Saturn Square Uranus, 2021: A Collapsing Bridge over Troubled Water

(This article will appear in slightly different form in the summer issue of The Ingress, NCGR-NYC's quarterly astrology journal; I wanted to update it here.)

Attempting to write about the Saturn-Uranus square of 2021 is as complicated as living through it. I have never been one to sugarcoat challenging planetary aspects, whether they are natal, progressed, or transits. Still, this transit is a hard nut to crack and a bitter pill to swallow.

Traditional astrology maintains that more can be accomplished during tough aspects than flowing ones. Many of us in the United States are currently in a much better place than we were a year ago, with the rollout of highly effective, accessible, free vaccines for all individuals over the age of 12 that are saving those of us who are fully vaccinated from the rise of worrisome Covid-19 variants (at least for now). 54% of the total US population has now received at least one dose of a vaccine, with 46% fully vaccinated. With the Centers for Disease Control’s mid-May blessing, as well as the long-awaited reopening of New York City and the state of California, many Americans are acting as if the pandemic is in our rearview mirror. Traffic jams have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels, office workers (some enthusiastic, others less so) have begun to return to the office at least part of the time, and more people are traveling by plane. And yet…

…the World Health Organization is now advising even fully vaccinated individuals to continue wearing masks indoors due to the rise of Delta, an official "variant of concern." A recent headline in BuzzFeed News reports that due to politically driven low rates of vaccination in the Deep South and rural areas across the US, ”The Delta Variant Could Create ‘Two Americas’ of COVID, Experts Warn” (Peter Aldhous, buzzfeednews.com, 6/17/21). Thus, as much of the nation is looking forward to a CDC-sanctioned unmasked-if-vaxxed summer of reunions, parties, museum visits, travel, and overall exuberance, this news item is a nagging reminder that Covid-19 is not yet in our collective rearview mirror. Indeed, this pandemic is not yet finished in much of the world—not because too many people are refusing offers of free beer, free joints, free doughnuts, and other free rides with Covid-19 shots for various reasons, but because vaccines are either not available at all or are not as effective as the ones we have here in the US.

And not all of us here are trashing our masks or double-booking our social calendars to make up for lost time. Some of us are grieving over major personal losses in a culture that stresses moving on by getting busy. Even some of the luckier ducks among us feel confused, worried, doubtful, and/or mistrustful. Not all of us wish to get back to a normal that entailed excessive noise, endless social obligations that necessitated a lot of unnecessary expenditures, and rampant rat-racing. Not all of us believe that our democracy is safe, that we won’t see another pandemic in our lifetimes, and that (even with record low temperatures followed just a week later by highs in the Greater New York area, and the West Coast facing severe heat and draught even before the Summer Solstice), the climate crisis is a hoax.

The beginning of the pandemic seemed to encourage a dawning awareness in the rugged-individual-oriented US that we were all in this together; all connected. Yet almost immediately, that insight had to compete for airtime with the Time to Get Back to Normal Show, the I Won’t Wear a Mask or Social Distance Show, and the Politicization of the Pandemic Show. Astrologically, this could be explained (astrosplained?) by the fact that the Saturn-Uranus square did not occur in 2020, as Saturn turned retrograde almost as soon as it entered Aquarius. Consequently, there was a turning away from truly dealing with the pandemic and everything related to this public health crisis (i.e., everything). For many (though by no means all) Americans, the election also brought a sense of relief that our nation managed to avoid the worst-case scenario.

We do not have the luxury of turning away this year, and hell hath no fury like a square scorned. The first Saturn-Uranus square of 2021 occurred on February 17, when Mars was conjunct Uranus in Taurus. (Interestingly, the insurrection of January 6 occurred with Mars at the last degree of Aries; the Capitol was secured when Mars entered Taurus.) As Mars is an inner planet, and debilitated in Taurus, for many of us, there was a series of highly personal challenges involving financial health as well as physical health (both related to earth signs). Another manifestation of the square in mid-February: three severe winter storms (Uranus) in North America comprising cyclones, blizzards, ice storm, and tornadoes. This storm system was the deadliest, costliest storm system in North America’s recorded history; Texas’s power grid (Uranus) got hammered, resulting in the worst blackout since the one in the Northeast in the summer of 2003. The pandemic had begun waning in the US as the oldest and/or most vulnerable citizens became eligible for vaccination (even if too many of them had to stand outside for hours in the bitter cold to get inoculated), yet the biggest public health crisis in more than a century surged in many other countries, which gave birth to some worrisome variants of the virus.

