Originally published in The Mountain Astrologer, Dec’18/ Jan’19 as
Seeing the Big Picture: Working with the Transits of 2020

Saturn-Pluto conjunction

The fact that the 2020 conjunctions are packed into one twelve-month period will doubtless make it a highly memorable year. But these transits do not apply merely to the calendar year in which they happen. They’re also the starting guns for ongoing processes that will unfold over decades and centuries. 

The Saturn-Pluto conjunction, for example, can be seen as describing the period from January 2018 through December 2021 (15° orb) and peaking from December 2019 through January 2020 (1° orb). But this chart (Figure 1), of the conjunction’s one and only pass, is not just that of a transit. It’s the birth chart of a cycle 33 years long. 

It is a remarkably disconnected chart; Jupiter, Mars, Venus and the Moon have no major aspects. The Capricorn grouping monopolizes the show, with Saturn, Pluto, the Sun, Mercury and Ceres squeezed within a couple of degrees. The fact that they are all square to Eris establishes the main plot of the chart. 

Eris is the feminine principle of retributive justice: the excluded guest who returns to balance the scales. At the moment, Eris is conjunct Uranus (revolution, upset): this is the transit that gave us the Me-Too campaign, the Never-Again movement and, for that matter, the Donald Trump presidency. (1) In the 2020 chart, those angry squares show Eris sharply at odds with the status quo, the Capricorn grouping. 

Given the political upheaval afoot everywhere in the world, it is not surprising to see Eris pitted against that stellium in the sign of social cohesion. Moreover, in the chart for Washington D.C., the Capricorn cluster is crowded into the 10th and 11th houses of government and its various agencies. This is the story of traditional institutions (Saturn) being gutted and reshuffled (Pluto) by societal forces that have been shut out of the action (Eris).

Neptune rising  

Neptune is on the Ascendant in the Washington chart, the dawning planet and the chart ruler. A planet in this position is the first part of ourselves that we see when we look in the mirror, as well as the first part of the native glimpsed by the outside world. Issues associated with Neptune – among them, chaos and scandal – are the calling cards that will announce the coming cycle. 

This is the planet of water crises, those of excess (flooding, rising sea levels) and of lack (drought). Neptune also governs the prison industry, the privatization of which started to explode around the time of Neptune’s entry into the sign of its rulership (Pisces) in 2011. The 2020 placement suggests that the issue will move from the background of the public’s consciousness into the foreground. 

It looks like mental health in general will be on people’s minds as regards the 2020 election and beyond. The prominence here of Neptune (drugs and addiction) suggests that a more meaningful discussion of the opioid and antidepressant epidemics will become inescapable; as will an acknowledgement of the free-floating anxiety that afflicts so much of the public, whether you’re a baby boomer without a geriatric safety net or a millennial drowning in a 37-thousand-dollar college debt. 

A general mass uncertainty is also suggested by this chart rulership, of the type that accompanied the Saturn-Neptune square of 2016-17. It was at that time, during the US presidential campaign, that a heated debate arose about the blurring of the line between facts and lies, fiction and nonfiction. We can expect this existential quandary to loom large in the upcoming cycle. (2) 

Saturn-Pluto cycle 

As cycles go, the Saturn-Pluto relationship offers astrologers a neat chunk of time, three-decades-plus, by means of which to get a bead on geopolitical changes. One of the themes we see repeated through history is the crumbling and reformation (Pluto) of sovereign states (Saturn). 

The classic example of this theme is the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 1914, when World War I was breaking out. Four of the great global empires collapsed and a new political order arose from the rubble. The conjunction after that was in 1947, after World War II. Germany and Japan lost their empires and the Cold War was born. India broke apart with the creation of Pakistan, and Palestine was rent asunder with the creation of Israel – both events giving rise to bitter wars that continue to this day. All of these political milestones (Saturn) were accompanied by tremendous bloodshed and civil breakdown (Pluto). 

The precursor of the European Union arose in this period as well. Announced two years after the 1947 conjunction, the founding template of the bloc was conceived in the hope of loosening up boundaries and trade between the countries, and rendering their cultural distinctions a non-issue. 

