Saturn opposite Uranus: Jonathan Ross And Russell Brand

The opposition between Saturn (limits and laws) and Uranus (breaking boundaries) is exact today, but it's been building for sometime now, and will be active for a good while yet. To understand the energy of this planetary aspect there's a great Saturn opposite Uranus story at the moment, in the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand fiasco that has been running for weeks. It has a number of Saturn/Uranus style perspectives within it, as well as being a lovely bright spotlight that shines right at the heart of the Great British Public's warped sense of moral high ground.

Thumbnail sketch of story is that Ross and Brand made some joke phone calls to an actor about his granddaughter. It was immature stuff, sort of offensive, but nothing a heartfelt, head hung, ashamed schoolboy type apology shouldn't have put to rights (to the grandfather NOT the granddaughter!!!). Catch up with the story here and note the bizarre way it snowballs weeks later into something the whole country is supposed to end up tutting and shaking their heads at, including the Prime Minister for gawds sake.

Lest we forget, the girl at the centre of it all, who became the embodiment of moral outrage on behalf of all 'right-minded' citizens everywhere whose sense of public decency felt affronted, is a 'burlesque' dancer (which I thought was a stripper who was a bit snobby about the word stripper). Her troupe is named 'Satanic Sluts Extreme', and Extreme Slut Georgina, 23, unfortunately seems like one of those women for whom sex HAS to be linked to the devil, the darkness, and kissing other girls (only when men are looking though) in order to allow herself to feel sexually attractive. Each to their own of course, it's just I don't think in reality her grandad would have been ever so shocked and surprised to find that brouhaha of this news-story nature vortexes around her; it's just part of the process isn't it, if you think sex is a power trip, and female sexuality akin to a black pvc studded handbag packed to the zips with whips, chains and Anne Rice novels, which only has value when swirled nosily and heavily around in everyone's faces, then you are kind of leaving yourself open to be heckled by the Russell Brands of this world.

I know it seems I don't have a good word to say about this girl, it's just that linking sex to the devil and the darkside makes me all bored and fidgety (I'm not religious so satan has no meaning beyond comic books; like Batman or similar), but mostly am really, REALLY peed off that it's ended with Russell Brand not working for the BBC anymore. I now feel personally affected, outraged and offended by her hypocritical 'you must accept me unconditionally but I won't accept you unconditionally' perspective. I really like Russell Brand you see. He makes me laugh and so is very important to my life. Jonathan Ross also makes me laugh, and so is also important to my life. How some daft posh lass chooses to live and express herself via flimsy and unimaginative sexual imagery is utterly irrelevant to my life and it should have stayed that way: it should have been an inconsequential, private family argument where granddaughter felt a bit silly about her lifestyle choices once it was paraded in front of her beloved grandfather, but then ended up taking a rather defiant, admirable and responsible stance by soothing media frenzy with a 'sorry grandad I love you so much, but this appears to be the kind of anti-social, wacky, edgy, behaviour I inspire in others, being the corseted creature of the night I am'.



Anywho... it's a great story to see the energy of Saturn in Virgo opposite Uranus in Pisces at work though, in all sorts of ways...

here's some Saturn words to get the feel of the energy:
the past, conditional love, expectations, authority, tradition, limits, restriction, repression, rules, regulations, boundaries, laws, controls, society, status quo, shortage mindset, approval/disapproval, hierarchy, boss, grandad.


and Uranus:
the future, the maverick, rulebreaker, unconditional self, unconventional, uncontrollable, uncontainable, break-up, shocking, disruption, upheaval, unattached, independent, revolutionary, eccentric, alternative, urge for freedom, lawless, rebel, anti-social, unexpected, experimental, Self-respect,



So by mixing and matching the keywords of each planet:
- it's clear Georgina seems to have a foot in both planetary camps, as she's not too sure whether to be astonished at the antics of Brand/Ross, thereby courting approval (and cash) of gutter tabloid press, as well as prime ministers and grandads (all so very Saturn) or to go with the disruptive flow that her brand (sorry) of sexual rebellion stirred up in others (uber-Uranian).

- There's the BBC which is very Saturn, representing a long-standing tradition of middle of the road opinion and Saturday night family entertaiment, opposing rebel Uranian Jonathan Ross.

