The transits of the planets

Effects of the transiting Uranus

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Inward

Transits of Uranus often leave you feeling nervous, perhaps even irritable. Their causes are seldom obvious; they usually stem from something in your body, mind, or outer life that has been overlooked or misunderstood. They can indicate that you have gone off course in some area, that the way you are acting personally or professionally is out of tune with who you really are. For example, you may be under pressure from family, work, or your social environment that is completely inappropriate to your true nature. In that case, the Uranus transit appears as an inner response to an external situation. The same tension can also arise from a purely internal source, a part of you that demands attention and freedom. Either way, Uranus transits mark times when you want, or need, to break free of aspects of your life that have become restrictive. Such restrictions rarely serve your growth. A misguided sense of self-discipline is no reason to suppress the areas that call for change, even radical change.

Your quest for greater personal freedom and self-expression is most constructive when you channel Uranian energy consciously and conscientiously. Waiting until you explode, metaphorically speaking, is a poor strategy; the resulting havoc can destroy things that need not be lost. You may have to moderate Uranian energy for your own sake and for others’, but moderation is not the same as suppression. When handled properly, these energies can benefit you and everyone around you.

Outward

Most people notice Uranus’s outer manifestations more readily than its inner ones. Its energy can appear as encounters with social or cultural groups that unsettle you. Whatever your feelings, remember that most of these groups are neither inherently good nor bad. If you react strongly, let that be a cue to examine the situation consciously and objectively before taking a stand. If you reflexively reject any group, idea, or movement outside the mainstream without first seeking to understand it, you will make life harder for yourself. Whenever such movements arise to meet a genuine need for change, they will persist until that change occurs, no matter how you feel about them.

Another disruptive symptom of Uranus transits is the appearance of unusual events that fall well outside normal experience. They arrive suddenly and without warning, making them nearly impossible to anticipate, however much self-analysis you attempt. Astrologers joke that if you try to predict a Uranus transit’s outcome, whatever you foresee is almost certainly not what will happen. The best response is therefore to live as flexibly as possible during major Uranus transits and to avoid rigid, predetermined plans except where absolutely necessary.

The key point about Uranus transits, inward or outward, is that their purpose is not to cause needless hardship. In traditional terms, Uranian energy is not "malefic"; it is simply challenging. We all have attachments and desires that resist sudden, unexpected change, so we try hard to block it. Yet the restrictions we impose on ourselves and others to avoid change ultimately deaden life. As Leonard Cohen wrote in Anthem –

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Uranus brings the crack that lets the light in.

Uranus at the Personal Level

As a planet beyond Saturn, Uranus does not operate smoothly on the purely personal level. People who express its energy only personally tend to be gratuitously disruptive – rebels without a cause – and pointlessly contrary. Indeed, they are easily manipulated; simply ask them to do the opposite of what you want and they will comply. Such people treat contrarianism as a vocation. They appropriate Uranian energy without embodying anything truly Uranian in the larger social or historical sense. This level of Uranian expression is the most likely to produce negative results.

Uranus at the Interpersonal Level

Again, Uranus’s energy does not operate optimally at the interpersonal level. Planets that function well interpersonally represent energies aligned with normal, everyday consciousness; they set norms rather than provoke radical change. Because Uranus works outside the usual social framework, no group or conventional ideology can easily embody its energy. Even groups that believe they do so usually fall short. They may wish to reform society, but they neither want nor are able to alter it fundamentally. This is why, in the 1960s, some of the staunchest opponents of radical change were the very liberals expected to support it – they had too much invested in the status quo. Such groups, signified more accurately by Jupiter, are often particularly opposed to the social expression of Uranus.

Uranus at the Transcendent Level

This is the realm in which Uranus finds its most fitting expression. Even here, however, its energies are hard to accommodate, especially when they appear through radical and unconventional social movements. Uranus is not a social or interpersonal planet; its transcendent nature is expressed most purely in the enlightened individual. Many social theorists assume that the next step beyond the individual is the collective, but this idea – common in both fascist and Marxist ideology – is mistaken. No social order, past or present, surpasses the integrated, enlightened individual. Such a person achieves complete wholeness: every part of the self functions in a way that maximally serves the integrity of the whole by expressing itself fully.

Although most people struggle to reach this level of inner integration, the human body offers a model. No part of the body is suppressed; each expresses its unique function while serving the whole. No society has ever matched this standard. Every social order has been an unintegrated collection of individuals, held together largely by suppressing the individuality of almost everyone, including those at the "top."

Nor am I speaking of the radical individualism promoted in contemporary culture, because the so-called "individual" in that context is not truly individual. The word individual comes from the Latin root meaning "indivisible"; the true individual is a completely integrated, fully self-expressed being who knows their own strengths and abilities. A society composed entirely of such individuals – and only such a society – could represent the next evolutionary level. In it, everyone would contribute by being wholly themselves. The energies of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto signal the intrusion into ordinary reality of forces capable of transforming today’s fragmented "individual" into the true individuus or individua. This explains why these planetary energies are often viewed as threatening and subversive.

The truest expression of Uranian energy is found in the breakthroughs and small enlightenments experienced by people on the path to full individuation. Although such individuals may appear strange to others, they rarely threaten the broader social order; they simply stand outside it. History offers many examples – holy men and women, sages, and enlightened beings. The encouraging news is that they are not limited to a few extraordinary figures such as Jesus or the Buddha; many more have existed, and most go unrecognized.