Duelling Gods
An astrological cage match, playing out in real time
In the world of astrology, you cannot find two entities that do not see eye-to-eye to the extent of Saturn and Neptune. There is a natural schism between the two, whether in a personal chart, or that of a nation, that is extremely tough to reconcile.
And it’s not too hard to find evidence of this discontent in the collective over the past couple of years. And if it seems that the national discontent is steadily ratcheting upward, it is. Politically, economically, socially… the subject, it seems, doesn’t matter. And you can thank Saturn and Neptune for the lion’s share of that energy.
On Oct 3rd, retrograde Saturn will have distanced himself from Neptune and backtracked into a subsection of the zodiac (or lunar temple) whose signature is the strict and uncompromising severance of energies that no longer serve. This temple’s purpose is, with swift efficiency, to cut through illusions, burn off excess, and expose what can’t survive the fire. As Jupiter rules this temple, the energies most in question deal with belief, law, and moral authority.
And it’s right up Saturn’s alley.
As this temple is solidly in the US 3rd house, the events will be played out on the stage of the nation’s infrastructure. That is, the infrastructures supporting the nation’s transportation, communication, and information networks.
Even though Saturn will never leave the sign of Pisces during his retrograde march, he will gain significant strength once in this lunar temple alongside Rahu. Although still conjunct Neptune, Saturn will have a bit of breathing room as the lunar temple will offer a boundary that Saturn has been seeking.
Rahu, already in the Aquarius side of this lunar temple, is driving Aquarian scale, novelty, and social engineering. Rahu lives by the dictum that in order to make a meaningful humanitarian (Aquarius) omelet, you gotta crack some individual eggs. Aquarius is the big picture humanitarian; Rahu is the oftentimes overreaching warrior-rebel. Collateral damage, for these two, is simply the acceptable price for evolution.
Saturn in Pisces demands limits and bounds where there are none to be found. It’s like trying to make a castle from dry sand. In this case, Saturn is pushing back into the nation’s central nervous system (the 3rd house), adding fuel to the fire on an already intense back-and-forth war between the planet of illusion, dissolution and deception (Neptune) and the planet of cold, hard facts (Saturn). To say that we are watching this war play out in realtime, in the collective, is an understatement of grand proportions.
And the battle is turning up a notch. Because after October 3rd, Saturn will enter a territory in which he is on much firmer ground, alongside an ally who is decidedly in his corner. Maybe not an ally in the traditional sense; more in the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of way. Either way, we can expect more decisive moves to establish a harsh rule of law and order (Saturn) after the 3rd.
Neptune has had the edge in this struggle for the last several years, with Saturn attempting to create structure out of Neptune’s fog. But Saturn will be in a position to make up a lot of ground over the next couple of months, and we can expect that he’ll take advantage of that opportunity. In real-world terms, I would not be surprised to see the establishment of a kind of conservative vigilante corp or other such uprising to counter the (actual or perceived) left-leaning color revolution tactics.
At the very least (and I’m looking at the balance of the nation’s chart for this prediction), we’ll see a full court press in the courts targeting the money flows (2nd house Pluto return) supporting “enemy” organizations. And in this way, dismantling the infrastructure supporting those organizations.
I hope I’m wrong about the nature of a live-fire backlash. And, there is for sure a reason why Ariel and I relocated from a major city to a mountaintop in the middle of Nowheresville, PNW.
We’ve seen (and have written about) this time, and the severity of its energy profile, for quite a while now. And, as we’ve said, this energy is only going to intensify before it eventually begins to fade. This energy has to work its way through the collective. It cannot be dodged or swept under the rug, and it cannot be suppressed. What’s not useful has to be purged before we, as a collective, can move on.
This is, for all practical purposes, Jungian shadow work at a collective level. There is much future work to do that cannot be done with a severely bifurcated collective. The collective cannot move forward when it cannot even agree as to what the rules of the game are. We are, as a collective, figuring out what those rules are now.
And, as we’re witnessing, it’s a painful birthing process.
