Form or Function: a new paradigm for the outer planets

Stairs for squirrels or birds or fairies, painted lavender and pink to match the building, Black Mountain, NC Photo by the author

Form or Function?

With the Sun at 0 degrees Aries, today is the astrological beginning point. It is also one of two days during the year when day and night are in balance. The Aries form inherently bears the Libra function. 

Regardless of when you read this, consider what you are beginning, and what you are balancing. If you are purchasing cherries by the pound, you will need to place them on the scale, whether your purchase limit is $5 or $25. 

What you plan to make with those cherries also determines how many you need. Are you making sparkling soda and wanting to don a glass or two with a fruit that reminds you of dark bars in your younger days, or innocent moments in childhood, when you were offered the kids' drink? 

Are you planning to make several pies for a bake sale?

Can you tie the stem of a cherry into a knot with your tongue? 

Are the cherry trees blossoming in your town, or do you live in a place where the leaves are falling?  

We cannot say definitively whether function follows form or vice versa. It depends. This is the same with the seasons. Aries may be the beginning, but depending on where you live, this could be spring or fall. 

My intent was not to write about the ingress. I have an article here that is more specific. Yet, I found myself beginning with where we are. 

My intent was to write about balance, about seeking planetary balance through zodiacal associations. In traditional manner, that would be as follows: 

Moon/Sun: Cancer/Leo

Mercury: Gemini/Virgo

Venus: Taurus/Libra

Mars: Aries/Scorpio

Jupiter: Sagittarius/Pisces

Saturn: Capricorn/Aquarius

What then happens when we reach the outer planets: Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto? 

In modern and evolutionary astrology, the association is typically as follows: 

Uranus: Aquarius

Neptune: Pisces

Pluto: Scorpio 

Do you see the problem here? The outer planets become unbalanced through their zodiacal associations. If Uranus is merely yang or function, then where is its form? 

If Neptune and Pluto are merely yin or form, then where is their function? 

Could we not loop around again, and associate Uranus with both Aquarius and Capricorn; Neptune with both Pisces and Jupiter; Pluto with both Scorpio and Aries? 

Is this heretical? Will this hypothesis be laughed at by both traditional and modern astrologers? 

My thinking goes like this: if outer planets are collectively significant, meaning entire subgroups of the population are born with an outer planet in a particular sign, then the fact that we have associated outer planets with only one sign indicates how out of balance we are on the collective level. 

From an evolutionary astrology (EA) perspective, Uranus intends to break us out of Saturnian or Capricornian structures. What does that mean to imagine a complete break? It feels catastrophic and chaotic. What if we re-associated Uranus with Capricorn and reconsidered Capricorn more broadly as the matrix, as the structure of reality. Then, when the Uranus crack happens, there would be some continuity with the current reality, and some intent to ultimately invent a new structure, a new reality. 

Also from an EA perspective, Neptune or Pisces symbolizes the ultimate or the all that is. This could mean the ultimate delusion or the ultimate reunion. Either way, it leaves no room for function. The Pisces realm is formless form. From a human perspective, this leaves us trapped in idealization. There is nothing we can formulate here. If we reconnect Neptune with Sagittarius, then the overwhelming vision can be translated into a philosophy or paradigm that can be taught or shared with others. 

What then to do with Pluto? In my training, we understand Pluto to represent the Soul, the deepest, most unconscious place within us, within a collective, within a being. Scorpio is a logical association here, connected to the subconsious, to death and dying, to the power of transformation. However, when unchecked, Scorpio can fixate; Scorpio can obsess; Scorpio can focus on death. In EA, Pluto holds the traces of all previous and future incarnations. This means death and birth. This means there is an Aries spark in there somewhere. In fact, the Aries spark appears over and over again. 

While it might seem strange to have two planets associated with the same set of signs, I am thinking of it as an emphasis: Saturn as Capricorn/Aquarius; and Uranus as Aquarius/Capricorn. This then becomes an ongoing conversation and interrelationship between Jupiter and Neptune, Saturn and Uranus, Pluto and Mars.

As is fitting with a beginning point that is also calling for balance, I must admit that these outer planets sign associations are only a vision at this point. I have yet to test them. I have yet to put them to practice. Saturn is calling after all, for a determination to begin and a potential break from the past. Test it out for yourself, and let me know what your experience is!