Just days into its Scorpio voyage, Saturn will trine Neptune in its respective Pisces waters at 10:38 pm EDT tomorrow. This first of three water trine aspects between Saturn and Neptune over the next nine months will initiate a rare and unusual period of relationship between the two planets. You may find a corresponding chapter opening in your own life as discovery and inspiration flow into every day’s existence, confronting you with creativity.
Trine aspects take place between objects moving through different signs that share the same element — fire, earth, air or water. Through a common element comes harmonious combination. For Saturn and Neptune to position in harmony is an event both rare and unusual.
Trines between Saturn and Neptune are rare because their apparent motion is slow. Saturn changes its field of expression only after ten seasons have elapsed. Even more deliberate, Neptune tends to favor the same costume continuously for nearly a decade and a half (planets changing sign are rather like actors taking on a new wardrobe with each character: still the same at the core, but expressing different exaggerated facets of themselves). Therefore, the watery collaboration just beginning between Saturn and Neptune will probably feel unfamiliar, which may be confronting.
The last time Saturn trined Neptune at all was an air trine from Saturn’s position in Gemini to Neptune’s place in Aquarius just after the Cancer Solstice of 2001. That event took place shortly before the world changed radically with the tragic events of September 11. In addition, the aspect happened but once, a brief memory obscured by its historical aftermath.
The last water trine between the Ringed One and Big Blue was also a one-off in January of 1907, when Saturn occupied Pisces and Neptune graced cardinal Cancer. In order to find an exact duplication of the currently applying aspect, you would have to go back to when the calendar was different from the one most of us use now. That’s a long time ago, leaving us with with little, if any, memory of how to work in harmony with a combination not clearly suited to accord in the first place.
Harmony between Saturn and Neptune is unusual because they typically function to different ends. As Robert Hand puts it, “Neptune dissolves whatever Saturn builds.” Finding harmony through the element of water means going by feel, which most of us seldom do. The seldom and uncommon will thus be where you are likely to find both the challenge and imperative to create in sympathy with the Cosmos over the three seasons to come.
Until July has passed, you will be called upon to adapt to the unfamiliar and charged with combining the incompatible. If you think about it, you are probably feeling your way through that adjustment already. If you can be patient, you will almost certainly receive more than one chance to complete what is now a nascent, and probably unconscious, composition.
Mercury is in a fortunate position to help you think, and now is the time to do just that. Forging ahead of Saturn through Scorpio, the swiftest planet is encouraging you to contemplate what your feelings have introduced to your life in recent weeks. Ask yourself if you have opened new communication with individuals or groups lately and the answer will probably be yes. Examine what activities your hands have recently taken up, and you may surprise yourself with the potential.
Through what you have recently created of your own volition you will consciously discover how the flow of the Saturn-Neptune trine is already operating. Once you have made that discovery, the trick will be to negotiate the flow so that it continues to a be creative. If you find yourself unprepared or unqualified to conduct such negotiations, that will actually enhance the creative part even as you are likewise confronted with the unknown and the uncomfortable.
The greatest discoveries have been made by those who did not know where they were going or how to get there. Allowing yourself to be in that state is how to negotiate with Neptune. Persistence with the unfamiliar flow of exploration, is, on the other hand, how to honor Saturn’s contribution to harmony. Persevering with feeling only, and a willingness to repeat your efforts until they feel right, will blend and balance the imperatives of Saturn and Neptune. The practice will also set you apart, and that may not be comfortable.
Defining yourself by what you are creating, rather than what you have achieved, is unusual. It will set you apart. By being apart, you will be able to see possibilities, and be inspired to manifest them, but at the price of arousing suspicion.
We are all superbly conditioned to conform. Those who do not conform, we are conditioned to make uncomfortable. Releasing attachment to that conditioning is to be confronted by creativity. With a nearly unprecedented and prolonged water trine from Saturn to Neptune, each of us will have repeated and persistent opportunity to turn the tables on confrontation together. By being and doing the confronting all together at once, we can create a new conformity, to a pattern never before seen, with a harmony never before heard, on a level never before felt. If that sounds revolutionary, it is. The alternative, however, is to spend the rest of your life with only the past as a source of comfort.
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Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
We are all superbly conditioned to conform. Those who do not conform, we are conditioned to make uncomfortable. Releasing attachment to that conditioning is to be confronted by creativity. With a nearly unprecedented and prolonged water trine from Saturn to Neptune, each of us will have repeated and persistent opportunity to turn the tables on confrontation together. By being and doing the confronting all together at once, we can create a new conformity, to a pattern never before seen, with a harmony never before heard, on a level never before felt. If that sounds revolutionary, it is. The alternative, however, is to spend the rest of your life with only the past as a source of comfort.
This is so much bigger than politics, social science, or culture. Coming inside the Pluto-Uranus square period, it feels like a saving grace. Like guidance on how to be within the challenge of the square. A new art that includes every thread of life.
Inspires me to keep going, and be bolder.
powerful insight, Len.
Len! You have done it again! Wow. I was just yesterday bemoaning the upheaval (Neptune) my life seems to have despite my efforts at well laid plans (Saturn). Instead, you come along and point to another way of seeing (and feeling) this that will make all the difference. Instead of bemoaning things, I am now looking at what I am creating.
To put it in concrete terms, I was bemoaning the fact that despite my best effort at creating a stress-free and distraction-free life (week after week) so I can homeschool my son, things keep happening that disrupt that over and over again. Your writing here has shown me that I need to stop feeling like the universe’s cat toy and start seeing what I can create in this chaos instead of constantly trying to rein the chaos in. What an amazing thing to see the whole picture in such a positive and empowering light. Thank you so much, Len for always seeing (and sharing what you see) so eloquently!