- But there's also Jonathan Ross as Saturn, BBC entertainment figurehead who 'should have known better' because of the size of his paypacket and blessed association with such an instution. Russell Brand is 'a bit more Channel 4' as some Daily Mail readers might say, which I would say means he's not easily controlled by the shame/blame tactics used in social order maintenance (Brand has been quietly getting away with offensive prank calls for some time now, it was only picked up by media because Jonathan Ross was involved and people have been looking for an excuse to find him guilty of not doing his job properly, which is very Saturn in Virgo).


- Finally there's the persepective of public opinion that was laughably slow on the uptake, but which eventually got round (as Noel Gallagher pointed out) to jumping on the complaining bandwagon. Saturn rules the herd instinct of collective consciousness, which is led by an appointed voice of authority, in this case the media, who claim to be expert on the nature of right and wrong in society and who get the sheep herded by implying that if you aren't agreeing with them you are part of 'what's wrong with society these days'.

I imagine there'll be a good few more stories of this nature before Saturn/Uranus is over, and people will be invited to make 'them and us' style choices, reflecting the polarising nature of the opposition aspect in astrology. The Virgo/Pisces axis speaks of guilt/redemption, the victim, the sacrifice, the critic and the dreamer. Jonathan Ross has long been seen as guilty of being overpaid, so now the sacrifice of three months unpaid suspension might ease a lot of people's troubled minds on that issue. Georgina wanted to be both femme fatal and poor victim which is where the Virgo/Pisces style contradictory fatal flaw showed up in her story. Hopefully there'll be some redefining of tired old victim scripts once Uranus really starts breaking Saturn boundaries.

And hopefully there'll be new things from Russell Brand as I could do with a laugh to get me through it all. Georgina has just announced that she is calling for Brand to be reinstated (story here), u-turning on her previous statement at being 'thrilled' that 'justice had been done'. She adds in her latest interview "all these modelling offers have come through which is quite interesting. I thought about doing modelling a few years ago but was told I was a bit too chunky for that, but now all of a sudden I'm not, so that's great".

Saturn In Virgo In The News

The symbol of Virgo depicts the only female figure of the Zodiac, so now that Saturn is in Virgo we'll be seeing plenty of women making headlines that embody the principles of this aspect; kicking off with Germaine Greer's new book, which aims to get the story straight about Shakespeare's wife, Ann Hathaway, who according to accepted opinion was so hated by The Bard that he spent most of his time in London to escape her, and at his death bequeathed only his second best bed in revenge for her being such a lousy wife. But it turns out there might not be much evidence for this after all, according to Greer, just a load of criticism and blame (the dark side of Virgo) built up over the years that ripped her reputation (Saturn) to shreds. Read more here.

And in a very Saturn In Virgo style, Greer remarked in a tv interview today that it's a book she could only have written at retirement age, as any earlier the academic circles would have slated her for writing about something so 'soap opera-ish'. Seems she's not the feather ruffler she likes to think she is, being so motivated by approval from the academic establishment that she'd set aside something she herself considers important, just to appease those potential critics, but anyhoo, she's done it right in 'their' eyes, (the extreme Saturn way to do anything), and has eventually got round to writing about Anne in a way that presents her as the love of Shakespeare's life, and devoted supporter of his work... interestingly, the main star of the Virgo constellation, Spica, was known as 'the most dedicated wife' by the Egyptians (article here).

Elsewhere, the first full day of Saturn In Virgo was also Moira Cameron's first day at work as the first ever female Beefeater to guard the Tower of London, since it all began back in 1485 (link). You can't just sign up to be a Beefeater either, you have to have served 22 years in the armed forces - very Saturn - and up to now you had to be a bloke, which is old-fashioned enough to come under Saturn's love for maintaining traditions of the past well after their sell by date.

And both stories have a rather nice but ever so tenuous trivia thread connecting them, in that the Tudor Age, started along with the Beefeaters in 1485 and ended at the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. Elizabeth was a Virgo and uber symbol of the sign, being writer, poet, and aka The Virgin Queen. She was also imprisoned in the Tower of London for two months, which means the Beefeaters were once her prison guards. Shakespeare was of course around at that time, and wrote all kinds of stuff with her in mind, including apparently this poem, published for the first time this year, written in worship of his Virgo Queen... no doubt while wife Ann was home alone with the kids...