We are now two weeks past the second Saturn-Uranus square of June 14. The spring was marked by several standoffs between Saturn (the set-in-stone status quo) and Uranus (the explosive revolutionary). The Israel-Gaza violence culminated on the exact second square with a coalition ousting Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu. There was a flurry of voter suppression bills and the return of mass shootings in the US. Liz Cheney got the boot from fellow Republicans for daring to repudiate former president Trump. As of this writing, calls for official commissions on January 6 and the pandemic are going unheeded. New York State legalized weed. India surpassed US Covid-19 cases and deaths. Some vaccines were paused; the rate of vaccinations in the US peaked in mid-April and have been declining since then. Seemingly out of left field, the CDC announced that only unvaccinated individuals need to continue wearing masks in most places. The US Supreme Court is preparing to overturn Roe vs. Wade. A container ship got stranded in the Suez Canal. The Mexican metro collapsed due to structural failure, causing 26 deaths and 79 hospitalizations. The Colonial Pipeline hack disrupted gasoline supplies in the southeastern states. The G7 Summit revealed more “cracks” than unity, with Cold War overtones concerning relations with Russia and China. Biden met with Putin. Someone who refused to wear a mask in a store in Georgia returned to shoot and kill the clerk who’d had the gall to ask him to mask up. The stalled infrastructure bill. And, on the day of the first Full Moon of summer (i.e., with the Moon in Saturn-ruled Capricorn), a condo complex near Miami collapsed due to a critical structural failure that a consultant had warned the building managers about in 2018. Repairs were finally about to begin nearly three years after the report, but instead, a lot of people (and their pets) are now presumed dead in this preventable disaster.

The very definition of infrastructure (Saturn) is controversial (Uranus). The concept (and actuality) of infrastructure is clearly ruled by Saturn, the planet synonymous with organization, framework, architecture, skeleton, configuration, edifice, shell, government, and (of course) structure. Yet with the square from reform-oriented, tech-savvy Uranus, infrastructure no longer solely refers to roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, power grids, and mass transportation, but cybersecurity, telecommunications, AI, even health care and child care. Present-day electronics and electricity are inextricably linked to computer science and computer engineering. Basically, if it’s a system that has anything to do with how well or poorly a country functions, whether it’s tangible or not, it’s now considered to be infrastructure. And with the square, it has become painfully clear in the US (along with other countries with morally bankrupt leaders and/or unfettered capitalism) that governments, corporations, civil society groups, and individuals who are not superrich are vulnerable to cyberattacks and one-strike-and-you’re-out losses due to crumbling infrastructure, which could include a shredded safety net.

The last time we experienced a Saturn-Uranus square was in 2000, with the signs flipped: Saturn was in Taurus and Uranus was in its ruling sign Aquarius. Particularly in the US, the gap between the haves and the have-nots began widening into a canyon at that time. Unfettered capitalism, tax breaks, and the stock market have mainly benefited the 1% since 2000. Nearly all politicians are in the back pockets of corporations (Saturn). 9/11 occurred, resulting in certain personal liberties being dismantled in the name of security (an earth-element desire). Even as the internet, virtual reality, and AI gained traction with Uranus in Aquarius, the tech bubble burst in 2000, and true communication between disparate groups (Saturn and Uranus) got bogged down in the stubborn “my way or the highway” modus operandi that is the dark side of Taurus.

This time around, since Uranus has moved from the sign of its rulership to the sign of its fall, the effects of the Saturn-Uranus square are harsher and involve not just a pandemic and economic misery for millions of people, but the climate-change emergency that is mainly kindling young activists (some still in their teens) who will be most affected by the coming devastation unless something is accomplished within the next decade or two to mitigate it.

In the spring of 2020, millions of individuals lost their jobs due to the pandemic, resulting in a global recession. At that time, Saturn backed off from the exact square to Uranus, but it is the signature aspect of 2021. The third and final exact square occurs on December 24 (will it be a lump of coal or a Green Deal for Christmas?), yet its effects will not diminish until the fall of 2022 because Saturn and Uranus will remain within orb of the square until then. Could 2022 wind up being 2021 Lite? Perhaps, but for individuals who are being crushed now, the gradual easing up may not make enough of a difference.

Crashes, clashes and hangovers are part and parcel of any Saturn-Uranus square. We should all know by now that true healing cannot occur by applying Band-Aids to deep wounds, “thoughts and prayers” lip service to the latest preventable atrocity. If adequate disaster relief is not given, the disaster will only be prolonged. Unless Covid-19 is tamed worldwide, this pandemic will still be a force to be reckoned with. Can we possibly take the best part of fixed signs—persistence and endurance—to find common ground and call it a draw, so that no matter what our individual circumstances or views may be, we can all emerge from the Saturn-Uranus square in a more unified place, if not in one piece or truly at peace?