Saturn Trine Neptune Ripple Effects: Magically Delicious Grand Water Trines Morph into Cardinal T-Squares June Through August 2013

Photo: Willow

The Sun enters Scorpio this evening. This means the Sun-Saturn conjunction is hanging heavily in the atmosphere, but it also means the Sun will light up the separating Saturn-Neptune trine for the first few days of Scorpio season.

Saturn in Scorpio and Neptune in Pisces are currently just past an exact trine - a favourable 120-degree aspect. They last formed this aspect in 2002 in air signs. The current water trine is helping make dreams a concrete reality, while also dissolving long-held hopes and illusions that have not proven viable. Saturn and Neptune formed the first exact trine October 10 and will form the last of the exact trines June 12 and July 19, 2013.

You can read more about the Saturn-Neptune trine here: Saturn in Scorpio Trine Neptune in Pisces: The Last of the Wounding Piscean Era Illusions Are Gently Purged From the System

What's going on now is just the beginning, however. The good celestial vibes from the current Saturn-Neptune trine emanate through the end of 2012 and into fall of 2013. There are threads, both ethereal and material, connecting the benefits we are receiving under this trine now with gifts and blessings - potentially beyond what we can currently imagine - bestowed next spring and summer.

Jupiter, the planet of luck, expansion, blessings, gifts, the broadening of horizons, wisdom, and faith, moves from the sign of its detriment, Gemini, to the sign of its exaltation, Cancer, on June 26, 2013 where it will remain until July 16, 2014.

Jupiter in the sign of its exaltation indicates a year-long period of strong cosmic grace amongst the difficult transitions and movements indicated by the ongoing series of Uranus in Aries – Pluto in Capricorn squares.

From this much stronger, exalted position, Jupiter is going to get a lot done, and it shines its benevolent light on almost every aspect of life on Planet Earth during its year-long transit of the sign of the crab.

Benefic Jupiter will form a gorgeous, glowing Grand Water Trine with Saturn in Scorpio and Neptune in Pisces July 17 and 18, 2013, along with a series of more challenging cardinal t-squares and cardinal Grand Crosses during its transit of reflective, Moon-ruled Cancer.

In fact, the Saturn-Neptune trine we are currently experiencing expands into a series of magically delicious Grand Water Trines next spring/summer as the personal planets (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, and Mars), along with Jupiter, move through Cancer, forming the final leg of the water triad and dividing the zodiac into three 120-degree parts.

Throughout June, July, and August, 2013, we will experience, in waves, multiple Grand Water Trine formations that morph quickly into cardinal t-squares.

As the planets move to 4/5 degrees Cancer, they form the easy and flowing Grand Trines with Saturn and Neptune in water signs Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces. Anyone with natal placements in the early degrees of water or, to a secondary degree, earth signs should be particularly experiencing the good graces.

As the planets continue into the 9 to 12 degree range of Cancer, they then become part of more tense, stressful, and challenging t-squares (180- and 90-degree aspects) in the cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, and Capricorn. People with natal placements near this range of the cardinal signs will be feeling the pressure and the impetus to act.

The water signs relate to emotion, intuition, spirit, metaphysics, inner guidance, and the unseen realms. The cardinal signs relate to initiation, action, new directions, leadership, and decision-making. The movement initiated this June - August is guided and informed by water wisdom of all varieties. 

These are waves of flowing water magic followed by more tense, dynamic, and active configurations. We drift and meander and soak up the blessings of the Grand Trines, but are then required almost immediately to put them to good use. Things are uplifting, flowing, bursting with good vibes. We're buzzing with new dreams, renewed faith, and a sense of loving cosmic connection and grace. The water in each and every cell is singing beautiful harmonies - and then we are challenged to do something with it. 

Considering all the benevolence the universe is showering down on us with these waves of gorgeous Grand Water Trine, it had better be something substantial.

The multiple Grand Water Trines soften the edges considerably next spring and summer, easing frayed nerves caused by the almost constant cardinal square tension and stress we've been working with now for the past three years.

Benefits and cosmic grace will be coming to us through the feminine/yin qualities of Cancer: emotional connection, nurturing, comforting, caring, gentleness. These are all things we can use more of during the cardinal square years, and Jupiter in Cancer provides. Psychic abilities will be keen under all the water aspects, and an awareness of emotional/inner guidance will be particularly acute. 

