 For those ready to stop circling their creativity — and finally enter it. Live online • Small Group • 5 Weekly sessions with Diana Ruth Briscoe • $200 — Complete Experience This pricing reflects accessibility, not depth. The work itself is profound. Click here to Reserve Your Place in the next cohort. Creativity Is Not Something You Learn It is something you allow. It is inherent and natural. Most people don’t lack ideas. They lack a space where creativity feels safe enough to emerge. Create Unleashed is that space - a carefully held creative container designed to reconnect you with the deeper intelligence behind your authentic expression. Why This Experience Exists There comes a point when:
This program gently rewires your relationship with Creativity at its source. A Different Kind of Learning This is not information-heavy training. You won’t be overwhelmed with content. Instead, each session is designed as an immersive inner experience — where insight arises naturally, and change becomes embodied. Participants often describe it as:
The Shift Most creative programs teach how to create. This experience changes who is creating. Through guided subconscious journeys and reflective integration, participants reconnect with:
The Creative Container Create Unleashed unfolds through: Five Guided Gatherings • 90 minutes each • Live Online Small-group format allows:
The Journey Rather than teaching creativity, Diana restores your access to it. Reconnect — Meet your Inner Artist/Muse Reawaken — Restore creative vitality Release — Dissolve internal barriers; Clear creative blocks Create — Align vision with action Integrate — Embody sustainable change Each step builds naturally upon the last. What Participants Receive
Maximum transformation.  Your Guide is Diana Ruth Briscoe Clinical & Alchemical Hypnotherapist, Professional operatic soprano, Transformational educator Diana brings decades of experience in performance, subconscious transformation, and creative development workshops — successfully creating environments in which participants can safely access profound internal change. The True Value Experiences that create this level of personal transformation are often offered as:
• $200 — Complete Experience Who This Is For Those who sense:
You may not. What matters is readiness. If you sense readiness, trust that signal. Final word
Creativity is not a skill you acquire. It is a relationship you remember. Creativity is not waiting for you to become better. It is waiting for you to become available. Create Unleashed begins soon. Step Into the Experience
0 Comments
By Linda Baker
Important! This is not a substitute for a clinical abortion, nor does this process guarantee that miscarriage will occur. In the event of a natural miscarriage, it is important to receive a medical check-up following the termination of the pregnancy.
To use this process, with the intention of creating a natural miscarriage, later than the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy is not recommended. This process provides emotional/spiritual healing from miscarriage or abortion (both current and/or from the past). It may also be the catalyst for a natural miscarriage to take place. During this process, one may decide to continue on with the pregnancy. That is safe to do as this is a gentle, spiritual process whose intention is to serve the highest good of all concerned. 
For some years now, I have been providing special sessions to women who find themselves pregnant when they do not wish to be. I call these sessions a spiritual approach to abortion. I believe that we are spirit and that we have come into the physical realm for learning and experience. If this is so, then why not communicate with the spirit of the unborn child and let it know that this is not the right time?
This approach enables the spirit of the unborn child to consciously participate in the abortion decision. It is a loving approach that seems to be tremendously healing. The basis for the spiritual abortion process comes from the belief that when you enter the physical realm as a baby, your body is small and needs to be taken care of, but your soul may be old and full of wisdom. If this is true for a baby, then it is also true for the unborn child, the one just beginning to develop a physical body inside the womb that holds it. We can communicate with this spirit just as we can with a loved one who has passed on. The spirit of an unborn child is filled with wisdom and always has a powerful lesson to share with the mother and father. I believe there was a time when women understood the power and the sacredness of their bodies and made conscious choices about when to give or not give birth. Then that power was taken over by men. The ability is reawakening in women. There is a longing to return to this ancient wisdom of the Goddess. Spiritual Hypnotherapy makes it possible for the mother to connect with the spirit of the unborn child, and together they agree upon a natural miscarriage. Of the women I have worked with, several have naturally miscarried following their sessions (this may take several days), while others have needed to have clinical abortions. When women have a clinical abortion scheduled just following their session, and have the clinical abortion, it is impossible to know whether or not the process would have occurred naturally. My belief is that as more women become aware of this option, it will become easier for them to have natural abortions, and that it will become easier for women to consciously choose when to become pregnant. When I first began doing this work, I felt that if the miscarriage did not happen naturally, the process did not work. I no longer feel that way. I now understand that every woman has her own process to go through, and sometimes that process includes a clinical abortion. Whether or not miscarriage occurs as a result of this process, the process is always powerful. The mother heals emotionally from guilt, fear, grief, self-hate, or whatever emotions she is carrying. There are also times when the mother feels that she cannot bring a child into the world at this time and decides that abortion is the best alternative, but after listening to the session recording or having a session with me, she decides that she really does want the baby. Because this work is gentle and spiritual in nature, there is no harm that is done to either mother or baby. Spiritual Hypnotherapy is extremely valuable for both actual abortion and healing from miscarriage. It is valuable for both women and men. Although the mother carries the child, there is learning for the father as well. Sometimes the spirit of the fetus is even more connected to the father than to the mother. When an abortion or miscarriage takes place, and there is no spiritual healing involved, feelings such as grief, guilt, anger, and fear may become stuck in the body. In women, these often center on the reproductive organs. Naturopathic physicians have told me that many women who have ovarian cancer, cysts, fibroid tumors, abnormal bleeding, and other female problems have experienced an abortion or miscarriage at some time in their lives. In our modern medical environment, a hysterectomy is often offered as the cure. The womb is the center of the feminine body. It is the birthing center of creativity, but the beauty of this is little recognized in our society. In this country, women commonly hear, “You’re not going to have any more children” or, “You’re past the childbearing age, so let’s do a hysterectomy.” What message does this give to a woman? I think the message that a woman receives is that her creative worth (the womb being the center of creativity) is defined by bearing children. I bring this to your attention because claiming personal power and creativity has been a major issue for several of my clients. Pregnancy fills the womb. The baby becomes the creation, and the payoff is safety. Society claims it is acceptable for a woman to focus on birth and babies. Childbearing can be a good camouflage for those who are afraid to look into themselves and face the fears, doubts, and inadequacies that keep their expression of personal creative force at a distance. Of course, these women are not aware that they are masking something until they take that journey within the self. Men also hold unresolved feelings in their bodies. With respect to childbearing issues, I’m not certain where in the body men hold this energy. Men who have been partners in abortion/miscarriage have suggested to me that this energy may concentrate in the third chakra, which is the center of power. In the case of miscarriage, a man might feel that he was not powerful, potent, or many enough to save the baby. In abortion, it might be that the man feels that he did something wrong, that it was his fault, and he doesn’t deserve to have what he wants. I’m sure that there are many other possible beliefs or feelings. If you are a man who has had an experience with miscarriage or abortion, take a moment to close your eyes and imagine the experience. Feel your feelings around this issue and notice where they live in your body. Spiritual Hypnosis allows the woman to go deep within the womb to explore core beliefs and judgments held by her as well as by women throughout the fabric of time, past and present. Some common beliefs are that women: need to nurture others and not put themselves first; must have children to be worthwhile; need a man to take care of them; are the weaker sex; and are not in control of their bodies. Many women who perceive themselves as independent, strong, and freethinking have been appalled to discover such beliefs lurking in their innermost psyche. It is amazing to see how core beliefs that we are consciously unaware of, or thought we had let go of, determine what we attract into our lives. Through the Spiritual Hypnotherapy process, these hidden elements come to the surface where they can be healed and released. With every spiritual abortion session, the child’s spirit brings a message of learning to the mother and father. In many instances, this message involves the importance of nurturing and caring for one’s own inner child. Women who are questioning whether or not to have a child can contact and support their inner child within. This liberates them from the need to have an outer child. With this, they are free to make a healthy choice about pregnancy. I believe that it would be good for every person who wants a child to do inner-child work prior to conception. One of the most common issues between parents and children is the desire of the parent to control the child and mold the child into what the parent wants. When the child (who desires to find a healthy, independent identity) rebels, the pain and separation that result are often blamed on the child. To avoid this, the child may instead become the good child and live his/her life trying to please the parent, rather than fully becoming his/her own person. If a parent is not nurturing his/her own inner child, the outer child becomes a substitute and focal point for the parent. In place of a functional, supportive parent who encourages the child to individuate, we find a dysfunctional parent who controls, either subtly or overtly, to have his or her own needs fulfilled by the child. When a woman chooses to do a spiritual abortion session prior to having a clinical abortion, she is often able to learn the lesson from the pregnancy as well as speak directly to the spirit of the child. Some of the most common lessons the spirit comes to teach are about healing the inner child, bringing forth creative energy, empowering the self, healing relationship issues, and healing from past abortions or miscarriages so that the mother may choose a healthy new pregnancy. Sometimes the connection between the woman and the unborn child runs very deep, and the mother experiences feelings of great love and pain in letting go. It is important to remember that pain does not equal bad or wrong. A right choice in our lives can bring feelings of loss, grief, or loneliness, and still be the right choice for us. For example, leaving an abusive relationship can bring up many painful feelings, but it can still be the best, healthiest choice for us. The love Spirit has for us is so strong that I have had many clients burst into tears when they feel this energy. It is the purest love they have ever felt. There is no demand, no desire, and no judgment. There is only love. Over and over, I have been a witness to how loving and forgiving Spirit is.
Linda Baker R.N., B.Msc, CCHT, Master Alchemist, Spiritual Coach, Author, Speaker
Creator of Transformative Hypnotherapy Innersourceseattle.com 
Linda shares this work with professionals and individuals through a day-long, live online experiential workshop called “Unplanned Pregnancy Empowerment: Empowering a client’s choice based on deep spiritual communication.”
To learn more about the workshop, see: https://www.bridges.academy/unplannedpregnancy.html by David A. Wheatley When the Moon met up with Saturn/Neptune, for David From Aries to Pisces: a shift in the character of the planets Saturn in Aries will break borders and boundaries if they obstruct evolution Moon, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, as they rendezvous with Saturn/Neptune in the near term Eris and Chiron in Aries Ukraine; 3I/ATLAS  This review of near-term astrological events starts off with a personal note on the specific relationship in my recent experience and the current transits. On Thursday, February 19th, the exact Saturn Neptune conjunction was joined precisely by the Moon, transiting in to meet up with these two giant outer planets. The Moon is the first inner planet or luminary to meet them in this conjunction, and the only one while they are exact. For me, this transit happened on the occasion I had a spinal procedure done, to clear up a disc issue and blocked energy in my spine. The release as a result of the procedure was that throughout that evening and night, I had too much energy to sleep until 5:00 AM the next day, and got up only two hours later at 7:00 AM. I’d like to say the book I was reading was that compelling, but it was at best a companion through the long night, as I buzzed with new energy that kept me awake. Again, the next night, my body wouldn't retire before midnight, even after missing sleep the night before, and the next morning, I was wide awake even earlier. My walking was achy and unbalanced before the procedure, and now I'm back to normal. No swelling, no irritation, no issues that they had warned could occur after the procedure. I would describe it astrologically as the Moon brought into the grouping some inherited tendencies which the Moon does, from our family’s inherited tendencies, often through the home and habits provided by the mother. Older patterns of my body’s original programming were restored, including energy patterns I was born with in my Qi. Fortunately, I had changed the original procedure date from two weeks prior, without any conscious knowledge of the Moon's specific rendezvous date with Saturn/Neptune, to accommodate my ride to the procedure from a dear friend, Laura, who played a supportive role as my Lunar radiance that day, and in the days after. This was preceded on the 17th by an annular solar eclipse of the New Moon passing in front of the Sun. (An annular eclipse is when the Moon is slightly further from Earth, and the disc of the Moon does not fully eclipse the disc of the Sun in the way people imagine an eclipse of the Sun to be.) My friend Laura arrived from out of town on the 17th. Having a strong natal position of the Moon in my natal chart has made me aware of the benefits from women in my life. My procedure is a two-part operation, with the second appointment three weeks after the first. On that day, as it turns out, transiting Mercury will be conjunct my natal Moon. As the Moon is among other things inherited tendencies and the subconscious patterns derived from them, Mercury brings the influences of other planets (in any aspect) as a catalyst, bringing them into our conscious Earth mind. In myth, the Roman god Mercury, modeled after the Greek god Hermes, is the bearer of messages and the conduit between mortal consciousness and the gods of the heavens, or, astrologically, the outer planets, all of which are other conscious spheres of influence. I call them other conscious, meaning to directly include higher states of consciousness, and also, as in the case of Pluto, the unconscious. In modern society, Mercury’s winged feet deliver flowers from the florist's shop, and his staff or caduceus accompanies your pharmacist, producing the prescription you require. The chemist or alchemist. For me, it is likely that I, along with my still supportive friend Laura, will gain some insight into my treatment, or an insight will enter my consciousness when transiting Mercury conjuncts my natal Moon upon the event of the second treatment. I am always open to messages from other consciousness. The Moon Arriving at Saturn/Neptune, in Aries For the world, the timing of the Moon arriving at Saturn/Neptune is the insistence of established or inherited tendencies in the structure (Saturn) of international trade relations being restored, and cut way back from Trump excesses, as Saturn by nature always does. Saturn loves to edit. But in doing so, forcing a renovation, altering the confused, nebulous (Neptune) state of international trade with tariffs that can change in a day or weeks, according to one man’s whims. The Supreme Court completed and presented its decision on Thursday, February 19th, and it hit like a bomb on Friday, even though it is restoring an established centuries-old set of restrictions on US/world trade. This is Saturn correcting something out of line and simplifying things according to the established law. Neptune, having created the chaos while in Pisces, where Saturn was at the time ungrounded and unable to bring order, now suddenly interacts with a more grounded and able Saturn in Aries. Saturn could not have had this typical Saturn impact while in Pisces, as I've been saying for two years. From Aries to Pisces: a shift in character  The inner planets will follow the Moon’s first rendezvous with the two outer planets Saturn/Neptune in Aries, beginning with Venus on March 7th. This inner planet parade, beginning with the Moon and then Venus, will bring the restored function of Saturn into play more, tempered by how Aries shapes its influence differently than Pisces did. Venus comes first, reminding those who know mythology that Aphrodite is also the warrior aspect of Venus, especially while in Aries. Aries is not an environment of long, ponderous plotting and deep research. It acts on impulse. We will have short-order wars trying to structure impulsive concepts that may not hold up long-term, but will instigate necessary change. Aries is superb at starting something but short on staying power. Saturn in Aries will break borders and boundaries if they obstruct evolution, cluttered up with human overindulgence, but in its wake, leave the more nebulous imprints of Neptune following more slowly behind Saturn. Saturn has passed into Aries and will pass out into Taurus in about two years; Neptune will be there until 2038. Over that period, Saturn moving ahead more quickly will form semi-sextiles, sextiles, and a square to Neptune as either of them tweaks the other's work. This major conjunction at zero degrees of Aries is only the beginning of another chapter, rolling out new emphasis. Saturn in Aries prompts quick decisions that may not restore clarity in line with humane values, the clearest example being what we will see in Gaza. Whatever existing structures are nebulized and broken won’t be stabilizing into something to build on until Saturn has moved into Taurus, roughly two years or more from now. After Venus, Mars catches up to where Saturn was, and Neptune still is, on April 10th. Saturn is beginning to separate from the tight conjunction with Neptune in Aries. Mars hits Neptune as Saturn has begun to pull away, making a less intense but still effective conjunction to Neptune in Aries. A stronger Saturn influence with Mars will follow the traditionally ill-mixed Mars/Neptune conjunction, suggesting to me first a callousness in decisions with Neptune, which immediately afterward runs into the realities of Mars meeting Saturn and their revealing frictions. The Mars in Aries influence on Neptune can produce inhumane acts, Mars soon after arriving at Saturn in Aries produces a militaristic solution, not a humane one. Solving problems with martial/Martian arts. Decisions will be made impatiently seeking an immediate fix, whether costly, necessary, or not. This whole period is like pulling teeth to correct a long-standing infection. The good news is that, because it's in Aries and not Pisces, hard decisions must and will be made. The bad news is that, because it’s in Aries, being considerate, patient, and humane are relegated to a lower priority. Forcing the round peg into the square hole. Pulling teeth without an anesthetic. These are still epochal changes with Saturn and Neptune within orb of a conjunction, though separating. There is also still a jolt from the huge shift of outer and inner planets from Pisces to Aries in substance and style. This is not the execution of a well-thought-out strategy as much as it is simple execution. There may be a great need for hurried decisions, but this need was fully present by the time Saturn and Neptune (and others) were in Pisces. Pisces is the 12th sign of the Zodiac, in which all other signs can ideally be assimilated. It is the psyche as a whole environment, not split astrologically into 11 other parts. But this is more than can be assimilated and maintained in Earthly consciousness, and for that reason, we have 12 signs and 12 Houses, and created religions and therapists to work through the connection between higher and mundane earthly conscious existence. They all impact our bodies, physical, psychological, and spiritual. Aries, following the sequence after Pisces, is a rebirth because some things cannot be resolved from the prior cycle without starting over, repeating some things, and growing through it all. Sometimes we have to scrap what we made and rebuild; it can’t be saved, though we retain the benefits of the experiences. From the USA, the most influential dominant government on Earth at the moment, we have seen and will see more reconstruction over and over again because here we are, in a strong Aries environment where careful research and planning are out the window in favor of impulse. One has to accept that this is the way things have to be for now. It may be we need this experience to enact evolutionary changes on the heels of fresh reminders of how things can be done or why we do them. Mars in Aries, meeting up with Saturn approaching the third week of April, is serious about arresting and jailing. If you are lucky. It could also be a rough and tumble, brutal time. Short heated arguments, fighting. No patience or time to try explaining to those who are shut down to listening. An outgoing warlike Venus, followed by the often malcontented Mars in Aries, is followed by Mercury in the second half of April. This is when we have no choice but to realize how well our methods are doing and if any agreements can be imposed. I say 'imposed' because Mercury in Aries isn’t a time for discussion or negotiation. It’s more about issuing orders. All sides, believing they are right, want to establish their rules as Mercury approaches a conjunction with Saturn in Aries in the third week of April. In the United States, a dormant Congress may want to become more active as policymakers, and the administration has its expectations. Everyone wants a voice, but there is no effective discussion. Aries is about action, not words. Emotions are expressed, not so much ideas. There’s also the seldom mentioned conjunction of Eris and Chiron in Aries, which all these planets will meet during this year. Very slow-moving, Eris, the sister of Mars, meets up with the “wounded healer” Chiron, the centaur. Archetypal deep-seated psychological wounds and damages come to the surface for healing in 2025-26 with this long-term transit. (The Epstein exploitation delineates the damaged feminine child by supposedly mature men.) When Saturn arrives to meet with Eris and Chiron, reality (Saturn) will pull back the curtain and karma will be served. That will happen over 2027 into 28, an election year in the USA, but it is already a factor with a deep rage that will not go away. In mid-March of this year, Jupiter will return to where it was late last summer before it turned retrograde. This is sometimes called the shadow of the retrograde motion, a planet dwelling over an area for a prolonged period where its projects are held in place until finally it has moved forward and passed the point it had reached before it turned retrograde. In mid-March, Jupiter reaches and passes this degree in mid-Cancer, where it was last August. In everyone's personal chart, any aspect made by Jupiter around 16 degrees of Cancer to any other placement at approximately 16 degrees of any sign will be a part of this shadowy cycle in which we advanced something but were held back from fulfilling it. In mid-March, Jupiter moves beyond this, and we can stop chasing our tail. Whatever was caught in a loop can now move beyond it. For the USA this is an expanding realization of the national debt. Jupiter will be moving forward in the 8th house, which is legacy decisions and consequences concerning values and finances in the past. The consequences of past investment. Patterns that began to emerge over the past several months will now crystallize. Trends in the trajectory of the economy, the US dollar falling, inflation rising, declining jobs created compared to the year before, domestic manufacturing losses (down over 100,000 jobs last year) etc over the past several months will now form the basis for Jupiter’s transit of the US 8th house, completing this passage during mid-summer 2027. During Jupiter’s transit of the US 8th house, it will first conjunct natal Mercury at the end of this fiscal year in October, and the report will be what it will be. Being that the 8th house is often about consequences and karma from how we invested energy in the prior cycle, chances are the report is not good. The US natal Mercury is square (90 degrees) to the US natal Saturn in the 10th house. This is a stern reprimand from the Lord of Karma, sourpuss Saturn. In the 10th house, it’s a telling to the world what cannot be hidden. Saturn is always a reminder of the virtues of discipline. Saturn is also keen to acknowledge accomplishment, however the performance of the US economy in the last year was poor. Expenses are higher than ever, the debt is soaring, and obligations to correct perceived imbalances in immigration policy have exploded expenses and diminished a vital labor pool of immigrant workers. Saturn is reality; it doesn’t care about white supremacy as much as running an efficient economy and structuring businesses to work with prudence. These kinds of realities will be very obvious between Jupiter in the 8th house conjuncting natal Mercury and square natal Saturn in the 10th. The whole world will see it. Jupiter’s often over-arching message for humanity is we need each other, not that we need to divide each other. UkraineFor Ukraine, which is enjoying positive gains on the battlefield, Jupiter will be conjunct its Descendant when it finally moves out of its shadow. (The Descendant is a point 180 degrees opposite the Ascendant.) Jupiter has been hovering over negotiations since last summer and when Jupiter moves forward out of its shadow, it conjuncts Ukraine’s Descendant. This is a time for sitting down and having real negotiations, probably because Russia is falling backwards within its own borders because of the war and on the battlefield. Putin won’t like the situation in 2026, though President Trump is likely still predisposed to giving Putin as much as he can. In 2025, the US cut off the economic benefits it had extended to Ukraine. Those benefits in the form of credit were monies spent on US arms, mostly in Conservative US states. Those states lost jobs and that revenue flow in 2025. Those Senators lost it. The US intelligence agencies ceased providing Ukraine with targeting support early in 2025; this role was taken up by France and the UK and everyone including Putin saw what Ukrainian drones could do that the US-provided missiles and intel did not do. The US would not provide them or support their use deep inside Russia. Ukraine, with support from the EU and Britain, has done well since President Trump cut them off in 2025. In this regard, the US has also fallen in the esteem of many nations within the EU. The Uranus Return on the US chart begins in 2026When Uranus enters Gemini in late April of this year, it will be a couple of years away from a return to where it was when the US was born. A Return to its natal placement. Every time Uranus has returned to this placement since the nation was born (every 84 years more or less) it brings a destabilizing revolt in various segments of society. I will go into this in greater detail at another time, but this Uranus Return begins later in 2026 and culminates by 2029. This time of the US falling back from its prior role as an exemplary world leader precedes the Uranus return. The fate of the USA within its own borders and in the world will be the struggle for the 2028 election. 3I/ATLASAnother interesting subplot is the arrival of 3I/ATLAS at Jupiter in mid-March. I am convinced that Atlas is a living entity or consciousness, as is the rest of the solar system, including asteroids, planetoids, and Moons. I am not convinced it is from outside our solar system, but maybe that’s because this astrological organism we live within, our solar system, is all that interests me. I’m not too interested in anything outside it, too far away, and unlikely to ever be on my radar. Our psyche is here contained in this solar system. That’s got my interest. Comments welcome.
David can be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation. Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
by David A. Wheatley, January 19, 2026
On January 26th, Neptune reenters Aries without an aspect from any of the commonly referred to inner planets.
Inner planets are inside the orbit of Jupiter towards the Sun. When they aspect the abstract outer planets, the inner planets provide an avenue of expression for big planetary energies into our smaller-frame Earthly consciousness. They express psychologically and in projected forms. We unconsciously or sometimes consciously bring about the character of expression from a transit of Neptune, Uranus, or Pluto when one of the inner planets makes an aspect to our personal natal chart. The Moon and the smaller inner planets (Mars, Venus, and Mercury) are triggers that bring vast energies down into Earth consciousness.
On January 22nd, four days on the calendar before the advance of Neptune to zero degrees of Aries, the Moon swung over Neptune as it was about to enter Aries. As a catalyst to the vast potential influence of subtle Neptune, the Moon, for the hours it is in conjunction with Neptune, affects everyone according to how sensitive they are.
How or in what way do we feel it? It's not important to be watching your clock because the influence will precede the conjunction by a day and follow it by something a little less.
Neptune changes as it enters Aries 
From Neptune's point of view, it's tragically leaving Pisces, where, by nature, it had the most freedom to express itself in our psyche, where it prefers to be if it could tell us. Neptune in Aries loses in breadth and depth to become a bonded servant to the nature of Aries. For some people, this is a relief, because in Pisces, Neptune had no boundaries, no borders, a vague reality anyone could shape. Swimming in the open sea. In Aries, it's suddenly limited in width and depth, shifted into a small pond. But some people will be happier with this, welcoming the fewer things to think about. Aries is about doing, not imagining.
There is a shift down to something less expansive (Aries), and we believe it’s more controllable. For some people, there is a sense of reassurance in focusing on what we have to do without adding more; by catching up on and cleaning up unfinished business we already have in front of us.
For other people, the departure of Neptune from Pisces is a little melancholy. These people liked the endless possibilities or choices, compared to the tighter focus Aries imposes on vast ideas. Aries focuses on immediate short-term needs and immediate solutions; fewer choices, more clarity, and real consequences. How do ideas work when they manifest in reality? How well did we plan? Did we plan at all, or just depend on Neptune in Pisces to come up with something?
This is what changes in Aries. We see how well things we imagined actually worked out. It sinks in that the actual reality is rarely as spectacular as the ideal. There's a need to adapt, edit, tweak, and customize. The scope of vision goes from very wide to more narrow. Reality tells us what works, how well it works, and what might need to be reworked. Evidence and consequences reveal a need to make adjustments.
The Moon, as a catalyst with Neptune, is about feeling. It’s not so much about any specific event. Awareness is changed by gaining a narrower focus on practical applications. It's different, not better. The catalyst for this could be an expression of the Moon's influence, an act of subconsciousness otherwise called an accident. Rational explanations fail, but something might happen that expresses a subconscious desire shared by most people, a shared desire for nurturing and care that alters the consensus. Something that evokes a shared history, humanity's legacies, whether remembered or forgotten; it's something evocative in humanity's collective subconscious.
There's a collective sense of the new, smaller frame we have to fit into. Suddenly, we don't fit the frame of reference we were in. Things feel wrong. We look around at the metaphorical furniture in a suddenly smaller room, and there's a lot going on that some of us didn't notice before. Maybe there's too much going on. Time to edit the room and make sense of it. Aries ability to focus on specific tasks is very different from Pisces virtue of embracing everything. Aries is the beginning of the 12-sign cycle, a kind of birthing moment.
Then, Saturn catches up with Neptune in Aries 
On Friday, February 13, Saturn arrives in Aries and catches up with slower-moving Neptune. Both planets begin their conjunction, which ends at the end of February. No inner planet will conjunct them while they make their conjunction, other than the Moon, between February 19-20. And again, the Moon is evoking a subconscious yearning, a reminder, or for some, a rebirth of something lost or forgotten. What Saturn adds to this period is more than just a feeling; it's an acceptance of excesses that must be reined in because something structural has failed. The legal system itself has failed. The government has failed. The supports we thought were built-in failed. It all must be rebuilt. Saturn in Aries sets about doing this expeditiously. Saturn will be working on this for two years while in Aries before leaving to enter Taurus, when we begin to come to terms with the costs to governments and to the planet.
The Moon's conjunction with Neptune and Saturn for the second time is a reminder of our basic internal program of soul needs based on solid ground under our feet. The rhythms of the lunar body are woven into life on Earth, and we are reminded, like a slap in the face, that in fact we need them to be respected. We grow very aware of something lost. We feel the reality of Saturn and the tragic realization that, for some, the dream is a nightmare populated by characters of our own making. The Moon is our subconscious, and we realize that our projections of subconscious material have created a reality harshly different from what we believed. A pattern we've experienced before is repeated, possibly a major virus. We aren't getting away with spinning it as a fake threat. Saturn in Aries is about being completely real. Saturn and Neptune together have in the past often come with a major virus, plague, or epidemic, and a vaccine. There's also a heightened frequency of war, and in the USA, internal wars. The purpose cosmically of a breakdown in structure and a major shift of our perception of reality is upsetting because it's a big change. Reality is what we believe it to be, and our beliefs change now with the contrasting difference of two major planets leaving Pisces and entering Aries together.
Time to make room for something new. This period of renewal and rebuilding will eventually be supported by very positive innovation coming from Pluto and Uranus. But in order for it to mean something and to find the inspiration to last, an experience of our own creation that stimulates and drives us forward will swamp what we thought we knew.
Saturn in Aries is not so much dreaming about or indulging in hopes of all kinds; it's acting on beliefs. Saturn in Aries is direct and unhesitant. It lays down the law and challenges people to accept it. Saturn may be the devil, but the point the devil brings to the forefront is: this is reality, what are you going to do about it? This devil asks you to prove what you say you believe in. Can your values withstand the challenge or be refined? Or will they resist and whither? This is the whole point: prove what you believe in now - do the ideas work or not. Saturn and Neptune in Aries show what works and what doesn't. In Pisces, ideas thrive because they don't have to prove themselves; it's a matter of taste, opinion, etc. In Aries ideas survive if they work. With Neptune present, there's a feeling of depression that ideals prove unrealistic, unworkable.
By finding out what works as a society, everyone will see what can survive and what doesn't. Saturn will, as it always does, lay out a process of purging of things that worked in Pisces but aren't working now.
By the end of March, Saturn departs the conjunction with Neptune, continuing with its new freedom to set new rules after previously swimming around in Pisces where it was unable to confront fantasy with facts. As Neptune slowly moves forward in early Aries, Saturn goes ahead to later conjunct Chiron and Eris, when Saturn will make us all face deep wounds, abuse, and neglect. The meeting with Eris is likely to cause conflict, strife, war, and hardship. Temper tantrums. (For more about Eris, see last month's article at this link.) As for changes that impact us in a dramatic way yet outside our control, the transit of Uranus out of Taurus and into Gemini is going to produce fireworks and lots to talk about soon; the end of April. 
We await more data analysis on 3I Atlas, which was to be released by NASA in January. It's on its way to Jupiter and arrives mid-March, more or less.
There are many more opinions now that 3I Atlas is no more than a remarkable comet from outside the solar system. It will remain in the solar system far beyond our lifetime because of the distance to the outer edges, and so from an astrological point of view, it remains a vehicle for the psyche to express through, as does every planet, moon, asteroid, comet, and the Sun in this solar system. The psyche uses everything. Physical matter made of water/ice and minerals transiting the star we call our Sun have living energy within them if not the seed requirements for physical life.
As far as I'm concerned, 3I Atlas is an active element playing an unknown part in the body of an individual's astrological chart. I'd be interested if anyone else has any thoughts about it.
Comments welcome.
