On February 20, 2026 Saturn will finally conjoin Neptune, the only exact conjunction of these two planets in this cycle; this conjunction is also conjunct the IC of the United States as well as the Aries Point.
Saturn Neptune Conjunction
Saturn-Neptune Conjunction and USA
I don’t know when this triple conjunction of Saturn, Neptune, and the Aries Point happened previously, but consider that the Saturn Neptune conjunction happens every 36 years, and assume every degree gets the conjunction once, then the last time this happened was 36 X 360 or almost 13000 years ago. Perhaps the significant event at that time was what is called the “Neolithic Revolution” where humans developed agriculture and a more settled lifestyle. Of course, some people argue that everything started to go downhill for humanity after the Neolithic Revolution. But in either case, this was a major turning point for humanity.
If we examine a magnified section of a graphical ephemeris we can see just how close this conjunction is to both the Aries Point (solid horizontal black line) and the Midheaven (dashed light grey line) of the United States. It is midway between those two points which are in fact close together. So not only do we have Saturn conjunct Neptune at the Aries point, incredibly significant to the world at large (which is represented by the Aries Point since everyone in the world has the Aries Point in common) but also this conjunction is directly opposite the MC of the US — conjunct the IC — and thus the base or foundation of the United States — which is what is represented by the IC — is directly hit by this conjunction. This will certainly shake up the foundations of the United States, which will affect the whole world, but you already can see that.
Saturn-Neptune Almost Exact Conjunction
In July of 2025 the Saturn and Neptune conjunction got within a quarter of a degree of exact and both went retrograde at the same time and thus the conjunction was never exact. In the magnified view you can see how both planets turned retrograde in unison.
Saturn-Neptune Almost Exact Conjunction
Saturn-Neptune Conjunction 1989
The last time this conjunction happened was in 1989. That year the conjunction happen three times; the most interesting was the third, on November 13, when Jupiter was closely opposite the conjunction. This Jupiter-Saturn opposition marked the midpoint — Full Jupiter so to speak — of the twenty year bi-decade that is the Eighties/Nineties. The fall on the Berlin Wall, which heralded the fall of the Soviet Union and other Communist Countries in Eastern Europe, happened on November 9, 1989. This supposedly marked the end of the Cold War (that had started at the end of the Second World War) and according to some this also marked the End of History (see The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama which was published in 1992). This also involved a big change in the Western powers (see Cold War Triumphalism edited by Ellen Schrecker and published 12 years later). The United States took victory laps after this happened and President Clinton even managed to determine who the leader of the newly-born Russia was, as a cover story entitled “Yanks to the Rescue” shows. One can easily imagine the uproar if the Russian President was accused of helping an American win the Presidency!!
“Yanks to the Rescue”
Let us look at some other examples of hard aspects between Saturn and Neptune:
U.S. Off Gold Standard
An August 15, 1971 speech by United States President Richard Nixon was a big event for the world economy, but most did not realize how big for many years after. This event is considered the end of the Bretton Woods System that was established after World War II, named after the town in New Hampshire where the agreement was reached. After this statement by President Nixon, dollars were no longer convertible to gold. Among the many ramification was that money was made not through making actual things but through financial manipulation. In the long run, this decision by Nixon shifted power from industry to finance, and so what was capitalism of the Sixties and Seventies is not what capitalism is now.
Nixon Shock Speech
When we look at the chart for August 15, 1971 we don’t see anything specific. But looking at the graphical ephemeris around that date reveals something interesting.
Nixon Shock Graphical Ephemeris
Saturn and Neptune made three oppositions — indicated by 2, 3, and 4 — once before and twice after the speech whose date is indicated by the center line. In addition, the Jupiter Saturn opposition (much like the Jupiter-Saturn opposition which occurred almost twenty years later at the fall of the Berlin Wall) occurred twice before the speech and once after.
But there is also Pluto crossing the Cardinal Axis at 0 Libra — indicated by 1 — and also conjoining the MC of the United States. The period of 1972 and 1973 is known in the United States as the Watergate crisis, which ultimately saw the only resignation of a US President in history. That event is certainly appropriate for Pluto on the Midheaven of the US; at the time many expressed disbelief at what was happening to the government of the country.
The “Great Recession” was a meltdown of the financial markets in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Unlike the Great Depression of 1929, which had an exact date — Dark Thursday (October 24, 1929) — when the stock market fell greatly after booming for much of the decade, we don’t have an exact date for the Great Recession. But by looking at the graphical ephemeris for that period we can see what happened.
The Great Recession
Saturn was opposite Neptune three times right before the “Great Recession” at 2, 3, and 4. In addition Pluto crossed the Cardinal Axis as it enters Capricorn, indicated by 1. Thus Pluto is square the MC/IC axis of the United States. This is similar to the Nixon Shock, where there was also Saturn opposite Neptune and Pluto making a hard aspect to the Cardinal Axis and the US MC. The midpoint of these two events was the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune marked by the fall of the Wall.
Notice that the event of note doesn’t always happen at the time of the exact aspect. It did for the fall of the Wall, but for both the Nixon Shock and the Great Recession there was a time delay. Thus whether or not a significant event happens close to February 2026 or is delayed months is something we will see. Stay tuned….
