This week remarkably includes four planets changing signs, following the second eclipse in the present series. Venus will move into high-spirited Sagittarius on Tuesday and Mercury will enter sober Capricorn on Sunday. These transits are brief, with both lasting until January 8th. The mixed bag they offer will have Venus inviting us to meet and mingle, while Mercury will be more serious and subdued. The Saturn and Jupiter shifts into inventive, original Aquarius, on the 16th and 19th, are more significant and much longer-lasting. Jupiter will be in the fixed air sign until December 28, 2021, and Saturn until March of 2023. Saturn is the restrictive, greater malefic and Jupiter the expansive, greater benefic. That we’ll be spending the next year with these contradictory bodies inhabiting the same sign warrants a review of Aquarius.
In the astrology community, a debate about planetary rulership has emerged over the past several years. This movement assigns the rulership of each of astrology’s twelve signs to the original seven planets, excluding Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. From this perspective, Scorpio is ruled by Mars instead of Pluto, Pisces is ruled by Jupiter and not Neptune, and Aquarius by Saturn rather than Uranus. As a writer, I like to consider all opinions, and I can see some valid relationships in this scheme. But as a professional reader, there has to be solid evidence of a theory in the real-life circumstances of clients before I endorse a given school of thought. When it comes to Aquarius, I can see some Saturnian qualities, like rigidity. But that can be attributed to the sign’s fixed modality. My experience of Aquarius Sun sign people is much more in keeping with the traits we associate with Uranus. Like Aries natives, Aquarians typically prize and prioritize freedom and are usually the earliest adapters to new technologies. Aquarians identify with outliers, rebels and misfits, and strongly advocate for human rights and social equality. Also, the minute a definite assertion is made, they instinctively and invariably argue its exact opposite, pure Uranus. For context, Uranus was discovered in 1781, the very year when America decidedly won its independence, in Yorktown, Virginia on October 19th. The French Revolution, 1789-99, and Irish Rebellion of 1798 quickly followed. Collectively, those wars represented a colossal societal change from monarchical authority to self-governance. So there is most certainly a correlation between the discovery of this planet and the qualities, such as revolution, shock and innovation, that we associate with it. In terms of the rulership of Aquarius, let’s see how applicable those characteristics are, especially during Saturn’s transit of the 11th sign.
Though the early stage of Saturn’s transit of Aquarius will make a hard aspect, astrology’s notorious square, to Uranus in Taurus, there are some promising commonalities in this combination. Ringed Saturn imposes limitations, forcing pragmatism on high-minded Aquarian ideas and ideals. Similarly, disruptive Uranus finds itself a third of the way through its seven-year-transit of the fixed earth sign of Taurus, where it has been coming to terms with the finiteness of resources. Saturn and Taurus will demand real world applications and solutions from ingenious Aquarius and technologically-advanced Uranus. Jupiter’s presence in Aquarius for the next year will amply the need for breakthroughs and perhaps accelerate their speed. The coming Saturn Uranus and Jupiter Uranus squares will put the pressure on all involved parties to make progress. When Mars enters Taurus on January 6th, it too will press for resolutions. We’ll get our first glimpse of the shapes of things to come on December 21st, when Jupiter and Saturn meet at 0:29 of Aquarius, for what is being billed as The Great Conjunction. For millennia, the Solstices have marked the changing of the seasons. The zero degree placement of this conjunction signals that something completely new is at hand. Indeed, we are bravely crossing the threshold into a new Age.
