In April the Capricorn dramas of 2020 ratchet up to a new level. But before we recoil in alarm, let us make a distinction between the literal and the symbolic, difficult though this often is.
The C-virus is clearly the most obvious manifestation of the transits overhead — transits that astrologers have been talking about for years now. But the virus isn’t the only expression of current planetary energies.
When we remember the myriad forms these symbols can take, we open ourselves up to the potential for profound learning.
The first step is to curtail reactivity and hasty good/bad judgments. These snap the mind shut like a spring-loaded trap. The next step is to consider where current transits (see the table lower down, at the right) are passing in your own chart.
What house is Jupiter transiting for you? It is the planet that exaggerates whatever it touches, and it has now caught up to Pluto. The Jupiter-Pluto conjunction is exact on April 4. The Sun squares them on 4/15th-16th, and Mercury squares them on the 25th – during a Pluto retrograde station.
What houses of your chart are Mars and Uranus passing through? They square each other on 4/7.
Collective dramas
When Jupiter (expansion, spread) conjoins Pluto (“acts of God”), we’re reminded that there are energies in life beyond 
the control of us humans. For most people, this concept remains theoretical, a topic for philosophers and insurance companies to sort out.
But the involvement of Mars (behavior) and Saturn (rules and restrictions), whose conjunction of late March is still in the air, draws the Jupiter–Pluto lesson down into the event level.
Tremendous pressure builds up when Mars is blocked by Saturn. The masculine force (e.g. guns, machismo, mass anger) is frustrated (e.g. by quarantines, financial deprivation, social boundaries).
This results either in careful, constructive 
action, or in tension developing to a breaking point.
Exaggerating the potential for explosion is the fact that Mars and Saturn are squared by Uranus (abrupt change). Astrologers have had their eye on this configuration for some time (see this article) as a potential harbinger of sweeping global changes.
A few years ago, looking ahead at the 2020 chart and seeing Neptune on the Ascendant, I thought first of water crises, and of the mass psychological despair of a post-democratic society, the kind Chris Hedges writes about. But Neptune also governs epidemics, and in Pisces it connotes universal spreading 
, as when regional phenomena go international.
When the Sun conjoins Uranus (exact April 26th) the role of technology (e.g. 5G, and the distorting impact of the internet upon mass opinion) will rear its head in new ways.
Individual dramas
In our personal lives and our curtailed social lives, we should be 
aware of the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction’s notoriety for might-makes-right scenarios.
The conscious use of Jupiter-Pluto involves the careful observation of our own strong beliefs, and self-transformation through these beliefs. The intensity of this historical moment is the Universe’s way of forcing us to make life-and-death-style changes (Pluto) through profound self-understanding (Jupiter).
On the collective level, we do what we can. The first precaution, psycho-spiritually, is to be selective about what we take in, whether information from the internet or anxiety from those around us.
The mass mood, already roiling with ideological power plays, is now being fed by fear (see “Not Okay, Boomer“). Our job as conscious individuals is to resist being caught up in it. We’ll be looking at this throughout the year, in the MotherSky blog.
Once we’ve separated from the nonsense, we choose to support the powerful, heart-engaged ideas and activities that people are coming up with. These too are burgeoning right now, as always happens in great emergencies.
Look again at the house the transit is occurring in. It will suggest your particular contribution to this crisis, and what it is in your own individual karma that’s crying out to be changed.
Chances are it’s not a mystery. You will have already been obsessing about it even before the virus struck.