Currently we have Neptune at the Aries Point and at the midpoint of Pluto in Aquarius and Uranus in Gemini. This lasts, depending on the orb used, for all of the decade. All three planets have just entered or will soon enter positive signs. They also form two sextiles and a trine, forming a shape that resembles a teeter-totter (also known as a seesaw) with Pluto one on side and Uranus the other with the fulcrum as Neptune. As in a real life teeter-totter, this represents a conflict; in this case a conflict between a future symbolized by Pluto and one symbolized by Uranus. Neptune represents a force that can either go towards the Pluto side or towards the Uranus side. I’ve discussed before the symbolism I apply to both planets but I will illustrate them again here. The previous time Neptune was at the midpoint of Uranus and Pluto, and not in a Grand Trine, was the first decade of the Sixteenth Century. (When Pluto was in a Grand Trine with Uranus and Neptune, so that all three took turns at being at the midpoint of the other two, was during the Enlightenment — Eighteenth Century). That midpoint configuration in the 1500’s did not last as long as this one will. Now there are a lot more people on the planet than there were 500 years ago and things are moving a lot faster. So this time will see a very large change, bigger than most people expect.
Neptune = Uranus/Pluto Early Sixteenth Century
Pluto was in mythology the ruler of the Underground Kingdom. Now Pluto represents the Deep State and Plutocracy, the One Percent. Uranus, as Richard Tarnas points out, is a Promethean figure. Prometheus brought fire to the humans, betraying the gods — the “Deep State” of the times. He suffered intense punishment because of this act. Now Uranus represents the 99%, everyone else that is not Pluto
In this period Neptune is at the midpoint of those two other outer planets, and also at the Cardinal Axis. This symbolized the incredible amount of hype (also known as BS) currently in existence. For one example, examine the AI hype coming from a Company Near You. Everybody is crazy. Neptune is even more important in this period than usual and since it is on the Aries Point everyone feels it. Don’t believe anything. Though the idea has been widely criticize (more Neptune) you need to do your own research on everything. Don’t believe what the “experts” tell you.
Teeter-Totter 2025
In the end it boils down to just two classes who are forever at war, even though only one class realizes that. We have the Pluto Class and the Uranus Class. The Pluto Class is able to keep the Uranus Class divided with the dichotomy of Left versus Right. Those two “political divisions” fight amongst themselves so that don’t fight the Pluto Class. Divide and Conqueror is a well-used trusted maxim. And then there is a third group of Uranus people who support Pluto. These are the kind who in France during WWII had their heads shaved.
The 500 year party is over and so we can’t party like we did. But some people (hint: Pluto) want to party even more than they have in the past which means the rest of us can’t be allowed to party at all.
Teeter-Totter 2026
Neptune represents digital technologies — most importantly the Internet — which are extremely addictive as many case studies have shown. These digital technologies will help Pluto control the people — Uranus. On the other hand, the digital technologies will allow Uranus to organize and really see what Pluto is up to. But it is very addictive so a little goes a long way. Thus Neptune represents the forces that will allow Pluto complete control of Uranus; but on the other hand Neptune represents the forces that will allow Uranus to finally break free from Pluto. We are starting to see some cracks in the Pluto facade, for example in New York City and Glastonbury, and these will grow in the second half of this decade. A big fight is coming. Stay tuned.
The Pluto future we can see is already being planned out. AI will be used to control everything including people. You will not be allowed to think impure thoughts. The world will be run by technology and everything will be artificial including thought. The poor will live in their huddles and envy the rich who are the only ones who can travel. Again, technology will be everywhere. This future is well mapped out and you can read many treatises describing it. It is a utopia for Pluto but a dystopia for Uranus.
The name for this future is technocracy, which was created/mapped out in the 1930’s. I’m sure it is just a coincidence but the maternal grandfather of the current first buddy/first enemy and richest man on earth, Elon Musk, was one of the founders of technocracy. Technocracy is a system of government (as the “-cracy” suffix suggests) where the scientists — who are the only ones who really know what is going on — run things. But of course now “Science” has been replaced by Corporate Science, controlled by guess who.
The technology brotherhood, which is controlling this visions of the future, read science fiction as they were growing up. But the science fiction that they read is what is called “hard” science fiction, that is based on the hard sciences like physics. In this type of science fiction the future is populated by robots, computers, artificial intelligence, and trips to Mars. See for example the Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson or I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Because of these early influences, it is no wonder that the future they are birthing resembles the stories they read as youths. These young people had never read novels by George Orwell (1984), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), Yevgeny Zamyatin (We) or Philip K. Dick, or if they had they thought them novels of utopia. Perhaps they even read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, which describes a future world divided into two classes: the sweet Eloi and the savage Morlocks and thought that was a perfect world for themselves who obviously identified with the Eloi.
Soft, or at least softer science fiction, has been written mainly (not surprisingly) by women. Examples are books by Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Joanna Russ, Octavia Butler, and a very good example is Still Forms on Foxfield.
The concept of left-brain and right-brain are fairly common in popular discourse. Simply put, the left brain controls linear thinking and the right brain controls holistic thinking. To put this into astrological terms, the Sun represents the left brain and the Moon represents the right brain.
Left brain thinking has become more prominent in the last 500 years, and even more so this century. A future imagined by the techbros will be even more left brain than has previously been thought possible. There is a word for this that was recently introduced: TechnoFuedalism, a stage beyond capitalism. One of the things I had imagined we will be passing out of for the next 500 is capitalism, but I did not imagine what the left brain techno-future would really be like. Perhaps I should reread those novels. Capitalism started after immense wealth began to pour into Europe following the discovery and beginning colonization of the “New World”. This growth of capitalism was certainly helped by the exportation of slaves from Africa into the New World. This first stage of capitalism+ was called “Mercantile Capitalism” and was upgraded in the Eighteenth Century by the writings of Adam Smith and other economists at about the midpoint of this 500 years.
Teeter-Totter 2027
There is one big problem with this scenario however. This is the end of the 500 year party, and there are certain physical constraints that exist no matter how much technology you throw at it. You may keep the masses down but only by leaving the earth – as many proponents of this future believe we must do — can we escape the physical constraints of the planet of our birth. However, that does little good for those who remain on this planet.
