Being a Uranian Creature

The Planet that Spins on its Side is Joining the Sun Today

Uranus via Pinterest

Today, May 22nd, Uranus, the planet of innovation, disruption, and shock, will meet with the Sun in Gemini for the first time in over eighty years.

I have a tendency to romanticize Uranus. I think this is because I am an Aquarius rising, and Uranus is the modern ruler of Aquarius. I am attuned to it. There’s something satisfying about seeing a pattern break or witnessing an anomaly.

I also have a more positive perspective on Uranus because Uranus is conjunct Jupiter (the planet of good luck, expansion, and optimism). For me, these two operate together, but that isn’t the case for everyone.

Uranus’s main goal is freedom.

For most of us, freedom is not something our nervous systems have learned to hold. And that’s not entirely “our fault,” but it is our responsibility to grow this capacity once we become aware of it.

Gemini is the sign of communication, pollination, and thinking. So when Uranus is in Gemini, the atmosphere is just right for bright and bold ideas, ones that breakthrough the ceiling of known reality. Ideas that are lightning. Ideas that ask us to reorganize our mental model of the world so we can evolve.

Again, Uranus’s goal is freedom.

Uranus is a strange planet with a nearly 90-degree tilt that makes it appear to spin on its side. (No wonder it rules Aquarius, lol.) It has 13 faint rings and 28 small moons. It’s windy. It’s cold. It rotates in the opposite direction to most of the other planets (with the exception of Venus). It is also a planet of extremes because of its tilt. A year on Uranus is 84 Earth years, and for 21 of those Earth years, “the Sun shines directly over each pole, plunging the other half of the planet into a 21-year-long, dark winter.” (NASA)

The materialization of a planet tells us a lot about its energy. And this is a planet that says, I am unique. I am different. I learn through extremes.

When it joins with the Sun in Gemini, it is asking us to take the risk of disrupting our patterns. It is asking us to notice where we have been pretending we are free. It is asking us what we are willing to do to hold the illumination that is available to us. It is asking us to open our eyes, to articulate what we see, and to do it in a way that may surprise people, including ourselves.

A GENIUS CAN SOMETIMES BE ANNOYING

Via Pinterest

When I was in my early twenties, I loved The Flaming Lips’ album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Going to a Flaming Lips show felt like going to a birthday party for yourself, but also for the whole world.

I remember watching a documentary about The Flaming Lips many years ago and hearing stories about their frontman, Wayne Coyne. I can’t remember the details, but there were stories of how Wayne made things happen, no matter the strangeness of the idea or its inconvenience. He would show up at people’s houses late at night with a bullhorn, light things on fire on stage, that kind of thing. Throughout many decades of his hijinks, the band grew to the scale where he had a lot of production resources to make his strange visions happen.

He could have people dressed as animals dancing on stage, or running in giant plastic bubbles. When you went to a show run by Wayne Coyne, it was like being in a very loving circus. Being there made everyone feel like a kid again, in a music cultural space where people normally acted too cool, and rarely danced or moved their bodies. It was a good feeling to be at those shows. To see people singing and dancing and opening their hearts to a silly kind of freedom.

Before he was the singer in a successful band, he was just a persistent guy, showing up at friends’ doors with weird props because he had an idea and cared more about that idea than making sure to check in with their plans.

I remember watching that documentary thinking… I bet being his friend early on was super annoying.

Because the lightning strike idea thinks it’s the most important thing. It doesn’t have room to see the old reality. It believes so much in an idea that most people can’t see that it has to invest in it with its whole being. It has to see for us almost willing it into existence.

Art by Anna Chloe via Pinterest

URANIAN LOVE HAS A DIFFERENT TEMPERATURE AND TIME SCALE

Uranus wants freedom at all costs, and it relates to freedom in a partially disembodied way. Uranus isn’t here to hold space for you or hug you. It’s here to show you that a bigger world exists than the one you’ve been seeing.

There’s a deep kind of love in believing in and wanting freedom for ourselves and others. But it’s not