By David A. Wheatley
https://www.bridges.academy/astrologycorner.html
In March of this year, there is a penumbral lunar eclipse on March 25th, followed on April 8th by a total solar eclipse. Almost everyone knows how dramatic and awe-inspiring these events can be, whether one has seen them or heard testimonials about them over the centuries from those who have seen them. There were and still are great expectations stemming from the impacts of any eclipse, particularly a total solar eclipse, because of the drama witnessed in the blocking of the Sun by the Moon.
What are the effects of an eclipse on a person's astrological chart?
Eclipses have always fascinated people because they are spectacular events involving two hugely significant heavenly bodies we live our entire lives with and whom our ancestors revered. These are real events in the sky, with meaning to all cultures, including today in a world where we tend to strip Nature of her magic. We voluntarily give power to eclipses by the awesome respect we hold for them. There’s a lot of excitement around a total eclipse passing over the country one lives in, with the shadow of the Moon passing over and temporarily blotting out the Sun during the day.
Thanks to ancient chroniclers of this phenomenon, there are records of eclipses going back centuries. One of the best and earliest was Confucius, who noted eclipses of his day but also had access to records kept before his time and included these records in his notations. The earliest record in China dates to around 2205 BC. Subsequent records in China and elsewhere suffer an adjustment in the calculation for precision by astronomers on the messy business of old calendars we have to adjust for. The dates that far back are not exactly as given. However, this is not so critical given that modern astrology has been more careful to delve into what an eclipse can potentially stir up in a natal chart.
A very detailed book by Sepharial, bridging traditional and modern astrology, was written in the early part of the last century and published in 1915: Eclipses Astrologically Considered and Explained.
(At the end of this article you'll find an opportunity to download a free pdf or purchase a copy of the book.) In more recent decades, more astrologers have studied their effects and meaning, but not many. Some astrologers treat them with the same importance as a normal transit by the Sun or Moon. I tend to see them as more important than that, but less dramatic than astrologers of centuries past who expected earthquakes served up for every eclipse.
Mention of eclipses in the Bible, ancient Egypt and the Middle Eastern empires before the modern era also vary in the accuracy of the dates. In more recent centuries using the calendar we are more familiar with, the observations by astronomers and astrologers are more detailed and precise. We shall see though that the effect of an eclipse in a chart is not tied to the date it occurs. An eclipse depends upon a catalyst to release its potency into the mundane world.
The desire to feel a connection to the divine, or at least to phenomenal nature and the universe hidden behind the veil between physical and nonphysical, keeps human beings fascinated with an eclipse. The shadow of the Earth on the Moon or the Moon on the Earth still feels magical, and in those moments of experiencing it, we are transported just a little to something that feels out of this world. We are reminded about the scale of the solar system. More exact = more potent. Subtle energies are laser-like.
The general rule in astrology is for an eclipse to have a meaningful impact in a chart, it must fall precisely on the degree of a natal planet or cluster of planets with a small orb of influence, 2 degrees or less from the exact degree of the planet or point where the eclipse is happening. That’s stretched a little depending on the planets involved in the natal chart, such as a cluster of natal planets within a few degrees or an outer planet in the natal chart. The major outer planets have a huge aura, sometimes spreading to interact with an eclipse over more than 2 degrees, compared to the closer inner planets and their orb of influence, which has to be very tight. The further away within those two to three degrees, the weaker the interaction. A cluster of planets in a natal chart collectively have a wider orb, including abstract points such as the Ascendant or Midheaven. Using a little intuition works to discern if an eclipse is making a close enough contact to stir the pot, but I would recommend being strict about it and considering 2 degrees or less for a conjunction of an eclipse on a natal planet. An eclipse in the physical world is seen as a phenomenon of light and dark, the light of the Sun and the shadows it casts. But the subtle energies involved that we don’t see are more laser-like. The more exact they are by degree, the more potent the effect in a chart, and that effect falls off rapidly when the eclipse degree is a little more than two degrees away.
An eclipse that is conjunct or in opposition to a sensitive point in a chart is the most potent. The effect of any other aspect is weaker, beginning with a square aspect, then even less for the other aspects. But if an eclipse makes a conjunction or opposition to a natal planet or sensitive abstract point and also makes any other aspect (square, sextile, trine, etc.) then they all become more potent. The house position tells a great deal about where the effect will be in life.
An eclipse that makes a conjunction or opposition to any of the outer planets in your natal chart, beginning with Saturn, is making an aspect to a slower-moving planet and thus will impact millions of people who have that slow-moving planet in the same place. Though it may affect people in different houses of their chart and life, the important thing is any astrological event that affects a slow-moving planet and thus affects millions of people or even a generation of people will be an event in the world that affects your personal life. If the eclipse is conjunct or opposed to a natal inner planet, beginning with Jupiter and inward towards the Sun (Mars, Venus, Mercury, Moon), the chances are the impact is more personal and not shared widely. Another key to understanding the impact is to consider the Decan of the sign in which the eclipse occurs.
Each sign has 30 degrees. Each sign is divided into three decans (or decantes), each of ten degrees. Each decan is a mini-sign within a sign. This is a little too hair-splitting, perhaps, but it’s only meant to be a minor spice added to a recipe. The March lunar eclipse is along an axis from around 5 degrees and seven minutes of Aries to 5 degrees of Libra. This is in the first decan of both signs, within the first ten degrees of each. The first decan of each sign is influenced by the same sign as the sign itself. The first ten degrees of Libra is Libra ruled, the second decan of Libra is Aquarius. The third decan of Libra is Gemini, thus Libra has the other two Air signs as decan rulers within it. This same formula applies to all signs, by Element: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. This is an analytical detail; for the eclipses in March, we only need to consider the one that applies, the first decan.
Both upcoming eclipses are in the first decan of Libra or Aries. This makes it more focused as purely a Libra and Aries event. (Had it been in the second decan the eclipse would be in Libra with an Aquarius touch, and Aries with a Leo touch.) Fortunately, for this description, we are looking at an eclipse in Aries and Libra in the first decan with the same sign decan influence. In traditional astrology of centuries past, an eclipse in the first decan of Aries that’s true to the potential of Aries is associated with battles and war. A lot more depends on the transiting planet that will come along and catalyze the degree of the eclipse by conjunction and what that transiting planet brings. Modern astrology doesn’t go to the extreme of literal wars, metaphorical maybe, but it’s one possibility on the spectrum of what Aries nature can produce. If the transiting planet is one of the inner, swifter moving planets, the whole episode of the effect will also come and go in a shorter period of time. If it’s an outer planet like Neptune that catalyzes the energy inherent in the eclipse, it moves along slowly, and the effects will stretch out over a longer period, possibly as much as two years. The lunar eclipse in March is an annular eclipse, not technically a total eclipse. The Sun is in Aries and the Moon is in Libra, 180 degrees away, with planet Earth in between. The solar eclipse is when the Moon has swung around to be in between the Earth and the Sun, hence the Sun and Moon are in the same sign, still in Aries. This is a more intense focus, this time in Aries. The total solar eclipse in April takes place at 4 degrees 28 minutes of Aries, in the first decan of Aries and thus is purely an Aries event. Consider the Catalyst.
The usual thing is to consider the dates of the eclipses as the dates when any related astrological phenomenon will happen. Typically, though, the chemistry of the event is triggered or brought into our lives in events when a catalyst transiting planet conjuncts the degree of the eclipse not just on the day of the eclipse but weeks before or after. Mercury is never very far from the Sun by sign in the daily transits and is often the catalyst. Mercury brings something related to the eclipse into our thinking mind that we will talk about. Venus or Mars are less frequent catalysts and bring their character influence to the manifestation of the eclipse energy. More rare is an outer planet being the catalyst, but if so they make it something we might not recognize right away, perhaps not until months later, because the outer planets are more active behind the veil of daily consciousness, not out front. These energies exist in more than our third-dimension world, though we regard them as an eclipse in the physical world because we see it with physical eyes. Astrology follows the physical planets that indicate where subtle energies we do not see with physical eyes are relating to each other. Observing physical planet movements is the beginning of learning about the hidden meanings they represent. Our daily existence is firmly rooted in the five senses being constantly online and often obscuring more subtle intuitive perceptions. The physical planets make relationships in physical space, and that is what we follow. But they represent energies within the psyche that are not visible. They are other-dimensional. For this reason, because the energies are not strictly limited to physical existence, they can manifest weeks before or after the eclipse actually happens in physical space and time. If for example Mars or Mercury in particular come along and pass over the degree where the eclipse will happen weeks before or after the day of the physical eclipse, they catalyze the qualities of the eclipse in our charts and the effects manifest then because the subtle energetic chemistry of the eclipse is hanging like ripe fruit waiting for the physical dimension to line up and get with it.
These two eclipses are not equal in potency, lunar and solar, but as we should know by now, the impact of something more subtle or less dramatic should not be underestimated, nor should we over-estimate the impact of an event that seems more visibly dramatic, comparing lunar and solar events. The Moon is smaller by far than the Sun but very close to us. The potency of an eclipse depends heavily on the connections made in a natal chart. In this case, these eclipses fall within a degree of each other, simplifying the task of trying to understand the impact. One might as well simply focus on the impact of a power surge on a natal planet’s position and not get hung up on whether it’s a lunar or solar eclipse; both the Sun and Moon are involved each time in a different order of conjunction with Earth. The lunar eclipse takes place along an axis from Aries to Libra, and the more intense laser-like focus of the solar eclipse takes place in one location, more or less the same degree in Libra. But, as it is with any event in a chart, you have to look along the axis at the opposite point in the opposite sign to fully appreciate the importance. Any chart with a planet or abstract point within two degrees of where these eclipses are happening in the zodiac (in Aries or Libra) is going to see the eclipse play out in their life. The eclipse effect is not the same as a major planet’s transit, which proceeds on a mathematically predictable path year in and year out.
First of all, a planetary transit approaches, conjuncts, and departs in general with a gradual increase and decrease of influence. What an eclipse does is more abruptly interrupt the path you felt you were on. It could be a detour off that path to which you will later return altered by the journey of the detour. To you it’s an internal change; to someone looking at you, it was merely a detour and you look the same. Your life may resume the shape it had, but you have changed. This detour can send some people off the path completely, but usually, it is only a detour and does not immediately alter the path.
If exact in your chart, the laser-like potency of a total solar eclipse can spin your head around.
You might find yourself taking a position contrary to your usual behavior that seemed highly unlikely weeks or months before. What comes of this event or experience alters something internally, and that can create new perspectives and new tangents to be taken on the path you were on. Months or years later, one might look back and say how that unplanned detour reshaped an area of life, depending on the house position. You may find yourself going over to the other side of religious, political, philosophical, cultural, economic or sexually established norms for you. While in centuries past, eclipses were associated with earthquakes, we can keep this association but consider it a metaphor. Our lives and our world can experience an earthquake without a tremble in the planet. An eclipse could manifest as a literal earthquake, but more often the earthquake is a metaphor.