David can be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation. Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page. Addendum - Transit of 3I/Atlasby David A. Wheatley, January 1, 2026 The Year of the Horse Overview of Charts: Ukraine, Russia, Vladmir Putin, Donald Trump, USA ERIS PREDICTIONS A year ago, I looked at the natal chart for Ukraine and wrinkled my brow. Astrologically, 2025 was going to be a tough year for them to survive. And they have. Vladimir Putin and Russia’s chart also had perils, but Putin’s chart was fortified by his natal strengths. (Later in this article, I have included a forecast looking at this situation.) 2026 will be the Chinese year of the Horse, the Red or Fire horse to be specific.Chinese astrology is different from Western and Vedic astrology. Chinese astrology is a repeating 12-year cycle of animals in one of the five rotating elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Metal. In the Western traditions, there are only four elements; the same but without Metal. In Chinese astrology, the fifth element, Metal, could be equated with ether, the plane or environment of subtle energy and intuition. This is a step away from the other four tangible elements from the 3D world of physicality. In traditional Chinese medicine, Metal is associated with the lungs and large intestine, largely because these organs are involved in eliminating toxins and in purifying or refining the processes of other elements in the body.  The Fire Horse is action-oriented; like all fire, it consumes in the act of expression. It transforms the substance it contacts back into molecules and energy, which can be used to serve other purposes. The Fire Horse acts to define itself as independent, acting for its own interests generally. In reality, no individual exists entirely independently, and the belief that there is such a thing as independence is a matter of degree. Fire requires oxygen; it isn’t independent. The Fire Horse is absorbed with its own expression, which can blind it, and it can miss opportunities in what is being passed by. The possibilities for turbulence in the Fire Horse year are high. Wildly fluctuating energies manifested in every area of life are possible, including in the investment world. Surges up and down. Opportunities. Other than the Wood Horse, all Horse elements are characterized by energetic outgoing energy in motion. The Wood Horse is the more stable of the five elements, but 2026 is not a Wood Horse year. All the Horses are admired by others. Horse energy tends not to stand still and is restless to fulfill itself in motion. The Fire Horse is visually admirable. It’s said to be full of passion but can also manifest as self-absorption. A horse that might not saddle well. In such a year, the direction things take place in the world seems erratic. There’s lots of activity and things seem to be happening, though it's hard to define if the purpose has good legs under it. Plans seem patchy. Activity may result in something remarkable if not startling or upsetting, even without an intention to be any of those things. Passion can be connected to a higher purpose; it can inspire action, but it can also trample things in its path. In Chinese tradition, the Red Horse year can bring fundamental change with turmoil. The last Red Horse year was 1966 and brought Mao’s Cultural Revolution and a long struggle. Revolutions follow a crisis, and the dust doesn’t settle for a while. If there were a war over Taiwan that went badly for Beijing, that could be one example, or a large natural catastrophe undermining confidence in national leadership, and a change of leadership direction. Individuals born in 1966 are mostly Fire Horses, although the Chinese lunar-based calendar only overlaps and is not identical to the Western 12-month Julian calendar. Looking at the last two Fire Horse Years, 1906 and 1966, might be a guideline:1906 saw the first powered aircraft. US intervention in Cuba. The British Empire faced violent uprisings in Egypt and South Africa. Earthquakes in 1906: The 1906 Ecuador-Colombia Earthquake (January 31): Magnitude: Estimated 8.8. Tectonic Setting: A megathrust earthquake on the boundary between the Nazca and South American plates. Impact: Generated significant tsunamis and caused widespread destruction in coastal Ecuador and Colombia. The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (April 18): Magnitude: Around 7.9. Epicenter: Near San Francisco, along the San Andreas Fault. Impact: Lasted 45-60 seconds, causing immense shaking, but the subsequent fires (due to broken gas lines and water main breaks) caused most damage, destroying over 28,000 buildings and leaving 250,000 homeless. Casualties: Estimated 3,000+ deaths. Felt Area: From southern Oregon to Los Angeles and inland to Nevada. Other Notable 1906 Earthquakes: A significant M 6.7 aftershock occurred west of Eureka, California, on April 23, 1906. 1966 was a year of protest in the USA about getting deeper into the Vietnam War. It was the rolling out of Mao’s Revolution in China. It was the beginning of Miranda Rights, Civil Rights, and the Medicare Act. A political leader was assassinated in South Africa in the struggle against the apartheid system. Earthquakes in 1966: Xingtai, China (Mar 8): A magnitude 7.2 earthquake caused extensive damage and over 100 fatalities. Hualien, Taiwan (Mar 12): An 8.0 magnitude earthquake resulted in some deaths and injuries, according to Wikipedia. Tashkent, USSR (Apr 26): A shallow 5.2 magnitude quake caused serious damage to the city center, destroying buildings and leaving many homeless, though casualties were relatively low due to the earthquake's nature, according to YouTube. Parkfield, California (June 28): A magnitude 5.6 earthquake on the famous fault, known for its predictable recurrence, caused little damage due to sparse population but showed clear fault rupture. Turkey (Varto - Aug 19): A magnitude 6.8 earthquake led to nearly 2,400 deaths, making it the deadliest of the year, notes Wikipedia. Peru (Oct 17): An 8.1 magnitude earthquake caused destruction in coastal areas, killing over 100 people, injuring thousands, and resulting in significant damage, with maximum intensity reaching MMI IX. As I have said many times, the entry of Saturn and Neptune to Aries is a big shift from Pisces.In Pisces, we seem to have a lot of time for decisions and consequences to find their shape in reality, if they ever do. But in Aries, decisions and consequences will take shape more quickly, perhaps because the need is immediate. UKRAINE  2026 is a much better year for Ukraine. In the last two-plus years, Pluto was conjunct Ukraine’s natal Saturn. This is really tough in any chart. The grinding down of Pluto to expose the raw essence of what is of value. Pluto exposes corruption that was hidden. It has to expose it to erode old structure and to clarify what is worth saving. As 2026 begins, Pluto begins to transit away from natal Saturn in Ukraine’s chart. This destructive pressure eases off. Transiting Venus conjuncts Ukraine’s natal Neptune and Uranus, and later its North Nodes. This is a feeling of hope and sudden new historic possibilities, probably in the form of a peace agreement, followed by what seems like the laying down of an historical concept of a new future. Venus brings an atmosphere in which a hopeful peace is possible. Venus also makes a sextile to Ukraine’s natal Pluto at this time, possibly in the 9th house. This is a powerful support from a foreign power to the belief in the Venus inspired hope. But Venus by itself is overpowered by Pluto. This reminds me of the myth of Persephone (Venus) who strikes an agreement to ward off a war among the gods because Hades (Pluto) had abducted her, coveted her, was obsessed with possessing her beauty. This is Putin, obsessed with possessing Ukraine. In myth, Persephone injects herself into her parents’ arguing and haggling with Hades, and volunteers to surrender part of her freedom, allowing Hades/Pluto to dominate and possess her for part of every year, thus Hades wins. Venus isn’t enough to make the outer planet Pluto bend to its influence and for it to last very long. The charm illusion will break down unless other factors fortify Venus. This past summer, U.S. President Trump began efforts to build a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. At that time, Jupiter was in opposition to Ukraine’s natal Uranus, Neptune, and nearby its North Nodes. Jupiter in opposition often brings unrealistic expectations, but it does bring an opportunity if one has the ability to step into it. Mars in transit met up with Jupiter to put some energy behind the hopes for something to materialize between President Trump meeting Vladimir Putin and the expected imminent talks with Ukraine. The moment passed, and neither Trump nor Putin stepped into history. Jupiter went past this point and, since then, turned retrograde. Jupiter will repeat this hopeful sextile aspect to Ukraine’s natal Uranus/Neptune from mid-January into February. Such aspects, when repeated because of retrograde motion, are a further evolution and amplification of the same themes. The process of talking about peace will again rise to a more hopeful level in early 2026. It’s part of an extended Jupiter transit because of retrograde motion. There is more meat on the bone in the retrograde created second transit than in a single brief transit by Jupiter and or Venus. The opportunity is there if, in the next and final passage of Jupiter, the energies available are steered in the right direction, navigating around autocratic human ego. Jupiter has a better chance of making a peace agreement happen, but one cannot underestimate the longer-term influence of slow-moving Pluto. There’s still doubt that peace lasts or that it was ever meant to last. Transiting Saturn during the past year’s travel through the end of Pisces has been opposite Ukraine’s natal Mars. Saturn’s retrograde motion there and back, and then finally departing from this aspect again by late January, finally eases off some of the destructive actions in Ukraine from Russia, and Ukraine’s daily drone attacks in Russia damaging and destroying costly infrastructure there. This suits a ceasefire action. A great example of how Saturn (structure) and Mars (aggressive action) combined to teach about the costs of them getting caught in old historic patterns. Western media has not sufficiently covered the extensive destruction of Ukraine’s ingenious drone warfare targeting Russian military and industrial facilities. One has to research it on your own in foreign non-US media, to learn more. Russia has been bleeding resources due to a high rate of losses to repair or replace men and equipment. The Russian economy is choking. Meanwhile, Russian missiles target civilians and their residences inside Ukraine. Commencing late February into March, transiting Saturn and Neptune both make a sextile to Ukraine’s natal 1st house Saturn from the 2nd house. This feels like relief is finally coming for Ukraine. If it isn’t a peace agreement, it is definitely an endorsement of resources to sustain Ukraine and fortify its war efforts. If there is a peace agreement, this is a commitment to rebuild and repair. It could be both. It is definitely a completely different and more hopeful feeling than what’s prevailed over the past couple of years. RUSSIA Looking at Russia’s chart, it would be best to end the war soon because what’s coming in its natal chart by transit over the next several months is very difficult. The transiting of Saturn and Neptune into Aries by April (and for the next couple of years) makes a tense square aspect to Russia’s natal Sun. This is a two-fold depressing influence on Russian vitality, both in spirit and in daily life. The square from Neptune robs Russia of belief in a better future. The square from Saturn reveals the hardships of daily life for the foreseeable future. Should the war not be settled, the cost internally is a huge drain of vitality, and a belief that it will never end, because while Saturn departs this aspect at the end of 2026, Neptune will maintain the depressed psychological state for two plus years. Pluto has been and will be in a semi-sextile aspect to Russia’s natal Sun, which is an irritant, a stressful suppression of expression by the powers that be. The sextile aspect is facing a reality that things could have been better if one had acted sooner. Having bad timing. Pluto departs this aspect in February, and it feels like the lid has come off, suppressing the general population's feelings, a deep sigh of relief. But it returns by retrograde motion in the Spring. Pluto exposes deceit, lies, and criminal behavior. This is the kind of pressure that leads to rebellion. A semi-sextile aspect wants to be positive, but it gets there by irritating methods. While the semi-sextile from transiting Pluto is a constant pressure for change, transiting Pluto is about to conjunct Russia’s natal Saturn. This resembles in feeling the kind of thing that forced the Soviet Union to dissolve. Pluto brings the darkest material from the past to the surface, which must be dealt with, and natal Saturn is the structure of the nation’s identity. Under the darkest pressure, Saturn brings destitution if necessary to generate change. For the next two to three years, Pluto by transit will force Russia to face what it’s been hiding in the basement. Peace agreement or not, life in Russia is going to get very difficult and painful. The risk of a nuclear accident or deliberate nuclear strike is higher with Pluto transiting to conjunct Russia’s natal Saturn. Pluto is the planet of the atomic age, and its nature is to obliterate existing structures, break them down into raw materials, and rebuild them. Saturn is structure and almost always interacts with structure in our bodies or externally in our lives by wanting to refine or simplify it, make it more efficient. Thus, both Saturn and Pluto don't hesitate to obliterate existing structures if they are an obstacle to growth; we experience this as frustrating, to say the least. Mars transits into join by conjunction transiting Pluto as it conjuncts Russia’s natal Saturn, in late January 2026. An accident or nuclear event at that time is a possibility—also, possibly a plot in Russia to shift power, violently. With the state of Russian infrastructure in poor repair as it currently is, an accident within Russia is possible. Jupiter’s transit in Cancer prolonged by retrograde motion opposes Russia’s natal Uranus and Neptune in February 2026. This is not helpful either. Again, it refers to opportunities that are not in the control of the government, of people who believe they have control. Even if Russia were to end the war soon, it faces a long period of struggle for many years, rebuilding what took decades to establish but was lost in the war. VLADMIR PUTIN The above modern chart for Russia, coming into existence after the fall of the Soviet Union, has natal Saturn in the 6th house. This is a real-world sickness. For years, there has been non-stop chatter about Vladimir Putin’s health being suspect. Saturn in particular in mid-December, and recently Neptune, are or were square to his natal Mars. In the chart for Putin that most astrologers work from with caution because of the uncertainty of his birth time, his natal Mars is in the 2nd house. The subject of these planets in aspect would circle around stresses over material matters—money, financing. And the news for Putin and Russia in general is that Russia’s resources are being depleted, and its equipment for fighting in a war is not being repaired. Early in 2025, Russia sold a record amount of its gold reserves to China, almost a trillion dollars. Over-budget expenses exceeded $200 billion per month in 2025. They are running out of cash. Putin has been clawing back support money from oligarchs and requiring corporations to contribute to financing the war. Ever the poker player, he plays his hand like he’s ready to do this forever. But Russia is emptying its resources, and pressure will ultimately fall back on Putin. And at the same time, it was announced that Ukraine has secured long-term financing to continue to survive in its war with Russia. These are the stresses associated with Saturn squaring Putin’s natal Mars. Putin’s major source of income, selling sanctioned oil, has forced Russia to sell at a discounted price of around $35 per barrel when the world market price is a little over $60 per barrel. The realities Saturn forces one to face are unpleasant. Around Putin’s base of power, Russian banks are moving rapidly towards failure. A large proportion of businesses cannot afford the higher interest rates on their loans. This recalls the situation that forced the collapse of the Soviet Union, except that Putin is no Gorbachev. In mid-December, transiting Mars and Venus conjuncted Putin’s natal Mars, which on their own is not bad news, but when natal Mars is being squared by transiting Saturn, the interaction with transiting Venus and transiting Mars are catalysts for facing the realities of spending money or arguing over money you don’t have. Neptune in the past could have masked an analysis that is now revealed to be in error. People lied to Putin to keep from falling out of windows. In June of 2026, transiting Saturn will oppose Putin’s natal Mercury, Saturn, Neptune and Sun. Unfortunately, no one is certain of Putin’s birth time and so we can’t be sure of the house positions, but going with the chart most referred to in astrological practice this grouping of natal planets is in his 12th house, with his natal Sun in the 11th. Saturn opposing natal Saturn isn’t always as difficult in later years as it might be in youth. It depends on how well one has adjusted to meeting life with maturity and is able to recognize reality and responsibility. If one has been in denial of reality, the opposition of Saturn to Saturn is an unpleasant wake-up, recognizing limitations that one refused to acknowledge. Even confinement. If, as some astrologers believe, the house position is correct, it’s potentially a revelation that Putin’s thinking and beliefs have been wrong and he therefore won’t achieve the results he believes in. The results may be depressing, with Saturn being the instigator. The Sun in the 11th house suggests he has made influential connections to others, but the 11th house people one connects to are not family or friends that you surround yourself with and from whom you can expect some loyalty. They have no allegiance to Putin. In this circumstance, Saturn can make one feel very isolated and alone. DONALD TRUMP President Trump in 2027-28 faces a growing opposition from transiting 6th house Pluto to his natal 12th house Pluto. Granted transiting Pluto’s orb of influence is large, at least half a dozen degrees. Trump’s natal Pluto is at 10 degrees of Leo. Pluto begins in 2026 to creep on conjuncting his natal Pluto. It will culminate in late 2027-28. This is definitely a health issue, the wearing down function of Pluto, typical of old age. The 6th house is physical vitality and the effect one has on others around them in the workplace. After a lifetime of whatever habits a person has subjected their physical body to, the yield shows up by the time Pluto transits to oppose one’s natal Pluto, especially along the 6th and 12th house axis. With Pluto in the 6th, the environment he creates around him is wrapped around coveting power: the power to shape things according to the 12th house psyche, which, for this man, has natal Pluto. What’s coming with the opposition in the next few years is the culmination of a lifetime of coveting power. The deeply obsessive nature of Pluto to dominate has a self-destruct component. Pluto is transformation. If one doesn’t manage it inwardly, Pluto brings it in an externalized form or a person into one’s life. Unless one can see how they created it, one will feel victimized. Pluto must work through others if you won't admit to needing it to transform you and work with it. There is no escape, not even death. Pluto keeps everything and saves it for your next visit to Earth. Pluto is Hades realm, it is hell, which reminds us that the Lord of Hell is a teacher with a dirty job to do. In late March of 2026, transiting 8th house Saturn begins an opposition to Trump's natal 2nd house Neptune that lasts late into December. Indecision and confusion, frustration in sorting out reality. This experience leads people to conclude that the president's mind is deteriorating. Major decisions under this influence go poorly. Because Neptune is in his natal 2nd house, unsurprisingly, it is a lifelong flaw in making good decisions around making money and investment. No wonder he has had so many bankruptcies; he deals with reality, but not the one everyone else does. Saturn in opposition to natal Neptune is another loss from fantasy being interrupted by reality. As the Lord of Karma and architect of structure in all things, Saturn often conflicts with Neptune. These two planets represent very different, almost opposite perspectives. Having Neptune in the 2nd house in a natal chart doesn’t bode well for a person to be a successful investor unless they are appealing to Neptune’s higher values, service and charity to others. Just prior to beginning his first term, Trump was required by a court of law to pay restitution to a charity his corporation defrauded. This is his pattern. He seems unable to appeal to Neptune’s higher ideals of selfless service. This is another loss coming up from investment because of a belief in something that doesn’t serve the greater reality of the psyche, service to others without ego. If this same aspect were in the chart of someone whose nature was to be of service to others, the mingling of Saturn and Neptune in opposition would bring a selfless problem. Because Trump is president, his losses will flood into the lives of others left in the wake of his inability to be of service to humanity. Follow this leader, and you live in his reality. Soon after this begins, transiting Saturn squares his natal 11th house Mercury, extending losses to those who followed him. Either they also experience a loss related to him, or he loses them perhaps because of (Mercury) words, speeches, or agreements made. Information like the Epstein files shared among his followers (11th house). Saturn, as Lord of Karma, brings things from the past into the present. Saturn delivers the harvest of what we have built or failed to build. Following that, transiting Saturn makes a trine aspect to his natal 12th house Pluto, sustaining his faith in himself, maintaining his ability to deny reality - in his personal psychology - that he’s made some bad economic decisions. These transits from Saturn repeat themselves due to retrograde motion the following year in 2027. July of next year will be a positive period for the president. His White House building project will at least satisfy him in transforming his immediate world, with transiting Jupiter conjunct his natal 12th house Pluto. This is a special moment of being fulfilled, transforming his current residence into a projection of how he sees himself. Jupiter’s transit is also semi-sextile to his natal 11th house Mercury. This is an undercurrent of displeasure and even protest among former supporters who feel that the resources they believed would benefit them directly were diverted. They wanted their lives transformed. The semi-sextile aspect is an irritating one. What should be a time of celebration is a reminder of frictions. Uranus, while moving into Gemini fully, will remain in Trump’s 2nd house, bringing him promises of windfalls of income. He won’t waver from his beliefs that his method, though conflicted by the normal ethics of being president, is not conflicted because his successes are proof of his virtue. Making a profit is validation of everything. In the first week of February 2026, Trump will experience transiting 6th house Mars in opposition to his natal 12th house Pluto. This is a bad week for his health. In June of 2026, transiting Jupiter in the US natal chart's 8th house will spend a couple of weeks in opposition to the US natal 2nd house Pluto. This is a big power struggle about resources, money, a big grab for more. It could be one of Trump’s war scenarios over something like oil in Venezuela or Greenland’s territory, preceded by Jupiter semi-sextile the US natal Mars in the weeks before. That’s a heated argument, a consequential falling out and possibly another over the top aggressive expression of American "strength". USA The US natal chart will soon experience the transits of Saturn and Neptune in Aries together and separately in a stressful square aspect to the US natal 7th house Venus. Historically, the US has had close relationships or friendships and partnerships with many nations as a world leader and advocate for a shared capitalist democracy that others believed would also benefit them. And it did in many ways. But this is a peak of tension, of breaking off relationships. I would not be surprised, for example, if the US left NATO. It had already alienated many traditional allies in 2025. The square to 7th house Venus is the departure from established partnerships. Neptune in the square is the illusion of a friendship, but it is revealed to be a disappointment. Saturn is leaving the relationship and its obligations. Saturn cuts ties. Saturn will do the dramatic part decisively, in March, and move on. Neptune's inspirational qualities that supported the partnership initially will dissolve as it leaves Pisces and enters Aries. The square aspect remains in place for over a year, during which time no clear reconciliation is likely. In 2028, Saturn will transit into opposition to the US natal 10th house Saturn. This is a year of introspection and worry about the voting structure of the nation, last seen in the year 2000, the last time transiting Saturn was in a strong opposition aspect to the US natal Saturn. This was the election in which Al Gore conceded defeat to President G.W. Bush, but if the same circumstances were to happen today, it would not be resolved by one side conceding after only a few weeks of recounts and hanging chads. These fears will return; however, unlike events in 2000, Saturn will not actually complete its opposition to the US natal Saturn until well after the election in 2028, not until at least April of 2029. I would say the outcome of the election will not be clear until April/May of 2029. In the months between the 2028 election and that time anything can happen and I will look at that astrology some other day. ERIS Hubble image of Eris and its moon, Dysnomia Eris is a planetoid, similar to Pluto, only further out, and takes even longer to go around the Sun for one of its years. Eris, in myth, is the sister of the war god Ares, and Eris is in Aries now, as it has been for longer than most of us have been alive. Eris will have a rendezvous meeting with Saturn when Saturn arrives in Aries in late Spring, early Summer of 2026. Eris is almost the size of Pluto and is considered, like Pluto, a dwarf planet. It's a little smaller but denser than Pluto, and it has a Moon (Dysnomia). It's a legitimate dwarf planet that should be regarded as Pluto is, as a recent addition to known objects in the solar system. Astrologers are not yet fully versed in what Eris is all about. The discovery of Eris initiated the argument about whether Pluto is a planet or an asteroid. A planetoid. It was hailed as the missing tenth planet when discovered, but it didn’t satisfy astronomers that it was a large enough body to have the gravitational influence on other planets they expected to find in the tenth planet. They continue to search. Eris is a war goddess like her brother. Its orbit is three times as far from the Sun as Pluto’s orbit, a 560-year orbit. In general, if we award to a planet greater power in our psyche by how slow it is and therefore how long it remains in an influential aspect with another planet, we have to consider that Eris, who is like her brother Ares a warrior deity, has a lot of influence on our psychological spiritual nature, but in psychological dimensions we don’t fully understand yet.  The reason I mention it is that I would expect that when Saturn catches up with it in 2026, we will learn something more about it and about ourselves in how their meeting manifests. The meeting of a warrior goddess attitude with the Lord of Karma, Structure, and Time, feels like the boiling over of antagonism between patriarchy and matriarchy. It could very well be the moment the Epstein files reach their maximum impact on attitudes of men towards women. There's a huge divide in parts of the world, including in the US, that's far more complex than simply equality between male and female. In myth, Saturn/Kronos overthrew his father Uranus to bring his reality into existence and to bring dimensionality into consciousness. Saturn was told by the Fates he would suffer the same destiny and be overthrown by his children. Putting aside the steps he took to prevent that, he couldn’t avoid his destiny and eventually one of his sons, Zeus/Jupiter, gathered his brothers and allies together to overthrow his father and bring his expansion of the mind into being in the metaphorical Golden Age of Greece. There’s a repeating drama in the telling of the mythical ages of Man, of the younger generation having to overthrow the older who won’t surrender power to them. Eris isn’t the younger generation in the meeting with Saturn, and it isn’t Mars/Ares, the war god; it’s a feminine agent deep in the psyche we are barely aware of, that is, according to myth, not in a happy attitude with its place in the pantheon. There are areas of mutual benefit between Eris and Saturn while conjunct in the sign of Aries. We can hope that Saturn incorporates Eris’ chemistry into a structure useful for our society; one that is likely necessary. Perhaps realizing we are living in a habitat that is changing and becoming more challenging to be sustained in because of climate changes. I expect this realization to come about because of threats to our habitat; Eris and Saturn both have reputations for learning the hard way.  Everyone alive today has Eris in Aries; to learn exactly where Eris is in your natal chart and by transit, click here to go to the Astrodienst ephemeris. Saturn transits into a conjunction with Eris for all of 2027 into 2028.The last time Saturn conjuncted Eris (which is in Aries for decades) was during much of 1968, beginning in March and by direct/retrograde motion for several months. Here's a list of the goings on at the time: Prior to the conjunction, out of the orb of influence: Mister Rogers' Neighborhood Feb 19: The beloved children's show premiered on public television. Saturn moves within the orb of influence:
The good news overall is that while huge change and a lot of messy turmoil are in the wind, after a period of upset and discord, what remains for several years is a very positive evolutionary and flowing aspect between Pluto and Neptune, which for a little shorter period will include inventive Uranus. The upsets unravel in February, and by the summer, we are finding our footing. There’s always problems to solve. T CORONAE BOREALISIn the summer of 2024, NASA announced that a star named "T Coronae Borealis" was going to go nova, and it would be an interesting thing to observe in the night sky. It’s been about to happen for two years, but hasn’t. Two years in the life of a star that exists for billions isn’t “late”. I think NASA will let us know when it happens. PREDICTIONS FOR 2026 I expect as many as three wars involving the US: Venezuela, Taiwan and Ukraine though saying this I don’t think the US is involved with boots on the ground or water. Trump will stay out of Ukraine as a Putin ally and distance the US from NATO, to our later regret. The EU has to take its fate into its own hands; having seen wars with Russia before, the EU should know what to do and do it without the US. The US cannot be relied upon. Russia has never had a robust economy and is going to be in quicksand this year. Putin’s Russia may be ready to emulate the Soviet Union in its bankruptcy, but Putin will by force of will never back down, he will refuse to save his people. The US is poised to be involved in the case of a war around Taiwan. I don’t think China will do as well as they believe once they cross the line. I think the cost will be too high and they will fail to achieve the results they expect. This throws world markets into a tailspin for a while. China has deep economic problems and internal rivalries as well. War would push social and economic crisis into the background for a while but not solve them. The outbreak of war in Venezuela is a dark step in the region and will make more enemies than friends in the short term. In January, a cluster of planets, including Mars, will be in Capricorn, opposing Venezuela’s natal Sun. This is the timing of maximum pressure, and for an outbreak of war, or a resolution to avoid it and make some kind of deal. A deal is possible that leaves Maduro installed. This cluster is inconjunct the natal 7th house Mercury/Venus in the natal chart. Don’t be surprised if this happens, but even a new leadership will be beholden to President Trump. It depends on what he is offered. None of these wars will last long. By mid-summer, I expect most of the destructive business is behind us, leaving a mess. But, because tensions are being released, great changes are possible now. The US economy will be revealed to be in much hotter water than advertised. The government shutdown in 2025 obscured numbers for those months, and since that will finally begin to be revealed by mid to late January, it will alarm markets and stir outrage in the political world at how out of control and how much decline is unfolding rapidly in the US economy. There’s going to be a lot of fast footwork to spin the news and resolve some of the mess. Things will remain at a stressful level for months. It’s not that the economy is terrible; it's that the government providing the information in the US is as manipulative about it as the government in China. Markets are averse to hysterics and fake information; they will surge all over the place, down and up, and down, most of the year. Volatility will cause increasing damage and lead to worse employment conditions. The Epstein files continue to come out, and the ugly truth is subject to great efforts to control/suppress the information, manage it, and on the other side, to bring it out. The information is damaging all year. As usual, the cover-up is also damaging. Many scandals of the last decade that were suppressed with Saturn in Pisces will come out in the next few months. The US government is shaken beginning late in January; people within the government begin to use privileged information against each other, and to reveal long-held secrets. Revelations. Confirming some conspiracies, tarnishing others. New personnel replace the old. Would not be surprised if this happens because Trump is no longer the president for health reasons. July 4th: something more remarkable than an MMA fight on the White House lawn will happen—a surprise. Neptune and Saturn often seem to be involved in a pandemic and or a vaccine to overcome it. In late 2019, they were in sextile with each other from Capricorn to Pisces. COVID-19 was pronounced a threat to the world. By April/May of 2022, the Covid 19 pandemic was being managed and people had returned to their work and regular life as Saturn was in Aquarius, semi-sextile Neptune in Pisces. The virus continues but does not currently pose a threat. I don’t think this year will be an exception. Another national or world-class virus would further undermine confidence in American leadership and erode America’s stature in the world. Later in the year 2026, the US has an election. Wars have never halted an election in the USA; there won’t be a viable excuse to alter the election this year. The election produces divisions and no ability to change much. A Democratic Party-dominated Congress is unable, by itself, to change the country's trajectory. More division, escalating partisan activism. Christian nationalism dominates the new Republican Party. The world's most well-known superpowers - China, the USA, and masquerading as a world power, Russia - continue to be diminished. More of the superpower nations’ secrets from the last 30 years since Neptune and Saturn last conjuncted come out, and all of these three governments are diminished. During the military turmoil of 2026, internet integrity fails and is assaulted. This is frustrating, but not all bad. Be prepared with backups and batteries. I expect a declaration that the Arctic is going to reach a minimum level of sea ice and commence a major climate change for the whole planet that we will never be able to reverse. It almost doesn’t matter. The Arctic came very close to this in 2025; it only has to come close to be a problem. Everything about a warming Arctic Sea accelerates. The planet turns off the summer air conditioner, which is the Arctic. Uranus moving into Gemini initiates months of seismic shifting. Late May early June some major events erupt. That's a likely time for an internet failure. Volatile energy all year doesn't support good health, psychologically, because long-held tensions and toxins are coming out in the collective psyche. Later, this period will be seen as a positive necessity. A domestic terror attack is highly likely during the last quarter of 2026 or early 2027. Comments welcome.
David can be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation. Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page. by David A. Wheatley  Our Solar System Every physical body in the solar system is inherently part of an energetic body that hosts our psyche to varying degrees, not reliant on importance or size. The physical size of Pluto compared to Jupiter, even though Pluto is considered a far smaller planetoid or other names, doesn’t factor into the importance of the qualities inhabiting it. The planets are the marquee members of the solar system, along with the Sun and Moon. Other planets have “moons” too, and the sheer quantity is more than a human mind can grasp from an Astrological point of view. There are an estimated 2 million asteroids in this solar system, in addition to comets flying around. Comets pass by or impact the Earth in groups; often, a disintegrating larger comet or asteroid leaves debris behind, and the Earth passes through these debris fields regularly, which is why they can be forecast. They are also in orbit around the Sun. But Astrologers are only beginning to chart the planetoids or larger asteroids and incorporate them into the body of the chart of the psyche that Astrology is mapping. It’s important to remember that every component of the solar system and the planets, Sun, and Moon in particular, are not external objects projecting their influences on us. They are the hosts of specific internal energies within us, acting on each other in a body that is multi-dimensional, yet we only know to exist in the physical 3rd dimension. Our Astrology charts address these energies somewhat simplistically as if they are external objects affecting us.  The Milky Way Atlas is said to be a comet from outside the solar system based on its trajectory of entry and its composition, which is unlike that of comets in our solar system. But here it is. Atlas has entered our 3D physical universe body and interacts with various parts of it, some more than others, over Time. There’s a list, I believe, of around 13 Atlas anomalies at present. These properties do not conform with established norms for comets or suggest that they conform instead with manufactured hardware. Maybe a Trojan Horse. I’m settled with the idea of Atlas as a living body, just as the Earth and other planets, etc., are sentient as Astrology sees them. What they are made of is a secondary matter. But I am also entertaining the real possibility that Atlas is a manufactured object on a calculated trajectory. Its trajectory is among the many anomalies that don’t comfortably fit for a comet. From a scientific perspective, Atlas’s trajectory suggests it originated outside the solar system and that this is a one-time visit. But if it’s manufactured, its trajectory is also manufactured to suggest, through straightforward calculations, that it came from outside the solar system, yet not identify which outer planet, known or unknown, it could have come from. Earth-based observation noticed it on its inbound journey as it was approaching Jupiter’s orbit, though Jupiter was far from that location in its orbit around the Sun. Atlas has made its closest approach to the Sun, behind the Sun from our point of view, and by some means described as not dependent on the gravity of the Sun for its acceleration around it, and is now heading for a close passage of Jupiter. This trajectory will take it precisely where it needs to be to avoid being grabbed by Jupiter’s enormous and powerful gravity field and to avoid being influenced by the gravity field of the Sun. It’s a very precise trajectory that seems too perfect to be luck. But we have no proof of anything otherwise. I’ve seen recent, higher-quality photos with attributes that definitely begin to resemble something manufactured, but this is not clear proof, as science requires.  Another remarkable thing about 3I/Atlas is that when it arrives close to Jupiter on its way out of the solar system, or perhaps back where it came from, it is precisely when Saturn and Neptune make their conjunction at zero degrees of Aries. This happens slowly around mid-February of next year; the two outer giant planets remain close into April, after which Saturn begins to pull away, as it is the faster-moving of the two. In this same period, Saturn and Neptune are sextile to Pluto in early Aquarius, and sextile to Uranus in Gemini. Saturn and Neptune are thus at the midpoint aspect of the 120-degree trine of Pluto to Uranus. The midpoint of Uranus and Pluto, at zero degrees of Aries, is powerful. Midpoints like this are highly sensitive in and of themselves, whatever their degree. The zero degree of Aries, being the 30th degree of Pisces, like all zero degrees of any sign, is a heightened point of potency for any planet crossing it. The symbolic value of this happening at the zero point of Aries, as the first sign is, in the language of the psyche, very symbolic. It’s a beginning of a life cycle of some kind. It’s a change of expression as a planet moves from one sign to the character of expression in the next sign. Now it’s Saturn, which has been in Pisces for a couple of years, and Neptune, which entered Pisces in 2011. Astrologically, this specific event of outer planets conjuncting at zero degrees of Aries is rare enough that no one can say it’s happened in 10,000 years. I take it as a period of a major new cycle and change in humanity’s collective psyche. Because of the timing of Atlas arriving at Jupiter as Saturn meets up perfectly with Neptune and then presumably passes on to cross Saturn’s orbit soon after, I don’t believe this is an accidental thing. It’s happening just as a comet, Atlas, brings a new element into the mix of who we are: something from outside our solar system we are led to believe, introduced into our psyche at the commencement of something evolutionary. Jupiter in Astrology is the planet that wants to expand us. It wants to expand the mind, our feelings, ideals, and our spirit. Jupiter is only restrained by being inside the orbit of Saturn, because Saturn is structure and that limits expression to what is real or possible according to Saturn. Saturn sets the rules and makes us face reality and karma. Neptune in Astrology is very much like Jupiter, except that it is outside the orbit of Saturn and doesn’t usually have to deal with the parental Saturn imposing limits. Where Jupiter wants to bring spiritual belief to us, belief in the gods and angels, that must be in a structure (religion) that Saturn allows. Sometimes history has shown how, between Saturn and Jupiter, religion is oppressive (too much Saturn) or too loose (too much Jupiter). Neptune isn’t restrained by the structures of belief and will take one on a transcendental journey outside the structures and mundane moralities of Saturn and Jupiter. This is not always workable or constructive for human beings, though it may be inspirational. Saturn and Neptune do not mix well most of the time. Ideally, they can, but it isn’t always in our hands to orchestrate. Thus, in history, Neptune and Saturn have brought confusion as well as inspiration. Many life-saving vaccines and processes to make substances we consume safe to eat emerged when Saturn and Neptune were together. Neptune inspired; Saturn crafted the inspiration into something we can apply. Sometimes, though, they brought revolution and the end of empires, which is the fantasy of Earthly power meeting mortality. Yet, this time we have a very positive supporting cast in the sextiles from either side, by Uranus in Gemini and Pluto in Aquarius. Uranus encourages bringing something outside our prior conception, often called unusual because it was not expected. Pluto brings the power to transform, something from our distant past into use in the present. The inner planets make aspects to provoke manifestation spread out over the entire time, mainly during the months of March and April, when they bring these energies down to Earth, where we experience, feel, and analyze them. And what does Atlas bring into this moment?Atlas, as a manufactured probe from another civilization, probably located in the outer solar system, would be a tremendously impactful line crossed; nothing would be the same again. It would not mean that aliens are landing, it would mean that there’s someone else in the neighborhood taking a look at us in our version of civilized. Cringe. Taking a quick look at the transits apart from Atlas, the retrogrades of Saturn and Neptune back into Pisces are ending as they begin their final run up to their conjunction. Saturn went Direct or forward motion in late November, as Neptune will in the second week of December. Pluto is already Direct and Uranus will be Direct in early February. While this is a phenomenal thing to witness for Astrologers, I think this has taken up so much oxygen that Astrologers are missing something more meaningful about to begin, which is that Saturn moves on from its meeting with Neptune, and by early April, it’s beginning to fade. Uranus remains in aspect, affecting us with Neptune and Pluto, for a couple of years. Neptune and Pluto remain in aspect starting at this time well into 2032; they remain sextile to each other and this very long-term aspect will be shaping our lives more than anything else. Neptune and Pluto are in a positive sextile aspect as Neptune reaches Pluto’s Aquarian degree of about 3 degrees, in late April. They begin their mutual remaking of our psyche and don’t quit for several years when they each reach about 16 degrees of Aries and Aquarius respectively. At that time Neptune begins to depart from Pluto as it moves a little faster. I’m not thrilled by Neptune in Aries in general; it’s not a good environment for Neptune to be at its best. It favors things like the Crusades. Holy Wars. Self-righteous violence by those devoted to serving the god of Aries, who is Mars, the god of war. I’m counting on Pluto and Uranus to modify this behavior, but remind myself that Pluto is the underworld, the god of death, transformation, as in life-death issues. But on a higher note, it’s also about being in touch with our ancestors and past lives, and about patterns of behavior that need cleaning up. Uranus in Gemini will involve endless talk or chatter. It may involve the cutting off of things like the internet, which at first seems like a bad surprise but could turn into a good one in unusual ways. That’s Uranus. These outer planets bring the big changes in life that often seem stressful because they are huge changes, even though they are improvements. Someone stuck in a self-abusive behavior pattern would at first feel that being forced out of it was a terrible thing. Later on, they get it. Earlier this year, Saturn and Neptune, backing out of their brief moment in Aries into Pisces, gave us the chance to experience again some of the follies and joys of their recent years in Pisces. These two outer planets in Pisces brought us blurring of reality and fake news, for those who couldn’t tell the difference. Now these two outer planets leave Pisces and their Aries character will take shape. Saturn in Aries will be able to get out its scythe and chop out the rot that grew wild while Saturn was swimming in Pisces and unable to sort out reality. Unfortunately, Saturn in Aries is not a patient place to do the sorting out; it’s in a hurry to clean up the mess and move on. Aries' way of dealing with clutter is to throw it out, even if it’s valuable. Neptune’s power for inspiration (by real divinity or by fake) is left behind in Pisces. It loses that magic in Aries. It inspires the Mars-like way of a campaign to defeat the enemy and slay the dragon. Neptune is reduced to a cheerleader by comparison to the soldier in shiny armor with magical weapons. The only good thing is Pluto and Uranus on either side. These two are the reassuring knowledge that the roller coaster is securely tethered to the rail as you fly along. You don’t really know what to expect ahead, but at least the metal box you are riding in can’t fall off. Comments welcome.
David can be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation. Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page. by David A. Wheatley The rendezvous of Saturn and Neptune at zero degrees of Aries wasn’t consummated before they both went retrograde, pulled away from each other, and back into Pisces. By the end of the year, they will move forward and will finally meet over a period of several weeks, from late February into April, before separating again for the final time in this conjunction. Saturn moves more quickly around the Sun and will pull away from Neptune, spending around two years in Aries, leaving Neptune there for more than a decade. At the time Saturn and Neptune finally make the stage under the lights with the band playing, the interstellar object or comet 3I/Atlas will arrive at Jupiter in mid-March. ESA, the European Space Agency’s JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer probe), is currently enroute to Jupiter to study its icy moons, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. An attempt will be made to study Atlas from nearby. At the time of this writing, ESA has just released its images of Atlas as it cleared passing by the Sun. These results are still being examined. Atlas’s coma appears to be bluer, but it still does not have a tail typical of comets within this solar system. An appeal has been made to the US government to allow NASA to release any information that was not previously made public due to the government shutdown.  A comet more familiar to this solar system, A6 Lemmon, made its perihelion at the Sun on November 8th. Lemmon has a conventional tail; it has always had a tail as it approaches the Sun. Another recently discovered comet, V1 Borisov - not to be confused with the Borisov comet known to be the first interstellar comet on record (also found by Gennadiy Borisov in Crimea) - was discovered in recent weeks, located between Earth and Atlas. This new discovery, V1 Borisov, also did not have a tail, just a coma, like 3IAtlas. V1 Borisov was closer to the Sun on its orbit than Atlas ever was and had a trajectory more conventional than 3IAtlas. But after little more than a week of being discovered, V1Borisov has disintegrated. Since I began researching and writing this, it has disappeared and is presumed to have disintegrated. More details may emerge in the coming days, but it can no longer be found. I know, there will be people saying it was a spaceship and it simply relocated or turned on its cloaking device. Maybe so. Atlas is now speeding away from the Sun and will make its closest position to Earth on December 19, and by close, I mean 180 million miles away. That’s not so close. More often than people realize unless they monitor such things, asteroids pass much closer to us, between the Earth and the Moon, so 180 million mikes away is not something to worry about. Many Earth-based facilities will be trained on it at that time, gathering data. Atlas continues on to possibly intersect Jupiter in mid-March. Jupiter’s gravity is formidable; it can affect something like Atlas and alter its trajectory, as it did the Shoemaker-Levy comet in 1993, first pulling it apart and then pulling the pieces into a series of crash landings or crashes on Jupiter.  Table of Asteroid Symbols, 1864 Astrology increasingly includes planetoids and asteroids in chart analysis. Comets don’t get the interest from Astrologers that asteroids do because asteroids can have a genesis and composition to those of a planet, can have rotation on an axis, and sometimes a degree of gravity. Asteroids are solid objects, and some have great mineral wealth. It is believed that asteroids are responsible for transporting water in the form of ice to a planet like ours, if not microbial life as well. Comets are dirty balls of ice, sometimes with a rock nucleus, and usually burn up upon entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Monitor asteroids' proximity to Earth and solar weather here: https://www.spaceweather.com/Asteroids in the natal chart: https://horoscopes.astro-seek.com/asteroids-astrology-online-calculatorAtlas is currently making aspects to individual natal charts. At a minimum, Atlas is a stimulator, an energetic catalyst. It’s activating energetically every planet, asteroid, or invisible point in a chart by aspect as it moves through our solar system, through our psychic body at twice the speed the Earth goes around the Sun. It’s an incredibly rare event arriving with another incredibly rare event, the Saturn Neptune conjunction, sextile Uranus and Pluto, itself a one in thousands of lifetimes event. The projected trajectory of Atlas towards Jupiter has changed a little since it interacted with the Sun. I haven’t seen a comparison between the former and the latter trajectory except that it remains close to Jupiter. 3IAtlas was physically energized by huge solar flares erupting after it passed out of sight behind the Sun. Ionization of Atlas’s particles of dust must have taken place in the repeating waves of above-average-powerful solar electromagnetic plasma from solar flares, if not simply because of close proximity to our star, the Sun, which is the first star Atlas has encountered in millions of years. Three or four huge flares exchanged electrical charge and plasma between the Sun and Atlas as it passed behind the Sun from our point of view. These flares blasted Venus with a 100% impact and Mars with something less. Astrologically, Venus and Mars are vital parts of our astrological psyche, but they have been impacted by solar flares before; that isn’t so uncommon. As an energetic body in the solar system, Atlas has moved in and out of aspect with Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto as well as other planets and asteroids in our personal charts. This is an alien visitor to our solar system and it's an energetic body not normally in our astrological body or psyche. When we began to get a glimpse of Atlas as it pulled out from behind the Sun, its coma was more light bluish. It still did not develop the conventional tail. Estimates of how much mass it may have lost to grow brighter and discharge material from its body, are not settled. Typically, a comet loses from one quarter to one third of its mass due to interacting with the Sun in closer proximity, breaking down into particles that form the coma and tail. Some comets break apart. Atlas does not appear to have lost mass in its close interaction with the Sun. Oumuamua, in 2017, the second interstellar object to be observed passing through our solar system, passed much closer to the Sun than Atlas did. Oumuamua was not a ball of ice; it was an elongated potato-shaped rock that emitted no tail or gas as it passed between the planet Mercury and the Sun. Atlas has been in the darkest reaches of space outside this solar system, or any other, for millions of years. Approaching this star, our Sun, it was exposed to something that it had not been close to perhaps ever in its existence or at least in some millions of years. China released its low-resolution imagery of Atlas in the first week of November, and we learned and saw nothing new. It’s really up to NASA to release what they have on record, but it is being held back due to the current government shutdown. That may provide more illuminating physical data. The sunspots that erupted in huge ways on the far side of the Sun during Atlas’s passage on that side had been facing Earth the week before Atlas disappeared behind the Sun. While facing Earth, the sunspots erupted mid-range M-class flares. These are not disruptive to Earth-based technology, except such as when they interfere with ham radio operators. The Sun rotated these unstable sunspots around to the other side, facing the passing 3IAtlas; they erupted with G5 peak level X-class flares. G5 is the highest level of solar eruption impact to impact us on Earth, and we haven’t experienced such an event since 1859, when the only technology on Earth was telegraph wires, which were fried. Today, satellites in orbit would be damaged and likely unable to sustain orbit under their own power. Earth-based technology, unless it’s sufficiently shielded, would be damaged, and power grids would be expected to fail. Those sunspots that blasted Venus and Mars about ten days ago are rotating around to face Earth again in the third week of November. Large, powerful sunspots can sustain themselves for a few rotations of the Sun. However, we can’t say what level of eruption they might produce, if any. I’ve been monitoring the Sun’s weather for about 17 years, almost daily, and on multiple occasions, I’ve seen huge, unstable sunspots quiet down into a docile state when facing Earth, and erupt with ferocity as soon as they are facing away, as if someone is at the switch. This mechanism is not fully understood. As of Saturday, the 8th of November, 3IAtlas began erupting with multiple eruptions and subsequent jets from escaping gases. This gives the impression, without looking at it, that it has multiple tails, but in fact, the angle from which we might be able to see it is still not ideal to determine if it has a tail trailing away from the Sun, which comets typically do. We are witnessing erupting jets in many directions. Atlas is departing from its close approach to the Sun (which wasn’t really THAT close), where it got bathed in large solar flares that ionized Atlas’s coma dust, and it was reduced in size in order to produce the enlarged coma. There weren’t multiple jets outgassing or a tail in its initial closer passage with the Sun. However, since departing the Sun, something has instigated a change. Since its interaction with the Sun, releasing more of its particular dust particles and now out-gassing, Atlas is leaving behind traces of its entire history of travel in our neighborhood of the solar system, dating back to its origin. We will pass through those particles of cosmic interstellar dust in the New Year. The arrival of Saturn and Neptune in Aries together has been talked about at length, and mostly it remains to be seen. The aspecting accents of Pluto and Uranus, rounding out the full outer planet interaction, will bring us through next year and be with us through 2028 technically; however, the reverberations will unfold for years after. The next two to three years will shape the future. USAThe USA faces a Uranus Return to its natal chart placement in late 2026-28. The USA birth as everyone knows was formed in revolution, Uranus’s specialty. A Uranian Return revisits this spirit of upheaval and need to evolve in unexpected ways. Uranus’ specialty is surprises that force innovation, often stressful, and often with consequences we didn’t plan on, which can be good and bad. It’s a time of renewal in the US chart, a Uranus return to its natal position. The values and goals of the initial revolution face a review. How did we do? The collective psyche determines how the existing form should be reformed or dissolved, if possible. Or give birth to something else. Clearly, the US can use some reformation. Many previous periods of tumult and change, such as the Saturn/Neptune opposition in the Civil War aspect. And for other nations as well, making a 90-degree square in the Crimean War of 1852-53, which also involved Uranus conjunct Saturn square Neptune. By the time Saturn is done in Aries and moves into Taurus, Uranus is in the midst of its return for the US presidential election year. Saturn in Taurus slows everything down that was stirred up while it was in Aries, probably because of hard times. USA - RELATIONSHIPS Next year, when Saturn and Neptune finally splash into Aries together, they will make a 90-degree square to the US natal Venus at 3 degrees of Cancer in the US 7th house of close relationships, both business and personal. This will be a confusing, discordant time, a lack of control, and a tendency to react with a hard, militaristic attitude. The Police state. Relationships with others are a reflection of our relationships to the parts of ourselves. Our identity, ego, personality, soul and mind are confused and fall back on the Saturn in Aries character, the overbearing parent, and combined with Neptune in Aries as the holy warrior, believing in the sacredness of a thing whether it has it or not. Seeking refuge in old values that stress control, which often leads to a breakup in relationships, pushing the other person away. Sometimes, the only way to get over the cause of discordance is to break up and reform after a period of introspection. Relationships need to struggle sometimes to find the nuggets of great value. Saturn first, then Neptune in the next several years after squaring the US natal Venus, will square natal Jupiter and finally the Sun. All in the 7th house. This is an extended period of struggle, several years of it. During this time, after Uranus has completed the return to its natal place in 2028, Uranus too enters the US natal 7th house, bringing its sometimes brilliant, sometimes erratic, and insane attitude of sudden change into the US 7th house. Expect the US to undergo an extended period of reform for years to come. Things will not settle down or return to normal, a thing of the past not to be seen again. USA - WORKPLACES Meanwhile, with Pluto in Aquarius making a 120-degree trine aspect to Uranus in the US 6th house, AI will reinvent the workplace. This begins in earnest in the fall of 2026 and lasts for two years. New technology will also bring things like fusion energy generation and expand medical technologies with the sextiles to Neptune from Pluto and Uranus, though the way this happens is most likely under the pressures of problem-solving. USA - WORKERS Next summer, Mars will conjunct Uranus in the US 6th house. Mars will conjunct Uranus while it’s in Gemini four times over a number of years. This is a worker revolt, probably for a few reasons, that ultimately reshapes many parts of American society. It will surprise a lot of people who, for example, are terrified of the new mayor-elect in Manhattan. What if his ideas produce something really good? With Mars on Uranus in the 6th house four times over many years, this is a series of stages introducing new ideas for working people, not just due to AI. New ideas providing wages for work. New labor laws. IsraelIsrael’s natal chart places Venus close to the same placement as the US natal placement of Venus, facing the same 90-degree squares from transiting Saturn and Neptune, but in Israel’s chart, this is in the 9th house. This is a severe (Saturn) discord and hard-hearted management confronting beliefs of the national ideal. A need to restructure it. Neptune repeats this stressful focus with inner self-doubt, dissolving the beliefs people thought were permanent. A depressing time forcing introspection, repair and new clarification of higher values. Uranus will conjunct Israel’s natal 8th house Mercury in two years. A radical new movement. It will surprise many people - a brilliant shift: new plans, discoveries of a positive nature, long-term, upsetting for some short-term, but inevitable. Israel will have a long period of stressful Pluto transits to its natal Moon, Pluto, and Saturn in the 10th house. Pluto will reveal some ugly truths to the world from deep in the national psyche, discovering a need for deep purging. These things are ultimately positive opportunities for growth but can also be over the top violent and destructive. But whatever is destroyed will be rebuilt, once the creatures in the basement are let out into the sunlight. Addendum More information, with the best photo yet (though still not terrific), has provided further evidence that 3IAtlas has an anti-tail in addition to "jets" produced by outgassing. The anti-tail continues to be opposite the usual or expected tail of a comet in relation to the Sun. The jets produced by outgassing in any comet can be in any direction, determined by the eruption of materials in the comet interacting with the recent and ongoing passage by the Sun. Avi Loeb, a notable astrophysicist, has calculated the mass of 3IAtlas based on these latest observations and what is required to produce outgassed material to be over 50 billion tons at 10 kilometers or larger. He also suggests a smaller mass and size if the comet is manufactured technology. His latest commentary can be found here: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/the-remarkable-large-scale-structure-of-anti-tail-and-tail-jets-from-3i-atlas-242c534cf7b3 Michio Kaku, a well-known theoretical physicist, suggests that the 3IAtlas is an object 7 billion years old, dating back to the early moments of the physical universe. Part of his reasoning is that for something to have amassed its large size in the voids of space outside existence in a galaxy or solar system, as comets conventionally are. https://mkaku.org/home/tag/3i-atlas/ The implications of 3IAtlas from an Astrological perspective grow more remarkable considering the potential age and existence of Atlas from the voids of space, entering into our spheres of consciousness. Especially at this time, with a rare Astrological event involving the outer planets, as mentioned. There are more than 8 billion human souls alive on Earth today, more than at any time in our species' existence that we know of. Human consciousness and life on Earth, as well as other life forms in the physical and nonphysical solar system, are in a rare moment of evolution. Comments welcome.
