Sun Square Uranus: The Collective Stories Worth Rejecting

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we're going to take a look at the sun's square to the planet Uranus, which is happening here as we close up the week. This is a square that we're going to look at in two parts, one today and one tomorrow, to close out the week as the square is actually perfecting.

So, we're going to take a look at this today in a way that is more collective. And tomorrow, we're going to take a look at it in a way that is more personal. Both of these I have designed to be sort of provocative and fun; I've been having a lot of fun sort of playing with the archetypes on a philosophical level and looking at, you know, what kinds of planetary pairings tend to generate, which types of philosophies as well as what kinds of responses to those philosophies.

In other words, what kinds of philosophical debates arise through the different combinations of planets? And I think if we can be aware of those, we can learn a lot more from the planets as they come through. Because a lot of the times when the planets come through, they trigger within us those exact conversations, although they may arise at work or, you know, in your love life or something, but just being aware of what these conversations are, regardless of, you know, what side of the debate or argument you might find yourself on, I think is super valuable. So we're going to do it collectively and personally, Thursday and Friday, to close out the week.

All right, well, before we get into it, as always, don't forget to like and subscribe, and share your comments and thoughts in the comment section. You can find transcripts of my daily talks on the website nightlight astrology.com, where you can also check out some of my upcoming courses and readings. Under the Courses tab, check out the Masterclass series that begins in February. Great program for you guys to dive into. There are four modules in 2023 that we'll be starting up with in February. So if you have any questions about those, you can email us at info@nightlightastrology.com. There are some need-based tuition options if you need any help.

Alright, by the way, if you have a story to share with the sun Uranus Square, I would love to hear from you guys. You know, the way to do it is to use the hashtag grabbed or email us your story; grabbed@nightlightastrology.com. So when you do that, tell us the trends that you're talking about and then share the story that highlights or illustrates the transit. And we will gather those into some storytelling episodes in the weeks and months ahead.

All right, let's go ahead and take a look at the real-time clock and get a feel for what this transit looks like as it is coming through. Here we have the exact square forming between the sun in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus. And this is Friday, February 3, In the evening. Now, this is in Minnesota here. So it'll be a little bit later in the evening if you're on the East Coast. As that square is forming, though, we're going to see a build-up period. So let's take a look at how this is going to form in the days leading up.

So you're really going to start feeling this. This is about Tuesday, January 31, where it gets into that three-degree range. And then Wednesday, Thursday, it's within about a degree that's today. And then we have it coming through Friday evening. And then you give it about three days until Monday before it's separated. So that's about a full week. We've been seeing this developing early this week and talked about it a little bit in our overview for the month of February. And now you're seeing it come through here at the end of the week. And it'll be there around until the early part of next week. So again, we're going to look at this both.

We're going to sort of look at the sun Uranus from a philosophical standpoint and the ideas and stories that the sun Uranus will tell, as well as those that we might need to reject or call into question. I'm not going to try to tell you, guys, how to think about any of this stuff. But I do want to try to illustrate what I find to be some of the core philosophical debates or ideas that come up when the sun and Uranus get together. We're gonna look at it collectively. And we're going to look at it personally.

We'll start today with the collective way in which this often appears. So in order to get into that, I want to present you with five collective stories that you might hear when you hear the sun and Uranus when the sun and Uranus get together. In other words, what stories are you likely to hear, and what kind of philosophy are you likely to hear espouse from this planetary pair? And you could hear it in your own head, or you could hear it from someone around You, but these are the five collective stories we might hear.

Now by collective, I mean these are stories that we talked about; we tell ourselves about ourselves as a community and as a collective of human beings. And we're then going to call these stories into question and present what might be the sort of irreverence on Uranus counterpoints, and all of this is not meant, again, to tell you how to think, but to outline the or to demonstrate the outlines of the debate that is central to the sun and Uranus as an archetypal pair. Again, a lot of the times, the way that the pairings of the planets present themselves is in terms of ideas, and then ideas that we become possessed by or that we end up wrestling with somehow.

