plumbing the depths: on the Uranus-Mars-North Node conjunction in Taurus
This post was originally shared on Patreon on July 30th, 2022.
The following is a contemplation on the Uranus-Mars-North Node conjunction in Taurus, but also in part a contemplation on trauma. There are no specific references to specific forms of trauma, but the invitations into personal care do carry a moderate risk of being activating depending on your history & current context. Please listen to your own system and engage at whatever level will be most nourishing for you. Also, important to note that I am not a trauma expert, nor am I a psychologist or psychotherapist; I’m an astrologer deeply interested in trauma & trauma-attending as part of a lifelong pursuit of being human.
Over the past few years, I’ve been spending a lot of time & energy on attending to my inner children. It’s been incredibly transformative to cultivate compassion for my childselves, to work on becoming the adult they needed but didn’t have, to improve my capacity to show up for them in ways the adults in my life did not. As a Capricorn rising, I see this childself work as connected to Uranus passing through Taurus, which is my 5th House. The 5th is the house of children, those we create or care for, and I would argue that our own inner children can be found there, too, at least in part.
A 6th century Greek ceramic kylix depicting the Titans Atlas and Prometheus. Prometheus gets archetypally related to the planet Uranus; his punishment (for giving the Gods’ fire to humans) of having his liver re-eaten by an eagle daily is interesting to contemplate relative to the inheritance of intergenerational traumas. Prometheus endured this torture until his release from bondange thanks to the healer-teacher centaur Chiron.
Uranus sometimes gets associated with the nervous system, and Mark Jones relates it to intergenerational trauma. As far as I can tell, a large amount of intergenerational trauma can be seen in the treatment & conditioning of children, in inherited abuse & neglect patterns more or less hidden within familial and social norms. Among many other things, Uranus’s time in Taurus thus far has come along with the upsurge of “gentle parenting,” an approach to childrearing that deliberately rebels against the harsh authoritarianism & re-assertion of domination and power narratives that have characterized much of parenting for the past century. Gentle parenting breaks patterns by understanding that the nervous system of a child is formed through relationship, through co-regulation. Babies don’t have mature autonomic nervous systems(1) and therefore cannot regulate themselves; instead, they require compassion and connection with their caregivers, and whatever care & attenuation they do — or do not! — receive forms the foundation of their ANS for the rest of their lives.
Aquarius is also associated with the nervous system. As I’ve been contemplating this, I’ve been deeply feeling into the way Aquarius connects to the autonomic nervous system in particular. I say this because I relate Aquarius to the concept of “worldview,” that is, the intangible substructure of belief that dictates what we perceive to be real or possible. The “programming” of the ANS in childhood affects the subconscious, not-entirely-rational perspective of a given individual for the rest of their life, structuring perception of safety and strategies for survival whether or not they “make sense.” That which structures and boundaries perception from an intangible perspective = Aquarius.
Since December 2020, Saturn in Aquarius has been forming a by-sign square with Uranus in Taurus. The astrology of 2021 was strongly characterized by three exact squares between them, but even now, they’re still in a by-sign square. When Saturn stations direct on October 22nd at 18º Aquarius, it will be within a single degree of exactly squaring Uranus at 17º Taurus — we are absolutely still within the Saturn square Uranus era.
The upcoming conjunction of Mars, Uranus, and the North Node at 18º Taurus this weekend (strongest on August 1st, but “alive” since mid-July and lasting through mid-August if we give Mars a 10º orb) also happens to be square that Saturn in Aquarius, currently at 23º and conjoined the fixed star Deneb Algedi (more on that in a moment).
Plenty of astrologers have already commented on this conjunction in terms of global issues, national issues, political issues, and climate issues, and I do recommend reading/listening to those perspectives if those are interesting to you and you have the capacity for sobering-to-harrowing delineations. What I want to offer now, though, is some invitations into how this configuration might emerge on a personal level, and particularly as it relates to the excavation and disruption of patterns rooted in personal, collective, & intergenerational traumas, as well as an opening Venus offers amidst everything.
First, let’s look at three more-subtle factors influencing this moment.
Sea-born Venus, as depicted in a Pomepii fresco from the 1st century AD.
