What Will Uranus in Taurus Bring?
by Steven Forrest
With its eighty-four year orbit, Uranus – the fabled Lord of Earthquakes and Lightning Bolts – enters a new sign of the zodiac about every seven years. As befits its dramatic title, when it enters a sign, any area of life connected with that symbol is due to hit some choppy air. Underlying the “chop,” however, is a deeper process: old, outdated structures are shaken to make way for breakthroughs and pulses of evolution. As befits the lightning bolt metaphor, these pulses can happen very rapidly. Like earthquakes, they can, in the blink of an eye, change the shape of the landscape forever.
What does Uranus’ entry into Taurus portend for us, both as human societies and as individual beings? In this month’s newsletter, I want to wrestle with the “big picture” perspective – what this event means for the world. We are also simultaneously releasing a two-hour program I recorded regarding the event’s more personal dimensions.
Uranus in Taurus in Your Chart
In this timely audio recording, Steven explores the transit of Uranus in Taurus as an evolutionary necessity for personal growth. After a lengthy introduction about how to work with this energy in your own life, Steven gives descriptions of Uranus in Taurus in each of the twelve houses.
2 hours | audio download | $25
Or get the written transcript instead (great for hearing-impaired). Order the transcript Uranus in Taurus here.
Before we stroll out on the thin ice of global prediction, let’s remember that of all the planets, Uranus is the least predictable. Seeing it arriving at a sensitive point in a client’s birthchart, many an astrologer suggests a strategy of “expecting the unexpected.”
That’s a catchy line – but kind of hard to do, if you stop to think about it for a moment.
And yet the phrase has legs. It has survived in astrological parlance for many years. The unpredictable does indeed tend to occur during Uranian times – but is it then really “the unpredictable?” We of course quickly spin down into a labyrinth of paradox here. Still – and feel free to laugh – I confidently predict that “the unpredictable” will occur.
I bet that’s actually true – but I’d also be the first to label it a worthless prediction.
As much as is possible with a slippery symbol such as Uranus, I want to walk with you for a few paces on the solid ground of what we know about these two familiar archetypes. Predictions? Well, sort of . . . we will make a few. But rather than trying to gaze into the crystal ball, let’s see what kind of evolutionary advice this passage of Uranus through Taurus might offer us.
First, let’s look at the timing of it.
Uranus entered Taurus on May 15. On November 6th, later this year, it retrogrades back into Aries for a substantial four months, returning solidly to Taurus only on March 6, 2019. After that, it remains in Taurus until it enters Gemini for the first time six years later, in July 2025, returning to Taurus in November of that year, and finally committing to a long passage through Gemini on April 25, 2026.
What does this stint in Taurus portend?
I have heard some astrologers predicting economic collapse. Their reasoning is that Taurus relates to financial structures, and “earthquakes and lightning bolts” in that department has the ring of bad money news. But history suggests otherwise: the Great Depression actually started in 1929, with Uranus still in Aries. Uranus hit Taurus in the midst of the Depression – and what actually happened was the permanent establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the Banking Act of 1935, along with the solidification of the whole Federal Reserve system. Perhaps even more impactfully, the Social Security system was put in place. Notice these events are about revolutions in the financial structure, not the collapse of the structures.
There are many political viewpoints on these Uranus-in-Taurus developments that happened one cycle ago; but whether you are pro- or con- relative to the New Deal, one point is certain: they represented a fundamental revolution in the financial system of the United States. And that is the archetypal point: Uranus brings revolution – and one dimension of Taurus is money. A revolution in the way society deals with money seems to be looming on the horizon.
My friend Ricky Williams – the former NFL star now practicing astrology – predicts that Uranus in Taurus will be good news for various crypto-currencies, such as Bitcoin. He is certainly on target with the nature of the archetype. Such a re-definition of money and our relationship to it is a very pure expression of Uranus in Taurus.
Knowing that we are trying to “predict the unpredictable” gives me pause, but I cannot help but wonder if the upcoming “financial earthquakes” might be even more substantial. Will the revolutionary changes in finance of the 1930s be echoed in something every bit as epochal in the next seven years? Could it be about crypto-currencies? Easily. But could it be about the collective emergence of a more substantial alternative to runaway capitalism?
