Transit Lab: Uranus Square Saturn (The Passive-aggressive Horse)

Recently a couple of new friends came into my life, and one in particular seems to be bringing me numerous opportunities to work out the energy of transiting Uranus square my natal Saturn. The first thing was an invitation to a service at a local spiritual center. Get this: I chose to go to what amounts to a church! And I wasn’t even being paid! (I used to work as a musician in churches.) She’s offering ideas for new experiences and chances for new input that’s really helpful right now.

Today, we went horseback riding. For an activity a few days ago, I suggested hiking or tennis, and she came back with horseback riding. It’s something I hadn’t thought of since I was 12 and it sounded reeaallllly rad so I agreed.

When it was time to mount up, I was told I would ride Noah, the biggest horse there. I thought it was this huge brown guy in front of us, who looked terrifyingly large, but that was the guide’s horse. Noah, in fact, is the second biggest horse in the country, or was it world - no joke.  Apparently Clydesdales can run kind of big, and he’s a huge one. If you’re in a human suit right now, don’t you tend to think of horses as large anyway? Think of a big horse and then inflate it to the point that you’re nervous that your eyes are seeing correctly - he’s that big.

I looked at this giant that I was supposed to somehow get into a sitting position on, and in a moment a stepstool appeared with a guide. I climbed up, and the stirrups and saddle were adjusted. I was a little hesitant (but not nearly as much as when we trotted on the ride), but things were shaping up well.

During the actual ride, Noah engaged in a range of behaviors I was told were tests to see how much he could get away with. At first he got away with all of them, but after I guided him to stay in line, stay a horse-length behind the one in front, and wouldn’t let him stop to chew on branches here and there, he got that I wouldn’t any longer let him do whatever he felt like. So he started drifting over to the side of the trail whenever there was a big tree that he could drag me up against. No kidding, this horse is passive-aggressive. So that’s why he likes being the last in line, as the guide mentioned. After he’d started that crap, I told him lovingly (and soft enough that the other people there couldn’t hear) that he couldn’t intimidate me, and that he could drag me up against all the trees he could; I wasn’t going to give up the reins.

One thing I’ve experienced with Uranus transits over the past two years is an inconsistent influx of information about my conditioning from past lives. First with it squaring my Moon, then with the transiting South Node of the Moon conjuncting my natal Uranus, and now with it squaring my natal Saturn, which opposes that Moon. It happens in different ways. A few times in the form of people coming up to me here or there and tell me things about me in past lives, or asking pointed questions about past-life stuff that, were you asked them, you’d think you entered some kind of joke-on-you hidden camera show in which people are armed with too much info about you for comfort. Also in the form of suddenly-available emotional memories that leave me balling, etc. - people in public love this one.

Also it’s been in the form of people I most definitely know from other incarnations. My new friend, for example, whose casual comments to me teach me so much about me in this moment & life that I know she knows me from another. And it comes in the form of  new views on experiences that awaken a quality of memory in me. Being on that horse this morning is in that last category.

I felt on top of the world, and aware of a sense of pride and purpose. I don’t know how to explain it better, but reconnecting to a horse is a very good thing for me in my present process of deconditioning current and past-life beliefs. When we were done riding, as my friend and I stood next to the horses, we saw just how big Noah is. My friend gave me I think two high fives for actually riding such a monstrously large horse. And I didn’t think about it like that until we went for lunch afterwards, after picking up her book on animal totems, Animal Speak, by Ted Andrews.

The basic idea on the horse entry is that when a horse comes into your life (as a totem, but I’m not yet sure that’s what happened - I just, um, rode a really gigantic horse), “it may be time to examine aspects of travel and freedom in your life” (p.282). So, here I am, opening up to what Uranus squaring my natal retrograde Saturn in Gemini in the 9th has to say.

When I write joke horoscopes based on natal charts, the intersection of Pisces and the 6th house (including Neptune in Virgo or the 6th, and Mercury in Pisces or the 12th, etc.), I usually include a prediction that person will become or be swept off his feet by a large-animal veterinarian. Instead of that, I just met a phenomenally large horse and let him teach me something about freedom, a new kind or one that I’d forgotten.

I’m considering some travel opps that fit the Uranus/Pisces/6th symbolism as I understand it, opening to lose the idea that I’m not traveling much for a few years (the understanding I’ve had about my feeling of mobility the last few years - it’s seemed more important to do inner work and be more still than to travel).  But it looks like exactly what’s needed is to travel, even if to do quiet inner work.

Okay, then, I’m open to what drifts my way, even if it involves more bone-chillingly large animals that I’m expected to ride and guide. And the overall message will probably have to do with the challenge to actually ride it - and being sure I’m not going to give up the reins.

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July 27, 2007 By Tom Jacobs