Golden Apples and Discordant Social Shuffling with Saturn Direct in Libra

By the time you wake up on the morning of June 25, Saturn will be direct in Libra, officially on the last leg of its transit through the cardinal sign of the scales.

This is a powerful station for a number of reasons.

Saturn Opposite Eris

Saturn is stationing direct at 22 degrees Libra, exactly opposite Eris, dwarf planet of discord and strife, at 22 degrees Aries. The discordant Eris energy permeates the final leg of the transit, adding a wild, willful, potentially chaotic element to relationships and challenging our progress here during the final 3.5 months of Saturn in Libra. Even relationships that seem solid could be coming apart at the seams as Saturn completes its transit in Libra and enters Scorpio October 5, 2012.

From a previous post: "The influence of Eris in Aries attempts to upset the apple cart as far as the hard-won relationship progress and standard-setting achieved so far during Saturn's transit of Libra. Don't get too cozy or complacent. Eris knows things aren't solid until they're solid, the show isn't over until it's over, and we can't count on current relational positions holding if Eris can find an in and kick anything up. Keep a stiff upper lip, diligently maintaining relational boundaries and standards, throughout the potentially discordant Saturn direct station."

The most well-known story about Eris involves a big social snub. Eris was not invited to a prominent wedding that was going on, despite the fact that all of Olympus had been invited. The social roster was not complete. Eris had been shut out of the proceedings. As a result, the big smiles and boisterous glad-handing were too phony for her to bear, and she stirred up some drama at their little party to make things seem more fair.

Queen Shit Disturber, that one is.

Eris tossed a golden apple, referred to as the Apple of Discord, into the party. The apple was inscribed with "To the Fairest One," (ingenious!) and three goddesses there, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, immediately started quarreling and vying for the prize. They stripped naked for the judge, Paris, and offered him bribes.

Eris played on the vanity of the women involved to great effect, making them look like fools, and, unfortunately, a war was even started over it.

The discovery of dwarf planet Eris in 2005 created discord in our solar system classifications, as well, resulting in the 2006 re-classifications of Pluto, Ceres, Haumea, and Makemake as dwarf planets by the International Astronomical Union. Here again, we have things being stirred up by Eris, but finding a new and more fair structure. That reclassification put feminine Ceres and masculine Pluto on an even playing field, rather than classifying Pluto as a planet and Ceres as an asteroid.

The influence of Eris in Aries during Saturn's direct station in Libra indicates there will be some "golden apples" tossed into previously structured and secure social scenes until the beginning of Saturn's next retrograde in February 2013, shaking things up considerably. We could be acting as Eris, as the golden apple, or as the keeper of the establishment social order - perhaps all three at different times.

There's a prominent theme here of a person initially being warmly welcomed into the social fold, but his or her presence creating unexpected disruption and discord to the point that the individual is then expelled. The inadvertent golden apple. Those with associated astrological aspects in the natal chart (like this astrologer) know the theme well, but it will come as a surprise to many over the next months.

Saturn opposite Eris indicates that discord in relationships and social scenes could have elements of:

-- big social snubs and the aftermath of those snubs
-- standard female competitiveness and jockeying for position, especially around looks, appeal, and social and career positioning
-- the benefits of belonging socially versus the difficulties of being left out
-- the difficulties of belonging versus the benefits of staying independent
-- justice, fairness, and balance in social settings
-- the results of shutting certain people or perspectives out of society - anger, upset, disruption, violence, imbalance, injustice, ineffectiveness, skewed ideas of reality
-- the reasons people are left out and whether they are warranted
-- doing your own thing, balancing it with inevitable social disruption
-- disruptive elements (golden apples) brought into carefully constructed social structures that change the game
-- acts of raw individuality and personal will altering how people are viewed or thought of socially
-- the weight of social more and custom stirring rebellion
-- social shuffling
-- social breakdowns
-- feisty or even violent changes in social status and position, including on the world stage

Venus Direct

Venus, the current dispositor of Saturn, turns direct June 27, just two days after the Saturn station. This completes its retrograde period in Gemini which included the last Venus Transit most of us will experience in our lifetimes June 5/6. Venus makes its way back to the degree of the Venus Transit July 18/19, making for a potent few days. It leaves its retrograde shadow July 31 and enters Cancer August 7.

With Saturn in Libra and Venus in Gemini stationing direct together, we're officially moving forward in matters of love, relationship, social connection, equality, justice, beauty, money, and values. The recaps have been recapped; the reviews have been completed; the relational stock-taking has been filed away. As of the end of June, our hearts are moving forward, not backward. But again, this doesn't necessarily mean smooth relationship sailing. We're going to be hitting some charged points, some feisty moments, and some trigger zones in the arena of relating, guaranteed.

The Eris-related discord kicked up during the final 3.5 months of Saturn's transit in Libra initiates new directions and new social structuring that then become a fixed, slow-burn transformation during the transit of Saturn in Scorpio (October 2012 - September 2015).