Well, these are the five collective stories that you might hear when the sun and Uranus come together. And let me say, actually, before we get into it, let me say just a few words about the sun. Remember that the sun tends to present us with the heroic narrative, the heroic narrative might be one of progress, or of conquering something or of mastering something, or of standing out of transcendence and legacy of fame and mastery of being, you know, we talked about when I was talking about the sun and Pluto, for example, we called into question some of those solar principles. Uranus can call some of the same principles into question, but it will respond to them in a different way. Pluto's response was kind of like a very zen emptying of everything sunny, and it can actually, for many people who respond to that sun Pluto, one that we did, they felt that it was dark, which is a great description of Pluto, if you felt that it was dark, welcome to Pluto, you know, you got in touch with the archetype. And that's what we want; we want to get in touch with what the archetype feels like. Not that you have to, you know, end up with might not be your BFF, you know, some planets and archetypes and ideas presented by planets are going to be, you know, more in line with your mood than others. But when it comes to the sun, we have that kind of heroic narrative.

When it comes to Uranus, we have the themes of revolution, and invention, breaking or disrupting norms and the status quo, defiance, rebellion, originality, the impulse to disrupt things that are static or habitual, iconoclasm, and so forth. So, oftentimes, when these two planets come together, you will hear, you'll hear it buzzing in the astrological world, blog posts, you know, Instagram, wherever you find your astrological content, you will hear these ideas in either implicit or explicit in what people are saying.

Number one, history has a single trajectory. By that, I mean you will hear people talking about the sun Uranus; they will often talk about it as a revolution happening in the collective. And there will be this implication that there's sort of one storyline that's playing out within the collective that we're all part of one big story, sort of one trajectory, even if it's complex, complex or complicated. And the idea with the sun Uranus is that you know, revolution in terms of this one collective story might take place. But the assumption, the built-in assumption, is that history has a kind of sing single trajectory that we're all a part of. So that's number one.

Number two is that there is a good outcome or a bad possible outcome for humanity. Depending on what we as a collective living the singular story, choose, what we do or don't do will impact whether we, you know, reach some kind of heroic ending or not whether we progress and break free from all of our unconscious shadows and reach some kind of progressive outcome that is redeeming in some way. And these can be a very Sun Uranus combination in the sense that the sun Uranus combination will also will often prompt people to believe that, you know, we're just one leap in consciousness away from something redemptive or something that can save us from the worst, which we also could choose, it's always a possibility.

Number three would be that reality is evolving or progressing as is history, from ignorance to enlightenment. So the idea being that, you know, we're moving from a more primitive or unconscious or even ignorant past, and gradually and incrementally, we're moving in progressive steps toward enlightenment. And this is a story that will be cast over the collective. This is that singular story of history. If we choose correctly, we can get the good outcome, which is enlightenment, right? And we're evolving from relative ignorance toward enlightenment, you know, historically. So, that story is also very sun Uranus in the sense that the sun and Uranus will be all about the great moments of breakthrough collectively that resemble progress over, you know, a relative period of darkness or ignorance.

Number four will be the world that can and should be improved. Generally speaking, there is one world that we're all a part of, from the standpoint, and it can and should be improved. It should progressively become better, which is close to saying that reality itself is evolving or progressing from enlightenment to or from ignorance to enlightenment, but this one goes a step further and says, we should all be doing something to make it better to create the breakthrough, every individual has to do their part within the collective.

Sun Uranus is alive. And well in this, this thought that your heroic effort is needed to improve the world. And I don't have a problem with any of these as archetypal realities as archetypal fantasies that live in the soul and play a meaningful and important role in our lives. I believe that all of these are very beautiful in a sense.

Number five, there are core problems, which, if eradicated or solved, will mean that we can be can we can realize happiness, a greater level of happiness, or some ideal community or society; maybe it's utopia, maybe it's not that intense. But basically, there will be a sense of like identifying the problems. And there may be keywords, and I'm not here to tell you what the core problems are or aren't, I'm just trying to say, broadly speaking, there is the belief that these are the core, like hierarchies or patriarchy or religion, or war, or consumerism, or whatever, though, but there will be these ideas of like core issues, that if these things could be changed or solved, if we could break free from the bondage of these particular, you know, ideas or traditions or power structures, or whatever they may be, then we could really, we could really be free, or we could be happier, or we maybe even realize some peak state of happiness, again, redemption, as a religious value, you know, kind of ringing in the air with that one as well.

Sun Uranus is very, very alive and well in this statement, too, because we have the idea that, you know, if we can break free from and move beyond very Uranian, certain core issues, then we'll be free and, again, enlightened. So you can feel behind all of these the idea of emancipation of heroic redemption, of heroic breakthroughs of heroic progress, of heroic improvement of the utilization of your agency and choices to make things better and to make everything progress. And this is a story that is, you know, there's a personal element to it, but it's largely a story we tell about history and the collective and our participation in it. And there are entire schools of astrology that are built on these assumptions.