The Uranus scenario is much different. It realizes that the last 500 years has seen the growth of rationalism and a Cartesian — named after Rene Descartes a French scientist and mathematician born under a Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the late Sixteenth Century — worldview that at the time was thought to be a positive change from the mystical and religious worldview that existed before. A champion of this new worldview was Galileo.
Rene Descartes
Scientists such as William James in the early Twentieth Century and Carl Sagan later in the Twentieth Century thought Science and Spirituality must be integrated. There are a number of scientists who have done work in this area such as David Bohm and Karl Pribram. Many other people have explored these concepts.
We need a balance between the left and right brains, unlike the case of the previous periods where only one hemisphere was predominant. The Uranus future is one where left-brain, totally rational approach is balanced by a right-brain [more] “irrational” approach.
Teeter-Totter 2028
I see astrology as a prefect symbol for this left-brain/right-brain balance. Astrology involves calculation of the positions of the planets, obviously a left-brain activity, but also involves an interpretation of the meaning of those planets, symbols that are not understandable by left-brain thinking but perfectly natural to the right-brain. In this Uranian vision of the future, astrology will be more widely accepted.
Teeter-Totter 2029
The case can be made that astrology — which existed long before formal religions and especially monotheism — gave birth to science and computing, both left brain activities. The observation and interest in the positions of the planets gave rise to an interest in the natural world that led to science; computing was necessary to determine the future positions of the planets.
Graphical Ephemeris for 1543
The break from astrology as a combination of left and right brain activities to astronomy as a left brain activity can be set at the year 1543 when Nicky Copernicus’s book De Revolutionibus was published (after he died) thought the ideas in that book were put down on paper in 1514 (shortly before Martin Luther created trouble by posting his beliefs). Looking at the graphical ephemeris for that year shows Saturn square Pluto and Neptune opposite Jupiter. The Jupiter opposition suggests, among other things, a separation between the mystical of Neptune and the more practical, growth-oriented nature of Jupiter. Jupiter can be thought as ruling capitalism, something that has taken over the world. Note, however, that all the “fathers of modern science” were astrologers as well. Kepler’s theories are the basis of the computation of planetary position used in astrological computer programs.
As far as I know at least one astrology group required the ability to calculate a chart in order to get a certificate as an astrologer. I suspect this ability is rapidly receding since it is so much easier, quicker, and less error prone to have a computer calculate a chart. I’m sure that some skill or knowledge is lost when that calculation is no longer preformed.
This movement toward the left brain world has been going on for a long time. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) though this change happened when Greek philosophy went from Socrates to Plato. But the biggest change happened starting 500 years ago with the Renaissance followed by the Scientific Revolution and especially Rene Descartes. The materialist, mechanistic world view started to take over. An important change in science and its use took place during World War Two. During that period science took center stage as an important tool for winning the war. This trend was accelerated even more with the development of the atomic bomb, which is widely credited — at least in the United States — with having won the war with Japan, even though by that time Japan had been petty well beaten and the imminent invasion of Soviet Union into the War in the Pacific — scheduled for August 8, exactly three months after the end of the War in Europe — would have been the final blow. After the War Americans love of science became greater than ever before. But currently in the Twenty First Century this has gotten way out of bounds. When society is so unbalanced there should be a large warning sign, but instead the civilization is doubling down on more science. No good can come of this.
Outer Planet Grand Trine and the Rise of Science
Another problem is the health of real human beings and the lives of animals and plants on earth is deteriorating. The health of all living things is being destroyed by the output of corporations, to put it simply. A large number of statistics will show that things have gotten much worse over the last eighty years, since the end of World War II. If we have another 500 years of the technology that has been destroying out lives, while making it easier to live, human beings will not survive as anything we would recognize. Plastic pollution, pesticides in our food and water, disappearing wetlands, etc., etc. are among the many problems we can see now. The statistics can be numbing.
In the Nineteenth Century the father of sociology Mex Weber was writing about the Disenchantment of the World (a single world in his native German). That disenchantment was the increasing separation between the intellect and the spiritual, between Humans and Nature; the Natural World and the Artificial World have been growing increasingly apart. He was concerned about this division, and it has gotten so much worse in the century following his pronouncements.
While technology has made our lives easier it has also drained our vitality since we are not behaving as our bodies were designed over most of the span of human existence. This has resulted in many “diseases of civilization” that we did not have in centuries gone by. We have become alienated from the natural world. There seem to be two methods of dealing with this problem. The first is to modified and/or redesign the human body to corresponds the current conditions. This is the plan of the technology brotherhood and goes by the catchy name “transhumanism” the stage beyond human. What could go wrong? The other method is for humans to live more attuned to the natural world.
All Outer Planet Midpoints
Over the last 500 years the world has become increasingly disenchanted. It is now only cold hard facts and the latest AI that matters to anyone. As we have become disenchanted from the world, the world — the Earth, our Home — has become increasingly disenchanted from us. This needs to change, and just escaping to Mars is not a solution.
Which will we choose, or will the choice be made for us?
The main indicator of the end of the 500 year party is the midpoint of the three outer planets happening now with Neptune at its crux, something that only happens every 500 years. This particular one goes on for a long time as you can see from the image below. This midpoint configuration lasts at least the ten years from 2021 to 2031 with the tightest midpoint in 2024, 2025, 2026, and 2027. Notice that in 2025 this midpoint is on the Cardinal Axis making it even more potent.