As the current Saturn-Pluto cycle staggers to a close, Europe is the opposite of unified. Ruling parties are in trouble even in Germany, which has up until now been the glue that’s held the EU together. Countries already at risk of bankruptcy, such as Greece and Italy, may be joined by others before 2020, creating a perfect storm of political and economic instability. The original vision of international inclusivity has devolved into an intractable gaggle of populist uprisings rallying around the goal of excluding refugees. As journalist Max Fisher writes, “The borders question is really a question of whether Europe can move past traditional notions of the nation-state.”(3) 

Around the world, there is a dismantling (Pluto) of old presumptions of what constitutes a country (Saturn/ Capricorn). One of the most extreme forms of this is secession: the splitting off of a sub-nationality from its parent nation. Rebellions of this nature have been on the rise for a couple of years now, for example in Catalonia and Scotland. And in the USA, where, since the 2016 election, confederate monuments and flags have become flashpoints. Equally vocal secessionists on the West coast are calling for California to break off and go its own way. 

Indeed, the USA, with Pluto returning to its natal position, is the poster child for the current mood of disunion. Federal authority (Capricorn) has been contested from everywhere along the political spectrum. States and cities have overridden Washington on immigration and environmental policy; local governments have been bucking unwanted federal regulation. Early in the current Saturn-Pluto cycle, we started hearing the slogan, “government is the problem.” As both cycles come to a close, we have a Congress so dysfunctional as to be at risk not only of deadlock but of literal shutdown. Day-to-day operations in Washington call to mind a system in its death throes (see “Right Use of Power: The U.S. Pluto Return,” in The Mountain Astrologer, Feb./March 2014). 

The extraordinary partisanship that afflicts the American polity right now reminds us that extremism is a symptom of Plutonian breakdown. With its two polarized factions locked in vituperative mutual condemnation — differing not merely in opinions, but in the facts underlying each other’s opinions – the country is in a state of fractious fragility. As the journalist Yascha Mounk has written, “ …a situation in which partisans on both sides think that they face existential stakes every four years is not sustainable for very long.”(4) 

With the Pluto Return advancing, Saturn started opposing the US Sun cluster in January 2018. Around this time, the blows being dealt by the White House to longstanding norms and traditions — any one of which blows could be counted as deeply threatening to national integrity – began to register as the new normal. Since then (at this writing, July 2018, Saturn has retrograded back to that opposition degree), Americans have been grappling with the compromising by a hostile power of our electoral system; the active undermining of public trust in heretofore unassailable institutions like the media, the courts and the FBI; and the abandonment of long-held protocols – not to mention basic civility — at the highest levels of political office.

Income inequality  

The Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 3½ decades ago coincided with the Reagan/ Thatcher era. This was when trickle-down economics was inaugurated as official policy in the USA, resulting in the wholesale redistribution of wealth upwards. In 1982, most Americans would probably have discounted as a figment of socialist paranoia the idea that in 2018 their country’s top 10 percent would average more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent (5). But this wild disparity is pretty much common knowledge now, a ripening of consciousness we can attribute to the unfolding Saturn-Pluto cycle. 

As we know from the study of lunations, the meaning of a given cycle is often not apparent until its last quarter. Thus the full implications of the policies begun under the conjunction of Saturn (class structure) and Pluto (plutocracy) only hit home in 2011 with the Occupy movement, just after the cycle’s waning square. 

It is noteworthy that, with Saturn finally catching up to Pluto in Capricorn, we get the tax bill passed in December 2017, which the Financial Times has described as “Reaganomics, with all the downside and none of the upside: a fiscal mess, that America will be digging itself out of for the next 30 years.” (6) In other words, roughly the length of the next Saturn-Pluto cycle. 

Transform or die  

As the current cycle sputters to the finish line, we are seeing shifts towards autocracy in the USA, Hungary, Poland, the Philippines and elsewhere: raw power (Pluto) legitimized with an official stamp of authority (Saturn). To aficionados of democracy, human rights and progressivism worldwide, this trajectory is alarming. But here is where it’s useful to back up from the situation and cop some outer-planet perspective. 