David can be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation. Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page. Anyone in pain or those working in healing practices should consider attending the next HypnoSomatic Renewal workshop. I have taken this class, and it has been so powerfully helpful in my own experience of healing from severe, treatment-resistant pain. My story: To heal severe sciatic pain that developed after I had knee replacement surgery in January of 2024, the regular medical treatment modalities that I tried did nothing to ease the pain, even temporarily, much less permanently. I tried physical therapy and four pain injections for the disabling sciatica, but nothing worked. My life was dampened and limited by unmanageable pain. Then, David Quigley suggested I try HypnoSomatic Renewal and Alchemical Hypnotherapy to resolve the pain. Initially, the improvements following my sessions were quite minor and short-lived. However, David taught me how to practice techniques such as “Hypnotic Movement” on my own every day, trusting that my body knows how to move in order to heal. Some were almost microscopic movements, while others were very deliberate stretches or large loosening movements performed while riding my stationary bike. Every day, I called upon my Inner Healers to help guide my work and to encourage me when I would rather just lie in bed. Slowly, the periods of no sciatic pain grew longer and longer, until I have now had no sciatic pain for over two weeks. I am so pleased with the relief from pain that I venture to say my relief is permanent. If the pain does come back, thanks to all that I learned in the HypnoSomatic Renewal class, I know what to do for myself, and that my body and my Inner Healers will help guide me back to a pain-free life. 
by David A. Wheatley The tail end of August was one of those times for those who advocate a connection between solar flares and Earthly earthquakes. There were a couple of solar flares, around M2 in their intensity, which is strong but not unusual or threatening. At the time, the Sun was aiming the flares directly at Earth, and there were a couple of almost simultaneous larger quakes, in Afghanistan, a 6, and in Nevada, a 4.8. These are not huge quakes, though over 1,600 people died in Afghanistan, and they are not huge flares. Nevada has such size quakes from time to time and had more slightly smaller quakes days prior to the 4.8, which suggests that the 4.8 is an escalation of prior tectonic activity, not necessarily related to the flare.  The one thing about this flare worth mentioning is that the usual blast of light from a flare, plus the electromagnetic wave of plasma that comes later, was prolonged over a couple of hours. The flare wasn’t a momentary eruption on the Sun; it was an hour-long sustained broadcast, which is not uncommon. The microwave emission from it was huge, much greater than normal. Flares send out electromagnetically charged plasma, which takes longer to arrive than light; light takes 8 minutes to get here. The plasma, as electromagnetic matter, is what provokes auroras, and for those who believe in it, earthquakes from stirring the core and ultimately the mantle of the Earth. I don’t deny a physical relationship between solar flares and stimulating earthquakes, but I think there’s much more to it than simple cause and effect. From the Astrologer’s point of view, not the astronomer who deals strictly in cause and effect, my emphasis is always on the alchemy of the planets, not the chemistry. The planets and the solar system are the body of the psyche, not just physical planets. I’m much more interested in what is active in the subtle universe than the physical one, because from the Astrologer's point of view, everything happening in the physical universe is dependent on the subtle one. What usually isn't mentioned when the press reports on flares are radiated microwaves, another frequency of radio bursts outside our physical senses. It was mentioned for this M2 flare because it was an above-normal sustained blast of microwaves. The microwaves are a sustained "noise" from the Sun, from which we are mostly physically shielded here on Earth.  Why was this different from another M2 variety flare? What amplified the Sun's broadcast of microwaves? I can’t ignore the presence in the physical and non-physical chemistry from the interaction within this solar system and the 3IAtlas comet making its approach to Mars by the end of October. 3I Atlas is a physical interloper in the solar system. The latest measurement I’ve read is that, at its core, it is said to be 50 km wide, far larger than the prior two interloper comets that passed through from outside our solar system. Its corona is a staggering 700,000km wide, and growing as it approaches the Sun. The present measurement of the corona is closing in on half the size of the Sun itself, and it will grow larger in the next two months. The corona is largely carbon-based dust, mostly composed of graphite and diamond particles. These particles within the plasma cloud around the comet are capable of carrying an electromagnetic charge of electricity; both graphite and diamond dust can channel electricity in a laboratory. These physical properties are amazing from an astronomical point of view, and the speculation on what we will learn in the months to come is breaking new ground in the physical science of astronomy. Astrologically, for most of us, the effects may be subliminal in our psyche. We will observe effects in human behavior and be somewhat at a loss for analytical data (compared to the physical sciences such as astronomy) to describe in Astrological terms what this comet is bringing into our psyche. It will probably be long after the impacts work their way through our lives that Astrologers will be able to distinguish the comet’s impact compared to the usual Astrological impact of planets and planetoids we are familiar with. But I don’t mind speculating. The comet is not yet in its closest proximity to the Sun. Around October 29th, it will form a line of conjunction/opposition from the far side of the Sun. Atlas will be in opposition on the far side of the Sun to Earth, with the Sun and our Moon in between us. At that precise time, with the Moon between us and the Sun and Atlas, it will be a New Moon phase for those who follow the daily complexions of the Moon. The Sun is at the peak of its cycle now for solar storms and flares. About two weeks ago from this writing, the far side of the Sun released a massive outburst from a sunspot, directed away from Earth. It directly impacted both Mars and Atlas. Prior to that, in the last few months, the Sun seemed to be relatively quiet or fading from a solar peak. Some astronomers said the southern hemisphere of the Sun peaked last November, and the whole body of the Sun was in decline from the peak earlier than expected. But in the last month, the daily number of sunspots has climbed again to between 10 and 12, with more potency than we have seen in several months. I wonder about this as a stimulating interaction with the approaching comet Atlas to the Sun. Following that speculation, I wonder about greater interaction between the Sun and Atlas as its already huge corona expands upon closing the distance to the Sun between now and late October. I wonder about the catalytic potentials in the physical universe and the energetic exchanges in the subtle universe. Click on the image below to observe 3IAtlas predicted trajectory through the solar system After the close approach to the Sun in late October, Atlas, moving as it is faster than any planet in our solar system, will fly out for the closest approach of its journey to any planet in our solar system, to Jupiter. The close fly-by of Mars in October doesn’t compare to the closeness of its approach to Jupiter. Strictly speaking of it in terms of proximity, Atlas will be much closer to Jupiter in March of next year than it will be to Mars in October. Jupiter is about 20 times larger than Mars and has the strongest gravity with the largest gravitational field of any planet in the solar system. Mars can fit inside Jupiter’s mass over 9000 times. That’s really big. We describe conjunctions in Astrology as concentrated properties of subtle energies within our psyche between planets; the planets being physical manifestations of soul properties within our psyche. Conjunctions and oppositions in particular are concentrated and always amplified by Jupiter which expands whatever it touches in our natal charts. My feeling is that March of next year will be the greatest manifestations of Atlas in our lives. It may set the table in the Fall of 2025, but it engages in its main course in March of 2026. We have a few months to learn about its effects before it arrives in Jupiter’s neighborhood. If this was not enough to boggle the mind (and maybe that’s the point), we are already in rare times because of the movements of the other outer planets, planets beyond Mars, and the asteroid belt. As many Astrologers and I have commented, I can’t find a precedent in human history, looking back a few thousand years, when Saturn and Neptune conjuncted at the beginning of Aries, plus augmented by a sextile from Uranus and Pluto on either side. Can’t compare it to anything. The zero degrees of Aries, which is the 30 degrees of Pisces, is a unique sensitive point as it commences the Zodiac. Just as Pisces has within it the essence of all prior 11 signs, the beginning of Aries is a rebirth of life cycles within this solar system, having the Zodiac’s 12 signs as the backdrop for a frame of reference. Adding the cherry on top of these incredible moments noted by Saturn and Neptune, the cherry being the Atlas comet, forces an Astrologer to rely on intuition more than data. Saturn and Neptune entered Aries a few months ago, but presently begin their retrograde back into Pisces. They are not done with their work in Pisces. For both of them, their passage through Pisces has been confusing for some people and inspirational for others. Pisces is the kind of place Neptune prefers, borderless and vague, lacking structure. Pisces is the kind of place Saturn least prefers because it lacks gravity, wishy washy borders lacking a firm foundation. This has been the era of fake news because to Neptune, all news of the mundane world is fake. Nothing here is real to Neptune except what inspires the spirit to reach for the skies because to Neptune, reality is in spirit; the physical world is the dream. Reaching for the skies means nothing to Saturn; it stops you and insists on getting a ladder. Build your way to the stars. This is a confusing blend and could result in the classic Tower of Babel scenario. Actually, as agents of our higher mind, these two really need each other, but they have to work together. Build a road to spirit, but don’t rely on physical engineers to understand how the energy of spirit flows. Understand how the energies of the psyche or metaphysical psychology work, and then build the path. This is where we are at now, needing to make a step in this direction. Saturn and Neptune retreat from dipping a toe into Aries now, and tidy up some of the unfinished business as Atlas makes its close passage to Mars, Earth, and the Sun primarily for the last quarter of 2025. Saturn and Neptune begin to leave Pisces for the last time in November and December, respectively. By the time they are at an exact conjunction in Aries in the second half of February 2026 through March 2026, 3I Atlas will arrive at Jupiter, which will be around 15-16 degrees of Cancer. Jupiter arrived at 15-16 degrees of Cancer in late August of this year. It will eventually go retrograde and finally direct back after retreating in Cancer to arrive at this same degree mid-March of 2026. We are in the extended version of Jupiter setting up at this degree, beyond which it cannot pass until the work of the next several months has passed. Anyone with natal planets placed in any sign around 15-16 degrees will be most impacted. There are also aspects like the semi-square or half-square, which are 45 degrees and also very relevant. When any planet goes retrograde and does some back peddling before finally moving forward, it spends time in one area and grows more potent because it’s slower moving and stays longer in one area. Jupiter grows more potent as it slows down into retrograde for the entire time. Its usual effect is to inflate, expand, and magnify in its exuberant willingness to grow. Expand the mind. If one is caught in a narrow, self-centered focus, this expansion can make for a bad fit; we can make assumptions that are misplaced exaggerations. Later on, we realize that we needed some perspective to get the best out of it. But it can also propel one across a threshold of optimism into a new world. Anyone with a natal aspect that falls around the 15-16 degrees of any sign with an orb of an additional 2 degrees before or after will have some kind of interaction with Atlas moving very close to Jupiter next year. Jupiter is already there, Atlas won't arrive until March, but since Jupiter is there now, the story is already unfolding. It's a bit of a wild card, not knowing what kind of spice Atlas is in the Jupiter soup. The natal House location of any planet in the natal chart will suggest an area of your life where this will manifest, plus, of course, all other aspects in relation to where Jupiter's transit is in your chart. These planetary aspects are all amplified with Jupiter's months of slow motion and the eventual meeting with the comet next year. It comes at a time when Saturn and Neptune are cleaning up and leaving dreamy Pisces and entering Aries where things have to work, we have to know, and they have to work now. Pisces is in no hurry, things can marinate. Aries wants what it wants now. Neptune entered Pisces around the time of the Great Recession in 2010-2011. Saturn entered much later, in 2023. This all sounds interestingly ominous, and maybe for some people a little scary because big changes are messy and sometimes scary. Losing control can be the key to success for an artist or athlete, but madness to a brain surgeon or a dentist. The 3rd Interstellar Atlas comet is estimated to vary in size, depending on who is making the estimate, between 20 and 50 km. 20 km is about 12 miles. For comparison, if a one-mile-wide comet hit New York City, the crater would take out the whole city plus part of New Jersey, the fire cloud would spread 100 miles, and the sound of the impact would be 900 miles. It would generate an earthquake of 9 on the Richter scale. That's calculated upon the average speed of a comet, which is usually faster than an asteroid but not nearly as fast as Atlas is moving. It's moving so fast we couldn't send a rocket to catch up to it from behind. Presently 66 k per second, and will be moving quicker as it gets closer and passes by the Sun. It doesn't have a tail as comets do; it's got a gas corona around it and in front. It's outgassing 145 tons of water per hour. If it's interstellar, the assumption is that it's very old to have been able to outgas that much water and survive any length of time. It produces gas, dust, vapor, and plasma when approaching a star like our Sun, so maybe it's spent most of its existence in space, not exposed to a star. To lose that much water per hour means it had to have been very large in the past, wherever it came from. There's a discussion going on to repurpose the Juno Satellite, currently in orbit around Jupiter, scheduled to be mothballed this month. It still has fuel and can be standing by to study Atlas when it arrives at Jupiter in mid-March. While the distance between the comet and Mars is .19 units, (one unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun), the distance between Jupiter and the comet is 0 units. That means it could be very close without hitting it, or hit it. Here are some interesting new details since I completed the above initial commentary on 3IAtlas. There is a growing belief that it has a companion comet or second component very close by. This is very speculative, but the people who want to see it as an alien probe are quick to believe the second component is a sister ship. Further speculation is that when Atlas passes about 29 million miles from Mars in October, it might send the secondary component or probe to survey Mars. For comparison, the distance between the Earth and the Sun is 93.6 million miles. Notable comets that made a dramatic visual drive-by in the last century are accompanied by stories of alien or other-dimensional life. Comet Kohoutek in 1973 inspired stories of being a spiritually relevant vessel passing by to take on passengers before the End Times. Kohoutek fans, hopeful for that, were disappointed but get another crack at it in 2028 when it returns. There’s always a chance they may be right. Earth passes through the Taurid meteor stream twice per year, in the Summer and late Fall. This stream is believed to have brought impacts on Earth multiple times in the past millions of years and is monitored by NASA for anything that might be a future impact. Atlas is not in a repeating orbital pattern within the solar system. As everyone knows, it’s from outside the solar system. In recent days, Atlas has begun to produce a tail, more typical of a comet. It should not be surprising that it didn’t have a tail up to now because when it was spotted and broke into the news cycle, it was still out past the orbit of Jupiter where we don’t expect to see comets. They get noticed when they get closer to the Sun, interacting and producing various gases with the comet. Once inside the orbit of Mars in the coming weeks, it is more likely that a growing tail will emerge, towards the latter part of October. Some observers say the slowly growing tail resembles an exhaust stream, and the glow up front resembles headlights, not a chemical reaction as it approaches the Sun. The Mars Rover can take a high-resolution photo of Atlas from Mars’ surface when Atlas passes by, a much closer view than from Earth, and looking through the thin Martian atmosphere. Thin compared to Earth’s atmosphere. More interesting to me is that the Juno satellite sent to survey Jupiter in 2016 can be reprogrammed to get a closer examination (about 50 million miles away at best) as Atlas passes Jupiter. That would happen on March 14, 2026, calculations show. I like that date for human consciousness to be directly interacting with the remarkable visitor into our solar system through human technology. Jupiter is at 16 degrees of Cancer at the time of this writing. After its retrograde motion which begins in November, Jupiter will return to this same degree of Cancer and then go into direct motion to arrive at the meeting with Atlas mid-March at 16 degrees of Cancer. This happens at the same time as the exact conjunction of Saturn and Neptune, which is an epochal moment for us all, as noted by Astrologers today. Almost every time I read a report on the size of Atlas, the size has changed. The core days ago was said to be 50 km across, and today another source said it’s 20 km across. Either way, it is much larger than most comets. As it passes through the asteroid belt on its way in towards the Sun, passing Jupiter’s orbit and before it gets closer to Mars, its size of 20km or 50km or even more could bang into debris in the asteroid belt, altering orbits of either body. Atlas is not going to hit the Earth, but if a one-mile comet made of heavy or dense ores hit any large city, for comparison, you get a forty-mile-wide crater and a less than 100-mile-wide scorched Earth fireball with an earthquake around 9 on the Richter scale. This is a reason to watch for comets and asteroids, 50km, 20km or even a small one at 2km wide (just over one mile). The earlier source I quoted on the size of the Atlas cloud of its out-gassed aura said it was as much as 700,000 km in diameter. Today I read it is smaller, only 350,000 km in diameter, but it’s growing. Maybe it will reach 700,000 km in diameter as it gets closer to the Sun. I don’t know why two scientists report such big differences in dimension. Another phenomenon of this comet is how much water is being released as it approaches the Sun, and its cloud or coma increases in size as it produces a more substantial tail. It's outgassing an estimated 145 tons of water per hour. That’s a staggering amount of water to lose per hour, suggesting that it was much larger at some time in its earlier history. It's very old to have been able to outgas that much water and survive any length of time. Comments welcome.
David can be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation. Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page. Messages from Spirit Guides and Guardian Angels - |
| I have worked as a licensed Clinical Psychologist for 33 years in the field of Humanistic Psychology. Recently, I discovered Alchemical Hypnosis, and am fascinated by its relationship to my work as a Humanistic Psychologist. Alchemical Hypnosis has enlightened and inspired my work as a Psychologist, adding profound levels of understanding, magic, imagination-based explorations of one’s inner helpers, and daily access to inner healers and spirit guides. There are similarities and differences between these two methods of working with clients to heal and improve their lives. | |
I'm not so concerned with a diagnosis and only use it to be able to bill the client’s insurance. What interests me is witnessing and accompanying the client on their journey of individuation and helping them fulfill their unique potential. By creating a safe place for them to reveal themselves to me, and to reveal themselves to themselves, I help them wipe the fog off the mirror, so to speak, so that they begin to see how they can make changes in their behaviors and explore and alter negative patterns of thinking, emotions, and beliefs.
Alchemical Hypnosis is similar to Humanistic Psychotherapy in that it also considers the client from a very positive perspective. The client becomes the source of healing in an Alchemical Hypnosis session. With the help of the Alchemically trained therapist, the client enters into their inner cosmology through a process of hypnosis, which is a method of helping a person become more and more deeply relaxed and open to whatever comes up from the unconscious, be that thoughts, images, characters, feelings, or even tastes or sounds, and then we make a relationship with this inner character.
For example, when working with a client who had a trauma in their early life, we might need to revisit that trauma for a moment or two. All of us as children had day-in and day-out disappointments, like when our parents let us down or when siblings were mean to us. In this case, I take the person down with hypnosis very gently and safely to their deep inner world where techniques are used to meet this little, hurt inner child who experienced the problems or traumas. We can rescue that inner child and create a different story and memory of the event by bringing in a protector, hero, or new inner parents, who can save the child and give them the loving protection they need. This Alchemical “Inner Child Rescue Technique” helps change the traumatic memory into a positive one. Inner characters, such as a new inner mother, a new inner father, or even an animal protector, know how to give the child the love they need and validate what happened to them. Then the client is taught how to access these positive characters every day to help create feelings of safety in their inner and outer worlds. Self-hatred from experiencing severe abuse is often transformed into self-compassion and deep understanding.
Alchemical Hypnosis is similar to Humanistic Psychotherapy in that it also considers the client from a very positive perspective. The client becomes the source of healing in an Alchemical Hypnosis session. With the help of the Alchemically trained therapist, the client enters into their inner cosmology through a process of hypnosis, which is a method of helping a person become more and more deeply relaxed and open to whatever comes up from the unconscious, be that thoughts, images, characters, feelings, or even tastes or sounds, and then we make a relationship with this inner character.
For example, when working with a client who had a trauma in their early life, we might need to revisit that trauma for a moment or two. All of us as children had day-in and day-out disappointments, like when our parents let us down or when siblings were mean to us. In this case, I take the person down with hypnosis very gently and safely to their deep inner world where techniques are used to meet this little, hurt inner child who experienced the problems or traumas. We can rescue that inner child and create a different story and memory of the event by bringing in a protector, hero, or new inner parents, who can save the child and give them the loving protection they need. This Alchemical “Inner Child Rescue Technique” helps change the traumatic memory into a positive one. Inner characters, such as a new inner mother, a new inner father, or even an animal protector, know how to give the child the love they need and validate what happened to them. Then the client is taught how to access these positive characters every day to help create feelings of safety in their inner and outer worlds. Self-hatred from experiencing severe abuse is often transformed into self-compassion and deep understanding.
Alchemical Hypnosis utilizes the imagination in a way that is not used in most psychotherapeutic environments.
In psychotherapy, people can learn about themselves, make changes in their lives, understand mistakes they may have made, or talk about their often-painful problems. I've been a psychologist for over 30 years, helping people to see themselves more clearly and to work toward loving themselves and their families better. These processes are very good, but they don't go far enough. The wonderful difference that Alchemical Hypnosis offers that psychotherapy does not, is a very effective way to produce often very rapid change in the inner world, utilizing one’s imagination to access inner guides and learning how to contact these helpers every day to continue benefiting from the loving and compassionate healing the client received during the session. A person’s life can transform into one of being loved, cherished, and protected in the inner world. These inner world experiences can affect the client’s outer world, influencing how choices are made, how possibilities are perceived, and how behaviors are better understood and more easily improved.
You might say these are imaginary fantasies, but they are much more powerful than that. When a person works with their inner guides on a daily basis, learns their names, and develops a history together, they can call upon the individual guides to help them in certain situations in their outer life, such as needing to see a hostile boss or meeting someone they are attracted to but afraid to speak with.
You might say these are imaginary fantasies, but they are much more powerful than that. When a person works with their inner guides on a daily basis, learns their names, and develops a history together, they can call upon the individual guides to help them in certain situations in their outer life, such as needing to see a hostile boss or meeting someone they are attracted to but afraid to speak with.
Alchemical Hypnosis can be used effectively for addictions.
It involves being taken down into one’s inner landscape through hypnosis, and meeting the part of the person who first chose to use the addictive substance. For example, guiding a person in the trance state back in time to remember the first time they ever smoked a cigarette. We explore that experience thoroughly, getting as many details as we can in the beginning interview with the client about what it was like to start smoking. How did it make them feel? What did it do for them, and what does it keep them from being able to do now? In further sessions we might meet other characters in the client’s inner world in a process called “Conference Room Therapy”, in which sub-personalities, which we all have in our inner world of sometimes conflicting voices, are given a chance to talk about the addiction and express whether they want the person to stop or if they just don't care. There might be an angry inner part that calls out the client for being so dumb as to have gotten addicted. Other subs might be very understanding and supportive. The technique then involves listening to what the voices have to say, looking at suggestions that are made to substitute something else for the addiction that satisfies the identified needs underlying the addiction, even speaking with those voices that disagree, creating compromises or alliances and eliciting promises to help the person to quit their addictive life. Then a gift--an anchor--is given to the person from an inner character, which is a gesture, a place in their body or an object that they can touch to remind them of what they have learned in this process, how to quit the addiction, and reminding them to ask for the help of their inner guides who have promised to be available for them.
When combined and used sensitively by trained professionals, Humanistic Psychology and Alchemical Hypnosis can create incredible experiences of self-learning, self-acceptance, and self-love.
In each day of class, students first learn the techniques through lectures, and then, with supervision, students practice the techniques on each other. These practice sessions are opportunities both for intense experiential learning and personal healing.
The academic education offered through the Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis is the best teaching program I have ever had the opportunity to participate in. If you are a mental health professional, I urge you to consider taking classes through the Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis. It will add so much meaning to your work with clients and increase your ability to help them make rapid, lasting change.
The academic education offered through the Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis is the best teaching program I have ever had the opportunity to participate in. If you are a mental health professional, I urge you to consider taking classes through the Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis. It will add so much meaning to your work with clients and increase your ability to help them make rapid, lasting change.
The Alchemical Hypnosis training has rounded out my professional toolbox for helping people to actualize any potential they may have ignored or forgotten, and become the best people they can be. This work causes a ripple effect of healing and compassion in relationships and communities and, hopefully, in the larger world of Mother Earth.
Patricia S. Alsup, PhD, May 2025
Patricia S. Alsup, PhD, May 2025
Patricia S. Alsup, PhD, Psychologist Contact me by email at [email protected] or by phone at 707-630-1789. Please leave a voicemail if you would like a return call.
I offer telehealth and accept most insurances and cash.
You can find me listed on STAR Behavioral Health Providers at starproviders.org, a community of licensed civilian mental health providers trained in military culture and best practices.
I can also be found on growtherapy.com and goodtherapy.org
I offer telehealth and accept most insurances and cash.
You can find me listed on STAR Behavioral Health Providers at starproviders.org, a community of licensed civilian mental health providers trained in military culture and best practices.
I can also be found on growtherapy.com and goodtherapy.org
by David A. Wheatley
Saturn and Neptune conjunct about every 36 years in different signs. Neptune takes about 165 years to make one orbit of the Sun, not as long as Pluto (248 years) and a lot quicker than Saturn, which takes a little more than 29 years for one go-around. Saturn does it more frequently, between 27 and 29 years, much quicker than Neptune.
In general, we equate the slower movement of planets with increased exposure to them and more impact, yet Neptune is too subtle for most of us to notice. Mostly, that’s because Neptune is very remote in consciousness, far removed from the five senses we project with into physical life on Earth. Sensitivity, not of touch, sight, or sound but of the psyche, is how we notice Neptune. In the most simple terms, its mystical environment and playground is in our psychology and not to be underestimated because it seems nonphysical or unreal. What’s going on in the psyche 24 hours per day can go unnoticed because our outward-looking consciousness is focused or distracted by the distractions of the five senses. Neptune is not inactive; it’s just not easily noticed.
Neptune is very nonphysical; it’s our line of connection to other dimensions of consciousness outside the body of our solar system, usually beyond our listening range. The expanse of what Neptune is capable of bringing into our consciousness is almost alien to the lives we lead. It doesn’t subscribe to the beliefs and values we adopt from parents and the culture around us after birth, but it can inhabit them, and use them as vehicles to talk to us from spirit world to Earth world. Because Neptune is outside the orbit of Saturn, it isn’t restricted by Saturn’s natural sense of imposed order and structure, the way Jupiter is made to fit into human comprehension. People who meditate are approaching Neptune’s state of consciousness, at least going part way to reach that ocean of being whose size can easily wash over us, but usually, like the oceans we know, it lies there lapping the sandy shore without menace even though it could overwhelm us at any time.
Neptune is very nonphysical; it’s our line of connection to other dimensions of consciousness outside the body of our solar system, usually beyond our listening range. The expanse of what Neptune is capable of bringing into our consciousness is almost alien to the lives we lead. It doesn’t subscribe to the beliefs and values we adopt from parents and the culture around us after birth, but it can inhabit them, and use them as vehicles to talk to us from spirit world to Earth world. Because Neptune is outside the orbit of Saturn, it isn’t restricted by Saturn’s natural sense of imposed order and structure, the way Jupiter is made to fit into human comprehension. People who meditate are approaching Neptune’s state of consciousness, at least going part way to reach that ocean of being whose size can easily wash over us, but usually, like the oceans we know, it lies there lapping the sandy shore without menace even though it could overwhelm us at any time.
Saturn and Neptune are not often a good or easy mix. There’s a lurching back and forth searching for something workable from either extreme until they find a workable way to express that, which in this case, they both cooked up while in Pisces. In Pisces, Neptune was the lead dancer, but Neptune is a tough partner to dance with because it doesn’t follow a known choreography. With both planets in Aries, Saturn will be the lead partner and Neptune has to find a synchronicity to fit in, to get its content of spirit into the forms Saturn is providing.
While they are within a degree or two of each other this year, they reach their perfect conjunction in Aries in February 2026. In July of 2025, they are within one degree of perfect conjunction before retrograde motion pulls them apart in Aries. Saturn entered Pisces in 2023, and leaves it in 2028 after retrograding back and forth, including transiting over the entry to Aries where Neptune crawls along. The entire time, these two planets continue to share and influence one sign, formerly Pisces but shifting gears in a big way in Aries. They were within ten degrees of each other for years, which in a natal chart of any individual is a valid orb of influence for a major outer planet transit to be considered conjunct.
While they are within a degree or two of each other this year, they reach their perfect conjunction in Aries in February 2026. In July of 2025, they are within one degree of perfect conjunction before retrograde motion pulls them apart in Aries. Saturn entered Pisces in 2023, and leaves it in 2028 after retrograding back and forth, including transiting over the entry to Aries where Neptune crawls along. The entire time, these two planets continue to share and influence one sign, formerly Pisces but shifting gears in a big way in Aries. They were within ten degrees of each other for years, which in a natal chart of any individual is a valid orb of influence for a major outer planet transit to be considered conjunct.
Taking a look back at years when Neptune and Saturn were transiting conjunct is a great way to get some idea of how their chemistry mixes, and for all humanity, to consider the many repeated themes coming out of their union regardless of what sign they were in. The sign does have a great influence on the style of what they produce. Unfortunately, the history of these two planets in Aries has been during times of major wars, but not all wars are military. The struggle for dominance that can lead to war is a struggle that these two planets make by the clash of their nature. One planet wants structure and regiment; the other wants formless free expression. They are far apart in character.
Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus co-shared Capricorn beginning in 1989 through 1991.
Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus co-shared Capricorn beginning in 1989 through 1991.
- A major recession in the USA ends with steep costs to the economy.
- Savings and Loan crisis USA, Dow Jones loses almost 7% in one day.
- Polio is considered eliminated, thanks to the vaccine.
- End of the Cold War, Berlin Wall comes down.
- Persian Gulf War.
- Unification of Yemen.
- The beginning of cable news.
- Internet launched.
- US invades Panama.
- Tiananmen Square protest in China.
- The first presidential election in Brazil post-military rule.
- Major new car brands, Lexus and Infinity, launched.
- The Soviets leave Afghanistan.
- Military coup in Paraguay overthrows dictator.
- First woman bishop in worldwide Anglican church appointed in the USA.
- Bomb planted on Pan Am flight explosion/crash.
- Flight leaving Honolulu decompresses, passengers blown out of plane on takeoff.
- Curfew in Kosovo, unrest over intimidation of Serbs, leads to war.
- Electromagnetic storm causes power outage at Quebec hydroelectric plant, 6 million people in US and Canada without power, also in Sweden.
- Exxon Valdiz oil spill.
- Israel surrenders Taba territory to Egypt, ending seven years of dispute.
- A failed coup in Haiti.
- Soviet sub sinks in the Barents Sea.
- Motorola presents the first micro-sized portable phone.
- The last golden toad is seen in Costa Rica.
- Nelson Mandela is eventually released from prison.
- Menendez brothers shoot parents.
- Major hurricane Hugo devastates the Caribbean and the US.
- Lebanese civil war ceasefire.
- 6.9 earthquake rocks San Francisco, 63 people killed, alters baseball World Series.
- Romanian revolution.
- Germany united.
- Hubble telescope launched.
- Saddam invades Kuwait, Gulf War.
- Lech Walesa leader of Poland.
- 7.7 earthquake devastates the Philippines.
- President Bush Sr signs Americans with Disabilities Act.
- Mt Pinatubo erupts in a huge explosion.
A prior Saturn Neptune conjunction in Libra was in the early 1950s, trailing off by November of 1954.
- The dedication of resources to post-world war paranoia by creating sprawling spy agencies.
- The Soviet experiment with mind control.
- Joseph McCarthy’s cultist anti-communist obsession dominate Republican party.
- Eisenhower’s warning about the rise of the military industrial complex.
- Not the internet, the invention of television going into people’s homes.
- Transistor portable radios.
- Annexation of Tibet by China.
- Queen Elizabeth ascends the throne of England.
- Death of Stalin. Putin born.
- Hydrogen bomb developed.
- Rumored Eisenhower meeting with aliens.
- Polio vaccine developed and distributed.
- Humans climb Mt. Everest.
- Discovery of DNA helix.
In 1914-19 the conjunction began in one sign and extended into another, from Cancer to Leo.
- Einstein's work on Relativity.
- Mexico Constitutional Republic founded.
- WW1.
- Spanish Flu (that began in the US) 70-100 million deaths.
- Women’s movement reaches new prominence.
- Russian Revolution and Communism.
- Use of the German Zeppelin in war. (new technology)
- Ford manufactures its first million cars.
- Puerto Ricans gain US citizenship.
- Historical events contribute to fame of Lawrence of Arabia.
- German U-boats off shore USA.
- Restoration of Poland.
- The Red Scare; domestic US terrorism, deporting of feared communists in the USA.
In the 1880’s
- Louis Pasture develops the anthrax vaccine.
- Widespread corruption in Washington government appointments.
- Establishment of time zones in North America.
- Standard Oil has a near monopoly on oil and gas.
- Married women in Britain can own property.
- Britain gains control of Egypt.
- Krakatoa erupts with huge explosion.
- President A Jackson authorized to use force to enforce tariffs.
- Cholera epidemic.
- British Empire abolishes Slavery Act.
- Karl Marx dies.
1844-1849 Aquarius/Pisces
- Neptune discovered.
- Webster/Ashburton Treaty establishing the border between USA and Canada mostly along the 49th parallel. Native people’s tribes are not consulted.
- Mexican American War.
- Mormons arrive in Salt Lake City.
- Notre Dame reconstruction.
- California Gold Rush.
- First Communist Manifesto.
- California separates from Mexico.
- Great Famine, Ireland.
- British banking panic crisis.
- Influenza epidemic worldwide.
- Numerous worker revolutions in Europe.
- Seneca Falls women’s rights convention.
1809 to early 1812 Sagittarius
- Napoleon invades Spain.
- Multiple Spanish American colonies declare independence.
- US government annexes Florida.
- War between US and Britain (US and Canada).
- US slave revolt.
- New Madrid earthquakes 7-8.
- Major Indian Wars in America.
- Discovery of iodine.
- Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin born same day.
- Russia wins war with Sweden and establishes Finland.