The whole idea of “an alternative to capitalism” sounds quixotic, but let’s not dismiss the idea too quickly. Uranus correlates with genius – which is to say, with highly innovative and unprecedented responses to pressing questions. American capitalism in the 1920s had gone on a binge, followed by hitting a brick wall at 100 mph. People were starving on the streets, and most were verging on desperation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s very Uranian interventions still stir up argument – and yet most of them are still in place, at least roughly. It is easy, in taking them for granted, to miss what a substantial re-thinking of capitalism they represented. How much did Social Security alter the fabric of U.S. society?
These pieces of history are of course about the United States; yet the Great Depression triggered parallel innovations in many other societies around the world. America is just one fragment of the hologram.
Time to re-wire the basis of the economy? It sounds extreme, but the bottom line is that we did it before. There is no reason we cannot do it again.
But what would such a re-wiring look like?
Who knows? I’m aware that this is a politically-charged area, and also that I am out of my depth – but I do know three things with confidence: that astrology never fails, that Uranus represents revolution in some sense of the word, and that Taurus is about money, among other things.
I have faith in the prediction, in other words – I just don’t claim to know what it means.
Underlying all of this is my faith in humanity’s ability to re-invent itself. We can spawn geniuses when we need them. And, when it comes to the energy that money represents, earthquakes are in the forecast. You can feel the tectonic pressures building in the form of various inequities, impending trade wars, and so on.
What happens when genius collides with earthquake? Does the lightning bolt of inspiration strike?
If this sounds exotic, here is another corroborating piece of history. This one dates to long before FDR and the New Deal.
Way back in 1602, with Uranus in Taurus, the Dutch East India Company was founded. That will take you back into your history books, but here is the story in a nutshell. The tiny country now called the Netherlands established an armada of trading ships and created a monopolistic sea-based trading empire that spanned half the globe. They dealt mostly in Asian spices. The Dutch East India Company was arguably the first multi-national corporation – there’s an “economic innovation” for you!
Four centuries ago, this revolutionary Uranian re-thinking of how money-energy might work brought fabulous wealth to Holland. But more importantly, the Dutch East India Company was the first publicly-traded corporation, widely issuing bonds and stock-shares to the general public. In other words, the Dutch East India Company was the first corporation listed on an official stock exchange.
Again, whatever your thoughts are about capitalism, we have another piece of powerful evidence here that Uranus in Taurus brings financial revolution. The time is right for a change – and opportunities abound for people able to think outside the box. That is always true in Uranian times.
Revolutions in Nature and Farming
Taurus is not just about money. At an even more fundamental level, it represents nature itself and the survival-resources it provides us. One manifestation of that vital piece of the puzzle is farming. Change is brewing there, just as it is in our economic systems. Many farmers are stretched to the breaking point, with suicide rates rising alarmingly. Currently, farmers are ending their own lives at pretty much the rate as young war veterans – a frightening number. Push is coming to shove there – which quickly loops us back into economics. Is that “Arian” level of stress sustainable? Uranus entering Taurus will give us the answer – and hopefully a direction forward.
Uranus in Taurus is not just about farmers. It is also about food itself. My own wishful thinking may be getting the better of me here, but I love to think of a revolution in the way we think about what we eat – that is very Taurean territory too. The triumph of organic farming? Turnips to the rescue? I read that it requires 2,500 gallons of water, twelve pounds of grain, and a gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of beef.
Does that monumental inefficiency hit a wall before 2026? Is it driven by wisdom, or just by economics?
Beans, anyone?
I am personally horrified by the unknown implications of the genetic modification of our foods – but I must admit that Uranian science mixing with farming smacks of GMOs. I just hope the general public exercises its Uranian stubbornness and refuses to the eat the damned things.
Going back to 1601-1603, with Uranus in Taurus, there was a famine in Russia that killed about one-third of the population. It would be toxic of me to make such a prediction here – I just pray that we are “geniuses” enough to have a glance in the rear-view mirror of history, learn from it, and avoid similar calamities.
In agriculture, things are coming to a breaking point. That is really the essence of the point I am making. And always with Uranus, it is breakthrough – or breakdown. We can choose. Consciousness is powerful – and future history is nothing but the sum total of many individual decisions.
Going further, the parts of Nature itself which are beyond human control are also resonant with Taurus. It is interesting to remember that the day Uranus finally entered Aries solidly, back in March 2011, a tidal wave struck the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. The symbolism was transparent; I won’t belabor it here – naturally, the synchronicity got a lot of press in AstroWorld even though the Nightly News, as usual, ignored astrology.