We will have expanded opportunities to experience home and family under transiting Jupiter in Cancer that are quite exciting, with renewed faith and inspiration found in those things as we are prompted to live our very own "family philosophies." The nests we set up, expand, and and commit to during this transit provide interest, excitement, and fortification for what's up ahead. 

Luck comes to us through family under Jupiter in Cancer - both birth and chosen. Our sense of family expands to suit a new era flavoured by Aquarius, and we are able to find a sense of belonging where there was only cold isolation and anomie previously. The idea of family and home (Cancer) continues to expand (Jupiter) under the Aquarian umbrella, and friends become family. Home bases can be set up and secured under these transits with like-minded souls who become family to us. The wisdom in our hearts guides the process.

During the transit of Jupiter in Cancer, things we learned and wisdom we gathered during the experiences of our early upbringing become aces in the hole. Under this transit, we come into wisdom and a big-picture understanding about some emotionally tough experiences we've had, especially early experiences of family and home that have stuck with us.

Anyone who has refused to sacrifice emotional health for career advancement, soul security for monetary gain, or inner work for public image will be reaping the benefits of those choices. People who have followed the guidance of the inner voice and the emotional cues, as those around them favoured blind ambition, at-all-costs gains, and destructive advancement, will be in the sweet spot during the Jupiter transit of Cancer.

We're moving through some often rough waters on this planet and will continue to do so, but the blessings and grace coming to us through these Grand Water Trines do a lot to comfort and protect us along the way.


Grand Water Trines Morphing into Cardinal T-Squares – June through August, 2013

Mercury and Venus, conjunct in Cancer, form the first wave in early June.

Mercury in Grand Water Trine - June 3 – 4
Mercury in cardinal t-square - June 7 and 8

Venus in Grand Water Trine - June 7
Venus in cardinal t-square - June 11 and 12

Sun in Grand Water Trine - June 26
(This formation is made a kite by the Capricorn Full Moon June 23.)
Sun in cardinal t-square - July 2 to 4

Mars and Jupiter, conjunct in Cancer, form the final wave in July and August.

Jupiter in Grand Water Trine - July 17 and 18
Jupiter in cardinal t-square - August 7 through 21

Mars in Grand Water Trine - July 20
Mars in cardinal t-square - July 27 through August 1

The Moon in Cancer will form very fast-moving Grand Trine and t-square configurations June 10, July 7, and August 3/4, 2013.


Jupiter in Cancer Forming Multiple Cardinal Grand Crosses - August 2013 to April 2014

In addition to the Grand Water Trine and cardinal t-square it forms next July and August, Jupiter in Cancer will star in a series of five cardinal Grand Crosses involving Uranus in Aries, Pluto in Capricorn, and the personal planets (Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and Mars) in Libra.

Grand Crosses are made up of two oppositions or four squares and usually occur in signs of the same quality (cardinal, mutable, or fixed). In this case, the tense, clashing, and highly dynamic configurations are happening in the cardinal signs, indicating (yet more) grand-scale new directions, new frameworks, and new leadership emerging under pressurized circumstances, both personal and global, micro and macro. The friction creates movement and growth.

The first cardinal Grand Cross involves Venus in Libra and forms August 23 – 27, 2013.

The second involves Mercury in Libra and forms September 13 – 19, 2013.

The third involves the Sun in Libra and forms October 1 – 12, 2013.

The final two cardinal Grand Crosses involve Mars in Libra – both direct and retrograde. The first Grand Cross forms with Mars direct between December 23, 2013 and January 8, 2014.

The final Grand Cross forms April 21 – 24, 2014 and is exact, as all four bodies – Mars Rx in Libra, Jupiter in Cancer, Uranus in Aries, and Pluto in Capricorn – will be at 13 degrees of the cardinal signs.

Did I mention Jupiter was going to be a busy little beaver during its transit of Cancer? It's hitting all the marks from this exalted position and playing a part in all proceedings. The cardinal Grand Crosses (or Grand Squares) kick the global and personal re-structuring up to fevered pitch yet again, and we're going to need every last bit of Jupiterian blessing from its position of exaltation.


Background:

Cardinal t-square 2010

Cardinal Grand Cross summer 2011

Cardinal Grand Crosses 2013 and 2014  

Saturn in Scorpio Trine Neptune in Pisces: The Last of the Wounding Piscean Era Illusions Are Gently Purged From the System

The faeries are camera shy.

