A New Cosmology for The Ages
On quantum physics and the Uranus-Neptune-Saturn conjunction in Capricorn generation
I have just finished listening to “Until the End of Time” by Brian Greene. The story of how I got to spending sleepless nights with a book on quantum physics is kinda funny. It’s linked to one of my biggest triggers in recent times.
He was one of the people featured in “What the Bleep Do We Know!?”, which was suggested to me by Kelly Dawn.
The reason why it triggered me is that the mix of really old aesthetics (it came out in 2004) and dramatic soundtrack reminded me of the kind of conspiracy theories documentaries and the like that they show on the TV channel my father watches.
And that my family derides him for, even if I don’t even know if (and how much) he believes any of it. I know he muses about the idea that the world is in fact a puppet stage and we’re just the long-suffering characters of a story written by a somewhat sadistic puppeteer. Like a cosmic Punch and Judy.
When I looked up the name of this physicist because something attracted me to him, but failed to catch it, I saw that the film (predictably) was described as “pseudoscience”. And because I was, at the time, engaged in interrogating what I believe about my own identity, I became conscious of something.
A past version of me would have felt self-conscious about watching the film without at the very least the intellectual posturing that of course I don’t really believe in it. I’m not stupid. I have a Master’s degree in History and graduated from a Russel Group university (although my younger self had such a fragile sense of self she didn’t even attempt to get admitted at Oxford in case she didn’t make the cut).
For my international friends, that’s me saying the equivalent of “I graduated from an Ivy League college but didn’t even apply to Harvard”.
The irony of a degree specialising in Early Modern History is that I have witnessed time and time again something Brian Greene talks about in his book, namely that scientific breakthroughs tend to be seen as insane by the establishment until the evidence is so strong it becomes the theory until something stronger comes along (if anything does). Famously Galileo, but he was not alone in that.
Sometimes by the discoverers themselves, as he referred to situations where Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawkins had to face their inherent biases in the face of where the maths was leading them.
As I have a background in the Humanities, I caught myself in a pattern of unquestioningly deferring to authority when it comes to science. In fact, it goes so much deeper, tracing back years: my staunchly atheist teenage boyfriend that expected me to be on his level of never buying into religion to be worthy of being with him, my family mocking my father for being open-minded and curious about the world and ideas (I just looked it up, he has Saturn Rx in Sag, Chiron in Aquarius, and a Scorpio North Node 😬).
Coupled with the fact I was always painted as the clever one (as long as I agreed with everyone’s existing opinions, of course), I internalised a very unscientific bias in favour of science. It was, in fact, dogmatism with a different god and a different dogma.
If you’re new to this space, you may not know that since the beginning of my practice, I have considered myself a Skeptical, Agnostic, and Science-seeking Witch. Over time, I have realised that the gap between the SASS approach and any other approaches was much smaller than I originally thought, a topic I began to address in the Natural Magic episode of my podcast (with more to come).
I do deity work and I’m studying how to deepen the work with spirits, but I’m for all extent and purposes still agnostic. I don’t hold too tightly to one story about who we are or other. If something comes along to better explain the experience of being human I give it due thought without rejecting it.
Because of this deeper understanding of the branches of magic that I saw, originally, as “other”, I have over time felt more and more disconnected from the SASS label. Yet, I felt the internal pressure of limiting the scope of what I explore here and on the podcast in order to never open myself up to the aforementioned criticisms. Always somewhat awkwardly trying to reconcile what interests me with this identity I had claimed as the foundation of this community I was building.
Despite what having multiple content creation streams on the Internet might suggest, I don’t need people to agree with me to feel validated in what I believe. But, like all humans, I have the same needs for safety, belonging, and authenticity.
But sacrificing authenticity out of the three feels limiting to me and my Sag traversing my Scorpio-ruled 1st house. Perhaps this is, once more, the tension of my Capricorn stellium at play.
I had originally planned to talk about distupting business as the Millennial dharma, off the back of a conversation Michelle Pellizon and Jaz Borri had on the Twelfth House podcast.
Uranus, modern ruler of Aquarius, has been in Capricorn between 1988-1996. That means the younger Millennials (as the generation spans 1981 to 1996) have been reckoning with capitalism, authority, and our fear of becoming our parents.
Especially those who, like me, were born during the Uranus-Neptune-Saturn conjunction, which David Odyssey (whom I haven’t quoted in a while) deemed with his trademark sass “a fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall karmic assignment”.
It rules the Tower moments or our lives, shaking the foundations of what we thought we knew. When all that is conjuct your Sun, you end up with watashisama on a personal mission to change the world. I do wonder if everyone born on the same day as me is as obnoxiously self-confident about having been born to make people’s lives better just by being in them.
I know Kristina Licare loves the energy of that day because she told me that’s why she’s dropping S2 of the Open Up podcast then, and I almost share the birthday with Sakamoto Ryouma (and yes, I just ran his chart. He had Uranus at 27° Aquarius).
I said it before somewhere, or if I haven’t I thought it as I remember distinctly where I was (and what I was wearing) when I had this realisation. That conjunction being in Capricorn feels like an uncanny ability to discern between traditions worth keeping and innovation worth pursuing.
It rejects both tradition as the only way because it’s how we’ve always done things, and it rejects progress for progress’s sake.
It forces us to grapple with the question of “What is the highest vision for humanity (Neptune) and how do we achieve it (Saturn and Uranus)?”
In a way it’s fascinating how Millennials appear to often be the most dogmatic about holding on to either tradition or progress. This is the point where I expect someone to come in and be like “That shows astrology isn’t real”.
It’s true that we always incur the risk of using meaning-making systems as our authority, and if they disagree with our experience it can be tempting to dismiss our experience to fit in with the (at that point) ideology.