In recent weeks a software glitch cut phone service for AT&T customers, on the same day that three extraordinarily strong solar flares erupted. It didn’t matter to the people who lost phone service what the cause was, solar flare or software. At the time of the AT&T failure, the Sun was semi-sextile (mild stress) to the upcoming eclipse degree in Aries, and the planetoid or asteroid Ceres was in Capricorn at the midpoint of the upcoming eclipses - a mild square to the two points at either end of the March lunar eclipse axis in Libra and Aries. Ceres is an Earth mother nature goddess. Generally, she is nurturing and supports all life. In a square, it might be Earth mother goddess with a complaint, discordant with supporting life. The explanation is there was a software problem at AT&T, the service failure was not a result of the three X class solar flares. It’s possible the energetic discord behind the AT&T software issue and the flares are one and the same, registering on the Sun at the same time as impacting AT&T in a software glitch. I am told some phone carriers in Central America also were down at the same time as well. We will have the opportunity to watch in the next few months as the two eclipses are rolled out and whether there are coincidentally solar flares of similar magnitude simultaneous to any astrological event, or software glitches. A major flare such as we had is a tremendous quantity of energy capable of affecting our technology or our brain. The largest of the three flares was an X 6.3. Impact of the eclipses on the US natal chart.
The US natal chart has no natal planets, nor the Sun or Moon, that make conjunction or opposition with the upcoming two eclipses. The eclipses do however make a square to the US natal Venus in the 7th house. This is tension in relations. The 7th house is close partners and relationships, and for the US that would be internal relations as well as with foreign allies. It’s not an intense square because the eclipse makes no conjunctions or oppositions, but it will be a tense period of heightened struggle to work in a constructive way, more businesslike than the usual expectations around Venus. Since everyone understands how business is conducted with more pragmatism than warmth, this is not a difficult square to get through, but it’s a stressful period of walking a fine line with decisions and concessions being made in a businesslike way.
The eclipses make minor connections on the natal chart of Israel.
I say minor in contrast to what broader astrological events are unfolding. What is present in Israel’s chart and ongoing beyond the eclipse season, is a growing opposition from transiting Pluto to Israel’s natal 10th house Moon which culminates in 2025 and lasts two more years. Pluto, the agent of profound transformation as the holder of unconscious material stored forever and behind everything, will oppose and conflict with the established cultural attitudes of the homeland represented by the Moon. Sources of past comfort to the soul are in conflict with evolution. This is a deeply conflicted aspect between the Moon and Pluto, a very deep programming stirred up by the need to meet evolutionary challenges that require regeneration. Almost immediately after this and overlapping with it, transiting Pluto will oppose Israel’s natal 10th house Pluto, a deeper chapter of the same dynamics just mentioned. It is an incredible struggle to keep core old beliefs and habit patterns while adjusting for today's and tomorrow's world.
Transformation must take place; Pluto is calling for it. How does Pluto in transit work? Usually, it grinds down what it touches and then, using the same raw material, it rebuilds over time. Following that, transiting Pluto opposes Israel’s natal Saturn, another version of structural rehab taking place under pressure over several years. For individuals and nations, it is pointless to resist what is being called for when Pluto makes a hard aspect bringing deep fundamental change. It’s more painful to resist. Better to go forward and shape the changes than be shaped by them.
In April, the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus builds up and comes out suddenly in mid to late April by making a conjunction to Israel's North Nodes in the 7th house. This has great meaning.
The Moon's North Nodes in any chart point to where one's individuality is evolving to. It's a fateful indicator of a destiny one must work towards, around or reject. In the 7th house, this indicator says that relationships are the pivotal area of one's destiny. For Israel, one can easily speculate about relationships not just with the Palestinians but with other nations sharing their neighborhood and with other nations sharing the world, such as the USA. Jupiter always expands how and what one thinks or is thought about, and Uranus flashes into reality something bound up or concealed, blocked out. Why there were obstacles is not the point now; this conjunction suddenly brings something out in the open, perhaps in the form of a major announcement or event that, like a flash of lightning, illuminates the landscape in a new way. Jupiter isn't into acts of terrorism; Uranus would be if combined with Mars and/or Pluto. Jupiter and Uranus do something more like releasing pressure and expanding everything. Suddenly, things happen, or things happen rapidly regarding Israel's relationship with its own integral parts or its neighbors: a new alignment. Jupiter's impacts are impressive, but not without some limits. The North Nodes are an abstract point, not a fixed point in physical space like a planet. The chemistry of late April will expand understanding, formulating something new never seen before. Ideas are also abstract; documents and agreements are abstract ideas shared with hopes for a future relationship. This is likely a key moment for some agreement catching people by surprise, (Uranus). Siblings.
There is no Palestinian state, but there is a Palestinian entity and identity that was created and shares a birth chart with its twin Israel. They were both born by mandate, and whether it was cast in Jerusalem or where it was issued in Algiers, they are twins. They are siblings. Reading the analysis for Israel's chart is very similar for the Palestinian entity, which is not just Gaza but includes it. There's a schism in the twin births of Israel and Palestine, and then again within Palestine and Gaza. Gaza was established in 1948 but, at the time, was presumed to be under the influence of Egypt. A few wars and decades later, the Palestinian Authority began to establish the Gaza Strip as part of a hoped-for future Palestinian territory or, eventually, a nation. This hasn't happened yet; the Palestinian entity is still not fully born. When it is eventually established, which I believe is not soon but is slowly happening now, it will have a new birth chart as a new nation with a new identity.
The abuse suffered by the Jewish people, citizens of Israel, is a healing process struggling to happen just as it would be for siblings who were abused by their parents and then visited abuse upon each other. There is a lot of psychological damage that was done for generations and is being done to all these people in a generational way, as it happens to individual children who suffer abuse from bad parenting and then perpetuate it on their descendants and each other. Astrologically, I look at the chart for Israel and also read a parallel recitation for the Palestinians with their perspectives. There is a Palestinian entity and territory but not yet a nation. It's like they were delayed in being born, so we have a chart that is workable for now, but one day, when they have established themselves as a sovereign nation, it will have a new birth chart. Whether an individual or a collective, the struggle for identity with so much complicated history asks human beings to raise their game to a higher level. The upcoming struggles facing Israel in its chart with huge challenges from Pluto and Saturn to natal positions, especially to that of the natal Moon, are no less intense and wrenching than what their sibling, the Palestinian people, will be struggling with. As it is with individual people, born twins, there are minor differences in erecting a natal chart to distinguish them, but for general commentary, if one were to rely on a natal chart without a birthtime, we would consider the charts of these two entities as close to identical. This is a major reason why it is so tragic that they can't, as siblings should, help each other. Without a doubt I believe they are being forced in the immediate future to work in real terms towards being neighbors, with the status of two nations. As mentioned, the unfolding transits will push them to work together because there is no other choice. As I said above, it is pointless to fight the processes that Pluto insists on. The way to reduce the stress and be constructive is not to resist but to take the reins and try to help the child be born. Impact of the eclipses on Ukraine's natal chart.
In Ukraine’s natal chart there are also no conjunctions or oppositions from the eclipses, but there are a few more positive aspects made by the eclipsing Sun and Moon involving natal Venus, the Sun and Saturn. I expect that they get the economic support they need. Ukraine also has had to face and is currently facing an opposition from transiting Uranus to its natal 9th house Pluto. Jupiter will join Uranus in this opposition in later March or in early April. This feels like a surge from Russia, but it’s also a surge from within Ukraine to meet the 9th house foreign presence represented by Pluto. The foreign actor is forcing Ukraine to change internally.
By late spring, Jupiter begins to square Ukraine’s 7th house (relationships) natal Sun, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter. It’s a square, implying that an abundance of probably vital support is finally coming, though as a square aspect in this case, it might seem like the order is being filled late, a setback. Jupiter also trines Ukraine’s natal 8th house Mars at the same time. Powerful forces and effort are streaming in to add strength to their struggle. Jupiter also makes a trine to natal Uranus and Neptune. This is the turning point for the year. Unfortunately, Jupiter's opposition joining Uranus to oppose natal Pluto in April indicates a Russian surge and setbacks for Ukraine that might have been less costly if they had been resupplied earlier. Impact of the eclipses on Biden’s natal chart.
There’s a conjunction/opposition from these two upcoming eclipses to Biden’s natal Neptune in his 10th house and a trine/sextile to his natal Pluto in his 8th house. The intense impact of the eclipse alters his 10th house of public image. There are both negative and positive in these aspects. He may be regarded increasingly as a wise council for others; that’s an inspiration, but his vitality will likely be drained at least short term, during which he will be seen as the old man he is. He has resources from his 8th house Pluto: investments of experience and energy made over the course of his lifetime which will be called upon to make a wise but difficult choice. While he may suffer a setback the trine/sextile to his natal Pluto suggests he will be able to transform a negative into a positive.
Trump has no relation in his chart to the two eclipses.
What he does have growing throughout 2024, culminating in February of 2025, is transiting Saturn square his natal Sun and Uranus in his 10th house, suggesting to me that the cosmic cop Saturn is increasingly restricting his freedom and tamping down his vitality. Saturn, as the planetary factor that insists on karma being administered, isn’t a positive fit for a man trying to evade the law. That it happens in his 10th house is, unfortunately for him, playing out where everybody can witness it, in public. Transiting Saturn is also trine his natal Saturn and Venus in his 11th house, suggesting he continues to have the support of his core fans. Leading up to May of 2025, Saturn will oppose his natal 12th house Mars and that is confinement, possibly jail time. This would only apply if he is not president or is unable to pardon himself or be excused from legal restraints.
On Vladimir Putin’s natal chart.
There is the possibility of a mild aspect to Putin's natal Moon, but since we do not know his precise birth time, I can’t go there. By the same token, depending on his natal Moon position, he may be having now or soon will be having a transiting Saturn square his natal Moon. Based on his recent several months, I would say it hasn’t happened yet. That would lead to darker feelings of depression than his recent victories in Ukraine. I don’t think the Saturn square to his Moon has happened because he’s been uplifted watching Ukraine's allies in the USA flounder.
In May of 2025, transiting Saturn is square his natal Mars from then into the following year. This will be very frustrating for him. I can’t say more precisely in what area of his life it frustrates him because of the uncertainty of his birth time. Transiting Saturn simultaneously makes inconjunct aspects to his natal Pluto, Sun, Saturn, Mercury and Neptune. This will be when he must make critical decisions and likely will be negotiating and manipulating. His natal chart describes a man capable of charm and deception. A trine to Uranus at that time suggests a wild idea of his, the cat using up another of its nine lives.
