for the four weeks beginning FEBRUARY 20, 2020
If you are unfamiliar with the methods and interpretations of Sidereal mundane astrology, please see my free book Sidereal Mundane Astrology. (A link to the current edition can be found near the top of the Publications sub-forum.) For standard interpretations, see Chapter 8 of the current (16th) Edition.
LONG-TERM (Solar Ingress) PATTERNS
For the United States, the 12 months beginning January 15, 2020 are dominated by Uranus on Eastpoint and a triple Sun-Saturn-Pluto conjunction (with some Mercury) at Midheaven. It will be a difficult year with more challenges than blessings. Perhaps our best way to use of 2020 is to prepare for the even more severe patterns coming in 2021.
URANUS gives the main flavor of the year, which will be full of surprises: sudden rupture or eruption, shock, revelation, and overflowing of boundaries and limitations. Destructive possibilities include explosions, structural collapses, earthquakes, and floods. Uranus events caused by human actions include surprise attacks, changes in foreign relations, changes in leadership, riots, revolts, and other populist uprisings.
However, the year's main story likely will be told by the more widely foreground cluster of Sun, Saturn, and Pluto. Every four years, the U.S. enacts a ritual deposing our head of state, i.e., a presidential election. For over half a century, in every election year except 1984, Pluto has been on Midheaven of the Capsolar, a perfect symbol. This year, with Pluto conjunct Saturn as the closest aspect (0°15'), within about 2° of a culminating Sun, the momentum to overthrow the seated monarch is more than ceremonial: It is the focus of the national soul. By one means or another, it seems astrologically inconceivable that Donald Trump's presidency will survive the year.
This will be a horrible struggle, probably with great damage along the way. SATURN CONJUNCT PLUTO signifies hardship including catastrophic disasters often laying waste to a landscape, feelings of irrevocable loss or separation, a seemingly apocalyptic moment. The U.S. last had an angular Saturn-Pluto this powerful in 2001, for the 9/11 attacks. Historically, the aspect has marked the downfall of cities and nations (though that would be an extreme expression).
In the U.S., the Sun-Saturn-Pluto triplet is exactly angular in southern Florida, New Orleans, and coastal Mississippi. I fear there is no way these areas will make it through 2020 without a devastating (likely Category 5) hurricane after the fashion of Hurricane Andrew, just as the Mars line through the Santa Barbara region makes it seem certain this year's fires will be more severe than the already-terrible ones of the recent past. You can see the impact of these lines outside of Washington, DC here.
SUN-SATURN marks primarily sad events. (Even happy events occur under arduous conditions.) Examples include the death or other restraint of national leaders; government gridlock; restrictive, controlling, or failing government that causes or worsens disaster; fiscal crisis; structural collapses, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and other events mandating government oversight and response. SUN-PLUTO events can be highly diverse, from natural disasters to political confrontation: Routine motifs include removing or assaulting those in power, rebelling against prevailing conventions, and disrespect for and disobeying the law.
Uranus squares Sun, Saturn, and Pluto mundanely. SATURN-URANUS signals bubble-bursting confrontation by a harsh reality with wide, tense swings between polar opposites like freedom-restriction, liberality-conservatism, or the forces of change and status quo. URANUS-PLUTO is destabilizing, revolutionary, revising, remapping, anti-establishment, and anti-government with a spirit of revolution that dismantles current systems and tears down existing structures. People are willing to ignore, challenge, or reject precedent, custom, convention, and authority. SUN-URANUS signals sudden, startling events that are psychologically (and sometimes physically) explosive such as surprise attacks, sudden changes in leadership, and life-altering technology breakthroughs.
We are already in a new American civil war, at least with respect to culture. This chart portrays a nation hurled more deeply into division in 2020, closer to the spirit of a new American revolution. As Pluto transitions from Sagittarius to Capricorn, every solar or lunar cardinal ingress of the next three years worldwide will have Sun or Moon closely conjunct, opposite, or square Pluto.
Sun conjoins Mercury, their midpoint on MC. Beyond the usual (seemingly trivial) Mercury themes one would hope that the flow of international commerce resumes at its old pace. We can anticipate a year of technology altering everyday life at even a faster rate than currently anticipated. Mercury is squares Uranus (0°10' in RA), so these developments are within its purview: We have a year of discovery and amazement ahead, even as we endure a persistent sense of emergency and alarm.
MEDIUM-TERM PATTERNS (The Bridge)
- Saturn conjunct Capsolar Midheaven continues through March 11 (exact on February 20). This important aspect must not be underestimated. Great tragedies have occurred under Saturn's transit to Capsolar MC of a place, which anticipates a great tragedy for the United States or, perhaps, for its head of state. Loss of life, property, and hope is in the air.
- Uranus conjunct Capsolar Eastpoint expires February 21 and likely has run its course of bombshells, surprises, and overflowing natural bounds and limits.
- Mars square CapQ Moon has been ongoing a while and expires February 21. Worldwide, it signifies a heightened state of emergency, pulses pounding harder, and frequent news stories focused on violence, destruction and death.
- Feb 20-21. Uranus Saturn Mars.
- Feb 22-Mar 11. Saturn.
