Earlier in the year when governments enforced various levels of lockdown of populations, I was asked as an astrologer “when it would end.” As the lockdowns began very close (and this country almost exactly) to Saturn the planet of contraction moving from Capricorn (authority, career, social consciousness) to Aquarius (friendships, ideals, civic and social groups) it appeared to be a 2.5-year cycle – the time it takes Saturn to move through a sign. Saturn contracts what it finds and is associated with responsibility, burden and caution.

No one wanted to hear 2.5 years to end!

End what, I ask?

Cycles like life have beginnings, middle portions, and endings. Like the tire on your car, the cycle rotates. When the tire returns to its original position on your car, you are not returning to the beginning (or a past state). You have moved forward or backwards. Only if you are stuck in a ditch have you not moved at all.

During crisis we want to “return” to a secure or at least familiar past or a distant and resolved future, neither of which exist. Reading a book of non-fiction recently that was written just before 9/11 and published just after, the author says what a lot of people said at the time – we’ll never be the same again.

True. We were never the same again. But we did forget and return to our habits and society continued to change, but not due to 9/11 but rather due to technology. And this pandemic will pass and we will return to our habits and society will continue to change, probably due to technology and the struggle between individuals, groups and governments.

The Next Four Years

During an American election year, we often think backwards and forwards in four-year increments. In 2016, by the way, astrologers saw this crazy 2020. The energy of authoritarianism and social upheaval was present and energy can manifest in many, many ways. The pandemic was the variable that set it in motion.

Likewise the next four years will have many cycles:

• Jupiter will transit Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus and Gemini
• Saturn will transit Aquarius and Pisces
• Uranus will continue its transit of Taurus
• Neptune will continue its transit of Pisces
• Pluto will mostly continue its transit of Capricorn and in March 2023 will start dipping its toe into Aquarius

Visually you can see a few signs recur – Aquarius, Pisces and Taurus.

Aquarius

Aquarius is the fixed air sign. Air rules thoughts, ideas and social interactions. As a fixed sign, Aquarius is very intelligent and is seeking the perfect universe, the perfect society.

In about two months, Jupiter and Saturn, which went retrograde into Capricorn, will be moving into Aquarius together (called conjunct). Traditionally this is a harbinger of ruler changes (such as the old kings and queens) and social unrest. Expect this unusual year of authoritarianism to go out with some additional, unexpected changes for public and powerful figures.

2020 ain’t over.

Jupiter is the opposite of Saturn – it is expansive. Jupiter transits are seen as beneficent. When Saturn and Jupiter move together, there is the tug and pull of contraction and expansion. So 2021 will probably be volatile in regards to people gathering in groups. It’s okay, it’s not. You isolate, you need people. Back and forth.

For me Aquarius is the sign of the perfect society and is an air sign so I expect lots and lots (and lots) of arguing about the way things should be. That’s already occurring, of course, but with more Aquarius energy I expect there will be new societies and organizations forming, ones that will be the seedlings for Pluto’s 2024 move into Aquarius.

Pluto is the great destroyer and evolver and takes about 20 years to go through a sign. As it is far, it will go back and forth from Capricorn to Aquarius for about a year. In 2008 as Pluto entered Capricorn, the US housing market collapsed and took down the financial system.

That’s Pluto. But governments propped the economies back up and now at the end of its cycle it’s taking down world economies once again. Pluto forces, it does not ask. We were meant to restructure society in 2008 and we didn’t so here we are.

The year 2021 then is a critical bridge from Capricorn to Aquarius with Saturn and Jupiter leading the way.  Pluto demanded in 2008 and we ignored it so 2020 was a year of no choice. In Aquarius we can devise a more rational society based on the humanitarian ideals of Aquarius. Or we can resist Pluto and be forced, again, over and over for the next 20 years.

Our choice.

Aquarius is technological, so we are already half-way to the ideal societies that Aquarius envisions. Technology serving humanity is different than humanity serving technology and the plutocrats behind it. If the 1990s transits of Uranus and Neptune in Aquarius brought an idealization of technology and tech lords, Pluto will start to challenge that system.

Expect more demands for the democratization of technology. Folks are just starting to understand the trap of technology where our behavior is food for a system and rather than free our time for the pleasure of human interaction and social connection we are trapped into technological behaviors.

Expect too the Tech Lords to be challenged. When one individual owns the entire supply chain he (or a theoretical she) may be said to be a king (or queen).

Pisces

What do you do to cope with the crazy of 2020?

Pisces, the mutable water sign, is probably part of how you cope. The positive Pisces is spiritual connection, emotional connection, empathy and sharing. Negative Pisces is escapism through excessive media, alcohol (water sign preference) and substance abuse.

