Beginning in May of this year of 2018, Uranus will exit its seven-year cycle of Aries and move into Taurus at the time of the Taurus New Moon on the 15th of May.
Although Uranus transits a Sign for seven years, this initial thrust of Uranus into Taurus in May is but a prelude. Uranus initially transits Taurus from May 15th until November 6th of this year when Uranus retrogrades back into Aries just prior to the Scorpio New Moon on the 7th of November.
Uranus moves into Taurus solidly, as Taurus would indicate, on the 6th of March 2019 and continues its transit through the Fixed Earth Sign until July 27th, 2025, when Uranus exits Taurus to enter Gemini.
Uranus is the planet of dramatic change, revolutionary shifts, unique expressions and iconoclastic alterations. It is not a planetary energy that one can necessarily plan for in significant detail, but rather an energy that demands that we expect the unexpected with things happening in a most unanticipated manner.
Taurus is a Sign that likes stability and security, focuses on acquisition and is often associated with finances and with form, practical application and manifestation.
When the two come together as Uranus transits Taurus, there can be an incredible shakeup. Uranus is in its Fall in Taurus — so much for stability and security!
Needless to say, the transit of Uranus through Taurus will be different for each one of us dependent upon where it falls in our chart and what connections it makes to our planets. But for each and every one of us Uranus in Taurus shakes up our foundation, upsets our stability and disrupts our security.
More than ever, it will be important for us to engage the wise saying of transformation: ‘adapt or die’.
What are we likely to see with Uranus coming into Taurus?
To borrow from David Bowie, we are likely to experience ‘CHANGES’.
During the seven years that Uranus transited Aries, the emphasis on Self and a redefinition or new definitions of Self appeared. As though giving respect to Narcissus, social media spawned a current of Self expressions from the most mundane aspects of life such as one’s breakfast components to opinionated critiques on world events or the lives of celebrities. To some degree, each of us had the opportunity to be celebrity through our social media postings. Friends took on a new connotation as we gathered even people we didn’t know anything about and counted them as ‘friends’.
It’s interesting to note that just as Uranus was coming toward the end of its transit of Aries, the US Presidency resided in the hands of a most Uranian and very Self-assertive individual, Donald Trump, a Gemini Sun but with a strong Uranian influence.
With Uranus coming into Taurus, much of the beginnings, initial involvements and testing of the waters that we might have experienced with Uranus in Aries can now take greater practical form.
Among the areas likely to be affected by Uranus in Taurus over the next seven years are the following:
FINANCES
FASHION & DESIGN
ACQUISITIONS & CONGLOMERATES
EARTH
FINANCES:
Living in a digital age, we may find that fiat money becomes increasingly redundant. Fiat money is under the control of the central bankers of a nation or group of nations [e.g. Euro].
By their authority a central banker can make more money by printing more money. As there is more money, there is also a devaluation of that particular currency. If there are 100 dollars printed, and I have $1, then I have 1% of the national currency. But if the central banker[s] decides to make more money available and puts 200 dollars in circulation, then the value of my $1 is no longer a $1 but rather half of that original dollar or 50 cents.
There have been radical cases of devaluations of national currencies. One example is the 1994 Mexican central bank devaluation of the Mexican Peso by between 13% and 15% followed by the Mexican government allowing the peso to float with a consequent further depreciation in the peso by another 15%. In relation to the US dollar, the value of the Mexican peso depreciated by 50%.
Another currency devaluation is going on as I write this — Argentina. For the first 11 days in May, the Argentine peso lost 12.03% of its value and more than 25% of its value over the past twelve months.
Back in 2008 during the global financial crisis that has been termed the ‘Great Recession’, governments sought to resolve the crisis by quantitative easing or basically printing more money.
At one time, fiat money was backed by hard commodities. Silver certificates and currency backed by gold provided an easy yet valuable form of currency exchange. By an act of the US Congress in 1878, the US Department of the Treasury issued silver certificates to the public, paper money that could be exchanged for silver dollars. In 1964 the US Department of the Treasury announced that silver certificates could no longer be redeemed for silver dollars. In 1900, the US enacted the Gold Standard Act legislating the US Dollar as a certain amount of gold. The gold standard was suspended during World War I and again in the 1930s. In 1971 the US abandoned the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. The only value now attributed to the US dollar is good faith in the US government.
That was then and this is now, and we have already seen a prelude to the Uranus in Taurus and its impacts on the financial systems.
Credit card transactions, electronic payments such as PayPal, Alipay and Applepay have become increasingly ubiquitous with some commentators even suggesting the end to physical currency.
Digital monies, such as electronic payments by means of electronic transactions, cryptocurriences with its blockchain technology, even the idea of a universal currency could all be part of the changes during the Uranus Taurus transit.
While bitcoin has had a dramatic surge in valuation since its introduction in 2009 and spawned various other cryptocurrencies, the traditionalists in the financial sector have denigrated it saying that its increase in asset valuation is but a bubble waiting to burst. And certainly bitcoin itself has had a volatile trajectory with the value reaching $20,000 only to be halved and more in value.