VENUS
The Taurus collection is ruled by Venus. Venus is currently in Cancer, and will be forming an extremely tight sextile with the Uranus-Mars-North Node pileup. Sextiles are often dismissed as “weak” aspects, and also, it’s the aspect that is “of the nature of Venus.” I consider sextile strength to be dependent on engagement: the more intentionally you lean into, explore, and “work with” a sextile, the stronger it becomes. Like cultivating a relationship, a sextile needs your participation.
Venus in Cancer, in charge of the Taurus situation, can be considered a reminder that actively and unabashedly caring can be a form of rebellion. Revolutions do not happen without emotional investment in change. Overhauls do not happen without people giving a fuck. Uprooting, reconfiguring, and sustaining the will to profoundly alter are all acts rooted in a commitment to “better.”
This happens at scale, of course, but it’s also reflected in our individual lives. The impetus towards “healing,” for example, can be understood to be a form of love-in-action towards a desire for an experience of “better.” Which brings me to…
CHIRON
…Chiron’s involvement. Chiron is currently hanging out around 16º Aries, and will be in a square with Venus at 17º Cancer at the moment of the Taurus pileup. Averse to Taurus, Chiron’s contribution is one of reminding Venus of the way individual (Aries) injuries (Chiron) can both fuel and distract from the Good Work required to create root-level change.
The ability to create meaning from experiences of harm without transforming harm into a crutch for unhelpful ego patterns is fed by the humble sincerity of earnest care; the ability to choose to create meaning often requires some amount of nervous-system softness.
Sometimes the way to defuse the sharpness of a re-stimulated emotional bruise, the way to create some nervous-system softness, is to enact care for someone else. Sometimes it means quieting hyper-independent hypervigilance enough to be able to receive care, whether that be from another human or a more-than-human ally. And sometimes, it’s as simple as remembering to drink enough water.
DENEB ALGEDI
from Alexander Jamieson’s Celestial Atlas (1822)
And that water? It may or may not be literal — it could very well be the metaphorical waters of spirit & inspiration.
Over in Aquarius, Saturn is conjunct the fixed star Deneb Algedi, providing an in-road for this star’s significations within the overall celestial context. Deneb Algedi is a bright star in the tail of the constellation Capricornus, the sea-goat associated with the zodiacal sign of Capricorn and currently residing within the tropical location of the zodiac sign Aquarius.(2)
The inclusion of Deneb Algedi in this current astroweather moment has been challenging for me to articulate; it feels quietly and deeply esoteric, an emergence from the oceanic depths traversed by the sea-goat rather than a concrete, tidy, sunlit terrestrial expression. As Diana Rosenberg writes in her Secrets of the Ancient Skies, the sea-goat of Capricornus is related to the Sumerian-Babylonian deity Ea, a god of divine intelligence who brought civilization to humankind through the teachings of language and law. Ea is primarily water-bound, Lord of the Deep, only bringing His form to dry land when teaching is called for. Symbolically speaking, one could say that the intangible structures necessary for society (Aquarius) find their true source within the nonrational wisdom of spiritual transcendence (the oceanic deep, the place where a fish’s tail is far more functional than goats’ hooves).
Saturn is currently retrograding over Deneb Algedi’s slice of sky, and so the sensation of “going back to retrieve” is participating in my contemplation. Going back is in tension with the hungry propulsion of Uranus, Mars, and the North Node together in Taurus. Going back is, in its own way, a slowing down, an awareness that everything needed to move forward is not yet here, and instead, the task is to return to gather what is missing. This is described simply in the square between Saturn and the Taurus situation; a square from a strong Saturn means Saturn successfully obstructing what might otherwise be a joyride careening off the cliff. Adding Deneb Algedi’s involvement is to add a glimmer of rationale for that obstruction: something crucial to the development of human civilization — that is, the collective human soul — must be fished from the spiritual sea.
