In previous articles on Evolutionary Astrology, I have been spending a reasonable amount of time looking at the recent Saturn-Pluto conjunction in January 2020, marking the culmination of a 38 year cycle connected to the evolution of Society and Culture. We are now in the very early stages of a new evolutionary imperative toward significant cultural change that began in earnest when the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan China escalated into a global pandemic, causing an unprecedented lockdown in countries worldwide. My aim with these articles is to explore the archetypal energy driving evolution and change, at both the personal and collective levels, so if you are so inclined, I recommend reading those earlier articles to get a fuller picture - I’ll put links to those at the end of this page. In close succession to the death-rebirth of social structures, represented by Saturn’s cycle with Pluto, we are now also living through the death and rebirth of personal beliefs about life and reality, which will inevitably initiate us all collectively into greater truth, represented by Jupiter’s imminent conjunction with Pluto on April 5th 2020.
The Jupiter conjunction with Pluto at 24˚ Capricorn - 5th April 2020 This conjunction marks the end of a 13 year cycle that began at the last conjunction in Sagittarius on December 11th 2007, shortly before the 2008 financial crash, when Pluto itself shifted into Capricorn. The new cycle rooted in Capricorn may ask us to take a look at our culture with new eyes. What we believe about life and the nature of existence shapes the way cultures evolve, but beliefs are not the same as truth. 13 years ago, some of us may well have been initiated into greater cosmological perspectives (now culminating), but the Sagittarius influence also caused the more materialistic amongst us to have inflated and grandiose ideas about life, driving consumerism to ever greater heights with the notion that the financial market should be ever expanding regardless of its negative impact on global ecology. The new cycle is going to be much more considered; Capricorn although ambitious is also the archetype of disciplined responsible action toward goals; on a personal and collective level we may realise that positive rewards can only be gained through grounded responsible effort over time. Will we see the restoration and stabilisation of the financial system through a return to the gold standard? Since Pluto’s ingress into Capricorn in 2008, we have learned a great deal about our societies and the systems that run them. In fact there have been a series of scandals over this last decade that contributed to greater social awareness about the way things are being conducted in government and finance in particular. As the current cycle reaches a close, many don’t know what to believe anymore, and the awareness that the news is unreliable and at times fake is at the front of most people’s minds. I think the new Capricorn teaching will push us to understand that there is a very big difference between what we choose to believe versus what is actually true, and that we have a responsibility to the truth. My sense is that collectively we may be faced with a rude awakening to the reality that is right in front of our eyes! We might be challenged with the realisation that what we have believed has simply not been true. No matter how this happens, it should be no surprise that many of us will experience the death of an old way of seeing the world, and find ourselves either blessed with revelations that leave us feeling more liberated, or struggling to integrate new information that challenges the very foundations of our lives. Jupiter relates directly to intuitive right-brain function, which is critical for sense-making. The new cycle will initiate us into a maturation process, that asks us to take responsibility for our beliefs, and to use our intuitive capacity as a means to proper sense-making and the distillation of truth.
The Lunar Nodes move into Gemini/Sagittarius in May 2020 Evolutionary lessons about truth will be ongoing with the ingress of the Lunar North Node into Gemini and the South Node into Sagittarius in early May this year. I think the concept of sense-making will be an evolutionary focus until at least January 2022; all of us will be dealing with the challenge of making sense of an accelerating world; we’ll need to hone our sense-making skills as we prepare for rapid cultural evolution, when Pluto shifts into Aquarius in mid March 2023.
It will serve us at an individual level to develop an openness to new information from a diverse array of sources, and learn to integrate factual data in a way that unlocks us from false beliefs about the way things are or should be. The emphasis within the astrological picture, is on the evolution of subjective truth via the integration of objective insight. We have to become better at figuring out a true signal within all the noise, which becomes efficient when we use the whole-brain i.e. learn to balance left and right brain functions to perceive a more complete picture of reality. The nodal shift into Gemini/Sagittarius may collectively mean more whistleblowers calling out the liars in our society, and the revelation of specific information that challenges well established belief structures. The bottom line is whether we are proficient at assessing new information correctly or not. Again this comes down to whether we are balanced in the way we use our brain; do we lean heavily on the left hemisphere, with its capacity for abstract thought and acute focus, but the tendency to perceive reality unrealistically i.e. as parts in isolation, or do we lean heavily of the right hemisphere relying too much on our subjective belief orientated hunches, and avoid all the inconvenient details that don’t fit into our comfortable picture of the world? The Nodal axis in Gemini/Sagittarius can be seen as a change in life curriculum, where the primary development is on improving our capacity to perceive and know truth i.e. see reality as it is without perceptual filters as much as possible.
The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius 00˚ - Winter Solstice 2020 Not long after the initiation of a new developmental cycle relative to truth, intuition and beliefs, the structures of our belief systems themselves will also undergo a renewal as Jupiter and Saturn conjoin in the sky at the Winter Solstice in Aquarius. The last time these planets met in the sky, was twenty years ago on 28th May 2000 in Taurus. I will unpack this astrological event in detail in a future article, but suffice to say we can expect a collective reorientation of our belief systems in the next few years toward more responsibility and perhaps a more future forward vision. Following on from the Winter Solstice at the end of this year (2020) we can expect significant revolutions in belief systems such as postmodernism, atheism, scientism, as well as long standing religions. Where there is resistance to change, expect sudden shocking revelations. One could say that we are moving away from a materialistic survival dominant paradigm toward a more collective humanitarian and egalitarian one - only time will tell. The new Jupiter/Saturn cycle rooted in Aquarius sets the foundation for a timely break from existing tired and redundant systems and a profound period of liberation of the mind, lasting approximately twenty years. We currently live in a postmodernist culture that decries truth, seeing everything as relative, where right and wrong don’t exist, and going even further to suggest that gender is, in its totality, a mere construct and nothing more. And yet postmodernism itself is a system of belief, a structure through which we organise information into meaning. Beliefs are useful because they allow us to interface with reality in a meaningful way, and beliefs are also powerful because they shape and influence our societies and cultures. In evolutionary terms, nothing stays the same forever; humanity is growing, and as such periodically there are times when our collective systems and ways of seeing the world will adapt, evolve, and if necessary breakdown and renew. In my view we are entering such a period of time that may last several decades. I believe that we will enjoy the ride of change better, when we learn how to be flexible, adaptable, and open to possibility. Those of us who insist on things staying the same, will probably have a harder time; resistance to the evolutionary imperative of the times, although understandable, will not only be difficult but also require a great deal of energy and effort. If you are interested in learning more about how these cycles affect you at the personal level, I offer one-2-one Evolutionary Astrology readings.
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