Neptune = Uranus/Pluto
At the same time as this important midpoint is happening, those three planets also make up a mini-grand trine, which is a trine and two sextiles. This formation goes on for the four year 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028 which is of course also crossing the Cardinal Axis in those first two years. The graphical ephemeris below is in the sixth harmonic which means that trines and sextiles appear as conjunctions.
Mini-Grand Trine
For the last 500 years, starting in the late Fifteenth Century, this party has been increasing in both a geographical and physical sense until by this time in the early Twenty-First Century more and more of what are called third world countries are joining the party. People seem to believe it can go on forever.
If you want as astrological date for when this started look at the chart for 11-18-1485 where the ten known planets (even though three were unknown at the time) were the closest for 500 years; the next time this tightness happened was on 11-16-1982 for this end of the party moment.
Tightest Planets 1485
But wait! There is a problem called anthropogenic climate change (ACC) that is going to end civilization as we know it. There is just too much carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuel powered automobiles and farming, especially of animals to produce meat and dairy. So we just have to eliminate those things and the world will be much better off.
Tightest Planets 1982
I’ve previously introduced the terms Uranus and Pluto to denote the two real classes that make up our society. Uranus is the people, the plebs, the proletariat. Pluto is the elite, the one percent, the global capitalists (or as satirist C.J. Hopkins calls them Global Cap), the Deep State.
The problems of ACC is something that must be solved by methods that don’t upset Pluto too much. That is why they promote that problem and that solution. But I would argue that the problems resulting from the 500 year party are much more difficult and far-reaching than what they want Uranus to believe, and solving these problems will require taming, if not eliminating, Pluto. And that is certainly not acceptable to them and so they promote the idea of climate change and get everyone exited about it, whether for or against the solutions that Pluto is promoting. It’s another instance of “Don’t look there, look over here”. But of course doing that, following the direction of Pluto, will only cause the problems to get worse. After all Pluto is the ones who are most enjoying the 500 year party, and they have the most to lose if the world really deals with the problems.
When a party is over you need to clean up the messes and replenish your supplies. After a party of 500 years, and especially after the Neptune-Pluto conjunction of the Eighteen-Nineties (to be dealt with in a separate post) there is a massive mess.
Neptune-Pluto Conjunction New Moon
To deal with all the problems created by the huge party civilization has been throwing for the last five centuries will involve first of all dealing with the Problem of Pluto which controls the media and the government which in turn sets the narrative of what is happening that we all believe. And of course Pluto does not want you looking at them, so they make you believe that the problem is something other then them. You would do the same thing if you were the problem. For example, if you beat your wife you must convince her the problem is the noisy neighbors in the apartment below.
The conflict in the world is between two opposing viewpoints: to make it more global, more a one world government or not. But the real solutions will involve more local (Uranus) that global (Pluto) and more natural (Uranus) rather than artificial (Pluto). But the world is moving towards the totally artificial with artificial food, artificial immunity, and the ultimate artificial intelligence. We need to move back towards natural food, natural immunity, and most of all natural intelligence, a characteristic that is becoming more and more scarce.
Over especially the last 100 years and more especially the last 30 years the people of the world, especially those in Western countries, have become more and more estranged from the natural world, and as a result the world has become more estranged from us. We need real solutions and those are not the solutions produced by Pluto.
What is often called the first Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union started shortly after the end of World War II. Sometimes this is called the second Cold War since shortly after the end of War War I and the start of the Russian Revolution several countries including the United States under President Woodrow Wilson sent troops into Russia to fight against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. Diplomatic recognition of the new Soviet Union that came out of that civil war was not granted by the United States until President Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union in 1933, thus ending that first cold war. But since most forget or never knew about that American intervention, we will refer to the cold war that started after World War II as the first cold war.
Truman Doctrine
The beginning of this cold war is widely assumed to have started with the promulgation of the “Truman Doctrine” by President Harry Truman in 1947. Nineteen Forty Seven was a big year for the birth of a new America. Later in that same year the National Security Act was passed, which among other things created that infamous three letter agency the Central Intelligence Agency, known widely as the CIA. The CIA was an outgrowth of the wartime OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and German ideas that were brought into this country by Operation Paperclip and especially Reinhard Gehlen, (https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/german-spymaster-reinhard-gehlen/) who was the head of German spy organizations under several leaders.
Birth of CIA
The reason that 1947 was such a banner year was indicated by the Saturn-Pluto conjunction that took place that summer. As you can judge by the nature of these planets and historical association, this combination is not good news. There have been only two such conjunctions since the one of 1947. The one in the early Eighties indicates the start of the”New Cold War” with fighting in several central American countries; the results of those wars we are now seeing at the southern border of the United States. The next Saturn-Pluto conjunction was in January of 2020. I initially thought the fact that President Trump had ordered the assassination of Iranian military leader Qusem Soleimani would lead to a large scale war between the United States and Iran but something else of great import happened instead.
Saturn-Pluto Conjunction of 1947
This Cold War is shown by the Long Sextile of Neptune and Pluto. The two planets conjoined in the 1890s, thus suggesting the momentous changes that were about to begin and grow more prevalent in the new Twentieth Century. After that conjunction it would take half a century before the opening sextile of those two planets occurred.
First Cold War
If we look at this graphical ephemeris we see that there is a sixth harmonic conjunction between the two outer planets — the long sextile between Neptune and Pluto. It goes from the late Forties (Number 1) to the early Nineties (Number 2). I saw several years ago that this was an indicator of the Cold War. This time period is between the Truman Doctrine and the fall of the Soviet Union. But Pluto reached its perihelion — closest to the Sun — at about the turn of the century and so there will be another long sextile in the Twenty-First Century. When I saw that many years ago I figured this could not be a return to the Cold War since that had long gone. How naive I was! There is another long sextile — but not as long — from 2021 to 2036. So maybe this will indicate another Cold War, or perhaps a Hot War which the West seems to be gearing up for.
