The Saturn Uranus square has been creating tensions and discomfort through 2021 and will continue through 2022. There was an exact aspect three days ago; it stays in orb through January/February and again July onwards until it makes one final exact aspect in October 2022 and by the New Year into 2023 is moving on.
Ebertin describes Saturn Uranus as irritability and inhibition, tensions, kicking against limitations on freedom and separations. But also the power to endure and cope; growth of strength through overcoming difficulties and dangerous situations.
The conjunctions of Saturn Uranus can bring golden ages, the foundation of empires and enlightened thinking, though extremist aspirations also creep in. The hard aspects tend to coincide with economic crises and often conflicts between opposites. Saturn, upholder of the prevailing tradition meets/clashes with Uranus the liberator, innovator, torchbearer for the future, symbolizer of sudden change and creative thought and catalyst for sweeping away outworn structures to make way for new possibilities.
Andre Barbault has a helpful survey in his book Planetary Cycles: Mundane Astrology looking at the sweep of Saturn Uranus 45.5 year cycles over the past century plus. He nutshells Saturn Uranus as dry, hard, a thirst for conquest, authoritarian power.
He looks at the cycle from the Saturn Uranus conjunction of 1805 to 1852 as one when the USA consolidated its territorial ambitions, tripling in size. Then the next cycle 1852 to 1897 kick started capitalism with an economic and industrial revolution. This was hampered in the US at the Saturn Uranus square which oversaw the Civil War of 1861 and the unrest only settled when the trine came round five years later. The following opposition saw speculative disasters and by the square of 1885 there were imperialist tensions and rivalries around the globe.
1897 to 1942, conjunction to conjunction, he categorises as imperialism to fascism and it follows the same pattern through economic crisis – square over 1930/31 as well as imperialist rivalries at the hard aspects.
1942 to 1988 sees the USA take over as superpower; with the Korean War and Vietnam War on the hard aspects as well as political weakness with Watergate.
The 1988 to 2032 Saturn Uranus cycle he calls Globalization. With the collapse of the USSR it ceases to be a bi-polar world. The 1999 square saw the dot com bubble bursting, anti-globalization demos and a north-south economic divide. The 2008 opposition accompanied the economic super-crash.
There is a risk of forcing historical events and shifts to fit the astrology but there is enough syncronicity here to make it worth pondering. Standing back to see a larger pattern with the present turbulence as a passing two year phase can make it more bearable. The sextiles and trines, soft aspects, are always easier and we are moving towards the Saturn in Aries sextile Uranus in Gemini in 2025. This is the final staging post on this ‘Globalization’ cycle that started in 1988 and ends in the Saturn Uranus conjunction of 2032 in late Gemini.
It is going to be interesting to see how the 2032 conjunction affects Canada as it is conjunct Canada’s natal Moon at 28° Gemini in a chart set for midnight July 1, 1867 (Confederation). Neptune will also be conjunct Canada’s 16° Aries ascendant, Mars-Venus conjunct its 8° IC-Uranus-Sun conjunction, and Pluto square its natal position at 15° Taurus. A lot to think about!
Interesting also to note that the Saturn/Uranus conjunction in Gemini occurs right before both planets ingress together into Cancer. This might suggest a cycle where nationalistic sentiment becomes dominant. Then we move into the later part of the 2030’s, where Saturn in Leo opposes Pluto in Aquarius and Uranus in Cancer squares Neptune in Aries. Then we enter a period in the early 2040s with a series of hard outer planet transits. It is possible to foresee a multi-polar world order which is more unstable, as nations compete to fill in power vacuums. Climate change will also be a major factor by then as well. Indeed, it already is.
The current disruption in the supply chain of food, physical goods (even labour?) could be associated with Uranus in Taurus square Saturn in Aquarius.
My daughter has the 1987 Saturn-Uranus conjunction in the 4th trine Jupiter and in direct opposition to Mercury in Gemini exactly on her MC. The conjunction is exactly square her Moon in Pisces exactly conjunct her mother’s Sun. She is completing a doctorate in psychology and is clearly destined for an academic career. She also has a cluster of planets in the 10th from her Sun at 0 Gemini to Mars at 0 Cancer trine Pluto in Scorpio in the 2nd and opposite Neptune in Capricorn also in the 4th. She has already helped me to understand myself and her chart never ceases to amaze me. I told her mother just now she would be the well-integrated stable innovator, while I remain the unstable but lucky maverick with a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction opposite my Sun.