With the Saturn Neptune conjunction omnipresent in the celestial sphere and bringing to prominence individuals who have it writ large in their charts it seemed worthwhile looking across the spectrum of ways it can be lived out. It has been given a litany of meanings from social reformer to artist, to neurotic, to a curiously slippery operator. Glancing across recent headliners who carry the stamp in their birth chart, the early 1950s produced Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair, Gisele and Dominique Pelicot, the US Fed Reserve Jerome Powell and possibly Vladimir Putin all with Saturn Neptune in Libra.
And that is quite a range. Gisele Pelicot pushing social reform forward along with women’s rights and her husband did the exact opposite. Ebertin describes Saturn Neptune as having a dual character, a fight between the lower and higher nature, between materialism and idealism. It can lead to slow attainment of success through the methodical execution of plans and painstaking effort. Though it is also associated with illness and diseases hard to diagnose.
Sakoian & Acker point to its artistic and spiritual attributes when well aspected. When afflicted ‘foul play may be involved’, along with depression, anxiety and a morbid imagination.
Recently the Buddhist Walk of Peace started on a Saturn Neptune conjunction as well as Trump’s Board of Peace – a hint of the extreme ends of Saturn Neptune in spiritual compassion and the opposite in materialistic sleight-of-hand.
Mexico is more difficult to identify how its Saturn Neptune conjunction in Sagittarius plays out. Admittedly it is square a 10th house Pluto which possibly pushes it over into negative territory.
Many creative types have Saturn in hard aspect to Neptune – Emily Bronte, Whitney Houston, Mark Tully, as well as Jilly Cooper, EL James, Julio Iglesias – those are just the ones recently in the news.
Jeff Bezos and Nicola Sturgeon are another two with Neptune square and opposition Saturn respectively. Both good operators in their field but not entirely trustworthy.
Obviously house positions and aspects to other planets matter. But it is helpful to consider the range of meanings.
Below old post with general historical roundup
Saturn Neptune conjunctions come round roughly three times a century in 1989 in Capricorn, in 1953 in Libra and in 1917/18 in Leo. The next one nearly comes together in Aries in June 2025 and comes exact briefly in February 2026.
Historically they have been associated with the fight for womens’ and workers’ rights, epidemics, religious events and collapsing empires.
WOMEN: All countries have their own specific arc of history but looking at the UK, the first key change towards the emancipation of women came with the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, with Saturn Neptune together in Taurus, which gave wives for the first time the right of separate ownership. Then on the next conjunction in 1917–18 in Leo, the campaign for women’s suffrage succeeded in getting the vote for women over the age of 30.
Both Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne to exert feminine influence over matters of state on Saturn–Neptune conjunctions — in 1558 in Taurus, and 1953 in Libra. Both of them were enduring monarchs in typical Saturnine fashion, Elizabeth I ruling for 45 years, the present Queen in place after 70 years. Benazir Bhutto became the first woman prime minister of Pakistan on the conjunction in Capricorn in 1988, though it proved a short-lived triumph.
Literature also rose to the challenge and produced memorable novels by or about women – Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer and Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Molière’s The Misanthrope and The Dumb Lady. More recently Pedro Almodovar, the Spanish film-maker, produced his cult movie Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Not that anything happens without a backlash and Saturn Neptune also has associations with the persecution of witches – arising from the masculine Saturnine fear of the mysterious, less rational feminine in Neptune.
The two previous Saturn Neptune in Aries were in 1702/1703 and 1379. Felicitously in line with Saturn Neptune’s proclivity towards the feminine, Queen Anne took over in 1702 as monarch from her brother-in-law William of Orange to reign for five years. The 2018 Olivia Coleman movie ‘The Favourite’ related court intrigues as she sank into depressed middle age after 17 pregnancies with no issue. She was born on 6 February 1665 when Saturn and Neptune were both in Capricorn, so she followed the pattern. When she took over the throne Saturn was in the final degree of Pisces about to join Neptune in Aries.
EPIDEMICS:
When the Spanish flu struck around January 1918 the Saturn Neptune conjunction in Leo was in place. Saturn Neptune is the classic astrological signature for epidemics and illnesses. Spanish flu killed off, on rough estimates, anywhere between 1 and 6 per cent of the global population – perhaps 25 to 50 million people. It was exacerbated and spread by troop movements at the end of World War 1 and killed more in 24 weeks than HIV/AIDS did in 24 years. Curiously it mostly killed young adults it is thought because the older population had built up immunity from a previous flu exposure. It came in three waves – over early 1918, receded through the summer, built up again in the autumn and killed most in the USA over the winter of that year.
But it doesn’t mean it always shows for every epidemic since the early 1950s Saturn Neptune in Libra, while it coincided with one minor flu outbreak, was more notable for the setting up of The Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS) by WHO to monitor the evolution of influenza viruses. (See Health and Medicine below.)
HEALTH AND MEDICINE:
The dual face of Saturn–Neptune in providing practical care for the suffering and in the insidious undermining of the body’s health both find a place in world history. An epidemic of St Vitus Dance (chorea) broke out in Europe in 1021 when Saturn and Neptune were together in Aquarius; the disease causes involuntary jerky movements and leads to brain deterioration, and was so called because victims prayed to St Vitus, the patron saint of dance.