Neptune and Pluto have an interesting pattern. Pluto has a very elliptic orbit so that sometimes it is inside the orbit of Neptune. The astronomer (and astrologer) Johannes Kepler created the laws of planetary motion that are the basis of the ephemerides that we use in astrology today. His second law states that planets sweep out equal arcs in equal time, which implies that when a planet is farther from the Sun (which is one of the two centers of the ellipse that is the planetary orbit) it moves slower than when it is closer to the Sun. Thus Pluto takes a lot longer to go through the sign of Gemini — 30 year — than the sign of Sagittarius — 11 years. As result of this speedup/slowdown Neptune and Pluto can hold the same aspect for many years.
Second Cold War?
This second long sextile occurs from 2021 (Number 1) until 2036 (Number 2) with the most intense period between 2024 (Number 3) and 2029 (Number 4).
For anyone familiar with the uses of propaganda it appears that this country is trying to build up to a war with Russia. The anger and hate directed towards Russia dwarfs what was seen during the First Cold War from 1947 to 1992. During that one we would at least talk to the Soviet Union as did Eisenhower (though he was shanghaied by a U2 flight over the Soviet Union right before the talks, but that at least it gave its name to a rock group whose leader at a recent show in Las Vegas celebrated Navalny, the Russian dissident I mentioned previously), Nixon, and Reagan, who almost abolished nuclear weapons in consultations with the leader of the Soviet Union. But that was so Twentieth Century.
After the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City President Putin was the first to offer condolences to the United States and allowed the US to use Russian airspace for an attack on Afghanistan.
Putin Catches Fish; Bush Applauds
I recently saw a photograph taken in Summer of 2007 of a fishing trip taken by both Presidents Bush and President Putin at Kennebunkport, Maine. Putin is the only one who caught anything and he threw it back. The younger Bush is applauding in the background. Bush and Putin were even at the same dance once in Russia in 2008: https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1794537840639881245. But it is hard to imagine anything like that happening now, such as for example Biden and Putin going on a bicycle trip or even eating ice cream together.
One wonders what will end this second Cold War. Will Russia collapse like the Soviet Union did? Will the United States collapse instead, thus ending a conflict between those two superpowers. Or perhaps there will be a hot war that will end the planet and thus also this second Cold War. Stay tuned.
Previously we looked at the opening Jupiter-Saturn square — first quarter Jupiter — which portends the beginning of the second half of this decade. The second half of a decade is different than the first half, and in this case it will be strongly different. One of the reasons for this is an important aspect happening — or almost happening — a month after the third Jupiter-Saturn square which was discussed previously. It will happen exactly about seven months later. This aspect is a Saturn-Neptune conjunction at the Aries point. (Full disclosure: I have minor aspects between both Saturn and Neptune with the Ascendant and an aspect between Saturn and Neptune.)
The key phrase I use for Saturn and Neptune is “It seemed like a good idea at the time”. As one might guess with the two planets involved, the outlook is not especially upbeat. Saturn is called the “Greater Malefic” and we’ve discussed Neptune before; we’re seeing a lot of Neptune this decade — in the mundane sphere it seems to rule propaganda and deception. While a positive spin on these two planets would be “practical spiritual action” but we are talking about the world here so I don’t expect miracles and the seeing through of myths. But perhaps that is not entirely impossible. One possible positive manifestation would be the seeing through of the incredible propaganda that has saturated the world, especially in the last 10 years. Another possible manifestation, to be very optimistic, is that there will be a “spiritual” realization that we have to consciously change our ways of existing for the first time in history to save our collective butts. That’s a lot more difficult than simply stopping carbon emissions.
Conjunction of 1989
Lets look at previous conjunctions of these two planets which take place about every thirty six years. The most famous one was the previous conjunction in 1989. This saw the fall of the Berlin Wall (shortly after the second conjunction in a series of three) and in the next two years the fall of the Soviet Union and all the Soviet connected Eastern European countries. The Soviet Union broke into several countries, such as Russia and Ukraine. This was also the turn of the decade with a Jupiter Saturn. There were also the Tiananmen Square protests of April May 1989 and he Soviet Union withdrawal from Afghanistan in May 1988 through February 1989 after Geneva Accords signed April 14, 1988. Much happened under this Saturn Neptune conjunction.
But this dissolution of the Soviet block also caused many changes in the Western block. Since 1945 and the start of the Cold War, this conflict with the Soviet Union had served as sort of a raison d’etre for the West. While the West and especially the United States could believe that they had “won” the Cold War after this conjunction and so take victory laps (cf The End of History by Francis Fukuyama) there was also a lost to the West because one of their prime motivator and unifiers — fighting the good cold war fight — was no longer around — see again Francis Fukuyama. It was as if an employee who hates his boss with passion the question becomes what does he do when his boss dies.
Conjunction of 1953
The previous conjunction was in 1953. That year saw the death of Stalin (who had ruled the Soviet Union for one Saturn cycle) and the consequential exposure of Stalin’s crimes. In the Soviet Union Stalin was once considered a great leader by many people, and to this day some older Russians still honor him, but by his death many leaders considered him horrid and Khrushchev, the Soviet leader who followed Stalin’s death, made a famous speech to the Soviet Politburo denouncing Stalin’s crimes. This year also saw the end of the Korean War with an armistice but actually the war has never really been ended in the way most wars end. Joseph McCarthy, who had held the US government under his sway, was losing power and his final downfall would come the next year (Have you no sense of decency, sir?…) and his death by alcoholism followed three years after that. McCarthy seemed like a good idea at the time — the early fifties — but his communists-in-government shtick was getting a little long in the tooth by 1954.
