Hard aspects between Uranus and Jupiter open up all possibilities. Jupiter is buoyant and expansive. It has to be because its function is to open up the higher mind to the possibility that there is more to life than work and sleep. In its highest form of expression, this planet is what causes a person to want to know why they're here. Uranus is eclectic and electric. Its function is to REALLY push the envelope. Put them together in a stressful contact and things go over the edge. These two planets are actually pretty similar. They both KNOW there's a much bigger picture here and all they want to do is find out what it is. They're like two precocious kids. And when they're in hard aspect to each other Uranus acts like the Devil's advocate. It prompts the native to try something new and different and Jupiter inevitably says, "Let's go for it!" without any reservations. There is a tendency in SOME cases to fanatically insist that whatever they get into is THE ultimate answer to everything. And the "Ultimate Answer" can be anything from Boy Scouts to Urine Therapy. The point here is that the mind is convinced that some specific activity or practice, if approached religiously, holds the key to "THE TRUTH". Thank God Jupiter has a sense of humor too and these types are just as capable of laughing at themselves for being such fools once they catch themselves doing this type of thing over and over again. I have a wide opposition between Uranus and Jupiter that has gotten tighter by progression and I hate to tell you all the crazy spiritual trips I have explored. I've been "Down the Bunny Trail" so many times it's embarassing to even admit it. My friends and family look at me and say "Oh no, here she goes again" every time I find a new "thing" to get into. The higher mind is so wide open Uranus and Jupiter create an OVER-enthusiasm for anything out of the ordinary. But like I said in the previous article, people with these aspects are in a lifetime where they're being called to think outside of the box and in order to release all of their previous life dogmatic pictures of what the ultimate truth might be, it's necessary for them to experiment. Because Jupiter rules travel, unexpected things can happen on the road too. The same frequencies that feed the desire to explore the spiritual path rule the highways and byways, so going ANYWHERE is highlighted with serendipitous experiences that cause these people to set out in one direction and wind up heading off in another.
Combined in harmonious aspects, Uranus and Jupiter cause a lot of nice things to happen. These are the people who have been sent here to carve the new paradigm. There's an inner conviction that the world is moving in a new direction and that what they do is a big part of the evolutionary process. Their past life experiences have taught them how to break into new territory without messing the rest of their lives up too much. Whenever I see aspects like this I know the native is willing to talk about anything with no holds barred. They have an innate understanding of astrology and the occult. These aren't things you need to prove are real to them. And I believe that these types are leaders who show the rest of us it's safe to go beyond our existing pictures. With the easy aspects there's more discernment. The judgment factor that Jupiter supplies is a little saner than it is with the hard contacts, so when Uranus says "Let's pay this New Age Guru a small fortune to get enlightened in two days," Jupiter knows enough to say, "You can't buy enlightenment!" There's a wonderful dynamic in the realm of friendship that makes it possible for people with these aspects to hook up with others who are of like mind and be really expanded through those connections. They somehow see that they can accomplish things that are meaningful at the collective level by forming a united front with others. It's easier for them to work alongside others toward a goal because, unlike a person with hard aspects who can look down on anyone who isn't as progressive as they are, the soft aspects respect all points of view.