Thank you, Len!
“Examine what activities your hands have recently taken up, and you may surprise yourself with the potential.”
After 20 yrs in textiles, I began to watercolor. Don’t remember doing it even as a kid. I see potential there – may eventually also try acrylics or oils.
“The greatest discoveries have been made by those who did not know where they were going or how to get there.”
Well, that certainly fits me, right now, not knowing where I’m going!
“The practice will also set you apart, and that may not be comfortable.”
Being apart has always felt comfortable to me, but, as an Aries and a Boomer, am naturally rebellious – it’s just been the role of those of us born into spiritual awakening generations (like our Transcendentalist generational forebears).
One you own your place in the big scheme, you see no reason to fit in.
Rob, Sarah (and Brendan too), really nice to have confirmation on this. Sarah – what you’re experiencing sounds extraordinary. I feel that there’s a huge, watery energy shift taking place, and as Len says: “Finding harmony through the element of water means going by feel” – feels like I’m swimming under water right now, and I’m learning how to breathe down here.
Thank you, Len and everyone else. Huffy, this is *exactly* what I’ve been feeling. And the strangest thing of all: I can’t sleep properly – but it’s only a part of me that can’t sleep. I’m simultaneously insomniac and dreaming. How’d that be happening?
Diamonds on the inside..
Thx you
Huffy: It is a joy to be of service to you.
Mia: You are very welcome.
eco11: It is gratifying that you found my phrasing resonant.
Amanda: Yes, we did it again. You say potato, i say poh-ta-to, you say tomato, i say….
recognizant: All the best to you and your water paintings.
Rob44: You are so very kind and generous, and it is truly appreciated.
darkmary: Your perceptive reception is deeply appreciated as well.
jinspace: You are most welcome.
Many thanks to you all!
“Defining yourself by what you are creating, rather than what you have achieved.” I love this, too! All beautiful and reassuring lessons flowing from these pages today. My thanks.
Thanks Len and Amanda. Your pieces today really complement each other; there is a lot of depth here. I’m just at the tail-end of a series of conjunctions from Neptune to my natal Saturn. During this last year and a half, to varying degrees, my experience of time (Saturn) dissolved (Neptune.) This has taken various forms: losing time (I really worried about being dissociative for a while), time and astral travel, stepping out of time and coming to a somatic/experiential understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of reality or time/space, which includes the multi-dimensional nature of “me.”
The first six months of this experience was very disorienting as my sense of reality crumbled and I really questioned my sanity. I am guessing the trine is gentler and will vary in impact depending on how it interacts with one’s natal chart, but I wanted to share my experience because it can be disorienting (and anxiety-provoking) to move out of a linear experience of reality and creation.
In addition to working with creating from a feeling state, it has been really helpful for me to work deliberately with my “future” selves–the aspects of myself that have already solved problems, healed wounds, integrated polarities, and fully manifested all the peace, love and abundance that I desire, that we all desire.
It really is an extraordinary and revolutionary time on earth. The other wisdom bodies in our solar system, along with the stars are aligning to help us realize that we are, and always have been, love.
Wow. Deftly insightful and so clearly delivered, Len. Your vision and writing only improves with time.
And Huffy, your words really hit home for me too — ” — intense anxiety accompanied by a subtle sense of an easier, more supportive energy which is still very much in the background. The mental, anxious energy feels so much stronger than the other, unfamiliar energy. Your words help to give that new feeling more space.”
My thoughts exactly.
Ah…………….a gift to me on a golden platter!. My N Chiron @ 6o Cancer, ( 1st.) has been taking hits, as the anchor to the Uranus Pluto square! But now both Neptune & Saturn approaching a trine to it, with gifts of creativity……………..PERFECT…….to discipline my water paintings and take them deeper………………………A productive winter season ahead.
I love that our respective posts take different takes on the same aspects. although i was speaking more to Sun-Jupiter when i wrote about the idea of being clear in your direction (thanks to a conversation with eric) more than Saturn-Neptune, there is something to be said for both approaches, and for using them in tandem: both the joy of exploration that comes with not having a set path, and the usefulness of having a clarity of direction/vision to negotiate multiple options/directions at once.
🙂
choosing direction (perhaps moment to moment) without clinging to rigidness; embracing serendipity without drifting aimlessly…
Thank you again, Len. Exquisite article about creativity all in itself!
“The greatest discoveries have been made by those who did not know where they were going or how to get there. Allowing yourself to be in that state…
Persistence with the unfamiliar flow of exploration…
Persevering with feeling only, and a willingness to repeat your efforts until they feel right, will blend and balance…
The practice will also set you apart, and that may not be comfortable.
Defining yourself by what you are creating, rather than what you have achieved, is unusual. It will set you apart. By being apart, you will be able to see possibilities, and be inspired to manifest them…
We are all superbly conditioned to conform. Releasing attachment to that conditioning is to be confronted by creativity. “
Bravo Len!
What you hear is the sound of clapping. All the way from Vermont.
Thank you!
Thank you, dear Len, for this wonderful blog. Helps me to understand how I’ve been feeling lately – intense anxiety accompanied by a subtle sense of an easier, more supportive energy which is still very much in the background. The mental, anxious energy feels so much stronger than the other, unfamiliar energy. Your words help to give that new feeling more space. And I love this! “Defining yourself by what you are creating, rather than what you have achieved”.