By David A. Wheatley
​​https://www.bridges.academy/astrologycorner.html

​Still very much in the news internationally, there’s a lot of interest in the astrological charts of Vladimir Putin, Russia and the war on Ukraine. No one seems to have any doubts about the Ukrainian leader but those other charts stir endless speculation that fuel concerns for whole world. Each of those charts deserves an in-depth discussion but I won’t do that here and now, and will confine myself to an overview. 

Putin had conditions in his chart going into February that instilled confidence to make a major decision to launch a war, that confidence coming from Jupiter transiting through Pisces. Jupiter inflates or expands where ever it touches, and when it caught up with Neptune in Pisces the chemistry was truly historic. I say historic because the last time Jupiter was conjunct, or caught up, with Neptune in Pisces was the first Crimean War, ending in 1856. Russia wanted the Crimean peninsula to have authority over shipping lanes in the Black Sea.  Parts of Europe were against that, mostly France and Great Britain, as was the Ottoman Empire on the south side, Turkey.
Jupiter met up with Neptune again lately, this February through April. While together this time, they were joined by Venus, the Sun, Mercury and Mars. As I commented in an earlier review the expansive qualities of especially Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces are limitless insofar as the human psyche is concerned. Dreams and visions are very grand. But the reality came as soon as Jupiter departed.  Jupiter has now entered Aries, where patience is short for expecting reality to equal the vision. 

​It’s fine to envision a destiny ahead full of celebration and adoration. It’s good to create a path for success by imagining it, but if this singular self-serving vision clashes with much greater numbers and many other dreams, the shake-out can be a let down. 

Many people cultivate generating a positive attitude and envisioning their intentions as if that’s all they need to succeed. This would be true if one lived in a vacuum, where no one else and their intentions clashed with yours, as if the universe both seen and unseen is as pliable as a wet noodle waiting for our ego to shape it. There are innumerable intentions of living people, and those not living as well. The ongoing patterns in our societies established by our predecessors run on automatic pilot all around and through us. These are the customs, habits and expectations of a society. This is why doing charts for collectives - towns, cities and countries - can be informative. We can see currents flowing in the collective psyche that no one person has a handle on. We can see traditions and customs from the past run headlong into current trends and economic realities.
Pisces can be caught up in a universe of dreams that inspire bold moves.  Aries doesn’t wait for evolution, it wants results sooner.
I did a painting years ago of an individual surfing a surging cosmic tide in the human psyche. It was a kind of a Rorschach test; do you see the surfer leading the wave or is the wave taking the surfer?  We never have the full picture; it isn’t necessary, isn’t always helpful and is distracting. Our intellect often sees what we consider the full picture, but it is really only our picture. Our intellect dwells on itself, we are very subjective beings. Intuitive knowledge skips trying to intellectualize information in order to own it, to own all there is to know. Intuitive knowledge is knowing what you need to know without being held back by what you don’t know. 

In his moment of decision Putin believed what his intellect told him to believe. All his knowledge told him his purpose and his abilities were wedded to destiny, that he was making destiny. It’s going to turn out that destiny is using him, and his delusion will inadvertently serve humanity. 

Intuitively we accept in Astrological theory that in spite of what we do not know, there are innumerable patterns and repeating cycles that are reliable for grasping the outline of how our psyche works. The solar system is our psyche: an organic body filled with properties and value just as the human body is filled with organs and structure. For better and worse we are barely aware of how much the psyche knows.  It works mostly behind the scenes leading us from pillar to post. There’s too much to know while at the same time be finite beings in an Earth body. “All knowing” is incompatible with our conscious abilities; we are designed to have most of our knowing outside consciousness and then to seek it by experiencing life.  We rely on the imposition of limits and structure, embodied by Saturn, in order to build something constructive and useful with our small capacity Earth consciousness.

​Putin’s vision of his place in Russian history is naturally a subjective one within his ego. He probably envisioned that he was seeing everything as it really is, though to launch a war under the umbrella of the conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces is guaranteed to be at the height of self deception. He sees everything rotating around him. What we know of his advisors is they were not giving him accurate intelligence reports; they were protecting their employment and telling him what he wanted to hear, reinforcing his delusion. From a cosmic view much greater than Putin's, the collective psyche is fine with that. It will use his conviction to act, as he is one small actor in a larger play. The collective psyche uses everything towards its own ends, including the delusions of mortals. 

​The visionary expansion Jupiter promised when it entered Pisces' realm of dreams and then conjuncted with Neptune is deflated when it enters Aries, followed by Mars and Venus also entering and leaving Pisces, and entering Aries. Aries wants to be real. Aries isn’t interested in the full story or details; it just wants to get things done. 