Contact David at davidiste@yahoo.com for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page. Eclipses Astronomically and Astrologically Considered and Explained, by Sepharial
“This little work is designed to instruct the mind as yet unacquainted with the phenomena of eclipses, and to counteract the prejudice which affirms without examination that these phenomena are in no way connected with mundane events. In dealing with my subject I shall have occasion to speak of eclipses of the Sun and Moon not only in their physical causative relations, but also in their symbolical and prognostic relations.” From the Preface, by Sepharial
0 Comments
By David A. Wheatley https://www.bridges.academy/astrologycorner.html A quick note to highlight the imminent arrival of Mars transit to transiting Pluto at zero degrees of Aquarius. Zero degrees of a sign is the beginning of that sign, and at the same time, it is 30 degrees of the prior sign. There’s an overlap of sign dominance, though in the case of Pluto, it casts its shadow forward and interacts with a sign a few degrees before it arrives and casts its shadow behind where it’s been a couple of degrees as well. It’s not a hard line between signs, especially for a powerful, slow-moving body like Pluto. For Mars it’s more defined but still blurred. For Mars approaching zero degrees of a sign, entering a sign when it’s conjuncting Pluto doing the same thing at the same time, the combination of the two planets adds up to blur their orb of influence together. There's an opportunity for a unique expression of their combined chemistry over a few days and on the actual day of numerical conjunction spread over the 14th-15th of February. It’s hard to find another such event when these two planets entered a sign so precisely together, at zero degrees. A quick check appears to indicate these two planets last met at the beginning of a sign over a century ago, and as for entering Aquarius together, I lost track, not finding it as far back as 150 years; it’s probably many centuries in the past, very rare. This is really Pluto's show, and Mars is adding some octane to it. Mars and Pluto share some common traits in character but work at two very different rhythms. Pluto grinds along over years and digs really deep; Mars does it all in a matter of days; it doesn't have the staying power of Pluto on its own. Together, Mars is the catalyst to ignite something Pluto might otherwise stretch out over time. Mars makes Pluto’s impact, or in this case, an announcement that it’s now in Aquarius, a bigger splash. The planets inside the orbit of Jupiter are considered the inner planets. They move swiftly compared to the outer planets, and unless by slower retrograde motion, they provoke something rather quickly by comparison, which really means more directly. We notice the impact of the inner planets in our daily lives, and when combined with a major outer planet position, the inner planets bring a tighter focus into our awareness. We are more conscious of them and what they provoke. Our consciousness dwells in and around the inner planets more than the deeper psychologically profound outer planets which we might struggle to reveal. When Mars catches up to and conjuncts Pluto at zero degrees of Aquarius this time, rare as that is, it will be joined in doing so by all the other inner planets - Mercury and Venus, as well as the Sun - all within a short period of time. They all get a whack at it because Pluto moves so slowly. This is a big Welcome to Aquarius for Pluto by those planets that touch our Earth-based consciousness more directly to distant Pluto. We will notice. Events and announcements are forthcoming. Mercury caught up to Pluto on the 5th of February. Venus arrives on the 17th. Mars arrives on the 14th. The Sun arrived in late January. Anyone with natal planets (or significant abstract points like the Ascendant) within a few degrees of early Aquarius/late Capricorn or any other sign would feel this event, aimed more specifically and defined by the house positions of their natal points where Pluto is transiting now. Mars and Pluto together are belligerent. Not negotiable. Venus adds a dimension of abuse when dominated by Pluto and reinforced by Mars. Mercury implies the importance of how this is communicated, revealing the obsessive-compulsive Pluto influence. If it were Saturn instead of Pluto, the conversation would be practical and sharp, like it or not. With Pluto, we feel the weight of nebulous old patterns that were not friendly in the past and still aren’t. We might see what needs to be improved but feel powerless to do it. Very likely, opinions expressed in the public arena at this time are not so rational, revealing the obsessive-compulsive. The value is that we can observe them, learn from them and refine those old patterns, not mindlessly repeat them. That’s the Astrology. In the Astronomy, the Sun erupted in recent days with two major solar flares. The first one was the strongest flare in several years but was not Earth-directed. It was directed at Mercury, Venus and Mars. The second flare on February 2nd was directed at Earth, not the other inner planets. The Coronal Mass Ejection of material exploding out into space from the Sun will arrive at Earth around the 12th of February. What this means is a lot of charged particles will stir up the Earth’s electromagnetic field and affect animals, including humans, in subtle ways. It’s a higher-octane period in which the tendency to react and not think carefully is likely. Contact David at davidiste@yahoo.com for a personal astrological consultation. Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page. By David A. Wheatley https://www.bridges.academy/astrologycorner.html Israel and the Palestinians In October 2023, transiting Uranus was within a couple of degrees of conjuncting Israel’s natal Sun. It has since fully conjuncted it and will remain so off and on until early 2025. This is a defining moment for Israel to demonstrate what makes it unique because Uranus is the planet that reveals if one has a unique character and what it is. It’s not what’s written down in the history books; it’s what happens in the moment of question when it has to be demonstrated. Uranus brings what seems to be sudden - but in fact, was merely unseen - events that change consciousness. Israel’s natal Sun is in the 8th house, a house of transformation ruled by Pluto which often includes the transformations of life, death and if it applies, rebirth. The natal position of the Sun is in opposition to Israel’s natal Chiron at 21 degrees of Scorpio. Uranus' arrival in conjunction with the 8th house natal Sun is in opposition to Israel’s natal Chiron. These astrological events produce the sudden attack in southern Israel and then the horrifying purging in Gaza of Hamas by the Israeli military. Chiron is a significant indicator in a chart of a deep psychological wound, which everyone is aware exists in one dimension or another, and surfaces needing attention. The chart for Israel is based on its founding in May 1948, which is also the birth of the modern Palestinian people’s incomplete nation. Israel and the Palestinians were a twin birth in 1948. The chart for the Palestinian people has their natal Sun and Chiron at exactly the same place, though as it is with twins, their birth times may be different, and thus the position of the Sun and Chiron may be in different houses. But they are locked into shared experience astrologically. They are locked into the need to address that deep wound represented by Chiron, shared by both since birth. Both twins may feel they own the deep scars exclusively but as almost everyone knows, the healing must include both of them. People ask, when will a healing ever happen here? Is it ever possible? I believed from the start last October that something along the lines of healing can come out of what’s ongoing in Gaza presently, partly because these times are different and partly because this is a Uranian challenge to meet. Tremendous change can happen still in all directions. Uranus’ transit to the Israel/Palestinian people’s natal Sun continues through this year. It is difficult to see, but both the participants and the world around them are at a place they’ve never been before, and depending on the wisdom that current leadership provides, it is possible this year to take a new direction. Or not. I believe something is possible there that has not been possible before. I think it can largely take shape in 2024. A major turning point is in April, and then periodically over the summer (July) there are astrological moments supportive of constructive change, with more in the Fall. Over the next several years, Israel’s chart has a Uranus return and Pluto opposition to its natal Moon and Pluto, with something nearly identical for the chart of the Palestinian people. Tremendous growth is possible, but it will be hard and painful. This is how Pluto works; it brings to the surface the pain imprinted in the past and what needs to be regenerated. The tremendous growth possible there comes with the same sped-up necessities the world in general is feeling because of a seldom or never-before-seen movement where all major planets move from one sign to another within a short period of time. Major planetary movements are already underway and will lead us to great opportunities over the next two years. They come with tension, pressured by necessity more than by plan. The first part of 2024 is going to feel hopeful. All the planets are finally moving direct; evolution is rolling along. On January 20th, the Sun conjuncts transiting Pluto on the same day that they both leave Capricorn, giving a sense of moving forward. In 2023, we had only three months of Pluto dipping a toe into Aquarius, leaving Capricorn where it’s been for 20 years. In 2024, Pluto retrogrades back into Capricorn but for less than three months, flipping the script from 2023. Those three months are the wrap-up of Pluto’s twenty years in Capricorn, affecting us all. It comes at the peak of the US presidential election cycle, finishing the turmoil brought out of the darkness for regeneration in the light where we can see it. On December 20th, Pluto is finally done with Capricorn. The election will not be resolved on election day; no surprise to anyone. One last time, Pluto displays the drama around those who seek power and control for self-gain. Nevertheless, Democracy and societies around the world are wounded by individuals attempting to be king-like, and it will take years to craft positive reform with Pluto in Aquarius. Transiting Mars stirs the pot on three occasions through the year 2024 with a conjunction, then a square, and finally an opposition to transiting Pluto spread out every few months. Each time Mars and Pluto mingle this year, they play the same old song poking at fears within the collective unconscious. The days when Mars is antagonistically related to Pluto in 2024 are days when strong arguments or violence are possible. Mars will be in different signs on each occasion, different kinds of assault. It’s the last hurrah on the familiar fear theme from Pluto before it moves into a new sign with a new emphasis. Mars is almost always willing to raise its fists and fight, break the china and ruin the furniture, but Pluto is willing to burn the house down. Pluto in Aquarius. One size does not fit all. Pluto’s work in Capricorn was to exalt emperor-like authority in concentrations of power, be it in one person or one group that cultivated it for its own sake: Abuse of power. Capricorn is about structure, the edifice of local and national government power, the rules of the road, the bones of our body and our society. Pluto in Aquarius will bring immediate new themes of recognizing that central authority isn’t always the wisest rule to follow. The theme of Aquarius is that ‘laws should adapt to people, not people to the laws’, whereas Capricorn allowed ‘one way or the criminal way’ by subverting the rules, begging to be caught. Capricorn structures authority to be unanswerable. It should be a perfect system, but no system is. The passage of Pluto through Aquarius, as far as leadership goes, will contrast with its time in Capricorn by emphasizing that one size does not fit all. The collective has many leaders, not one. We will face major problems with Pluto in Aquarius, problems that can only be met by the necessity of working together. Pluto usually begins its work by pointing out where things are corrupted by human obsession for power, around any and all human temptations. Pluto is usually a wholesale operator; it goes all the way in breaking down existing obstructions to establish a healthier psychology for life. Pluto in Aquarius will also be a clearly defined next generation or two of technologies that, together with Uranus entering Gemini beginning in 2025, will bring phenomenal new technologies into being. The reinvented and the new will make many current technologies as obsolete as the corded phone. It may be necessary for existing technologies to fail, be corrupted, to be replaced. (A solar flare, terrorism, hacking - all the mechanisms Pluto chooses to use.) The criminal element operates with Pluto at heart; corrupting technology we rely on now and crippling it might make it necessary to redesign something better. Once Uranus is in air sign Gemini, in a trine aspect to Pluto in Aquarius, we will jump far ahead of our current standard of technological ability year after year. This is Pluto transforming what doesn’t work that well and is likely broken into something better. The transformation presents itself first as a problem to be solved that leads to innovation. Recent announcements about fusion and solar energy and energy from other cheap sources will replace fossil fuels in a relatively short period of time, because we only have a short period of time. The discoveries will have to be shared planet-wide with all humanity because it is a planetary problem. US Election There are positives and negatives in the charts of Biden and Trump in the 2024 election season. Biden has more positives in the coming year so far as being in the positive at election time. Trump faces two tough squares from Saturn to his natal Uranus and Sun beginning in April and lasting the rest of the year. Saturn will station and go retrograde in a square to his natal Uranus first, then later in the fall for a longer period going back and forth in a retrograde motion sitting on a square to his natal Sun. I don’t see Trump staying in the race himself, though he could broker his value to another Republican candidate. The drag on his life energy from Saturn’s squares to his Sun and natal Uranus will hurt his health psychologically as much as physically. Remember, the planets do not do things to you; they channel and