- Holy Roman Empire dissolved just prior to the conjunction; Austria attempts to reclaim it in 1809-1811, Napoleon defeats them but fails to consolidate authority.
1772 – 1775 Virgo
- American Revolution
- Slavery not supported by British courts.
- Banking crisis in Scotland, Amsterdam, and the Thirteen Colonies of British North America.
- Poland partitioned.
- First functioning calculator.
- Quebec act, extends Quebec into Ohio valley and imposition of religious politics (Catholic prayer in schools).
- American boycott of British goods.
- Steam power impacts manufacturing in Britain.
Commonalities: Crumbling empires and popular uprisings.
- Sack of Rome by Visigoths 410 BC
- Rome defeats Macedonia, end of Macedonian regional rule 167 BCE
- 122 BCE Hadrian's wall
- 196 CE Han dynasty falls.
- Athens sacked by Germanic tribes 267 CE
- Fall of Holy Roman Byzantine Empire by Ottomans, Constantinople. 1453
- Martin Luther excommunicated.
- Austrian attempt to reassemble, Ottomans gain victory
- 1668 Spain Portugal declaration of restoration.
- Poland 1772 broken up.
- 1848 Paris working class revolt. King Louis abdicates.
- Poland partitioned by Prussia, Russia and Austria. Reestablished 1918. Re-invaded/seized by Hitler/Stalin. Poland reestablished post WW2.
- Berlin Wall falls, Soviet Union dissolved. 1989
Peculiar relationship between Neptune and Russia on the conjunction of Neptune and Saturn.
- 1989 Soviets gone.
- 1917 Russian revolution.
- 1809 Russia seizes Finland.
- 1774 Ottoman war with Russia, Russia seizes Crimea.
Among the themes repeating often in the centuries of Saturn/Neptune meetings are:
- Volcanic eruptions. Nature gone wild.
- Epidemic or pandemic.
- Invention of new medicines.
- Financial market meltdowns.
- New technology that shapes society.
And themes that maybe aren’t as consistent:
- Women’s rights movements.
- Morality, legal ethics and slavery.
- Right wing cult like tendencies (McCarthyism), attempts to force religion into schools.
- American presidents enforcing tariffs.
- American wars with British, Canadian and/or Mexican nations.
- United States of America annexing or invading neighboring lands, (Canada, Panama, Florida). California joins/is acquired by US government.
- Russian wars with neighbors, Poland, Sweden, Finland, and now Ukraine.
For much more detail, check out this amazing review of the Neptune/Saturn conjunctions over the years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCLto1i-Cxk
A Continuing Evolution
One may easily wonder with so many repeating themes about Astrological influences and to what extent we have free will or are compelled to repeat human behavior strapped to the wheel of planetary cycles. Many of the repeating events and themes are continuing evolution; less so repetition are the issues of slavery and women’s rights. These issues progressed over time and continue to right now, with resistance to change making the tensions greater over a longer period of time. They seem like they are repeating, but they are really continuing.
Developing vaccines to deal with epidemics and new discoveries in medicine is another area that might seem like it’s repeating. In fact, it seems like a significant part of vaccine evolution in medicine is asking for a repeat lesson. Unfortunately, with Neptune/Saturn, the evolutions have come with epidemics.
In some past Saturn/Neptune meetings, Uranus was either conjunct or in aspect, as it is now. Uranus, at the end of Taurus and soon the beginning of Gemini, will this summer be in a sextile aspect with Saturn/Neptune and trine to transiting Pluto. The encouraging news is that while the angst of evolutionary change is taking place, innovation and growth can come of it long term.
Developing vaccines to deal with epidemics and new discoveries in medicine is another area that might seem like it’s repeating. In fact, it seems like a significant part of vaccine evolution in medicine is asking for a repeat lesson. Unfortunately, with Neptune/Saturn, the evolutions have come with epidemics.
In some past Saturn/Neptune meetings, Uranus was either conjunct or in aspect, as it is now. Uranus, at the end of Taurus and soon the beginning of Gemini, will this summer be in a sextile aspect with Saturn/Neptune and trine to transiting Pluto. The encouraging news is that while the angst of evolutionary change is taking place, innovation and growth can come of it long term.
Transiting Mars and Pluto opposition wraps up
In this month of April 2025, we are seeing the final of three transits between Mars and Pluto in opposition, which began on the US election day 2024 with Pluto in Capricorn and Mars in Cancer. Around New Year’s 2024-25, Mars opposed Pluto in retrograde, this time with Mars in Leo and Pluto in Aquarius. The change of signs for this opposition shifted the energy of both Mars and Pluto. It was a significant shift of style, auguring the shift of how Pluto works with power from Capricorn to Aquarius. In Capricorn, Pluto drew power to a center, and in Aquarius, it began to break down the power center and make it necessary for power and authority to be forced into multiple hands. This will continue with Pluto in Aquarius for two decades.
Now, soon, from the 24th of April to the 29th, Mars in Leo will make its last of the series of Pluto oppositions. Whatever was cooked up in the first two meetings will be resolved in the third. On the 23rd of April, the Sun will be at the 90-degree square or midpoint of the opposition in Taurus. This is a point of high-tension expression. What happens around this date won’t be finished at this time; it is merely the beginning of something. While Mars seldom sticks around long enough to finish what it started by stirring the pot, Pluto is an evolutionary planet and grinds away slowly at its tasks. A flare up of some kind merely begins something, and it hearkens back very probably to the US election day. My guess is there is some question about the election. Pluto is the underworld; it works in the shadows. It extorts, bribes, arm-twists, and psychologically bends others to break rules. Mars simply likes to stir things up, a happy accomplice in crime.
Saturn and Neptune, virtually conjunct, are sextile to Pluto and trine to Mars in their opposition. This is a much bigger event than the opposition by itself. A short simple description of these combinations is that there may be hidden criminal behavior to be revealed in an angry expression after which necessary knowledge is exposed. With Neptune no longer in the sign of ‘anything goes’ and Saturn moving out soon, we’re going to learn multiple secrets that alter our perception of reality. When Uranus in early summer begins to shift into Gemini, we will again learn a great deal more, and some positive clean-up will begin to take shape. New knowledge also comes from new technology this summer. But I also feel like it isn’t a holiday we chose; it’s coming under the pressures of great need.
My general impression is that these next two weeks of April are a pivotal period after which a major change has happened, and we feel like we are living in a different world.
Now, soon, from the 24th of April to the 29th, Mars in Leo will make its last of the series of Pluto oppositions. Whatever was cooked up in the first two meetings will be resolved in the third. On the 23rd of April, the Sun will be at the 90-degree square or midpoint of the opposition in Taurus. This is a point of high-tension expression. What happens around this date won’t be finished at this time; it is merely the beginning of something. While Mars seldom sticks around long enough to finish what it started by stirring the pot, Pluto is an evolutionary planet and grinds away slowly at its tasks. A flare up of some kind merely begins something, and it hearkens back very probably to the US election day. My guess is there is some question about the election. Pluto is the underworld; it works in the shadows. It extorts, bribes, arm-twists, and psychologically bends others to break rules. Mars simply likes to stir things up, a happy accomplice in crime.
Saturn and Neptune, virtually conjunct, are sextile to Pluto and trine to Mars in their opposition. This is a much bigger event than the opposition by itself. A short simple description of these combinations is that there may be hidden criminal behavior to be revealed in an angry expression after which necessary knowledge is exposed. With Neptune no longer in the sign of ‘anything goes’ and Saturn moving out soon, we’re going to learn multiple secrets that alter our perception of reality. When Uranus in early summer begins to shift into Gemini, we will again learn a great deal more, and some positive clean-up will begin to take shape. New knowledge also comes from new technology this summer. But I also feel like it isn’t a holiday we chose; it’s coming under the pressures of great need.
My general impression is that these next two weeks of April are a pivotal period after which a major change has happened, and we feel like we are living in a different world.
Comments welcome.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
by David A. Wheatley
We are there at a period so many people in the Astrological world are commenting on. Neptune moving into Aries is one thing, and out of Pisces another, though it will later retrograde back into Pisces in the fall of this year and stretch this period of major change that it’s sharing with Saturn and Uranus out into a few years of changes followed by decades of adjustments. There’s a struggle associated with the Neptune shift from Pisces to Aries, and retrograde motion will deepen and extend it. This initial entry is a huge event, and we now have clues about some parts of it as to the impact here in the mundane world.
Neptune is a planet that embodies properties usually outside our daily consciousness. It’s not often that we have a Neptune experience over months or more and recognize it as such at the time. But we won’t have to wait to recognize these shifts, all of them piling up on each other. In fact, because of the transits of Mercury and Venus earlier in March and February, we get some conscious recognition of the themes Neptune and Saturn’s shifts are bringing. Neptune and Saturn in these two signs are very different and we are noticing it. We won't have to wait long to discover what Neptune is changing, but we will not fully know why for years.
Uranus enters Gemini in July, and in June, Jupiter enters Cancer. These large outer planets bring things that seem to happen to us more than changes instigated by us. It feels like things are happening to us and to our environment when the outer planets express their influences. We don’t believe we can do anything but adjust to them, we are not in control, but we look around for ways to take control. The inner planets, inside the orbit from Jupiter to the Sun, are very much involved in bringing events into our conscious lives where we think and feel the differences unfolding around us.
As I have noted in a prior writing, Mercury and Venus are doing a direct and retrograde motion transit in Pisces over transiting Neptune and Saturn from February into April. These two inner planets in transit, plus the Moon's North Nodes in Aries/Pisces going back and forth in their retrograde motions, provoke experiences in our daily lives. Mars is not involved up close with Neptune and Saturn as much as Venus and Mercury are. Mars is still very much involved with Pluto, which changed signs in recent months into Aquarius, where it will remain for a little less than a couple of decades. The distinction of Pluto leaving Capricorn and entering Aquarius is a shift from corporate style, top-down-CEO-Capricorn-directed government to a more Aquarian power distribution. You may not see where we are going yet, but that's because the existing structure of authority will be transformed completely to suit Pluto in Aquarius. Power will be taken away from a single authority and shared by multiple authorities, governors, and regional spokespeople more than a central government. Pluto moves slowly but in a big way.
We also have two eclipses in the month of March; see my previous post plus more below.
We also have two eclipses in the month of March; see my previous post plus more below.
Neptune - Inspiration or Delusion
The transit of Neptune into Aries is taking place on April 1st, depending on your time zone. (April Fool’s Day for those with some appreciation of tempting cosmic humor.) If it was possible to isolate and view reality from Neptune’s point of view, life is the Fool of the Tarot deck, both the Fool at the beginning, the number zero card, and the Fool at the end, the 22nd card of the Major Arcana deck. The zero card Fool is blissfully ignorant of life because he is newly born and knows nothing by experience. True innocence. The number 22 card Fool, at the end of the journey, has experienced some of everything and is not attached to any of it; Neptune is both of these cards.
April Fool’s Day is an old tradition in different parts of the world for different reasons, but the joke or festival was originally about how we humans place importance upon certain days and then, once a year, escape our customs and values. When the New Year which had been celebrated at Easter, was changed to January, it retained the symbolic importance of a new start. It first begins as the rebirth of life, the rebirth of Osiris in ancient eastern Mediterranean cults. Birth is bringing an innocent into the world but in Osiris’s case he was reincarnating as himself, both Fools of the Tarot Major Arcana in one. In India, there was a celebration of life slightly preceding April 1st, in which people for a day stepped outside their caste and freely associated outside the usual structural restrictions of culture with colorful and unusual costumes. Stepping outside the usual rigidity of Time and Space, stepping outside Saturn’s structure of our lives.
April Fool’s Day is an old tradition in different parts of the world for different reasons, but the joke or festival was originally about how we humans place importance upon certain days and then, once a year, escape our customs and values. When the New Year which had been celebrated at Easter, was changed to January, it retained the symbolic importance of a new start. It first begins as the rebirth of life, the rebirth of Osiris in ancient eastern Mediterranean cults. Birth is bringing an innocent into the world but in Osiris’s case he was reincarnating as himself, both Fools of the Tarot Major Arcana in one. In India, there was a celebration of life slightly preceding April 1st, in which people for a day stepped outside their caste and freely associated outside the usual structural restrictions of culture with colorful and unusual costumes. Stepping outside the usual rigidity of Time and Space, stepping outside Saturn’s structure of our lives.
As I have described before, Jupiter is inside the orbit of Saturn, so while Jupiter brings expansion and development of higher ideals in the mind it is limited by the structures of Saturn, the usual limits of our psychology. Neptune is also a planet that brings expansion, but it is outside the orbit of Saturn and is beyond the limits of Saturn that Jupiter is restricted by. To our consciousness, a lot about Neptune is abstract because it connects to consciousness outside this solar system, our soul’s connection to a higher mind, as some people call it. But for a lot of us, interpreting the inspirations of this higher mind is not clear. Similar to dream interpretation, the reality of Neptune can only be grasped in our Earthly mind by symbols and by the effects or influences of this remote level of consciousness, by Neptune. You don’t see gravity, but you see what it does. The inspirations of Neptune are often misinterpreted as they are filtered through individual human psychology. What may have been intended as inspiration could also be bent into delusion. It depends on the psychological state of the person experiencing it.
It's difficult to talk about this period as one planet doing something; the combination of them is beyond comprehension in a simple description.
A Neptune-inspired opportunity to evolve as we have now is intended to bring more of Neptune down into daily consciousness and become part of our lives. But there are concepts we hold that get in the way of a clear perception. Neptune will be inspirational in positive and negative ways, but even the negative, though costly, will educate us. For some people, learning by bad choices is the only way to go, in keeping with their individual evolutionary needs. People can believe they hear an inner voice, but is it a higher voice? Or is it a voice from their psychology? Either way, Neptune is pulling all the strings to motivate our spirit. It is possible and it can be productive to follow an inspiration directly to fulfillment or take a detour because you misinterpreted it to accommodate your preferences. Following the inspiration always leads somewhere, to the mountain top or be filtered in our psychology, and like bad GPS, it takes us not to the utopia we imagined but to a dead end. Sometimes, you only know by trying.
In what is happening Astrologically, I have tried to stress for a year now that Neptune in Pisces is a fantastic sign to be in for the inspirational voice, but it arrives in our ear through our brain and through our psychology. It is bent by our desires, fears and hopes, by the limits of comprehension and subject to interpretation, by the agenda we may have been born with to pursue.
In what is happening Astrologically, I have tried to stress for a year now that Neptune in Pisces is a fantastic sign to be in for the inspirational voice, but it arrives in our ear through our brain and through our psychology. It is bent by our desires, fears and hopes, by the limits of comprehension and subject to interpretation, by the agenda we may have been born with to pursue.
I’m reminded of the story of Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers. He had the gift of knowing which road to take as a result of getting his directions wrong frequently until one day, he had traveled almost every road and, therefore, was a good advisor for anyone seeking direction. Neptune leaving Pisces to enter Aries means our inspirational sense of direction will change from the “anything goes” of Pisces. Neptune in Aries reduces the quantity and quality of inspiration, making it serve a shorter attention span in seeking satisfaction.
Neptune leaving Pisces will help make things clearer by introducing fewer choices. This isn’t about believing in what feels good, which is what fuels Fake News. In Aries, it’s about serving a more specific purpose with some immediacy; simplifying by necessity. Neptune in Aries is a very different character and this shift, technically beginning April 1st, will be such a shift that we are bewildered and can only get a handle on it spread out over time. It’s a disorienting shift because what we learn as it leaves Pisces is that the vision of the world and ourselves that we thought we had in hand is not the shape we believed it to be. The mists of Pisces are gone. The clarity of Aries will at first hit you in the face; it will be awkward, embarrassing, and disappointing.
30 degrees of Pisces is also zero degrees or the beginning of Aries. What makes it very real for us are the transits of Mercury and Venus in the weeks before and, in particular, for the full last week of March and the beginning of April. On March 3-4th , Mercury is conjunct Neptune at the tail end of Pisces. We got a peek inside the fog, to see something that we didn’t see before, a hint of new or clearer information. In February, Venus conjuncted Neptune and we had some clue of things then. It was the Trump tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. Venus is all about negotiating, buying and selling things we value, and trade. The stock market didn’t like the news about these tariffs and dropped over 700 points at the close, though it was worse earlier in the day. With the Mercury transit in March comes the terms of tariffs: how much will be applied, and how much the retribution tariff will be. In April, because of retrograde motions, any policies or agreements will be triggered again, when both Venus and Mercury transit over Neptune again, but in Aries not Pisces. In Aries, the likely result is taking action with clear consequences and impacts. In Aries, there’s a more specific requirement than there was in the Piscean lack of order. In the Pisces laboratory, the result of an experiment is a reliable fact. But in Aries, instead of trying to find a definition, we have a more specific goal to use tools to achieve; we don't care so much about what is real or fact. We need more specific tools for a more specific purpose, and we need them now.
30 degrees of Pisces is also zero degrees or the beginning of Aries. What makes it very real for us are the transits of Mercury and Venus in the weeks before and, in particular, for the full last week of March and the beginning of April. On March 3-4th , Mercury is conjunct Neptune at the tail end of Pisces. We got a peek inside the fog, to see something that we didn’t see before, a hint of new or clearer information. In February, Venus conjuncted Neptune and we had some clue of things then. It was the Trump tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. Venus is all about negotiating, buying and selling things we value, and trade. The stock market didn’t like the news about these tariffs and dropped over 700 points at the close, though it was worse earlier in the day. With the Mercury transit in March comes the terms of tariffs: how much will be applied, and how much the retribution tariff will be. In April, because of retrograde motions, any policies or agreements will be triggered again, when both Venus and Mercury transit over Neptune again, but in Aries not Pisces. In Aries, the likely result is taking action with clear consequences and impacts. In Aries, there’s a more specific requirement than there was in the Piscean lack of order. In the Pisces laboratory, the result of an experiment is a reliable fact. But in Aries, instead of trying to find a definition, we have a more specific goal to use tools to achieve; we don't care so much about what is real or fact. We need more specific tools for a more specific purpose, and we need them now.
In March, there are two eclipses.
A total lunar eclipse on March 14th at 23 degrees of Virgo is visible in North and South America. The partial Solar Eclipse is on March 29th at 9 degrees of Aries.
The total lunar eclipse at 9 degrees of Aries is probably highly sensitive for anyone with any planet or asteroid at 9 degrees of Aries, Libra, Cancer, or Capricorn because both Mercury and Venus moved forward to this degree before turning retrograde, going back into Pisces, and then by mid-May they move direct and over 9 degrees of Aries again to complete this extended cycle over Neptune, Saturn and their transit into Aries.
The March 29th solar eclipse at 29 degrees of Pisces is on top of Neptune and Saturn and conjuncts the Moon’s North Nodes, a very potent point on the ecliptic of the Sun’s path as seen from Earth. The North Nodes help us understand our purpose, if not for life, then certainly in the moment we are in. The incredible pile of planets at the end of Pisces moving into Aries, with the Nodes moving from Aries back into Pisces, suggests we are going to learn defining truths whether we like them or not. We will learn over the weeks leading up to the beginning of April that we face a changing world we hardly recognize because it’s changed so much so quickly.
While we have much clearer knowledge and feelings about what we have learned (Mercury and Venus) we are consigned to live with the uncertainty (Moon’s Nodes retrograding back into Pisces). We will learn a lot in the last week of March leading up to the beginning of April. We will face a changing world we hardly recognize since the end of 2024. So much changes so quickly, though the indicators have been present for months.
Some Astrologers note how some of these transits historically coincide with wars and civil strife. I’m not convinced of this, but I am convinced that we are in a period of profound internal disorder, which for some people will only manifest externally. We are all more vulnerable to anything that adds to the feeling of not being in control. The growing disorder and confusion will continue to break up world order, from events manufactured by people and by forces of nature. We already have a major war, forcing long-standing changes in the Western world. We could have more wars, trade wars escalating to society-altering challenges. Aries is always ready for a fight, but even if it’s just in a hurry to get what it wants, Aries energy is not patient; it reacts and survives. Very different from Pisces energy, which allowed contradictions to coexist.
The total lunar eclipse at 9 degrees of Aries is probably highly sensitive for anyone with any planet or asteroid at 9 degrees of Aries, Libra, Cancer, or Capricorn because both Mercury and Venus moved forward to this degree before turning retrograde, going back into Pisces, and then by mid-May they move direct and over 9 degrees of Aries again to complete this extended cycle over Neptune, Saturn and their transit into Aries.
The March 29th solar eclipse at 29 degrees of Pisces is on top of Neptune and Saturn and conjuncts the Moon’s North Nodes, a very potent point on the ecliptic of the Sun’s path as seen from Earth. The North Nodes help us understand our purpose, if not for life, then certainly in the moment we are in. The incredible pile of planets at the end of Pisces moving into Aries, with the Nodes moving from Aries back into Pisces, suggests we are going to learn defining truths whether we like them or not. We will learn over the weeks leading up to the beginning of April that we face a changing world we hardly recognize because it’s changed so much so quickly.
While we have much clearer knowledge and feelings about what we have learned (Mercury and Venus) we are consigned to live with the uncertainty (Moon’s Nodes retrograding back into Pisces). We will learn a lot in the last week of March leading up to the beginning of April. We will face a changing world we hardly recognize since the end of 2024. So much changes so quickly, though the indicators have been present for months.
Some Astrologers note how some of these transits historically coincide with wars and civil strife. I’m not convinced of this, but I am convinced that we are in a period of profound internal disorder, which for some people will only manifest externally. We are all more vulnerable to anything that adds to the feeling of not being in control. The growing disorder and confusion will continue to break up world order, from events manufactured by people and by forces of nature. We already have a major war, forcing long-standing changes in the Western world. We could have more wars, trade wars escalating to society-altering challenges. Aries is always ready for a fight, but even if it’s just in a hurry to get what it wants, Aries energy is not patient; it reacts and survives. Very different from Pisces energy, which allowed contradictions to coexist.
This is an unsettling time condensing huge change into a few months.
We're going to gain some clarity about things we believed to be true while both Saturn and Neptune were in Pisces, and likely were not what we thought they were. Heads will spin. What we learn will define life for years to come. The element of surprise isn’t a big factor with Neptune and Saturn moving into Aries; that will come later with Uranus moving into Gemini in July. We already see the writing all over the wall with Neptune’s big move, and the price we pay for it comes with Saturn’s move into Aries shortly after. Uranus comes along and reminds us that we are not in control. That isn’t all bad, though, because our belief in the control we thought we had created a mess. Uranus will innovate, but this is the kind of innovation that comes from fixing something broken.
As these major transits have moved into tighter moments, we have had weeks of the current US administration chopping up agencies, firing people, shutting down or slowing down government work, disemboweling intelligence agencies, threatening judges, and defying court orders. Issuing contradicting, barely informative reports of their results. Court challenges that will slow the process down. Creating vulnerabilities to domestic and foreign terrorists and hackers. On March 14th a government shutdown over the budget is to be faced.
While these things are occurring while both Saturn and Neptune are in Pisces, it's not going to be very long before we get a look at the new reality and, thus, in a short period of time, learn that humanity is not in control as it thought it was. The hidden agendas will be more clearly seen. In the chopping up of government and in the budget are many things hidden from the public, but we will see them all more clearly very soon. The accounting of what has been cut is vague, and some of the numbers are already seen to be obscured; the mists of Pisces make it hard to define what we are seeing. In April we will know a lot more, but the full accounting won’t be known for months. The changes (which is not a word people who lost their job would use) will have ripples for months all over the country and the world. People and their families are going to suffer. The alleged purpose, to make government more efficient, is one of those theories that in Pisces looks great, in the laboratory. But in the real world of Aries, when the mist is blown off, we see something that had been concealed in fog.
The money saved, as advertised, is a moving target; we don't have any way to know what the results will be. Making changes in a structured, complex government spontaneously by people outside the government who simply say, "Trust me," is asking for chaos. The expenses and losses coming out of this method will be evident later.
As these major transits have moved into tighter moments, we have had weeks of the current US administration chopping up agencies, firing people, shutting down or slowing down government work, disemboweling intelligence agencies, threatening judges, and defying court orders. Issuing contradicting, barely informative reports of their results. Court challenges that will slow the process down. Creating vulnerabilities to domestic and foreign terrorists and hackers. On March 14th a government shutdown over the budget is to be faced.
While these things are occurring while both Saturn and Neptune are in Pisces, it's not going to be very long before we get a look at the new reality and, thus, in a short period of time, learn that humanity is not in control as it thought it was. The hidden agendas will be more clearly seen. In the chopping up of government and in the budget are many things hidden from the public, but we will see them all more clearly very soon. The accounting of what has been cut is vague, and some of the numbers are already seen to be obscured; the mists of Pisces make it hard to define what we are seeing. In April we will know a lot more, but the full accounting won’t be known for months. The changes (which is not a word people who lost their job would use) will have ripples for months all over the country and the world. People and their families are going to suffer. The alleged purpose, to make government more efficient, is one of those theories that in Pisces looks great, in the laboratory. But in the real world of Aries, when the mist is blown off, we see something that had been concealed in fog.
The money saved, as advertised, is a moving target; we don't have any way to know what the results will be. Making changes in a structured, complex government spontaneously by people outside the government who simply say, "Trust me," is asking for chaos. The expenses and losses coming out of this method will be evident later.
Last year, the USA came out of a Pluto return.
History buffs, you know this painting is not from 1776, it's from the war of 1812. The banner wording makes it relevant now. Reflecting back to Pluto’s first passage at the nation's birth, when it left Capricorn in the early years of America's history, the US was finally established as independent from Britain in 1776. Britain was the oppressive Plutonic empire of the day, with a king issuing edicts against which Americans rebelled to form its democracy. Pluto then as now entered Aquarius, and it was in the 12 years after Pluto left Capricorn and spent years transiting Aquarius that the Constitution was crafted. This transit of Pluto is Aquarian, forming shared power in a democracy. We are once again facing breaking away from a king, but this time, it’s a challenge of our own making, and we will be forced to make changes to the Constitution because the laws as written centuries ago have been shown to be severely lacking. Once again, we have to redistribute power and reform democracy.
This second Pluto transit through Aquarius is just beginning for the USA, and the country will face similar patterns as it did following Pluto’s first transit through Aquarius. Those decades were not easy. They brought struggle and internal civil strife. The Founding Father and first President George Washington was offered the role of King in America but turned it down in deference to setting the young nation on the road to democracy, and we are doing it again. He guided the US into and through the Civil War and the fight for racial equality, which we still struggle with today. We will face more revisions. Some States will favor one set of issues and some States will prefer another in all social issues, as we did before. It is possible that instead of forming a union, Pluto in Aquarius this time further defines individuality and States wish to break away from the US government as the US once broke away from Britain’s empire. Time will tell, but we should be prepared for this possibility. Pluto will break down to dust that which refuses to transform and use the dust to make the new cement structures.
This second Pluto transit through Aquarius is just beginning for the USA, and the country will face similar patterns as it did following Pluto’s first transit through Aquarius. Those decades were not easy. They brought struggle and internal civil strife. The Founding Father and first President George Washington was offered the role of King in America but turned it down in deference to setting the young nation on the road to democracy, and we are doing it again. He guided the US into and through the Civil War and the fight for racial equality, which we still struggle with today. We will face more revisions. Some States will favor one set of issues and some States will prefer another in all social issues, as we did before. It is possible that instead of forming a union, Pluto in Aquarius this time further defines individuality and States wish to break away from the US government as the US once broke away from Britain’s empire. Time will tell, but we should be prepared for this possibility. Pluto will break down to dust that which refuses to transform and use the dust to make the new cement structures.
Among the issues stirred up in recent weeks is the assertion that Canada should become an American state whether it likes it or not.
Canada’s natal chart indicates some of this is more serious than first thought. Saturn has been transiting over Canada’s natal South Node for a few months, now passing. But Both Neptune right now and soon Saturn are transiting over Canada’s natal Chiron at 26 plus degrees of Pisces in the 3rd house. Ultimately, this is a healing experience, and indeed, Canada’s reaction to being threatened by American annexation has been to pull together and realign its trade agreements with other nations, reducing a dependency on the USA.
Eventually, both Saturn and Neptune will be conjuncting Canada’s natal 1st house Pluto. Saturn first, in the Spring of 2027, Neptune years later. The first transit from Saturn is not a happy one; it’s prefaced by Saturn’s transiting squares to the natal Sun, Moon, and Uranus in the 3rd and 4th houses in 2025-26. These are economically challenging surprise expenses, plans begun with great optimism during the summer of 2025, with Jupiter making a series of conjunctions in Cancer, that end up not delivering as much as was hoped. By late 2025 through ’26, Pluto will oppose Canada’s natal 5th house Mercury. This suggests a leadership that's unable to avoid a depressing challenge from a powerful threat and a need to be creative in strategy. Uranus moving in by transit to sextile Canada's natal 2nd house Mercury, is a very positive inventive economic strategy. The way to undo the potency of Pluto's coercions is with an economic lure, an economic inspiration outside the usual boundaries. Uranus by transit also squares Canada's natal 6th house Mars. This is another dimension of Mars economic aggression.
Pluto works over the long term, so it will be something like a war or longer-term depression. Saturn conjunct natal Neptune is a time for reflection and answering doubts about identity. In a few years, it is followed by transiting Neptune conjuncting natal 4th house Neptune in 2030-31. This is a time of rebirth of national ideals, rediscovering the beauty of the home country.
There’s abundant scientific projection that by 2030 planetary changes related to climate have or are occurring. It’s possible that large shifts in population are happening, mostly from the south (USA) to the north (Canada) and national identities are being redefined.
Eventually, both Saturn and Neptune will be conjuncting Canada’s natal 1st house Pluto. Saturn first, in the Spring of 2027, Neptune years later. The first transit from Saturn is not a happy one; it’s prefaced by Saturn’s transiting squares to the natal Sun, Moon, and Uranus in the 3rd and 4th houses in 2025-26. These are economically challenging surprise expenses, plans begun with great optimism during the summer of 2025, with Jupiter making a series of conjunctions in Cancer, that end up not delivering as much as was hoped. By late 2025 through ’26, Pluto will oppose Canada’s natal 5th house Mercury. This suggests a leadership that's unable to avoid a depressing challenge from a powerful threat and a need to be creative in strategy. Uranus moving in by transit to sextile Canada's natal 2nd house Mercury, is a very positive inventive economic strategy. The way to undo the potency of Pluto's coercions is with an economic lure, an economic inspiration outside the usual boundaries. Uranus by transit also squares Canada's natal 6th house Mars. This is another dimension of Mars economic aggression.
Pluto works over the long term, so it will be something like a war or longer-term depression. Saturn conjunct natal Neptune is a time for reflection and answering doubts about identity. In a few years, it is followed by transiting Neptune conjuncting natal 4th house Neptune in 2030-31. This is a time of rebirth of national ideals, rediscovering the beauty of the home country.
There’s abundant scientific projection that by 2030 planetary changes related to climate have or are occurring. It’s possible that large shifts in population are happening, mostly from the south (USA) to the north (Canada) and national identities are being redefined.
Mexico’s natal chart shows a similar pattern.
Mexico's natal chart. Astrodienst. Along a similar timeline, transiting Saturn and Neptune in Aries will square Mexico’s natal 11th house Uranus beginning this Spring. This is trouble with bringing people together domestically and internationally in the conventional way. Mexico will be forced to innovate, and it will succeed. In a couple of years along a similar timeline approaching the Spring of 2027, Mexico will have difficult economic times for reasons mostly to do with itself, not foreign nations. Some difficulty nurturing people, feeding people, crop growth, probably climate-related, needing some adjustment and altering ways of life.
In the US chart, an extended karmic period of crisis, rebirth and new values
USA natal chart. Astrodienst. Later into the summer of 2025 and for the following two years, transiting Saturn will be opposite natal Saturn in the US chart from the 4th to the 10th house. Everyone in the world will know these are hard times in the US, and everyone will know why: it’s self-inflicted. There will be confusion in two years when Neptune opposes natal Saturn. Both transiting Saturn and Neptune will square the US natal Venus, Sun and Jupiter in the next two years, in the 7th house. This clearly indicates restrictions, austerity and tensions at home and with foreign nations. Also beginning in about two years, and lasting for 2 or 3 more years right up to 2030, transiting Pluto will conjunct the US South Nodes in the 2nd house. This indicates an extended karmic period of economic crisis, crash, rebirth, and rediscovery of new values. Karmic periods are meant to reveal past mistakes.
The final climax in the cycle of retrograde Mars opposing Pluto occurs in late April
A very interesting transit happening now, at the same time as the Saturn/Neptune transit enters Aries, is with an ongoing retrograde Mars. It went retrograde late last October and entered into an opposition with transiting Pluto on election day 2024 in the USA.
It was Pluto’s last caper before leaving Capricorn at the tail end of the work it had done while in that sign for two decades. It is ironic that it was on the US election day and that the man who won has many Plutonic traits and the criminal characteristics of Mars opposite Pluto.
Pluto is the reformer but does it in a harsh way. For a people to learn about the virtues of a good legal system, it has to see crime. To learn about the costs of oppression, people have to be oppressed. (Some people know this already, maybe from another life experience, so some may not experience this.) Pluto brings darkness in order for us to bring light into the darkness and discover what the darkness is in us and what needs to be brought out where the light is.
It was Pluto’s last caper before leaving Capricorn at the tail end of the work it had done while in that sign for two decades. It is ironic that it was on the US election day and that the man who won has many Plutonic traits and the criminal characteristics of Mars opposite Pluto.
Pluto is the reformer but does it in a harsh way. For a people to learn about the virtues of a good legal system, it has to see crime. To learn about the costs of oppression, people have to be oppressed. (Some people know this already, maybe from another life experience, so some may not experience this.) Pluto brings darkness in order for us to bring light into the darkness and discover what the darkness is in us and what needs to be brought out where the light is.
Mars in opposition to Pluto does it in a crushing way, a rather primitive direct expression of anger in a grab for power. Because this opposition fell on election day 2024, I was expecting something criminal to take place. Maybe something criminal did take place and we learn of it in late April 2025 when Mars makes its final opposition to Pluto in this series of three transits. Mars went direct and crossed the same opposition to Pluto in January, but this time, Pluto was in Aquarius. This last opposition is with Pluto in Aquarius so any criminal activity could be with technology.
The change of sign is important; Pluto in Capricorn in November was the same old mob-style crime in the dark. Pluto in Aquarius is not individual Pluto, it’s group Pluto, affecting a group of people together who experience some of the darker aspects of Pluto’s lust for power. What Pluto does is use that power to destroy. The final climax is when Mars makes its final of the three oppositions in the retrograde transit in late April. At the same time in late April, transiting Mercury will sextile the transit of Pluto and trine the transit of Mars. This is good news about the completion of the Mars opposition to Pluto transit. The news could be related to the election last November when Mars first opposed Pluto. The good news favors the collective (Aquarius), not the individual (Pluto in Capricorn).
The change of sign is important; Pluto in Capricorn in November was the same old mob-style crime in the dark. Pluto in Aquarius is not individual Pluto, it’s group Pluto, affecting a group of people together who experience some of the darker aspects of Pluto’s lust for power. What Pluto does is use that power to destroy. The final climax is when Mars makes its final of the three oppositions in the retrograde transit in late April. At the same time in late April, transiting Mercury will sextile the transit of Pluto and trine the transit of Mars. This is good news about the completion of the Mars opposition to Pluto transit. The news could be related to the election last November when Mars first opposed Pluto. The good news favors the collective (Aquarius), not the individual (Pluto in Capricorn).
In late June 2025, Jupiter transits into Cancer, and in July, Uranus transits into Gemini. Over the summer, Jupiter makes a few very positive and hopeful conjunctions to US natal planets in the 7th house. This is excellent energy for expanding a positive relationship with foreign nations. Uranus entering Gemini remains in the US 6th house of work and health. Uranus brings boom and bust. In Taurus, where it’s been for a few years, Uranus has been somewhat tame, with few wild swings. In Gemini, Uranus is in an Air sign and unshackled. Fortunes will be made or lost between now and then; more positively after the summer.
Comments welcome.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
by David A. Wheatley
It’s finally here, 2025, with a multi-planet shifting of trans-Jupiter planets from one sign to another within a very short period of time.
We are still within the envelope of Mars's opposition to Pluto, which began around the US election day in November of 2024. If you are one of those with doubts about the election results, you will have reason to continue wondering as Mars in Leo retrogrades back across into Cancer and repeats its opposition to transiting Pluto. This also applies to people who supported Trump, who will not be satisfied with the results either for different reasons in the coming months. Mars transiting opposite transiting Pluto is on a cusp; it’s shifting on an axis between two opposing signs, Cancer and Capricorn, and Leo and Aquarius. The opposition begins on one axis, and because of retrograde motion, it will finish on another in another two signs. This kind of split personality, for a major aspect repeating in different signs, is also going to be true for Saturn and Neptune. They will conjunct in Pisces and in Aries between March of 2025 and a year later in 2026. This is twice the work of adjusting to big changes happening on sign cusps. You think you got it in one sign and then have to do it again in another.
It’s finally here, 2025, with a multi-planet shifting of trans-Jupiter planets from one sign to another within a very short period of time.
We are still within the envelope of Mars's opposition to Pluto, which began around the US election day in November of 2024. If you are one of those with doubts about the election results, you will have reason to continue wondering as Mars in Leo retrogrades back across into Cancer and repeats its opposition to transiting Pluto. This also applies to people who supported Trump, who will not be satisfied with the results either for different reasons in the coming months. Mars transiting opposite transiting Pluto is on a cusp; it’s shifting on an axis between two opposing signs, Cancer and Capricorn, and Leo and Aquarius. The opposition begins on one axis, and because of retrograde motion, it will finish on another in another two signs. This kind of split personality, for a major aspect repeating in different signs, is also going to be true for Saturn and Neptune. They will conjunct in Pisces and in Aries between March of 2025 and a year later in 2026. This is twice the work of adjusting to big changes happening on sign cusps. You think you got it in one sign and then have to do it again in another.
Pluto has just begun to depart its two decades of work in Capricorn and bring a new angle on the power of Pluto by entering Aquarius. Pluto in Capricorn was about the obsession with concentrated power to transform by edict overwhelmingly. The shift into Aquarius is not about top-down power; it’s about power sharing or power taken and distributed. The first one is voluntary; the second one is by initiative. The old model for Pluto won’t work in Aquarius. If it survived the transition of Pluto into Aquarius as it did in Russia, it only survived to face a forced breakdown while Pluto is in Aquarius. A similar reality faces Trump, who seems poised to assume and concentrate power around himself. Things won’t cooperate as they often don’t for incoming presidents. Circumstances will break down the lines of authority and distribute them, taking power away from a central authority and being custom-fit for more regional and local challenges. It’s conceivable that Trump’s attempt to control more leads to the dissolution of presidential power.
At the end of Cancer and moving into Leo, transiting Mars opposed transiting Pluto as it left Capricorn and entered Aquarius last November on election day in the US. Normally the opposition from transiting Mars would last a week or so, but Mars turned retrograde after passing out of the opposition and moved backwards into aspect and into Cancer again by the end of December. On April 3rd, 2025, Mars moves direct and is for the final time in this series opposing Pluto for the last time. Mars's final opposition in this series is a change from its first opposition in the series, taking place in Leo/Aquarius, not Cancer/Capricorn.