Or let's not even call them assumptions; let's call them archetypal values or an archetypal lens that is constituted by these ideas, and they are very, in my opinion, there are different archetypes, you could correlate these values to I don't think the sun and Uranus are the only ones, but the sun Uranus fits very nicely within this framework. Okay, so let's play with the sun Uranus, though. What if those ideas were actually inhibiting? What if those ideas were the things that we needed to break free from? What if those ideas as valuable and as beautiful as they are, and as important as they are to all of us at different times in our life? What does it look like when these are the very ideas that we need to be free from? What would that look like?

No, I'm not saying that we do need to be free from these ideas. It's just a thought exercise. And thought exercises are important because if you're going to be an archetypal symbolist, you have to be able to see the way in which the archetypes are at work in terms of the ideas and the debates between different ideas that are going on in our heads. If we only allow an archetype to occupy a certain sphere of ideas and thoughts, then it's harder to recognize the archetype when it shows up in some situation that is foreign to us or is in some ways cutting against the grain of our assumptions or our worldview.

So I do these kinds of things for myself as a way of deepening my relationship with the archetypes as a kind of thought exercise. So again, I'm not trying to indoctrinate anyone with the following things we're about to say. You don't have to believe any of them. But I do highly recommend that you at least entertain these ideas because these are also Sun Uranus's ideas. These are Sun Uranus responses.

Okay, so what would the responses be? If those ideas were to be rebelled from, broken free from, or Even, you know, rejected because we were to feel that in some ways those ideas were boring or outdated or prohibitive or restrictive? If you felt that way about those ideas, then in what way might the sun and Uranus show up in response to those ideas? Right? So let's go through it; I have five responses that I thought came from the mouth of Sun Uranus.

Number one, history is a meaningful fiction; history is plural. And there is no one story. So again, you don't have to agree with any of these. But consider for a minute that when we imply when someone says, Oh, I'm so excited about Pluto and Aquarius, because I think it's going to mean that we're, you know, we're all going to evolve or it's going to present this opportunity for global healing or whatever, and you hear within yourself or someone else talking the idea that there is this thing called history, and it's on the single track, and we're all a part of it. Well, the sun Uranus' response would be, hey, look, history is a beautiful, meaningful fantasy. Fantasies are not unreal, either. They're very real, and they're very important. But don't take it literally, you know, don't take your view of history, literally living in a world in which you believe and even experience some kind of collective heroic progress myth, right? A beautiful way to live. Nothing wrong with that at all. But allow room for the fact that someone else may look at history and not see one story playing out. But, you know, multiple, multiple, multiple storylines, like many, many tributaries leading off from an ocean or something like that, that history is not a singular thing that history is plural. There's not just one story going on. And so when someone says, Well, what do you think Pluto and Aquarius will mean for all of us? What will it do for all of us? Are you optimistic about it? Or are you pessimistic about it?

I was talking with my friend Sean Nygaard over dinner the other night. When we brought this very idea up, he just said yes. Yes, I'm optimistic. Yes, I'm pessimistic. But that's because Pluto in Aquarius doesn't just mean one thing because there is not just one thing. And so Pluto and Aquarius means different things for different stories. It means different things for different people; it means different things for different collectives. So history is a meaningful fiction; history is plural, not singular. There is no one story happening here. That, for many people, actually constitutes a radical break from a kind of heroic assumption, a heroic assumption being there's one solar story happening here, one quest for redemption, one heroic path that, you know, leads us like this.

The counterpoint, if we want to break free from that, is to say, look, history is plural. There's not just one story going on here. And the way that we construct and look at history is often a fantasy that serves the inner need that the soul has for beauty and drama, and meaning. There's nothing wrong with that. But be careful not to take it literally.

At which point you will often then reduce astrological transits to like, well, will it serve in this fantasy of history that I have in my mind? Or, you know, will it harm that fantasy of progress that I have? In my mind, it's an inherently potentially it's a quite limiting way to think about astrological transits.

Number two, regardless of what we choose, good and bad outcomes will occur. There is no one final outcome, and good and bad will never cease to exist. Remember, the second idea that we started with was that there is a good or bad outcome possible for history and for the collective of humanity, depending on what we choose. Notice how there's the idea there of an outcome that is for all of us and that it could be good or bad. And then it's totally dependent on what we choose. And if we get things right, well, the response if that feels like a restrictive idea, if that feels like a worn out, or even a boring idea for other people, will be that look, regardless of what we choose good and bad outcomes, events and happenings will always occur. Because they're part of reality, they're never just going to go away. And there is no one final outcome because life just keeps on going. Now for some people that could be this idea could be quite a bummer. For other people, this could be quite a liberating idea. So just something to consider.