help manifest the consequences of each person’s efforts. In the aspect of his natal Uranus, there are two contrary forces working against each other in a struggle that depletes him. Uranus wants to operate without limits and Saturn wants energy contained and limited. Uranus wins some victories, but Saturn usually wins the war. Trump’s frustration comes from Saturn restricting his spontaneous nature, limits he created by his actions. Saturn is not finished with this process until April-May 2025, suggesting to me that he remains in court battles and is not self-pardoned in the White House. Later in the year 2025, he has more positive aspects from Saturn, suggesting that perhaps the penalties for his lost legal battles are not as severe as one might expect for anyone else. But for him, it looks like he has to take a road he doesn’t want to take beginning in April of 2024. I don’t believe he will be the Republican party candidate. I have thought for a long time that the next president would be a woman. The square to Trump’s natal Sun suggests his health and vitality will suffer greatly in 2024. Biden has some challenges of a different nature. He experiences some drag in his life from a close relationship, which I might guess are the challenges around his son. A number of inconjunct aspects in his natal chart lead me to suspect that it’s possible he also suffers a loss of vitality, maybe even withdraws from the race later in the year because of his health. This would support my belief that the next president is a woman of either party. The US is having a Pluto return in 2024. That alone is a once in 250-years event.The USA has also been in an 18-month opposition from transiting Neptune to natal Neptune in the 9th house of ideals and philosophic beliefs. Neptune in the 9th house indicates the great importance of a higher purpose to the nation’s identity. Whether or not it has one, it believes it does and acts like it. Because natal Neptune is in Virgo, there is fortunately some discernment and self-examination that goes along with the belief in a higher purpose. The current ongoing opposition from transiting Neptune to natal Neptune muddles up the nation’s belief in itself. It’s confused. This confusion is around serving a higher purpose and defining what it is. The problem with Neptune here is: it doesn’t do definition well. It admits to all definitions; they are all real. What is fake news? From a Neptune point of view, it’s all fake. Neptune is the reality of multidimensions, not just this three-dimensional Earth. Transiting Neptune opposing the US natal Neptune moves beyond the opposition angle by February of 2024. The fog will begin to clear, but as it took time to gather, it will also take time to move off. Pluto moves into Aquarius on the same day as the Sun, on January 20th, 2024. It will be in Aquarius most of the year, retrograding back into Capricorn, barely, in September for about three months. In 2025, it will make a trine aspect to the US nation’s natal Uranus in the 9th house, one of many hopeful positive major aspects to come. In later 2025, transiting Uranus will be moving close to a trine with transiting Pluto, echoing the prior mentioned Pluto/Uranus aspect, commencing a period of remarkable and rapid innovation but obviously because of the natal aspect I mention in the US chart, the US will be very involved in bringing new technologies and inventions into being for the world. More on this later. Taking a look at the US natal chart progressed to 2024, Neptune remains progressed in the first house, maintaining the confusion domestically for those citizens who muddle up reality and delusion. It’s all the same to Neptune. Progressed Neptune is opposed to the progressed Moon in this chart, in the 7th house. The confusion is spilling over into relations with worldly allies. The first house is the Self, and the opposite side of the axis is the 7th house, where we learn who we are by how we relate to close partners. Saturn, which I would look to for some grounding, is in the 2nd house of material interests. That’s definitely down to earth, but it also suggests some restrictions in the flow of money, which we could easily see in how Congress attempts to manage the nation’s accounting, possibly bringing a halt to budget negotiations before the election. Uranus and Venus are in the 9th house in the Progressed chart, suggesting unusual ideas coming into the election season from outside the country. Disruptive and seductive Pluto is in the 5th house. Children united with deep feelings could form a union as profoundly transformative agents of change. Youth will play a big role in the election. Eclipse on April 8th; a dramatic visual event. There’s an eclipse at 29 degrees 50 minutes of Aries on April 8th, whose shadow path crosses the USA from Texas, arcing northeast over the Great Lakes region of the USA and Canada. This will be a dramatic event visually, and because of its visual power, it will stimulate people’s imaginations, nurturing the symbolism within our psyche. The impact of the shadow is a magical experience, but the impact of it touching on aspects in a natal chart is greater. The usual pattern of an eclipse is that if it makes precise aspects in a chart, it will alter one’s path - a new tangent - though the process it takes one on may not be long-lasting as much depends on the aspect it makes over days, weeks, or months. Anyone with natal planets, asteroids, abstract points or any luminary in their chart within a degree or two of 29 degrees of any sign should take note. Conjunction or opposition are the most impactful aspects to it. Lacking a conjunction, opposition or square, the other aspects are reduced in their influence. For Israel, the eclipse makes two trines, to natal Jupiter and Mars, 11th house and 3rd house. If they call an election for the Spring or early summer, this brings very uplifting results, taking action on new thinking. The assault on October 7th, 2023, was a Uranus transit influenced by an eclipse. This eclipse in April 2024 could be dramatic as well. I’ll share more details later in the year. It’s possible that Joe Biden’s natal Moon is conjuncted by the eclipse. It’s “possible” because birth times in any chart are often not precise, and the Moon’s position can move meaningfully in a short time. As it is, the eclipse is a little over 1 degree away from his natal Moon in his 5th house, suggesting that news about his son significantly impacts him at this time. News coming on an eclipse like this isn’t necessarily good or bad, but it leads to a change in plans. The eclipse's power can boost potency to whatever it touches in a natal chart. Coincidentally, Kamala Harris’ natal Moon is within a few degrees of Joe Biden’s natal Moon; it may even be identical. As said, birth times are often imprecise, so their natal Moons' degree might be closer or further apart. But as it is, her natal Moon is close to the eclipse by 2 +/- degrees in her 11th house. This gives her heightened potency among the growing circle of both personal and professional people around her. People will pay attention to her. The trajectory she had imagined is suddenly changed. A Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in April is square to Kamala’s natal Mars in her 3rd house. This is a little challenging, but can also be a spur to her 3rd house strength of conviction in being able to speak and measure with the strength of Mars under duress. I have no doubt she is more than able to defend herself as Mars is always ready to do. She will be challenged starting with this conjunction in April aspect squaring her Mars. As the Jupiter-Uranus duo moves forward together only a couple degrees apart, they will square her natal 9th house Saturn, possibly while abroad or speaking at a university event, suggesting taking on responsibility that she wasn’t planning on, perhaps standing in for president Joe Biden at some event or even assume his place in the presidential run. It’s not something she planned for. A “finger of god” fateful moment In the US natal chart, the eclipse on April 8th is square to natal Pluto; that planetoid is having its “return” to its natal US birth chart placement in 2024. Adding the eclipse placement to an existing major planetary return to its birthplace is a “finger of god” fateful moment in the nation’s chart. A magic wand has touched something (natal Pluto), connecting the present moment with the nation's birth moment, specifically in regards to Pluto. Natal Pluto is in the US 2nd house of material values suggests an importance emphasis there. Pluto in the 2nd house denotes having the influence of materially powerful people, and on the negative side, powerful criminals, as Pluto also rules the underworld. Pluto seeks to reform that which needs regeneration and renewal, which means there’s a constant reminder that material life in the US is a huge part of the national ID. Pluto returning to this natal position is a call to refresh the original inspiration for a national material standard of living. It also calls out to reform corruption in powerful places and people. These themes won’t be played out until after the 2024 election and when Pluto is completely and finally moved into another sign. Pluto leaves Capricorn but will remain in the natal US 2nd house for many years to come. The struggle in America for the refinement of values is nowhere near complete. The peak of the Pluto return in the US natal chart, I believe, is March-April of 2024. Astrological events coming in the second half of April manifest in almost every area of our lives.In April of 2024, transiting Jupiter catches up to transiting Uranus in Taurus; they conjunct and combine their energies. Uranus has been subdued during its years-long transit of the earth sign Taurus, with only occasional outbursts when another planet came along to provoke it. Whatever Uranus has had to keep under its hat while in Taurus, the cork may pop when Jupiter catches up to it on April 20th-21st. There are so many ways for this to manifest. It’s essentially a tremendous short two to three weeks period of unexpected expansion, explosion, or advancements. In early May, transiting Mars catches up to Jupiter and Uranus at the tail end of the aspect, followed by the Sun, Mercury and Venus doing the same. This registers very positively in most people’s lives and in the charts of nations. In the chart of Israel, this conjuncts its natal Sun. A breakthrough will come to them. It’s a square and an inconjunct aspect in Putin’s chart to his natal Pluto, Saturn and Sun. Bad news for Putin. It’s good for Biden, though Jupiter loving excess, he might say too much according to his advisors. In Kamala Harris's chart, it is also good news, but she too has to be careful not to say too much. It’s mildly stressful for Trump. Within a year or two, we will see new technology rolling out more frequently when Uranus and Jupiter enter Gemini, making trine aspects to Pluto in Aquarius. Some of this is probably because of AI. I know for example that AI has discovered several hundred new chess moves that grand masters never thought of, so grand masters of chess are now learning them from AI. War? Will the past repeat itself? There’s considerable speculation from people, including Astrologers, that the duo entry of Saturn and Neptune into Aries were powerful astrological indicators in the past when nations began major wars, even world wars. Astrologers often learn about the chemistry of planetary combinations from observing transits in the past. But things are never the same and we can’t expect same results from aspects. In 1941 Jupiter, Uranus and Saturn were conjuncting in Taurus as they will be this coming April. The US declared war in December of 1941 and to top it off, Mars arrived to conjunct Uranus and Saturn in January of 1942 as American soldiers shipped out. Some fear the advent of Neptune transiting in exact tandem with Saturn moving together into Aries in the Spring of 2025 off and on through summer 2026, will come with war in Europe as it did before. But the astrology, while similar, is not the same. I think there will be echoes of similar themes from the early 1940’s but not necessarily world war. There are a number of well-known opportunities for existing wars to escalate or new wars to inflame the world. There are also “wars” other than military wars, including metaphorical wars like the war on drugs, etc. With the climate problems we face, humanity is slowly becoming aware perhaps too late that it needs to move to a war-like level of commitment, to make the sacrifices and pay the costs to slow the march to the cliff’s edge. Neptune and Saturn in Aries Neptune is very strong in Pisces, and weak in Aries. Saturn is a subterranean operator psychologically speaking in Pisces, but up-front rude and impatient in Aries. Saturn works somewhat hidden in Pisces and doesn’t reveal its conclusions as the observant therapist until Saturn enters overt Aries and acts on what it observed. Saturn in Aries doesn’t explain itself. It’s pretty cut and dry in seeking to act in daily life based on what it saw going on in the deeper, concealed world of the other-conscious realm of Pisces. Saturn provides a structure for what Neptune created in Pisces to manifest, but Saturn also edits it. What happens when Saturn gets into Aries is the swift implementation of what is useful and what can work, cutting out what isn’t useful, salvaged from the elaborate dreams of Neptune in Pisces. What works in Pisces may not work in reality; Saturn will decide this time. Dreams need help to make it in the Arian real world and be applied. What they amount to in this reality may be disappointing to some, even depressing, to learn that their Neptune-stimulated inspiration was a delusion. What no one likes much about Saturn in Aries is how pressured the environment of discussion is to examine what’s actually real. We feel pressured to hurry up and make decisions. ‘Hurry up or get out of my way so I can be helpful’ is Saturn in Aries. What is Saturn hurrying us up for? The answer is all the major planets are on the move within a couple of years, condensing what might more often take decades of change into a brief period of two to three years. The infrequent meeting of Neptune and Saturn in a conjunction happens approximately every 35 years. Neptune takes a long while to circle the Sun and pass through a sign. Once it’s in Aries, it will be there until 2039. Saturn will be in Aries two and half years more or less. Pisces is the 12th sign, Aries the first. Pisces is WE - all our levels of being connected to the psyche. Aries is ME - down to earth seeking to meet my needs. All valid. To some extent, the heated divisions and current fragility of American society are a victim of Neptune in Pisces. When Neptune entered Pisces, it