Of the two planets in question, Pluto plays the longer game. Saturn builds structures; then Pluto de-constructs them, reconfiguring their ingredients in a way that will better serve the greater whole… ultimately (it could take a while). Saturn prides itself on the stability of what it builds, but Pluto doesn’t care about humanity‘s illusions of permanence. To chancellors, caliphs and kings, Pluto has only this to say: transform or die. 

The whole Pluto-in-Capricorn period (2008-23) has been about exposing the arrangement whereby one small slice of humanity officially dominates the others. Towards the middle of this period, Uranus came along and squared Pluto (exact 2012-15) (7), creating fissures in the bedrock of political and socioeconomic traditions. As that square recedes, it is pouring its power into the next phase of the Pluto-in-Capricorn plan: the 2020 transits. 

The cycles ahead will serve as a referendum on the world-altering changes that have taken place over the past decade. These include the establishment of globalization as the new status quo; the replacement of the nation-state by the multi-national corporation as the dominant unit of worldly power; and the gradual shifting of geopolitical/ economic power from West to East. (8)

Jupiter-Pluto cycle 

In 2020, in early April, late June and mid-November, Jupiter (excess) conjoins Pluto (power) to the degree, launching a 12½-year cycle. In general, this pairing suggests the consolidation of power through growth (inflation, monopolies). The income inequality debate is again indicated, with an emphasis on the global reach (Jupiter) of the problem. 

Jupiter-Pluto is the might-makes-right conjunction. In the context of the Capricorn stellium, it puts the spotlight on the expansionistic ambitions of nations, the megalomania of leaders and the exploitation of the vulnerable by those in power (as identified, for example, by the anti-bullying movement and exposés of immigrant abuse).

Jupiter will inject ethical considerations into the Saturn-Pluto issues we’ve looked at so far. Not that those themes will necessarily be expressed ethically; just that the issue of ethics will be inserted into the conversation. For example, Wall Street tends to remain aloof from debates over principle, focusing instead on debates over profitability (as does capitalism itself). But with Jupiter in the mix, this amorality will be complicated by questions of immorality. 

Jupiter also governs the judiciary. In the US chart, the first hit of the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction falls in the 2nd house of the financial industry, exactly opposite the Sibly Mercury in the 8th. The latter is the house not only of corporations, but of sexuality and reproduction, suggesting intensified legal debates about gender identity and abortion rights. The constituency of the Supreme (Pluto) Court (Jupiter) will doubtless be a hot topic, along with decisions in the lower courts related to the power of big business. The controversial concept of too-big-to-fail, an exact conflation of the symbolism of these two planets, will likely to be tested. 

Jupiter’s inclusion in the Capricorn grouping keeps the emphasis on foreign powers. This suggests that the secret financial criminality and spying (Pluto) that has been making headlines in the USA since 2016 will create major drama internationally. A Mars-Saturn conjunction near Jupiter-Pluto in the 4/5/20 chart, tightly squared by Uranus, conflates the themes of foreign governments, digital manipulation and geopolitical gamesmanship. This may be when a new series of cyber-sabotage scandals comes to light. 

Saturn-Jupiter cycle 

As 2020 is drawing to a close, Jupiter catches up with Saturn. As if the cosmos were punctuating it with exclamation points, their cycle begins right at the winter solstice and is preceded by a total solar eclipse. The conjunction of these two gas giants, called by Alexander Ruperti the planets of “social destiny,” represents a paradigm shift on several different levels. On the more immediate level, it marks the beginning of a 20-year cycle: mundane astrologers will be reading this chart for clues about trends in education, religion and other areas of cultural consensus as the next two decades unfold. On the longer-range level, this particular Jupiter-Saturn conjunction heralds the start of an almost-200-year-long series of cycles beginning in air signs (the Great Air Mutation). (9) 

From either angle the chart is explosive. Mars is in its ruling sign of Aries, on the same degree as Eris, and square Pluto to the degree. The Mars-Uranus midpoint is exactly square Jupiter and Saturn. It looks like an overriding theme of the cycle to come will be how the human species handles the machinations of destructive ego. This configuration describes the anger (Mars) of payback (Eris) with a short fuse (Aries), calling to mind the speed at which volatile feeling circulates through the group mind these days, thanks to round-the-clock news and viral opinion-sharing. 