That’s not how I mean it, because depending on how you define free will we have free will. As far as astrology goes, I would say we have free will even if your definition of it aligns with what Brian Greene used in the book, where he argued the laws of physics mean we don’t have free will.
The planets do not compell us to action like the puppetteer of my father’s imagination. Astrology is a symbolic representation of the energetic cycles of human exchanges based on observation and fine tuning over thousands of years.
An aside, it’s interesting to me how many in this space make appeals to ancient authority when defending their preferred approach while also clearly not relying on Galen for their medical needs.
And that’s without my soapbox that Placidus is not a modern invention. Ptolemy lived in the 2nd century CE. Whole Houses is roughly 200y older. It’s literally the Hellenistic version of Apple vs Windows.
Even if you wanted to argue against m O d E r N i S m like a radtrad on Reddit, which I think is stupid because progress is necessary for survival, at least use something actually modern.
Back on topic. I believe by virtue of what astrology is, we have to account for the both/and of things looking incompatible on the surface, and take into consideration that we are what defines the system and not the other way around. So the meanings associated with planets, signs, and houses are a spectrum of shades.
Crimson and vermilion are both reds, but to those who can see the subtle differences they’re two different colours at the same time.
The dogmatic traditionalists holding on for dear life to a fantasy of what the world looked like in the 1950s are, in their own way, being Uranian against a world they perceived as needing a revolution because they see modernity as the thing standing against their view of the highest good for humanity (the Neptunian piece) and are relying on the Saturnian desire for authority and timeless tradition to bring it about.
If you think about it, all generations have some common themes that show up even in such contradictory ways. Different youth cultures always coexist, with their own signals of what makes you part of the in-group.
Some themes repeat themselves in shorter cycles than others, like our parents’ generation protesting against wars and racial injustices, and fighting for women and LGBT rights. Others, like overthrowing governments and changing the political system altogether, return over hundreds of years.
Uranus cycles the Zodiac over 84 years (7 per sign). Neptune double that, 165 years (14 per sign), and Pluto too governs these major societal shifts at 246 years (with anything between a decade to over 3 decades per sign). Saturn, which sits at the border of being generational as an intrapersonal planet with Jupiter, takes a mere 30-ish, hitting us with multiple returns in our lifetime if we’re lucky to live to old age.
My generation happens to have come alive when they were all engaging each other, with Pluto the outlier hitting the conjunction in a sextile from his domain in Scorpio. A sign that brings up its own reckoning with power dynamics into the mix.
One of the most distinctive traits of Capricorn is that we do not see obstacles. Well, my mother does. But aside from the highly traumatised people who have not faced their pasts, we look at what other people see as obstacles as challenges.
A wall that others build to keep you out is for us a thing to climb over. Whether mountain or hierarchies, if there’s an upward trajectory it’s meant for us to get to the top.
One thing that baffles me the most, though, is the extent to which people will put limitations on themselves. I’m guilty of it too. Before I started writing this, I was listening to the Roxy Talks podcast and it struck me that I don’t fully believe I could just receive huge sums of money from one moment to the next because my brain, always the pragmatist, gets stuck on asking how.
I believe in theory that it is possible, but then I add conditions of what acceptable ways feels safe.
Thankfully, I don’t tend to set limitation this way on a lot of things (although arguably blocking my ability to receive random money is a bigger deal ☠️) the way I see others do. And I get into gear to climb that obstacle as soon as I become aware of it being there.
You might think that it’s ironic that someone who engages in magical living would fall into such a trap, but it is simply the nature of the human condition. Our minds are finite, and cannot fully comprehend things as they probably are for real.
As I listened to Brian Greene talk about the theories of how the Universe came to be, it was impossible to create an image of that in my mind, which is how most of us think. That’s just the way things are.
Now the choice we have is whether to let what we can fathom dictate the boundaries of what we experience, or whether we open up to the possibilities even when they make no sense. And I get it, it means opening up to potential disappointments, but as they say, a ship wasn’t built to stay in the port. I’m ready to set sails in 2024, and I invite you along with me.
Until next time, keep living in wonder ✨
Things are changing
As much as I believe knowledge should not be gated, the time and costs involved in researching and producing the podcast are significant, and this past year I have self-funded it. However, it has become a bottle neck for my capacity to grow my money-making, and as any smart business owner I have to cut my losses.
This, however, is something I am passionate about and a work of my heart, so I didn’t want to end the show. I have decided to bring the research-led episodes behind a paywall. I will also keep a tip jar and the affiliate links if you are not interested in the paid content but want to support my work. And of course sharing about this newsletter and the podcast is also vital and much appreciated. As well as the continuous support by reading, of course 🫶🏻
There will still be the free monthly newsletter with an essay about the particular season we’re entering, and free weekly episodes, but they will not be research-intensive topics. And for the time being I’m not having new guests either.
The upcoming season will not be 10 episode either. Season 5 is titled “Seasons of the Witch” and will be the whole year. In Winter we will be going back to basics, going over the themes of season 1 with the insight of not being beginners anymore, but knowing that mastery can only come from truly knowing the foundations. Like the cyclical nature of the Zodiac, themes will ebb and flow, going deeper as well as bringing to light new discoveries and challenges.
Star News is also changing a little, as I bring the two projects (and my blog, and a still secret other project) into the same ecosystem more fully. My desire for Starry Sky is to become the go-to Star Magic hub, so I don’t intend to make it any less valuable than what I created so far, but I intend to make it more intuitive and less academic, and have the paid content be more like classes and really up that level to be further than the basics. After all, I do have that Master’s degree ;)
I wholeheartedly believe that the esoteric tradition has a lot to teach us about ourselves and how to build lives we don’t want to escape from, and I want to make it more accessible and relevant to our lives in the 21st century. I hope to have you on the journey with me 🖤