Hopefully this will be done civilly, through the courts and via the rule of law rather than a live-fire affair. The collective, though, is like a forest in the midst of a prolonged drought. One lightning strike and the whole thing could go up. Remember that Rahu tends to operate in a Mars-Uranus like way, rushing in with little to no forethought to the consequences. On the upside, the fact that Saturn is in the same lunar temple with Rahu might help to hold Rahu’s impetuousness in check. Can the wise old man keep a handle on Rahu’s leash?
Because Saturn is (until late November) retrograde, much of the national attention is directed toward unfinished business from March–May of this year, back when Saturn was last in this territory. Things like executive overreach versus legal pushback; emergency measures that never sunset; censorship and purposeful disinformation; exposures of the insidious medical-industrial complex. An ailing, broken, and severely compromised infrastructure (electrical grid, supply chain, etc.). All of that is back on the table now.
And know that the energy of this lunar temple doesn’t care which side of the aisle you’re on. Its aim is simple, yet efficiently severe: to sever talk from results. As we are examining the collective through the lens of the US chart, this means government agencies (including the FED), NGOs, and corporations that leveraged moral (or performative, or identity) language without the delivery of real-world results (the only thing Saturn cares about) are the first to be put to the torch.
Remember, too, that we just experienced (on Sept 7th) a Lunar eclipse in this same temple. This just adds to the energy held in this subsection of the zodiac. As well (and I’ll explore this in a future post), the US’s progressed New Moon occurred last March in ⸺ you guessed it ⸺ this same lunar temple.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that this neighborhood of the zodiac is, for the US, on fire.
That said, the collective swing between an idealized zeal (Neptune) and real world reality (Saturn) will only intensify. Rahu in Aquarius fuels the appetite for humanitarian-leaning crusades, while Saturn enforces the heavy hand of law and consequence. Saturn’s favorite phrase is, “if you’re gonna be dumb, you better be tough”. Neptune refuses to believe that his utopian ideals are subject to the proving ground of Natural Law. This conflicting energy, unfortunately, has a long way to go before it’s finally run its course in the collective.
As well, this lunar temple is not prone to melodrama or play acting. It tends to cut directly to the chase. And just to Saturn’s liking, it seeks swift, efficient and decisive closure. Movements that were built on theatrics and fluff but never formed any solid institutional underpinning will splinter and fade. An ideology’s foundation will survive the quake of reality… or it won’t. This sub division of the zodiac is the proving ground.
As noted above, this energy is going to play out in the realm of infrastructure, borders and “homeland”. Flare ups may begin “over there” (Russia, Ukraine, EU, Israel, Middle east) ⸺ and there is plenty of astrological indication for that ⸺ but the repercussions of that will surely find their way here. The supply chain and the electric grid are most susceptible. The (manufactured) culture wars of identity politics are a mere sideshow for distracting from what’s really seething beneath. What’s being reported is scripted for affect, or for distraction. Neptune’s modus operandi is “action behind the scenes”. And remember, the US’s Neptune is in a potent Neptune opposition ⸺ the last of which occurred during the (first) Civil War.
On a personal level, this isn’t a time for go-big-or-go-home mentality. Saturn-Rahu can punish overextension. Before any big move, imagine taking a moment to consult an elder (Saturn) before you dive in head first (Rahu). These two energies can work together wonderfully, and great accomplishments can (and often do) result. But they have to work together; neither can go rogue. Rahu has to yield to the elder’s (Saturn’s) demand for focus, structure and the containment of energy, and Saturn has to realize that little can be accomplished with lukewarm enthusiasm.
Bottom line: this transit doesn’t necessarily promise collapse or victory; it promises a reckoning with reality. What you do with that reckoning is on you. Simple rule of thumb for Saturn-Rahu in this lunar temple: systems with a weak foundation will buckle in overextending; those that merge vision, foundation and accountability get fortified and move on. Use this window to sever what no longer serves before Rahu exits this lunar temple on December 1st. What remains after Saturn stations direct (November 28th) has the wherewithal to continue forward in the cycle; to grow and further evolve.
That which crumbles was energy that had served its time. Best to clean house and let it go. Or else be buried under the dead weight of it all. The dead weight that gets carried forward into February of next year ⸺ when Saturn and Neptune are again exactly conjunct ⸺ will no longer be hidden by Neptune’s power to conceal.
⸺ Keith