Saturn In The UK Chart

The chart I use for the United Kingdom is 1st Jan 1801, which is the date the Act of Union came into effect. On that day Saturn was at 23 degrees of Leo, a degree Saturn has just recently hit again on July 10th 2007, indicating the UK is in the process of a Saturn Return.

The Saturn Return happens once every 28 to 30 years to everyone, being the time it takes for Saturn to complete a cycle around all 12 zodiac signs. It's associated with time, the past, responsibility, authority, maturity and limitation - all are food for themes running through events at the time of any Saturn Return. (Read more about the S.R. here). The kind of themes that are active in a person's life, or in this case, a nation's life, at the time of a Saturn Return are the seeds or foundation for the unfolding cycle as a whole, so what is important in UK news at Saturn Return time embodies the essence of the cycle in store somehow.


The UK got a new Prime Minister just a few days before this S.R. date, and Gordon Brown exudes that sensible-shoed Saturn spirit, in a 'parent just back from hols after leaving Tony the teenager home alone' kind of way. Even though he's a devil for his stealth taxes, and messed up badly with the pensions fiasco, it still feels like there's a responsible adult just taken charge of the country. But as he's a huge fan of identity cards and all that dodgy biometric database doings, the question of who is really in charge (Saturn) of our identity (Leo) is likely to be a major theme for the UK during this Saturn cycle.

It seems that in the two years Saturn has been moving through the sign of Leo, surveillance, especially from CCTV cameras (Leo) has brought the UK closer than ever to a big brother (Saturn) society. Apparently with 4.2 billion cameras now knocking around, your average Brit can make up to 300 appearances a day on camera; probably more than that in the parts of Wales that have 73 cameras on one street. And it's getting more daft and more sinister in equal measure by the day, with stories of the cameras set to guard the cameras (link), and of the talking CCTV, whose control room operators are under strict instructions about what commands they can give... it appears even the watchers are watched...

"Yelling 'Oi you, stop that', is not permitted. Instead, their instructions make the following suggestions: 'Warning - you are being monitored by CCTV - Warning - you are in an alcohol-free zone, please refrain from drinking'; and Warning - your behaviour is being monitored by CCTV. It is being recorded and the police are attending.'
Mr Bonner said: 'We always make the requests polite, and if the offender obeys, the operator adds 'thank you'. We think that's a nice finishing touch". (article here)

Saturn in Leo = Authority Figures of Fun
Saturn is the law enforcer - the planet of rules and regulations - and boy do we love our rules and regulations in the UK; the unfortunate legacy of Blair's Britain is that we are actually now up to our ears in daft laws and political correctness that defy common sense or usefulness. Fingers crossed that this new Saturn cycle indicates it's time for a law prohibiting daft laws, as well as some on the spot fines for P.C. behaviour. However, on the positive side Leo is the sign of the entertainer and sometimes there's nothing quite like the drama of deciding whether to laugh or cry at the tragi-comedy born from some of the more hardcore P.C. stories...

For example, how about the council who kept the lights of a disused school burning for years so vandals wouldn't fall and hurt themselves? (link) Or the village Christmas fete that was going to be cancelled unless a risk assessment was carried out on the mince pies? (link) And just in the past few days two classic stories have emerged, firstly in the banning of armbands for children at a local swimming pool because of the danger of disease that might arise from the required mouth to armband inflation method (link), and finally with a local councillor asking a restaurant to change its name from 'Fat Buddha' because, she says, Buddhists will be offended. Strangely she is sticking by her comments, even though the restaurant owner, Mr Fung, is a Buddhist who pointed out he's not offended. A spokesman from the Buddhist society backing him up did nothing to sway her either (story here).

Neptune, Bringer of Cloud and Rain
Planet Neptune, ruler of boundless waters and flooding, has been standing opposite to Saturn in the skies for months, and this aspect reached it's final peak at the time of the UK Saturn return; the time when Britain was hit by the worst flooding it has seen for years (link). Though while some are quick to use the summer weather as evidence of global warming, it's not as clear cut, or as unusual as they would hope it to be (link). Last time the UK saw weather like this was back in the early 1950's, when powerful Pluto was in the process of crossing the 23 Leo degree position of the nation's Saturn. There were serious floods, storms and even killer smog over a period of months that eventually led to thousands of deaths. And in true Pluto style, there's even a conspiracy theory developing around those events, with a mysterious tale of the RAF conducting weather experiments at the time of the flooding. Read that story here, and the scoffing of it here.