joyfully dove into the deep end of its native etherical environment. While there, its presence blurred lines of definition in our beliefs, in our psyche. Pisces is Neptune’s natural home sign: Belief in anything, everything. One of the confusing examples for the human mind about this sign with Neptune there, is evident in the turmoil around what is fake news? The answer is all of it is fake. From Neptune's perspective, this 3D Earth mundane world is a pale 3D physical reflection of what is real from Neptune’s point of view. You may have heard that Australian Indigenous people say life on Earth is the dream, that when we leave here we wake up. That’s a Neptunian point of view. Here in 3D Earth world we are focused outwards where the five senses craft survival in this physical 3rd dimension. Neptune’s presence in our consciousness recedes further into the background when it enters Aries. Saturn in Pisces is a therapist taking notes quietly, but get ready for the edginess of Saturn’s scythe in Aries. In Aries, Saturn is full steam ahead and Neptune is subdued. Does Neptune influence Saturn when they are conjunct as they will be? Yes, fortunately, it softens edgy Saturn somewhat, but here on Earth, Saturn becomes the more dominant of the two, focused on getting its job done. Saturn in Aries may seem callous, which is why this conjunction has come in the past at times of war. Saturn hasn’t lost what it was exposed to while in Pisces with Neptune, but Saturn sees things from a point of view that doesn’t accept everything as valid the way Neptune can. With Saturn, the emphasis isn’t creative; it’s functional; what works? What can we build a solid foundation on? There’s a sharp contrast for us all when Saturn takes the steering wheel upon entering Aries. Pluto, moving into the Air sign Aquarius, is no longer dragging its weight through the Earth sign Capricorn. The regeneration of what Pluto can do after exposing the corruptions of years past is no longer restrained by the chains of power in Capricorn. In Aquarius, Pluto’s power is spread out into the hands of many, not one. In mundane terms, I expect State rights in the US to contribute to the country dividing up into regions, as the federal government becomes less dominant or more symbolic as the common head of a divided union. Not in 2024, but soon, Uranus will be in the Air sign Gemini, interacting positively with Pluto in the Air sign Aquarius. The prior incompatibility of these major planets, one in Earth and one in an Air sign, is gone. The pace of evolution is going to be much quicker; it has to be. It’s not evolution for fun; it’s evolution for survival. Pressure. In April of 2024, Jupiter joins and amplifies Uranus in Taurus. Then in early summer of 2024, Jupiter then moves into Gemini to get everyone involved in the dialogue stirred up after it met up with Uranus in April. Jupiter is a potent agent for expanding the mind with a philosophical or thoughtful intent. In Gemini, Jupiter’s influence ramps up communication. Jupiter wants a deep, extended conversation but it’s difficult to find one in Gemini, which is more accustomed to multitasking and chatter. This works for AI better than for humans. Intuitive higher-minded innovators may now find their suggestions are more welcome but required explanations are saved for another day, when Jupiter moves into Cancer. The Environment and Climate At the time of this writing, El Nino is very strong and forecasted to weaken by spring, falling into “neutral” by summer. This forecast is uncertain as always; the oscillation forecasts are often wrong. During the El Nino season of 2023, hurricane formation in the warmer-than-ever Atlantic basin was depressed by El Nino’s east-bound winds, decapitating storm clouds that could have become tropical storms or hurricanes. In a neutral or La Nina season, the prevailing eastbound winds cease doing that, and hurricanes form in much greater numbers. With seas warmer than usual, the forecast for tropical storms and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic seaboard, and the Caribbean will probably blossom in 2024 from 2023’s numbers. Parts of the world that never had tropical storms are now having them, such as the Mediterranean Sea, eastern Africa, and South America. Storms are penetrating inland in the US, escalating the cost of home building and insurance in those areas to the prohibitive. Tornado season is no longer a few weeks in one area in the spring. Some astrologers are calling for volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in 2024. Uranus is in an Earth sign which sounds like a good combination for shaking the Earth. But Taurus grounds the lightning rod of Uranus. When Jupiter conjuncts Uranus in April, their combination is capable of producing eruptions and quakes galore for the weeks they are conjunct. Jupiter expands what it comes into contact with. Neptune in Aries isn’t good for the environment. With Neptune moving into Aries, human beings in a bit of a panic will sacrifice the environment for goal-getting. Some of this will be because there isn’t time to fully study and develop ideas as the scientific method prefers. Fortunately, later on in 2026 and beyond, the trine from Uranus in Gemini to Pluto in Aquarius will bring a steady stream of innovations, which I hope are not bad for the environment. We will have new forms of energy generation with Uranus trined to Pluto from Gemini to Aquarius and more efficient, cleaner manufacturing thanks to AI. We are going to see a new era unfold over the next 20 years for those who survive them. More about Pluto entering Aquarius The actual Age of Aquarius is still decades away no matter what anyone tells you. But with Pluto entering Uranus’ favorite sign of Aquarius, their relationship is going to favor reinventing the wheel. If there is alien tech hiding in the hands of human engineers and scientists, by 2026 it’s in the hands of commercial manufacturing and AI has made many successful revisions and discoveries in things we thought we knew. Pluto entering Aquarius also comes with its usual manner of disruption in order to bring out the best. Pluto typically brings us to interrupt the track we’re on to get us on another, by wrecking something we use now. Pluto as a faculty of the unconscious recognizes all kinds of pathological behavior and uses it. In general, our psyche uses every flavor of human behavior to get us where we need to be. This includes disasters. Pluto stores every experience or how we perceived them from birth, plus inherited tendencies and even from past lives. When we knock on Pluto’s door, we’re entering the psychological basement storage room for everything. The entire Industrial Revolution spanned two and a half centuries; that’s one cycle of Pluto. Over that time, one idea or invention replaced another. Now it’s starting over where it began, in Aquarius. Many things we live with that were once considered wonderful will be replaced by new versions. Some of these former new ideas have a downside, as we found out. We’ll want to do better. Planetary transformationWe’re going to see transformation of the planet which we refer to generally as climate change. It’s going to accelerate over the next few years as Pluto moves into the sign of the water bearer, in a shorter time frame than until recently was thought possible. These changes threaten many animal and plant species and the environment in total with a harsh future; this is Neptune in Aries. Saturn is editing the stage and resetting it with what can survive. Most people imagine simplistically that cutting back on fossil fuels solves the problem, replacing those industries and jobs with green solutions. Civilization is a heat engine however it’s run; the planet has passed 8 billion in human population. Simply because 8 billion of us exist makes the planet hotter. Aerosol Masking (also known as Global Dimming) is another byproduct of the Industrial age that complicates the Greenhouse Effect. Simply put, reducing industrial and natural gases in the atmosphere will allow much more sun/heat in, to be trapped by the Greenhouse effect and raising the global temperature by 3-5 degrees within a short matter of weeks, which accelerates all the feedback loops pushing a hotter planet. Going electric is no magic bullet. Things will get worse before they get better. This complex atmospheric problem needs more study, but we don’t have decades to solve this riddle. Saturn doesn’t have the power to alter landscapes that Pluto and Neptune do, but Saturn is more obviously active than Neptune or Pluto in our 3D lives. Saturn is our ability to estimate and act on whether we have enough or too much about anything that we believe to be of value. Saturn is very useful in moderation and confining in extremes. Neptune does not have clear lines of function and action, as we have seen. Neptune and Saturn will be together for around a year, spilling into Aries, arm in arm. Saturn will get its work done and leave within two years. Neptune will stick around in Aries like a loaded file cabinet with content that gestated during its time in Pisces, now available to petitioners. Saturn has an agenda. The absence of a strong Neptune as it moves into Aries might by itself unleash gross insensitivity, but to do so with the celestial cop standing there is just going to land you in cosmic jail. Again, I don’t expect world war. The real world war is for survival and this war should get everyone’s attention.Pluto is the planet of the atomic age. Small planetoid Pluto works on the atomic level. It stores in another dimension all human experience with the emotional impacts they made, a resource to be used in our growth, sometimes as a lever and sometimes as a blunt object. Pluto is a resource from which we can release reborn energy from within the atom for new uses. As Pluto enters Aquarius if there is to be a war, nuclear technology will be employed. If there isn’t a war, nuclear technology will be employed in the form of new technology like fusion reactors. That is inevitable; recent news says we are getting close to having it. The atomic planet Pluto will bring nuclear physics into our lives. Aquarius is the water bearer, bringing the essence of etheric energy hovering in other dimensions into this one, including divine inspiration in the form of new ideas, new inventions. Planet Earth is at war with us; armies of people will be migrating and rebuilding over the next 20 or so years. A war with an Aquarian emphasis and not a Capricorn emphasis is fought in cyberspace. I expect this will happen, and for a period of time, the technologies we rely on for internet connections won’t work. We will have to invent a better system, and we will. It’s never been established that an internet assault on a government is an act of war, and yet it’s happened many times on a large scale and no military war came from it. It’s also possible that a cyber war is initiated not by human actors but from the impact of a solar flare. The impact might be inconsistent across the globe. Satellites may be knocked out, too. During the initial days of such an event’s aftermath, conventional military warfare may happen, though major militaries are very much dependent on sophisticated technologies that would be knocked out by a major flare. Some suggest that a Saturn/Neptune meeting in Aries occurred during the American Civil War. Yes, Neptune was in Aries, but Saturn was not there at the same time. I checked. Astrologer Steve Judd has pointed out that in 1939 when Britain declared war on Germany, Pluto was crossing over from 29 degrees of Cancer into Leo. It is now opposite where it was at the start of WW2 - crossing into Aquarius. Neptune was at 24 degrees of Virgo. Neptune is now opposite where it was when war was declared in 1939. Uranus in 1939 was at the same degree/placement when Britain declared war, in Taurus. Uranus will be there again in April of 2024 when Jupiter conjuncts it. It’s an interesting coincidence of planets in signs but the outcome isn’t likely to be the same as the positions of the planets are not as they were in 1939. The present-day connections to the positions in 1939, etc, point out that some of those ripples in the cosmic pond are still reverberating. Some of the same players and influences are present but different. I would say they have evolved. They have learned from past experiences. The unity of the allies from WW2 is now the unity within NATO. Jupiter magnifies whatever planet it conjuncts. Jupiter isn’t today in the same placement it had in 1939, but when the US declared or entered WW2 in December of 1941, Jupiter had arrived at the same placement it will occupy in April of 2024 when it meets up with Uranus. There are echoes of the past, and we can see alliances made from 1941 still present today. They may preclude a war this time. Both Pluto and Neptune are opposite where they were 84 years ago and since that fateful day in 1941 Uranus has completed one full orbit of the zodiac, which it always does every 84 years. In September 1939 when war was declared, Saturn was crossing over into Scorpio in a 90 degree square to Pluto’s degree at that time. This time Saturn will eventually be sextile Pluto in the sky, much more amenable to resolving problems than a square. The remarkable dance of planets in synchronistic sign placement merely means that there are undercurrents operating all the time and powerful aspects in our planetary defined psyche making ripples in the cosmic pond, waves that continue to reverberate decades later. It doesn’t mean we’re going to have wars, as before. It does mean there are evolutionary struggles to be had between the same planets, the same components in our collective human psyche. Vladmir PutinIn April of 2025, Saturn will square Putin's natal Mars as it approaches the extended meeting with Neptune. Neptune will have already been squaring Putin’s Mars since 2023. The Neptune square could be a sign of a serious longstanding illness. When Putin sent his forces to Ukraine, his chart showed him living under an illusion of greatness. Today, that aspect is in his past. Saturn is now forcing a clear view into his prior delusion. I know; we’ve been hearing about a Putin illness for years. The chart indicates something long-standing. It’s difficult to be precise with Putin’s chart. Astrologers are not completely confident we have an accurate birth time or place, but we have his year and day of birth and can work with that. Jupiter and Uranus conjunct Putin’s natal Jupiter in April of 2024. This energy also feeds into his delusion of greatness and often carelessness. He will continue astrologically to believe in his own greatness, which runs against stronger forces in his chart and helps him avoid reality. The best thing that could come from this is calling himself a great