Forthcoming Expectations: The Expressions of the Saturn-Neptune Opposition of 2005-2007

As mentioned, the upcoming Saturn-Neptune opposition will be the major alignment for the remainder of this decade, structuring collective consciousness before the potential crises of 2010 and beyond. Although it is important to elaborate upon this alignment’s potentials in all spheres of culture, arguably the most significant element worth noting is that this alignment will be most easily perceived through intangibles over and above concrete expressions and manifestations. Justifiably more than any other collective combination, Saturn-Neptune alignments inform collective subjectivity. The fears, doubts, malaise, melancholia, and anxiety often felt by individuals born with Saturn-Neptune aspects are felt within the anima mundi, the world psyche, during major Saturn-Neptune alignments such as this upcoming configuration. These feelings, felt subjectively by the collective, will create many of the secondary, more observable phenomena of the next two years, but the primary association with the Saturn-Neptune gestalt is a discernable mood swing in the collective psyche.

Aesthetically, the Saturn-Neptune configuration is known for its cool, dark, atmospheric quality—the darkly gothic, the hauntingly ethereal, the eerily and spookily numinous. Saturn-Neptune arrangements have a notably stark and desolate quality. Thus, colors, patterns, and tones are more bleached out and lack intensity. One might conjure up images of Darren Aronofsky’s Pi to capture the sensibility of the Saturn-Neptune aspect. Thus, the haunting, poetic quality of the Saturn-Neptune configuration is often best translated through the absence of vivid and saturated colors.

Saturn-Neptune alignments often express themselves through what might be called “subjective drama.” By subjective, or psychological, drama I’m suggesting serious dilemmas that often involve tests of faith, conscience, and integrity. Quiet, subdued, and slightly melancholic, the Saturn-Neptune drama lacks overt and cataclysmic tension and rather uses nuances, subtlety and silence to portray its tension. Minimalist and taut, Saturn-Neptune-type dramas are often extraordinarily powerful by way of suggestion and symbol rather than through conflict and resolution. Sofia Coppola, who was born under the same Saturn-Neptune opposition as M. Night Shyamalan, displays the quality of this type of drama in her films. However, the undisputed master of the subjective drama is Ingmar Bergman, born with a Saturn, Neptune, Mercury triple conjunction. Existential and profound, Bergman’s dramas are thunderingly loud in thematic beauty, though his use of all stylistic techniques is subdued. These quiet, little dramas are often the highest art, for with Saturn-Neptune aspects, the divine (Neptune) is made palpable and real (Saturn).