Photo: Willow

 

Saturn at zero Scorpio forms a water trine to Neptune at zero Pisces October 10, and the planet of structure and concrete progress is in flowing, supportive aspect to the planet of the dreamy and non-concrete. Spiritual and psychic elements of life are drawn almost effortlessly into even the driest and draggiest of realities. Things solidify and dissolve, solidify and dissolve, in an interwoven dance of physical and ethereal, planned and dreamed. Wood, steel, and stone are acted on by mystery, magic, and metaphysics.

Solid advancement seems just within our reach, at our fingertips, when the tide goes out yet again, washing things away, back to chaos, back to square one.

And then it’s time for another attempt, for a new set of plans, for a new angle of advancement.

If a foothold does gain traction here - finally, beyond all reason – it’s because it is infused with some 'Pisces for the Aquarian era' pixie dust. It’s a step that has found, through trial and error and otherworldly instruction, a new direction into a new framework of successful energy dynamics.

Our experience of time (Saturn) continues to reformulate. The concept of time having a static and regular nature seems to belong to a different era. Certain time segments speed by, disappear, are seemingly lost altogether, and then time slows, seems to crawl, becomes standard again. Time being relative is antiquated understatement at this point. We snap in and out of the timed reality, the linear regularity, touching down and blanketing ourselves in its weight to regain bearings. Oh, clock. Oh, watch. Pin me to this grounded life. Comfort with your tick tock tallies of life’s moments, speeding blindly past.

Progress made now is not purely linear, easily planned, or directed via desire for personal advancement alone. Things are being put in place, but the work is completed on its own timeline.

Saturn and Neptune. Neptune and Saturn. The finite and the infinite, the infinite and the finite. These two bodies will form three exact trines in these signs – October 10, 2012, June 11, 2013, and July 19, 2013. This trine is in the air for the next year, working its meandering magic.

Our challenges and responsibilities – somewhat daunting, perhaps, at the beginning of Saturn’s almost three-year trek through deep, dark Scorpio – are eased by a sense of floating Neptunian surrender and faith.

There’s only so much we can do about certain nightmare scenarios we find ourselves living through on this planet. But if we’re doing everything we can, everything on Saturn’s docket, we’re also very aware that the loving and benevolent universe (AKA God) picks up the slack. We’re digging in to the nitty gritty as Saturn transits Scorpio, going third-eye deep, peeling away the artifice – but when we’ve dug in as far as we can go, there is both assistance and guidance through the intricate and sometimes arduous matrices.

The stone-cold, ground-zero Scorpionic realities are softened here with just an impression of a glimpse of a wink from the universe. A feather lying in our path, an animal guide making itself known, a glimmer of the faerie folk in a mischievous smile, a remembered dream tying it all together. A reminder that no matter how bad it is, it’s still OK – as long as we’re living and working within soul-deep reality. We’ve come to this point together, and we move through it together.

Our structural realities (Saturn) are in a state of sometimes traumatic morph (Scorpio) as global seismic shifts indicated by the Uranus-Pluto square series drop the bottom out in certain areas and open new opportunities amongst the wreckage in others.

This Saturn-Neptune trine indicates that the progress being made in our lives and the opportunities opening to us now, though potentially scary and uncertain, are moving us toward our dreams, one step at a time.

We’re working (Saturn) for these dreams (Neptune), but they're new dreams.

We’ve stepped firmly onto the water-bearer side of the Pisces/Aquarius divide, and our dreamy ideals take on a new flavour. Our best case scenarios have reformulated, sometimes dramatically.

Saturn in Libra (Not Quite) Trine Neptune in Aquarius and Saturn Retrograde: Neptunian Relationship Fodder From the Anaretic Degrees

Saturn transits the 28th and 29th degrees of Via Combusta Libra just minutes shy of an exact trine to Neptune in Aquarius from now until early February, 2012.

Due to the upcoming Saturn retrograde, the trine between Saturn and Neptune won't become exact until October 10, 2012, at which point both planets will have moved from air to water - Saturn into Scorpio and Neptune into Pisces.

Saturn stations retrograde on the anaretic (29th) degree of Libra February 7 and will station direct again at 22 Libra June 25 - the morning after the first of the seven squares between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn, just to make that a little more over the top.