​Another factor is the influence of Saturn which always seeks clarity of vision. Saturn pushes away the flowery distractions to focus on organizing lines of energy in order to be more efficient... over Time. The Jupiter Neptune conjunction in Pisces inspired Putin’s belief in the fantasy he harbored, but the air has gone out of that balloon. This is a huge shift in the forces around Putin penetrating his dream and forcing adjustments. Part of this adjustment pushing into his vision began last year when Saturn began to move into the square aspect to Uranus. It ebbed off with the retrograde motion of Saturn, and returns over the coming summer months to peak in October. The Jupiter Neptune party was an interlude in the weakest months of the Saturn Uranus aspect, but it has done its job. The inspiration Putin acted on isn’t doing Russia or anyone else any good short term, but longer term it will produce a wave of very positive results for the region and the world. 

​Saturn respects hard work more than big dreams. Saturn respects careful preparation in a well informed context. Saturn respects disciplined long term effort more than periodic flashes of inspired surges. Saturn rewards what it respects with results. It always yields consequences, both welcomed and not. Saturn can become overbearing and suffocating, and in those moments other planetary tendencies can break the overbearing structure, (Uranus). This year got a lot of attention for Jupiter in Pisces but really the main act is Saturn in Aquarius locked in a square with Uranus in Taurus. Once this relationship has played out, the stage will be set for a major shift when Pluto finishes its work in Capricorn and moves into Aquarius. For now though we stand at the crossroads between the agents of order and disorder:  Saturn and Uranus. The son and the father in mythology who while they see the world through completely different lenses and their conflicts create distress, ultimately will both make the next major steps in social evolution possible. 

As May folds into the summer months, Saturn continues to grow in tension in Putin’s natal chart, moving into a tighter opposition to his natal Pluto. By the fall of the year the aspects orchestrated by Saturn's climactic opposition will begin to fade, whether or not its lessons have been learned or by how much. Saturn doesn’t wait for the individual to “get it” - there’s a lot of moving parts and if the individual doesn’t get it they can have a whack at it again some other time.
Earlier this year Jupiter transited Putin’s natal chart in a favorable relationship/aspect from Pisces to both natal Venus and Jupiter. These aspects contributed heavily to making his decision to "liberate" Ukraine. Putin is a Libra. He has Mercury, Neptune and Saturn in Libra at birth along with the Sun, conveying a belief that he can charm others, that he believes in the illusion of control as a masterful manipulator. Jupiter, working for higher purposes, inflated his belief in being the hand of destiny.
However, Jupiter’s series of aspects to his natal cluster in Libra, while a brief flirtation with Putin’s impending immortality, pales in comparison to Saturn’s over-arching transit in Putin’s natal chart. Saturn is in a growing tighter opposition to his natal Pluto. In the bigger picture any grasp he imagined he had over others is itself part of greater forces that incidentally remind him that he is not immortal, he is like everyone else a flicker of a flame in the hand of destiny, not destiny itself. There are much greater forces at work than individual intentions. 

Putin’s natal Pluto is in his 10th house as Saturn transits from his 3rd house briefly and then into his 4th house, opposing his natal Pluto.  Putin will learn true perspective in a very public way with natal Pluto sitting in his 10th house. His Tower of Babel collapse will make a spectacular splash in front of the world. Pluto brings major transformations. As a tool of life, the transformations Pluto brings sometimes come with death. There are many kinds of death, of ideas, beliefs.
This transit from Saturn opposite his natal Pluto will wane by the end of the year, as Saturn leaves Aquarius early next year and moves into Pisces. That’s two major events with Saturn that are peaked now and wane by the end of the year. This should tell us something about the transitions ahead early next year.
Along the way, Saturn moves into Putin’s 4th house, a changing emphasis for his chart from strategy and planning to trauma in his personal sphere. It is bringing the specter of Saturn’s cosmic scythe into his personal home, shaking the foundations of his self image. Saturn arrived there on the cusp of his 4th House in April, and by retrograde motion will hit again over the summer. This is a harsh reality hitting home. Putin will face severe limits and restrictions in his personal life and may even be confined to it. In the western world, politicians sometimes tell the public they've decided to spend more time with their families when they have to duck out of leadership. Putin will be sticking close to home, insulating himself. 