Same two planets, same aspect, different signs. What’s the difference?
For Pluto, it’s a shift from feeling like power is in your hands (Capricorn) to realizing you do not have control over the power; very likely, the power has control over you. For Mars it’s a shift from Cancer to Leo. Mars in Cancer is ready to defend its position, what it believes it owns. Mars in Leo isn’t just defending; it wants everyone to know that it’s putting a flag in the ground and taking what it wants because if you don’t seize what you want, someone else will take it. Mars in Cancer would go to war if attacked, Mars in Leo will start the war. Mars opposition Pluto is jockeying with and presuming to be one of the powerful players, challenging others to put up a fight. Unfortunately, this is the mindset of a bully, both successful and unsuccessful bullies.
Individual people cannot attain and keep the power Pluto brings within their control because most of Pluto is the proverbial iceberg beneath the surface; its natural realm is the unconscious. Would-be operators in the conscious 3D world will never have what it takes to hold this power though they believe otherwise as if they are immortal gods. What they learn is that they are being used by this power from the unconscious. The psyche is always using us, getting us to where we need to be through the deception of the ego. Pluto’s power is manipulated from the unconscious, and what’s in the unconscious are stored memories from past experiences, things we may have tried before, once or many times, and the emotional impact of failure and success. Trying to repair the failure feeling, ego will try again and again to turn failure into success. Whatever lesson was to be found in failure, if it hasn’t been learned, will mount up a greater effort to get past the crushed ego and appeal to us on other levels of realization. It’s always up to us to see things for what they are, see ourselves for who we are, and make choices because of it. The Mars-Pluto opposition is for the benefit of those who need to repeat an experience they’ve suffered before, something that they insulated themselves from realizing and letting go of or acting differently on.
Mars finally moving direct and making a final opposition to Pluto as Pluto finally settles into decades in Aquarius, commences setting the themes for Pluto in Aquarius. The next year will be the shifting of all the major outer planets into new signs AND because of retrograde motion, they will as Pluto has done, go back and forth on either side of the relative sign cusps. It will take a year to find a new rhythm because of things happening in 2025 to force changes. The one thing that seems certain is while evolution requires the growth to come, at first it isn’t welcome and no one likes the shape it comes in. Much later on, the major planets make very favorable aspects to each other. Along with the major changes we are forced to make are long-term benefits.
Long-term the shape of things results from what happens in 2025 into early 2026.
The structures of life with Saturn erecting them in Aries, not Pisces, is to pioneer in a new direction. Gone are the vague borderless facts of Pisces, though borders as people think of them now are also gone. In 2024 around the world there was a huge cry for more defined borders. Saturn in Pisces undermines the psychological vitality of borders. In Aries, to simplify things as Saturn quite often does, it eliminates borders. There are fewer borders to watch. Not likely, this is something many people thought they wanted; this is something they realize is a new reality and because of a realization of survival needs is going to become the new normal.
Aquarius is about an individual or group of individuals who don’t identify with a national flag as people once did. It’s an Air sign ruled by Uranus and Saturn oddly enough, two planets of a very contrary nature. It’s considered the sign of new technology and innovation. Pluto entering Aquarius will very soon be in a trine aspect to Uranus in fellow Air sign Gemini. Once we hurdle 2025 into early ’26 we will begin to build new structures with new tools for a new world.
Aquarius is about an individual or group of individuals who don’t identify with a national flag as people once did. It’s an Air sign ruled by Uranus and Saturn oddly enough, two planets of a very contrary nature. It’s considered the sign of new technology and innovation. Pluto entering Aquarius will very soon be in a trine aspect to Uranus in fellow Air sign Gemini. Once we hurdle 2025 into early ’26 we will begin to build new structures with new tools for a new world.
Pluto_Hades_by_Arcosart By April, it should be clear that the centralized power running the US nation (and any other nation or group association) is probably criminally dysfunctional. I say criminally because Pluto works with no regard for the laws of man. Pluto does not know right or wrong; it knows what it wants. What it wants is to find release, to liberate what’s been locked up in the unconscious. Often, structures in the conscious 3D world are in the way and have to be moved, bulldozed, and blown up to make way for what’s coming. Because Pluto is unconscious, it seldom can enact its agenda directly the way swift Mercury can present an idea in a conversation. Pluto is metaphorically lord of the underworld; it presents its idea from below, upsetting what’s built above. If Mercury is the Tower of Language, communication, of Babel, Pluto is the foundation upon which it is built. If Pluto, from its subterranean vaults, is connected to the ephemeral airy sky god Uranus via a lightning bolt, chances are good that the Tower is coming down and will be rebuilt in a new way so this doesn’t happen again. If the internet world of 2024 crashes, it’s going to be rebuilt in a way, perhaps as it always should have been. Until then, a little struggle makes foreign borders an abstract not a part of anyone’s reality. Your new borders are as far as you can exchange with others from your hometown base. Some cities still have working phone booths; bravo for you if you live in one of those, but who do you call?
This incredible process of picture framing by Mars/Pluto from the day of the American election in 2024 into Spring of 2025, hosts the contents of the picture produced by the major outer planets shifting signs. Beginning now but not completed until later in 2026. Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus all shift signs during this one year, but because of retrograde motion, they waffle back into Pisces and Taurus before settling in forward motion, giving us humans an opportunity to adjust.
This incredible process of picture framing by Mars/Pluto from the day of the American election in 2024 into Spring of 2025, hosts the contents of the picture produced by the major outer planets shifting signs. Beginning now but not completed until later in 2026. Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus all shift signs during this one year, but because of retrograde motion, they waffle back into Pisces and Taurus before settling in forward motion, giving us humans an opportunity to adjust.
With Uranus leaving the Fixed Earth sign of Taurus and entering the very different hyper-flexible Mutable Air sign of Gemini, Uranus is unshackled and ready to interrupt human lines of communication with nonsensical chatter. Is it nonsensical, or is it above our head brilliant? Uranus will celebrate gaining liberty with some earth-shaking, big-time cyber hack. The shift of Uranus from Taurus to Gemini is not going to be subtle. Uranus is a primordial sky god, parent of Saturn/Kronos. Uranus is the original owner of the thunderbolt made famous by his grandson Zeus or Jupiter. Air sign Gemini is Mutable, unlike Fixed sign Taurus. In the new playground Gemini, Uranus can flash his lightning bolt often. The early trine to transiting Pluto promises a sudden new connection between the rarified realm of the sky and the underworld of Pluto. Whether it's a solar flare, a man-made EMP-generated disruption, or a massive cyber-attack, Uranus is getting out of jail giddy in the summer of 2025.
Any sudden change in the lines of communication or thought feels like a crisis, but it leads to a reinvention and improvement of technology over an extended period of rebuilding. Cell phones will eventually be replaced by something better that maybe you don’t have to hold in your hand. Some people believe this will lead to the beginnings of or more frequent use of telepathy. I have my doubts about that, but we will definitely have something new and more advanced up and running by the summer of 2026.
Any sudden change in the lines of communication or thought feels like a crisis, but it leads to a reinvention and improvement of technology over an extended period of rebuilding. Cell phones will eventually be replaced by something better that maybe you don’t have to hold in your hand. Some people believe this will lead to the beginnings of or more frequent use of telepathy. I have my doubts about that, but we will definitely have something new and more advanced up and running by the summer of 2026.
Saturn and Neptune entering Aries comes about in the frame created by transiting Mars opposing transiting Pluto. Saturn is born again when it enters Aries, following the aimless Saturn in Pisces transit of the past couple of years. Entering Aries, Saturn is finally once again working in the real world. Saturn in Aries is in a hurry; it doesn’t have time or patience for a complicated, sophisticated plan. It’s become apparent in recent weeks that as Saturn and Neptune leave Pisces, something was happening during that period that we are just learning about. Saturn’s haste in Aries probably stems from necessity. Neptune’s influence is convincing all sides that they are holy warriors on a mission.
Mars opposing Pluto will present us with an argument. A struggle or fight between the forces that want to hold onto all power as they imagined it, and the reality being that this dynamic of administering that power is done; it was done as Pluto left Capricorn. A new way will be formed that distributes power and or power is taken by others upon the necessity of doing so, as the central power of the patriarchal corporate model breaks down. It’s not going away; this is only the loosening of the ropes from the top down. Circumstances will force decisions and the power to make them into diverse authorities in diverse places. The autocratic form of governing is going to fail. Economic support for it will weaken it.
Mars opposing Pluto will present us with an argument. A struggle or fight between the forces that want to hold onto all power as they imagined it, and the reality being that this dynamic of administering that power is done; it was done as Pluto left Capricorn. A new way will be formed that distributes power and or power is taken by others upon the necessity of doing so, as the central power of the patriarchal corporate model breaks down. It’s not going away; this is only the loosening of the ropes from the top down. Circumstances will force decisions and the power to make them into diverse authorities in diverse places. The autocratic form of governing is going to fail. Economic support for it will weaken it.
Neptune is leaving its favorite sign, Pisces, and entering its least supportive environment in Aries on April Fool’s Day 2025. Neptune is always a background influence in most people’s lives; they do not realize how powerful the background influence is. Neptune is, however, getting a haircut when it enters Aries, along the lines of Samson getting a haircut. The influence of highly spiritual Neptune in Aries is reduced to a simple need - to inspire the troops. The horizon on what we can be inspired to do goes from Neptune in Pisces' multidimensional consciousness to a Neptune in Aries crusade. Along with the foresight potential of Neptune in Pisces, when it enters Aries, Neptune gets less respect. People are not going to trust their intuition because of the overly wide spectrum of Neptune’s vision in Pisces. When it enters Aries, there’s an intuitive blindness thing happening; decisions will be made that are not based on reliable science or intuition.
Under these circumstances, bad medical advice is very likely. Hasty decisions aligned with ideology are neither good science nor intuitively satisfying. This will erode confidence in the authorities. When Neptune retrogrades back into Pisces, we will have this contrast again; good science and intuitive decisions made by those who KNOW will provide good guidance. But Neptune and Saturn in Aries will at first provide bad leadership because of baseless faith in them. We will fall down and learn the hard way that we have been misguided.
Saturn and Neptune have a history of peak importance to countries like the Soviet Union or, possibly this time, for Communist China. These two planets meet up every so many decades, though not at the zero degree of Aries which hasn’t happened in known Western history that anyone has found. Each time in recent decades and centuries, it was a period of creation or calamity for socialist or communist leaders. The Berlin Wall went up and came down on a Saturn/Neptune meeting. It’s possible another wall is proposed to go up in Ukraine soon, or the red line established by the Russian invasion into Ukraine falls down. Socialist/communist manifestos were erected under the meeting of these two outer planets. This is the inspiration of the divine focused on a government that aspires to control people and their possessions, and it leads to the dissolving of said governments. Pluto in Aquarius isn’t strongly pro or anti-socialism. Pluto supports the creation of multiple leaders and multiple member organizations that allow for individual expression.
Interdimensional Contact
Many people speculate that this time of remarkable astrological events is the opening introduction to aliens interacting with humanity openly. It’s possible; the astrology supports a major shift in our SELF consciousness. If, as some suggest, humanity has been hurried into the technological age (post-Industrial Age) by alien tech since WW2, one major reason aliens would bring the planet into a cyber age is because they can control our society better if we are dependent on technology they helped design. In order to communicate with another dimension of consciousness we need to have a bridge to do that. In the 1920’s and 30’s, old-school magicians and eventual science fiction authors attempted to contact and bring over into this dimension beings from another one. They claim to have had some success in their line of communication. Some believe that their attempts and limited success alerted other dimensional beings that we are here and should be surveyed, as many feel we have been.
The updated version of that is people today shorn of magical trappings trying with consciousness-raising techniques if not new equipment making contact with other dimensional beings. I believe this has already happened, but it isn’t established in the mainstream media or acknowledged by elected “leaders” that humanity today is in touch with Aunt Mabel from the fifth dimension, and she has a recipe to share that cures cancer and radiation sickness.
The updated version of that is people today shorn of magical trappings trying with consciousness-raising techniques if not new equipment making contact with other dimensional beings. I believe this has already happened, but it isn’t established in the mainstream media or acknowledged by elected “leaders” that humanity today is in touch with Aunt Mabel from the fifth dimension, and she has a recipe to share that cures cancer and radiation sickness.
The timing of manifestation for these large outer planets in personal charts depends on the movement of the inner planets, inside the orbit of Jupiter. Mars, Mercury, Venus and the Sun bring vast expressions of higher consciousness into our daily lives. We look to the inner planets for the roadway of these larger-than-life planetary energies to enter into our conscious lives. Many astrologers also note the position of the Moon as a vehicle for outer planet expression, but I am careful with these because of how fast the Moon transits in and out of aspect in a matter of hours. If the Moon joins into an aspect already being activated by Mercury, Venus, the Sun, or Mars, I consider the Moon’s position more carefully and note its phase (full or new Moon). By itself, the few hours of a lunar transit can be inadequate; you might be asleep when it happens. The Moon, added to any other inner planet’s transit, becomes a major layer of content to be aware of. Pluto is the unconscious, individual and collective spanning life and death. The Moon is the subconscious patterns and material we inherit and learn from those in our families and lives.
With a rare black moon and the peak of the year's first major meteor shower already behind us, January is shaping up to be an exciting month for stargazers in 2025. Per NASA, stargazers can enjoy a sweeping view of Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in a planetary parade happening each night all month long. While spotting multiple planets in alignment isn't entirely rare, this occurrence doesn't happen every year, so it's worth checking out, the space agency said.
In later January there’s what some in the general media refer to as an alignment of planets involving Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. It’s wonderful to be able to see them in the night sky, but I will let NASA’s explanation suffice for the very loose use of the term, alignment.
"Now, these events are sometimes called 'alignments' of the planets, and while it's true that they will appear more or less along a line across the sky, that's what all planets always do," NASA said. "That line is called the ecliptic, and it represents the plane of the solar system in which the planets orbit around the Sun."
In Astrology, an alignment is an intersection, a line that bisects us here on Earth with another planet, planets, asteroids, or a number of abstract points such as the Moon’s Nodes. Planets being in the sky is itself not an alignment for astrological purposes. Visually though, all the planets are on or slightly above/below the ecliptic or plane circling the Sun, all the time. This is not a noteworthy event; it’s routine. What’s noteworthy is that they are visible in the same general area of the sky but not conjunct except when as noted. As I’ve described above, the Sun, Venus and Mercury will intersect with the same degrees that Saturn and Neptune will around zero degrees of Aries. The Sun enters Aries every year at approximately the same time/day on the calendar. Because Mercury and Venus are closer to the Sun than the Earth, in an astrology chart they are never far from the Sun at any time of year. They move in front and behind the Sun depending on retrograde motion, but never very far away from it. Conjunctions between the Sun, Mercury, and Venus are frequent. Add the even swifter moving Moon, and the inner planets are often busy interacting. Our consciousness is present in these “inner” planets, inside the orbit of Jupiter. Mars is an inner planet that, when it moves retrograde, slows and lingers in aspect, making it more potent than any other inner planet.
In later January there’s what some in the general media refer to as an alignment of planets involving Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. It’s wonderful to be able to see them in the night sky, but I will let NASA’s explanation suffice for the very loose use of the term, alignment.
"Now, these events are sometimes called 'alignments' of the planets, and while it's true that they will appear more or less along a line across the sky, that's what all planets always do," NASA said. "That line is called the ecliptic, and it represents the plane of the solar system in which the planets orbit around the Sun."
In Astrology, an alignment is an intersection, a line that bisects us here on Earth with another planet, planets, asteroids, or a number of abstract points such as the Moon’s Nodes. Planets being in the sky is itself not an alignment for astrological purposes. Visually though, all the planets are on or slightly above/below the ecliptic or plane circling the Sun, all the time. This is not a noteworthy event; it’s routine. What’s noteworthy is that they are visible in the same general area of the sky but not conjunct except when as noted. As I’ve described above, the Sun, Venus and Mercury will intersect with the same degrees that Saturn and Neptune will around zero degrees of Aries. The Sun enters Aries every year at approximately the same time/day on the calendar. Because Mercury and Venus are closer to the Sun than the Earth, in an astrology chart they are never far from the Sun at any time of year. They move in front and behind the Sun depending on retrograde motion, but never very far away from it. Conjunctions between the Sun, Mercury, and Venus are frequent. Add the even swifter moving Moon, and the inner planets are often busy interacting. Our consciousness is present in these “inner” planets, inside the orbit of Jupiter. Mars is an inner planet that, when it moves retrograde, slows and lingers in aspect, making it more potent than any other inner planet.
Early in February, Venus is at 29 degrees of Pisces, and it moves over both Saturn and Neptune, sparking chemistry with them as they all sort of enter Aries in a sloppy series of group transits. Thirty degrees at the end of one sign is zero degrees of the next one. It’s not a hard-edged line between signs, so if Saturn is at 29 degrees and moving forward, it’s also at the entry of the next sign. Venus crossing over more quickly from Pisces into Aries and over Saturn introduces us to how we feel about what is happening. We may not know the details but we are aware something is developing. Saturn and Neptune don’t try to surprise us in order to intervene in our lives, we get clues about something coming before it arrives. Venus’ conjunction with both Saturn and Neptune is big hit of anticipation, preparing us for what’s about to be enacted. Venus and Saturn is a sobering moment, usually not jumping up and down good news but not necessarily all bad. Venus and Neptune is hopeful with Neptune in Pisces. Venus in Aries is more of an instant need to satisfy, more conditional. Something is good if certain conditions are met.
Some of us process more by feeling followed later with more information by analytical examination (Mercury). In our personal charts, for an aspect in someone’s natal chart, a fairly wide 8 degree orb for conjunction has to be applied. Anyone with a planet, asteroid, or abstract point between 26 of Pisces to 4 degrees of Aries is getting the royal impact and will be living it for a very long time, years, in fact, may already be feeling it intuitively. The closer to the zero degree of Aries, the stronger it will be. Same applies for opposition and square. Other aspects around a 6 degree orb.
Any normal aspect near the zero degree point of any sign is heightened in intensity. These are on high octane.
Some of us process more by feeling followed later with more information by analytical examination (Mercury). In our personal charts, for an aspect in someone’s natal chart, a fairly wide 8 degree orb for conjunction has to be applied. Anyone with a planet, asteroid, or abstract point between 26 of Pisces to 4 degrees of Aries is getting the royal impact and will be living it for a very long time, years, in fact, may already be feeling it intuitively. The closer to the zero degree of Aries, the stronger it will be. Same applies for opposition and square. Other aspects around a 6 degree orb.
Any normal aspect near the zero degree point of any sign is heightened in intensity. These are on high octane.
Early in March Mercury moves over the same territory into Aries. Real information is at hand. Now we need to talk about this. What are we going to do? What can someone tell me about this? I need more information. Who you gonna call?
On March 20, the Sun is moving across the same Saturn/Neptune conjunction into zero degrees of Aries and onward. Our feelings and our thinking are getting wrapped around what the dialogue is all about. We’re synthesizing things into our consciousness and have shared thoughts with others; we may have a plan. It’s part of our lives; it’s happening.
We have learned things we didn’t know while Neptune and Saturn were in Pisces.
A little later in March, both Mercury and Venus, at several degrees into Aries, turn retrograde and back up to once again conjunct the transits of Saturn and Neptune in the last two weeks of March. Saturn and Neptune are going to retrograde back into Pisces, in late March, prior to Saturn and Neptune making their grand entrance into Aries. Neptune enters first, on April 1st, with Mercury and Venus retrograded back into the last few degrees of Pisces, conjunct transiting Saturn. While there’s some confusion over what’s going on, we also have time that we didn’t want but probably need to work on the many subplots in our lives. While it’s very useful to know what house these events are taking place in your natal chart, these are worldwide events. I have seen charts of individuals in which this period is not highly influential. It’s possible; I’d even say they are on the sidelines and sitting it out. But in general, the whole world is having an evolutionary leap.
On March 20, the Sun is moving across the same Saturn/Neptune conjunction into zero degrees of Aries and onward. Our feelings and our thinking are getting wrapped around what the dialogue is all about. We’re synthesizing things into our consciousness and have shared thoughts with others; we may have a plan. It’s part of our lives; it’s happening.
We have learned things we didn’t know while Neptune and Saturn were in Pisces.
A little later in March, both Mercury and Venus, at several degrees into Aries, turn retrograde and back up to once again conjunct the transits of Saturn and Neptune in the last two weeks of March. Saturn and Neptune are going to retrograde back into Pisces, in late March, prior to Saturn and Neptune making their grand entrance into Aries. Neptune enters first, on April 1st, with Mercury and Venus retrograded back into the last few degrees of Pisces, conjunct transiting Saturn. While there’s some confusion over what’s going on, we also have time that we didn’t want but probably need to work on the many subplots in our lives. While it’s very useful to know what house these events are taking place in your natal chart, these are worldwide events. I have seen charts of individuals in which this period is not highly influential. It’s possible; I’d even say they are on the sidelines and sitting it out. But in general, the whole world is having an evolutionary leap.
On April 16 the retrograde motion Mercury being over, Mercury is moving direct at zero degrees of Aries for the second time in weeks, along with Neptune at zero degrees of Aries. This is a few days of holy crap. Speeches, proclamations, agreements, new borders. Agreements made under Neptune will change, Neptune doesn’t believe in borders, rules or strict definitions. Any agreement made will be broken.
On April 18, Mars is at zero degrees of Leo, a trine to our hyper-sensitive grouping at the beginning of Aries. Now that we’ve had a little opportunity to look at things, maybe we send personnel in motion or pick a direction to set in motion.
On April 18th, Mars makes its last of three transiting oppositions to transiting Pluto from early Leo to early Aquarius. This is the months-long dance between these two that began during the US election, and will have something to say again in April. Because it has spanned the cusp of Mars entering Leo and Pluto Aquarius in three passes, it repeats the cusping of Saturn/Neptune and, later in the summer, Uranus into Gemini. In the second week of June, Jupiter crosses over into Cancer. It was lost in the chatter of Gemini. In Cancer, Jupiter will bring people together to secure the homeland’s historical standards, sharing them. Familiar trusted people will assemble to chart a sensible path. Things are still a mess, but there is some sense of a plan.
On April 30, Venus after retrograde motion, also arrives at zero and one degree of Aries meeting up with Neptune. This is a mix of feelings. What’s real? Things are not settled even though we think we know all there is to know. With Mercury and Venus, we are getting two chances over weeks to get it, don’t feel alone about not getting it right away. This is a mess; that’s how the conscious mind looks at it. There are months ahead to see how this works. Saturn is knocking at the door and some clarity is coming. In the last ten days of May, Saturn is catching up to Neptune and reaching the beginning of Aries. There’s dialogue that’s reassuring just because people are talking, a semi-sextile from the Sun entering Gemini.
On April 18, Mars is at zero degrees of Leo, a trine to our hyper-sensitive grouping at the beginning of Aries. Now that we’ve had a little opportunity to look at things, maybe we send personnel in motion or pick a direction to set in motion.
On April 18th, Mars makes its last of three transiting oppositions to transiting Pluto from early Leo to early Aquarius. This is the months-long dance between these two that began during the US election, and will have something to say again in April. Because it has spanned the cusp of Mars entering Leo and Pluto Aquarius in three passes, it repeats the cusping of Saturn/Neptune and, later in the summer, Uranus into Gemini. In the second week of June, Jupiter crosses over into Cancer. It was lost in the chatter of Gemini. In Cancer, Jupiter will bring people together to secure the homeland’s historical standards, sharing them. Familiar trusted people will assemble to chart a sensible path. Things are still a mess, but there is some sense of a plan.
On April 30, Venus after retrograde motion, also arrives at zero and one degree of Aries meeting up with Neptune. This is a mix of feelings. What’s real? Things are not settled even though we think we know all there is to know. With Mercury and Venus, we are getting two chances over weeks to get it, don’t feel alone about not getting it right away. This is a mess; that’s how the conscious mind looks at it. There are months ahead to see how this works. Saturn is knocking at the door and some clarity is coming. In the last ten days of May, Saturn is catching up to Neptune and reaching the beginning of Aries. There’s dialogue that’s reassuring just because people are talking, a semi-sextile from the Sun entering Gemini.
Total Lunar Eclipse
On March 14th there’s an eclipse of the Moon by the Sun, a total lunar eclipse close to midnight EST. It's visible over a path arcing across the US and going off into the Atlantic Ocean right after midnight. This takes place at 24 degrees of Pisces. There’s a lot going on around 24 degrees of Pisces as well as other signs at that time.
If you don't have a professional astrological chart cast with your birth time and place, or want simply a chart with less detail cast as a solar birth chart (date of birth without time and place) you can have it done for you here: https://www.astro.com/
Saturn will be at a little over 22 degrees of Pisces, and Neptune will be at 29, so we can’t call this a conjunction, though Saturn is within a close orb of connection. As a group, it's definitely a cluster in the last decan or ten degrees of Pisces. Both Mercury and Venus have already passed over this degree by the time of the actual eclipse - Venus at the end of January and Mercury at the end of February. These transits will be relevant times for anyone who has anything going on around the 24-degree mark of Pisces before the eclipse physically happens, and the effect will last weeks, if not months. On a chart, the degree has to be within two degrees or less of the eclipse to register.
If you don't have a professional astrological chart cast with your birth time and place, or want simply a chart with less detail cast as a solar birth chart (date of birth without time and place) you can have it done for you here: https://www.astro.com/
Saturn will be at a little over 22 degrees of Pisces, and Neptune will be at 29, so we can’t call this a conjunction, though Saturn is within a close orb of connection. As a group, it's definitely a cluster in the last decan or ten degrees of Pisces. Both Mercury and Venus have already passed over this degree by the time of the actual eclipse - Venus at the end of January and Mercury at the end of February. These transits will be relevant times for anyone who has anything going on around the 24-degree mark of Pisces before the eclipse physically happens, and the effect will last weeks, if not months. On a chart, the degree has to be within two degrees or less of the eclipse to register.
How can a transit like this have an impact before the physical eclipse, manifesting the energy of the eclipse?
Because the planets, the Sun and the Moon, are physical universe manifestations of bigger, more potent concentrations of the psyche, both personal and collective. They are more than physical objects. Backing physical reality is the natural realm of the psyche, and in these other dimensions the concept of time as we know it does not apply. The energies mingle and intertwine, spread out over what we think of as time, and manifest multiple times, as if many months are a single moment.
All the planets and spheres are placeholders in the physical universe for deeper energies in more dimensions. They manifest in the physical 3D world as planets with properties of their role moving within the giant clock gears called the Solar System. We live on the gear called Earth in this giant, in a physical body, attempting to become better acquainted with the greater dimensions of our being. Our psyche exists on many dimensions, and only a small portion of it can manifest in Earthly consciousness from moment to moment, spread out as we pass through time, as the clock gears turn. An eclipse is a tight focus of lunar or solar character, a laser-like concentration of both, with a stronger lunar or solar emphasis tied to the house position and connection to a natal planet, if any. A solar eclipse emphasizes a longer term, from several months to two years, of heightened solar energy. A lunar eclipse emphasizes for a shorter period of time all associations with the Moon raised a level, influencing the planets and houses in our chart it relates to. All eclipses, if tight enough by degree, can put us on a tangent or side road we didn't plan on, relevant to the house the eclipse is in. A lunar eclipse tends to be shorter but more impactful as it brings our home and culture from the subconscious out from behind your usual presentation and concept of yourself. You might find yourself resonating with a totally new kind of partner under a strong lunar eclipse, feeling like you need to change the way you live and present yourself to the world. You discover a new side of yourself to express to the world. It can be something you had been suppressing.
All the planets and spheres are placeholders in the physical universe for deeper energies in more dimensions. They manifest in the physical 3D world as planets with properties of their role moving within the giant clock gears called the Solar System. We live on the gear called Earth in this giant, in a physical body, attempting to become better acquainted with the greater dimensions of our being. Our psyche exists on many dimensions, and only a small portion of it can manifest in Earthly consciousness from moment to moment, spread out as we pass through time, as the clock gears turn. An eclipse is a tight focus of lunar or solar character, a laser-like concentration of both, with a stronger lunar or solar emphasis tied to the house position and connection to a natal planet, if any. A solar eclipse emphasizes a longer term, from several months to two years, of heightened solar energy. A lunar eclipse emphasizes for a shorter period of time all associations with the Moon raised a level, influencing the planets and houses in our chart it relates to. All eclipses, if tight enough by degree, can put us on a tangent or side road we didn't plan on, relevant to the house the eclipse is in. A lunar eclipse tends to be shorter but more impactful as it brings our home and culture from the subconscious out from behind your usual presentation and concept of yourself. You might find yourself resonating with a totally new kind of partner under a strong lunar eclipse, feeling like you need to change the way you live and present yourself to the world. You discover a new side of yourself to express to the world. It can be something you had been suppressing.
Mercury’s transit over the degree of the eclipse is a greater awareness of a relation between transiting Mercury and any natal planet at the same degree of any sign. It’s more powerful for a conjunction, opposition or square, slightly less for trine, sextile etc. The house position is very helpful for indicating what area of your life this conscious attention is directed.
Venus’s transit over this same degree is the power of attraction in it. Attraction to someone or something or to yourself from others; a heightened aura or feeling that you or other people are unconsciously attracted to. A feeling to acquire something you adore that alters you in some way, a departure from your usual. You don't care as much about acquiring debt. A Venus transit over an eclipse with a corresponding conjunction, opposition, or square in a natal chart is an irrational belief that you or someone else must feel a certain way, above all else.
Mercury moving over the same planets and degrees with the eclipse combined or overlapping with Venus is a compelling knowing, a conscious plan based on a feeling. Together, Mercury and Venus are, in the world of magic, the essential combination to work magic and influence the laws of physics with human will and emotion.
Probably more significant is the position of Uranus at the time of the eclipse. It is at 24 degrees of Taurus. This is an exact sextile to the degree of the eclipse in Pisces. It means the wild card is in play. Anything can happen with Uranus. A sextile is a positive aspect, but Uranus is a trickster. It can do something upsetting that turns out to be fortunate; you just couldn't see how at the time. Uranus functions best by doing something unexpected; you don’t see it coming, or even if you did, you couldn't believe it. Because both the Venus and Mercury transits are spread out over months over the degree, the eclipse becomes a period of time, not a day, a week, or even a month.
It's going to be part of what is already an unpredictable time beginning in February, escalating, lasting for months, and made more intense by the eclipse.
Venus’s transit over this same degree is the power of attraction in it. Attraction to someone or something or to yourself from others; a heightened aura or feeling that you or other people are unconsciously attracted to. A feeling to acquire something you adore that alters you in some way, a departure from your usual. You don't care as much about acquiring debt. A Venus transit over an eclipse with a corresponding conjunction, opposition, or square in a natal chart is an irrational belief that you or someone else must feel a certain way, above all else.
Mercury moving over the same planets and degrees with the eclipse combined or overlapping with Venus is a compelling knowing, a conscious plan based on a feeling. Together, Mercury and Venus are, in the world of magic, the essential combination to work magic and influence the laws of physics with human will and emotion.
Probably more significant is the position of Uranus at the time of the eclipse. It is at 24 degrees of Taurus. This is an exact sextile to the degree of the eclipse in Pisces. It means the wild card is in play. Anything can happen with Uranus. A sextile is a positive aspect, but Uranus is a trickster. It can do something upsetting that turns out to be fortunate; you just couldn't see how at the time. Uranus functions best by doing something unexpected; you don’t see it coming, or even if you did, you couldn't believe it. Because both the Venus and Mercury transits are spread out over months over the degree, the eclipse becomes a period of time, not a day, a week, or even a month.
It's going to be part of what is already an unpredictable time beginning in February, escalating, lasting for months, and made more intense by the eclipse.
Comments welcome.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
Plus: Looking ahead to 2025 – retrograde planets; Lilith; Neptune into Aries; Saturn on Trump’s chart; the US chart; Chiron moves into Taurus in 2026
by David A. Wheatley
One of the scenarios that could fit the next 18 months to two years of Astrological expectations is a mega solar flare. It fits because it changes human society everywhere and is not something humans are consciously responsible for, just as the effects of the outer planets are usually out of our control because we are not aware of their potency as we unconsciously create human drama. We experience an event and wonder what caused it without being aware that we did. We don’t know what causes a solar flare apart from an erupting unstable by polarity sunspot. What caused the sunspot?
As I’ve mentioned before, there are inconsistencies that undo the idea that earthquakes are a result of solar flares. At the time of this writing, there was a 7 quake off California a week or so ago, and while we were in a peak period of the Sun’s solar cycle for a week before the quake and will be days after, the Sun was and is unusually silent, with no flares during the sunspot cycle peak time. So, toss out the idea about sunspot's connection with earthquakes. From the Astrological point of view everything happening in the solar system is connected, but what the Astrological relationships are, and the chemistry they stir up to create a sunspot and eruption of it, are not known. What is chartable, though, is the impact they make in our lives.
As I’ve mentioned before, there are inconsistencies that undo the idea that earthquakes are a result of solar flares. At the time of this writing, there was a 7 quake off California a week or so ago, and while we were in a peak period of the Sun’s solar cycle for a week before the quake and will be days after, the Sun was and is unusually silent, with no flares during the sunspot cycle peak time. So, toss out the idea about sunspot's connection with earthquakes. From the Astrological point of view everything happening in the solar system is connected, but what the Astrological relationships are, and the chemistry they stir up to create a sunspot and eruption of it, are not known. What is chartable, though, is the impact they make in our lives.
The only mega solar flare we have recent memory of is the Carrington Event of September 1-2,1859.
https://www.worldatlas.com/space/the-largest-solar-flare-in-recorded-history.html
Such an “event” can last for hours, days, or a week. The Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun takes hours to arrive at this planet, generally several hours to a day, depending on the speed of the ejected matter. When it encounters the Earth’s magnetic field and interacts with it, only a very strong flare like the Carrington flare penetrates the Earth’s magnetic field. In the Spring of 2024, the Earth experienced a few above-normal flares as strong as an X9, but a Carrington Event mega flare was believed to be an X45. In its day, it wiped out the high tech of the time, the telegraph wires. Today, that would penetrate the Earth’s normally protective magnetosphere on the way past frying our satellites to impact surface infrastructure such as the electrical power grids, along with any sensitive, insufficiently shielded circuitry from which it would take months and years to recover. The impact and recovery would be uneven across different locations. Present-day technology would be unevenly affected, but things like the internet and cell phone service would be off. The equipment to provide service and the phones themselves could be ruined and require replacement, not repair. Any facility that has replacement equipment is also subject to impact; recovery could take months, or years in some places.
The current solar cycle is expected to peak in July of 2025. As of this writing, there is speculation that the Southern Hemisphere of the Sun has peaked, but not the Northern Hemisphere. In the eleven-year cycle of the Sun from peak to peak, wax and wane and wax again, the cycle we are in has consistently exceeded the projection for potency. Assuming the northern hemisphere reaches its peak in 2025, the Sun can still generate powerful CMEs from flares as it declines from the peak. We have years to go before this cycle is calmed down.
Any flare can be followed in seconds to minutes by a rapid succession of other flares from the same sunspot or other sunspots. This extends the impact. Multiple flares ejecting matter from the Sun can mass into a single wave from the Sun before arriving at this planet, adding up to a stronger impact. Sometimes they arrive in a series of one wave after another, which we have seen in this cycle with extended hours and days of aurora borealis shows. It’s possible a series of major flares, though not at the level of the Carrington Event, add up to become something comparable.
https://www.worldatlas.com/space/the-largest-solar-flare-in-recorded-history.html
Such an “event” can last for hours, days, or a week. The Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun takes hours to arrive at this planet, generally several hours to a day, depending on the speed of the ejected matter. When it encounters the Earth’s magnetic field and interacts with it, only a very strong flare like the Carrington flare penetrates the Earth’s magnetic field. In the Spring of 2024, the Earth experienced a few above-normal flares as strong as an X9, but a Carrington Event mega flare was believed to be an X45. In its day, it wiped out the high tech of the time, the telegraph wires. Today, that would penetrate the Earth’s normally protective magnetosphere on the way past frying our satellites to impact surface infrastructure such as the electrical power grids, along with any sensitive, insufficiently shielded circuitry from which it would take months and years to recover. The impact and recovery would be uneven across different locations. Present-day technology would be unevenly affected, but things like the internet and cell phone service would be off. The equipment to provide service and the phones themselves could be ruined and require replacement, not repair. Any facility that has replacement equipment is also subject to impact; recovery could take months, or years in some places.
The current solar cycle is expected to peak in July of 2025. As of this writing, there is speculation that the Southern Hemisphere of the Sun has peaked, but not the Northern Hemisphere. In the eleven-year cycle of the Sun from peak to peak, wax and wane and wax again, the cycle we are in has consistently exceeded the projection for potency. Assuming the northern hemisphere reaches its peak in 2025, the Sun can still generate powerful CMEs from flares as it declines from the peak. We have years to go before this cycle is calmed down.
Any flare can be followed in seconds to minutes by a rapid succession of other flares from the same sunspot or other sunspots. This extends the impact. Multiple flares ejecting matter from the Sun can mass into a single wave from the Sun before arriving at this planet, adding up to a stronger impact. Sometimes they arrive in a series of one wave after another, which we have seen in this cycle with extended hours and days of aurora borealis shows. It’s possible a series of major flares, though not at the level of the Carrington Event, add up to become something comparable.
The positions of the outer planets are the most relevant to charting an Earth-shaking event, possibly activated by a transiting aspect from Mars. Mars is a good bet among the inner planets (inside the orbit of Jupiter to the Sun) to activate the chemistry of any aspect in a dramatic way. The inner planets come along swiftly by comparison to an outer planet’s movement, and while the outer planets are in aspect, the swift inner planet catalyzes what the larger, slower outer planets bring together in any aspect. During the Carrington event of 1859, Saturn was at 18 degrees of Leo. Mars had just passed Saturn at 24 degrees of Leo; Mars had crossed 18 degrees of Leo days prior to the event, probably adding its energy to the sunspot that produced the flare. Both Saturn and Mars were exactly opposing Chiron and the Moon’s North Nodes on the 1st and 2nd of September in 1859. The Nodes and Chiron were conjunct and therefore opposed by the transits of Saturn and Mars, contributing to the formation of the sunspot.
Also at that time, Pluto was semi-sextile Uranus from Taurus to Gemini. A semi-sextile aspect is irritating; friction is generated, not flow. Neptune was in late Pisces, a couple of months away from entering Aries, where it is now at the time of this writing. These transiting conditions are not that uncommon or remarkable enough to lay the Carrington Event on, but they or other combinations like them could provide conditions in which a strong flare is formed.
I wouldn’t look for Chiron and the Moon’s Nodes to cook up a major flare when opposed by Saturn and Mars. I don’t know that Neptune (about to enter Aries from Pisces) is in any way associated with solar flares, we might find out soon. Neptune entering Aries has a reputation for anxieties that result in wars, and around 1859 that applied. I do expect that an irritating semi-sextile between Pluto in Gemini and Uranus in Taurus is capable of breaking down and rebuilding the telegraph lines suddenly.