In his last book, Planetary Cycles Mundane Astrology famous French astrologer Andre Barbault gives even more detail on aspects of Saturn and Neptune and the history of the Soviet Union than is considered here.
Conjunction of 1917
The conjunction before that was in 1917 which saw the beginning of the Soviet Revolution that overthrew the czar who ruled Russia. This revolution was partly as a result to Russian losses in World War I. In this case the idea no longer thought of as good was the Russian ruler ship by the czar. The end of World War I, which happened the next year, was followed shortly thereafter by the breakup of four empires: Russian, German, Astro-Hungarian, and Ottoman; the breakup of the latter lead to many new nations including what became Israel. The year 1917 also saw the entrance of the United States into the battles of World War I after a far reaching propaganda campaign. This entrance followed a jingoistic movement in the US, partly brought about by only the second Democratic president since Lincoln. Suggested reading: American Midnight by Adam Hochschild.
Saturn-Neptune close
In July of 2025 both planets come within a quarter degree of an exact conjunction at about 2 degrees Aries and then both go retrograde thus avoiding the exact conjunction. This occurs one month after the final Jupiter square Saturn. At this time not only is Jupiter square Saturn but also Jupiter is square Neptune. This is certainly a good start to the second half of the 2020’s, but one that promises a turn about to what has gone before.
Saturn-Neptune Exact
In February of 2026 there is the only exact conjunction at 45 minutes of Aries. Since the Aries point represents the World, this Saturn Neptune conjunction will effect and be felt by the whole world. Perhaps the “once what was thought a good idea” was having a giant 500 year long party. But it is important to realize how important this is — a conjunction of Saturn, Neptune, and the Aries Point. This is one to remember.
Saturn-Neptune Conjunction in Graphical Ephemeris
The graphical ephemeris (above) shows the first occasion where the two planets are almost conjunct but not quite since they both go retrograde at about the same time, which normally happens when the two outer planets are conjunct and go retrograde at the same time. In the same graphical ephemeris we see the only exact conjunct at the same time in early 2026.
These Saturn-Neptune conjunction of 2025 and 2026 occur at the first degree of Aries so, considering the nature of the Aries point as ruling the whole world (consider that actress Shirley Temple had Moon at zero Cancer, square the Aries point, and she was considered “America’s sweetheart” and almost everyone loved her during the dark days of the Great Depression) that the effects of this conjunction of the two planets should effect and be felt by the whole world.
Close-up of the Near Miss Conjunction
This image above is a magnified part of the close encounter of Saturn and Neptune in July of 2025. You can see how close this is to the Aries point — dark black horizontal line — and the MC of the United States — dashed grey line.
Close -up of Saturn-Neptune Conjunction
This magnification of the only Saturn Neptune conjunction in early 2026 shows that it occurs half-way between the Aries point and the Midheaven of the United States.
As has been indicated the triple conjunction of Saturn, Neptune, and the Cardinal Axis should have repercussions around the world. The previous conjunction saw the fall of the Soviet Union, changing the future development of both the United States and Russia. But this conjunction takes place at the Cardial Axis so the world should feel the change.
But that’s not all for those who live in or are affected by the United States, which means the whole world. The Midheaven of the United States is 1 degree Libra (and of course the IC is at 1 Aries) and so this conjunction is right on the US MC/IC axis and actually closer to that than to the cardinal axis. So we should expect that the effects of the Pluto Return of the United States — discussed previously — should be magnified/modified in ways that can’t be predicted. Perhaps a new political party will be formed when people realize that the Uniparty — a name that is becoming more and more common — that rules in Washington does not serve the interests of people but serves the interests of the corporations quite well. Perhaps we will see the breakup of the United states into several smaller counties so that the US will be like EU. Suggested reading American Nations by Colin Woodard and the Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau.
In the magnification you can see how the conjunction is between the Aries point and the US MC — and that both are close which is also an indication why the US has been so successful at controlling the world. The Aries point and the US Midheaven are only one degree apart and that conjunction is at 45 minutes of Aries so it is very tight in both cases, and even tighter to the midpoint of the Cardinal Axis and the US Midheaven. Fireworks of some type are promised, but with Neptune involved it will look like a damp squib.
Full moons are always potent — the culmination of a lunar cycle that started with the preceding New Moon. Dane Rudhyar’s magisterial The Lunation Cycle is an important reference to the cycle of the Moon. And the lunar cycle is a prototype for the other planetary cycles such as the Jupiter-Saturn cycle that has been much discussed here. I now want to point out the Full Moon of 8-19-2024 which occurs just before Labor Day when the US election cycle is reaching a fever pitch. It should be noted in passing that the year 2024 will see many national elections, perhaps even a record for a single year. A Full Moon comes about once a month, and it is obvious the connection between the word “month” and moon. Many calendars, and especially religious calendars, are based on the Moon and not the Sun, and many solutions have been tried to harmonize the Lunar calendar with the Solar calendar. There are thirteen lunar cycles in a solar cycle. This is an example of astrology in everyday life.
A Full Moon To Remember
The first thing to notice is that there are two interlocking T-Squares which involve a total of eight of the ten planets; then there are several other indicators that this chart well represents the start of the second half of this decade.
The first T-square involves the Full Moon, with Mercury Retrograde conjunct Sun; the second T-square consists of the first in a series of the opening squares of Jupiter and Saturn which marks the beginning of the second half of the decade. Saturn is opposed to Venus and Mars is conjunct Jupiter at the apex of this T-square.
