What have water shortages & hosepipe bans, oil crises, Iran, & Hugo Chavez got to do with each other? They are all linked with Saturn moving into opposition with Neptune.

This is a major astrological event, and it recurs approximately every 36 years.

Socio-politically, it correlates with the rising up of issues affecting the poor, the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, the weak, the 'have-nots', the oppressed, and the 'victims' of society and of the world. For the powerful, Saturn-Neptune is about evasion of responsibility, using authority cruelly and in order to subdue and tyrannise the weak, exploitating and subordinating the weak in the service of the strong.

On a material level, Saturn symbolises limits, shortages, defences, and coldness, and Neptune represents water, oil and gas, hence the correlation with oil crises, gas price hikes, the need to conserve water, and the need to review flood defences and the melting of the ice caps.

Psychologically, on the negative end of the scale, the Saturn-Neptune cycle is linked to states such as doubt, despair, despondency, gloom, loss of hope, depression, feeling helpless, the drudgery of a moribund existence, and the pernicious dissatisfaction with material accomplishment - or conversely, the crushing disappointment of material deprivation.

More positively, Saturn-Neptune is about practical compassion, providing a voluntary service to the collective that satisfies you, having a sense of transcendence and vision that you can live by in a down-to-earth way, infusing reality with imagination, inspiration, and enchantment, and uplifting it to something more ideal and, fundamentally, more joyful and happy.

The challenge of this planetary formation is to move from disenchantment to re-enchantment, so whatever currently fills you with despair or saps your energy is where you need to start dissolving the blocks that impede your happiness. Beware of collapsing into despair, and be careful of passive-aggression - both your own and other people's.

Question your conditioned and habitual beliefs about yourself, your life, your work, your relationships, your politics. Dissolve the underlying assumptions you've unknowingly made throughout your life about all these things, because they've been limiting (Saturn) your happiness (Neptune). Choose to take a fresh perspective that allows more space (Saturn) for happiness and fulfilment (Neptune).

Find out where you dream too much (biased towards Neptune), or too little (biased towards Saturn), and ask yourself what you can do to balance things out. Do you swing between optimism and pessimism? Do you have ideas that you'd love to turn into reality? Do you have unfulfilled longings that you need to either let go of once and for all, or take action to bring into manifestation? Working proactively with self-examination and reflection like this is a good way to take advantage of the change process that Saturn opposite Neptune represents.

Below are the dates when Saturn is within orb of opposition Neptune. As the orb moves closer all the above issues will probably become clearer and more pressing, as we face up to how we are managing - or mismanaging - our lives and our societies. As you can see from the dates, we've already started this process of change, but we've still got time to use this process for the good of the whole, and in so doing we could perhaps avoid the less pleasant experiences that this aspect symbolises.

Collectively, we need to bridge the ideal (Neptune) and the real (Saturn), but we're too busy making excuses and avoiding the responsibilities we have towards one another, towards ourselves, and towards the planet. We're not going to be able to do that for much longer, and this opposition between Saturn and Neptune is a chance for us to make some course corrections personally and globally. Whether we bury our heads in the sand or rise to the occasion is up to us.

Orbs & Dates
8
15th September 2005 to 18th January 2006
10th July 2006 to 22nd August 2007
20th April 2008 to 29th May 2008

6
3rd October 2005 to 31st December 2005
24th July 2006 to 19th October 2006
7th January 2007 to 9th August 2007

3
12th August 2006 to 21st September 2006
4th February 2007 to 5th April 2007
23rd May 2007 to 19th July 2007

2
19th August 2006 to 14th September 2006
13th February 2007 to 21st March 2007
7th June 2007 to 12th July 2007

1
25th August 2006 to 7th September 2006
21st February 2007 to 10th March 2007
18th June 2006 to 4th July 2007

Exact
31st August 2006 @ 17 Leo/Aquarius 53
28th February 2007 @ 20 Leo/Aquarius 15
25th June 2007 @ 21 Leo/Aquarius 47

For more information on this Saturn opposition Neptune aspect, see:
www.astrology21.co.uk