Considering the 2024 Jupiter-Uranus Conjunction

By Brian Clark

Uranus' atmosphere, overlaying Jupiter with aurorae
 Source: Public Domain, from NASA: NASA Gallery: Uranus
 NASA Gallery: Jupiter

Both Jupiter and Uranus share an unrestrained, adventuresome, often stormy, character. As boundary crossers, both disrupt social and collective patterns through expansion, inflation, rebellion or interruption. The convergence of these two planets evokes images of innovative shifts in education, culture, religion and science, as well as liberation movements, original trends, and collective protests in response to an intensification of social inequality. It suggests a growth of Promethean qualities, a spirit of change and rebellion against rigid definitions and structures. In a system already in turmoil this could be volatile and fiery. However, it also serves as an image of inventive and ground-breaking solutions to global dilemmas if we can collectively respond to the invitation with integrity and equality. When merged, their cycle has the hallmarks of expansion into outer space (1), not just literal space, but journeys into territories beyond the familial.

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind

On the 20th July 1969 (21st July UT), the Apollo space mission successfully set down on the Moon and Neil Armstrong’s footprints were the first to mark the lunar surface. At 10:56 p.m. EDT, Armstrong descended the ladder and declared: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Twenty one hours earlier, Jupiter and Uranus were exactly conjunct, the last in their 1968/9 series of triple conjunctions. At the time of the lunar touchdown, Jupiter was 0 47; Uranus was 0 42; an astrological synchrony of the archetypal quest to venture beyond coherent boundaries into unknown space.

Armstrong’s proclamation would be a meme today, as it conveys a triumphant and heroic journey that benefits all humanity, a step beyond, and the elation that comes with breaking through barriers. Working together, Jupiter and Uranus evoke Hope, the gift of hope that emerges from chaos.

Archetypally both are sky Gods; at times manic, yet highly creative and active. Mythologically, the Olympian Jupiter is the grandson of the Titan Uranus. Their generational attitudes and values can be wildly opposed; hence consciousness of communal concerns and the perception of what is truly progressive and democratic can be at odds. Whether to act immediately from instinct or to observe and judge the situation before proceeding is an aspect of this tension.

Yet, cosmologically, Jupiter and Uranus have a harmonic rapport that aligns their archetypal relationship. As with so many of our planetary pair cycles, the symmetry of this cycle is awe-inspiring, revealing a heavenly order. Jupiter and Uranus reveal their heavenly magnificence through the patterns they form together through time. Let’s explore their cyclic and mythic relationship to conjure up some images of their approaching union.

The Symmetry of the Cycle

Within one 84-year cycle of Uranus, there are seven Jupiter cycles, a ratio of 1:7. In 12 years Jupiter will transit all twelve zodiacal signs whereas Uranus transits just under two.

Table 1

Once Jupiter returns to the seminal degree of their previous conjunction, it will take nearly two more years along the zodiacal trail to reunite with Uranus. In this same time frame, Uranus will have transited nearly two signs. Therefore the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction occurs over a span of approximately 14 years. However, each cycle varies between 13.25 and 14.25 years. As their subsequent rendezvous occurs approximately two signs apart, a sextile is often formed.

After six conjunctions, or just short of 83 years, the planets will conjoin again near the same zodiacal location, about three to five zodiacal degrees earlier than the previous one. The six conjunctions of the grand cycle form a hexagon whose zodiacal positions are connected more or less by sextiles. This cycle sweeps through the zodiac approximately every 83 years, forming a grand sextile pattern, containing two grand trines or a six-pointed star. (2) The symmetry of the interconnected triangles in the hexagon serves as a symbol of coherence and harmony, as well as the balance of masculine and feminine energies. The following table shows the repetition of each conjunction in the series (UT) after 83 years.

Table 2

This pattern of sextiles emphasizes either day/yang (air & fire) or night/ yin (earth and water) signs for an extended period. For instance, after the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in 2148 (at 0sag25), the next conjunctions will all take place in earth and water signs for the next 350+ years. Similarly, the Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions were exclusively in day signs throughout the 15th to 18th centuries. In 1858 (see the table above) the conjunctions shifted into Taurus and the following conjunction in 1872 relocated to Cancer. But, for the previous 400 years all the conjunctions had occurred in air and fire signs. Embedded in this cycle is the evolving and sentient understanding of the equality of masculine and feminine energies. I was delighted to discover Anne Whitaker has also written on this phenomenon in much greater detail in Jupiter Meets Uranus: from erotic bathing to star gazing! (3) Her work on this unique and long-term cycle that focuses on masculine and feminine polarities is an imaginative template for the study of changing social dynamics.