hero as he signs a peace agreement that otherwise looks like two years of his folly. Putin has had a warning - last year, Uranus opposed his natal Venus and we heard rumors at that time of an illness. In February of 2024, Saturn will square his natal Moon, and while the position of the natal Moon is not certain within a few degrees because of uncertainty around his birth time/place, it happens close to or at the location of the chart I have for him regardless. The effect is the feeling of loss, even depression. Whether he loses a woman in his life, a major piece of real estate in Ukraine, Mother Russia, or simply is depressed and unable to sleep, this puts a grim filter on everything he plans. While he entered the war in Ukraine under the false belief in his invincibility, according to his chart that false support is astrologically gone by the end of 2023, and he will face a reality not to his liking. By 2027, Putin may still be alive, but he won’t be in power. There’s too much working against him, especially with Saturn opposing Saturn, Mercury and Sun in his natal 12th house of hidden enemies. UkraineModern Russia’s chart post-USSR has natal Saturn at 3 degrees of Aquarius. Pluto will be technically conjunct this position, even at the last degrees of Capricorn, but Pluto’s new lease on life will do a lot of internal upheaval as it closes on an exact conjunction to natal Saturn and squares natal Venus through 2025. Maybe Russia joins Ukraine. Another way of looking at the war in Ukraine is perhaps offensive to Ukraine, but it can also be looked at as a revolutionary war of Russia. Historically, until recent times, they were one country. In the present day, an evolutionary war is taking place. (Drop the first “r”.) Ukraine is pulling itself out of the Russian body and Russia is resisting. It’s a civil war. This has been going on for a long time. The Crimean War was between European powers trying to maintain the status quo that the Ottoman Empire had maintained, contesting this with the rising Russian powers in the same area in 1853. Russia, the Ottomans and the Europeans relied on the transit of trade routes in the area and on the Black Sea. Oddly, that war had ties to the land of Palestine, arguing over influence and the rights of Christian Palestinians in the eastern Mediterranean. The Ottoman rulers were the dominant Middle Eastern power at the time, though their empire was in decline. In April of 1852, Saturn and Uranus were conjunct in Taurus. This April, Jupiter and Uranus will make a conjunction in Taurus, a different combination. Pluto was located in late Aries during the Crimean War, square to its position today in the recent two to three years we just lived through. Pluto departs that position fully in late 2024, suggesting that the resonance there of conflict that we’re living through today will be over at the end of 2024. One might speculate that when Pluto clears this degree, today's war will pass into history. The Crimean War over a century ago exhausted Russia’s economic ability to continue expanding or even maintaining its territorial claims in the region. They settled for peace, unable to compete with the European powers of the day and the Ottomans. That war ushered in the use of new war technologies of the era, including the telegraph and the ability to report and pass strategies quickly. In early March 2024, Saturn transiting in Pisces makes a sextile from its position in the second house to Ukraine's natal Uranus in the 12th house. This is a surprise gift, probably of money, as Saturn has just entered Ukraine's 2nd house. Natal Uranus in the 12th house suggests this gift exceeds what was expected. Karmically, it is due. Any gift they get now has to be stretched because a long-term passage of Saturn in the 2nd house suggests some budgetary limits for the foreseeable future, which are a little tougher than they already were. Pluto’s move into Aquarius in 2024 conjuncts Ukraine’s natal Saturn. This is a year or two of testing and likely hardship, but ultimately can produce something amazing as Pluto is the phoenix that rises from the ashes to fly again. Saturn doesn’t punish; it demands dedication and discipline, which we can see is present in Ukraine. Given that these qualities are present, it conveys success. By April of 2025, transiting Saturn is sextile Ukraine's natal Uranus and transiting Uranus is trine natal Uranus. Most of 2025 is a very positive year for them. The trine from transiting Uranus to natal Uranus is a huge lift up, as is the sextile from transiting Saturn. Good things will happen quickly. In late summer 2025 a third transit from Jupiter follows the positive transit aspects from Saturn and Uranus. Altogether I believe this period leads them into a new partnership, probably with the EU and or NATO. The specter of this happening should motivate Russia to end the war in an attempt to prevent this, as part of a negotiation. Russia has an election in March of 2024. If it was an honestly staged event, a woman would win. Though the Russian establishment will block the existence of an even playing field, she will still achieve a success alarming to Putin and therefore a problem for her. The time is coming for the autocrats of the world to be on the decline with Pluto leaving Capricorn finally in late 2024. It’s very simple: people will need each other to survive, and that is Aquarian, not Capricorn. Pluto in Aquarius will bring reasons for people to need each other, sorry to say. Central power from a single government will prove less efficient in an era when various natural phenomena force people to relocate, communications and transportation of daily goods to break down, and law and order to rely on local officials. Not all of this is happening in 2024, but coming soon: In 2023, when Pluto briefly left Capricorn to enter Aquarius before retrograding back, a leading innovator of AI, formerly a Google lead architect, went public with his worry that AI was going to bring us to the fictional scenario of the movie Terminator, where supercomputers figured out that the biggest threat to the world was humanity. This idea won’t go away when Pluto is fully in Aquarius. Humanity can’t restrain the development of AI now that it’s started. For reasons of competitive necessity, AI is going to ascend as it is inserted into our technology. It’s going to review human activities and knowledge and upgrade them with dimensions of thought that we hadn’t considered. It’s going to study other animal and plant life and possibly discover forms of communication between them or make it possible for us to have a limited form of communication with them. For the people who objected to the “Me Too” movement, you’ll love it when plants and fish can tell us to back off. The same thing applies to communications with extraterrestrial life. AI will think of things and look at places humans have not. AI could make contact, not us. There’s no holding back the many tangents it can explore. There are also many applications for AI that are nefarious, but that’s to be expected since humans made it. Outlook for world markets With the energy of tremendous expansion in Jupiter meeting up with Uranus in April, plus the injection of an eclipse at the same time, there’s volatility in world markets. The investment world loves stability, and for the first few months of 2024, they’ll mostly get that. There’s a little shock in April, but very good after that. Carrington Event In 1859, the planet Earth experienced what is known in the USA as the Carrington Event, the largest, most powerful solar flare recorded in modern times. At that time, among the major outer planets, Pluto was at 8 degrees of Taurus, Uranus was at 7 degrees of Gemini, Saturn was at 19 degrees of Leo, and Neptune was at 27 degrees of Pisces. Pluto in Taurus was in a sentagon aspect to its natal position in the US natal chart. (A sentagon is a 100-degree angle between two significant points. It is life-altering.) During September of 1859 when the sentagon was in play, the world experienced what has come to be called the Carrington Event. This event characterizes the one to two days of impact from a powerful X-class solar flare directly hitting Earth. The electromagnetic surge, coming from what must have been a phenomenally powerful solar flare erupting on the Sun a few days before, hit the Earth's upper atmosphere and interacted with the planet’s electromagnetic field. At that time, there was almost no technology to be affected, only the telegraph lines. Witnesses reported that the lines conducting the surge from the Sun’s blast caught fire in many locations. The lines simply could not handle the powerful surge and fried. Today, things are very different. We not only have a lot more wires everywhere, our entire civilization is wired and wireless with highly sensitive electronic devices and even more ordinary things which are vulnerable to surges from such an event, such as the power grid. Astrologer Mystic Medusa has done some study of the Carrington Event with chart calculations for that event plus four other major solar geomagnetic events. The one thing she found in common was a tense aspect between Eres and one or more of the other outer planets. (Eres is a companion of sorts to Pluto, another planetoid of similar size to Pluto also located out past the orbit of Neptune.) No such aspect is likely this year. Mars, an inner planet, makes a square to Eres on February 6-8th. Perhaps we at least experience a major flare, though not at a Carrington level. The next outer planet to square slow-moving Eres will be Jupiter in the summer of 2025, along with Mars at the same time. That may have possibilities. Contact David at davidiste@yahoo.com for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page By David A. Wheatley https://www.bridges.academy/astrologycorner.html Annular Eclipse on Oct 14thThere’s an annular eclipse of the Sun by the Moon on October 14th. It will be visible in the US, Central America and parts of South America. In the US its path enters on the northwest Pacific coast and arcs southeast across southwestern Texas. More importantly, the event is at approximately 20 degrees of Libra. Anyone with natal planets at 20+/- degrees of any sign but especially in Libra, Aries, Cancer or Capricorn will notice an effect of the eclipse but depending on their natal planets and houses involved the impact may be anything from subtle to dramatic. Anyone with planets at 20 degrees of other signs may be touched by it, but don’t expect much. There are a number of places online to get a proper natal chart done, for free. I can safely recommend that a reliable chart is offered at: www.astro.com Traditional Astrology attributes some importance to an eclipse falling exactly on a natal point, modern Astrology gives a wider range of milder impacts. The effects of an eclipse can last for months, kind of like taking a detour on a long drive. It doesn’t alter where you are going but it could alter how you get there. ALL the trans-Jupiter planets are about to change signsBeginning in late 2024, Pluto will move into Aquarius where it will stay for about twenty years. It’s been flirting with this move in the last year and will again in 2024 while retrograding back temporarily into Capricorn, making a profound change seem more gradual. This shift of a major psychological planet is all by itself a huge shared experience for mankind. Also, in the natal chart of the USA there’s a return of Pluto to where its natal placement is, coming in the first quarter of 2024. Some Astrologers think that the Pluto Return has already occurred, but in fact, if an adjustment is made for Pluto’s ponderously slow movement around the zodiac for the movement of the zodiac itself (precession of the equinoxes), then the Pluto Return will occur between February and April of 2024. This required adjustment only applies to features in the zodiac whose positions advance over centuries, longer than a human lifespan. The Pluto Return in the US chart has to impact material values more than simply the economy, as some people suggest, because it is in the US 2nd House of material values. Of course, there are corresponding impacts on the economy, but ‘material values’ is a broader reference to the nation’s material values or simply values than it is specifically the economy. Naturally, economic well-being is directly related to our values, but there are other factors we would like to believe are more crucial to the nation’s values than the economy. Historically, one of the easiest values to identify circulates around discrimination towards Native and African American people, and others. (All non-white people whom white people discriminated against after subduing Native peoples and engaging in the slavery and slave labor of people from other continents like Africa, China etc.). There are economic factors related to this issue both in the past and the present, but overall, the values at the heart of it go beyond economics and these issues still require work. Because of the inherent power around Pluto, these issues rose to become public issues years before the actual exact time of the Pluto Return. We have seen issues of racial inequality and our social conscience surface in the last several years, becoming a major part of the contest for social and political definition. Who are we? This and other issues are the levers forcing the needed regeneration of old unresolved historical values in a Pluto Return. Resistance to the evolution required gives Pluto the power to force us into harder and harder choices, digging deeper and deeper as necessary. If we want to make the road ahead less stressful, we can not only welcome the need to change, we could even be grateful for the agents that bring this to our attention. Pluto, Agent of Growth |
The best and easiest illustration to grasp Uranus is the Tower card in the Major Arcana of a deck of Tarot cards. Saturn is often depicted in a somber Grim Reaper Father Time illustration. They are both upsetting however both provide vital parts of evolving consciousness, evicting us from comfortable but retarding ruts, demanding we be responsible, inviting us to break out and try new ideas, acting out crazy bad ideas and paying a price for them. In the mix of these two different patterns established life structures are often stripped down, new ones built, with accompanying periods of frustration pulling in all directions as processes work their way through to us seeing more clearly the follies on one side and refining our goals on the other. |
Altogether Saturn, Uranus and Pluto completions this year into next conclude some themes and begin to move us into new chapters. They reveal and release hidden information and insight into the events that turned up during transiting aspects during these recent years.