When Neptune and Jupiter form hard aspects what you're dealing with is an overdose of gullibility. Neptune has no boundaries and when you layer that over the sense of judgment that Jupiter is supposed to bestow, there is none. And these people can be wonderful, open, extremely spiritual but they just don't have it in them to know what's real and what isn't when it comes to what to believe. Both of these planets have spiritual overtones, so a lot of what happens when they form difficult aspects shows up in the spiritual life of the native. There are strong tendencies to get involved in cults or any system of thought that requires its devotees to hand over everything they have to the Guru or leader. They take everything they're told by anyone who strikes a pose of superior knowledge as the truth without checking it out with their experience or questioning it relative to other factors. There is no logic. And they are swayed by glamour. They don't question what they're told because they don't know what they believe and they don't respect their own judgment. People who think other people know more than they do are always easy to fool. And if someone comes along who has the surface appearance of knowing what they're talking about these people buy right into it. What they need to cultivate is the ability to see past facades and question things more thoroughly. I think that the groups of souls who are born with hard Neptune-Jupiter contacts represent periods in history where there is a lot of nebulousness about the meaning of life. During these times it's more or less necessary for everyone to be clueless about what form God might take because all of the previously held thought forms relative to that are in a transitional state, moving from one level to another. And it's as if the gears that decide those things are in neutral during hard Neptune-Jupiter periods. The mid-sixties are a good example of what I'm referring to here. Between 1964 and 1965 Jupiter was squaring Neptune on and off and no one knew what anything meant anymore. The hard, clear patterns of the fifties were being dissolved by the mid-sixties. The hippie movement had taken over at that point and everyone was questioning everything. The New Age Movement evolved out of the hippie ideology and the collective sense of spirituality has expanded way beyond what the organized religious structures offered us prior to the sixties. At this moment, Neptune and Jupiter are opposing each other by transit and my sense is that the spirits who are incarnating right now and for the next year will be dismantling some of the fixed ideas that have grown up around the New Age and the more Fundamentalist philosophies as well. Much of what people take to be the truth will change because a lot of lies will be exposed on all fronts. The kids that are arriving will enter families where they will be fed a set of ideals that don't hold up in the face of their experience. The resulting disillusionment will prompt this group of souls to expand everyone's consciousness of what God might be even further than it is now. The ones that come into New Age families will probably see that their parents don't live in integrity or walk their talk. And the ones who are born to hard line Fundamentalists will end up being totally confused by, or rebel against all that dogma. With Pluto transitting Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius there's even more insurance that this will happen. ALL of our belief systems and structures are coming unglued right now, along with everything else. The scandals infecting the Catholic Church are just the beginning of a "Holy War" that is happening so that all of us can finally see that God is within. It'll take a few more years but that's where we're going.
If I were to ask you what soft Neptune-Jupiter aspects might signify I have a feeling with all that we've talked about, you could probably tell me what I am about to say. These people are really tuned into spiritual things. There is so much openness and understanding with these contacts it's hard to even find words to describe what they mean. The spiritual potential is endless and limited only by what the native is willing to allow the selves to open up to. I may have a crazy Uranus-Jupiter opposition but my Jupiter sextiles Neptune, so as fanatical as I get about things sometimes, at least my heart's in the right place! I may even find what I am looking for!
( As an aside, this is another thing you have to learn if you're going to be looking at people's charts. You can't interpret one aspect without balancing all the other contacts the planets are making. One of the problems with computerized astrological printouts is that they analyze every aspect separately. When I read computerized charts they make me sound like a basket case! Keep in mind that as scientific as astrology is, it's also an art, so all of the information in a horoscope needs to be synthesized and it takes a human being to translate things. And hopefully whoever's doing the translating knows what they're doing. To my knowledge they haven't invented a computer yet that can read anyone's horoscope. If you're thinking of ordering a computerized horoscope, take my advice and get a good astrologer to do it for you instead. It may cost you more but at least you won't be wasting money.)
