Saturn in Aquarius | Three Years of Technology, Progress and Justice

An exclusive excerpt from The AstroTwins’ 2020 Horoscope | by The AstroTwins

Life is communal with Saturn in Aquarius, the sign of teamwork, from March 21-July 1, 2020 and again from December 17, 2020-March 7, 2023. As the planet of structure takes a hoverboard ride through this progressive zodiac sign, here’s what to expect.

Excerpted from The AstroTwins' 2020 Horoscope

Gather the thought leaders and call a global summit! From March 21 to July 1, 2020, Saturn lifts its nose from Capricorn’s grindstone and takes a Hoverboard ride through Aquarius, the sign that rules progress, technology and collective action. The galactic guru hasn’t stationed in the Water Bearer’s realm for nearly three decades; in fact, its last visit was from February 6, 1991, to January 28, 1994. Humanitarian Aquarius rules the future while sensible Saturn is the master planner and guard. The world could use a large dose of the innovative strategizing this cosmic cycle brings. Can the citizens of Earth join together to architect a smarter future? Now is the time! 

Saturn’s tour through Aquarius from March 21 to July 1 is a preview of a longer cycle. On December 17, 2020, the structured planet settles back into Aquarius until March 7, 2023, opening up a two-year window for progress. Aquarius is the mad scientist of the zodiac, a sign that pulls off the paradoxical feat of being rational and idealistic at once. (Picture Aquarius Thomas Edison if you need a visual.) And while the process-driven planet’s style may seem at odds with the laid-back Water Bearer, Saturn was actually Aquarius’ ancient ruler, before Uranus was discovered by a handmade telescope in 1781. The ringed taskmaster feels quite at home in Aquarius, and that means nothing is impossible in 2020! After all, rainbows can be measured along the ROYGBIV spectrum and unicorns could reasonably exist using VR technology. 

Can we all get along? Maybe, maybe not. But regardless of our differing views, we will have to write some new rules for how to share this planet. In 1991, during Saturn’s last jaunt in Aquarius, the Madrid Conference was co-sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union as an international attempt to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was signed by Canada, the United States and Mexico weeks before Saturn left Aquarius in January 1994. Perhaps there’s hope to resolve these border crises and international trade wars yet. 

Saturn rules time and, in contemporary astrology, is known as the Lord of Karma. Wherever he lands, chickens come home to roost. While touring Capricorn since December 2017, Saturn has exposed the shadow side of nationalism, mass consumerism and authoritarian world leadership. Can Saturn in Aquarius serve up a solution from left field…or the quantum field? We’re not ruling out space or interdimensional travel as options either. (One ticket to Pleiades, please. Do you take Bitcoin?)

Saturn in Aquarius takes us from the Internet to the IoT (Internet of Things)

rtificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual everything…while Saturn’s in tech-savvy Aquarius, the geeks (not the meek) shall inherit the Earth. In fact, the World Wide Web came to life during the last Saturn in Aquarius cycle. On April 30, 1993, the “www” source code was released by CERN, making the software free and available to anyone. A year before that, in 1992, futurist (and Aquarius!) Ray Kurzweil’s book about A.I., The Age of Intelligent Machines, essentially forecast the wild popularity of the ‘net as we know it!

When Saturn orbited through Aquarius back in 1962, The Jetsons premiered, ABC’s first animated, color TV series, about a family living in the Space Age. The Hanna-Barbera producers imagined an “impossible” world where people could talk to each other on video screens, food could be programmed to come from a machine and robots worked as household servants. In 2020, we’re well-versed in video chats on Google Hangouts and FaceTime, and our Roombas are cleaning the floors like Rosie the Robot of Jetsons’ fame. Currently, the Internet of Things (IoT) is revolutionizing the ways we use technology. As thumb-sized computers with tiny sensors are being programmed to make our devices “smart” and our homes totally automated, we may never have to push another on/off button again. (Alexa, find me my slippers!)

While many people worry that A.I. developments could make human labor obsolete, pragmatic Saturn cautions against spiraling into doomsday thinking. Nevertheless, the ringed planet wants us to hustle and bring our skills up to snuff. Get trained on the software, apps, social media and whatever technological advances are happening in your industry. In 2020, this won’t be a luxury; it will be a necessary step in staying relevant. 

