet by previous atrocities. There’s a well-known psychological phenomenon of infectious mimicking of behaviours – mass hallucinations etc. In this case suicidal loners with an aggressive grievance against the world they blame for their woes (sometimes justifiably), act out their rage. Often what they hate most of all are the happy, seemingly have-it-all people – it makes their misery all the more unbearable.
Interestingly the 1999 Columbine school shootings also happened on a Neptune Saturn square – Sun Saturn in Taurus opposition Mars in Scorpio square Neptune.
So there’ll be no one astro-signature for what’s going on – more like a chemical mix of several volatile influences brewing up a toxic result.
What catches the headlines are the negative outcomes of these powerful influences. Like all energies they have a positive terminal as well.
Uranus Pluto is disruptive, revolutionary and rocks the status quo violently, but the impetus is towards putting better structures in place – if the transition can be managed from the old being uprooted to the new being planted. The phoenix can only arise from ashes.
Neptune Saturn, at best, is the hope for a better, fairer society with women and workers’ rights coming to the fore. It is also highly creative and artistic if Saturn’s work ethic and sense of structure is put behind Neptune’s vision. Inspiration needn’t stay as a dream. It can be made real.
Eris is clever, good at motivating the lazy and the hopeless into forward gear. If others have what you lack and want, then go get it for yourself.
Even Algol, the Demon star, has a purpose beyond nihilistic destruction. It forces us to face suffering and horror and not brush it aside, so it jolts us out of our comfort zone (first world problem). Algol was associated with Medusa’s decapitated head which turned anyone who looked at it to stone. But when she was beheaded, Pegasus, the spirit of creativity, was set free.
So however way-out it may sound, some things are struggling to be born. Instead of fragmenting in Uranus Pluto’s anarchic chaos or drowning in Saturn Neptune’s watery depths, it will be possible to use the influences as a springboard into a different future. Don’t ask me how. Hang on to Saturn’s down-to-earthness; Pluto’s influence and power; Neptune’s kindness and idealism; Uranus’s trail-blazing spirit.
Thanks for your inspiring words, Marjorie.