​Fears harbored by others reading into Putin have reached the contemplation of whether he would feel forced to use nuclear weapons, since Pluto is the planet of the nuclear age. On the atomic level, life is transformed with Pluto, discovered in the solar system at the onset of the first use of the atomic bomb. These fears inhabit the darker areas of the psyche but never forget:  they are symbolic. There are many kinds of “death” where life continues, and many of them bring the positive side of Pluto which is regeneration into new life. The phoenix. However, Saturn is the major planet in the transits to his natal Pluto, and Saturn works with circumstances that impose limits, not rapid expansion which is what a nuclear bomb is.  This is not the kind of aspect that supports the use of nuclear weapons. 

What's happening to Putin over the summer is happening at home, his 4th house, and it's intensely personal.

Besides all this, Saturn is also transiting over Putin’s natal Moon’s North Nodes. The arrival of Saturn by transit stimulates a core belief he has held for a lifetime or even inherited from past lives: that he is important to the fate of his country. Pluto was on his South Nodes at birth. Saturn temporarily on the North Nodes tries to bring his perspective around to seeing in real terms what it is he can do with his life while he still has it. This is where we imagine our contribution to the society we owe allegiance to. A good student of history knows that if we don’t decide that, other people will. If Putin refuses to be conscious of or see the truth of it, life will use him anyway. He is being used by layers of intelligence within the collective psyche. For him this is a possible awakening that introduces added insights to what he had assumed to be his purpose. There’s still time to learn. He will be used as a force for positive evolution, though the method of the darker side of Pluto is extremely painful. He is incidental as all leaders are, though he imagined himself something greater as many do. Anyone born within several years of Putin has Pluto in Leo and can easily believe in their essential value to the world to an exaggerated level.  While we might ridicule this fantasy, it’s also the belief in it that fuels some individuals to achieve great things.  Who can say what the values are? 

​Jupiter by transit will oppose his natal Sun/Mercury/Neptune/Saturn early next year. If in the year that’s just passed he has gained realistic insights and perspectives, this transit could be very beneficial to us all. If not, then it’s likely he tries to do it all over again. But that would fail even faster. It will be a question for him of going out on a high note or repeating the past.  If he is up to it. 

There’s a belief in Astrological conversation that when Pluto finally departs Capricorn we will be done with autocrats, or even more ironically, plutocrats. Plutocrats are authority figures whose power stems from enormous wealth, generally acquired by disreputable means. For that to happen to all of them I think the world would have to change incredibly radically, in ways that drown the small fish as it swamps the big ones. There are autocrats in the public consciousness who may fall from power; Putin is certainly one of them. There are others with their necks in the noose now. Some of the countries neighboring Ukraine and Russia who still labor under autocrats pretending to be saviors will get caught in this wave when Pluto finishes up with Capricorn.
Often when a major planet changes signs, big things happen in the world and circumstances we grew accustomed to that are no more permanent than a flower bed disappear, and people seem amazed because they had grown accustomed to them. Pluto moving into Aquarius is an interesting subject for another day, it’s not done yet in Capricorn. 

​Zelensky continues to have a strong chart until a year or more from now when a threat or attempt on his life is in the air. 

​The astrological chart for Russia faces some interesting transits in the coming year but one in particular stands out to me. As Jupiter transits through Aries with a brief retrograde back into Pisces, it will move into Russia’s 9th house and oppose Russia’s natal Saturn, squaring both Mercury and Pluto, forming a grand cross. Jupiter’s move into the 9th house suggests a shift into admitting foreign influence from “others”, 11th house Pluto and 5th house Mercury. No doubt Russia will need some rebuilding after suffering the attrition of their ill-advised war on Ukraine. The only place it might come from is China and while I haven’t looked at the chart for China yet, most of us can easily imagine a growing investment in Russia from China. Several years ago China began building a gas pipeline jointly with Russia. It faces enormous obstacles and is not yet completed. Until this pipeline is completed the EU remains Russia’s best customer for its natural gas. Both China and India currently buy Russian gas which is shipped by tanker. Their interest in Russian gas is long term. Possibly this upcoming transit from Jupiter in Russia’s chart is in regards to an advanced state of investment with these countries and acceptance in Russia of foreign influence, particularly Chinese.  

​Jupiter definitely brings opportunities and opens the door for us to walk through. Sometimes we easily pass through and sometimes we need some help making steps. The difference between what Jupiter and Venus can do is that Venus (as one of the inner planets being inside the orbit of Jupiter and the asteroid belt) is more tangible and seeks more tangible experiences in our conscious lives, not hidden. Venus, like the other inner planets Mercury and Mars, seeks integration into our lives. Mars does it forcefully, Mercury does it with an abundance of thinking and talking. Venus attempts to do it by feeling it:  we experience, we taste what Jupiter brought to the table and our hopes are that it’s going to be almost intoxicating as we believed. It could be true; things can be intoxicating when Venus so immediately follows up Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces.  And as a separate matter, the experience is real. We feel it.  What we feel may not be the truth we held, but it is real.

