The Thirst of Saturn-Neptune (2024 - 2027)

What Thirst Is For

Saturn-Neptune ~ Saturn in Aries

The reality principle of Saturn has been flirting with the ineffable depths of Neptune since March 2024 and on May 24 finally followed Neptune’s March 31 ingress into the pioneering sign of Aries. These planets’ contrasting takes on reality will not make an exact conjunction until February 2026 but they are close enough to imbue our consciousness with a heightened awareness of inner and outer boundaries until at least May 2027. Saturn insists there is a hard boundary between discrete objects and Neptune insists on a primal porosity or interconnectivity in all supposedly separate objects.

With this archetypal complex we can expect an awareness of or paranoia about disease outbreaks and new diseases. A general perception of vulnerability to invisible invasions of all kinds can be heightened. Saturn-Neptune can also correlate to collective disillusionment, of seeing through the illusions (Neptune) of consensus reality (Saturn), and alternatively, becoming trapped in doomsday visions. We can therefore benefit from psychic hygiene of all kinds—for example, taking breaks from technological entrancement and information overload, engaging with loved ones, meditation practices and other acts of care for the Soul.

The importance of psychic hygiene is partly due to Saturn constantly asking us to notice what is—not what we wish were true or falsely imagine is true. The collision between Saturn’s reality and Neptune’s fantasy is one reason Saturn-Neptune time periods can generate such fear. It is not altogether clear, however, which of the two planetary archetypes has it correct—is it Saturn or Neptune who clears the air?

For Saturn also harbors his own delusions. For example, we have the Saturnine fantasy of unachievable perfection without any mistake and flawless execution, creating a fragile rigidity that hides the truth of imperfection from us. Saturn’s accurate rendition of reality also requires a deeply considered relationship to the greater realities described in the quantum leap of Uranus, the mystical depths of Neptune, and the unity of creation and destruction within Pluto.

Saturn could have us stop at surface appearances and accept this as the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But is Saturn’s consensus reality the illusion, and Neptune’s imaginal depths closer to real life? Or do we need Saturn’s cutting clarity to dispel a Neptunian fantasy or deception? For good or ill, Saturn-Neptune time periods suggest that staying with surface appearances or consensus reality is inadequate. Assumptions that have been taken for granted are melting away.

New Moon in Gemini

We might get a preview of some of Saturn’s shifting influence in our lives by noticing the events around the first couple of weeks of Saturn’s first ingress into Aries on May 24, which may be appreciably punctuated by the New Moon in Gemini on May 26. The sign of Gemini is concerned with ideas, thoughts, communications and connections, weaving into the cosmos possibilities of creative shapeshifting and alliances. The problem and promise of the stories we tell ourselves about reality or what is possible or impossible presents perhaps the foremost issue of our time. Our stories inherently have an unreal nature, for they are limited and provisional and subject to change upon discovering new information.

If astrology teaches us anything, it’s that the universe is continually in creation, never finished and always evolving. And so our lives continue to unfold their meaning, and wherever we have tried to fix our identity or interpretations of events may need to give way to something larger, or even profoundly different.

Whether humanity is intentionally experimental or perhaps just compulsively so, we’re entering an era which requires very new ways of thinking. We cannot solve our present problems using the same type of thinking which produced those problems. Neptune’s reality asserts itself here in the importance of the underlying unitive nature of the cosmos. It demands a relational approach. To know ourselves more accurately is the only way to know the outside world more accurately. The way in is the way out. But how are we even thinking of ourselves in our world?

Such deep matters are afoot in 2025 and beyond, and whether we are in the role of the thinker and experiencer or simply impacted by these ripples in the collective consciousness, it is worth the effort to become more aware of the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we choose to listen to. As the neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist put it in his magnum opus, The Matter With Things, “we take the success we have in manipulating it [the world] as proof that we understand it. But that is a logical error.”

Or perhaps more evocatively from poet Antonio Machado:

It is good knowing that glasses

are to drink from;

the bad thing is not to know

what thirst is for.

Most recent hard aspect alignments between Saturn and Neptune

Saturn conjunct Neptune: 2024 - 2027

Saturn square Neptune: 2014 - 2017

Saturn opposite Neptune: 2005 - 2008

Saturn square Neptune: 1998 - 2000

Saturn conjunct Neptune: 1987 - 1991