The last leg of Saturn's transit through Libra has been coloured strongly by a Venus trine to Uranus in Aries that occurred just as Saturn entered its final retrograde shadow in the sign of the scales. Here's the raw and radical, weird and wild, friendly and freaky Uranian shift into Aquarian era-flavoured relationships, giving us the impetus to bust out of old forms, old ideals, and old ways of relating that no longer get the job done. Venus in Aquarius until January 13 keeps the tone set to "new relationship rulebook," and we grind it out Saturn-style.

But now Saturn's retrograde period (February 7 - June 25, 2012) is set strongly to "Neptunian rose-coloured" as Saturn carries the energy and themes of its not-quite-exact trine to Neptune into the retrograde process. Things are, indeed, being stirred to a frothy fin de Piscean era pitch as we push into 2012.

This is compounded by Venus, Saturn's dispositor, transiting Pisces from January 13 to February 8. Venus will be on the anaretic degree of Pisces - the last degree of the zodiac - at the time of Saturn's retrograde station on the anaretic degree of Libra, and you see the relational completion themes quite clearly.

This is Piscean-to-Aquarian relationship dynamics out the yin yang, and they're those final, anaretic degree issues, which can be tricky.

One of the major cautions with anaretic degrees is to stay where you are, working with the present, rather than projecting ahead into the new sign and new territory. Projecting ahead is not what we're asked to do on the anaretic degrees, and doing so is a recipe for failure - something Saturn doesn't like, especially in the sign of its exaltation, Libra. Venus is also in the sign of its exaltation (Pisces) at the time of Saturn's retrograde station, and this indicates that if we put forth our best effort over the 4.5-month retrograde, not jumping any guns, we can release the whole Piscean era relationship-related kit and caboodle.

There's isolation (Neptune) here that, this far into the proceedings, reaches intolerable points as we responsibly, sometimes grudgingly wait out (Saturn) the closing of the era. It's playing with us, testing all points, testing the power of its influence to make us jump into something not in our best interests. Many of us are completing a Saturn in Libra endurance test involving loneliness, disappointment, and dull, dry depression in order to finally move beyond the sticky Piscean era tendrils attempting to draw us back.

We need to be smarter now, and an exact Sun-Mercury conjunction in Aquarius at the time of the Saturn retrograde station February 7 keeps our eyes on the Aquarian prize. If we're serious, if we're responsible, this is a major and potentially final cross-over in relationship.

Piscean era and Aquarian era are two ships passing in the night, and with this Saturn retrograde, we can make sure, once and for all, that we're on the S.S. Water-bearer.

Again, though, we're not there yet, and this retrograde through Saturn is really going to rub our noses in that fact if we neglect or avoid the issues it's bringing up. Expect vaguely familiar situations and people to pop up like ghosts during this retrograde. Lingering impressions find form. A song from the soundtrack of an old relationship plays on the radio, triggering the wisp of a memory. A dream reminds you of someone not yet quite gone. An old, free-floating dynamic plays out, yet again, with someone new. Can we never escape them? The old hauntings and longings, carried for so long.

These are our squirm-inducing Saturnine placement tests. We're officially under the thumb. All are meant to be passed through. They can't be held to. They can't sustain us in the land of the living. These ghostly Saturnine tests will be hitting the most open and loving places in our Piscean hearts. They'll be testing our weakest points, our most hopeful points, the sweetest, most longed-for Piscean dreams we held for so long, the points that can bring us to our knees. And we're tired. We're tired of these hauntings and these half-awake, half-dreaming relational situations. The only slightly new cast of characters playing out only slightly rewritten scenes. The loves lost, the loves regretted, the loves pined for, the loves that never quite were. With lives so full of ghosts and disappointments, there's scarcely room for another living, breathing, human being.

But it's weakening. As long as we're able to separate it from the reality before us, it loses its grip. We have to bear it, and we have to show it the door, firmly. We need the radical break.

This isn't about losing the love. That pure, full, ringing-through-every-cell Pisces love that tells us we're human. The love that makes it worth living. It's about love changing. How we give and receive love and what that means changing. Creating truer channels and purer, less distorted connections.

Pass the tests of the final Saturn retrograde in Libra for 30 years, and we move on. Fall for it - fall for the same old tricks and diversions, fall into the same old relational comforts instead of reaching further - and it's broken record time all over again.