While Saturn is wrapping up its stay in the sign of Leo (not to return till 2034), in readiness to move into Virgo for the next couple of years, these and other Saturn/Leo themes will continue to resonate in the UK chart, and from an astrological point of view, in the UK psyche. In Saturn Return terms this is a cycle that has only just begun.

Dr Who Hates Astrology!

I just found out David Tennant hates astrology with a passion!
I’m devastated. It was only when he became the tenth Doctor Who that I got right back into a show I hadn’t watched since being a small child in the 1970’s. Back then I watched mostly from behind the sofa, as it seemed the only safe place once those Daleks arrived. It was a show that became the source of countless childhood nightmares (oh, that theme music!), but then I grew up to be an astrologer much in love with all things of star and space and fell for this Tennant Time Lord incarnation immediately. I rejoiced in the weekly triumph of Geek Chic over all manner of monsters and scary folk, armed only with a sonic screwdriver, a winning smile, and the kind of confidence and optimism born from the conscious memory of nine previous lifetimes. What can I say, he’s my kind of guy.

It’s surely a measure of his skill as an actor that I’m confusing fantasy and reality in such matters, but now I find David Tennant hates astrology I’m all shattered dreams and disappointment. I won’t ever be able to ask for an autograph in case he shoos me away sternly, and sadly my hero now seems to be angrily aiming that sonic screwdriver directly at me from my favourite Who wallpaper. In the most intolerable twist of fate imaginable, being an astrologer means I’ve actually become one of Dr Who’s monsters.

And I’m making it all worse for myself because I can’t help thinking the whole thing reeks of his sun in Aries nature. Yes, Tennant’s an Aries. Surely no surprise there. Only an Aries could spit nails on a subject without having researched it first. But maybe that’s just my Moon in Aries instantly assuming he hasn’t. Whatever, I’m now on a galactic quest in search of the astrology of Dr Who. I need to soothe my soul the best way I know…


The Tom Baker Connection
Legend has it that back in the 70’s, when Tom Baker was caretaker of the Dr role, (he of the long scarf and wide-eyed grin), while I was quivering uneasily behind the sofa armed only with Sindy dolls and a Spacehopper to see off those Cybermen, elsewhere a wee Tennant was so thrilled by Baker’s performance, he made a decision there and then that acting was his destiny. In true sci-fi plot style, it turns out Dr Who literally inspired a future incarnation of Dr Who. And if astrology is doing its job properly, it’s going to show up in a birth chart comparison of both actors.

David Tennant born 18th April 1971, Bathgate, West Lothian
Tom Baker born 20th January 1934, Liverpool, England

I don’t have birth times for either Baker or Tennant (and am too nervy of a brusque response from my hero to write and enquire further), but just a Googled birthdate and a midday birth time is enough info to bring up a chart showing a number of fascinating astro aspects between the pair, including a Sun/Moon conjunction, and a Sun square Sun aspect. Both are significant indicators of strong links between two charts, but there was also another aspect that got my attention: the North Node of the Moon, which is famous for being an indicator of destiny in a chart. Both actors share North node in Aquarius, just a couple of degrees apart at 19 and 21 degrees. It takes around 19 years to return to its starting point in a cycle, so a strong link like this to another chart isn’t something that happens everyday.

An argument often thrown at astrology in an attempt to invalidate it is that all children of David Tennant’s age had this aspect, but not all went on to become Dr Who. But trying to be detail specific when it comes to destiny is missing the point, as astrology speaks strongest about shared wavelengths and similarity of energies (symbolised by the planets, signs, etc), which spark an individual resonance or recognition, tuning-fork fashion; in this case like an acorn in the presence of an oak tree recognising the potential blueprint held within.