This pattern also reveals that Jupiter and Uranus will conjoin 7 - 8 times in one sign before their union slips back into the previous sign. As our next conjunction is in Taurus, let’s look at the Taurean conjunctions that occur in this sequence.

Table 3

And the final conjunction in this series occurs 4/06/2521 at 3 54. During these seven centuries, there are eight conjunctions in the sign of Taurus.

Into the Mythic: Fury and Hope

Jupiter never really knew his grandfather. (4)

He, however, did know that his father Saturn, colluding with his mother Gaia, had castrated Uranus, his grandfather. And in fear of being disposed, his father Saturn devoured Jupiter’s five siblings. He knew these things as he had been rescued from this fate by his mother Rhea. Jupiter accepted that he had avoided his sibling’s fate because his destiny was to avenge the family chaos and establish order. His grandfather Uranus was the personification of the Sky; his grandmother Gaia, the embodiment of the Earth. Jupiter would ascend to the sky throne, bringing culture, progress and abundance. But like his grandfather, he remained distant from the ordinariness of the everyday mundane affairs.

Yet, in the family background, the chaos of the dismembered past had not been completely buried. Uranus’s blood from the dismemberment had planted the seeds of Fury, born from Earth as the Erinyes. Even though Jupiter and Uranus are future-directed, the bones, blood and ghosts of their ancestral past are entombed deep in the Earth.

Vulcan Chaining Prometheus, by Jean-Charles Frontier
Jupiter ordering the eternal punishment of Prometheus, which Vulcan begins.
 Source: Public Domain

Another mythic figure who shares a similar archetypal landscape with Uranus is Prometheus. (5) Like Uranus, Prometheus is a Titan, a rebel with a cause. He both helped and tricked Zeus; helped in overthrowing Saturn, but tricked him by stealing the fire of the gods to help mankind evolve. At this formative moment, mankind experienced the potentiality of creative, technological and transformative power. Prometheus embodies both heroic and trickster qualities with his quest for divine and scientific knowledge. But, he also personifies the lone wolf whose collective labours can bring tragedy.

At Jupiter’s directive, Pandora is fashioned and brought into human society, unleashing all the storms and ills onto mankind. Yet embedded in this cataclysmic concoction is Hope.

Fury and Hope. After stealing the fire of heaven, Prometheus is imprisoned in Tartarus, like Uranus. However, unlike Uranus, Prometheus experiences a twist of fate. He is released from the underworld dungeon due to Chiron trading places with him. Ironically, it is the suffering and pain of the healer that releases Prometheus to the world again. Jupiter is intimately involved with Prometheus; hence the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction animates this story once again. The mythic analogies will be in our midst.

Both mythic stories of Jupiter and Uranus or Jupiter and Prometheus warn of the blurring of boundaries, such as the line between heaven and earth, the limitations between man and divine, the ethics between technology and nature, the moral code between creativity and responsibility; all boundaries that need observation and reverence during this time. Their mythic union suggests the unleashed potentiality for ‘one giant leap for mankind’ and their cyclic alliance reminds us of the need for this to be balanced with feminine energies.

Reflections

While Jupiter and Uranus are more intent on the future than the past, threading their past conjunctions together helps consider similar motifs through time. Considering the coalescence of Jupiter and Uranus, we become alert for themes of innovation, discovery, progress, originality, novelty and revolution, especially in social, political and scientific spheres. These archetypes can be traced through literal images of social awakening, political upheavals and scientific breakthroughs that manifest through time. For a dynamic amplification of this cycle, I would recommend Richard Tarnas’s thorough exposition in Cosmos and Psyche. (6)

Let’s return to the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus at the end of the turbulent and revolutionary 1960s. This conjunction occurred in the wake of the Uranus/Pluto conjunction which was still within a 10-degree orb. A month after the Moon landing, in a small field in Woodstock NY, a pop festival made history when half a million Boomers gathered to celebrate love, peace and music. Woodstock was a spontaneous gathering, a celebration of that generation’s urge to be free of controlling social norms and restrictions. These ‘three days of peace and music’ evoked the spirit of the conjunction in the first degrees of Libra: anti-war, counterculture and social reform through the arts, in this case music!