Meanwhile things continue to move forward. Time waits for no one.
No ordinary election
A change in character emphasis begins in March
Pluto changes signs by direct then retrograde and direct motion in over two years, a huge shift for all of us. Many of the themes for its time in Capricorn don't come to an end as much as get less attention, while other areas of life gain more. As new concerns come into view, we relegate many former priorities to the back burner. The major planets bring into our lives from remote areas of our consciousness things we must deal with and might have been too distracted to manage or prepare for.
Thus, the shift of focus often arrives like an uninvited guest. We might greet that guest with joy or a long face, we might be grateful to be catapulted out of a rut. Or we might dread facing more problems to address. We can usually count on Pluto to drag the junk out of the basement that we ignored, stuffed away to deal with at a later date. That time has come. Moving into Aquarius the emphasis will appear to many as problems humanity can solve with technology. Problems with technology. Maybe for a while, technology that doesn't work. Can't work. The planet discovered at the time humanity brought forth the atomic age, Pluto, will be upgraded while in Aquarius but maybe because it doesn't work and has to be rebuilt.
Why doesn't it work? Temporarily, there can be many reasons for this. I won't speculate here now but I am expecting a reboot of the atomic age. It probably starts out from a mess, dysfunctionally crippled because of humanity, but sometime down the road humanity arrives at something better, like fission reactors instead of fusion.
This all plays out in the coming few years.
David Wheatley, end October 2022
Contact David at davidfinearts@gmail.com for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page
We are in a unique period where there is a Pluto return at the same time as a Neptune opposition to its natal position in the US chart. The Pluto return is opposite natal Mercury along the 2nd and 8th house axis. This clearly indicates a period of a couple years of major economic/financial challenges filtered through 9th house idealism. The most tangible manifestation of this is how supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression is inflating the cost of living. That the causes are far away in another country is perfectly in keeping with the US 9th house position of Neptune. We remain in this moment into 2024. Are Americans willing to pay at the pump and more for everything else to help push back totalitarians in eastern Europe? This theme isn’t unique to the US but easy to see how this transit by Neptune is substantial in the US economy and therefore elsewhere. It doesn’t seem likely that western allies are going to back off this commitment however in America there are sympathetic voices to Vladimir Putin.
There’s also the darker side of Pluto in this. Being that Pluto’s return to its natal placement in the US chart is 2nd and 8th house, the 8th house hearkens back to investments made in the past and how well they serve us in the present. Investments of all kinds, not strictly financial investments. Diplomatic investments. Research investments. Emotional investments in our families and jobs.
Oil is something from the past, serving in the present. Oil is also involved in the powers that dominate corporate America (Pluto in Capricorn), and Russia. These powers could ease the pain of inflation, however instead are reaping huge profits and not spending towards creating a more stable market in which prices for other goods could ease. This pressure will be undone as Pluto departs the return and departs Capricorn for Aquarius within the next two years. It will ultimately be up to the American voters to decide what their values are in the 2024 election after which these giant aspects diminish. They will vote based on their values to complete the transit of Neptune opposing the US natal Neptune.
The purpose of Pluto stirring up corporate conspiracies and exposing corruption in governments isn’t to make them become virtuous. Their purpose is to provide on an individual level the opportunity to examine and then act on what we believe in, to provide us and our electorate the opportunity to manifest their beliefs. Pluto can set up and expose corruption; it can create then undermine it.
The individual and national or collective will to establish values and then act on them is why we need to go through these stressful events. We have to prove what we say. The need to revisit and examine values is work that is never done. Since Pluto for example will move on into Aquarius doesn’t mean it leaves the government or political leaders it exposed as corrupt or corporations cheating, all neat and tidy, all repaired. It just means that the recent cycles of transits - which span decades and generations - are complete, and the next round of rebuilding will in time come due for another generation. We will do it all again probably, for other souls who need to face the same kind of decisions. This is a major overhaul questioning the founding principles of the US; it’s the first Pluto return in its history. Finding out that some things don’t work means we have to rewrite the rules. We definitely learned in the last five years that there are those who will operate outside the old established rules because they were not encoded law. But we probably need to face a crisis of dysfunction before some people will believe it.
In the 9th house is the possibility of noble well-informed intent with a religious sense of purpose, just as there is the possibility that these values are a load of croc. The problem in the 9th house is because we consider the belief to be sacred, we resist it ever evolving.
The burst of energy represented by the birth chart of the USA continues to be the chart of the lives being lived on this land at the moment, but it’s a very different set of circumstances. There is unfortunately a tremendous amount of tragic karma yet to be resolved that this country was built on. One of the things that helps to do that is recognition of the common interests of everyone living in it now to fulfill a shared variously defined idealism we agree to, and one of the realities of that is an economy that offers opportunities for its participants.
It’s a question of belief, not necessarily of reality.
Neptune thinks everything is real, it doesn’t separate fact from fiction. We have to sort it out and integrate what works down here on Earth because Neptune is far sighted and can’t see things individually up close isolated from each other. The expanse of Neptune’s perception is other worldly. It’s a valuable perspective to retain because we realize how silly some of our close-up obsessions are. But we live here on Earth to iron out some of the details, not spread ourselves thin across the seas of Neptune.
Neptune in transit opposing it’s US natal placement says hold on a minute, are we the majority in agreement of what we believe our valued goal to be? This is a period of confusion because not everyone agrees on what national value or ideals are, or what is fact or fiction. People don’t recognize how Neptune works or works in their lives because it is subtle, its impact seems vague. Neptune accepts everything one believes as fact, which is why people don’t recognize Neptune. It’s too obvious. Belief defines Neptune’s reality and we act on whatever it is.
The opposition from transiting Neptune in Pisces most of all dissolves the definitions of what is a valid belief or not valid. Belief was never fact; it was always a guess highly dependent on wishful thinking.
If we recognize that Neptune is a formless watery ocean that takes on whatever shape we pour it into, we also have to recognize that what we believe is going to look different depending on who’s looking at it. In that case we had better develop a common understanding of what we are looking at. Go from there. Up to now we had written and unwritten laws about what was a common national goal and standards of ethical behavior. But Neptune says, wait a minute, what happens when I remove that common belief? What happens when the doors swing open and anything goes? That’s about where we’re at.
The other more dramatic astrological event unfolding is...
Uranus moved into the earth sign Taurus a few years ago. As I and others have commented, Taurus, a literally down to earth grounded energy, is not a great place for Uranus. Uranus was the ancient sky god, not grounded, represented in the Tarot deck as the lightning bolt that knocked down the Tower of Babel. Uranus is the iconic ruler of the new age sign Aquarius, and was the first planet discovered because of the use of new technology at the time, the telescope. It wants unrestricted movement. Taurus is all about nailing things down, securing all the hatches, no loose ends. The combination of these two is that the potential energy of the Uranian lightning bolt is held in chains until something provokes a moment of release. At that time, potentially long held pent up energy is released. The release can be as a one-time thing or a series of expressions over the period of the provocation. In this instance Mars is the catalyst. Mars is also not at its best in Taurus; it also does not like being contained. Mars tends to react with a careless impatience when restrained. This is a combination suited well to any kind of breaking out of restraint: breakthrough, eruption, breakdown, angry outburst, crash, breaking the rules without concern for the consequences good or bad, pushing through adversity, winning at all costs, frustration, earthquake, explosion.
If one has the ability to let this energy be expressed with discipline it can be used very constructively to achieve something long sought for, but this is no easy task. It’s drinking water from a fire hose.
The North Nodes add a little dimension to the events. They tell us that this is a hurdle that collectively and individually we have faced before and this time we have to make the step that’s been hard to do if we want to move forward in a healthy way. It’s an opportunity.
When late July comes around, and into early August, watch carefully not to lose your temper and if challenged to put the energy into finding resolution. Don’t throw something at the TV or break the Ming vase, although that would be better than taking it out on someone else or hurting yourself. Exercise but don’t try and set a record, unless you are a professional athlete in a competition. In that case you might win.
Contact David Wheatley at davidfinearts@gmail.com for a personal astrological consultation
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page
What now and just ahead for Putin and Russia
Saturn, the leveler of visionary expansion, moves into tighter opposition to his Pluto
Jupiter met up with Neptune again lately, this February through April. While together this time, they were joined by Venus, the Sun, Mercury and Mars. As I commented in an earlier review the expansive qualities of especially Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces are limitless insofar as the human psyche is concerned. Dreams and visions are very grand. But the reality came as soon as Jupiter departed. Jupiter has now entered Aries, where patience is short for expecting reality to equal the vision.