The plague that devastated Europe and Asia during the 1340s was marked by the Saturn–Neptune conjunction in Aquarius of 1344, and the Uranus–Pluto conjunction at the same time. The outbreak of bubonic plague in London in 1665 and the Great Fire of London a year later both took place when Saturn and Neptune were together in Capricorn.
In 1846 in Aquarius, widespread famine in Ireland followed the failure of the potato crop. During the 1917 and 1918 conjunction in Leo, there were massive casualties in the First World War, especially at Passchendaele, and the Spanish ‘flu epidemic of 1918 killed 20 million in Europe, the United States and India. By the conjunction of the late 1980s in Capricorn, the AIDS virus was running amok, causing countless deaths in Africa, Europe and the United States.
Medical advances are also highlighted under Saturn–Neptune, with the physicians’ meeting place in Rome, the Schola Medicorum, being set up in ad 17 in Sagittarius; in 1739 in Cancer, the London Foundling Hospital was established; and by 1881 in Taurus, Louis Pasteur had discovered the anthrax vaccine.
WORKERS’ RIGHTS: Neptune’s compassion for the victim meets Saturn’s ability to organize in a constructive way. If the balance is wrong, however, then Saturn’s authoritarian need to exert order and maintain the status quo can completely crush the Neptunian dream.
The English Peasants’ Revolt during the Saturn–Neptune conjunction in Aries in 1381, demanding an end to serfdom was suppressed and its leader, Wat Tyler, beheaded. Two conjunctions later, in Virgo, Irish rebel Jack Cade leading the Kent and Essex peasants’ revolt, was also killed. Another two conjunctions further on, in Pisces in 1524, there were extensive peasants’ revolts in Germany.
By 1845 with Saturn–Neptune in tolerant Aquarius, Engels was writing The Condition of the Working Class in England. Still under the same influence, the Irish potato-crop failure of the following year drew attention to the plight of the starving and the suffering. By the next conjunction in Taurus in 1881, British prime minister William Gladstone had passed the Irish Land Act to prevent excessively high rents, although the outrages of 1882, when 10,500 Irish farming families were evicted, gave every indication that Saturnine rigidity and greed still held sway. In the United States, the American Federation of Labor was founded in Pittsburgh in 1881.
One conjunction on, in 1917 in Leo, striking Russian workers rose up, and were joined by soldiers to overthrow the last feudal tsardom.
During the last Saturn–Neptune conjunction of the 20th century, in Capricorn in 1989, Solidarity, the Polish workers’ party, came to power in democratic elections. The fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe freed workers to control their own lives and government. There was also mass rehabilitation of Russian citizens who were victims of Stalin’s brutal purges, Stalin himself having succumbed on the Saturn–Neptune conjunction of 1953. Also in 1989, the Tiananmen Square demonstration in China, staged by students and workers, was brutally suppressed, resulting in 2000 deaths. In Britain just a year later there were the violent Poll Tax Riots, the first serious mass revolt against the government in decades.’
Although Saturn Neptune doesn’t sound rebellious it tends to bring the state and the status quo (Saturn) into conflict with spiritual movements or the underdogs (Neptune). The flower power, hippie movement was very much a Saturn Neptune in Libra phenomenon in the 1950s.
Is there any guidance on how this Saturn Neptune conjunction will impact those born with the same conjunction earlier, specifically the one s in 1952 and in 1989-90?
Epstein also has the conjunction in Libra, with everything being exposed under the current conjunction.
Could the Mexico conjunction be the drug cartels? Hierarchical and hidden structure to supply drugs.
Saturn Neptune conjunctions and epidemics. Scientists monitoring bird flu have grave concerns, that adapting strains may be evolving to set up a direct infective agent crossing from birds to humans. There may have been a couple of cases in the U.S. last year.
Last line “flower power” chuckled me up. 🙂 i guess, on similar lines, this one should bring ‘man power ‘ since feminism coupled with wokeism has become obstacle everywhere.
Though it’s perturbing of women now used in place of violence by radicals. A new wave of using women as means to attack enemy is uprising specially girls which I guess represent aries, child of zodiac
This term “woke” is often bandied about, and must have a clear definition now as it has an “ism” attached to it. I’m still none the wiser about what it actually means, though. Could you describe it to me?
It is odd that a female would be brainwashed against feminism and defend the patriarchy, but here we are.
In my naivety, I didn’t realise “Man Power” had gone away.
“Woke” originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) as a term meaning alertness to racial prejudice and social injustice. While historically used to encourage awareness, it has evolved into a highly politicized term, often used as a pejorative by critics to describe progressive, liberal, or social justice ideologies.
“Woke” – Neo-Marxist mode of thought that defines justice through victimhood.
‘Neo-Marxist mode of thought that defines justice through victimhood.’ Why does this definition seem offensive to me I wonder?
Neither Google AI or Wikipedia refers to this definition. As if to minimise why the term truly came about originally. Hmm….