Remember, the third idea that we started with was that reality is evolving or progressing from ignorance to enlightenment? Well, the counterpoint from the sun Uranus would be that reality moves in circles or cycles, not linear lines of progress and that the perception of progress is relative and subjective. And the lens of progress itself is a worldview or, even worse, a cult or religion. And I'm not saying there's anything really wrong with cults or religions; I'm just saying that people could actually get intensely indoctrinated into the idea that history is, is a story or myth of progress from an ignorant past to a more enlightened future that people could become so deeply indoctrinated by that, that they could, they could literally feel like if someone didn't believe that, that they were a threat, or that they were evil or bad or ignorant or something else.

Reality moves in circles or cycles, not linear lines of progress, which means that it's more like thinking of reality as a kind of undulating tapestry. That's all there, and everything in the tapestry is sort of that's very psychedelic, actually, to think about it that way. Its reality is a kind of tapestry that doesn't, and it's its movements are not linear. There might be linear aspects of movement, but the whole thing is not linear. It's like; it's like saying, Well, what purpose does a tapestry have that's just blowing gently in the wind as it sits on your wall on a summer day? And you're like laying on the couch relaxing, just looking at it? Is that movement linear? Well, what you know, it maybe it's not, maybe it's something else, or maybe your perception of it moving in linear waves, right is just that it's one way of relating to what you notice as the movement of the tapestry.

So the point here is, and I hope this isn't like too far out for you guys but think about it. There is a story that's very common when you take in astrology, that the transits are progressing us that they reflect this kind of evolution of consciousness from something in the past that is relatively ignorant to something in the future that is more enlightened. Now, I'm not saying that I don't personally buy into that myth. And that way of looking at and experiencing things, how could I not? It's part of reality.

What I'm trying to say is that if that idea ever feels stifling to you, you are at liberty, sun, Uranus, you are at liberty to reject that story, to throw it off, and to evolve, even if it feels iconoclastic by smashing that idea on the ground temporarily to free up creative energy. When you do so, you might say to yourself; I don't know if history is a progressive, linear line of improvement. Maybe it's cyclical; maybe it's full of cycles within cycles within cycles. And maybe there's never been a beginning or an end to it. Maybe the perception of progress is relative and subjective. Maybe the perception of progress is more about a personal lens through which to experience it than it is some kind of overarching or underlying metaphysical truth.

And at worst, maybe people who are so obsessed with the idea that history is a story of progress evolving into the future are part of a religious way of thinking, or worse, maybe they're indoctrinated into some way of thinking. I think, really, any worldview, we could become very intense about it. Right? I think one of the benefits of studying astrology is that we can start to recognize the different ideas that occupy our minds are often reflective of the kind of cosmic weather we're experiencing. It's hard to imagine that ideas are not true or false but more like weather fronts, right? But that's kind of what the point of this exercise is all about.

Anyway, number four, the world does not need improving. Improvement is endless regression is also a constant. Remember, idea number four was the world can and should be improved to heroic and a heroic notion Sun Uranus could very well appear as the impetus to do your part, contribute and make a heroic effort to help us break through to the next level of progress.

Well, the counterpoint would be that the world doesn't need improvement. Improvement can always be done. But improvement itself is an endless activity. Improvement is a bit like saying that every day if you live in the monastery, the stairs will need sweeping because every day, as the wind blows and dust, dust will move and collect, and then it needs sweeping again. And then the dust will move and come back again. So there is a way of looking at the world and a way of looking at life that says, look, improvement is a fine endeavor. There's nothing wrong with it. But keep in mind that improvement is endless, and regression, something that will create the need for more and constant improvement, is always there as well.

That doesn't mean that the world shouldn't be improved or can't be improved. But it does help to turn the volume down on the dogmatic chest-thumping, you know, kind of certainty and solar pride that comes along with that rhetoric that we hear all the time, what are you going to do with this transit? How are you going to go and be a change maker, you know, like that? And, like, I'm not against making change; I hope that we're doing our part as an astrological community to make the astrological community a little bit better.

I find that it's, it's necessary to keep in mind that things will always need sweeping and that sometimes the most liberating idea in the world is not that you have the agency that you could use to help make change. Sometimes the most liberating thing in the world is to realize that the steps will need sweeping again tomorrow. And there's no amount of heroic effort that will ever change that fact; that can be a very liberating thing as well.

