As I men­tioned in the intro­duc­tion, the year ahead seems to offer a brief respite from the pow­er­ful align­ments we have expe­ri­enced in the recent past. Plan­e­tary motions, how­ev­er, are not cir­cum­scribed by our cal­en­dar and often align­ments and their effects spill over from one year to anoth­er. So too in this year some of the sig­na­ture events of 2010 are fin­ish­ing up here in the first quar­ter of 2011.

Jupiter Con­junct Uranus (Jan. 4)
Among the more sig­nif­i­cant of these align­ments was the sub­ject of what I wrote in the post­ing for Jan­u­ary 4, Jupiter Con­junct Uranus. This event was the third and final con­junc­tion (New Moon) of Jupiter with Uranus. Their cycle, from con­junc­tion to the next con­junc­tion, lasts about 14 years and each con­junc­tion her­alds the release of ener­gies that stim­u­late the devel­op­ment of dis­cov­er­ies and break­throughs in arts, sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. More­over, on a social lev­el, their impulse serves to quick­en the evo­lu­tion of new forms of social devel­op­ment and inter­ac­tion. This more per­son­al or social aspect of the align­ment was explained in the post­ing for Jan­u­ary 5, Jupiter Con­junct Uranus- World­ly vs. Per­son­al.

Though they have “fin­ished” their con­junc­tion, we will see the effects of their align­ment in the years to come in the wider prop­a­ga­tion of the sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal advances they stim­u­lat­ed. We will also see the social aspects of their quick­en­ing play­ing out in our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er too, as the urge to estab­lish greater free­doms with­in and between one anoth­er accel­er­ates the devel­op­ment of var­i­ous cul­tures and societies.

Jupiter Oppo­si­tion Sat­urn (Mar. 28)
The oth­er “car­ry-over” align­ment from 2010 is the oppo­si­tion (Full Moon) of Jupiter and Sat­urn. Their cycle, from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion, (or as in this case, Oppo­si­tion to Oppo­si­tion), is 20 years. In 2010 they came to an oppo­si­tion in late May and mid-August, and their final con­tact will be on March 28, 2011.

With Jupiter rul­ing prin­ci­ples, truths and beliefs, and Sat­urn rul­ing struc­tures, insti­tu­tions and real­i­ty, their oppo­si­tion pro­vides a sharp con­trast for us to see how much what we believe to be true is being lived out in fact. In oth­er words, it is a time for a reck­on­ing between the belief or mean­ing behind the form and the form or real­i­ty itself. More often than not, (and this depends upon what else is hap­pen­ing down here and “up there”), this oppo­si­tion can cre­ate a cri­sis of faith in our belief sys­tems or a loss of trust in our insti­tu­tions… or both. Cer­tain­ly, here and around the world, this was a year of reck­on­ing, and more than we might at first realize.

The Great Muta­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn
For this dance of Jupiter and Sat­urn has a sto­ried his­to­ry for astrologers. We have used their ser­i­al align­ments as they progress through the ele­ments to under­stand some of the larg­er forces at play in our uni­verse. What we have dis­cov­ered is that Jupiter and Sat­urn will come togeth­er in their con­junc­tion in the same ele­ment, (Fire, Earth, Air and Water), for about 180 to 200 years, before they move onto the next ele­ment. This move­ment from ele­ment to ele­ment is called the “Great Mutation”.

Since 1842 their con­junc­tions have been occur­ring in Earth and their last such align­ment was in the spring of 2000. While in an ele­men­tal phase, those con­di­tions estab­lished by that ele­ment per­me­ate and pro­mote the devel­op­ments in cul­ture and soci­ety. So, the last 169+ years have wit­nessed an explo­sion in the har­ness­ing of ener­gies and mate­ri­als of the earth, lit­er­al­ly. It has been an “age” of mate­ri­al­ism, of the rise of our car­bon fueled soci­ety and the cre­ation of a very spe­cif­ic kind of real­i­ty. But there is change in the air already, and our real­i­ty is about to be transformed…

For what we have also found is that there is often a sign of things to come right before the next Great Muta­tion. Often, it seems, the sec­ond to last con­junc­tion occurs in that next ele­ment in the series. So in 1802 there was a pre­cur­sor align­ment in Earth. And most recent­ly, it was the 1980–81 Air con­junc­tion in Libra, before we reached the final align­ment in Earth via the Tau­rus con­junc­tion of May 2000.

The Next Age
What these seem to pro­vide is a “seed­ing” of what is to come, a taste of the new world that will be inau­gu­rat­ed at the next Great Muta­tion, which for us is just ahead in 2020. As the 1802 con­junc­tion jump-start­ed the “Age of Mate­ri­al­ism”, so too has the 1980–81 align­ment ini­ti­at­ed what we might call the “Age of Virtue”. Though some aspects of this Vir­tu­ous­ness or “Vir­tu­os­i­ty” have man­i­fest­ed in rather phys­i­cal forms, such as in the devel­op­ments in the 1980’s and 90’s which wit­nessed the pro­lif­er­a­tion of com­put­ers, cel­lu­lar phones and the inter­net, (our inter­con­nect­ed­ness was accel­er­at­ing), and which has now lead to the evo­lu­tion of vir­tu­al worlds and com­mu­ni­ties, (such as expe­ri­enced in phe­nom­e­na like Face­book), we will see that the 2020’s and beyond will wit­ness the con­tin­u­ing unfold­ment of forms of con­nec­tiv­i­ty that will tran­scend these phys­i­cal forms and their lim­its. But we are, (I am), get­ting ahead of ourselves.

Jupiter and Sat­urn Now
At the present moment, the final oppo­si­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn with­in the Earth series pro­vides us with this moment in time to see to what extent we have trans­formed our­selves and our world through our mate­r­i­al “mas­tery”. And, it equal­ly reminds us what lim­its and chal­lenges have been cre­at­ed by this earthy par­a­digm in our con­scious­ness as well. We may mar­vel at our cre­ations, yet we must mourn what we have sac­ri­ficed of this Earth to bring about our mate­r­i­al world. 

What’s ahead?
In the next post­ing we will exam­ine the oth­er major align­ments of 2011, as well as oth­er phe­nom­e­na such as Solar and Lunar eclipses and oth­er mat­ters that reside in the “Tran­sit to Tran­sit” category.

Then, in lat­er post­ings, we will turn our atten­tion to the oth­er great method of Astro­log­i­cal Insight, pro­vid­ed by the “Tran­sits to Natal” aspects, and exam­ine the var­i­ous align­ments of the plan­ets to spe­cif­ic charts of nations, world lead­ers and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als. Stay tuned…

Part Two