Various world stage issues and events demonstrate the astrological energies that are in play and are setting up a grand stellium of planets in Capricorn that will condition 2020. Themes in play include:

• the ongoing tennis match between President Trump in the USA and a variety of domestic and international players. Domestically, these include Congress, especially the new Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, certain states that consistently take the role of defying or suing the President/Executive branch, and individuals such as Michael Cohen or whomever is currently resigning from a post in Trump’s administration.
• the ups and downs of the financial markets of the world.
• ongoing divisiveness in many countries expressive of the endemic and increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. The middle class has become lower middle or is struggling to avoid poverty in various countries, and the poor are squeezed hopelessly by debt and disease, then dismissed as deserving of their lot.
• the rampant ill health together with societal and indigenous issues that remain unreconciled due to capitalism being essentially a type of mass vampirism. The export of this Western model leaves copious evidence that – as it currently is demonstrated – is unhealthy for the world.
• The experiment of the EU is clearly still an experiment, but maybe American-style democracy is too.

This itemization is brief and incomplete. It does not include planetary climatic transformation or the effects of humanity’s seeming insatiable need to expand and to destroy while doing so. Nor does it include violence in all its forms and scales that humanity has embraced so fully that violence has become entertainment as it was in Rome/gladiator days.

Every human being on Earth is affected by the movements of the planets; systems of human activity are also. Examples include governance, banking, commerce, and financial systems, energy production and transmission, food production and distribution, health and well-being. When these change, are disrupted, or implode, the common man, woman, and child is pawn, prey, or both to these macro-systems of society.

The influence of the planets supported and instigated the creation of democratic rule and the revolutions that overturned rule by a monarch back in the late 1700’s. The discovery of the planet Neptune and the ushering in of its energy to the human psyche was instrumental in the furthering of drugs, drug use, and addiction. Initially the drug of choice was opium, then cocaine in Coke Cola, then tobacco and widespread alcohol use. Now as then, drugs that numb and stupefy are both the rage and the demon. But, drugs such as fentinol and opioids would not be such a wide-spread problem if, like guns and tobacco, the making of billions of dollars on death was disallowed. The alignment of the planets that will pepper 2019 and pave the way for “the great set-up” of 2020 could topple the faltering ship of human-made degradation and suffering. Destruction paves the way for fresh construction, and this could be what is shaping up.

This series of articles will offer thoughts on the possible macro and micro implications of the planetary alignments through 2019 and 2020. The micro is you and me and how a planet in the heavens might be transiting our horoscope (natal chart). That is determined by the degree of the planet in the heavens and the degrees of planets or ASC in your chart. For example, my natal Sun is at 18°♋︎ and my Mars at 17°♓︎. Saturn in the heavens is at 18°♑︎. It is transiting any planet or the ASC of someone’s chart that is at 16, 17, 18, or 19° of any sign. The aspect (trine, square, conjunction, etc.) depends upon the specific angular or mathematical relationship these planets make. In my case, transiting Saturn is opposing my Sun and sextile to my Mars. I, then, am pondering the implications of this and looking for and observing how Saturn’s transit is playing out in my life, my psyche, and my spiritual Path. You would do the same as I give the degrees of the heavenly planets.

A few additional and instructive thoughts:

• The larger planets will typically retrograde three times within a range of degrees repeatedly through the journey of that planet through a sign of the zodiac. Within this retrograde/direct movement of energy is what is called “stationing.” The planet will slow to a crawl and then seem to be in non-motion for a period of time. Like a train pulling into a station, it slows, then stops for a duration, then slowly starts again gaining speed as it does. Whether slowing to retrograde from direct motion or slowing in retrograde motion to go direct again, the crawl and stopped motion is significant energetically. Macrocosmically, generally things happen because the force of the planet and sign is unabated and pressure-driven. Microcosmically, if a person has natal points at the degree the transiting planet is stationed, it is almost assured that something will happen. That something could be tremendously beneficial, could be trying or troublesome, or could simply feel like there is no escape from something that the natal planet symbolizes. Of course, all planetary activity is energetically to foster benefit and liberation. It is a human being’s clinging to life as one knows it, ideas that one holds, etc. that make a situation problematic.
• For example, coming up, Saturn will station at 20°♑︎ in early April and stay stationed through most of May before it retrogrades until September. In September, it stations at 13°♑︎ for twenty days, then goes direct. It takes a while to get going (leaving the station), so, for most of October is at 14°♑︎. Then, almost exactly a year from now in March 2020, Saturn comes to station in order to retrograde again. It does so at 29°♑︎/0°♒︎. It then abides at 1°♒︎ most of April, all of May, and half of June. Then it stations again at 25°♑︎ for two months: September/October of 2020 in order to turn direct.
• When teaching astrology and focusing on how to understand transits, I remark that our higher nature (soul or what you call higher nature) will use these three stations particularly. The first is a sudden wake up call, usually through an event or circumstance. It is important to notice this wake up call, to assess one’s response to it, and to suss out what is being called to one’s attention. What that something is is not external: not the event or the person or the diagnosis. It is a pattern of consciousness inside you or me. We are to wake up to the fact that “I do this,” “I think this,” “I dismiss/dismissed this,” “I was deluded and chose that.” If we get what is trying to be illumined by our higher self/Soul/pure being, then the rest of the entire transit will have purpose. If one does not stop, drop, and meditate on what is going on, then the second station will be harsher or more challenging. Again, our Soul is trying to get the personality’s attention. If insight was had with the first station, then the second is experienced as “Okay, I see the method to the madness; I get what is trying to awaken or unfold within me. I’m going to open to it and open to the wisdom that is trying to happen.” If an asana and attitude of humility is used, then the third station is powerfully supportive and freeing. If one has put one’s head in the sand, blamed everyone and their uncle, denied the obvious and fought tirelessly to control circumstances and people, then woe unto you. The third station tends to be destructive in such cases. Human beings always have choice. Essentially the choices are between one’s evolving goodness and self-reinforcing.
• A similar energetic is the decan or decanate of the planet’s degree in the natal chart. As I look at and interpret a chart, I find this small factor to often be quite significant. Simply, 1-9 or 10 degrees is the first decan of the 30 degrees in a sign. It brings the energy of newness, freshness, and of the person learning a new way with an old energy. 10 or 11 degrees to 19 or 20 is the second decan or decanate. It offers the energetic of comfort with the planet’s energy, as if it is a known factor; it is familiar. There is a stable feeling or sense of acumen with the planet’s qualified energies. Finally, 21-29 degrees gives the sense of needing to change things up of how one lives the planetary qualities and those of the sign at these degrees; the latter degrees especially. We can be so familiar or comfortable with these energies as to be stagnant, or default patterns with this planet’s energies have no or little edge therefore lack spiritual growth. The Soul in its wisdom tends to put catalyzing factors in place in the birth chart to undermine this ease with planet or sign’s energy. We are not allowed to rest on our laurels nor grow too personality-comfortable in our skills. All must be used for the Path and the undoing of the mask of the self.
• On the macro level, transiting planets also use this decanate energetic. Early degree planets provide particular seeds of change or potential revelation and newness into humanity. (Watch what is seeded and appears on humanity’s horizon as Uranus stabilizes in the early degrees of Aries.) Second decan planets in transit illumine the falsity of trying to maintain the status quo. It is old, done, and humanity is to use what it has learned, improved, understood to be a waste of time, and move on. The key with the transiting planet at these degrees is illumination: that something is truly not working will be declared. With the last decan, the transiting planet will attempt to pull the rug of stability and arrogance out from under the feet of humanity. When the shit hit the fan in 2008, Pluto was in tail-end degrees of Sagittarius. Lower Sag is about having a good time with little or no care for the consequences, especially to others. The financial collapse was engineered by banks and money-lenders with the deluded and selfish intention of riches and gain. It was a house of cards then and still is; but then the collapse did not bring down or fundamentally change the parasitic practices of the financial institutions, as was intended energetically. Rather, mom and pop homeowners, pensioners, and small country economies were brought down. Countries like Greece or Spain are still not financially stable. Similarly the people of those countries, like homeowners and pensioners, suffered and still do.

Saturn and Pluto are in Capricorn. (Pluto will be taken up in Part 2 of this series.)

Saturn has been moving through Capricorn. In January of this year it was at 11°♑︎ and now is at 18°♑︎, moving 7° in two months and humming along. Saturn will retrograde at the end of this April at 20°♑︎. Importantly, it is stationed at that degree through almost the entirety of April and May. Take note if you have any planet, your ASC, your DC, or your nodes at 20° of a sign. April and May will be particular for you. Wisdom in noticing your psychological or habitual response to external events or circumstances will be key. Wisdom will bring benefit to your Path; old ignorant ways will increase hardship. Saturn will retrograde until October 1; see the enumeration given in the paragraphs above for the detail of the degree. 

Note that transiting Saturn is in the second decanate of Capricorn. Saturn also rules Capricorn, traditionally and esoterically. On the macro scale, the systems of authority and the systems that lack compassion and simply grind along regardless of long-term detrimental and foreseeable consequences are up for illumination. This includes autocrats and the elite without conscience or care for the bulk of humanity especially those harmed or limited by the practices that keep the rich rich and the elite in their positions.

This transit could open the door to new regulations that reign in the variety of businesses that deal in death. Included would be the gun manufacturers in the US, tobacco companies, Monsanto, various pharmaceutical companies, and banking practices that only enhance the banks. Equally so, laws or rules that disenfranchise the common person, codify or support racism, sexism, or other forms of inequality could begin to be deconstructed. Saturn rules time, and so the results of Saturn’s transit might take years to come to fulfillment.

