Managing Oppositions

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Whenever a planet is facing another planet, being then at 180 degrees for each other in the zodiac circle, with a reasonable tolerance (called “orb”) we are dealing with a special aspect, called opposition.

Traditional astrology still uses a very polarized atitude towards aspects: there are good aspects, like trine, sextile and conjunction (not all astrologers agrees on the benefits of the conjunction, but the vast majority do) and bad aspects: square and opposition. In today’s post I’ll try to share some of my experiences with this aspect.

Interestingly enough, in my natal chart I don’t have any square, but I do have a several oppositions. One of the most important oppositions is between my Sun (Scorpio, 10th house) and my retrograde Saturn (Taurus, 4th house). This opposition was and still is one of the most specific things about me. It drastically influenced me during my entire life and it’s very likely that it will, continue to do so from now on. I have close conjunction Sun – Venus – Jupiter, and that will make my opposition to expand into another 2 opposition: Saturn – Venus and Saturn -Jupiter. These oppositions also ahve bug influences, but the most powerful infleunce always come from the luminaries.

Another interesting opposition is between my Moon in the 3rd house (Aries) and Mars closely conjunct Uranus in the 9th house (Libra). This had a huge impact on my emotional structure.

How Opposition Works

First of all, if you have an opposition in your chart, you can bet that one thing that affects one of the planets involved in the opposition, will immediately affect the opposed planet. Traditional astrology considered this facing position, this aspect of direct interposition as a sign of conflict and big tension. Opposed planets were considered (and still are considered by an important number of astrologers) in conflict.

For instance, an opposition Sun – Saturn will put Sun in direct conflict with Saturn. All Sun energies will be challenged and tempered by Saturnian energies. The basic interpretation of this is: shy personality, difficulty in expressing yourself, a rather introverted attitude. But, surprise, I’m not at all like this. I’ve always been in the public spot, I’m not having big difficutlies expressing myself and by all means I’m not an introvertite.

This opposition manifested at a very different level. Sun in the house and sign is telling about public and successful transformation. This is what I do: I publicly and successfully transform myself. But in this process, I am assisted, closely watched, to be more precise, by Saturn, the father of tests and challenges. So, every time I have a big success, something extremely restrictive follows: if I have a professional success, something must happen at home, some test or restrictive situation. Sometime it might be just that my family is ignoring my success, sometimes it might be even more important.

It happened so many times that I started to become bored. I can predict now almost pretty accurate that every public success would be followed by a personal, family challenge.

It tooked me years to understand that in fact, every success in the public area was just a hook for my persona, area at all. Opposition is keeping linked those two areas, If you advance in one area, you must advance in the other area too. If you have a sort of a breakdown in some of the realms designated by that house, you will be forced to do the same on the opposed house. This is how opposition works for me. I also think this is how opposition works in general.

Going into more detail, I can understand that my personality (Sun) and public success (10th house) is very close related to my family life (4th house) where I have to take some tests (Saturn). Those tests are triggered by the Sun activity. Each time solar energies are escaping, Saturnian energies are trying to keep a balance. Of course, Saturn is quite a harsh teacher, and his lessons can be sometimes pretty painful. But Saturn is also the reward holder, is the one who’s giving prices if you took the tests.

There are also several other aspects involved in this, since I also have a Venus – Saturn opposition and a Jupiter – Saturn opposition, but I won’t go into details of those right now.

Moon Opposition Mars

The other opposition I have in my natal chart is Moon – Mars. And of course, Moon – Uranus. Moon energies are about unconscious, emotions, nurturing others and money. Each time I have an intuition, I have the urge to make it happen. Each time I am fueled by some intense emotion I have to let it go. Moon is triggering Mars, it makes him liberate the energy of doing. On the other hand, if I’m not motivated by some emotional incentive, I have a hard time doing things constantly. My Mars is chilled out by the Moon, which claims her right.

The Uranus – Moon opposition is taking place in an unusual way (Uranus involved, something must be unusual). I have moods. I have sudden changes in my emotional field. Out of the blue, I think I have to pruse a thing, an idea, or just an impulse, and my emotions are going into a roller-coaster. I feel the need to get out often, I reject control and I am always ready to experience something new. Anything new, in fact. Uranus os playing with the Moon, every time his energies are uplifting me, Moon must follow.

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So, every time you deal with an opposition in your chart, remember this is only meaning those two (or more) planets are trying to keep together by a very direct and transparent link. It’s not square, where the planets are working together by tension, it’s a clear and immediate link.

Opposition is not bad or good, is just a sign that the houses in which the planets are staying must be linked together by those planets energies, with a constant and impossible to break activity.

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