Saturn’s third and final exact conjunction with Deneb Algedi occurs on February 12, 2023, and while I’m generally reticent to do too much public prediction, I would wager a guess that some crucial bit of civilizing (in the best, non-colonial sense) wisdom might find its way onto dry land around that time.
bringing it together & making it personal
Obviously, not everyone is a Capricorn rising, so not everyone is experiencing the Taurus situation as a 5th House situation, nor the square with Saturn as a square between the 5th and 2nd Houses.(3) However, some core themes are generally applicable:
the connections to the nervous system (Aquarius & Uranus)
personal & intergenerational trauma (Uranus & Mars)
a hunger (North Node) to move towards genuine comfort, ease, and connection (Taurus)
a need to (re)find connection to divine wisdom & divine law (Deneb Algedi) as part of (re)creating a healthy, structured worldview (Saturn in Aquarius)
the tension between movement (Mars-Uranus-North Node) and obstruction (square Saturn)
the importance of enacting care and protecting what is precious (Venus in Cancer)
the tenderness of ego & harms of individualism (Chiron in Aries)
This is a shitton to work with and a shitton to navigate. If you’re feeling exhausted, frazzled, buzzy, restless, anxious, and/or fearful, I mean — one doesn’t even need the astrological context to see why that might be the case. The time we’re in is one of upheaval, collapse, breakdowns, and breakthroughs.
I personally feel that Venus in Cancer and Deneb Algedi are two of the celestial participants to turn towards as assists, to whatever degree is available to you. Both of these figures can be engaged with as enactors of genuine care, as guides and teachers, as beings who believe in the worthiness of investing effort towards a better way of being. If hanging out with planets & stars is something you’ve done a bit of already, doing a bit more with Venus and Deneb Algedi over the coming days could be quite salubrious.(4)
More practically, tending to your nervous system is The Way, The Truth, and The Light. Some suggestions:
BREATHWORK
As my friend Nathaniel constantly reminds me, breathwork is one of the most potent nervous system care tools around, from simply paying attention to your breathing while meditating to rigorous pranayama practices to holotropic breathwork. Breathwork can also be quite activating & emotionally excavating, so please do be cautious & kind with yourself if you’re new to intentional breathing and choose to experiment.
RELAXATION-FOCUSED MEDITATION
If guided meditation is something you enjoy, I created this relaxation-focused one back in 2020.
Yoga nidra is pretty cool, too. My favorite I’ve found is this UCLA one that seems to only be available on the Internet Archive now.
SPEND TIME WITH NONHUMAN NATURE
Hang out with a tree, visit a body of water, go to the park and lay in the grass, snuggle a pet, curl around the pot of your favorite houseplant and just listen to it, watch ants bring food home to the hill, whatever. The point here is to release your focus from yourself and human affairs and connect with other incarnate beings sharing this Earth with us.
Obviously, there are very many other options, so please do whatever makes sense for you in your circumstances. If you’re like me, some part of you might get a bit noisy about how pointless this kind of work is when there are disasters of multiple scales unfolding across the globe. I would like to encourage you to attend to your nervous system however you can anyway, to cultivate kindness for the parts of you who are reactive, to remember that even the tiniest amount of care for yourself & for others is better than none. We are each an irrevocable part the collective body of Earth, and if we take seriously the idea of the macrocosm within the micro, as above so below, when we choose to engage with even the smallest possible movement towards care, nourishment, gentleness & tending, our efforts contribute to the health of that collective body. You benefit, sure.
And so does everyone else.
Notes
The autonomic nervous system consists of the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system is our defense system, and is associated with the responses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. The parasympathetic nervous system is in charge of rest, recuperation, and pleasure states. The enteric nervous system is primarily concerned with running our digestive system. Astrologically, we could think of these systems as Mars, Venus, and the Moon respectively, though there’s quite a bit of nuance beyond that simple association.
The zodiacal signs and the constellations started out more or less overlapping each other, but over time, the constellations have very slowly moved relative to the static position of the zodiac signs. The tropical zodiac is anchored by the solar solstices and equinoxes; the constellations themselves are not anchored in this way.
For a free deep dive on house significations, check out the Astrology Podcast’s episodes on the houses, including this one on Uranus transiting through the houses. If you’d like a book that covers the houses, Deborah Houlding’s Temples of the Sky is concise, and Demetra George’s Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice Volume 2 is meaty.
For more on Deneb Algedi, Sphere + Sundry’s write-ups for the two talismanic materia series they’ve created keyed to this star can provide some insight: (1) (2)
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