We are looking for something happening on Earth, though, not on the Sun. What happened on Earth was the loss of telegraph wires. This was frustrating for those relying on rapid communication, but in that period of time, the flare went unnoticed otherwise by people around the planet who no doubt enjoyed the aurora borealis far to the south, where it’s never seen. To be more precise about the aspects at the time of the Carrington Event or past mega flares we would need to look at charts centered as if we were living on the Sun. But in terms of the effect on Earth the aspects in 1859 are appropriate for the limited impact on a world with barely any technology.
Also at that time, Pluto was semi-sextile Uranus from Taurus to Gemini. A semi-sextile aspect is irritating; friction is generated, not flow. Neptune was in late Pisces, a couple of months away from entering Aries, where it is now at the time of this writing. These transiting conditions are not that uncommon or remarkable enough to lay the Carrington Event on, but they or other combinations like them could provide conditions in which a strong flare is formed.
I wouldn’t look for Chiron and the Moon’s Nodes to cook up a major flare when opposed by Saturn and Mars. I don’t know that Neptune (about to enter Aries from Pisces) is in any way associated with solar flares, we might find out soon. Neptune entering Aries has a reputation for anxieties that result in wars, and around 1859 that applied. I do expect that an irritating semi-sextile between Pluto in Gemini and Uranus in Taurus is capable of breaking down and rebuilding the telegraph lines suddenly.
We are looking for something happening on Earth, though, not on the Sun. What happened on Earth was the loss of telegraph wires. This was frustrating for those relying on rapid communication, but in that period of time, the flare went unnoticed otherwise by people around the planet who no doubt enjoyed the aurora borealis far to the south, where it’s never seen. To be more precise about the aspects at the time of the Carrington Event or past mega flares we would need to look at charts centered as if we were living on the Sun. But in terms of the effect on Earth the aspects in 1859 are appropriate for the limited impact on a world with barely any technology.
In today’s world, a solar flare of comparable potency would make a far greater impact, basically setting everyone’s level of technological lifestyle back to 1859. Today, we would look for something in planetary transits impacting life on Earth on a much greater scale than was present in 1859. Today a year or 18 months of being set back to a more primitive technological society would go a long way towards reducing Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That would be something truly rare and outstandingly powerful in Astrological aspects.
We would need to rebuild a technology that didn’t simply restart the same monstrous problem of making the climate more stressful for life to continue. In today’s Astrological charts, I would expect to see something well above normal in planetary aspects to each other for an event as Earth-shattering as it would be now.
We would need to rebuild a technology that didn’t simply restart the same monstrous problem of making the climate more stressful for life to continue. In today’s Astrological charts, I would expect to see something well above normal in planetary aspects to each other for an event as Earth-shattering as it would be now.
Looking back...
An ancient tree ring revealed that in 663- 664 BCE2, the Earth was hit by a mega solar flare. The impact on the atmosphere is recorded in a tree’s life, in year after year of growth. In this way, we have a record of such events.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cataclysmic-solar-storm-hit-earth-110000679.html
The positions of the planets around that time are interesting to note. Tree rings do reveal annual events in the tree’s environment, but not month by month. For this speculation, I have to guess when it might have happened according to the tensions generated between the planets Sun and Moon. There are no known records for me to consult on where other Solar System bodies were (such as asteroids or other planet’s satellites/moons), but we haven’t commonly used those in Astrological charts until recent decades. We should have enough to work with using the known planets plus Pluto, Sun, and Moon. Solar Flares occur on the Sun; we look for impacts here on Earth for something happening somewhere else.
The outer planets, starting with Saturn, move slowly, and it’s possible to look at a whole year and know generally where those planets will be for that year. You can get a good idea about someone you just met if you know their age, thus their year of birth, and where the outer planets were when they were born, if, of course, like me, you have a good memory of where planets are from looking at many people’s charts. For this, I used an ephemeris generated by Astro.com. The Astro.com site also will generate a natal chart for you and give you many useful free options, as well as more in depth choices for which you have to pay. They generously publish a planetary ephemeris online going back centuries. Going back this far, their published records are less detailed but good enough for conjecture.
In 663 BCE, Pluto was at 10 of Aquarius, Neptune was at 0 degrees of Scorpio, Uranus was at 20-30 of Aries and about to change signs, Saturn was at 16-24 of Scorpio, and Mars, the best candidate always for a catalyst, moved from Virgo through Libra and Scorpio.
Narrowing it down further, in 663 BCE, when Mars was at 24 degrees of Libra, it was opposite Uranus at 24 Aries and trine Pluto in Aquarius. When Mars was in Scorpio around 24 degrees, it was conjunct Saturn and inconjunct Uranus in Aries, with Pluto in Aquarius.
When Mars was at 10 degrees of Scorpio, it was square Pluto in Aquarius. At that time, Saturn was retrograding backward, very possibly to around 10 degrees of Scorpio, adding a Saturn/Mars conjunction and Saturn Pluto Square. This latter grouping is potentially pretty serious ear-splitting rock and roll.
What the planets provide is a character of expression for energies that Science observes in the physical universe, but for this Astrologer, are believed to be generated in a dimension more natural to the energy itself. Expression in our dimension falls under the laws of physics. Where the energies naturally exist without being put into the containers of physical planets, the laws of physics can’t manage to explain. Trying to place a major event like a mega flare in time by planetary aspects is something that can’t be confirmed, but it’s a fun, intuitive exercise.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cataclysmic-solar-storm-hit-earth-110000679.html
The positions of the planets around that time are interesting to note. Tree rings do reveal annual events in the tree’s environment, but not month by month. For this speculation, I have to guess when it might have happened according to the tensions generated between the planets Sun and Moon. There are no known records for me to consult on where other Solar System bodies were (such as asteroids or other planet’s satellites/moons), but we haven’t commonly used those in Astrological charts until recent decades. We should have enough to work with using the known planets plus Pluto, Sun, and Moon. Solar Flares occur on the Sun; we look for impacts here on Earth for something happening somewhere else.
The outer planets, starting with Saturn, move slowly, and it’s possible to look at a whole year and know generally where those planets will be for that year. You can get a good idea about someone you just met if you know their age, thus their year of birth, and where the outer planets were when they were born, if, of course, like me, you have a good memory of where planets are from looking at many people’s charts. For this, I used an ephemeris generated by Astro.com. The Astro.com site also will generate a natal chart for you and give you many useful free options, as well as more in depth choices for which you have to pay. They generously publish a planetary ephemeris online going back centuries. Going back this far, their published records are less detailed but good enough for conjecture.
In 663 BCE, Pluto was at 10 of Aquarius, Neptune was at 0 degrees of Scorpio, Uranus was at 20-30 of Aries and about to change signs, Saturn was at 16-24 of Scorpio, and Mars, the best candidate always for a catalyst, moved from Virgo through Libra and Scorpio.
Narrowing it down further, in 663 BCE, when Mars was at 24 degrees of Libra, it was opposite Uranus at 24 Aries and trine Pluto in Aquarius. When Mars was in Scorpio around 24 degrees, it was conjunct Saturn and inconjunct Uranus in Aries, with Pluto in Aquarius.
When Mars was at 10 degrees of Scorpio, it was square Pluto in Aquarius. At that time, Saturn was retrograding backward, very possibly to around 10 degrees of Scorpio, adding a Saturn/Mars conjunction and Saturn Pluto Square. This latter grouping is potentially pretty serious ear-splitting rock and roll.
What the planets provide is a character of expression for energies that Science observes in the physical universe, but for this Astrologer, are believed to be generated in a dimension more natural to the energy itself. Expression in our dimension falls under the laws of physics. Where the energies naturally exist without being put into the containers of physical planets, the laws of physics can’t manage to explain. Trying to place a major event like a mega flare in time by planetary aspects is something that can’t be confirmed, but it’s a fun, intuitive exercise.
Lillith moves in Scorpio early spring of 2025
While the major outer planets get a lot of attention this year from Astrologers, there are other things going on. In late March 2025, Lilith moves into Scorpio. Lilith is an asteroid that’s come into our consciousness since it was discovered in 1927 by a French astronomer. It was actually named after a composer, Lili Boulanger, is roughly 23 kilometers in diameter, located in the heart of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a good spot to hide from the mythological womanizers and, at times, abusers of women, Mars and Jupiter, Ares and Zeus. Lilith was co-opted by Astrologers and others to become the symbol of the liberated woman; liberated meaning having freedom from a man’s presumed authority over women. I can’t help but mention the United States will have a convicted abuser of women as president in 2025, along with fellow accused abusers of women either in cabinet positions or circulating around him.
The importance of this asteroid can’t be ignored as it moves into Scorpio from benign Libra. Lilith refused to submit to her companion Adam’s authority and left the Garden of Eden to live her own life. He then went to his patriarchal god and ordered another female who would be subservient to him. The attempt by the Christian right-wing to make women subservient in many right-leaning male-dominated countries today while Lilith the asteroid was in Libra, won’t flow so smoothly with Lilith in Scorpio. Using the original metaphor, Adam had two wives, and one left him. The world can have both women in it, the problem is the men who insist on one set of rules for all women. No choice. Lilith in Scorpio is Artemis or Athena, a goddess with military prowess and wisdom. Lilith will be in Scorpio for around nine months.
The importance of this asteroid can’t be ignored as it moves into Scorpio from benign Libra. Lilith refused to submit to her companion Adam’s authority and left the Garden of Eden to live her own life. He then went to his patriarchal god and ordered another female who would be subservient to him. The attempt by the Christian right-wing to make women subservient in many right-leaning male-dominated countries today while Lilith the asteroid was in Libra, won’t flow so smoothly with Lilith in Scorpio. Using the original metaphor, Adam had two wives, and one left him. The world can have both women in it, the problem is the men who insist on one set of rules for all women. No choice. Lilith in Scorpio is Artemis or Athena, a goddess with military prowess and wisdom. Lilith will be in Scorpio for around nine months.
In March of 2025, both Venus and Mercury do a retrograde station over the same degrees.
We know both Saturn and Neptune will be doing their duet as they move into Aries. Of course, retrograde motion is an illusion; the planets do not go backward, but from our line of sight on Earth, they are in the corner of their orbit where it looks like they are slowing down and going back a few degrees. They are actually more powerful because they are moving slower. The slower the planet moves, the longer it dwells in whatever influential aspect it’s making and, therefore, the more powerful it may be, which for Mercury and Venus is sometimes a problem. People are not accustomed to dealing with what these two planets' functions are when amped up unless they are retrograde in the person's natal chart. In that case they might do well when periodically Venus or Mercury turn retrograde. These two planets bring the bigger psychological planet’s schemes down into everyday life, into our consciousness. Between Venus and Mercury, the magic of life literally happens. In this case, everyone is going to be very, very aware of what will manifest with Saturn and Neptune moving into Aries, Neptune first. I refer you to my prior article about that, but note, please, that we will all be a little lost with Neptune because Mercury and Venus are going to bring it down into our daily lives.
Before that happens, Mars goes retrograde and backs up to where it was on the US election day, conjunct Pluto as it moves into Aquarius. The really important difference is on election day, Pluto was in Capricorn when Mars opposed it from the last degrees of Cancer. By retrograde motion on January 6th going backward and then on April 19th going direct, Mars will oppose Pluto again, but this time from early Leo with Pluto in Aquarius. Mars played the game Pluto had been playing for 20 years in Capricorn the first time, but in January through April 19th, it’s going to contrast something (about the recent election day in the US) because Pluto and Mars are in different signs. Pluto in Aquarius is just getting started there with a whole new agenda (see my last article), and Pluto usually starts with a breakdown or flaw in something to begin an unraveling. It's probably something to do with technology.
Neptune enters Aries on March 30th, 2025
The Sun enters Aries and conjuncts Neptune, slowly moving over the 30-degree mark of Pisces, which is the zero-degree of Aries on March 20, 2025, and ten days later, Neptune crosses into Aries. Because it moves so slowly, we don’t have a crisp, clean line to see when Neptune is in one sign or the other. Besides that, Neptune always blurs all lines and boundaries. But the Sun touching Neptune over a day or two as it passes into Aries is one more aspect, along with Mercury and Venus conjunct Neptune at the same time, bringing the experience into our daily lives. We’re going to learn something important, although we’ll doubt it’s real. A curtain is pulled back but we won’t be sure about what we see behind it.
Venus conjuncts Neptune at 29 degrees of Pisces on Feb 2-3, then conjuncts Neptune again in retrograde motion on March 26th and then again when it goes direct on April 30th. This extended period of motion spreads an experience out over weeks, one that, if Venus were moving directly, would only last a mere two days. Thus, it gains the potency of a transit more like Jupiter. Mercury is on a similar-style path with its retrograde motion and finally completes its extended three conjunctions with Neptune in mid-April, almost on the same day that Mars makes a trine to 0 degrees of Aries from 0 degrees of Leo on April 19th. It’s an Astrologer’s favorite meal to see these three inner planets plus the Sun all so in sync on bringing us an awareness in our conscious lives, tied into the affairs of the outer planets which are usually remote and difficult to put a finger on.
Mars puts something into action from its transit in Leo, but the doubts about the altered perception of reality remain. Reality waits for Saturn to enter Aries in late May. Saturn, soon after entering Aries, goes retrograde and its business here is deepened and extended by retrograde motion. We learn that reality isn’t telling us the whole truth, but at least we know this. There’s work to be done over time; nothing will happen quickly enough. All of it will be a mess until Saturn and Neptune work out the adjustments from years in Pisces. Some people are going to be very upset and frustrated, but be grateful that this is spread out over weeks and months because it would be worse if it were concentrated into a short period of time. Saturn’s retrograde motion prolongs this episode of reality adjustment through at least April of 2026. It will end its retrograde motion in November of 2025 and move direct, across into Aries from Pisces, for the final time in February of 2026.
With Neptune there’s always the possibility that we face a health problem that reaches across borders. The problems we will face and solutions we may try will take over a year to sort out. Neptune goes retrograde in September of 2025 and backs into Pisces one more time. It goes direct and crosses into Aries again in January of 2026. These extended transits back and forth usually mean we have a very complicated knot to untangle and it takes time to do it. This seems like prolonging the pain, but stretching things out like this allows us the opportunity to be somewhat careful and not wholly destructive, not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We will need this time to reorient our heads and be clear about what is in our hearts. Patience will be at a premium.
Venus conjuncts Neptune at 29 degrees of Pisces on Feb 2-3, then conjuncts Neptune again in retrograde motion on March 26th and then again when it goes direct on April 30th. This extended period of motion spreads an experience out over weeks, one that, if Venus were moving directly, would only last a mere two days. Thus, it gains the potency of a transit more like Jupiter. Mercury is on a similar-style path with its retrograde motion and finally completes its extended three conjunctions with Neptune in mid-April, almost on the same day that Mars makes a trine to 0 degrees of Aries from 0 degrees of Leo on April 19th. It’s an Astrologer’s favorite meal to see these three inner planets plus the Sun all so in sync on bringing us an awareness in our conscious lives, tied into the affairs of the outer planets which are usually remote and difficult to put a finger on.
Mars puts something into action from its transit in Leo, but the doubts about the altered perception of reality remain. Reality waits for Saturn to enter Aries in late May. Saturn, soon after entering Aries, goes retrograde and its business here is deepened and extended by retrograde motion. We learn that reality isn’t telling us the whole truth, but at least we know this. There’s work to be done over time; nothing will happen quickly enough. All of it will be a mess until Saturn and Neptune work out the adjustments from years in Pisces. Some people are going to be very upset and frustrated, but be grateful that this is spread out over weeks and months because it would be worse if it were concentrated into a short period of time. Saturn’s retrograde motion prolongs this episode of reality adjustment through at least April of 2026. It will end its retrograde motion in November of 2025 and move direct, across into Aries from Pisces, for the final time in February of 2026.
With Neptune there’s always the possibility that we face a health problem that reaches across borders. The problems we will face and solutions we may try will take over a year to sort out. Neptune goes retrograde in September of 2025 and backs into Pisces one more time. It goes direct and crosses into Aries again in January of 2026. These extended transits back and forth usually mean we have a very complicated knot to untangle and it takes time to do it. This seems like prolonging the pain, but stretching things out like this allows us the opportunity to be somewhat careful and not wholly destructive, not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We will need this time to reorient our heads and be clear about what is in our hearts. Patience will be at a premium.
Transiting Saturn on Trump’s Chart
In mid to late February 2025, new president Trump has a number of Saturn transits to planets in his natal chart. In his 7th house, Saturn in transit is inconjunct Trump’s natal 2nd house Jupiter. This is likely when some major economic decisions emerge from his cabinet with some positive expectations on his part. (What they consider positive.) Transiting Saturn is also square his natal 10th house Sun and North Nodes. There are a lot of problems with others outside his circle about these decisions, and it immediately lowers his standing across all parties. Something like slashing Social Security. Senior citizens of both parties don’t like those words; neither do their children, who would feel obligated to take action, as would politicians of all stripes who want to be re-elected. There will be a lot of hand-wringing.
The square to the North Nodes is a decision that feels debilitating to historic or established values, but that is something his supporters voted to support about him. The square to his natal Sun suggests this decision will cost him in popularity including among his supporters.
The same series of squares has transiting Saturn square his natal 4th house Moon. Maybe he decides to be president from Mar-a-Lago, not the White House. A week later transiting Saturn trines his natal Saturn/Venus, putting a happier face on it, but Saturn and Venus never do better than a somber happy face.
The square to the North Nodes is a decision that feels debilitating to historic or established values, but that is something his supporters voted to support about him. The square to his natal Sun suggests this decision will cost him in popularity including among his supporters.
The same series of squares has transiting Saturn square his natal 4th house Moon. Maybe he decides to be president from Mar-a-Lago, not the White House. A week later transiting Saturn trines his natal Saturn/Venus, putting a happier face on it, but Saturn and Venus never do better than a somber happy face.
On the US chart...
Transiting Saturn is trine the US natal 7th house Sun now and will be for a couple more months in its retrograde and then direct motion. This is a positive indicator for relations with allies, but within a month’s time, transiting Saturn will square the US natal 7th house Mars, and that’s depressing news for allies. If an announcement is made in mid to late February that affects allies - like a peace plan for the war in Ukraine - it’s welcome news. But the actual plan, as revealed later when transiting Saturn squares Mars, isn’t good news for allies. It draws clear lines of Saturn-inspired restrictions on (Mars) military support, for example. In terms of the US chart, this is a negative; it’s a square aspect. Saturn is also making an opposition to Neptune in the US natal 9th house at this time. This is an indicator of not living up to the national ideals or higher standards established when the nation was born (natal chart), which is when Neptune was at this degree in the 9th house. This is the direction of the country for now. Saturn opposition Neptune by transit is a period with a confused sense of direction, confusion between the established national credo and a new direction that conflicts with it.
Neptune is on a similar journey approaching the end of its time in Pisces. Neptune’s transit into Aries will be inconjunct Trump’s natal 12th house Mars and square his natal 10th house Sun, Uranus and North Nodes. That’s a lot to run up against. There’s definite disorientation around this transit. Energy (Mars)is short-circuited from within the psyche (12th house) in sudden shifts and fits. He will have difficulty staying on subject and public speaking should be kept to a minimum to avoid embarrassment. This is not new to the presidency. Ronald Regan needed careful management in his second term as his mental faculties declined. Transiting Neptune will also trine Trump’s natal 11th house Saturn/Venus. If he is in public, best to be in a crowd where a wandering speech pattern is normal.
Neptune is on a similar journey approaching the end of its time in Pisces. Neptune’s transit into Aries will be inconjunct Trump’s natal 12th house Mars and square his natal 10th house Sun, Uranus and North Nodes. That’s a lot to run up against. There’s definite disorientation around this transit. Energy (Mars)is short-circuited from within the psyche (12th house) in sudden shifts and fits. He will have difficulty staying on subject and public speaking should be kept to a minimum to avoid embarrassment. This is not new to the presidency. Ronald Regan needed careful management in his second term as his mental faculties declined. Transiting Neptune will also trine Trump’s natal 11th house Saturn/Venus. If he is in public, best to be in a crowd where a wandering speech pattern is normal.
This period of squares from Neptune that muddies things up, and the Saturn transit later that chops them up in the editing process, forces structural changes in how the US relates to its allies.
Saturn edits, simplifies, and shows naked realities. Saturn usually creates an environment of austerity, no frills. Saturn restricts or denies investment of energy. These new conditions will last a long time as these planets move slowly and in direct/retrograde motion in these transiting aspects for a few years. Ultimately these transits bring a necessary evolution, even beneficial. But these powerful outer planets affect the whole world, and everyone is forced to go through the meat grinder. Pluto and Saturn processes are seldom pleasant, even though they can create something new and wonderful from the ashes of their initial breakdown and austerity phases. Collectively we can’t get to the new creation without going through the destruction.
I recall a description by Picasso explaining that he arrived at the final success in his creative process after first going through the birth of a great idea, then destroying it or breaking it down and reforming it. I understand this as an artist, but in daily life, it can be very messy.
I recall a description by Picasso explaining that he arrived at the final success in his creative process after first going through the birth of a great idea, then destroying it or breaking it down and reforming it. I understand this as an artist, but in daily life, it can be very messy.
To finish up with my original meandering supposition, a solar flare may not seem as devastating as a nuclear war, and war is on many Astrologer’s agendas for the coming year as the agent of sudden upsetting change, a war that reshapes our current living arrangements. A flare that knocks out the technology around a nuclear power plant creates a very hazardous situation with results similar to that of a nuclear dirty bomb. There are something like 440 nuclear power plants in the world; even a limited number of those having a meltdown is a tremendous toxicity event. Conventional war does not use nuclear weapons, but conventional weapons can still cause a nuclear power plant to fail.
Some Astrologers expect humankind to contact aliens within the next several months or a year. That would be nice; hopefully, they’re not the kind that sees us as lunch. A more likely scenario is humans attempt the beginning of a nuclear war and aliens prevent it, then we know they are here. I don’t like the idea of graduating into a space federation by failing and nearly killing everyone. I also don’t like the idea that we can’t solve our own problems without nuclear war, and if not, we shouldn’t be admitted into anything.
Some Astrologers are calling for humankind to make an extraordinary leap and suddenly, two years from now, have limited telepathic abilities. Part of this belief is that it is alien technology that gave us cell phones, and this was training for being in near-constant contact. It’s too big a bite for me to swallow, and I don’t want to know other people’s thoughts unless they tell them to me. I know I don’t want someone telepathically sending me a message at 2 AM as some marketers for Bitcoin do on my phone.
Some Astrologers expect humankind to contact aliens within the next several months or a year. That would be nice; hopefully, they’re not the kind that sees us as lunch. A more likely scenario is humans attempt the beginning of a nuclear war and aliens prevent it, then we know they are here. I don’t like the idea of graduating into a space federation by failing and nearly killing everyone. I also don’t like the idea that we can’t solve our own problems without nuclear war, and if not, we shouldn’t be admitted into anything.
Some Astrologers are calling for humankind to make an extraordinary leap and suddenly, two years from now, have limited telepathic abilities. Part of this belief is that it is alien technology that gave us cell phones, and this was training for being in near-constant contact. It’s too big a bite for me to swallow, and I don’t want to know other people’s thoughts unless they tell them to me. I know I don’t want someone telepathically sending me a message at 2 AM as some marketers for Bitcoin do on my phone.
Reinvention and changing lifestyles
July 1, 2026, Chiron moves into Taurus, almost at exactly the same time Uranus leaving Taurus moves into Gemini. Their semi-sextile will take a long time to work itself out, two to three years, because of retrograde motion. Chiron is, like Lilith, an asteroid; it’s about 135 kilometers wide and located between Saturn and Uranus. Chiron also moves slowly and will be a part of the Pluto Uranus trine over these years of repair, rebuilding, and healing technology. Uranus in Gemini in a trine with Pluto in Aquarius is the kind of years-long positive reinvention needed to develop new technologies rapidly. That is, rapidly compared to the centuries it took for mankind to do it as we know it now. But this “rapidly” will not be fast enough for most people who depend upon technology now. Lifestyles will be altered greatly.
Comments welcome.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
by David A. Wheatley
The year 2024 is winding down; the seasons are moving into winter in the northern hemisphere. The struggle of ideologies in the US is shifting back into a targeted and aggressive form of what it was before Biden took office. Pluto is now moving into Aquarius where it will be for a couple of decades. There’s a planet-sized unconscious move happening and the post-election new reality in the US, as one small section of what is to come, is reverberating all over the world, for different reasons with different conclusions. But everyone and everything is entering a new world much broader and deeper than politics. This is only the beginning of all the outer planets making dramatic shifts within us, beyond the parameters of our conscious minds, outside our ability to control or even understand as things unfold. The psyche orchestrates out of sight, and we dance to its tune, trying to manage and mold huge forces into a shape we can work with. The huge unsettled feeling of change right now with Pluto shifting signs will be joined in less than 6 months by Neptune and Saturn, bringing more changes in our psychological states.
I began mentioning these shifts over a year ago. I've mentioned them frequently. And now almost all Astrologers are describing in states of awe what is about to happen in our lives. Anyone looking around the internet will notice Astrologers doing features covering these events, stressing that it’s a bigger, more impactful series of Astrological events than happened by comparison to planetary transits through the Covid years. Most describe what's coming as more impactful, just to give you a point of reference.
I began mentioning these shifts over a year ago. I've mentioned them frequently. And now almost all Astrologers are describing in states of awe what is about to happen in our lives. Anyone looking around the internet will notice Astrologers doing features covering these events, stressing that it’s a bigger, more impactful series of Astrological events than happened by comparison to planetary transits through the Covid years. Most describe what's coming as more impactful, just to give you a point of reference.
Astrologers don’t like to make predictions about elections, though they’ll make them about everything else. They have their reasons, but mostly, it’s not to lose the interest of anyone who sees things differently. Trying to please everyone, Astrologers online are running a business.
My preference for the US election was clearly to have Harris stay in the White House. To me, this would be a smoother transition through the upheaval coming down the road at us regardless of which party is in the White House. Pluto entered Capricorn with the economic crisis of 2008. That crisis was met with the big banks and big government working together, two typically powerful Capricorn-sized institutions pursuing stability and structural strength through top-down mandate and cooperation. Insecurity and fear inspired hope and faith in these large institutions saving the day, and they did. New legislation was crafted to regulate the new economic environment but was later erased by the erosion of special interests. Capricorn works through structure, focusing resources and power for a wide spectrum of good and evil through a design. Pluto covets and uses amassed power to transform, and if necessary, to steam-roll whatever and whoever is in the way. Put Pluto and Capricorn together, and you have a great potential to build something long-term. Governments and big banks started Pluto’s passage through Capricorn. The Supreme Court opened the door for big money to engage in politics, and mega-wealthy men have done that. Big money and big government, managed by a range of intentions and self-serving politicians. Planets do not make people do anything, I like to remind people, but the Pluto component of our psychology as the agent of the unconscious can manipulate our behavior by hidden unconscious programs based in fear and greed. Pluto is the personal and collective unconscious, which, by its nature, we are subject to influence without knowing we are. Because the collective unconscious is a shared body of powerful experiences and the feelings along with them, what Pluto stirs in one person is often shared in others. This shared human experience conveys a number of things and, among them, often overwhelming fears. Pluto uses these shared fears to manipulate us in order to purge what we prefer to hide. The ugly truth.
My preference for the US election was clearly to have Harris stay in the White House. To me, this would be a smoother transition through the upheaval coming down the road at us regardless of which party is in the White House. Pluto entered Capricorn with the economic crisis of 2008. That crisis was met with the big banks and big government working together, two typically powerful Capricorn-sized institutions pursuing stability and structural strength through top-down mandate and cooperation. Insecurity and fear inspired hope and faith in these large institutions saving the day, and they did. New legislation was crafted to regulate the new economic environment but was later erased by the erosion of special interests. Capricorn works through structure, focusing resources and power for a wide spectrum of good and evil through a design. Pluto covets and uses amassed power to transform, and if necessary, to steam-roll whatever and whoever is in the way. Put Pluto and Capricorn together, and you have a great potential to build something long-term. Governments and big banks started Pluto’s passage through Capricorn. The Supreme Court opened the door for big money to engage in politics, and mega-wealthy men have done that. Big money and big government, managed by a range of intentions and self-serving politicians. Planets do not make people do anything, I like to remind people, but the Pluto component of our psychology as the agent of the unconscious can manipulate our behavior by hidden unconscious programs based in fear and greed. Pluto is the personal and collective unconscious, which, by its nature, we are subject to influence without knowing we are. Because the collective unconscious is a shared body of powerful experiences and the feelings along with them, what Pluto stirs in one person is often shared in others. This shared human experience conveys a number of things and, among them, often overwhelming fears. Pluto uses these shared fears to manipulate us in order to purge what we prefer to hide. The ugly truth.
Ultimately, Pluto’s darker side brings pain and suffering, sufficient to bring a purge ..... and a rebirth.
But wouldn’t life be nicer if we cultivated growth without having to enter the darker side?
The style of power that Pluto applies in Aquarius is not the top-down variety with a chief executive or king at the apex of the pyramid. The style more typical of Pluto in Aquarius will be to break that central control structure down into multiple power- sharing regions. To the extent there is resistance to this unavoidable evolution, there will be struggle, suffering, and loss. But ultimately Pluto wins, and if it has to make life miserable to do that, it does. A bad centralized pyramid-like powerful government shows us that it would be better to weaken the power of the central government. Spread the power around, lower the sway of a single authority, and distribute it to a multitude. The Pluto forces mounted to create change will always increase to whatever level necessary to break the existing structure down. Resisting transformation gives increasing power to the agents Pluto uses to scare us into evolving. As the martial artist knows, it’s better to use the energy than to be pushed around by it.
The style of power that Pluto applies in Aquarius is not the top-down variety with a chief executive or king at the apex of the pyramid. The style more typical of Pluto in Aquarius will be to break that central control structure down into multiple power- sharing regions. To the extent there is resistance to this unavoidable evolution, there will be struggle, suffering, and loss. But ultimately Pluto wins, and if it has to make life miserable to do that, it does. A bad centralized pyramid-like powerful government shows us that it would be better to weaken the power of the central government. Spread the power around, lower the sway of a single authority, and distribute it to a multitude. The Pluto forces mounted to create change will always increase to whatever level necessary to break the existing structure down. Resisting transformation gives increasing power to the agents Pluto uses to scare us into evolving. As the martial artist knows, it’s better to use the energy than to be pushed around by it.
Aquarius reinvents Pluto's relationship with power
Aquarians are individuals; they have unique ways of inventing with new perspectives, not from the corporate model. Going from Capricorn into Aquarius, Pluto, which obsesses about gathering power to transform, will do things differently in Aquarius than in Capricorn. Pluto in Aquarius isn’t going to build up the central power model; it’s going to promote individuals and groups of individuals for whom the big government model is an obstruction. At the same time, Pluto in Aquarius probably starts out in an environment with a bad central powerful government, inspiring people to move away from it by making it oppressive. Aquarius reinvents Pluto's relationship with power from Capricorn. Power is distributed into the hands of multiple individuals or authorities to “others”, and fosters a customized regional shared power.
Pluto leaving Capricorn in this circumstance brings its own stresses as all big changes do. Add to this the pressure from the oncoming train called Saturn entering Aries. What Saturn brings is a dramatic change of character from Saturn in Pisces to the shift into Saturn in Aries. It’s an abrupt change in Saturn’s ability to execute its universal function, to edit. In Pisces, Saturn was reduced in ability, similar to how Neptune will be reduced in power when it leaves Pisces and enters Aries. The pent-up gravity of Saturn in Pisces wanting to do its thing but being largely unable while in Pisces will make a huge contrast when it crosses over into Aries, where it is fully able to wield its scythe. There’s a kind of cosmic whiplash coming from Saturn in four to five months' time. On some level of consciousness, our internal Saturn saw the waste and indulgences of Neptune in Pisces but couldn’t do much about it. Pisces is an amorphous environment with no specific gravity; it’s the mysterious realm of the psyche. An ocean of dreams.
Saturn defines and applies boundaries, edits out superfluous details, and covets a stark, efficient reality. Neptune in Pisces swam in space with no limits, no up or down, no borders. Inspiration and illusion for all, according to shared needs.
Pluto leaving Capricorn in this circumstance brings its own stresses as all big changes do. Add to this the pressure from the oncoming train called Saturn entering Aries. What Saturn brings is a dramatic change of character from Saturn in Pisces to the shift into Saturn in Aries. It’s an abrupt change in Saturn’s ability to execute its universal function, to edit. In Pisces, Saturn was reduced in ability, similar to how Neptune will be reduced in power when it leaves Pisces and enters Aries. The pent-up gravity of Saturn in Pisces wanting to do its thing but being largely unable while in Pisces will make a huge contrast when it crosses over into Aries, where it is fully able to wield its scythe. There’s a kind of cosmic whiplash coming from Saturn in four to five months' time. On some level of consciousness, our internal Saturn saw the waste and indulgences of Neptune in Pisces but couldn’t do much about it. Pisces is an amorphous environment with no specific gravity; it’s the mysterious realm of the psyche. An ocean of dreams.
Saturn defines and applies boundaries, edits out superfluous details, and covets a stark, efficient reality. Neptune in Pisces swam in space with no limits, no up or down, no borders. Inspiration and illusion for all, according to shared needs.
Neptune is now going into Aries, where the theme is not freedom to interpret but to define realities hammered into solid form. Greeted by Saturn in Aries, Neptune will face severe boundaries and limits it didn't have while in Pisces. Saturn will attempt to correct what it considers a mess made in Pisces. Pisces, as the sign of the psyche, is material with value connected by association, not by practical use. Saturn can’t put material with value by association together while in Pisces. In Aries, it’s a different story. The spirit content appeal of Neptune in Pisces is in being whatever the individual psyche wants it to be. Saturn begs to tackle the job of organizing the backlog left in the 12th house/Piscean dimension; that's its nature. But it couldn't do it while in Pisces, and in Aries Saturn is impatient to tackle it. But it can't because it takes time to unravel respectfully, and in Aries, things are urgent and must be done today. Saturn is reduced to an observer in Pisces. Neptune in Pisces believes in every fiction. But moving into Aries, off comes the pretend costumes, and on goes the suit of armor with marching orders to send spirit into battle. No idle wandering; now it’s taking orders.
Saturn in Aries becomes the holy warrior with an executive attitude toward following orders.
Who gives the orders? The psyche, always.
For an artist, Neptune in Pisces is uncensored multi-dimensional exploration. For some people, it’s an escape from mundane life. To some, they’re getting in touch with their traditional family religion or even a new charismatic life coach or shaman. Trying to tune into something inspirational, to connect with the Neptune we are all carrying within us. For people who need a little help sorting out reality, it’s fake news and a poor ability to distinguish between inspirational fantasy and delusion.
Neptune leaving Pisces…..isolate that idea by itself, and Neptune entering Aries….. is another kind of Neptune. In Aries, Neptune is in its Fall, the place where it functions least well in the Zodiac. It recedes in human consciousness and the soulful content it brings with it is put to sleep. In Aries, the beautiful illusions of Neptune are made to wear work suits to carry out the orders of Saturn, now in command in Aries.
Saturn normally works in a completely opposite way from Neptune. Saturn contracts and confines, Neptune wants limitless expansion. Neptune was the dominant of the two for years while it was in the anything-goes sign Pisces. Now it will be Saturn giving the orders in the impatient sign of Aries.
For an artist, Neptune in Pisces is uncensored multi-dimensional exploration. For some people, it’s an escape from mundane life. To some, they’re getting in touch with their traditional family religion or even a new charismatic life coach or shaman. Trying to tune into something inspirational, to connect with the Neptune we are all carrying within us. For people who need a little help sorting out reality, it’s fake news and a poor ability to distinguish between inspirational fantasy and delusion.
Neptune leaving Pisces…..isolate that idea by itself, and Neptune entering Aries….. is another kind of Neptune. In Aries, Neptune is in its Fall, the place where it functions least well in the Zodiac. It recedes in human consciousness and the soulful content it brings with it is put to sleep. In Aries, the beautiful illusions of Neptune are made to wear work suits to carry out the orders of Saturn, now in command in Aries.
Saturn normally works in a completely opposite way from Neptune. Saturn contracts and confines, Neptune wants limitless expansion. Neptune was the dominant of the two for years while it was in the anything-goes sign Pisces. Now it will be Saturn giving the orders in the impatient sign of Aries.
Keywords
Inspired by the book, Astrology by R. David
1975 Coles Publishing, Toronto Canada
Neptune in Pisces: Mystical ideas. Extreme sensitivity. Suffering to transcend. Passive acceptance, non-judgmental.
Neptune in Aries: Impatiently expects illumination. Focused on a single mission. Perverse ideas. Subversive. Fanatical.
Saturn in Pisces: Moody. Indecisive. Endless hope. Isolation. Faith without judgment.
Saturn in Aries: Sense of duty. Sacrifice to achieve. Difficult to satisfy. Lacks depth. Frustration.
Pluto in Capricorn: Ambition. Persistence. Conservatism. Obsessed with recognition. The compelling need to achieve self-discipline.
Pluto in Aquarius: Awareness of Truth. Power of synthesis. Altruism. Humanitarianism. Obsessed with detachment. The compelling need for freedom of expression.
Uranus in Taurus: Determined. Love of ease. Constructive. Unyielding. Revengeful passions.
Uranus in Gemini: Mental agility or genius. Can’t sit still. Spontaneous. Irritable, impatient.
Neptune in Aries: Impatiently expects illumination. Focused on a single mission. Perverse ideas. Subversive. Fanatical.
Saturn in Pisces: Moody. Indecisive. Endless hope. Isolation. Faith without judgment.
Saturn in Aries: Sense of duty. Sacrifice to achieve. Difficult to satisfy. Lacks depth. Frustration.
Pluto in Capricorn: Ambition. Persistence. Conservatism. Obsessed with recognition. The compelling need to achieve self-discipline.
Pluto in Aquarius: Awareness of Truth. Power of synthesis. Altruism. Humanitarianism. Obsessed with detachment. The compelling need for freedom of expression.
Uranus in Taurus: Determined. Love of ease. Constructive. Unyielding. Revengeful passions.
Uranus in Gemini: Mental agility or genius. Can’t sit still. Spontaneous. Irritable, impatient.
War
Many Astrologers now showing an interest in the coming outer planet simultaneous sign changes are in awe of Saturn and Neptune changing signs at more or less the same time, back and forth due to retrograde motion for over a year. Many have commented on the past frequency of war for the USA during these sign changes of the planets. They note similar planetary cycles in the 1800s that led to that era’s conflicts: the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the First World War, and the Second. In addition to Saturn and Neptune, all Astrologers are in awe of the magnification because of the movement of major planets changing signs overlapping in time. I didn’t mention Jupiter because it changes signs more often than every planet beyond it. But Jupiter changes signs in June of 2025 as Saturn shifts into Aries; they will be square to each other, adding some Jupiter inflation or expansion to whatever Saturn is doing.