Notice the relaxation of alcohol rules in the US? The powers-that-be know that staying at home for long periods makes a person dotty so are subtly encouraging alcohol consumption. Expect at the end of the Neptune cycle to have the long-overdue conversation about a rise in alcoholism.

Neptune has been in Pisces since 2011. It won’t move into Aries until 2025.

The last time Neptune was in Pisces in the mid-19th century the Britain forced opium trade upon China in what were called the opium wars (China tried to ban opium as its people were fast becoming addicted). Fascinating that this time around China is sending opiates to the US and other countries (political karma?). This time around pharmaceuticals convinced the world that narcotics were safe in small amounts. Opiate addiction combined with marking prowess applied to the heroin trade created record levels of addiction and overdoes.

Neptune is spiritual, ethereal and otherworldly. Film is ruled by Neptune because it’s an image but yet evokes our emotions as though it were real. Neptune is not solid, and can become whatever image you want it to be. Neptune can be inspiration or it can be delusion. Neptune is a guru and it may not be as easy as it seems to differentiate the true teachers from the master manipulators.

Saturn will move from Aquarius to Pisces in the same month – March 2023 – that Pluto moves into Aquarius. What a spring that will be!

Saturn contracts and the Neptune we’ve experienced since 2011 will change. The US has been fighting opiate addiction for a while now and possibly in 2023 opiates will be banned.

Saturn in Pisces is depression for lack of spiritual connection; for those that have spent the 2.5 years of Saturn in Aquarius isolated and in fear, there is bound to be a natural, lingering depressive state.

There is a generation born in the 1950s-late 1960s with Uranus and Pluto in Virgo and some with Saturn in Pisces opposite. The Uranus and Pluto in Virgo generations are the OCD generation that brought you the excessive fear of germs which now is deemed necessary and is socially acceptable. But in 2023 there may not need to be such a lingering, obsessive fear. But for this generation, the fear of germs may never end.

Your Uranus and Pluto in Virgo generation may never leave the house again. We’ll probably have shut-in interventions in spring 2023 with stories of folks not having left the house for three years.

Taurus

Taurus is the fixed earth sign. Earth as you can imagine rules all that is tangible from your body to your house to the earth. Uranus travels through a sign for the magical seven years bringing awareness of all that is represented by a sign.

Have you become more body and earth aware since May 2018 when Uranus first stepped into Taurus? Uranus went retrograde for awhile as outer planets usually do then in March 2019 went direct in Taurus and has been there since.

Yeah, a pandemic makes us more aware of our bodies for sure. And then there are those fires and hurricanes and such which make us aware that where we live may no longer be safe. Oh yeah, the earth is a living, breathing entity so you can only take so much from her without expecting reaction and change.

Have you always wanted to understand more about the global supply chain?

Uranus in Taurus is good for that too as the US experiences shortages of products, not something the folks in this country are used to. Uranus brings awareness to where and how one’s “stuff” is made.

While, to me, Taurus doesn’t rule money itself (as it’s not real but a way to transfer energy), the volatility of the financial markets in some sense is Uranus in Taurus because ultimately it is the tangible that is affected. When the housing market collapsed in 2008, it wasn’t due to an individual homeowner; and as a homeowner there was nothing you could do to affect the price of your home.

The housing market collapse was due to a mathematical game where a certain class of individuals makes money. But the result affected physical property. That should have been a clue that the system needed a change.

When Jupiter enters Taurus in summer 2023, there may be some surge in home building. Today folks are experimenting with news types of smaller, mobile or unusual homes. Summer 2023 might bring some additional innovations or mass movement toward new types of living spaces.

Possibly the great benefic Jupiter will bring us vaccines and/or cures for the ailments of today and those that may arise during that time. Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus suggest weight gain in general which could be from the inactivity of isolating or due to effects of new foods and drugs.

US President

So who will be president for the next four years?

With the current and future transits, my guess is that there will be several presidents, in the old Byzantine fashion. The US is experiencing its first Pluto return – the first time Pluto has returned to the placement of 1776. The US is 250 years old, young by nation standards.

With natal Pluto in Capricorn, the evolutionary lessons involve power and authority, success and failure. All that has been occurring since 2008 is part of a much larger lesson regarding how to structure a society and the role of authority.

Are we listening?

The US has been playing the Capricorn world police and world banker for some time now. As I watch the last four years politically, it’s clear that has been permanently eroded regardless of who is next elected. All unresolved problems of the last 250 years are rising to the surface (racism, authoritarianism, monopoly).  In the chart of the US, the moon is in Aquarius. The Pluto transit of Aquarius will force us to alter our habits. Or else.