Depth Astrology

This week’s Saturn-Uranus opposition marks, not surprisingly, big changes about.

Saturn tends to be old-school, foot-dragging, conservative and cautious while Uranus tends toward more revolutionary, fast-moving, freedom-loving forward movement. An opposition between the two will surely cause some crackling tension in the air as the world holds its breath waiting to see which of these powerful energies will win out.

Clearly, this week’s big winner on the world stage was President-elect Barack Obama (oh, how I love writing that!) and his Uranian mantra Change. The young, insightful, biracial Obama even symbolizes a new generation of energy, thought and perspective in a way that the institutional image of McCain’s Country First campaign just could not. The democratic embrace of people everywhere, of equality and justice for all, of change for the idealistic better, echoed through Obama’s campaign and sustains hope among his supporters.

However, that Saturnine element still lurks — McCain did appeal to 47% of U.S. voters, after all — and so we must not assume that Uranus has “won out” over Saturn. A Saturn ignored is a Saturn that wreaks havoc down the road: It’s the reaper, and we can only reap what we sow. More than anything, I see the Saturn-Uranus opposition as a loud call for bipartisanship going forward. We must build thoughtful, integrated and creative solutions to public problems. We must not throw out the baby with the bathwater. We must figure out ways to bring conservatives into the fold, to use the strengths of both ideologies to better our country.

And so Obama rightly said, in his acceptance speech on Tuesday night:

… to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

McCain foreshadowed these sentiments of healing the divide and supporting one another in his gracious concession earlier that night. The need for Saturnine and Uranian energy is great, both in our personal lives and in the public sphere. We cannot live on hope and change and excitement alone, or we would spin out and burn up like Icarus. We have to take a break, look back, be cautious, conserve what works well — and, yes, jettison what does not. We have to employ both our conservative, cautious, learned side and our idealistic, humanitarian, freedom-loving excitement.

I don’t want to dampen the inspiration of this moment, but because Obama is a wise man — not a brash one — do expect some pulling back on unrealistic campaign promises. It happens every time. It’s okay. The job of a campaign is to set out the stratospheric Uranian/utopian vision. The job of a President is to implement the work in the time and space of hard reality: to employ Saturn in the service of Uranus.

A community organizer should be pretty good at that.

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* On a personal note, I suffered the loss of my hard drive during this transit, which is why I haven’t posted any new content in over a week: my sincere apologies. Catch-up is forthcoming. But irrepressible Uranus almost immediately saw an opportunity: I no longer have to worry about cleaning out old files to try and make my old machine run smoother. Uranus wiped out all that outdated Saturnine gunk for me! Hooray!