A year from now, when it retrogrades again, its energy could be quite forceful. If reconciliation and rectification has not begun as mentioned above, then, like a cancer spreading through the blood or to the bone marrow, the end is in sight and completely predictable for institutions that have only self-interest in mind at the cost of others and the planet. There is no future in such practices; and we are in the seeding cycle of the new millennium and the dawning of the New Age. The future will not be a continuation of the aggression and predator-prey of the last millennium.

On a personal basis, if Saturn in Capricorn is transiting your chart, there are three levels of potential expression: mundane/traditional, spiritual/esoteric, and evolutionary/hierarchical. On a mundane/traditional level, Saturn rules time, responsibilities, and is task-oriented. Saturn refers to one’s work, one bones, one’s spine, and the work of properly caring for one’s body and health. Saturn can hold one in the experience of limitation or constraint. This is done so that one realizes one’s emotional reaction/response, one’s ability to problem solve, one’s capacity to let go, one’s inventiveness, and one’s sense of humor or lack thereof with life and its flows. Capricorn is a cardinal sign. It is driven. It is also an earth sign. It is practical. Being cardinal, Capricorn can be ambitious and prideful. Like the mountain goat that symbolizes it, Capricorn can go where few dare. But, there can be a harshness, even cruelty, to Capricorn. One must not rationalize this but seek earnestly to change it through acknowledging the ramifications of one’s actions and ideas, now and karmically in the long-run.

– mundane: If health issues arise, they are the direct result of how one has lived. It’s time to correct that. Do it thoughtfully, not reactively. Each person’s body/emotion/mind complex is unique. Listen to your body. It’s been telling you for a while that it is unhappy and that your choices are the reason why. Choose well-being. Financial or economic change is afoot on a wide scale through 2019-2020 and beyond. It’s time to save money not spend. Make meals at home, make your coffee at home, drive past the drive-through, don’t go to the mall or the Dollar Store. Keep your money in your pocket. Pay off the credit card rather than use it. Realize that just because you “could” buy such and such, you don’t need to. Instead, provide yourself the opportunity to feel the emotional mutiny of instant gratification being unfulfilled. Feel how addicted you are to things, to distraction, to mindless doing. Realize that money not spent is just that: not spent! If the shit hits the fan on a national or global scale economically, you will need every penny you have and need it under your mattress. Lastly, Saturn in Capricorn transiting something in your chart is saying “Get real.” The natal planet or point being transited is “what” one is to get real about.

• spiritual/esoteric: Saturn is a mentor, an inner teacher whose role is to consistently direct one toward the light, toward clarity, rightness, integrity, authenticity, and truth including Truth of Being. This level of Saturn is not a punitive, negative voice inside, but is the gut sense that something isn’t right, the intuition that “I know what to do,” or “this has a purpose.” The inner guidance of Saturn also is not theory, concept-elaboration, or a tangle of mental gyrations for their own sake. Esoteric Saturn is clear, concise, declarative of truth, and is bright, radiant, even transparent. Capricorn on the esoteric or spiritual level is the drive to embody one’s innate clarity and truth of Being. On this level, Capricorn is discontented with bullshit: one’s own or others and, instead, will do what it can to honor what is true, what is deeply right, what will bring benefit or improvement to self and others. Saturn rules Capricorn both traditionally and esoterically, thus Saturn in Capricorn transiting a planet or point in one’s horoscope is an unambiguous opportunity to be true to one’s spiritual Path by being true to the spiritual being that you innately are. Being human is not an excuse for mediocrity. Being human is a declaration of the light-being, wisdom-being, and compassion-being that one is. Whatever planet or point is being transited is being shaken in order to be lived at a higher, clearer, or transparent level. It is being transited so that one comes to understand that that planet or ASC (Mars, Venus, Moon, ASC, etc) is a set of qualities and capacities of the Soul or Pure Being that are to be lived as such in the world for its betterment.
• evolutionary/hierarchical: Saturn is purpose itself. Saturn on its highest level is reason-for-being and the experience of pure Being. Saturn represents the supreme authority of innate being, the supreme capacity of one as an embodiment of pure Being, and the bodhi-work that a life lived from pure being expresses. The hierarchical level of Saturn (which is not represented by Saturn in Capricorn but may be being lived by an individual) holds no questions. The person is confident from truth of being that one IS truth of Being, that one’s reason for being is not for oneself but is in support of others. This is factual, practically and enthusiastically lived with clarity. Capricorn on this level is aligned with the highest truths and with intuitive, direct responsiveness to Truth, Justice, Wholeness for the whole, and rightness understood deeply from the heart. As Saturn in Capricorn transits a point in your chart, understand that all three levels of embodiment and demonstration are possible. For example, a mundane circumstance like credit card debit or addressing one’s physical health mindfully will require the esoteric level of Saturn and Capricorn if change is to happen and be sustained. Inner strength, true commitment, and lasting follow-through will be needed and can  only come from within, from the Soul or higher nature, from truth of being. Similarly, as one lives truthfully and respectfully with one’s self, evolutionary changes are being put in place that will carry through for lifetimes of benefit and positive growth.