Saturn in Aquarius reconfigures relationships

From pansexual to polyamory, monogamish to heteroflexible, a new crop of relationship labels is being added to the conventional coupling model that’s been based on survival of the species for eons. Saturn in Aquarius can rewrite the “rules” for how to partner, and the sky might be the limit. Even one-on-one types are exploring options like the L.A.T. model—Living Apart Together—to accommodate geographical shifts in industries that may prevent them from working (and living) together full-time in the same city. 

The Aquarian “one love” mantra puts the A in androgyny (and LGBTQIA). With Saturn here, we may add more gender checkboxes to the list—or do away with the category altogether on many forms. At time of this writing, 12 states in the U.S. allowed “X” to be checked as a third gender option on drivers’ licenses. We expect this trend will expand after March 21, but with conservative Saturn involved, it may receive a fair amount of pushback. 

Madonna’s infamous photo book Sex went on sale when Saturn was in Aquarius in 1992. Controversial for its time (and still titillating to date), the black-and-white coffee table hardcover was shot by Steven Meisel and featured the singer in various erotic configurations. Within a few days of release, Sex sold out its limited 1.5 million print-run. 

Saturn in Aquarius supports communes and co-sharing spaces

As the world adapts to climate change and shifting economies, we may need to pool more of our resources. But how to do so fairly without destroying the vibrancy of free will that is so essential to an Aquarian transit? Interesting fact: On November 6, 1991, nine months after Saturn entered Aquarius, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet KGB was dismantled. With repressive Saturn in Aquarius, we have to be mindful not to confuse “equal” with “identical.”  

The gig economy will continue to flourish with app-based services like Uber and TaskRabbit; however, Saturn in Aquarius is likely to demand greater regulation. Drivers may have to go through a certification program, especially in cities like New York and Paris where the taxi and livery companies are in fierce competition. 

In modernized nations, the nuclear family is no longer considered the ideal option for many folks. Statistics are reporting significantly fewer babies being born in countries like the United States each year. With lower birthrates, the co-living model has grown in popularity. In cities like San Francisco, people are renting individual bedrooms in buildings with communal facilities like kitchens and lounges. According to Greek mythology, the Water Bearer (the symbol for Aquarius) was a young man named Ganymede who was the object of Zeus’ affections. He served cups of H2O to the gods in exchange for eternal youth. While “adulting” is mandatory under mature Saturn’s reign, extending the dorm-style life into the 30s, 40s and beyond might become another “new normal” now.

On the corporate front, coworking spaces like WeWork and The Wing continue to open new locations, proving that this trend of collectivism shows no sign of slowing down. As “always be prepared” Saturn lends its organizing principles to the communal Aquarian equation, co-sharing facilities may begin offering more essential group services as part of their package. Think: affordable health insurance, all-access urgent care clinics and on-site childcare. 

In 2020, as Saturn weaves in and out of Aquarius and Capricorn, three titans of industry—Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon—are developing Haven, a free-market effort to reform health care in the United States. Will these billionaires be able to hit the mark while Saturn is in “power to the people” Aquarius? Their idealistic plans could go through another round of R&D between March 21 and July 1. 

Could space travel become a trend?

When it comes to purchasing homes, stabilizing Saturn in Aquarius may shift the type of real estate we invest in. Rising sea levels, along with intense weather patterns like hurricanes and wildfires, could push populations into denser, inland urban areas that have access to fresh water and food supplies. As a result, land parcels may become less available, forcing cities to build upward and owners to invest in air space—which makes sense, considering that Aquarius is one of the zodiac’s three air signs. 

Buildings with renewable energy, like wind and solar, will also become more attractive with sustainable Saturn in Aquarius, the sign that rules electricity. Under the Water Bearer’s influence, developments may occur around water desalinization—a potential key area of interest for impact investors. 

Maybe it’s time to join the 600 people (at time of this writing) who have reserved a seat on Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic for a flight into outer space? In July 2019, Virgin Galactic announced a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia to create the first-ever publicly traded commercial human space flight company. Space travel as big business? When mogul-maker Saturn launches into Aquarius, this trend could really catch on. 

Back when Saturn buzzed Aquarius in 1962, M.I.T. sent a TV signal by satellite for the first time to Astronaut John Glenn, who became the first American to orbit Earth. Project Apollo—NASA’s lunar landing program—was being developed in earnest. In 1992, another Saturn in Aquarius cycle, Mae Jemison was the first African American woman to visit space aboard the Endeavor STS-47.