Back to Neptune and Jupiter. The soft aspects bestow an incredible amount of generosity. And it's not just that these people are financially generous. Their heart's are generous. They want to help and they know they've come here to serve. Everything they do is fueled by the highest spiritual principles. They would sooner cut themselves short than see anyone else go without and whatever they do they always give more than they're called to. It's hard for me to explain this because I understand it more at the feeling level. And I think that with outer planet aspects things are more general and what they provide is less specific as far as information goes and more like a backbone around which all the details spin. I could spend ten pages talking about what Neptune does with Mars for instance, because Mars shows up so obviously in peoples' everyday behavior and has a zillion different permutations depending on the client. When you look at aspects between any of the planets from Jupiter on out it's a different story. At this point in my work when I notice Neptune-Jupiter stuff in someone's chart I glance at it once and just "know" that there is an incredible being sitting in front of me. And regardless of what their primary issues might be, something inside this individual is vibrating at a much higher frequency than all of their "stuff"! And the fact that that frequency is operating is a guarentee that they will eventually transcend every single one of their issues. Why? Because, the power of spirit is stronger than any of the forces that assail it. I see good Neptune-Jupiter contacts as a form of "cosmic life insurance". And they won't necessarily take away one ounce of a person's pain and suffering but they WILL allow them to rise above it all sooner or later.
We have gotten to the point where it's time to discuss what happens when Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto interact. These aspects are ALL generational. Each one of them holds for long periods of time. If you consider that the acceptable "Orb" of aspect is ten degrees for a lot of astrologers, some of these contacts will be active for a couple of years at a time. What does this mean and how much do you take things like this into account? How much relevant, personal information can you get out of an aspect that will be active in billions of horoscopes? If you understand the archetypal symbolism behind each of the outer planets it helps out a lot. Once you get a picture of what the symbolism is about, all you have to do is have a feeling for whether the aspects being formed are soft or hard. As an example, let's use Saturn and Uranus. We already know that Saturn is about structure, limitation, the status quo, and authority. Uranus is change, the future, rebellion, and whatever exists at the first stopping point beyond all the structures we're limited by. When Saturn and Uranus form a hard aspect, all this says is that the client is torn between their allegiance to rules and old expectations and the desire to change and evolve. Whenever it's time for a change and whenever the aspect is being activated by a transit a person with a hard Saturn-Uranus aspect will go through a lot of turmoil letting go of their fears and attachments and embracing what's calling them to move on to something new. It's not so easy for them to move forward because too much is holding them back. This reaction pattern will surface on every level of their existence. Both the big shifts and the mundane issues will be affected by the pattern. These are the types that have a really hard time leaving a bad marriage because they think their life will go to Hell in a bucket if they don't uphold their marriage vows. They also won't know which way to go when they're ordering food at a restaurant. They may want to try the Sushi but they'll go with the meatloaf sandwich because they've had it a million times and they know what it's like. Hard Saturn-Uranus aspects make any type of growth or any new option more of a dilemma.
When Saturn and Uranus form soft aspects, things are much easier to deal with. There's a healthy respect for the past, tradition, structure, and whatever all of that represents, but along with this, there's an understanding that change is part of life and as necessary as the structure. People with these aspects can approach both the big and the minor shifts in their lives with more openness because they know how to take what they've created into the future without feeling as though they have to destroy it all in order to grow. I like to refer to people with soft Saturn-Uranus aspects as "Bridge People". They stand firmly rooted in the past, they're disciplined, responsible, and careful, but they are able to include new things in their itinerary whenver life calls them to do so. Many of them play a role taking old ways of doing things and renovating them so that they can be reborn in a new context, one that is more relevant to the 21st Century. These are the people who make it safe for those who are skeptical about new things to find out more about them. A good example of what I'm talking about would be a person who spent a lot of time studying old herbal textbooks only to come up with an innovative new type of herbal therapy. And, in a different context, if a person with soft Saturn-Uranus aspects were confronted with marital difficulties they might lean more toward healing them by experimenting with a trial separation. They know enough to take a new approach to fixing a problem and they don't feel like they have to tough it out or throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Cal Garrison (a.k.a. "Mother of the Skye") has been doing Horoscopes, writing about astrology, and reading Tarot since 1972. She studied astrology with Charles and Vivia Jayne in the early 70's. Cal does private readings and writes for several newspapers and magazines. She wrote The Old Girl's Book of Spells and The Old Girls' Book of Dreams: How to Make Your Wishes Come True Day by Day and Night by Night