The apex of the first T-square is Uranus — Uranus squares both ends of the Full Moon — so that this will definitely be a Uranian Full Moon: expect the unexpected. The Jupiter Saturn square is almost exact.
To add further spice Neptune is almost at 0 Aries. This is its first brush with the Aries point and it goes stationary retrograde about six weeks earlier at four minutes from zero Aries. Pluto is at the first degree of Aquarius and will soon make its last brief foray into Capricorn before returning to Aquarius for the next two decades.
Let’s compare this Full Moon to the US chart. When we do that we find more interesting things. This Full moon is right on the US Moon — the people of the country. But the Full Moon also makes a wide aspect — a semisquare and a sesquiquadrate — to the US Sun — the government. Thus this Full Moon makes hard aspect to the two most important planets in the US natal chart.
Full Moon United States
Neptune is opposite the MC of the United States suggesting there will be some confusion in how the country is perceived by other and (since Neptune is conjunct the US IC) how the people think about themselves. Not a healthy situation but we have seen it playing out over the last ten years with first Neptune making a sesquiquadrate to the US Ascendant.
This occasion also marks the Mars return for the US — which is exact two days later, something that happens every two years. In this case Mars is conjunct Jupiter which in humans can suggest pregnancy but in this case that is unlikely. But use of Martian energy is highlighted, more so than has been shown so far in 2024,
Finally there is the transit of Uranus square the US Moon. This is the first pass and it goes stationary retrograde on the Moon a couple of weeks after this Full Moon, right after the next New Moon. Hard aspects of Uranus to the US Moon is an important topic which will be dealt with at length later but for now suffice it to say that the previous conjunction of Uranus to the US Moon occurred shortly after 9/11 when the US invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq.
When talking about what is called “mundane astrology” — which is what we are doing here — it is necessary to distinguish between events and trends. An event is something that happens in this case right about the time of this chart. With a strong Uranus this could be unexpected and sudden. But it is possible that nothing overt will happen at this time. More important is the trend that this Full Moon presages. This trend is something I’ve discussed before and that is that the second half of this decade will be very different that the first in ways that this chart suggests.
We have talked before about the cycle of Jupiter and Saturn and how each half of the cycle corresponds to a decade (since for several centuries the 20 year Jupiter Saturn cycle started near the beginning of an even decade) but the first and last quarter phases of the Jupiter-Saturn cycle are also important — the first half of a decade is different from the second half. This is most obvious for the decade of the Forties since the first half saw World War Two and the second half became the time after the War, with the rise of both the Anthropocene and the national security state and this period also has what I’ve called a zeitgeist change. In this period of the late Forties the center of the art world moved from Paris to New York City with the rise of such movements as Abstract Expressionism. NYC and America was a special place in that period. In Europe the recovery from the ravages of the war was long and arduous.
Compare the first half and the second half of the Fifties in America: the first half saw the birth of McCarthyism when Joseph McCarthy found a list of 200 or so Communists in the State Department on Lincoln Day of 1950 at a speech he gave in West Virginia until he was finally censured by the Senate in December of 1954 — the end of that half decade. In the second half television became a fixture in the American home (as Pluto transited opposite the US Moon), strengthening the fascination with the flickering image. The Korean war dominated the foreign policy side of things in the first half of the decade not just for the United States but the UN that was officially fighting that war also, while the second half started with the Suez Crisis that set the stage for the dominant powers in the late fifties.
But this is really true of all decades; a brief checking of Wikipedia shows the best movies in the US; the Academy Awards for 1964 — the end of the first half decade — was My Fair Lady, which was based on a Broadway musical which was based on a play by George Bernard Shaw. The winner in 1969 — the last year of the second half — was Midnight Cowboy, the only X-rated movie to ever win an Oscar.
And consider drug movies of the early versus late sixties. From 1962 we have The Days of Wine and Roses. In this movie a business executive and his wife (Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick) descend into alcoholism and then attend Alcoholics Anonymous. This was based on a TV drama from 1958 and is opening on Broadway in 2024. The drug movie for the second half was Easy Rider, about two motorcycle cowboys (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper) who have sold some cocaine and then take the profits to New Orleans where they consume LSD; during the movie they and a hitchhiker (Jack Nicholson) smoke an awful lot of weed. No AA for them but a sad ending anyway.
The same is true of the Seventies and the Eighties and the other decades. This decade is no different and when we see the opening Jupiter Saturn square we will see the dawning of the second half of the decade, but at the same time or shortly thereafter there will be other important aspects which will be discussed in upcoming posts, thus assuring that the second half of this decade will be very different from the first.
Lets look at those three opening squares of Jupiter and Saturn. The numbers below refer to the graphical ephemeris (below) which allows you to see all three squares at one time as well as other aspects that will be discussed later.
First Opening Square
In the first square in August 2024(1) Jupiter is direct but Saturn retrograde. This is a time in America when the campaign season is in full bloom. For the US Neptune is on the IC (which has been discussed before) and Uranus is square the Moon (which will be discussed later). Should be interesting. There is a Full Moon at this time with Uranus making a T-square with the Full Moon so watch out for change. At the same time there is another T-square with Venus opposite Saturn and square Jupiter. And to make it even more interesting Mercury is retrograde and conjunct the Sun so it fits into that T-square. And this Full Moon falls on the Moon of the United States. With so much going on in the sky and in connections to the US chart it is a great kickoff to the second half of this decade.
Same Square Without U.S.
Second Opening Square
The second square at Christmas time (2) is with Jupiter retrograde and Saturn direct. Jupiter is close to the Descendant of the United States which means that Saturn is square the Ascendant. The new President has been elected but the inauguration won’t happen for a couple of weeks. Judging by the last two national elections there will be a big controversy no matter who wins and who loses. Expect fireworks for Christmas.