Neptune re-entering its domicile of Pisces February 3 gives us a major upsurge in Pisces energy and themes, in effect all year. There will be many glowing articles about this ingress coming from astrologers, but I would advise caution with this energy. Due to the strength of this potentially diversionary upsurge, it's imperative that we carefully filter the sign of Pisces, removing the last habitual pull into hoped-for illusion over fortifying reality, particularly in relationships. With the influence of Mars in Virgo, we're carving out a "Pisces for the Aquarian era," and any Piscean era relational stuff carried forward from here creates an increasing amount of distortion, longing, delusion, dissatisfaction, pain.

We have to work (Saturn) for this. We have to put everything we have into leaving the wounding Piscean era romantic ideals and the associated "should have known betters" behind us. We have to nip them in the bud before they take hold, and these days, they can take hold quickly and with great force. It doesn't always make sense, but that's OK. All we need to do is: keep going.

And yet, in some ways, we're helpless. Pinned under the weight of collective love dynamics 2,000+ years deep, playing out cycles that do not have origin in us. We battle our way out of the cloying, heart-hollowing Piscean era relationship forms not only for ourselves but also for every lover who ever fell prey to their seductive, glowing archetypal dynamics. For every person who fell for potential over reality, who was scammed, used, burned, treated badly. The rage and grief of our mistreatment burns in our souls.

And ladies, it's we who have borne the brunt of it. The cads of the male gender have been traipsing through time and space, century and nation, getting away with the most obscene things. These fools have been doing damage with subtly and not-so-subtly misogynistic dynamics on cyclical repeat. They've skated away, from woman to woman, etheric criminals. Each new woman disconnected from what's come before, sure that he's different with her. Each woman proud to hold up her prize.

And here it stops. With us. Uranus in Aries blazes our trail.

We can only do so much as we twist and turn under this tail-end of the tail-end of the Piscean era, but Saturn tells us, both men and women, if we commit to it, if we keep noses to grindstones, if we do all we can, we progress. We move on. We gain new relational position. We set up relationship frameworks that have a much better chance of meeting the love and companionship needs of all involved as we move into a new astrological era.

With this Saturn retrograde through the last of Libra, we're doing the last of the work to shift the structural set-ups of our relationships out from under Piscean era phoniness, deceit, illusion, immaturity, and foolishness.

For the ladies (especially) who refuse to stand up and step out from the relationship structures and ideals that cause so much misery: Good luck to ya.

Saturn is digging in from the anaretic degree, and we're not going to be allowed to let anything slide here. We're also addressing the very last of the Neptunian shitbag stuff. It's very tricky and very subtle, woven into the fabric of our relations, especially between men and women. Even a breath of an impression of it has to be addressed.

We have to get very serious, very grounded, and very responsible about illusions, delusions, mirages, escapism, and outdated Piscean ideals in relationships of all kinds. Trying to form ourselves around someone else's ideal instead of being who we are. The coquettish damsel batting her eyelashes demurely, arranging long, flowing locks around her while waiting for her Valiant Knight Saviour. (These days, of course, it also goes the other way around.) All the fairy tales fall short once the fair maiden gets hitched to her Big Catch and sinks into the reality of patriarchal rule.

Over the next six months, we have to watch the tendency very carefully in ourselves and in others to throw our arms open to embrace what we wish were true (the fairy tale), rather than what is true.

If people aren't there by now, they aren't going to get there.

Neptune is very good at convincing us otherwise.

Tell Neptune to shut it.

Neptune finishes its 14-year transit of Aquarius February 3 when it re-enters Pisces for 14 years.

Neptune re-entering its domicile Pisces is the last in the series of outer planet shifts (following Pluto's ingress of Capricorn and Uranus' ingress of Aries) and officially wraps up the strongest Pisces-to-Aquarius transition period, indicated by the mutual reception between Uranus in Pisces and Neptune in Aquarius.

As noted, Saturn in Libra will turn retrograde just shy of the exact trine to Neptune in Aquarius, and this aspect does not become exact until October 10, 2012 when Saturn on zero Scorpio trines Neptune on zero Pisces. The trine in those water signs, as you would imagine, has a whole different feel as we enter Saturn's transit of Scorpio in mutual reception to Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune enters the "Pisces for the astrological Aquarian era" sign of the fishies.