​Some tangible examples are things like realizing that Covid is not only not gone but surging.  As of this writing there are a little less than 400 people per day still dying of Covid and over 42,000 cases reported daily in the US, with many cases not reported because of the purposefully deceptive reporting mechanisms of some States. Covid deaths are still happening. Like it or not these numbers will climb, Pluto has turned retrograde in Capricorn and isn’t done yet with its activities there in recent years, Covid being one of them. The darker side of a war between truth and belief in American politics is another example. 

​While the EU nations mostly felt inspired that Ukraine was going to survive the Russian assault and that the Russian assault was revealing important Russian military internal weaknesses, there are truths about both sides that will begin to force an acceptance of unwanted realities. Putin’s dreams of restoring a semblance of the former Soviet Union through brutal force will face unwanted realities that his vision can’t control or overcome. For a few months he believed he could defy gravity but gravity only took a holiday; it’s still on the job.
​For Ukraine and its supporters, the reality becomes measuring the costs of support and what is now required to make their visions more manifest. Actions speak louder than words and not all of them are in Piscean harmony because while in Ares, Jupiter and Mars are not as interested in the process of imagining. They are seeking resolution, pushing for a clash of realities in order to sort it out and get to what the stronger reality is. It’s not just a question of who has the stronger will, but of what can actually be done - that’s reality.  Support of Ukraine from other countries could move from standing by and supplying arms to something more confrontational, more Arian. While this play of nerves might unsettle a lot of people it could also be the shortest route to ending the clash of hopes that’s currently devastating Ukraine and the escalating costs from the Russian military, because it forces the participants and their supporters to deal with realities that in the past couple months they didn’t have to. Jupiter and Mars in Ares are a dramatic departure from their time in the previous few signs, especially when in Pisces.
The climax at the end of April into early May - the transition from Pisces owning center stage to then having to share it with Ares - is a clash of two very different actors in their roles brought out in the open. Jupiter and Mars moving into Ares symbolizes the desire to make the visions of recent months become realities and the willingness to raise the level of drama to whatever is required to make it happen…... because the costs of prolonging the recent state of success/failure are forcing an effort to impose an ending. Many of us will transition from accepting certain realities of recent months to wanting to shape them more.  Make things happen. 

​The Sun, Moon and Mercury are joining Uranus and the Moon’s North Nodes in Taurus. These are all factors in facing the costs or paying the bills of recent months. Uranus being the more potent planet in this group brings in the sudden upset, the lightning strike, of bypassing the fancy footwork to find a shortcut to success. It can also bring an ingenious solution which could be deliberate or accidental; either way it serves the over-arching design of evolution from the psyche. There’s an element of something happening out of control with Uranus, however this only applies in our conscious awareness. Unconsciously or from other levels of consciousness Uranus is bringing into manifestation something perfectly in step with who we really are. While we preferred not to deal with things so directly, we likely will ultimately find value in the post Piscean way.
Uranus can be the only way we get some things done because of restraints we placed upon ourselves. Remember though that this group are in Taurus. Uranus according to its nature wants freedom of expression anytime any place. Taurus tethers all energy to the ground, Mother Earth, and insists on any expression having value in supporting life. Taurus attempts to tie Uranus to the ground full time, and make it behave, and for much of its time in Taurus, Uranus will be restrained. When it has moments of occasional release due to the activation of other planets in aspect or simply passing over it, Uranus has a brief opportunity to send out one of its lightning bolts:  a sudden shaft of illumination that potentially changes the view of the landscape, changes how we perceive ourselves in the environment. Uranus has a reputation for being somewhere in between tricky and dangerous, because changes we may really want or need come about by a lightning bolt provocation we are not in control of.  

by David A. Wheatley
​https://www.bridges.academy/astrologycorner.html

​The Crimean War which began under the last Jupiter/Neptune meeting in Pisces in 1856 lasted over two years and resulted in Russia losing to the European powers of the day. It's not accidental that the Piscean dreams of Russia's current leader, with his quasi historically based self-defined Russian pride, would fall into the same pattern as happens when Jupiter inflates Neptune's dreamy aspirations in Pisces for Putin and everyone else.
 
