Dear Readers,
First there was Chaos, the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild
~ John Milton, Paradise Lost
Out of Chaos emerged Mother Earth—Gaia, who gave birth to Father Sky—Uranus:
Earth, the beautiful, rose up,
Broad-bosomed, she that is the steadfast base
Of all things. And fair Earth first bore
The starry Heaven, equal to herself,
To cover her on all sides and to be
A home forever for the blessed gods.1
~ Hesiod
The union of Gaia and Uranus then brought forth the Titans, one of whom was Cronos (Saturn), who ultimately castrated and overthrew his father Uranus. Cronos then ruled over heaven and earth. He and his sister and fellow titan Rhea became the parents of the Olympian gods, including Zeus (Jupiter), who in turn overthrew Cronos and seized power for himself.
Prometheus too was a Titan, but of the second generation. As I shared last time, Prometheus became known for stealing fire from the gods and for his crime was punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock where an eagle pecked out his regenerating liver every day.
But it wasn’t always that way between Zeus and Prometheus. When Zeus overthrew Cronos, a huge battle ensued between the Titans and the Olympians. As we know, the Olympians won, but one of the reasons was that Prometheus, known for his wisdom, switched sides, and allied himself with the Olympians.
All of this happened before animals and human beings inhabited the Earth. After the Earth was deemed safe by the Olympian gods, the story holds that Zeus gave the job of creating beings to populate the Earth to wise and clever Prometheus (meaning forethought) and his dim-witted brother Epimetheus (meaning afterthought). Together the brothers created the creatures of the Earth from clay, and Epimetheus distributed the attributes they’d been given by the gods such as speed, strength, fangs, feathers, shells, claws, hide, fur, and antlers to the animals, but neglected to save any form of protection for the humans that Prometheus had fashioned. His tiny clay humans were made in the image of the gods, upright, walking on two, but with only their skin to protect them from the elements and wild animals. Epimetheus appealed to the gods for more attributes, but none were provided. It was at this time that Prometheus came up with and executed his plan to steal fire from the gods, giving it to mankind in lieu of bodily protection and thus liberating them from the gods, earning Zeus’s eternal punishment.
In his essay, Prometheus the Awakener, as well as in his epic book, Cosmos and Psyche, historian, philosopher, and astrologer Richard Tarnas makes the case that the archetype of Prometheus is the best match for the astrological significations of the planet Uranus. When Uranus was discovered in 1781, the discovery overthrew the old order—that our solar system was made of seven planets with Saturn as the outer limit. The logic for naming the new planet Uranus follows on the order of the planets in the sky and the succession of the gods from ancient Greek mythology. Zeus (Jupiter) overthrew Cronos (Saturn) who had previously overthrown Uranus.
The discovery of Uranus came between the American and French Revolutions at a time of great upheaval in the cultural order. Today in astrology, we know Uranus as Tarnas describes him, “empirically associated with the principle of change, rebellion, freedom, liberation, reform and revolution, and the unexpected breakup of structures; with sudden surprises, revelations and awakenings, lightening-like flashes of insight, the acceleration of thoughts and events, with births and new beginnings of all kinds; and with intellectual brilliance, cultural innovation, technological invention, experiment, creativity, and originality… astronomy and astrology, with science and esoteric knowledge, and with space travel and aviation. With respect to personal character, Uranus is regarded as signifying the rebel and innovator, the awakener, the individualist, the dissident, the eccentric, the restless and wayward.”2
Meanwhile, the Father Sky version of Uranus was overthrown by his son Cronos. He didn’t upset the apple cart but resisted the upsetting. And while the associations with Uranus as Father Sky remain in his connection to aviation, space travel, technology and all things associated with the starry vault of the heavens that free us from the gravitational forces of earth, these also apply to Prometheus.
Before the falling out between Zeus and Prometheus, the two worked side by side to bring order to the pre-Olympian world and establish human civilization.
In mythology Zeus (Jupiter) was king of the Olympian gods. In astrology, he speaks to the principle of expansion, including expansion of consciousness. He’s a wise visionary, interested in creating a stable society through law, governance, ethics, and morals; in creating a meaningful whole through weaving together a diversity of points of view, belief systems and values, improving what isn’t working well and expanding upon what is.
In Cosmos and Psyche, Tarnas devotes an entire section to the synodic cycle of Jupiter and Uranus called Cycles of Creativity and Expansion. Within this section are chapters devoted to scientific, artistic, social and political breakthroughs, leaps forward, rebellions, awakenings and new beginnings. We are living through a time like this once again.
On April 20, 2024, we arrive at what is arguably the most anticipated transit of the year—the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus. This occurs one day after the Sun’s annual ingress into Taurus, announcing the beginning of Taurus season and bringing our attention to Taurean themes. The conjunction has been warming up since late summer 2023, but more noticeably over the last couple months, and it will continue to be active through the end of May. Outer planet conjunctions are like that, and it’s often only in retrospect that we can perceive the life-changing shifts that accompany them.
Jupiter and Uranus come together in a conjunction only every 13-14 years. Taurus is an earth sign, and as such, it’s interested in building; in what is stable, sustainable, tangible, and sensual. When we add these significations to the combination of Jupiter and Uranus, we can anticipate epiphanies that lead to creative breakthroughs, liberating ideas that allow us to disrupt stale patterns we haven’t known how to change, and free ourselves from inauthentic ways of being, including careers, relationships, groups, projects, or our own belief systems. Perhaps we’ve been stewing about an idea or area of life where we feel stuck and suddenly we think, “That’s it, I’m going for it”, or, “I really want to learn how to ___” and we finally sign up for a class or make a choice that leads us in an entirely new direction that we’d never have found if we’d continued on in the same routine with the same patterns of behavior.
This is a time of extraordinary breakthroughs, and breakdowns that lead to breakthroughs in our embodied experience of being an earthbound human connected to the vastness of the Universe beyond. With Taurus however, in order to integrate our experiences, we will need to keep our feet firmly planted on the earth, perhaps with our hands in the dirt and the sun on our shoulders. With this much “up and out” energy around, we want to keep reminding ourselves that the only way we get to live the fullness of any human experience is to be present in our Taurean bodies.
Also on April 20, Venus reaches 19° Aries, the April 8 eclipse point, renewing its energetic fingerprint. She rules Taurus, and thus the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction. All of this suggests that Venusian themes, specifically those associated with Aries and Taurus, including boldness, a pioneering spirit, spontaneity, courage, our bodies, values, and the natural world, are likely to be woven into our experiences of this time.
The eclipse window is still open and as we know, eclipses have a somewhat Uranian flavor—Expect the unexpected. The possibilities of what might appear for each of us during this time are endless, but now is the time to say yes to something new and trust that it’s appearing at this time to liberate you; to invite you into greater authenticity, creativity, and expansion.
We’re at the end of our first eclipse season of the year and the wild astrology of April is in full swing. We’re all in the throes of big change. If you’d like to know how this is likely to land in relation to you personally, I’d be delighted to serve as your guide to the star map known as your birth chart. Email me for details: camelliablossoms@gmail.com or…
May the next few weeks bring us all new opportunities to experiment, innovate, play and rebel that offer joy, pleasure and liberation.
Thank you for reading,
Cami
p. 65 Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, 75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition. Black Dog and Leventhal, 2017.
p. 94 Tarnas, Richard. Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. Plume, 2007.