Then, as Uranus was crossing into Taurus in May, it happened again: the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupted with devastating impact. Again, Earth itself entered the conversation.
Fukushima required a perverse “cooperation” of human invention and nature’s unpredictability; if it were not for the misguided placement of the nuke, the tidal wave would not have been one for the history books.
Kilauea, however, was Mother Nature’s own handiwork. Humans had nothing to do with it. This was Earth’s own voice. How should we understand the message?
Astrology affects all of life on Earth, not just humans. Taurus represents the Earth itself – so our planet itself is starting a seven-year Uranus transit. If Earth were a person, we would expect a new hair-style at the very least. We have obvious predictions to make: more Kilaueas, more tidal waves, more terrible hurricanes and killer tornados.
Pray not, but that is what it looks like.
Here’s another solid guess about Uranus in Taurus: further acceleration in the melting of the ice-caps. Sad – but not a surprise.
Remember another clue though: Uranus correlates with the unexpected. Rising global temperatures, melting polar regions, earthquakes, volcanoes, big storms – these can be horrendous in their impact, but they are not unexpected. How will Mother Earth surprise us before 2026? What “unpredictable” events can we predict?
The question is a logical disaster for obvious reasons – but speculatively, how about a substantial asteroid impact? How about the magnetic pole shifting? That’s happened many times in Earth’s geological history, and the geological record suggests that we are long overdue now. Already there are signs of the magnetic pole beginning to drift. What would a pole shift mean?
In some scenarios, not much at all. In others . . . well, stockpile some 100 SPF sunscreen.
Hello, Is There Anyone Out There?
On a cheerier note, how about this prediction? Humanity discovers the first solid evidence of extra-terrestrial life. I’m not talking about UFOs here – although they too are an interesting subject, and one that is hard to dismiss out of hand once you’ve encountered some of the anecdotal evidence. Hey, my dad was a Capricorn and a pilot, and he saw one!
But what I am thinking here is not about the Little Green Men, but rather those seas that have recently been discovered under the ice on Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede, along with Saturn’s ice-moon, Enceladus – and on that one, they’ve recently detected complex organic molecules. There’s a really good, reasonable, science-based chance that some kind of aquatic life exists on all three of these planet-sized moons.
So who lives under that ice? Anyone? Is “who” the right word? It could just be unicellular organisms – or a cool race of highly-intelligent, blind dolphins psychically transmitting four-dimensional poetry to each other for the past 100 million years.
No one knows – that ice might be eight miles thick.
Am I getting carried away with all this? Well, expect Mother Nature to offer us some unpredictable surprises over the next seven years. Finding extra-terrestrial life would be one, for sure.
And what effect would the discovery that alien life arose elsewhere have upon the human imagination?
Interestingly, Herman Melville’s masterpiece. Moby Dick, was first published on October 18, 1851 – with Uranus in Taurus. Could there be yet another giant beast lurking beneath the black waters of a faraway world? Or is some unforeseen, as-yet undiscovered environmental “Moby Dick” lurking beneath Earth’s seas or crust? Has it been waiting for Uranus to enter Taurus before it appears?
237 years of experience with the transits of Uranus has taught astrologers to “expect the unexpected.” If we have learned anything during those years, it is the folly of ignoring these Uranian wild cards. They always turn up. That is solid. Guessing what they will be is fun – that is what I am doing here – but there is also a certain folly in attempting it.
Creativity and Adaptability as Assets
There is another folly we should avoid: ignoring human improvisational genius in the face of the unexpected. It is difficult to write honestly about Uranus entering a sign without expressing thoughts that might be deemed “unsettling” at best – that is intrinsic to the nature of the planet. And yet there is a spirit of radical creativity and adaptability in play here too.
We can all draw faith in the human future from it.
One more point before I close: I feel strongly that humanity’s success or failure is rooted ultimately in the decisions each one of us is making in our daily lives. When you bravely make an evolutionary breakthrough, angels sing the Alleluia Chorus – and not just for your own sake. They sing because you have radiated something beautiful and powerful into the collective air. All humanity benefits.
What does Uranus in Taurus mean for you personally? If you are moved by anything I’ve said here, please consider spending a couple of hours with my program about the individual meaning of Uranus in Taurus. We look at it in general, as an evolutionary necessity – and then follow it through the twelve houses.
Thank you.
-Steven Forrest