As always, only the awareness of the group will determine how this inflammatory energy is used. It could jolt the world out of its Martial power patterns, inciting us to turn over a new leaf as regards militarism, gun violence and machismo. It could also be channeled into heightened mob populism and bellicosity, with Jupiter and Saturn providing official cover for the primitive ego posturing of those in authority.

Each of us can choose how to use the energies of this chart. We can accept the challenge to pump them into a re-working (Pluto) of Mars from aggression to assertion: to withdraw our identification from the knee-jerk reactivity of action-movie-style Mars, and opt instead for the courageous fire of higher-level Mars. When pondering the potentials here, we might ask ourselves what we would tell an astrology client who had these themes in their natal chart. We would probably remind them that a raw, undiluted, Pluto-powered Mars in Aries is uncompromising and unstoppable. When used with awareness, it’s the warrior archetype raised to the level of the samurai. It is capable of not just changing but transforming our world.

Great Air Mutation

As harbingers of new social patterns every twenty years, Jupiter and Saturn reveal shifts in cultural attitudes that are relatively easy to recognize, available as they are to recent memory. The last Jupiter-Saturn cycle began at 22 Taurus (business, the economy) in May of 2000, part of a rare stellium that foreshadowed the global financial collapse a few years later. This was a time when greed lost its sting of taboo. Prioritizing the bottom line (Taurus) became acceptable in a new way.  

Even more intriguing is the way certain Jupiter-Saturn cycles, like the one upcoming, tell us about a whole 180-years’-worth of social patterns. When we consider the contrast between the themes of the waning Mutation cycle, in Earth (physical realm) and the cycle to come, in Air (mental realm), it is clear we are heading into brand new terrain. 

The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Capricorn that inaugurated the current Earth series took place in 1842, when the industrial revolution was roaring into ascendancy. For several generations since then, the domination of the world by heavy industry, and by the Earth-derived fuel sources that made it possible, became virtually synonymous with modernity. Now, it is fatally obvious that we need an updated vision. We know what our great-great-grandparents could not have known: that our dependence on mechanistic technologies and fossil fuels represents a dead end. 

Aquarius

The Earth era now waning can be described as materialistic, both in the usual sense of the word — fetishizing wealth—as well as in the philosophical sense of the word: presuming the realm of matter to be more real than the realms of ideas or spirit. In the cycle about to begin, this paradigm will be reversed. Ideas will be prioritized over matter. 

The shift to Air– a cool, intellectually rigorous element — seems like an apt corrective to the ideologically enflamed climate we find ourselves in at the moment. It is refreshing to imagine the approach that Aquarius, the most dispassionate of signs, might bring to the overheated flashpoints of our day, such as ethnicity, nativism and sexual identity; issues that have become distorted by emotional partisanism, with prejudice posing as objective fact. 

The Air element is a proud aficionado of objective fact. A Jupiter-Saturn cycle in Aquarius will tend to rely on hard data, rather than personal feeling, to direct social judgments and policies. For example, demographic studies indicate that human populations are becoming more diverse all over the world. This shift towards heterogeneity is deeply threatening to many, in that it undercuts ways of profiling human identity that have been sacrosanct for centuries: what country we’re from, what race, what religious background. But Aquarius, as the most future-minded of the signs, is well equipped to accommodate the new realities.

At its highest, Aquarius looks at people not as members of a religious or ideological group (as Sagittarius does) or as members of a certain socioeconomic class (as Capricorn does), but as members of the human species – a species that differs from all others in its capability for abstract thought. The idea that we have misused this power is not new. But what may be new, in the upcoming cycle, is a peculiarly Aquarian construction of humanity’s role in global crises. Without an acknowledgement of that role, solutions to these crises would be impossible. 