Saturn in Aquarius brings a new wave of social justice

Humanitarian Aquarius is the zodiac’s Utopian idealist, and Saturn helps bring those visions into form. Some of modern history’s most influential developments in social justice happened under this transit. As we enter 2020, the left and right are more divided than ever. Will Saturn in Aquarius help us lay down our swords (and step away from our Twitter feeds) in order to give peace a chance? 

The answer is yes, very possibly…if history repeats itself. But first, there may be further uprising as people push back against the systems that they feel are treading on their rights. 

On March 6, 1991, one month after Saturn moved into Aquarius, four police officers were caught on video beating Rodney King, an African American resident of Los Angeles who was pulled over for speeding. Despite the visible evidence, a jury acquitted the officers, who were being tried for excessive use of force. Six days of uprising broke out in L.A. in April and May of 1992. In the melee, 63 people were killed, over 2,000 injured, and more than 12,000 arrests were made. A month later, Rodney King gave an impromptu media conference and coined the ubiquitous (and very Aquarian) phrase, “…can we all just get along?”

Between 1962-64, while Saturn was doing a similar dance and threading between Capricorn and Aquarius, another King was in the headlines. On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech at a Civil Rights March to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Subsequently, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were signed into law, passing after an 83-day filibuster in the U.S. Senate. When Saturn returned to Aquarius 29.5 years later, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday was observed in all 50 of the United States for the first time, on January 18, 1993. 

In South Africa, a similar social justice pattern is traceable through Saturn’s cycles in Aquarius. In June 1963, anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison. Thirty years later, during Saturn in Aquarius’ 1993 tenure, Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for laying the foundation which brought an end to apartheid and a new Democratic South Africa.

Saturn in Aquarius has historically brought developments for women’s rights, too. On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the U.S. Equal Pay Act into law to “prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers.” Later that year, Dorothy Hodgkin was the first British woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work on penicillin and Vitamin B12. Carol Moseley Braun, the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate, claimed her seat in November of 1993 when Saturn cycled back to Aquarius. On June 14, 1993, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the United States Supreme Court and took her oath of office in August of that year. 

With the U.S. Democratic Party’s presidential primary elections taking place from February through June of this year—a period partially covered by Saturn in Aquarius, from March 21 on—it’s no surprise that issues of equity are on the table. Some candidates are campaigning for reparations, a restitution payment to the descendants of African slaves brought to the United States. Policies are being outlined to protect women’s reproductive rights, and to ensure equal pay and paid family leave mandates. With a record number of female and POC candidates running for office, 2020 has the potential to be a tide-turning and historic year. Voting in the U.S. primaries will be a determining factor, as Saturn will be back in traditional Capricorn during the November presidential election.  

The Great Conjunction of Jupiter & Saturn

Whatever the outcome, the spirit of progress will be in the air in the final two weeks of 2020. On December 17, Saturn heads back into Aquarius, followed by boundless Jupiter two days later, on the 19th. The two planets will co-pilot through the Water Bearer’s zone on and off until December 29, 2021, combining their paradoxical powers.

Circle December 21, 2020—also the Solstice—as a major date on the calendar! For the first time since May 31, 2000, Jupiter and Saturn will meet up at an exact degree in the sky, at 0º29’ Aquarius. Astrologers call this event The Great Conjunction, an alliance that only happens once every 20 years! 

Although they’re as different as night and day, Jupiter and Saturn make quite the dynamic duo. Jupiter is the abundant growth agent, blessing us with the Midas touch and a gambler’s instinct. Saturn is the cautious auditor, calculating risk and making sure we invest wisely. Their meetup this December 21 will get us thinking: What should we hang onto and where can we let go, in order to catapult ourselves into a new league? Philosophical Jupiter opens our minds and Saturn creates a structure for our thoughts to become tangible actions. And carried on the wings of liberated Aquarius, the spirit of revolution will be in the air!

Photo credit: Milles Studio via Stocksy

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The AstroTwins

Identical twin sisters Ophira and Tali Edut, known as The AstroTwins, are the founders of Astrostyle.com and the authors of multiple bestselling astrology books. Their horoscopes reach millions here and through their resident astrologer column at ELLE Magazine.

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