I’m not sure what you (or indeed anyone) mean by wokeism, Rachana. Feminism is nothing new, and one of the most famous feminist works, A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft, dates from a revolutionary period in 1792. That era had Saturn in Aries opposing Neptune in Libra. Pluto was in Aquarius, as we have now, opposing Uranus in Leo. A fiery and airy theme that resonates with the astrological picture that is just beginning.
“It is time to effect a revolution in female manners – time to restore to them their lost dignity – and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.”
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, first published January, 1792
I’m afraid I nod off whenever the word is used, Jane.
Ha! Agree. Perhaps I should recite it when I have trouble sleeping….
And perhaps worth noticing a Saturn in Aquarius trine Neptune in Gemini moment, back in 1404. The following year Christine de Pizan’s feminist book, The Book of the City of Ladies, was published. January that year had Jupiter in Aquarius conjunct Saturn in Aquarius, trine Neptune in Gemini. Pluto was in Gemini, Nodes in Leo. Uranus was in Saturn’s home, Capricorn.
“The man or the woman in whom resides greater virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the lowliness of a person lies in the body according to the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues.”
― Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
Rachana, you might want to stick your head in the sand for the next 20 years as Pluto in Aquarius tears down power imbalances and tries to equalise the playing field while fighting for the rights of every man, woman and child, to be heard and seen.
Because that’s the definition of feminism; for everybody to be treated equally.
Who knew that, along with wokeism which opposes injustice, was toxic?
It always saddens me when women get their pom poms out for the patriachy. But then, I’m a Pluto in Libra gal where feminism and wokeism sit with me just fine.
I don’t understand what you are trying to say, other than somehow blaming the victim; that feminism is ‘coupled’ with ‘wokeism’ to become an ‘obstacle’? If feminism supports the rights of women, and ‘wokeism’ attempts to avoid prejudice, then the latter simply includes the former – there is no ‘coupling’ involved. Would they otherwise be less of an ‘obstacle’?
The only obstacles are those who don’t like being called out for their prejudices.
Worse is blaming women who are ‘used by the enemy’, even though such women are typically being manipulated by men (the only women I can think of who do this are Islamic militants, unless you are thinking of the 60s?). Or do ‘radicals’ refer to other women, because they are woke feminists who’d eagerly throw their fellow women to the front line in the name of equality? Haven’t heard of any.
The 36 year cycle of Saturn/Neptune conjunctions does contain a set of patterns through the 3 modes a bit like the Jupiter/Saturn Great Conjunction cycle travels through the traditional 4 elements of Air, Fire, Earth and Water.
The 1846, 1882 and 1917 Saturn/Neptune conjunctions were in the Fixed Signs of Aquarius, Taurus and Leo. The current conjunction in Aries is the last of three conjunctions in Cardinal signs beginning in Libra in 1952/53 and including Capricorn in 1989. The next conjoining of Neptune and Saturn in 2061 in Pisces will be the first of two in Mutable signs. This has repeated down the ages with conjunctions going from Cardinal to Mutable and then to Fixed. It would be interesting to see how these shifts have impacted historically. The last Conjunction in each mode seems to start a period of 36 years where there is a notable change particularly in the UK such as the end of the Hundred Years War and the beginning of the Wars of the Roses, the English Reformation, the English Civil Wars, the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the end of the First World War and the Second World War.
The June 2061 meeting of Saturn and Neptune occurs actually at 20 Gemini, and is squaring Pluto in Pisces. Mutable Max!
Apologies. My mistake. You are correct the 2061 Neptune/Saturn conjunction is in Gemini not Pisces. The historical cycle shift from Cardinal to Mutable to Fixed is still marked. The square to Pluto in Pisces is going to be notable. The last Pluto Neptune Square in Gemini was in 1568/1571 which also saw a square to Pluto in Pisces and coincided with the Counter Reformation, the break down of the Peace of Augsburg beginning with the St Bartholomew Days Massacre of 1572 and the beginning of 76 years of religious conflict that ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
Some fascinating background to that last meeting in Gemini squaring Pluto in Pisces, particularly to me as I have distant Hugenot ancestry on my mother’s side.
The two Neptune/Saturn conjunctions after the 1569-71 Neptune/Pluto square were in Leo in 1594 and Scorpio in 1629-30. Neptune and Saturn conjoining in fixed signs would possibly indicate a refusal to back down or give ground from a set of fixed beliefs. The Scorpio conjunction was followed by the Sack of Magdeburg in 1631 by Catholic armies during the Thirty Years War where it is thought 20,000 of the 25,000 inhabitants were killed in 4 days. It was one of the worst atrocities in an already vicious conflict.
Neptune/Pluto Squares in Mutable signs followed by Neptune/Saturn Conjunctions in fixed signs don’t seem to end well. The Neptune in Sagittarius square Pluto in Pisces in 1323-1325 was followed by another Neptune/Saturn conjunction in Aquarius in 1344 at the time of the outbreak of the Hundred Years War and just before the Black Death in 1347-48.
Thankfully the 2061 Neptune/Saturn conjunction is in a Mutable Sign.