To symbolize this acknowledgment, a new word is synchronistically entering the lexicon: the anthropocene. This coinage has been under discussion since the 1980s, when the idea started to gain currency that atmospheric changes caused by humans were significant enough to warrant naming an epoch after. It would fit the symbolism of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius if the label became official during their cycle. 

Conclusion

We’re at a turning point right now, that everybody feels, and which the transits confirm. It’s hard to imagine how different the mass vibration will be after 2020, when these cycles turn over. In the intervening months, all over the world, something fundamental to group identity is breaking apart. By Natural Law, something new will replace it.

How might we approach the challenges ahead, as individuals? The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction can be read as a directive of sorts. The Aquarius message is that humanity is a team: answers to collective questions must be sought together. We are meant neither to pass the buck to our leaders, nor to shoulder the load alone. This is the Aquarian paradox: a team is made up of individuals; high-quality teams are made up of high-quality individuals. 

This idea, that each of us is a unique and irreplaceable ingredient of the wider group, also hearkens back to an underlying axiom of astrology: that each of us decided, on a soul level, to incarnate precisely when and where we did; and that our finding ourselves in one era instead of another, and in one society instead of another, is no more an accident than anything else is. When we remember this, it becomes possible to re-commit to our tenure on the planet, by using our chart in the highest possible way. What would this look like? That depends absolutely on the specific skills and predispositions inherent in the natal chart. Because every chart is different, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Indeed, our curiosity about our own unique role in the world is probably what attracted many of us to astrology in the first place. (10)

But there are certain universal truths that can guide us. Regardless of the planetary placements in our chart, each of us has both an inner life and an outer life. The former is pursued through private self-search. The latter, equally a part of our identity, includes our membership in a particular culture. In regard to this second dimension, many conscientious individuals are struggling right now, trying to find a meaningful way to relate to a society in chaotic dysfunction.  

Mass consciousness change is an agonizingly slow process. But we can honor both the inner and the outer dimensions of life by living through the center of our charts; that is, holding steadfastly to our unique inner skill set while accepting responsibility for living when and where we live. This means that if the world seems to be losing its humanity, we reaffirm our own humanity. If the society we live in is insane, we commit to maintaining our own sanity. If we despair that the necessary social changes are so vast as to be out of reach, we remind ourselves that great leaps of collective consciousness have only ever been achieved in one way: by enough individuals tuned into the big picture, responding to the urgency of the times.

Notes: 

1) The last exactitude of the Uranus-Eris conjunction was in March 2017, with an orb of several years. 

2) An example of this blurring of fictional life and IRL (in-real-life) life is the online drama SKAM, on FaceBook Watch. In this platform, viewers participate directly, right along with the characters in the drama, via continuous social media posts. A confusion on the part of many of its fans as to whether the characters are real or not seems to be part of the concept.

3) Two Saturn-Pluto cycles ago, at its formation, the EU’s founding fathers identified the main threat to the Union: “The keen feeling of national identity must be considered a real barrier to European integration,” wrote Norway’s foreign minister, Halvard Lange. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/world/europe/europe-borders-nationalism-identity.html

4) “McPolitics,” The New Yorker, July 2, 2018 

5) https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/   

6) https://www.ft.com/content/716ce26a-d6ba-11e7-a303-9060cb1e5f44

7) For example, last year India replaced the U.S. to become the second-largest smartphone market, just behind China. http://time.com/5339495/sacred-games-netflix-india-court/

8) At the Crossroads: An Astrologer Looks at These Turbulent Times, Jessica Murray MotherSkyPress, 2012.

9) An anomaly in the air pattern will occur when a cycle begins in Scorpio (water), in 2159. 

10) The starting place for this question as regards 2020 might be to identify where in our chart the 23rd degree of Capricorn and the first degree of Aquarius fall, and the aspects they make. Getting a transit reading from another astrologer could provide a fresh perspective.