Three cycles later, the Jupiter/Uranus triple conjunction of 2010/11 began on June 8, 2010 at 0 17, exactly opposite the last conjunction at the end of the 60s. The opening degree of the zodiac is a powerful place for the meeting of socially conscious Jupiter and the agent of revolution Uranus. Uranus’ ingress into Aries signaled change and with the cardinal square off between Uranus and Pluto beginning to form, Jupiter entered into the dynamics. Some images in the collective at this time were Wikileaks, the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and Greece’s economic struggle with the EU. As mentioned, forty-two years before, the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction was at the beginning of Libra, illustrated by the Moon Landing and Woodstock, mirrored in the rising divorce rate, Gay Liberation and the Feminist movement. Its predecessor, 83 years before, in 1927-8 was in early Aries. It marked the height of the Roaring 20’s when it was assumed that the market would just keep escalating. A year later the stock market came crashing down. The Jupiterian bubble of speculation and inflation that preceded the Crash of 29 had burst. Just before the first conjunction, Charles Lindbergh had piloted the first solo and longest transatlantic flight which revolutionized aviation. And during this period Mae West was writing and producing plays that challenged contemporary social conventions of sexuality and gender.

Neil Armstrong’s phrase ‘That's one small step for man...’ is an interesting summation of this cycle. Under this planetary pair cycle many new scientific breakthroughs and important discoveries have transpired such as quantum physics, the light bulb and the heliocentric view of the solar system. Each discovery has been ‘one giant leap’ in our evolution. It also has brought strong advocates and activists into the public to champion social awareness and change. Each conjunction is like a change agent that evokes new, hopefully more conscious, perspectives on the balance between Nature and Technology, between Earth and Sky.

In the ascension and brilliance that this combination produces, we often forget the shadow side of progress and expansion. Charles Harvey described this conjunction as "the purposeful extension and awakening of human consciousness.” (7) This echoes the pair’s expansionary and progressive ideals, yet at what cost? Perhaps the sign of the conjunction helps to focus on the values, qualities, features and potentials of the merger. As this conjunction lands in Gaia’s territory, I wonder what rumblings will be heard from the ghosts of past progress and innovations in the Taurean fields of economy and ecology.

Whatever the shakeup or shakedown, we are invited to become conscious of the values and aspirations we hold sacred for our natural world.

Endnotes:
(1) See Michael Baigent, Nicholas Campion and Charles Harvey, Mundane Astrology, The Aquarian Press, London: 1984, pp. 205 – 208 – “The Jupiter-Uranus cycle charts and the space age”
(2) This cycle echoes the third progressed Moon return and the average life expectancy for many Western cultures.
(3) For more amplification - https://anne-whitaker.com/2023/10/18/jupiters-meeting-with-uranus-a-major-astro-event-approaches/.
(4) I am conflating Greek and Roman names – if the Greek refers to a planet, I am using the Roman equivalent; if not I am retaining the Greek.
(5) Richard Tarnas brings this to life in his marvelous essay, Prometheus the Awakener, Spring Publications: 2018 and again in Cosmos and Psyche, Penguin, New York, NY: 2006, pp. 94-96.
(6) Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, pp.291 – 351.
(7) Charles Harvey, Mundane Astrology, p.186.

First published in: FAA Journal, March 2024.

Author:
Brian Clark has been a consulting astrologer and educator for most of his adult life. He has been honoured with Life Membership in the Australian astrological associations for his contributions to the discipline of astrology. He has his BA (Hons) and MA in Classics and Archaeology from the University of Melbourne. Brian is the author of numerous articles, books, computer reports and student publications which have been translated into French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Japanese and Spanish. His recent books are: Astrological Time: Cycles of the Soul; Soul, Symbol and Imagination: The Artistry of Astrology and From the Moment we Met: The Astrology of Adult Relationships. Website: www.astrosynthesis.com.au

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