Many Astrologers expect an epochal shift as all these planets change signs simultaneously; together bringing huge changes. Some say it will be through another world war. I think the emphasis should be on the magnitude of changes and adjustments we have to make. A world war is possible, but humanity playing with its political games and military might is a distraction from a greater challenge that is not waiting for our attention. It’s entirely possible that no army is able to wage war, and all are immobilized by something like a solar flare or another natural phenomenon. No human wars. This planet is at war with us.
Many Astrologers expect an epochal shift as all these planets change signs simultaneously; together bringing huge changes. Some say it will be through another world war. I think the emphasis should be on the magnitude of changes and adjustments we have to make. A world war is possible, but humanity playing with its political games and military might is a distraction from a greater challenge that is not waiting for our attention. It’s entirely possible that no army is able to wage war, and all are immobilized by something like a solar flare or another natural phenomenon. No human wars. This planet is at war with us.
NASA: Earth Will Continue to Warm and the Effects Will Be Profound We face widespread extinction of animal and plant kingdom species, ultimately threatening our own species. The war we should be waging is against our own impact on life on Earth.
Reducing Greenhouse gases does help, but at the same time, reducing higher altitude aerosols actually lets in more Sun right away and heats the planet rapidly, in turn supporting the feedback loops that continue the cascading phenomenon of a warming planet.
Reducing Greenhouse gases does help, but at the same time, reducing higher altitude aerosols actually lets in more Sun right away and heats the planet rapidly, in turn supporting the feedback loops that continue the cascading phenomenon of a warming planet.
The dramas of the outer planets are our drama, but we are only partially in control of them. We are only partially aware of unconscious or conscious agendas. We react to them and try to manage things as if they are external forces, but we created the script for their dramatic performances.
With Uranus entering Gemini in a year or so and making a trine aspect to transiting Pluto, it will become necessary and possible to put some ideas together for cooling the planet as well as new technologies to replace the over-extended old technologies from decades ago, like the internet. Some of the upgrades in technology will come as old systems break down.
With Uranus entering Gemini in a year or so and making a trine aspect to transiting Pluto, it will become necessary and possible to put some ideas together for cooling the planet as well as new technologies to replace the over-extended old technologies from decades ago, like the internet. Some of the upgrades in technology will come as old systems break down.
Revisiting old familiar, unfinished themes.
In the US chart shortly after forming the Constitution in 1776 with Pluto at 27 degrees of Capricorn, Pluto transited into Aquarius as it is now doing. This is a repeat but not a duplication of those cycles. There are similar but not identical aspects. We are revisiting familiar old themes provoked by repeating aspects that were never fully resolved and led to the Civil War, the Indian wars, and Emancipation. Some of these old unfinished themes will repeat; they will resemble historical patterns but not identically repeat them all. For example, a century or more ago, there were forced migrations in America. Now, the populations are migrating because of individual States' polarizing - towards freedom of choice for women or no choice, freedom to use marijuana or not, forced prayer and religious observations in the Christian-oriented States, or not. All these issues and others like them will solidify within the individual States, and people seeking a lifestyle, career, and good paying job will relocate accordingly. And people will move because of climate change. Water tables rising in some places, drought in others, and coastal erosion will all force communities to plan differently for the future simply because of economic liability. It will no longer be fiscally responsible to rebuild communities with exposure to coastal storms.
The USA has natal Pluto in its second house; there’s a powerful unconscious drive for power and wealth wrapped around what kind of evolution Americans want. The American attraction to power through wealth combined with other factors remains a motivating force in the second cycle of Pluto after its first Return in the last two years. But as it was following the birth of the nation, Pluto then moved into Aquarius as it is now, trying to invest a humanitarian component into an essentially natal Capricorn patriarchal Pluto. Americans have to see a profit factor in being humanitarians; inventing ways to benefit mankind has to pay off. That's the American way with a second house Pluto. If it doesn't pay, move on to something that does.
The USA has natal Pluto in its second house; there’s a powerful unconscious drive for power and wealth wrapped around what kind of evolution Americans want. The American attraction to power through wealth combined with other factors remains a motivating force in the second cycle of Pluto after its first Return in the last two years. But as it was following the birth of the nation, Pluto then moved into Aquarius as it is now, trying to invest a humanitarian component into an essentially natal Capricorn patriarchal Pluto. Americans have to see a profit factor in being humanitarians; inventing ways to benefit mankind has to pay off. That's the American way with a second house Pluto. If it doesn't pay, move on to something that does.
Putting aside Pluto’s imminent task of breaking up and reforming top-down power into a power-sharing multitude, we have other major outer planet shifts also bringing new emphasis.
There were people who believed if Trump lost the election, his followers would mount another coup, and possibly there would be violence. No one believed Democrats would mount a coup if Trump won, Democrats have accepted their fate. Up to now.
There were people who believed if Trump lost the election, his followers would mount another coup, and possibly there would be violence. No one believed Democrats would mount a coup if Trump won, Democrats have accepted their fate. Up to now.
Pisces is a place of unseen energies within the psyche, and the psyche is universe-sized compared to the very local comprehension of our Earthly consciousness. Earth consciousness is a small basket that doesn't hold much before things start falling out as we cram more in. Any planet in Pisces is swimming in this universal sea whose shores we cannot see. Neptune is at home in this situation. Saturn is lost at sea. Because we cannot see everything below the surface of this sea, what we don't know can be our undoing. What we are distracted from noticing or hiding from is potentially a "hidden enemy" in traditional Astrology. Also, by the 12th house/Pisces association, planets entering there are said to provoke sources of our own undoing, which is to say again, we push or suppress uncomfortable content into the background, but it isn't gone. Everything that goes around comes around.
Neptune is often a misunderstood reality or an outright deception. It gives us every opportunity to know god, the universe, and yet people often cultivate a structure to block the vast universe out. Neptune weaves reality and delusion; it bends to our subjective nature in the short term. While in Pisces, there is no doubt a great many secrets of great importance were concealed and lost at sea.
Everything washes up on the shore eventually. I wonder what will be revealed when Neptune leaves Pisces and Saturn, the celestial cop, also leaves and enters Aries with it. We are going to learn things we didn’t know from the time both Neptune and Saturn were in Pisces. Profound secrets as befits these two planets, to invoke the character of primordial gods they were named after, will be exposed. Some of them will be earth-shattering. Some of them will upend who we think we are and the government we created. Lies and deceptions that radically change people’s understanding of themselves. This is the area where I see deep turmoil in the US and, as a result, the rest of the world. Hidden psychologically embarrassing things that found acceptance in Pisces will be revealed. Saturn in Aries is action, whereas in Pisces, Saturn's disciplined voice was drowned out.
It will take us up to 2027 to arrive at a US Uranus Return, transiting to where it was when the US was formed. This is where and when the US has to decide about its new identity. The last time Uranus made a return to its natal place was 1940, and America stepped forward to defeat Nazism and Fascism. This defined America's role in the world, which it expanded ever since. The previous cycle of a Uranus return was in the early 1850's during which time California became a state, and the nation struggled with slavery, which had been outlawed in Washington DC but not universally in all States, leading into the Civil War.
When Uranus comes around again in 2027 to the USA natal position of Uranus, it will again face a critical defining moment in its individuality or self-realization. This nation remains with only two political parties, and people will be forced to pick sides and attempt to get the other side to work with them. This isn't that difficult in a war between foreign nations, but in an internal conflict, it's explosive. The US has tried both. This is a defining time for California's natal chart also; it entered the US on one of the nation’s Uranus Returns. Maybe it leaves or redraws its role in the American States. The Aquarian potency of Pluto transforming there will, I believe, change the shape of the Union of States. I see it as evolution, but all births can be painful.
At that time, the shape of the nation will change as each State or region, if it follows the Uranian model, will seek to define itself in a more unique way, and States with shared values might decide to form a new kind of union. Aquarius likes power shared more locally in a community, so I expect to see the national government yield to greater regional or State independence in regions where people are free to have the kinds of laws and social norms they prefer. Not the United States anymore.
At that time, the shape of the nation will change as each State or region, if it follows the Uranian model, will seek to define itself in a more unique way, and States with shared values might decide to form a new kind of union. Aquarius likes power shared more locally in a community, so I expect to see the national government yield to greater regional or State independence in regions where people are free to have the kinds of laws and social norms they prefer. Not the United States anymore.
Getting back more to the present moment, Saturn in Aries is not Saturn in Pisces; it’s not “anything goes”; instead, it’s an order for what to believe, the army of the Lord. The Christian right-wing coalition is going to make America virtuous, according to their view. No reconciliation is possible between the wide range of social values in this nation, but they can each have it their way just like Burger King by heading towards reconstituting the currently shredded Constitution in favor of State or multiple regional State governments. The damage done yet to be revealed won’t change anyone’s mind about their beliefs.
Human psyche is at the edge of expanding again
A new telescope coming online in 2026 is believed to be able to chart enough detail in the outer solar system to find the location of the ninth planet, which is believed to exist from astronomical observations and calculations of the other outer planets' motions. Astrologers speculate what the confirmation of the ninth planet means for the evolution of human consciousness and Astrology. Supposedly the belief is that the ninth planet is larger than Earth, ten times larger. Those wishing to find Zecharia Sitchen’s Annunaki planet will be keenly watching. We look back now at the discovery of Pluto during the Second World War, Neptune being discovered in 1846, or Uranus in 1781 as information of interest to a few, but whose importance was mirrored in advances in human understanding. Besides the Industrial Age and all its inventions (Uranus), we also had the pioneering of human psychology (Neptune) and splitting the atom (Pluto). Astrologers thought Saturn was the outer limits of the planetary stars for centuries, but in two centuries, our potential self-awareness has expanded. These huge moments in human history, discovery or becoming more aware as we discovered more planets in our collective body of the solar system, the psyche, is at the edge of expanding again. Assuming we and the other animal and plant species survive, what new threshold will we arrive at?
Astronomers describe Pluto as an asteroid or planetoid. It rotates on an axis and orbits the Sun. But so do other similarly sized asteroids like Eris, also located in the further reaches of the Solar System. In the early 1800’s many of the well-known asteroids today (like Juno or Vesta) were considered planets, but science demoted them as they did Pluto in more recent years. Physical science applying these designations doesn’t affect their trans-physical importance which is far greater than the physical size. The planets, asteroids, moons, etc., are physical manifestations or hosts for energies projected from the psyche; their size and type label caters to a filing system.
Astronomers describe Pluto as an asteroid or planetoid. It rotates on an axis and orbits the Sun. But so do other similarly sized asteroids like Eris, also located in the further reaches of the Solar System. In the early 1800’s many of the well-known asteroids today (like Juno or Vesta) were considered planets, but science demoted them as they did Pluto in more recent years. Physical science applying these designations doesn’t affect their trans-physical importance which is far greater than the physical size. The planets, asteroids, moons, etc., are physical manifestations or hosts for energies projected from the psyche; their size and type label caters to a filing system.
When Saturn and Neptune move into Aries, they make a 90-degree square with the US natal chart 7th house, Venus.
A revelation about a secret partnership, clandestine as it involves Neptune. Like waking up to discover that your partner is doing business with your main competitor and betting against you. Pluto entering Aries eventually in 2026 makes an inconjunct aspect to the US natal 7th house Venus. This is about the same issue, a deeper layer of corruption and coercion.
Post-election, the Saturn reveal
I had said earlier this year that whatever is going on in April or so in 2025 is not making a big impact in Kamala Harris chart, and now we know why. She is not in a central role in Washington. I expected that in a matter of weeks post-election 2024, the political rancor would fade away, the air out of the balloon, and it’s happened. We are suspended in a peculiar calm waiting for the show to begin.
I thought Trump would be facing Saturn’s judgment post-election, and he has. With Saturn swimming around in Pisces' amorphous body, Saturn is not grounded enough there to apply its power of judgment. However, it will leave Pisces and an impotent Saturn in Pisces will be replaced by a ruthlessly efficient Saturn in Aries as it marches off to war, intolerant where it had been tranquilized before. Things begin to unravel in late May as Saturn enters Aries; a crisis comes in June-July of 2025. Same timing for Neptune.
For those who care about a court of law, Trump will not face what he would have if he lost the election. But as time goes by, the disgrace he brings to the White House is going to lead to a very positive evolution, the nation falls apart and after a tremendous struggle to define itself as a multitude, not a unity, Saturn will reveal what it saw while it was stuck behind the curtains in Pisces watching, and reveal hidden details.
As it enters Aries next summer, transiting Saturn will oppose Trump’s natal Neptune, not a good influence for someone suspected to be at the door of dementia. He’ll have a little trouble getting his story straight for an extended period. But at the same time, transiting Jupiter is conjunct his natal Mercury, and his support group will cover for him. People who are old enough might remember Ronald Regan, in his second term, had his staff and wife masking his faded mind. Transiting Uranus squaring Trump’s natal 12th house Mars most of this year into 2026 indicates very much that he has a problem with an inconsistent energy level and his cardio vascular system. He might have a sudden heart-related breakdown at any time. In two to three years' time, transiting Pluto in his 6th house will oppose Trump’s natal 12th house Pluto. This is definitely a health issue, both psychological and physical. He won’t finish four years in office as the functional president.
I thought Trump would be facing Saturn’s judgment post-election, and he has. With Saturn swimming around in Pisces' amorphous body, Saturn is not grounded enough there to apply its power of judgment. However, it will leave Pisces and an impotent Saturn in Pisces will be replaced by a ruthlessly efficient Saturn in Aries as it marches off to war, intolerant where it had been tranquilized before. Things begin to unravel in late May as Saturn enters Aries; a crisis comes in June-July of 2025. Same timing for Neptune.
For those who care about a court of law, Trump will not face what he would have if he lost the election. But as time goes by, the disgrace he brings to the White House is going to lead to a very positive evolution, the nation falls apart and after a tremendous struggle to define itself as a multitude, not a unity, Saturn will reveal what it saw while it was stuck behind the curtains in Pisces watching, and reveal hidden details.
As it enters Aries next summer, transiting Saturn will oppose Trump’s natal Neptune, not a good influence for someone suspected to be at the door of dementia. He’ll have a little trouble getting his story straight for an extended period. But at the same time, transiting Jupiter is conjunct his natal Mercury, and his support group will cover for him. People who are old enough might remember Ronald Regan, in his second term, had his staff and wife masking his faded mind. Transiting Uranus squaring Trump’s natal 12th house Mars most of this year into 2026 indicates very much that he has a problem with an inconsistent energy level and his cardio vascular system. He might have a sudden heart-related breakdown at any time. In two to three years' time, transiting Pluto in his 6th house will oppose Trump’s natal 12th house Pluto. This is definitely a health issue, both psychological and physical. He won’t finish four years in office as the functional president.
Ukraine
Starting early next year and for two more years, transiting Pluto conjuncts Ukraine’s natal 1st house Saturn, a very difficult circumstance to be in. Ukraine is accustomed to the hardships implied by having a first house Saturn, so I would assume Pluto’s transit is a transformation of that to hopefully the more constructive side of Saturn. Saturn respects hard work and rewards it; it is possible they benefit from this side of Saturn, Lord of Karma.
Comments welcome.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
David can also be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
by David A. Wheatley
As the year 2024 turns into the last quarter, Pluto retrograded to Capricorn for its final wrap-up of themes it obsessed about since entering that sign in 2008. It won’t get back there for a couple hundred years.
Old school ideas of pyramid-like power structures are Pluto themes in Capricorn. One characterization is the irritating power obsessed power assumed male dominant power tripping, and then the pushback. We saw a ‘Me Too’ rebellion from women collectively pushing back. Corporate, government and dictatorial/military power structures under pressure to change. Self-declared Kings insisting others fall in line and stop complaining. Discussion began and legislation passed in 2010 in the USA called Citizens United. This decided that business entities and corporations had the same opportunity to donate large sums of money to politicians as individual citizens do. Everyone knew then that putting this kind of cash in the food trough would attract every pig. Everyone knew and had railed for years before this to curb political power with term limits, remove the ability of politicians to raise their own salaries, regulate lobbying. Everyone knew. But it passed because the male-dominant Supreme Court began to align itself with an old male-dominant lifestyle, which they decided was consistent with the Constitution. The right to an abortion was taken away by a “supreme” order from the top down. The right to shoot someone in self-defense if you feel afraid, even though they don’t threaten you - another order handed down from above. Police as authority figures crossing the line of law enforcement into execution. Individuals seeking power to express their personal hellish Plutonic horrors and enter a place like a school where they dominate by using a firearm to seize the power of life and death. Those are all Pluto in Capricorn in an extremely unbalanced side of the Lord of Hell. Pluto revealed an ill unbalance in a dark abuse of power. A number of things will break all that down and reform them after Pluto enters the air sign Aquarius where power structures will transform.
Many people did not know that when politicians are fundraising, after the campaign is over they could dispense the money to other campaigns or, what’s happened under Trump, hang on to the money they raised for future uses, creating a nice slush fund to pay some bills. Donations that become a form of a bribe. This is the kind of honey the ‘Pluto in Capricorn bees’ want to nurture. There’s a move afoot to create an ethics code for the Supreme Court Justices who passed Citizens United because of abuses on the part of some Justices. The extent of their gift collecting/bribe went how far? Only intrepid reporters are finding out, the Supreme Justices aren’t required to reveal it.
Old school ideas of pyramid-like power structures are Pluto themes in Capricorn. One characterization is the irritating power obsessed power assumed male dominant power tripping, and then the pushback. We saw a ‘Me Too’ rebellion from women collectively pushing back. Corporate, government and dictatorial/military power structures under pressure to change. Self-declared Kings insisting others fall in line and stop complaining. Discussion began and legislation passed in 2010 in the USA called Citizens United. This decided that business entities and corporations had the same opportunity to donate large sums of money to politicians as individual citizens do. Everyone knew then that putting this kind of cash in the food trough would attract every pig. Everyone knew and had railed for years before this to curb political power with term limits, remove the ability of politicians to raise their own salaries, regulate lobbying. Everyone knew. But it passed because the male-dominant Supreme Court began to align itself with an old male-dominant lifestyle, which they decided was consistent with the Constitution. The right to an abortion was taken away by a “supreme” order from the top down. The right to shoot someone in self-defense if you feel afraid, even though they don’t threaten you - another order handed down from above. Police as authority figures crossing the line of law enforcement into execution. Individuals seeking power to express their personal hellish Plutonic horrors and enter a place like a school where they dominate by using a firearm to seize the power of life and death. Those are all Pluto in Capricorn in an extremely unbalanced side of the Lord of Hell. Pluto revealed an ill unbalance in a dark abuse of power. A number of things will break all that down and reform them after Pluto enters the air sign Aquarius where power structures will transform.
Many people did not know that when politicians are fundraising, after the campaign is over they could dispense the money to other campaigns or, what’s happened under Trump, hang on to the money they raised for future uses, creating a nice slush fund to pay some bills. Donations that become a form of a bribe. This is the kind of honey the ‘Pluto in Capricorn bees’ want to nurture. There’s a move afoot to create an ethics code for the Supreme Court Justices who passed Citizens United because of abuses on the part of some Justices. The extent of their gift collecting/bribe went how far? Only intrepid reporters are finding out, the Supreme Justices aren’t required to reveal it.
Next year when Pluto is in Aquarius, changes will come to these and other power administrating roles. They will be argued and fought until finally they are legislated into reality.
The world always has autocrats or dictators pretending to be wanted by the citizens. In the period with Pluto in Capricorn the powerful have thrived; even the US has flirted with having a dictator. Russia’s charade elections kept Putin at the head of a long table. But with Pluto having exposed the manipulations of Pluto in Capricorn, it’s going to be a different tune with Pluto in Aquarius. This doesn’t mean problems are cured and everyone lives happily ever after. It’s a shift of how mankind manages power, and collectives like countries or individuals will find that they need to work in a different dynamic than the one that worked in the last 17 years. How does such a shift take place? The resistance to it requires the forces of inspiration and evolution to be greater as the curtain is pulled back on the energy supporting the old pattern. The resistance can be sufficient to bring civil disorder or even the breakdown of the society’s structure - whatever it takes for transformation to happen. New patterns begin to form; might as well get on board.
The world always has autocrats or dictators pretending to be wanted by the citizens. In the period with Pluto in Capricorn the powerful have thrived; even the US has flirted with having a dictator. Russia’s charade elections kept Putin at the head of a long table. But with Pluto having exposed the manipulations of Pluto in Capricorn, it’s going to be a different tune with Pluto in Aquarius. This doesn’t mean problems are cured and everyone lives happily ever after. It’s a shift of how mankind manages power, and collectives like countries or individuals will find that they need to work in a different dynamic than the one that worked in the last 17 years. How does such a shift take place? The resistance to it requires the forces of inspiration and evolution to be greater as the curtain is pulled back on the energy supporting the old pattern. The resistance can be sufficient to bring civil disorder or even the breakdown of the society’s structure - whatever it takes for transformation to happen. New patterns begin to form; might as well get on board.
The United States got its independence when Pluto was at the tail end of Capricorn and has been in a Pluto Return for a few years now. Breaking away from the dictatorship as perceived in 1776 Europe (England), with some assistance in the revolt from Europe (France), the US progressed Pluto entered Aquarius when the US broke away from King George and formed a new government with a new structure. Pluto will now leave Capricorn again for only the second time in the history of the US.
Americans again have the opportunity to reform government with what it's going through now. At this time, the description of the two choices paints two pictures of a very different future depending on electing the man who would be king or the woman who would lead and raise up the nation.
Since 2016 I’ve had a personal bit of amusement imagining that Trump is the reincarnation of King George from 1776. This time he’s over here on the western shore of the Atlantic Ocean, spitefully breaking apart the thing he couldn’t have, like a kid fighting over a toy. He is serving planetary evolution in the world, like him or not. It isn’t that he’s so important that he needs to be King of America, it’s that there are so many people in 2024 America who want a king.
Resisting evolution leads to angst and lost opportunity. The nation as a whole will evolve or devolve. The shape of the nation is going to change with Pluto leaving Capricorn, and entering a sign with a very different character and part of life where the power Pluto is always associated with will be a collective, not a single person atop a pyramid.
With Neptune in Pisces since 2011, the ability of people to dive head first in the Kool-Aid pool and/or be inspired in ways they wouldn’t allow themselves to be before had also arrived. Neptune in Pisces is the blurring of the edges of reality, the blurring of a boundary between consciousness and the stored experiences in the unconscious. Some people are very clear about the material in these two distinct realms, but many are not and project their own psychology onto what’s there.
Be it a spiritual quest in Pisces or belief in a teacher, a guru, a political movement, or something dressed up as a beautiful psychologically fulfilling desire, Neptune in Pisces removes critical judgment and uses our psychological needs to determine what the shape of reality is. Rational thinking in Pisces is frustrated. Seeking psychological satisfaction is the determinant of what is upheld as real. For those on a spiritual or creative path, this is a wide-open opportunity to plunder the unconscious and clean it up, seeing what works. Without discretionary guidance, Neptune in Pisces is an invitation to go on a trip and believe what you see. What you will see is yourself, which is educational, to say the least. But if you are scrambled going in, what you get with Neptune in Pisces is scrambled too.
Americans again have the opportunity to reform government with what it's going through now. At this time, the description of the two choices paints two pictures of a very different future depending on electing the man who would be king or the woman who would lead and raise up the nation.
Since 2016 I’ve had a personal bit of amusement imagining that Trump is the reincarnation of King George from 1776. This time he’s over here on the western shore of the Atlantic Ocean, spitefully breaking apart the thing he couldn’t have, like a kid fighting over a toy. He is serving planetary evolution in the world, like him or not. It isn’t that he’s so important that he needs to be King of America, it’s that there are so many people in 2024 America who want a king.
Resisting evolution leads to angst and lost opportunity. The nation as a whole will evolve or devolve. The shape of the nation is going to change with Pluto leaving Capricorn, and entering a sign with a very different character and part of life where the power Pluto is always associated with will be a collective, not a single person atop a pyramid.
With Neptune in Pisces since 2011, the ability of people to dive head first in the Kool-Aid pool and/or be inspired in ways they wouldn’t allow themselves to be before had also arrived. Neptune in Pisces is the blurring of the edges of reality, the blurring of a boundary between consciousness and the stored experiences in the unconscious. Some people are very clear about the material in these two distinct realms, but many are not and project their own psychology onto what’s there.
Be it a spiritual quest in Pisces or belief in a teacher, a guru, a political movement, or something dressed up as a beautiful psychologically fulfilling desire, Neptune in Pisces removes critical judgment and uses our psychological needs to determine what the shape of reality is. Rational thinking in Pisces is frustrated. Seeking psychological satisfaction is the determinant of what is upheld as real. For those on a spiritual or creative path, this is a wide-open opportunity to plunder the unconscious and clean it up, seeing what works. Without discretionary guidance, Neptune in Pisces is an invitation to go on a trip and believe what you see. What you will see is yourself, which is educational, to say the least. But if you are scrambled going in, what you get with Neptune in Pisces is scrambled too.
When Neptune enters Aries next year the shift in our conscious Self will be dramatic
Neptune is the higher mind if one can tune it in, otherwise, it’s background noise. Dreams still tell a story but out of Pisces they can be very hard to hear. This is a dramatic change of pace. Neptune indulgence is out as Saturn simultaneously leaves Pisces too, finding its footing out of the water and firmly on dry land. Saturn in Aries doesn’t take the time to explore fantasies: having finally seized the steering wheel away from Neptune it immediately brings reality into focus.
The three major planets that escorted us through the last fifteen or more years to where we are now are all making big changes beginning with Pluto later this year, after a dramatic exit from Capricorn a few weeks after the delayed outcome of the US election. In late Winter, playing in the same symphony of planetary changes, Neptune leaves Pisces in April and Saturn leaves Pisces in May. They are virtually conjunct at this time.
The three major planets that escorted us through the last fifteen or more years to where we are now are all making big changes beginning with Pluto later this year, after a dramatic exit from Capricorn a few weeks after the delayed outcome of the US election. In late Winter, playing in the same symphony of planetary changes, Neptune leaves Pisces in April and Saturn leaves Pisces in May. They are virtually conjunct at this time.
No need to launch a battleship
There are a few Astrologers who refer to the advent of Saturn/Neptune into Aries as having a historical frequency of major wars erupting. Perhaps more so, with Uranus into Gemini in 2026.
We already know that Pluto leaving Capricorn and entering Aquarius was the tumult of the American War of Independence. When Neptune last entered Aries, in the 1860s, we had numerous wars in America including the Civil War and the Indian Wars. When Uranus, which moves more quickly than Pluto or Neptune, last entered Gemini, Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. Here are the three major outer planets repeating transits in signs that previously brought evolution by conflict, by wars.
Call me an optimist, but I’m not sold on the outcome being a military war. However, I do recognize that war would very much and very quickly sober up the people who drowned in the Pisces Kool-Aid, a cosmic slap across the face to wake up, as Saturn and Neptune leave Pisces and enter the overtly more aggressive, more impatient Aries. There are other metaphorical battlefields we can wage a metaphorical war on.
We already know that Pluto leaving Capricorn and entering Aquarius was the tumult of the American War of Independence. When Neptune last entered Aries, in the 1860s, we had numerous wars in America including the Civil War and the Indian Wars. When Uranus, which moves more quickly than Pluto or Neptune, last entered Gemini, Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. Here are the three major outer planets repeating transits in signs that previously brought evolution by conflict, by wars.
Call me an optimist, but I’m not sold on the outcome being a military war. However, I do recognize that war would very much and very quickly sober up the people who drowned in the Pisces Kool-Aid, a cosmic slap across the face to wake up, as Saturn and Neptune leave Pisces and enter the overtly more aggressive, more impatient Aries. There are other metaphorical battlefields we can wage a metaphorical war on.
With Pluto moving into Aquarius, it’s going to eventually bring down and rebuild our technology-based world. This can happen easily with targeted hacking or a solar flare that brings down segments of society very dependent on technology. No need to launch a battleship. This would fulfill the Aries landscape of keeping it simple, taking the rough and bumpy path to a remade technology, eventually, when Pluto forms a favorable trine with Uranus by the summer of next year. Aquarius is new technology, lightning fast, ruled by Uranus which when entering Gemini, brings frequent and rapid communication. Things will happen in the Spring of next year that might have taken months or years to happen generations ago, now will be condensed into weeks and months.
Uranus will enter Gemini and retrograde briefly back into Taurus to re-enter Gemini in 2026. This extends the nervousness and optimism into an entire year and a half. Uranus in Taurus is in a Fixed, Earth sign, which is to say, very stable and for a sky god chained to the ground, very subdued. When it gets into Air sign Gemini, the chains fall off and Uranus can throw its lightning bolts, its flashes of brilliance all over. The Earth will shake, remembering that lightning not only goes from the sky to the ground but from the ground to the sky.
Uranus will enter Gemini and retrograde briefly back into Taurus to re-enter Gemini in 2026. This extends the nervousness and optimism into an entire year and a half. Uranus in Taurus is in a Fixed, Earth sign, which is to say, very stable and for a sky god chained to the ground, very subdued. When it gets into Air sign Gemini, the chains fall off and Uranus can throw its lightning bolts, its flashes of brilliance all over. The Earth will shake, remembering that lightning not only goes from the sky to the ground but from the ground to the sky.
The sequence of events begins with Pluto leaving Capricorn after one more dip in the pond. It enters Aquarius in the third week of November of this year. In April and May of 2025, we have what looks like a jolting transition from Pisces to Aries for Neptune and Saturn. Neptune begins this shift literally on April Fool’s Day. For most people, the confusion from Neptune’s shift is soon followed by an over-the-top breaking-out-of-jail reaction from Saturn, suddenly unshackled, probably in a bit of a panic. By early June, Jupiter is entering Cancer and forms a square to both Neptune and Saturn. Jupiter magnifies hopes contrasted with what’s not working yet; June will be awkward. By late June, Mars catches up to Jupiter and squares Neptune and Saturn. There will probably be anger around wishing we could put Humpty Dumpty together again, but the egg is broken and we can only go forward. Some things are lost. Both Mars and Jupiter as they square Neptune and Saturn make an inconjunct aspect to Pluto. This is the moment of decision from which there is no going back.
These challenges are meant to spur changes that otherwise might not happen. What’s upsetting is that in a short period of time, there is no choice but to embrace the necessary change.
These challenges are meant to spur changes that otherwise might not happen. What’s upsetting is that in a short period of time, there is no choice but to embrace the necessary change.
Ukraine
Looking at some specific charts, as Saturn enters Aries in May of 2025 it forms a sextile to Ukraine’s natal Saturn. This is a period of restructuring. Whether this restructuring is an agreement, making one, or rebuilding damaged structure…... it’s happening now leading to/from the end of the war. Either Ukraine is rebuilding, or the war is over and Russia is rebuilding in Ukraine. I expect the former. Russia doesn’t have the resources to rebuild Ukraine or the acceptance to be welcome there. Neptune’s sextile aspect to Ukraine’s natal Saturn suggests a positive diagnosis and humanitarian interest in healing, not just rebuilding.
More powerfully, Pluto by later next year transits into a conjunction with Ukraine’s natal Saturn. This is a major reconstruction in practical terms of infrastructure but also in deeper layers of the society and its government. Neither Pluto nor Saturn are warm and cuddly. It would be easy to see these two dismantling the structure of the government and having another one inserted, but this could be interpreted as winning or losing the war. I believe it is from the war ending, and Ukraine is independent of Russia. Both Pluto and Saturn are ‘no frills’ in their reconstruction planning. They deal with the lowest common denominators and foundations upon which a future can be built. Pluto likes to start fresh and so it removes the existing foundation to build a new one. Saturn likes to keep things simple and focus on the essentials. I will have to look at Russia’s chart, perhaps they are also going to experience an internal rebirth.
More powerfully, Pluto by later next year transits into a conjunction with Ukraine’s natal Saturn. This is a major reconstruction in practical terms of infrastructure but also in deeper layers of the society and its government. Neither Pluto nor Saturn are warm and cuddly. It would be easy to see these two dismantling the structure of the government and having another one inserted, but this could be interpreted as winning or losing the war. I believe it is from the war ending, and Ukraine is independent of Russia. Both Pluto and Saturn are ‘no frills’ in their reconstruction planning. They deal with the lowest common denominators and foundations upon which a future can be built. Pluto likes to start fresh and so it removes the existing foundation to build a new one. Saturn likes to keep things simple and focus on the essentials. I will have to look at Russia’s chart, perhaps they are also going to experience an internal rebirth.
Russia
Vladimir Putin’s natal chart has a major opposition from transiting Uranus to his natal Mars. He is in this now and it doesn’t resolve itself until May of next year. The retrograde motion prolongs this action and deepens it too. One of the easiest ways to imagine how this opposition from Uranus to Mars manifests, is an irregular heartbeat. In April/May next year, transiting Saturn squares his natal Mars. Saturn definitely undermines his health/vitality at this time. Neptune began the same square aspect months earlier, suggesting he is being medicated incorrectly or deliberately. I’m not predicting his death, but after this, he may be bedridden and out of government. His removal from power would change the dynamics of the war in Europe. Because no one really knows Putin’s time of birth the best guess of Astrologers at large for a chart places Putin’s natal Mars in his second house. This implies that his ability to generate income and have resources to support his plans is suddenly cut off. His source of energy (Mars) has blown a fuse.
Russia has a looming problem with transiting Saturn next Spring, when Saturn arrives in early Aries and goes back and forth over that area for a year. It will oppose Russia’s natal Saturn in Aries and square its natal Moon. This is severe austerity. The square to the Moon is sometimes called tough love, which Russia is a proud supporter of. This is internal pressure forcing an existence under the most difficult circumstances with a lot of self-denial. Denial of normal needs in life. Russia has proven it can do this. Not a problem. The Saturn opposite Saturn however means this isn’t under their control. Saturn often represses emotions, and in Russia’s case, the natal square between Saturn and the Moon means for them it’s normal. These aspects must simply mean they are doing it again.
Russia’s Descendant, opposite the Ascendant, is going to be conjuncted by transiting Uranus. In traditional Astrology, this often coincides with the breaking up of a relationship. For a nation, not a person, this could apply as Russia finally accepting that Ukraine doesn’t want to be married; it’s time to get the divorce. The exact timing on this is April-May next year, which is a potent time in the whole world.
Russia has a looming problem with transiting Saturn next Spring, when Saturn arrives in early Aries and goes back and forth over that area for a year. It will oppose Russia’s natal Saturn in Aries and square its natal Moon. This is severe austerity. The square to the Moon is sometimes called tough love, which Russia is a proud supporter of. This is internal pressure forcing an existence under the most difficult circumstances with a lot of self-denial. Denial of normal needs in life. Russia has proven it can do this. Not a problem. The Saturn opposite Saturn however means this isn’t under their control. Saturn often represses emotions, and in Russia’s case, the natal square between Saturn and the Moon means for them it’s normal. These aspects must simply mean they are doing it again.
Russia’s Descendant, opposite the Ascendant, is going to be conjuncted by transiting Uranus. In traditional Astrology, this often coincides with the breaking up of a relationship. For a nation, not a person, this could apply as Russia finally accepting that Ukraine doesn’t want to be married; it’s time to get the divorce. The exact timing on this is April-May next year, which is a potent time in the whole world.
USA
In the chart of the USA, the Pluto return is still being felt. The peak of it has passed but we are in the shadow of Pluto now as it will by mid-December depart being an influence on the US natal Pluto, yet its work there will be overtly felt into next year. The progressed Pluto in the US chart (progressed from its birth to now) is 29 degrees of Capricorn. This repeats and emphasizes the scale of Pluto’s impact on the national psyche. The tumult in the national ID is projected from the people who make up the country through Pluto. Pluto itself is just a conduit for an internal process that is unfortunately necessary.
Just because Pluto moves on doesn’t mean that the problems it raised are gone. The problems have been here since the beginning and still are here. But like an election, the process is experienced nationally and a mandate emerges now as to our internal feelings about this long national obsession. Everything is out in the open. It will take several years of experience in another frame of mind, with other unconscious influences through Pluto, to give us some perspective on what we are still going through.
As Carl Jung remarked, while working on processing material that emerges from the unconscious to change our consciousness, the unconscious body is also changed, or reformed. It goes both ways.
Jupiter has in recent weeks conjuncted the US natal Mars, an uplifting hopeful positive period. This will last through the year as Jupiter turns retrograde and extends this period of positive optimism. Further into next year, after Jupiter enters Cancer mid-summer, it will conjunct in succession: the US natal Venus, Sun, Jupiter and Mercury. There will be an extended period of positivism expansion and growth injected into the nation through the Spring of 2026 just from this alone. Constructive things are going to happen with this influence. These Jupiter aspects are all attitude-shaping. They help set up an attitude of feeling positive about life. This attitude produces its own luck; things seem to work. It doesn’t mean the world is perfect. It’s a vitamin to optimism that in spite of everything, we are confident and know what we have to do. Jupiter can convince everyone that things are all going to be fine and this attitude makes it so. The downside to Jupiter transits like this is feeling so positive that we don’t make the effort that’s required while opportunity passes. I don’t think that will happen. The fast pace of events in the world will bring pressure to improve the quality of life.
The clock is ticking.
Just because Pluto moves on doesn’t mean that the problems it raised are gone. The problems have been here since the beginning and still are here. But like an election, the process is experienced nationally and a mandate emerges now as to our internal feelings about this long national obsession. Everything is out in the open. It will take several years of experience in another frame of mind, with other unconscious influences through Pluto, to give us some perspective on what we are still going through.
As Carl Jung remarked, while working on processing material that emerges from the unconscious to change our consciousness, the unconscious body is also changed, or reformed. It goes both ways.
Jupiter has in recent weeks conjuncted the US natal Mars, an uplifting hopeful positive period. This will last through the year as Jupiter turns retrograde and extends this period of positive optimism. Further into next year, after Jupiter enters Cancer mid-summer, it will conjunct in succession: the US natal Venus, Sun, Jupiter and Mercury. There will be an extended period of positivism expansion and growth injected into the nation through the Spring of 2026 just from this alone. Constructive things are going to happen with this influence. These Jupiter aspects are all attitude-shaping. They help set up an attitude of feeling positive about life. This attitude produces its own luck; things seem to work. It doesn’t mean the world is perfect. It’s a vitamin to optimism that in spite of everything, we are confident and know what we have to do. Jupiter can convince everyone that things are all going to be fine and this attitude makes it so. The downside to Jupiter transits like this is feeling so positive that we don’t make the effort that’s required while opportunity passes. I don’t think that will happen. The fast pace of events in the world will bring pressure to improve the quality of life.
The clock is ticking.
A quick look at some other charts:
NORTH KOREA: I notice that when Saturn then Neptune enter Aries beginning in Spring of 2025, they are going to square the placement of Uranus in North Korea’s natal chart and will be trine its natal Venus and Moon. This is a sudden event, maybe a more serious missile launch or accident. Strict judgments from Saturn and from Neptune later on come as a strong challenge to their government’s delusions, in a benevolent form. Perhaps they receive some form of aid from someone they consider an opponent, though they might refuse it.
