Clash of the Titans

by Jane Lewis

Saturn and Neptune have now come together in the first degree of Aries.  These two inimically different planets will remain in each other’s grip for the best part of a year, despite a brief dip back into the late degrees of Pisces before going direct again next February.  It’s like a clash of the titans, bringing yet more confusion and disturbance into world affairs.  On an individual level it may feel like a prolonged Mercury retrograde period as Neptune slings spanners into the works by undermining well-laid plans and bringing general confusion.  Neither planet is particularly comfortable in Aries.   Aries tends to bring out Saturn’s self-will to do its own thing regardless of others, and Neptune’s ungroundedness can easily tip over into insane fantasies.

It will be important to keep reminding ourselves that by being so very sorely tested we are in fact being examined on how we respond.  This is a time of testing and judgement that can lead us out into a new plane where heaven and earth are better balanced.  In the meantime, our very ability to keep looking on the bright side of life, think positively and to keep on keeping on may also be tested.  The positive aspect of the Saturn-Neptune conjunction is that it can help us ground our dreams and turn them into concrete reality.  Saturn’s realism and practicality can help us scrutinise our dreams and modify them in order to make them more likely to come true in a lasting way.  There’s no longer room for pipe-dreams.  Let go of false or unrealistic aspirations.  Let go of the old and let in the new.  Saturn will reveal the holes in our faulty notions so that when we hold our dreams up against the light we may realise how moth-eaten the fabric of our life may have become through having been woven out of a tissue of lies and self-deception.  Neptune has an insidiously undermining effect on physical matter, eating away at foundational structures through a slow, quiet, background, drip-drip effect, dissolving and corroding even the things we believed to be most solid, reliable and permanent.

Historically, Saturn-Neptune conjunctions bring the end of empires and dynasties.  This one is likely to mark the end of a religious tradition, and the rise of new political parties which attach more emphasis on improving the lot of the poor, underprivileged, minority and disadvantaged groups in society.  The energy of Saturn-Neptune helps individuals and society as a whole to make sacrifices for the sake of the greater good, and so we may see a wave of more altruistic thinking sweep across the world, helping to nudge the scales a little more towards equality.