Patterns are what human behavior is all about and so too with Astrology, mapping the patterns over centuries no less day to day. Patterns of behavior while usually not conscious get repeated, passed on to others, adopted from others, intermingled like instruments in a band. Planetary motions stimulate and modify them and we only become aware of them when they surface as events in our lives. Our narrow immediate focus moves on to other demands and distractions as the patterns continue to be vibrating frequencies in our psyche. So it is with major planetary aspects that can appear to be active for several months, a year or two, even several years or more. Just because we are not conscious of them doesn't mean they are done. 

​Putin's chart shows aspects bolstering his confidence late last year right up into the present day. Those feeling of confidence lead him to continue to shape his destiny at others’ expense. The Sun, Neptune, Saturn and Mercury in Putin's natal chart in Libra are being fortified by a favorable trine transit now from Saturn moving through Aquarius, moving over his North Nodes this year. This began to have influence last year, and wanes by the Fall of 2022. That doesn't imply that the war lasts that long, but it does imply this is how long it could take as he persists or resists learning what this means in reality - if he can. It means his ongoing attempts to sell his vision to the Russian population. 
Jupiter and Neptune conjunct by transit in Pisces is putting air in our balloons. This shifts quickly when Jupiter leaves Pisces and enters Aries, in several weeks. But at present Jupiter/Neptune is in an inconjunct aspect to the same natal Libra cluster in Putin's chart. This inconjunct aspect is going to force reality into the dream.  The time will then arrive for a decision compelled by various realities. 

After seeing the supporting aspects from the Libra cluster in his natal chart and the confidence that it conveys, the key thing most observers of Putin's chart fail to appreciate or factor in is that natal Pluto is on his South Moon's Nodes, opposite his North Nodes which is where Saturn is presently passing over. Saturn is transiting and opposing his natal Pluto in Leo in his 10th house. This has a paper shredder effect on his 10th house image of himself, and the world sees through the fog of his vision. Putin’s natal Pluto on his natal South Nodes is a deep obsession with regaining something perceived to be lost - lost wealth, power or prestige or a desire for god-like power to transform others - when really what's being called for is a transformation of himself, and that is what will be the end result.
 
It's fascinating that Putin resonates with his native land to the extent that on this anniversary of Jupiter and Neptune meeting in Pisces almost at the exact degree as they did in 1856, he's sowing the seeds and laying down the fertilizer for his undoing, with a “take out the garbage” Pluto accent, at a time when he feels the confidence of the inner planets propping his sense of destiny up. It's a major setup and he is his own fall guy. 

Meanwhile other important things are occurring for example in the US natal chart. We are in the midst of a Pluto return as I have commented before. This began to register in the national psyche several years ago, and will continue to until Pluto departs Capricorn. The exact day of the conjunction of transiting Pluto to the US natal Pluto is not that important because of the breadth of its influence. Pluto doesn't depart Capricorn for good until late 2024, just in time to monkey with the presidential election. When it enters Aquarius in 2025 it will come with a major shift of feeling in our lives. Whatever the circumstances will be for a major shift at that time, it favors the mainstream move into things like a digital currency. When Pluto last shifted from Capricorn into Aquarius the newborn USA nation created its own independent hard currency, its own dollar. We know the circumstances that lead to that. I expect a shift to an Aquarian contemporary currency this time. 
 
Another major event occurring now in the US chart is Neptune transiting in opposition to the US natal Neptune. As it evoked at the birth of the US, there's going to be a generational shift of social consciousness, civil rights, etc. The opposition implies a struggle; reconciling our founding ideals with our current realities. Neptune like Pluto has influence long before it arrives at a critical juncture.  Years before.  It also will be in effect through the 2024 election in the US due to retrograde motion extending the transit. 
 
Neptune was in the 9th house at the time of this county’s birth - this country was born with 9th house high minded ideals and an unavoidable knowing of the failures to meet these standards. The current Neptune transit's opposition is calling for a hard review of those standards. The transit comes from Neptune transiting in the 3rd house, implying that we are having and will have more out-in- the-open dialogue about the ideals. There's a wide divide in the US at present circulating in our social consciousness, and unfortunately as we enter into the over blown multiyear period of endless presidential election preparation, the factions will take their corners and come out swinging. Racial and religious arguments will be offered to sway opinions. The natal chart is calling out for the challenges to be aired and refreshed.  It's up to the people, as it was when the nation was born. 
 
There's also another aspect of Neptune I'd like to suggest we be aware of. Neptune has many key associations including with vast metaphorical and literal oceans and water. Probably in the next two years we become very involved with the world's oceans in a challenging way because it is an opposition aspect. Learning the hard way.