The Astrology of Now: Crossing the Threshold from Earth to Air
Ok I’m going to go over some thoughts on wtf is going on here from an astrological perspective. I’ll try to keep this concise so stick with me: Jupiter and Saturn have been conjoining in Earth signs since 1802. In 1980 they conjoined in an air sign for the first time, but then conjoined in Taurus in 2000 and then will conjoin in Aquarius later this year on December 21st. Meaning: the entire industrialized age of human culture favoring resource plundering, territory control and top down hierarchies has been contained within that 200 year Earth element period. Most of us have lived the majority of our lives in this transition time between elemental periods, 1980-2020, where we have one foot in the air room with one still in the earth room and this year we finally cross the threshold and walk fully into the air period for the next 200 years. Air periods favor information exchange, innovation, and horizontal networking over vertical hierarchy. When elemental periods shift there tends to be a very rapid reshuffling of how society and culture is structured. One Air period in history marks Alexander the Great’s Empire that stretched from India to central Europe breaking apart in just six months from his death from unified military hierarchy into many independent city states that all spoke Greek and could exchange resources and information. Then we get the Hellenistic world famous for trade and commingling of multicultural knowledge and philosophies.
Astrologers have been pointing to this 2020 transition for years and in more recent times I’ve come up against people who can’t fathom that there is any way the power and resource hoarders are going to loosen their grips, but already within days we see importation ceasing and the mobilization into relief fund networking developing inter-autonomous safety nets while monetization is quickly becoming obsolete. Saturn is on the final minutes of crossing into Aquarius which beckons keywords like ‘enduring social isolation for the sake of the collective over the individual’ perfectly. Aquarius is everything outsie the box and beyond the status quo and possible rather than provable and hypothetical and conceptual, pioneering to construct new systems to replace the corrupt and oppressive old historical frameworks. The complication currently is that Saturn, Jupiter, Mars are all still collected around Pluto in late Capricorn, a sign most concerned with boundary, fortification, empire management and containment. So we get a blend of Aquarian exile collectivist pioneering with hyper extreme Capricornian society lockdown. There is going to be a big modality shift after the equinox as Saturn and Mars leave Capricorn for Aquarius and the Aquarian side of the story gets much hotter and heavier. The need for new systems becomes all the more urgent and sparks are flying trying to get alternate structures in place as fast as possible. Lockdown themes may likely lessen as airborne danger increases and collective anger and social networking systems strengthen.
Mars will move away from Saturn slowly and the intensity will decrease. The Nodal axis will shift out of Capricorn and we get one less empire signature signature in the equation. Another point for collective networking. Venus goes retrograde in Gemini in May where she is very, very, chatty and loves socializing more than anything. Fitting for a post quarantine moment. Her retrogradation might be us reassessing what we value about the social sphere in human culture altogether. What we desire and what pleasures we might have taken for granted in light and breezy socializing before now felt deeply in the root of our hearts.
A total Solar Eclipse in the first Cancer degree of Cancer occurs on Summer Solstice with the North Node already over the border into Gemini. So we get an absolute identification with need, nurture, care, support, the conditions of health, the body: sounds familiar, especially as the North Node will be in social and media oriented Gemini: the media floods with health care for all from a social perspective. Eclipses are unbalanced and extreme, so this is likely to be at the heights of saturation.
Saturn retrogrades back to Capricorn in July until December and it’ll likely be back to the drawing board a bit. Leaning back on the old systems as the new ones were installed in haste, although as Saturn ingresses Aquarius conjunct Mars in late March, he ingresses Aquarius conjunct Jupiter in upcoming late December, the very aspect that marks the full transition into the Airy Epoch, so whatever systems get installed in an emergency modality this Spring, likely get revisited and successfully integrated with optimism and more universal benefit this winter. It may feel like we’re backsliding over the Summer into the jaws of the old regime, but keep in mind this change into a more collectivist orientation is on its way in one form or another. It’s also worth noting that Saturn’s January 12th conjunction with Pluto in Capricorn is the major culprit in the intense pressure, fear, change and structural collapse at present, and having Saturn in the next sign over from that historical conjunction shifts topics away from how we’ve far surpassed the laws and limits of nature, economy and societal corruption to developing new systems all together out of thin air. Jupiter lends a hand helping to design more positive collective visions, and then in 2022 returns to rulership in Pisces. There’s more turbulence to come but there is more giant juicy joy not too far down the road. It’s currently equally about enduring the conditions of rapid restructuring and innovating on the fly.
Mars spends basically July to January in rulership in Aries where he is impulsive, combative, confrontational, identity oriented, independent, capable, confident, quick on the draw and violent if he needs to be. This is destructive fire. We are already angry. Prepare to be madder still and to direct that energy toward what you want to see destroyed with hat kind of change in mind you want to follow. Be sharpened and energized rather blinded by rage. Mars goes retrograde here for most of September to November, so, election time. Look like it’s going to be a fight to the finish. We should all start getting our martial minds in order as this approaches, we have time to prepare. You know how you see stuff like “The Martial Arts Of Budgeting, or Spring Cleaning, or Gardening” etc. We should really wrap our minds around really what this concept is about and root into our inner warrior’s in mind, body and soul. This doesn’t mean anger or reactionary berserker, this means getting ourselves as sharp, aware, clear, capable, balanced, and as finely tuned and well maintenanced as we can within our own conditions and contexts. Power and focus of intensity. The retrograde is going to randomize energy and make for irregular efforts; we’ll find ourselves screaming at walls for stretches which exhaust us and when the time to actually spar comes we’ll find we wasted our batteries and get swept from the ring. Get your radar on energy use and tactical approaches to overcoming obstacles, any obstacle, tightened up between now an autumn so you are already trained when we enter the arena.
Change is coming and we have an opportunity now to begin designing the radically different world we’d like to see, in the macro and micro scales, society as well as our personal lives, as long as we’re present for it and engage. Society catalyses into flux and we get to personalize it as it shuffles into a new and different stabilized form.