Hotspots
Astrologers look for patterns in charts and between charts, and these patterns can run on like a connecting thread, spanning generations and events. Widening the search to join the dots, I looked at the chart for the first ever Doctor Who series, (first aired 23rd November, 1963, 17.15pm). The Sun (identity) had just moved into the first minutes of the sign of Sagittarius, just the right symbol for the nomadic adventurer spirit that characterises the soul of the The Doctor. Moon was conjunct Saturn at 17 degrees of Aquarius (Saturn is the planet associated with time and authority, and therefore Time Lords - check out his funky retro spaceship for a true Saturn symbol).

This 17 degree Aquarius point was cosily close enough to Baker and Tennant's shared North Node degrees to suggest this area might be a hotspot between Dr Who related charts, in which I could expect to see planets and angles repeatedly cropping up. It’s oh so difficult without birth times to get an accurate picture of who might have what at that hotspot, but soldiering on, I looked at info for writer Russell T Davis (27th April 1963), and found he had Saturn at 22 degrees of Aquarius (in exact dynamic 90 degree aspect to David Tennant’s Saturn in Taurus, btw).

The original Dr Who series ran from 1963 to 1989, then returned to tv screens on 26th March 2005, thanks to the genius of Russell T Davis's brilliant writing. Scanning the classic series last episode chart (6th December 1989) for any sign of action on those hotspot Aquarius degrees showed the North Node back at 19 Aquarius; while the new series in 2005 had Neptune (imagination) at 17 Aquarius.

I could have gone on and on with the Aquarius trail, as more clues were everywhere, but it was dinner time and the washing machine needed reloading, unfortunately signalling my journey through time and space had to draw to a close for now. However there was just time to check the United Kingdom chart (1st Jan 1801), because when something like Dr Who is taken to the hearts of the nation in such a huge way, it’s going to be seen resonating with the UK chart strongly too. And along with some other great aspects to the charts, I found the UK's Venus (relationship and value) to be located at 17 Aquarius.

I’ve concentrated on those aspects between 17 and 22 Aquarius here, but there’s plenty more I haven’t mentioned. No doubt plenty more I couldn’t see because of thumbnail sketch birth details. I can imagine many people might not see a meaningful connection between a bunch of numbers and a few charts, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s these kinds of collective ‘coincidence’ patterns that reveal the true nature of astrology. Because real astrology is more about patterns than predictions, more about free will than fate, and turns out to have more in common with a Time Lord than with a Mystic Meg. Forget the touch and feel clockwork universe that sceptics get so panicky about questioning; now that it’s all mandelbrots and fractals there's plenty of room in that weird old world of quantum chaos for astrology to exist quite happily without causing any damaging ripples at all in the fabric of the space-time continuum, as a result of rocking that boat of accepted reality.


Read this article here for an insight into how astrology and strange but true weird science now sit comfortably side by side.

End Of Saturn Retrograde At Last

One day in early December 2006, a rather flustered on duty police officer accidently reversed his car into mine, and like all astro folk, I’m hardwired to pause mid-event to look for likely matching transits; a quick scan of the environment reveals planet, sign and house signatures, then it’s just a case of superimposing the relevant chart aspects over it all, courtesy of minds eye technology. In this case Saturn (planet of law enforcement) just hours previously had begun a retrograde phase (appearing to move backwards).

Sceptics say the event was just a coincidence, because lots of other people that day didn’t encounter the reversing police officer in their path, but sceptics don't seem to understand that astrology deals with a tailor-made unfolding of events, born of an abundance of elements such as times, dates and places of then and now, along with all the possibilities of expression each astro symbol carries. It's about showing how the universe is out-picturing us, weaving together for each individual the closest external manifestation-match for their inner landscape at any moment.

Of course there was a lot more going on in my chart than Saturn retrograde, but to go into all that would take all day as there was A LOT going on at the time (hence one very flustered police officer); though I will say that Saturn was squaring Neptune in my chart, and the police officer remarked ‘I just didn’t see you’. Anyway, upshot was he admitted liability, and I set about making a claim for the damage. It took ages. Ages and ages for each step of the way to inch closer to completion, which is a trademark of the retrograde phase – the dragging of the heels and the wading through of the treacle. But each delay that happened I simply remarked ‘ah, Saturn retrograde I presume', while nodding like a very wise and knowing person.

I got a final letter this weekend, as Saturn ended its retro phase and began direct motion once again, informing me that full costs had been recovered and the case was considered closed. That’s the end of that then.