It’s fine to envision a destiny ahead full of celebration and adoration. It’s good to create a path for success by imagining it, but if this singular self-serving vision clashes with much greater numbers and many other dreams, the shake-out can be a let down.
Pisces can be caught up in a universe of dreams that inspire bold moves. Aries doesn’t wait for evolution, it wants results sooner.
I did a painting years ago of an individual surfing a surging cosmic tide in the human psyche. It was a kind of a Rorschach test; do you see the surfer leading the wave or is the wave taking the surfer? We never have the full picture; it isn’t necessary, isn’t always helpful and is distracting. Our intellect often sees what we consider the full picture, but it is really only our picture. Our intellect dwells on itself, we are very subjective beings. Intuitive knowledge skips trying to intellectualize information in order to own it, to own all there is to know. Intuitive knowledge is knowing what you need to know without being held back by what you don’t know.
Earlier this year Jupiter transited Putin’s natal chart in a favorable relationship/aspect from Pisces to both natal Venus and Jupiter. These aspects contributed heavily to making his decision to "liberate" Ukraine. Putin is a Libra. He has Mercury, Neptune and Saturn in Libra at birth along with the Sun, conveying a belief that he can charm others, that he believes in the illusion of control as a masterful manipulator. Jupiter, working for higher purposes, inflated his belief in being the hand of destiny.
However, Jupiter’s series of aspects to his natal cluster in Libra, while a brief flirtation with Putin’s impending immortality, pales in comparison to Saturn’s over-arching transit in Putin’s natal chart. Saturn is in a growing tighter opposition to his natal Pluto. In the bigger picture any grasp he imagined he had over others is itself part of greater forces that incidentally remind him that he is not immortal, he is like everyone else a flicker of a flame in the hand of destiny, not destiny itself. There are much greater forces at work than individual intentions.
This transit from Saturn opposite his natal Pluto will wane by the end of the year, as Saturn leaves Aquarius early next year and moves into Pisces. That’s two major events with Saturn that are peaked now and wane by the end of the year. This should tell us something about the transitions ahead early next year.
Along the way, Saturn moves into Putin’s 4th house, a changing emphasis for his chart from strategy and planning to trauma in his personal sphere. It is bringing the specter of Saturn’s cosmic scythe into his personal home, shaking the foundations of his self image. Saturn arrived there on the cusp of his 4th House in April, and by retrograde motion will hit again over the summer. This is a harsh reality hitting home. Putin will face severe limits and restrictions in his personal life and may even be confined to it. In the western world, politicians sometimes tell the public they've decided to spend more time with their families when they have to duck out of leadership. Putin will be sticking close to home, insulating himself.
Often when a major planet changes signs, big things happen in the world and circumstances we grew accustomed to that are no more permanent than a flower bed disappear, and people seem amazed because they had grown accustomed to them. Pluto moving into Aquarius is an interesting subject for another day, it’s not done yet in Capricorn.
Contact David Wheatley at davidfinearts@gmail.com for a personal astrological consultation
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page
Most people regard Jupiter according to its physical enormity as being far more powerful and influential in our lives than Venus. What Jupiter does is bring to the table big ideas, hopes and dreams in Pisces. Things seem within our grasp, and they are. Jupiter is perceived to be a better support than the rest of the other outer plants: Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto and Chiron.
In a month or so when Mars joins Jupiter in Ares everything will have changed from the apparent hopes of recent months into a world that more resembles the state of mind we had before Jupiter entered Pisces and met up with Neptune. What happens when the hopes and dreams of Jupiter and Venus meet up with Neptune in Pisces is played out as the blunt realities of life return to force decisions. We find how successfully flowing or awkwardly dysfunctional our position is and learn the consequences of whatever we attempted to develop in the past few months.
For Ukraine and its supporters, the reality becomes measuring the costs of support and what is now required to make their visions more manifest. Actions speak louder than words and not all of them are in Piscean harmony because while in Ares, Jupiter and Mars are not as interested in the process of imagining. They are seeking resolution, pushing for a clash of realities in order to sort it out and get to what the stronger reality is. It’s not just a question of who has the stronger will, but of what can actually be done - that’s reality. Support of Ukraine from other countries could move from standing by and supplying arms to something more confrontational, more Arian. While this play of nerves might unsettle a lot of people it could also be the shortest route to ending the clash of hopes that’s currently devastating Ukraine and the escalating costs from the Russian military, because it forces the participants and their supporters to deal with realities that in the past couple months they didn’t have to. Jupiter and Mars in Ares are a dramatic departure from their time in the previous few signs, especially when in Pisces.
The climax at the end of April into early May - the transition from Pisces owning center stage to then having to share it with Ares - is a clash of two very different actors in their roles brought out in the open. Jupiter and Mars moving into Ares symbolizes the desire to make the visions of recent months become realities and the willingness to raise the level of drama to whatever is required to make it happen…... because the costs of prolonging the recent state of success/failure are forcing an effort to impose an ending. Many of us will transition from accepting certain realities of recent months to wanting to shape them more. Make things happen.
Uranus can be the only way we get some things done because of restraints we placed upon ourselves. Remember though that this group are in Taurus. Uranus according to its nature wants freedom of expression anytime any place. Taurus tethers all energy to the ground, Mother Earth, and insists on any expression having value in supporting life. Taurus attempts to tie Uranus to the ground full time, and make it behave, and for much of its time in Taurus, Uranus will be restrained. When it has moments of occasional release due to the activation of other planets in aspect or simply passing over it, Uranus has a brief opportunity to send out one of its lightning bolts: a sudden shaft of illumination that potentially changes the view of the landscape, changes how we perceive ourselves in the environment. Uranus has a reputation for being somewhere in between tricky and dangerous, because changes we may really want or need come about by a lightning bolt provocation we are not in control of.
https://www.bridges.academy/astrologycorner.html
Patterns as vibrating frequencies in our psyche
Patterns are what human behavior is all about and so too with Astrology, mapping the patterns over centuries no less day to day. Patterns of behavior while usually not conscious get repeated, passed on to others, adopted from others, intermingled like instruments in a band. Planetary motions stimulate and modify them and we only become aware of them when they surface as events in our lives. Our narrow immediate focus moves on to other demands and distractions as the patterns continue to be vibrating frequencies in our psyche. So it is with major planetary aspects that can appear to be active for several months, a year or two, even several years or more. Just because we are not conscious of them doesn't mean they are done.
Putin’s Dream vs Compelling Reality
Jupiter and Neptune conjunct by transit in Pisces is putting air in our balloons. This shifts quickly when Jupiter leaves Pisces and enters Aries, in several weeks. But at present Jupiter/Neptune is in an inconjunct aspect to the same natal Libra cluster in Putin's chart. This inconjunct aspect is going to force reality into the dream. The time will then arrive for a decision compelled by various realities.
Obsession. Putin is his own fall guy.
It's fascinating that Putin resonates with his native land to the extent that on this anniversary of Jupiter and Neptune meeting in Pisces almost at the exact degree as they did in 1856, he's sowing the seeds and laying down the fertilizer for his undoing, with a “take out the garbage” Pluto accent, at a time when he feels the confidence of the inner planets propping his sense of destiny up. It's a major setup and he is his own fall guy.
Biden and Zelenskyy transits now and soon
The leader of Ukraine who is distinguishing himself right now had a challenge in his chart more stressful than at present occurring with the summer of phone calls from former President Trump, attempting to coerce Volodymyr Zelenskyy into implicating then candidate Biden. Zelenskyy was relatively new to his leadership role. Pressure from the President of the United States attempted to manipulate him into manufacturing a criminal investigation into candidate Biden's son in exchange for the release to Ukraine of US Congressionally approved financial support. Zelenskyy had to navigate this in an ethical way and at the same time keep the support of the US government. Zelenskyy has troublesome but less severe issues in his chart at the moment. In a year or so he will have to deal with Pluto opposing his natal Mars and then soon after conjuncting his natal Sun. Those could be violent threats to his vitality.
US Chart:
Pluto transforms, while Neptune inspires struggles to reconcile founding ideals with present day reality
Another major event occurring now in the US chart is Neptune transiting in opposition to the US natal Neptune. As it evoked at the birth of the US, there's going to be a generational shift of social consciousness, civil rights, etc. The opposition implies a struggle; reconciling our founding ideals with our current realities. Neptune like Pluto has influence long before it arrives at a critical juncture. Years before. It also will be in effect through the 2024 election in the US due to retrograde motion extending the transit.
Neptune was in the 9th house at the time of this county’s birth - this country was born with 9th house high minded ideals and an unavoidable knowing of the failures to meet these standards. The current Neptune transit's opposition is calling for a hard review of those standards. The transit comes from Neptune transiting in the 3rd house, implying that we are having and will have more out-in- the-open dialogue about the ideals. There's a wide divide in the US at present circulating in our social consciousness, and unfortunately as we enter into the over blown multiyear period of endless presidential election preparation, the factions will take their corners and come out swinging. Racial and religious arguments will be offered to sway opinions. The natal chart is calling out for the challenges to be aired and refreshed. It's up to the people, as it was when the nation was born.
There's also another aspect of Neptune I'd like to suggest we be aware of. Neptune has many key associations including with vast metaphorical and literal oceans and water. Probably in the next two years we become very involved with the world's oceans in a challenging way because it is an opposition aspect. Learning the hard way.
David A. Wheatley has been a Fine Artist/painter since first exhibiting in Soho, New York during the 1970’s. David developed other talents first as a tarot reader then extending into astrological theory, a practice which lead to the development of ideas in his book, 2012 Before and After. Working occasionally as a full time tarot and astrological counselor, David grew familiar with many other related disciplines through the years that add great dimension to astrological traditions, including psychological perspectives and the development of quantum physics. David currently resides in Florida.
Contact David Wheatley at davidfinearts@gmail.com for a personal astrological consultation
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page
Archives
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
February 2023
November 2022
October 2022
July 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
December 2021
July 2021
December 2020
August 2020
June 2020
May 2020
March 2020
February 2020
June 2019
October 2018
September 2018
July 2018
Categories
All
52 Helpers
Aka Cords
Akashic
Astrology
Balancing Act (parents)
Catherine Zola Allen FAQ
Crystal Skulls
Death And Dying
Dream Harvesting
Dream Harvesting Glosseries
Dream Harvesting Or Lucid Dreaming
Dream Harvesting Purification
Dream Harvesting Social Dreaming
Dreamwork
Emotional Clearing
Evolutionary Indigestion
Huna
Integral Relationship
Integrated Master Numerology
Magic On Day 1
Orb Magic
Reflective Practice Worksheet
Service Provider Directory
Sexual Abuse
Somatic Mindful Guided Imagery®
Spirit Camp
Tarot
Train Your Brain
Where Do Dreams Happen
Why Online Courses? FAQ