Rules: Aquarius
Key words and qualities: Nature’s raw, experimental drive, intuition, awakening, TNT that blows up your circle of habit, freedom through less.
Color: Electric blue
Metal: Uranium
Physical body affinities: Our winged ankles, because Uranus is the “higher octave” of Mercury. And our body’s electrical charge, also called the etheric body or aura.
Length of time to orbit: Eighty-four years; seven years in each sign.
Way of honoring: Experiment, experiment, experiment. Don’t worry about success or failure; Uranus feels that life is in the attempt. “Failure is the first step toward success.”
Shadow, when not honored: Erratic rebellion and procrastination.
Uranus represents independence, freedom, invention, innovation, friends, and revolution. You simply need to find a new way to do things when Uranus is involved. You must learn to choose change for something better, rather than change for the sake of change. Uranus is the most individualistic, intrinsically disruptive of forces. Yet, through its “rulership” of Aquarius, it is the most community-oriented energy. One of Uranus’s teachings is that when everyone is truly honest, consensus is possible. Community is real if everyone appreciates the uniqueness of each member. Uranian truth-telling and experimentation are needed so that we can grow social forms that serve rather than suppress individuality.
Sudden and unexpected change is how astrologers like to describe Uranus, but the change that is brought about is usually not sudden or unexpected. However, it will be necessary and monumental. We feel the electric hum of Uranus when the inner and the outer are not in accord, a sure sign that the situation is not honest. The resulting tension catalyzes the energy necessary for change. A person possessed by the Uranus need to speak the truth, can get into trouble and their difficult task is to address discrepancy with sensitivity. The sensitivity ideally extends both to why you are saying something and when to say it.
According to Uranus, the truth always has to be said, but not necessarily to another human. You can shout the truth of your insight to the Universe and restore the energetic balance.
When Uranus is emphasized, whether by birth chart or transit, you feel that if you don’t express yourself you’ll explode. The truth leaps out of your mouth, often in ungracious ways. Cultivating the Uranus part of us feeds the part of ourselves that defies authorities internally and externally. Saying the truth is a challenge, but the greater challenge is to say the truth in a clean, inclusive way. This requires training, experimentation and practice.
A Uranus transit strikes with a bolt from the blue and catalyzes outward experimentation. We can’t keep it to ourselves, but instead draw attention through wild and creative behavior. Around the age of forty-two transiting Uranus opposes its natal position. This period is labeled the “midlife crisis.” What’s really going on is that the wild, authentic part of us has completed half of its eighty-four year orbit and is checking in with itself. It is a time of self-assessment, when the Uranus side of our psyche questions how truly we are embracing our unique self.
What follows is that those areas of life in which we are cultivating and expressing our unique gifts experience rapid acceleration, while those areas that have been more dormant become the arena for wild, experimental disruption. Here you have to transcend the status quo, and head out beyond known limitations; learn more, discover more, and become more inventive.