Number five, you can't eradicate problems. Remember, the fifth idea was there are core problems. And I listed some that you'll hear people say consumerism, capitalism, hierarchy, patriarchy, inequality, whatever. And there are so many of them. And I'm not denying that any of those things are issues. I'm also what I'm trying to say in this one is that sometimes there's also this feeling like if I keep in front of me a clear and present idea of what the problem is, you know, then I can keep working, I can keep grinding against it, trying to eliminate it, right, so that we can have this breakthrough, but it's like a carrot that leads, you know, the donkey along or whatever the rabbit or along what image is that usually is that a turtle, a carrot dangling in the stick and it keeps the thing moving along the countervailing point which can be very liberating.

Remember, liberation is the urine uranium thing. And Sun Uranus is not just the heroic redemptive idea; it's also redemption, or, ironically, liberation from the heroic idea. In which case, the countervailing point is that you can't eradicate problems. If you think there's a core problem and you eradicate it, there will be another one that will pop up because problems are part of the landscape of reality itself, doesn't mean that you should never work to eradicate problems. But keep in mind, the nature of problems get to no problems as something other than then a part of reality that you'd like to terminate altogether; shift your relationship like that, how does that change the way you work to improve upon or eliminate problems, it does make a difference, in my humble opinion, anyway, you can't eradicate problems, problems exist, problems are a part of reality.

So much of what we're doing is just, you know, kind of popping off against these popular ideas. But what I want to ask is not well, which ideas are right or wrong, but rather, when we have this kind of an engagement and engagement with the ideas that come up within a transit space, a sun Uranus space will generate this kind of conversation within ourselves where it will generate, we'll get grabbed by one of the assumptions of these ideas or their counter or the responses that I gave. So I find that having this kind of reflection. It's not about trying to figure out which side I stand on.

For me looking at these ideas and then offering these counterpoints, these, you know, responses, the question that I found myself asking afterwards, or what I noticed, or what I appreciated, is, I noticed the space, the creativity, and the freedom, that this exercise for me personally created within myself that just by going through these sun Uranus ideas, and then Sun Uranus responses, just turning that jewel in both directions. That, in and of itself, created within me a kind of space, a feeling of creativity, and a freedom, a freedom to move about the world in different ways. I can move about the world, trying to make a difference, seeing the trajectory of our collective stories, and living in the fantasies of those myths of progress because they are not. Myths are real, their ways and lens and modes of participation and experience. So I can move along with those worldviews and lenses.

Also, if they are grabbing me to the point where, you know, my blood pressure, existentially my psychic blood pressure, is starting to rise, I can flip the script and say, You know what, I'm not going to eradicate the existence of problems here. You know, reality moves in circles and cycles and cycles. There's no one final outcome. And history is plural. And you know, and when I do that, I find that there's just a looseness. Right? There's an ease, and I remember that I am not an idea. I am not walking out, and just I'm not being owned by ideas. I am a marketplace, a soulful, beautiful marketplace filled with colors and spices, good food, and interesting people selling lots of different things archetypally. And you know what, I'm shopping, and I'm having fun. And I'm tasting, and I'm touching, and I'm smelling, and I'm relating in that marketplace.

As I do that, with archetypal ideas, I find that I become, I don't know, I've just become more familiar with the psychic streets I live on, you know what I mean? It's like living in New York City. So many smells, so many languages, and so many different people. Ideas are like this, too. And the archetypes represent ideas. So I hope that in playing with this, you feel free to explore the ideas that run through our heads all the time, especially when you know Sun Uranus transits come about and the most likely thing you're going to hear is, we're all ready for a breakthrough on our quest toward you know, cosmic collective enlightenment.

Personally, as an astrologer is easy for me to pick on and play with the opposite because it's the one I have seen and heard for 13 years, and sometimes it feels like you wish, we could talk about something different. So that's what I choose to do because I have a cry because I die a little inside if I'm not creative, and I'm not playing with what's, what ideas are constantly eating around the archetypes. I can't just repeat the same things all the time, you know.

So anyway, aside from my personal meta-conversation there, I hope this was useful for all of you today. We're going to return and do this again tomorrow, but we're going to do it on the personal level today was collective. Tomorrow. We'll do it for the personal level of Sun Uranus. I hope you guys will find that rewarding as well. All right, that's what I've got for today. We'll see you again tomorrow. Everyone. Take it easy. Bye.