DONALD TRUMP: Saturn currently is squaring Donald Trump’s natal Uranus and Sun. It was doing this earlier this summer and will be doing it again later in the season and into next year. That’s literally bad luck for campaign season. Squaring Uranus makes him more erratic, going in multiple directions at once with his word salads costing him credibility.
The square aspects (to the natal 10th house Sun and Uranus from 8th house transits of Saturn and Neptune) suggest he is depressed and his energy is low, and he will have to liquidate investments from his past to pay in the present. His ability to invent distracting excuses will fail to get him out of trouble. Uranus can invent, but Saturn doesn’t do nonsense. Neptune, which will take longer to finish with the square on his natal Sun and Uranus, is going to continue to scramble his ability to focus and sort out his fabrications from reality. He could be diagnosed (Neptune) with a degenerative brain (Uranus) disorder.
Right now through December, Uranus in transit is semi-sextile Trump’s Sun and Uranus (stresses) and sextile his Saturn and Venus (supportive). There is some positive in that. But Uranus is very much square his 12th house Mars. The square is friction, frustration, impatience…. unsteady or fluctuating energy. Over the period of three to four months, the square aspect brings erratic swings in energy, low-performance periods being not helpful in a campaign season.
Saturn will inconjunct his natal 2nd house Jupiter next year, late Winter. Tough decisions that negatively affect his financial worth will be made.
In late Winter 2026, Saturn moving along in Aries will oppose Trump’s natal Neptune. This is corrosive acid on his made-up version of reality, his Neptunian dream world. His natal Neptune is in his 2nd house of material acumen so expect that his fortunes are revealed to be far less than stated and will be reduced even more by unavoidable costs and penalties.
The square aspects (to the natal 10th house Sun and Uranus from 8th house transits of Saturn and Neptune) suggest he is depressed and his energy is low, and he will have to liquidate investments from his past to pay in the present. His ability to invent distracting excuses will fail to get him out of trouble. Uranus can invent, but Saturn doesn’t do nonsense. Neptune, which will take longer to finish with the square on his natal Sun and Uranus, is going to continue to scramble his ability to focus and sort out his fabrications from reality. He could be diagnosed (Neptune) with a degenerative brain (Uranus) disorder.
Right now through December, Uranus in transit is semi-sextile Trump’s Sun and Uranus (stresses) and sextile his Saturn and Venus (supportive). There is some positive in that. But Uranus is very much square his 12th house Mars. The square is friction, frustration, impatience…. unsteady or fluctuating energy. Over the period of three to four months, the square aspect brings erratic swings in energy, low-performance periods being not helpful in a campaign season.
Saturn will inconjunct his natal 2nd house Jupiter next year, late Winter. Tough decisions that negatively affect his financial worth will be made.
In late Winter 2026, Saturn moving along in Aries will oppose Trump’s natal Neptune. This is corrosive acid on his made-up version of reality, his Neptunian dream world. His natal Neptune is in his 2nd house of material acumen so expect that his fortunes are revealed to be far less than stated and will be reduced even more by unavoidable costs and penalties.
KAMALA HARRIS: Kamala Harris's chart doesn’t have any oppositions or squares from the movements of Saturn and Neptune from late Pisces into Aries. She does have an inconjunct and a semi-sextile, so there are some stresses on her in regards to having to make difficult decisions around late Winter or early Spring and then as Saturn and Neptune go back and forth in this area for over a year she will continue to face a big responsibility from these decisions. Whatever is happening isn’t caused by her but she has to deal with it. Saturn and Neptune moving into Aries next year will be semi-sextile her natal 9th house Saturn. This suggests an irritating responsibility that there is no escape from. Probably an obligation that comes with her day job.
At the moment, Uranus is still conjuncting her natal 12th house Jupiter. This is her challenge, to respond to the sudden catapulting into the presidential race. Is she karmically and psychologically prepared for this? It appears that so far she has answered the call very well. Uranus is also square her natal 3rd house Mars, suggesting a need for caution in her words because she can’t charm people while talking like the prosecutor she once was. Fortunately, Uranus is also trine her natal 4th house Uranus/Venus, and from there she can bring the charms of a mature woman with the intuitive gift of timing, knowing when to speak as a prosecutor and inspirational leader.
Kamala will have a square from transiting Pluto as it enters Aquarius, in fact it’s effective even now. The Pluto square from her 8th house is squaring her natal Sun and Mercury in her 5th house. This is something from her past being brought out to use against her this election season. While she may not be prevented from winning an election because of it, this issue won’t go away for a year or so. Because it’s 5th house it might concern her children, something they said or an affair that involves them. Because it’s Pluto doing it, there may be something “dark” or negative that is imagined can be used against her.
At the moment, Uranus is still conjuncting her natal 12th house Jupiter. This is her challenge, to respond to the sudden catapulting into the presidential race. Is she karmically and psychologically prepared for this? It appears that so far she has answered the call very well. Uranus is also square her natal 3rd house Mars, suggesting a need for caution in her words because she can’t charm people while talking like the prosecutor she once was. Fortunately, Uranus is also trine her natal 4th house Uranus/Venus, and from there she can bring the charms of a mature woman with the intuitive gift of timing, knowing when to speak as a prosecutor and inspirational leader.
Kamala will have a square from transiting Pluto as it enters Aquarius, in fact it’s effective even now. The Pluto square from her 8th house is squaring her natal Sun and Mercury in her 5th house. This is something from her past being brought out to use against her this election season. While she may not be prevented from winning an election because of it, this issue won’t go away for a year or so. Because it’s 5th house it might concern her children, something they said or an affair that involves them. Because it’s Pluto doing it, there may be something “dark” or negative that is imagined can be used against her.
David can be reached at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
by David A. Wheatley
The Mars-Uranus conjunction that brought the excitement and horror of a political shooting is important on its own at 26 degrees of Taurus. It was opposite the waxing Moon at 26 degrees of Scorpio. The presence of the Moon adds a degree of irrational subconscious crazy to eccentric Uranus, always ready to fight Mars. Really a rocky opposition spread over a couple of days, July 15-17. The Republican convention will be bizarre. I read somewhere that speakers have been instructed to continue on without altering their prepared remarks to include talk about the shooting. Trump will not abide by that. He will lionize himself as Jesus back from the dead.
The Mars-Uranus conjunction that brought the excitement and horror of a political shooting is important on its own at 26 degrees of Taurus. It was opposite the waxing Moon at 26 degrees of Scorpio. The presence of the Moon adds a degree of irrational subconscious crazy to eccentric Uranus, always ready to fight Mars. Really a rocky opposition spread over a couple of days, July 15-17. The Republican convention will be bizarre. I read somewhere that speakers have been instructed to continue on without altering their prepared remarks to include talk about the shooting. Trump will not abide by that. He will lionize himself as Jesus back from the dead.
On July 21, the full Moon is conjunct Pluto, opposite the Sun. Mars plays a role then as well, inconjunct the Moon/Pluto meeting. Pluto brings uncontrollable elements from the unconscious as the Moon brings uncontrollable elements from the subconscious. What's the difference? The Moon is cultural norms that may at times be irrational, but they are familiar; they are normal and not subject to rational critique. What Pluto brings from the unconscious is old dirty laundry that has been seen before, trying to use it again to trigger those embedded cultural programs of the Moon, accepted as normal. In short, the Moon and Pluto are an expression of something that should be embarrassing but are considered normal.
Or something privately normal that when it's exposed to sunlight, it's obviously a mistake to have let it come out. Mars here is a false belief that nothing can go wrong or that something has gone wrong when the opposite is true.
Then, a couple of days later, Mercury makes an inconjunct to Pluto. An acceptance in common consciousness and a decision must be announced that what was unthinkable, is about to happen. Neptune is hanging at 29 degrees of Pisces, and this is a positive trine to the Moon, sextile Pluto. Not everyone will be able to grasp the significance of this influence at the time it happens, but months or years later, reflection will shine on this reality-altering decision. It favors women.
Or something privately normal that when it's exposed to sunlight, it's obviously a mistake to have let it come out. Mars here is a false belief that nothing can go wrong or that something has gone wrong when the opposite is true.
Then, a couple of days later, Mercury makes an inconjunct to Pluto. An acceptance in common consciousness and a decision must be announced that what was unthinkable, is about to happen. Neptune is hanging at 29 degrees of Pisces, and this is a positive trine to the Moon, sextile Pluto. Not everyone will be able to grasp the significance of this influence at the time it happens, but months or years later, reflection will shine on this reality-altering decision. It favors women.
Mars continues this entire year to feature in events. Mid-August, it conjuncts Jupiter in the US natal chart's 7th house, contrasting the Democratic party convention with this week's Republican convention that has Mars on Uranus in the US natal chart's 6th house of finding shortcuts to hard work, being either crazy or brilliant. This is semi-sextile the US natal chart Jupiter, not clearly crazy or brilliant but instead irritating. A hard sell, maybe a lost opportunity.
Mars on Jupiter in mid-August builds a feeling of success. It will be trine the natal US chart’s Saturn in the 10th house, broadcasting a mature, reassuring impression. This kind of energy is easy to piggyback on to success, an easy sell. It gives people what they think they want.
Mars on Jupiter in mid-August builds a feeling of success. It will be trine the natal US chart’s Saturn in the 10th house, broadcasting a mature, reassuring impression. This kind of energy is easy to piggyback on to success, an easy sell. It gives people what they think they want.
Then, from November into the new year, Mars will be opposite power-obsessed Pluto by direct and retrograde motion, specifically on election day.
Mars retrograde is a slower, more powerful Mars in an oppressive power struggle with Pluto's darker side one last time before it leaves Capricorn. It's a final attempt to extend something related to obsessive top-down corporate CEO-style Capricornian power. Pluto exemplified this while in Capricorn, but it will not be able to beat the clock; time will run out.
Mars retrograde is a slower, more powerful Mars in an oppressive power struggle with Pluto's darker side one last time before it leaves Capricorn. It's a final attempt to extend something related to obsessive top-down corporate CEO-style Capricornian power. Pluto exemplified this while in Capricorn, but it will not be able to beat the clock; time will run out.
Pluto will depart Capricorn for good by the second week of December, Mars will depart the opposition to Pluto. The revolution will be over as completely new approaches commence. With Pluto in Aquarius, the old king-of-the-hill style strong man will have lost the faith of those seeking a daddy. It will become clearer that many leaders spread out across the kingdom are more effective when working in an association. The spread of power into a network. Aquarius is about cooperative power sharing for mutual gain; many kingdoms, not one. It’s the beginning of acceptance that identity isn't a single thing; finding identity will be in regional kingdoms. Not a national unified single leader.
This is unsettling for many who found comfort in following a single beacon. Pluto in Aquarius recognizes differences and exalts them whereas in Capricorn it compelled people to think in terms of forcing others to agree with them.
This is unsettling for many who found comfort in following a single beacon. Pluto in Aquarius recognizes differences and exalts them whereas in Capricorn it compelled people to think in terms of forcing others to agree with them.
Contact David at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
by David A. Wheatley
We have now passed the major conjunction last month of Jupiter catching up to Uranus in Taurus, but that doesn’t mean their conjunction is past having an effect.
Major conjunctions, and some that you might think of as minor, energize natal characteristics if not accentuate them, and this heightened state doesn’t stop as the conjunction wanes. Usually, the new threshold makes some internal changes and tweaks which remain closer to the surface of our daily consciousness for weeks or months after the conjunction and, in the case of the outer planets, years. Some outer planet conjunctions influence a generation, distinguishing those born when the energy of the powerful conjunction is spent. Some the events that make the news - like 9/11 for example - come on a major aspect such as a Saturn/Pluto opposition beginning weeks beforehand, eclipses as recent as a month before, and a Jupiter/Saturn conjunction months before - all playing long-term roles in the charts of the USA, New York City, President Bush and most of the rest of us. Everyone knows the reverberations of that event rippled around the world for years.
Innumerable astrological discussions focusing on 9/11 are available online for those interested. One of my favorites is by Liz Greene: https://www.astro.com/astrology/in_wtc_e.htm
We have now passed the major conjunction last month of Jupiter catching up to Uranus in Taurus, but that doesn’t mean their conjunction is past having an effect.
Major conjunctions, and some that you might think of as minor, energize natal characteristics if not accentuate them, and this heightened state doesn’t stop as the conjunction wanes. Usually, the new threshold makes some internal changes and tweaks which remain closer to the surface of our daily consciousness for weeks or months after the conjunction and, in the case of the outer planets, years. Some outer planet conjunctions influence a generation, distinguishing those born when the energy of the powerful conjunction is spent. Some the events that make the news - like 9/11 for example - come on a major aspect such as a Saturn/Pluto opposition beginning weeks beforehand, eclipses as recent as a month before, and a Jupiter/Saturn conjunction months before - all playing long-term roles in the charts of the USA, New York City, President Bush and most of the rest of us. Everyone knows the reverberations of that event rippled around the world for years.
Innumerable astrological discussions focusing on 9/11 are available online for those interested. One of my favorites is by Liz Greene: https://www.astro.com/astrology/in_wtc_e.htm
Jupiter can inflate another planet in a conjunction with energy to be released later as other planets provoke the inherent energies by transiting aspects. After Jupiter caught up to conjuncted and passed it, Uranus remained in pretty much the same location in Taurus as Jupiter moved on for an extended visit through Gemini where it is not at all restrained by the grounding tendencies of Taurus. Compared to the grounding environment of Taurus, Jupiter in Gemini is more likely to stir a lot of discussion and present a lot of paperwork to review and sign; it may be too much chatter sometimes. Jupiter expands and inflates whatever it touches; it intends to expand our consciousness and is very active in Gemini. Late next Summer, Uranus will finally move into Gemini as well and be released from the dampening influence of Taurus, with much more freedom to express in closer proximity to our daily consciousness. But before that happens, Uranu's current position will be transited and aspected by other possible catalyst planets, notably Mars, in mid-July. When Mars arrives to conjunct Uranus, it finds the solar system’s often eccentric planet, recently inflated by Jupiter, ready to pop. More on that later.
Uranus will join the other major planets in changing signs next year, all of them moving by direct and retrograde motion back and forth, between the beginning of 2025 through 2026. Any major planet changing signs is a change of focus. When two or more major planets change signs in a relatively condensed period of time, the positive and negative stresses stemming from substantial change pile up.
Uranus moving into Gemini will form a fortunate trine to transiting Pluto in 2026. Pluto finally moves at the tail end of this year into Aquarius, not to return to Capricorn by retrograde or direct motion for centuries. In a little more than two years, all the outer planets' changing signs will be a huge astrological event that will force us to adapt more than usual for years to come. Even though some of the changes are very positive, they bring stress with them because there’s so much happening in a condensed period of time. You’ve probably heard or said yourself it feels like time is foreshortened and is passing quicker. Mostly, I think these comments are subjective feelings, but in the next couple of years, everyone will be saying that from personal experience.
The relationship from Pluto to Uranus in a trine (yet to happen from Aquarius to Gemini) ushers in a profound period of innovation, new technologies, and brilliant ideas. I believe these rapidly unfolding challenges and changes are not made by casual whim; they are decisions made under pressure — forced evolution. Initially, things will be upsetting, but years down the road, the results will be for the best.
The relationship from Pluto to Uranus in a trine (yet to happen from Aquarius to Gemini) ushers in a profound period of innovation, new technologies, and brilliant ideas. I believe these rapidly unfolding challenges and changes are not made by casual whim; they are decisions made under pressure — forced evolution. Initially, things will be upsetting, but years down the road, the results will be for the best.
Pluto leaves Capricorn for good at the end of November 2024 and moves slowly over 30 degrees of Capricorn and zero degrees of Aquarius with a different emphasis than it had in Capricorn. Pluto had been in Aquarius briefly most of this year, but it will retrograde back into Capricorn for the grand finale between September and November, having its final say on the hornet’s nest it stirred up while in Capricorn.
Neptune will leave Pisces at the end of March next year. Saturn will be close to it, and over a period of years these two planets by direct and retrograde motion will hover back and forth over the Pisces/Aries cusp, making a few conjunctions in early Aries. The departure of Neptune from its exalted free-form time in Pisces into goal-specific Aries is a harsh change of sensibility. By entering Aries, Neptune surrenders much of its ability to blur the definitions of reality as Saturn finally gets out of Pisces into a sign with feet under it. Saturn in Pisces is under water, muffled. It can’t be clear about defining anything, and thus, we had a long period of Neptune erasing the lines of definition between what is real and what is fake news, and Saturn, as the decider and rule enforcer, was unable to do much about it. When Saturn leaves Pisces, fake news takes a back seat to real news because there is no choice. Saturn in Ares does not give vague choices, it brings reasons why there’s no time for fooling around. The time for indulgences of personal facts has run out. Things have to happen. What will surprise people is how quickly we leave behind the attitudes that dominated our landscape and move into a very different arrangement of priorities. It’s going to happen because of a challenge to be more Arian and to discard the Piscean by necessity. Saturn goes from having very little authority in Pisces to being aggressive, impatient, short-fused, lacking in sensitivity, determined, and forging ahead without a long-term plan. We collectively wake up in a reality that requires huge adjustments. The outer planets bringing all kinds of change are things about which individual people can do very little apart from adapting.
A front-row seat to a recurrent nova event
An event is happening in the constellation Coronae Borealis in September, located between the 9th and 12th degrees of Scorpio. It is an explosion/eruption of hydrogen built up on one of two stars in a binary star system about 3,000 light years away, not an explosion of a star itself, and it will be visible on Earth for about a week. It is not an event in our solar system and doesn’t register as the planetary aspects do within our psyche. It is definitely something from outside the psyche, though once the radiant light energy becomes a phenomenon through the lens of our solar system and arrives here on Earth, it becomes shaped in character by how it interacts in individual charts. It is visible to the naked eye. I can’t say exactly what to expect of it, except it might heighten a person's sensitivity to whatever planet or asteroid is located in the natal chart in the area between 9 and 12 degrees of Scorpio or in its opposite in earth sign Taurus. I would limit the influence to a conjunction/opposition first and any aspect after that only if there is a conjunction/opposition. If there is no conjunction, the impact is probably limited to the impression of seeing it in the night sky. The conjunction with any chart luminary/planet/Moon or important abstract point such as Ascendant, Midheaven or Moon’s Nodes will probably shape the character of the energy.
This star last erupted in such a manner in 1946. I don’t know during which month it happened then, but among the notable events in 1946 are:
Founding of the United Nations. The recognition of Austria reborn post-WW2 divided into four occupation zones. President Truman signs and initiates the Atomic Energy Commission. The invention of the first digital computer. The invention of Tupperware. The establishment of Pakistan began with violent protests. A Military Tribunal was formed to try former Japanese leaders post-WW2. The Baby Boom began. Jordan was recognized. Italy became a Republic. The French-Indochina war began, lasting several years. Churchill names Russia’s Iron Curtain. Truman signs off on the end of WW2.
This star last erupted in such a manner in 1946. I don’t know during which month it happened then, but among the notable events in 1946 are:
Founding of the United Nations. The recognition of Austria reborn post-WW2 divided into four occupation zones. President Truman signs and initiates the Atomic Energy Commission. The invention of the first digital computer. The invention of Tupperware. The establishment of Pakistan began with violent protests. A Military Tribunal was formed to try former Japanese leaders post-WW2. The Baby Boom began. Jordan was recognized. Italy became a Republic. The French-Indochina war began, lasting several years. Churchill names Russia’s Iron Curtain. Truman signs off on the end of WW2.
Pluto’s last retrograde visit to Capricorn, and the Pluto Return on the US chart
The cycles of Pluto in any chart swing from anabolic to catabolic, building up and breaking down over two-plus years. In transiting a sign Pluto took, for example, 15 years in Capricorn, working on Capricorn themes. Pluto’s final retrograde visit to Capricorn for a few months starting in September is the wrap-up of Pluto’s work in Capricorn before spending generations in Aquarius.
Capricorn applied its hallmark determination with Pluto passing through on a dark obsession with power and its uses to acquire more. What Pluto did here was bring what was hidden in the shadows out in the open and allow it to break down established power structures, including the legal system and government. If necessary, Pluto breaks the established structure and replaces it with something else for the collective to experience. For the USA, and therefore by extension much of the rest of the world, this is obvious in the growing political and social tumult in the US over the last fifteen-plus years. Pluto’s ongoing work has come to its latest climax in the US with a Pluto Return this year. That is, Pluto returning to its natal placement at the time of the inception of the USA. The Pluto Return will be completed, as will the breakdown of whatever is necessary from Pluto being in Capricorn, by the end of the year when Pluto finally departs Capricorn.
Capricorn applied its hallmark determination with Pluto passing through on a dark obsession with power and its uses to acquire more. What Pluto did here was bring what was hidden in the shadows out in the open and allow it to break down established power structures, including the legal system and government. If necessary, Pluto breaks the established structure and replaces it with something else for the collective to experience. For the USA, and therefore by extension much of the rest of the world, this is obvious in the growing political and social tumult in the US over the last fifteen-plus years. Pluto’s ongoing work has come to its latest climax in the US with a Pluto Return this year. That is, Pluto returning to its natal placement at the time of the inception of the USA. The Pluto Return will be completed, as will the breakdown of whatever is necessary from Pluto being in Capricorn, by the end of the year when Pluto finally departs Capricorn.
Pluto trines with transformative Uranus as its emphasis goes Aquarian
In a wider vein, Pluto in Capricorn also destabilized power structures in other parts of the world. When Pluto is fully into Aquarius its focus for transformation will shift away from Government and other power structures, into Aquarian themes which have some affinity with the 11th house. These themes include a greater emphasis on humanitarianism, new technologies, democracy as a social revolution, or rebellion from it in order to be distinguished as unique. Pluto’s next few years in early Aquarius will be largely characterized by its trine with Uranus in Gemini which I will describe in more detail a little later.
The obvious vehicle for challenging transformation in the US is Trump.
Taking a look at Donald Trump’s chart, he has a tense square coming around June 22 between transiting Mars and his natal Pluto in his 12th house. A square from transiting Mars in Trump’s 9th house is friction between the higher-minded requirements of the 9th house and the 12th house psyche, including ‘hidden enemies,’ something to be experienced only in the 12th house. Mars in Trump’s 9th house in Taurus brings a huge clash of the desire to dominate with presumed knowledge and use any connections and powers to pull strings, manipulate and manufacture a desired outcome. The square aspect suggests this does not create the outcome he wants; in fact, it makes things worse. It’s like trying to coerce the judge or someone related to his legal troubles, and instead, it runs afoul of the law. It creates problems, doesn’t solve them.
At the same time, transiting Mercury is over his natal 11th house Mercury - he fully believes and speaks with the confidence he’s groomed his entire life, preaching once again to the choir (11th house) but unable to gain the power he imagines over powerful people (the judge, the legal system). The Mercury aspect to Mercury is going to create a sea of chatter around Trump, he’ll be texting up a storm, in which he feels like he’s in control and can talk his way out of something and dictate how reality should be, but the Mars square to his natal Pluto says no, you are not in control. It’s very likely his attempts to manage events makes things worse under this aspect, saying too much. It’s long past the point at which his lawyers would have said, “Don’t irritate the judge”.
At the same time, transiting Mercury is over his natal 11th house Mercury - he fully believes and speaks with the confidence he’s groomed his entire life, preaching once again to the choir (11th house) but unable to gain the power he imagines over powerful people (the judge, the legal system). The Mercury aspect to Mercury is going to create a sea of chatter around Trump, he’ll be texting up a storm, in which he feels like he’s in control and can talk his way out of something and dictate how reality should be, but the Mars square to his natal Pluto says no, you are not in control. It’s very likely his attempts to manage events makes things worse under this aspect, saying too much. It’s long past the point at which his lawyers would have said, “Don’t irritate the judge”.
On July 11th, transiting Mars is conjunct transiting Uranus for ten days. (This is impactful for everyone.) In Trump’s chart, it’s in another square to his natal Mars, also in his 12th house, the house of ‘hidden enemies.’ Trump may be full of confidence, but he’s not making a deal at this time. It looks like a harsh judgment is to come.
In the weeks after these two harsh aspects, transiting Jupiter in Trump’s tenth house moves into a sextile to his natal Pluto, suggesting some powerful people propose ways of modifying the rules and rescuing him. Mars, fresh from its hostile aspects, makes a sextile to his natal Saturn, suggesting that there are attempts to make legal guidelines more amenable to Trump and to his supporters. I don’t think it removes the impactful consequences of the initial Mars squares, but it modifies the framework normally applied to persons in similar circumstances to something less severe.
In the weeks after these two harsh aspects, transiting Jupiter in Trump’s tenth house moves into a sextile to his natal Pluto, suggesting some powerful people propose ways of modifying the rules and rescuing him. Mars, fresh from its hostile aspects, makes a sextile to his natal Saturn, suggesting that there are attempts to make legal guidelines more amenable to Trump and to his supporters. I don’t think it removes the impactful consequences of the initial Mars squares, but it modifies the framework normally applied to persons in similar circumstances to something less severe.
In mid-August, a transiting conjunction of 10th house Mars and Jupiter is trine his natal 2nd house Jupiter, bringing a big boost to his income. Whether this is a fundraising surge post-Republican convention or in sympathy for his legal troubles, it amounts to a week or so of surging income. A competing influence in his chart at this same time from Mars and Jupiter is a semi-sextile to his natal 11th house Saturn/Venus conjunction. Semi-sextile aspects can be irritating and annoying but not wholly bad or good. In these circumstances, a natal predisposition in Trump’s chart is provoked by the natal conjunction of Saturn and Venus.
Everybody probably has some understanding of lovely Venus and stern taskmaster Saturn. It’s very unfortunate for anyone to have their natal Venus conjuncted by Saturn. Venus is, among other things, the ability to attract and spend material resources. Saturn being conjunct at birth promises material gains from parents, family legacy, and a famous name. But it also makes the appetite and ability to be loved go wanting. One strives to be loved and will go to an incredible extent, if necessary, to have it with Saturn hovering over Venus. One believes it has to be earned by doing something remarkable because just being yourself is not enough; one is not worthy unless one performs miracles, and thus, one either has to do remarkable things or convince others that they have done so.
The transiting semi-sextile from Mars/Jupiter to Trump’s natal Saturn/Venus shows his irritable side as he insists on convincing others (11th house) that he is more worthy than anyone for their love. But what if it isn’t enough for him? He will show the hunger and frustration that comes from not having enough. He will not accept anything less. This could be a bit of a crisis for him, losing it in a public rant.
Trump could have chosen to not run for president a second time and thus avoided expensive losses. He could have continued to enjoy his life and his brand and remained an influential person in popular culture. But he needs to overcome the specter of political losses he and his brand suffered. He needs to escape judgment. He needs to win which for him equates to being virtuous, inflating the size of his crowds, his popularity, his achievements, and the value of his real estate holdings.
Everybody probably has some understanding of lovely Venus and stern taskmaster Saturn. It’s very unfortunate for anyone to have their natal Venus conjuncted by Saturn. Venus is, among other things, the ability to attract and spend material resources. Saturn being conjunct at birth promises material gains from parents, family legacy, and a famous name. But it also makes the appetite and ability to be loved go wanting. One strives to be loved and will go to an incredible extent, if necessary, to have it with Saturn hovering over Venus. One believes it has to be earned by doing something remarkable because just being yourself is not enough; one is not worthy unless one performs miracles, and thus, one either has to do remarkable things or convince others that they have done so.
The transiting semi-sextile from Mars/Jupiter to Trump’s natal Saturn/Venus shows his irritable side as he insists on convincing others (11th house) that he is more worthy than anyone for their love. But what if it isn’t enough for him? He will show the hunger and frustration that comes from not having enough. He will not accept anything less. This could be a bit of a crisis for him, losing it in a public rant.
Trump could have chosen to not run for president a second time and thus avoided expensive losses. He could have continued to enjoy his life and his brand and remained an influential person in popular culture. But he needs to overcome the specter of political losses he and his brand suffered. He needs to escape judgment. He needs to win which for him equates to being virtuous, inflating the size of his crowds, his popularity, his achievements, and the value of his real estate holdings.
For better and for worse, Trump is having a Uranus return in his chart now. This points directly to his value as a tool of fate, I don’t mind saying. An outer planet so critical to his essence in his natal chart is making a return at the same time he is in the midst of a pinnacle point in his life. The outer planets are never down-to-earth in our consciousness, only influencing us from outside consciousness. They simply don’t fit into Earth 3D-level consciousness. So, when an outer planet gets cozy in our charts, it brings its whole package of good and bad values up close and personal. In Trump’s case, his natal Uranus was conjunct to his natal Sun at birth. Uranus is sometimes a brilliant inventor and at other times - the other side of the coin - is the disruptor just for the sake of being one, like the kid in school kicking the back of your desk.
If you think his fate is to win the presidency and escape the jaws of the legal system, then you want to see this period of time as him flying like Superman over it all and triumphant; Trump the next president and presiding over all manner of changes in the way a government works and how the world revolves when the US is no longer the central dominant influence.
If you see him as rising to these heights of power through lying and cheating, your expectation is that he is fated to be torn down as most American icons often are when their inner workings are exposed to the world. You see the necessity of changes but essentially the triumph of law and order as we thought we knew it to be.
The reality here is that Trump is a Uranian individual. He follows the often-erratic Uranian path that has no sincere attention for the concerns or values of mere mortals. This is one of the things that gives him appeal to those who sympathetically want to also be Uranian rebels for its own sake, to be defined by their willingness to be purely Uranian and simply be contrary, erratic; being purely Uranian, divorced from the influences of the other planets in the solar system as if Uranus was the only influence, but that is not the way it is. In mythology, Uranus was a sky god who was not limited by form or function. His sibling Saturn/Kronos brought dimension, form and function. Saturn brought the perception of up and down, of gravity, of no longer existing in the vastness of space without a grounding Earth under foot upon which to build. Most of us would call that reality. You can fight gravity, but it ultimately wins. So, too, Trump is going to reach the end of his tether as the year winds down. Saturn is going to close the walls around him by transit, and as the year ends and Pluto moves on and begins work in Aquarius, Trump ceases to be a tool of Pluto in Capricorn. Can he be a tool of Pluto in Aquarius? It’s possible; he is Uranian, after all. But I don’t see how he changes that much in one month. Uranus does not exist alone in the astrological chart, and among other powerful factors in the psyche, both individually and nationally, is Saturn.
If you think his fate is to win the presidency and escape the jaws of the legal system, then you want to see this period of time as him flying like Superman over it all and triumphant; Trump the next president and presiding over all manner of changes in the way a government works and how the world revolves when the US is no longer the central dominant influence.
If you see him as rising to these heights of power through lying and cheating, your expectation is that he is fated to be torn down as most American icons often are when their inner workings are exposed to the world. You see the necessity of changes but essentially the triumph of law and order as we thought we knew it to be.
The reality here is that Trump is a Uranian individual. He follows the often-erratic Uranian path that has no sincere attention for the concerns or values of mere mortals. This is one of the things that gives him appeal to those who sympathetically want to also be Uranian rebels for its own sake, to be defined by their willingness to be purely Uranian and simply be contrary, erratic; being purely Uranian, divorced from the influences of the other planets in the solar system as if Uranus was the only influence, but that is not the way it is. In mythology, Uranus was a sky god who was not limited by form or function. His sibling Saturn/Kronos brought dimension, form and function. Saturn brought the perception of up and down, of gravity, of no longer existing in the vastness of space without a grounding Earth under foot upon which to build. Most of us would call that reality. You can fight gravity, but it ultimately wins. So, too, Trump is going to reach the end of his tether as the year winds down. Saturn is going to close the walls around him by transit, and as the year ends and Pluto moves on and begins work in Aquarius, Trump ceases to be a tool of Pluto in Capricorn. Can he be a tool of Pluto in Aquarius? It’s possible; he is Uranian, after all. But I don’t see how he changes that much in one month. Uranus does not exist alone in the astrological chart, and among other powerful factors in the psyche, both individually and nationally, is Saturn.
As the election tumult subsides, Saturn squares Trump’s natal Sun/Uranus conjunction. This is the reality of Saturn imposed on the old god Uranus. No longer flying high, there is, in fact, an up and a down; there is gravity. He must face those legal challenges he strove to avoid. With the sky no longer a hospitable environment for his Uranian nature, his vitality will suffer as Saturn squares his natal Sun. Mars, at the same time, will conjunct his natal Moon in early December and oppose his natal Sun/Uranus. He will complain mightily of being persecuted, with great outbursts of anger.
The effect on the US chart is something I will address another day.
As Saturn moves into the transits described above, it enters Trump’s 8th house. Saturn in the 8th house is initially bad news for anyone who’s been hiding and fudging income and assets. I would expect he also gets a letter from the IRS telling him how much he owes from unpaid taxes, plus fines. That’s a typical impact of Saturn in the 8th house unless one has kept affairs in order in which case one has nothing to fear. For Trump, this is the worst case for Saturn entering any house among the 12.
Contact David at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
The effect on the US chart is something I will address another day.
As Saturn moves into the transits described above, it enters Trump’s 8th house. Saturn in the 8th house is initially bad news for anyone who’s been hiding and fudging income and assets. I would expect he also gets a letter from the IRS telling him how much he owes from unpaid taxes, plus fines. That’s a typical impact of Saturn in the 8th house unless one has kept affairs in order in which case one has nothing to fear. For Trump, this is the worst case for Saturn entering any house among the 12.
Contact David at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
by David Quigley
Dream analysis has been one of the most significant paths to exploring the wisdom of the subconscious mind and the Higher Self. But hiring a psychotherapist, psychic, or priest to interpret your dreams introduces the filter and opinions of an external "expert" to your quest for meaning from the dream. Being your own expert would be a far better choice if you knew how, right? I can show you.
Consider this: What if you could enter a dream in a peaceful trance state? What if you could then speak to the dream symbols and gather DIRECTLY FROM THE DREAM SYMBOLS the meaning of the dream and the tools necessary to solve the dilemma posed by the dream? You can. Everyone can learn to talk to their dreams like this. And allow their dreams to guide them to success and joy.
Consider this: What if you could enter a dream in a peaceful trance state? What if you could then speak to the dream symbols and gather DIRECTLY FROM THE DREAM SYMBOLS the meaning of the dream and the tools necessary to solve the dilemma posed by the dream? You can. Everyone can learn to talk to their dreams like this. And allow their dreams to guide them to success and joy.
The Alchemical Dreamwork workshop is for both lay people and professionals. Years ago, my friend Richard Beyer, who had been a dreamwork teacher at Dominican College for 15 years, was so impressed with this technology that he went on to become a teacher and a brilliant light of Alchemical Dreamwork.
In my private practice, I have helped many, many clients finally understand and resolve the messages in their dreams. Several of those clients were so impressed with the ease and profound solutions that Alchemical Dreamwork brought to them, that they enrolled in the workshop in order to help their own friends, family and colleagues with this amazing technology. "That one session with David took the monsters out of my granddaughter's nightmares, and in a few weeks, the nightmares ended altogether. I need to understand how to do this kind of miracle." Heidi, January 2024
Learn more and register for the next workshop here: www.bridges.academy/alchemicaldreamwork2.html
In my private practice, I have helped many, many clients finally understand and resolve the messages in their dreams. Several of those clients were so impressed with the ease and profound solutions that Alchemical Dreamwork brought to them, that they enrolled in the workshop in order to help their own friends, family and colleagues with this amazing technology. "That one session with David took the monsters out of my granddaughter's nightmares, and in a few weeks, the nightmares ended altogether. I need to understand how to do this kind of miracle." Heidi, January 2024
Learn more and register for the next workshop here: www.bridges.academy/alchemicaldreamwork2.html
By David Quigley
Everywhere I go, people tell me: "Of course, no one knows what will happen when you die."
“Of course?” Despite the many thousands of extensive studies proving beyond any reasonable doubt the many common elements of the soul's journey beyond this life?
The powerful scientific and religious communities - motivated by a lust for power and greed - feed terrifying falsehoods designed to keep us ignorant of the facts discovered in this research.
“Of course?” Despite the many thousands of extensive studies proving beyond any reasonable doubt the many common elements of the soul's journey beyond this life?
The powerful scientific and religious communities - motivated by a lust for power and greed - feed terrifying falsehoods designed to keep us ignorant of the facts discovered in this research.
Death is not a rare condition, striking down only a scant few in our world.
Everyone is invited to join me for a 4-hour workshop I call “Death and Dying – Through Death’s Door” to discover exactly what your death can lead to while learning how to help make an easy transition for you and your loved ones (and stay in touch with them all!) This workshop has nothing to do with religion or dogma and will take your understanding and experience to whole new levels.
It’s open to lay people and professionals: anyone willing to journey into what you may think of as a dark and frightening realm. There, you will discover the infinite light, love and purpose within.
We’ll discuss: The facts about reincarnation. The six realms of life and what every soul needs to know about these realms. The process of letting go of the body and our Earthly attachments. The after-life review: maximizing its power and avoiding pitfalls.
Then, in the experiential segment, participants have the opportunity to experience a dress rehearsal of the death journey, including every step of the process, in the alert trance state.
This is a very powerful experiential learning experience. Afterward, you will awaken with your body intact and ready to live life with the moral and spiritual vitality of a reborn self.
https://www.bridges.academy/deathdying.html
It’s open to lay people and professionals: anyone willing to journey into what you may think of as a dark and frightening realm. There, you will discover the infinite light, love and purpose within.
We’ll discuss: The facts about reincarnation. The six realms of life and what every soul needs to know about these realms. The process of letting go of the body and our Earthly attachments. The after-life review: maximizing its power and avoiding pitfalls.
Then, in the experiential segment, participants have the opportunity to experience a dress rehearsal of the death journey, including every step of the process, in the alert trance state.
This is a very powerful experiential learning experience. Afterward, you will awaken with your body intact and ready to live life with the moral and spiritual vitality of a reborn self.
https://www.bridges.academy/deathdying.html
By David A. Wheatley
https://www.bridges.academy/astrologycorner.html
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.
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.
Sepharial (1864—1929)
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.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Astrodienst - chart of Ukraine
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.
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.
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 [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
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
pdf download |
paperback
$21.95 paperback version on Amazon. "This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations."
|
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.
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.
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.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the lower right. Credit: NASA/SDO 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 [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
Contact David at [email protected] for a personal astrological consultation.
Click here to return to the Astrology Corner index page.
Archives
April 2026
February 2026
January 2026
December 2025
November 2025
October 2025
September 2025
August 2025
June 2025
May 2025
April 2025
March 2025
January 2025
December 2024
November 2024
September 2024
July 2024
June 2024
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
Alchemical
Astrology
Balancing Act (parents)
Catherine Zola Allen FAQ
Create Unleashed
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
Guides
Huna
Integral Relationship
Integrated Master Numerology
Magic On Day 1
Mediumship
Orb Magic
Reflective Practice Worksheet
Service Provider Directory
Sexual Abuse
Somatic Healing
Somatic Mindful Guided Imagery®
Spirit Camp
Tarot
Train Your Brain
Unplanned Pregnancy Empowerment
Where Do Dreams Happen
Why Online Courses? FAQ
RSS Feed