Summer Solstice and Uranus Square Pluto

Saturn stations direct in Libra just as Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn form their first exact square (June 24), making for a very intense period immediately following the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere (June 20). Summer solstice is the point when daylight hours are the longest and hours of darkness the shortest in the northern hemisphere.

We're struggling to maintain equilibrium at the breaking points.

The Uranus-Pluto square dominates the astro atmosphere into mid-October, and the final leg of relationship structuring, positioning, and progress is underway under very serious, very charged, and very pressurized circumstances. Many of the partnerships - working, romantic, or otherwise - coming together at the end of Saturn's transit in Libra are real players, game changers. The responsibilities and battles involved are great as we attempt to create a real, workable balance of power between men and women and the masculine and feminine on this planet.

The relationship work we're doing now is epic, and when something is epic, the course does not generally run smoothly. Just ask Eris. But this also makes it kind of fun and amusing (black humour).

I mean, looking at the fucking mess we have going on on this planet, you kind of have to laugh, don't you?

Pallas Athene Conjunct Uranus, Square Pluto

Pallas Athene, the asteroid related to the female warrior who did it better than the boys, is currently in ready-for-the-fight Aries, traveling tightly conjunct Uranus and square Pluto in Capricorn. Pallas Athene will be exactly conjunct Uranus and square Pluto at the time of the first Uranus-Pluto square. The feminine warrior spirit is stirred to blazing via the strong presence of this asteroid at that time, and the emancipation of women and of the feminine on this planet are primary battles.

We're at a push-coming-to-shove point when it is imperative that the feminine stand up and be counted all over this planet. Letting things slide and refusing to stand up now - even in seemingly small issues - means the Pluto in Capricorn regressive force makes big gains.

The Uranus-Pallas Athene fight is about human beings as free and sovereign individuals, able to determine their own courses through life, with structures set up and available to support them in that. The areas most in need of improvement on this front relate to the treatment and condition of women.

The situation of women on this planet is dismal in many arenas. This is most visible in blatantly patriarchal, repressive countries and societies, but it is also prevalent in countries and societies that pay lip service to the equality between men and women. Injustice and oppression are there, whether out in the open or hidden.

In Aries, Pallas Athene is fighting for the rights of women as self-sovereign individuals, outside roles and identities as wives, sexual partners, mothers, daughters, sisters, workers, or domestic labour.

We're not free until we're all free, and women who have secured a basic level of rights are responsible for taking up the fight in whatever form, maintaining awareness of broader issues for women who are not in such a position.

Pallas Athene is also fighting for the feminine, in general, which has been whitewashed out of most of the proceedings and power structures on this planet. This fight is taken up by women and men who refuse to deny the inner/yin/soulful/emotional aspects of themselves and who see the current male/female and masculine/feminine imbalances as untenable and unacceptable moving forward.

Pallas Athene-Uranus in Aries (the fight for women's rights and freedoms as individuals) are sextile Venus, stationing direct in Gemini (women in the media), and issues relating to the treatment of women around the world are currently in focus. One issue coming to the forefront at the moment is sex-selective abortions in order to terminate female fetuses. This is a common practise in China, India, Pakistan, and Taiwan (along with cases of female infanticide), where males are valued over females, but it is being practised in countries around the world, including in the United States and Canada.

In Canada, there is currently no law limiting when people can learn the sex of their babies, so ultrasounds can be and are being used to terminate female fetuses.

The practises of infanticide and sex-selective abortions have created a major decline in female populations in those countries. In India, the repression of women has been increased further by an emerging trend of "wife-sharing" where one woman is forced to sexually accept her husband and any brothers who happen to be unmarried due to a lack of marriageable women. The decline in females has also led to increased incidents of rape and human trafficking. ("Wife-Sharing Haunts Indian Villages" by Nita Bhalla, Reuters)

It is estimated that since the 1970s, 163 million female fetuses have been aborted because of their sex. Think about that for a moment. Think about the huge and detrimental imbalance that has been created over the past 40 years. On a planet that generally keeps the feminine stifled, snuffed out, oppressed, and out of positions of power, the loss of millions of women creates a massive deficit of feminine energy, resulting in an even more out-of-whack and dangerous situation.

Is it any wonder we're seeing the insanity and violence that we're seeing at these breaking points on the planet?

Saturn Re-Enters a Safe Haven

By July 12, Saturn re-enters an area of the zodiac considered safe, if not exactly fortunate, conjuncting the fixed stars Spica (23 Libra) and Arcturus (24 Libra) until August 17. We're assisted in our relationship work and can hunker down through any social pissing matches during this period of time, especially those that are Eris-related or along male/female or masculine/feminine lines.

For more on that: Saturn Re-Enters A Fixed Star Safe Haven From the Heat of the Via Combusta