Governments have sought to regulate bitcoin with the concern that bitcoin is used for the ‘dark’ economy — money laundering, drug dealing, and other nefarious business activities. But bitcoin and blockchain technology allow for both a greater democratization and greater transparency of our financial systems.
As opposed to fiat currency that is backed by nothing other than faith in the government issuing the currency and a currency that can be increased by monetary policy of ‘printing’ more money, bitcoin’s value is determined by the people and with a fixed amount at 21 million bitcoins. Bitcoin can be divided down to its smallest amount, a satoshi, representing one hundred millionth of a bitcoin.
FASHION & DESIGN:
When I was young, we may have worn jeans that were thread bare or had holes in the knees from wear and usage. Today’s fad of manufactured jeans with tears and thread bare at point of sale and that go for $200 or more reflect the influence of grunge upon fashion and the Uranus in Aries of doing one’s own thing no matter how quirky or radical it might seem. Sorry, to my way of thinking, $200 new jeans with tears are not very radical or design iconic.
Fortunately, the Uranus entry into Taurus can promote classic design updated but certainly with panache.
We could see combinations of textures, colors and design placement that are innovative but truly work. Things fitting neatly together, even if quirky and individualistic, may be part of this seven-year cycle.
Just as we have seen the initial development of 3-D printing to even the point of house construction, the Uranus in Taurus can promote interesting new materials and with a greater appreciation of creating syntony rather than the aggressive imposition of personality on the environment. We have lived through the MacMansion phase of house construction, a particular apt naming of homes placed on a plot of land with little recognition or input of the surrounding environment.
There can be a greater tendency not to merely plop a house on a parcel of land but rather to have the house constructed to rightly ‘fit’ with the land.
ACQUISITIONS & CONGLOMERATES:
Taurus revolves around acquisitions and acquiring things. It relates to value and worth, which in our society we interpret as having stuff.
Increasingly, the stuff we may be looking to acquire might be those time-saving gadgets that technology, information and robotics develop.
To some degree, humankind might become redundant as machines, information, artificial intelligence and robotics replace the need for human labor. A recent study out of Oxford University concluded that 47% of jobs in the US performed by human workers are ‘at risk’ of being automated within twenty years.
The use of technology in practical application is seen in many sectors of the economy and this trend will only increase due to the increased productivity and cost saving that it affords.
In whatever field or sector of society we consider, this new age is having a dramatic impact.
Some examples:
While there have been discussions and prototypes of driverless cars in recent years, the concept of a driverless tractor was put forward as early as 1940. Companies like John Deere have developed autonomous tractors to work the fields. Driverless trucks and cars are already under manufacture.
Drones have replaced much need for boots on the ground. Drones are increasingly used in warfare, agriculture, site planning, and product delivery, and all largely controlled from a remote base of operations.
With all relevant information inputted into its database, IBM’s computer Watson has become highly instrumental in the legal profession and in the healthcare field.
In 2016, a Deloitte Insight report estimated that close to 40% of the jobs in the legal profession could eventually be automated. A Chinese province uses ‘legal robots’ with their extensive database of legal information to help decide the outcome of criminal and civil cases.
In the healthcare field, the computer Watson and its AI counterparts with their vast database of medical knowledge are being considered for use as medical diagnosticians. The da Vinci Surgical System provides a minimally invasive surgical ability by combining a magnified 3D high-definition vision system with tiny wristed instruments that can rotate and bend with far greater flexibility than the human hand.
The initiations that Uranus in Aries began during its seven-year cycle can take increasingly practical form as Uranus transits Taurus.
Organizations can become larger through their ACQUISITIONS. Already, we have seen corporations that began as social media companies swell and become behemoths with their tentacles reaching into all forms of the human community, even to the point of exerting undue influence over the direction of nations.
EARTH:
People forget or are unaware that in the history of the earth we have been living during a fairly quiescent period. Although we are often made aware of the dynamics of the earth by geophysical phenomena, in relation to previous epochs we have been living during a ‘quiet’ period.
As I wrote at the beginning of this piece, Uranus in Taurus may give lie to a sense of stability and security.
Uranus speaks of radical and unexpected change. Taurus is an Earth Sign, the Fixed Sign of the Earth Element. When sudden, dramatic change meets rigidity and fixity, the result can be a major shakeup.
Although we often consider the Earth to be terra firma [solid earth], the earth is actually made up of various tectonic plates that shift and move.
With Uranus in Taurus, geophysical phenomena can ratchet up with increased earthquake and volcanic activity. Even fault lines that have shown little or no activity could suddenly come alive, triggering earthquakes and volcanoes.
This seven-year cycle of Uranus in Taurus may shake up our sense of stability and security, but it also offers us the implementation of technology to make our lives easier and more productive. We might have to be more mobile as a result of the many changes occurring, but already we are seeing an almost nomadic quality to humankind’s lives. While some people still remain close to their birthplace, far more people are transitory, moving from place to place, always seeking a better quality of life.
These are likely to be exciting times or as the Chinese proverb, some would call a curse, states: “May you live in interesting times.”
In deed we do.