SHORT-TERM (Lunar Ingress) PATTERNS
Caplunar (Feb 20)
The Caplunar covers February 20 to March 18, especially the first two weeks, February 20 to March 5. It maps a very unfortunate month of grievous loss. Moon, Saturn, and Pluto are conjoined within a degree and a half, close to Ascendant. (Pluto is only 1°01' from Ascendant. Moon and Saturn are 0°04' from exact conjunction.) The picture is made gloomier because February 20, when this Caplunar occurs, is the exact day transiting Saturn conjoins Washington's Capsolar MC.
Moon conjunct Saturn marks hardship, sacrifice, death, loss, and sadness, with little to celebrate. This may appear as destructive assaults by human or nature, bereavement for widely beloved figures, deprivation and disappointment, or other hardship paired with alienation and divisiveness, property damage, and death. Moon conjunct Pluto shows events that stun our sensibilities and halt the mind with their intensity. such as uprisings and revolts, populist challenges to prevailing authority, departures of leaders, and other staggeringly intense events, pleasant and unpleasant, that hold unflinching attention. Angular Moon signals powerful feeling responses by the masses, surging upward from deep mass mind, concentrating collective (herd) focus on the events.
One type of event for which Saturn and Pluto both tend to aspect Moon and fall near angles is war. (I mention this only to provide a feeling of the type events, not to predict war per se.)
Besides Moon-Saturn-Pluto lines passing through Florida and along the Atlantic seaboard all the way to Maine, Mars rises along a curve from Texas to Minnesota. (See the maps section for the exact paths of this and other lines.) Mars squares MC the exact longitude of Los Angeles (including all locations due north and south), perhaps signalling early fires or other Mars themes. Moon-Saturn-Pluto squares MC from Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas due south to Texas.
CanQ MC contacts the Cansolar Moon-Uranus square 2/21. CapQ WP crosses ingress Mars 2/22. The same Mars is squared by CapQ MC and CanQ MC squares CanQ Mars 2/25.
Arilunar (Feb 27)
The Arilunar covers February 27 to March 5. It is dormant. Moon aspects Pluto and Saturn as in the Caplunar (Moon-Pluto is 0°49' wide). Moon also conjoins Venus (1°56'). This Venus-Saturn-Pluto concentration reinforces the picture of loss of life worldwide, especially where they are angular, including the American (non-coastal) West (Utah is particularly vulnerable); West Africa; western Europe, especially France spilling over into Spain, England, and Germany; and southeast Asia, especially Burma, Thailand, and (of course) central China.
Two of the most important U.S. primaries occur this week. The South Carolina Democratic Primary is February 29. "Super Tuesday," the largest single-day concentration of primaries and caucuses, is March 3 and decisively identify the Democratic nominee. Most parts of the country will respond to the Caplunar more than the Arilunar for these voting days.
Jupiter (conjunct Pluto) exactly sets through Las Vegas. I suspect this means that Vegas bookmakers will benefit gigantically off the Super Tuesday primaries, which means they are not likely to go the way the advance odds from Vegas predict.
CanQ EP conjoins ingress Mars 3/1.
Canlunar (Mar 5)
The Canlunar covers March 5-11. Moon again aspects Saturn and Pluto (Saturn more widely, Pluto within a degree), this time joined by Mars closely angular. To what was said above regarding Moon-Saturn-Pluto, this adds cruelty, violence, conflict, fire, and other kinds of physical damage. In human terms, this shows callous disregard for others, coldness, severity, and the rigid edge of law outweighing humane consideration. In a word, it is brutal.
Mars on IC passes through New Jersey, not far from NYC, and then north to near Albany. It squares Ascendant through New England.
CapQ MC conjoins Neptunes 3/5 and 3/6. CapQ Dsc crosses ingress Jupiter 3/8.
Liblunar (Mar 11)
The Liblunar covers March 11-18. Though repeating themes of earlier ingresses, it seems to turn a corner by adding a strong Jupiter to the mix. Moon (EP 0°30'), Jupiter (sq Asc 1°00'), and Pluto (IC 1°07') are most angular, with Mars and Saturn widely so (but the Ma/Sa midpoint on IC). Moon, still aspecting Pluto (0°30'), has moved away from orb to Saturn for the world but, for Washington, retains a wide, weakened mundane square.
This week brings (or begins to bring) a healing of whatever illness has marked the three weeks prior. For example, if the tragic symbols have referred to disease, then this week brings a cure, a significant treatment, or a containment. If the illness has been cruel, brutal social forces, then these are corrected. If it has been political despair, then the people's collective mind rises to compensate for that. If there has been war, then now we have room to negotiate peace.
At worst, Jupiter-Pluto signals economic blows and outlandishly freaky weather events. Most of the time, though, this primarily benefic combination is more positive. It challenges existing value systems, ideologies, political ideas, and power systems, freeing up energy and possibility. Add Moon so strong - especially Moon closely connected to Jupiter - and we commonly get prosperity and pride, diplomacy and dignity, and the arising of the people to lay claim to what improves conditions for themselves and those closest to them. This may take socially liberal forms (being a great force for civil rights and the improvement of conditions for all) or socially conservative forms (nationalist, elitist, culturally exclusive) - or show the two still butting heads - but, in all cases, it focuses people's minds and hearts on the well-being of their families and communities.
Boston gets the direct impact of Saturn, while Pluto is most exactly angular through Virginia Beach and areas due north. See the maps section for more details, including an unusually nice intersection near Wilmington-Philadelphia.
