The Western Saturn gets a Hammering

Pluto in Capricorn and Saturn opposite Uranus together indicate a massive restructuring of the financial system. That is without the Uranus-Pluto square which will soon be upon us.

This restructuring hasn’t yet happened. What we are still seeing is the necessary first step, which is a breakdown of the old.

This is why, whatever world leaders do to try and revive the economy, it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

The G20 meeting on Thursday was hailed as a ‘historic step’ etc, huge fanfare, $1.1tn of commitments to help the world economy, but I’m sure even the politicians know that the thing is out of their control. ‘World trade in freefall’ announced one headline last week. The day after G20, the New York Times announced a further 663,000 job losses in the US in March.

The G20 meeting took place with retrograde Venus almost exactly square stationing Pluto. This shows just how challenging the agenda was, and being a collective decision, how likely it was to be ineffectual.

In July, Uranus will move to within 5 degrees of a square to Pluto. This will still be early days, but nevertheless I think that, being 2 outer planets, this aspect will start to make it clear, once and for all, that we are not going back to the old, and just how deep these changes are going to be. The outcome still won't be visible, for we will still be in the breakdown phase, which I can't see coming to an end before the conclusion of the Saturn-Uranus opposition in July next year.

Beneath the fanfare of the G20 meeting remained the split between Europe and the US on how to deal with the economy. The US wants to chuck more money at it, Europe wants to wait and see what effect the spending to date has, and introduce new rules for financial institutions. As I wrote on Wednesday, the astrology lies with Europe on this one. Pluto in Saturn-ruled Capricorn and Saturn opposite Uranus point to huge Saturn lessons for the world. The US has natal Sun square to Saturn, making these lessons particularly challenging for the US.

Squares are dynamic, and in the case of the US, this square has propelled them to the top of the world (natal Saturn in the 10th and ruler of the 2nd house of wealth), and given them a ferocious work ethic. This is classic Sun square Saturn. But what is also classic Sun square Saturn is the over-identification with this achievement, the sense that you are worth nothing unless you are working hard and making good amounts of money. You judge yourself by this measure, and you judge others. You enjoy the feeling of superiority to those who aren’t doing so well, you feel humiliated by those who are doing better, and you will doff your cap at them.

This attitude strangles everything around it, creating a wasteland in human terms in the midst of material abundance. I don’t think it is quite so intense in Europe, but it is still pretty central. It is barbaric, it is the enemy of civilisation. We think that because we are so rich and because we have so much technology that we are superior to those who don’t have these things. But in reality we are a barbaric culture where it is easy to feel wrong-footed if all you want to do is to be human.

Painful as it is, I think that one function of the current transits is to reveal this negative Saturn by revealing the consequences of it. Saturn themes are good on consequences of actions, and learning through them. I think that negative Saturn is the defining problem of westernised culture, which is increasingly the world’s culture.

So our Saturn is currently subject to the wrecker’s ball, and will be so for a while yet. Collectives don’t learn very easily, but maybe for a while, after all this is over, we may be a bit more civilised, at least for a while.