Third Opening Square
The third exact square (3) occurs in middle June 2025, shortly before and after other important aspects involving Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune which will be discussed later. This opening square occurs at the same time as the Saturn Neptune conjunction (to be discussed next) which is near the Aries point so Jupiter is also square Neptune. Jupiter is widely conjunct the Sun which is in late Gemini right before the summer solstice — called midsummer even thought it is the official start of summer. The conjunction of Saturn and Neptune is interesting because the exact conjunction never actually happens at the time. Both planets go retrograde shortly after the Fourth of July and since since Saturn is of lesser longitude than Neptune and moves faster it soon leaves Neptune behind.
All Three Opening Squares
To conclude, by 2025 the second half of this decade will have surly started, and as we will show in upcoming posts it will be quite different from the first. Of course whether that is good or bad depends on the individual or more to the point the class. Pluto will interpret this quite differently than Uranus. But it will make for very interesting times.
There is supposedly an old Chinese blessing/curse which is “May you live in interesting times”. Interesting times are more eventful than uninteresting times, but whether that is good or bad, hence a blessing or a curse, is the question. An interesting time is like for example the early Twentieth Century (UR=NE/PL) or the time right after World War II (PL=UR/NE). Those were interesting times to be alive.
Currently we are living in a three-fold interesting time (IT) as if we had won the trifecta. The current term de jour is poly-crisis. I’ve explored all these three before but here I want to put them all together and associate them with keywords from the popular press and talk which may give you some insight into what is taking place. Some people think that there is some nefarious actor behind all three changes happening but I believe it is just that all three are happening at the same time. So those of us who are alive now need to know that these times are unique or special; in a way all times are unique, just as all astrological charts are unique, but some are more unique or special than others. We live in such a time. Just as keywords for the planets hide ideas that are associated with those symbols the keywords that I give will hide ramifications of these three events. Use your own imagination to complete the meanings.
The keywords and tendencies of each IT will reflect on to the other ITs so each keyword constellation will effect the others. Each IT will influence/reinforce the other two ITs so they will be different and perhaps more interesting than if each were happening by itself. As they say the sum is more than just the parts.
Last Pluto Return
The first of these three ITs is associated with the Pluto Return of the United States. No country has existed with one Constitution as long as the US so this return is unique. And since the United States is the most powerful country in the world currently, whatever happens to it will effect the entire world. But we really don’t know for sure where Pluto was 250 years ago so we can’t be sure this is the actual Pluto Return. But as astrologers commonly do for a birth charts with birth time unknown a process called rectification is used to determine the birthtime; this process is essentially if you know the answer (some momentous event in the person’s life) what was the question (chart that would show that event) or astrological Jeopardy(TM). We can judge if this is a Pluto Return by seeing if what is happening in real life (IRL) is what would be expected for a Pluto Return and so far many are talking about the breakdown of United States society, from both a blue and a red perspective. America seems to really be in a quandary. I can can see as possibilities a breakup of the country, a change in the way the Supreme Court is run, a realignment of political parties, the birth of new political parties, and other outcomes that would not have not seemed conceivable in the last century. Division is the keyword on everybody’s lip currently. More than once I’ve heard someone say that they haven’t seen a division like this since the Civil War.
Another way that this Pluto return manifests itself is in the huge involvement of the National Security State with our politics. Recent example abound but I should point out that the Russiagate saga over the last part of the last decade is a prime example (see long article by long time journalist Jeff Gerth in a recent copy of the Columbia Journalism Review and the article in the online magazine Tablet by Jacob Siegal called “The Hoax of the Century”) and the CIA’s debunking of the Hunter Biden laptop story — which was later shown to be as it was claimed to be before the 2020 election — at the request of a Biden campaign official who later became Secretary of State.
Pluto Return
The popular term for this time is Civil War, which some people think will actually happen. I don’t know about that but anyone can see there is an increasing division between one group of people (call them Team Blue or the elite establishment or team reality or whatever term you are most comfortable with) against another group of people (call them deplorables or MAGA Republicans or anit-vaxxers, or populists or team reality or even Team Red). Essentially there are two basic viewpoints of reality and each group thinks the other group is crazy or deluded or evil. But the members of each group are not all the same, for example “anti-vaxxers” are not the same as Team Red — President Trump, the mascot of the MAGA Republicans, oversaw operation warp speed which was the epitome of anti-anti-vaxxer! — and the elite are not the same as Team Blue but the omnipresent “they” wants you to believe this. But there are two somewhat hazy groups that are somewhat opposite and spreading. I believe this split will see a new political realignment at least as significant as when the Republican Party formed out of third parties that existed in the time before the (first?) Civil War. What will be the Fort Sumter moment this time? Both sides would probably nominate Jan 6 but for very different reasons. And these traits are common but it is more wide spread then the cliches. Other possibilities could be a new constitution, a modification of the Supreme Court, or even breakup of the united States into several regional blocs, sort of like a re-Europization of the EU (caused for example by the next IT).
The graphical ephemeris above illustrates the whole of the Pluto return. We see the first actual return of Pluto to its natal position at point 1 in early 2022. It happens again at point 2 and 3. Finally at point 4 later in this year Pluto is stationary on the US natal Pluto for the last return.
But this conflict is not between the “left” and the “right” as it is between two world views which more or less correspond to the astrological terms I use in this blog: Pluto and Uranus or globalist and populists or up and down or the 1% and the 99% or artificial and natural.
Transiting Neptune Opposite Natal Neptune – a Demi-Return
The second IT is what I have called previously the Sixth Crisis. Since the founding of this country every 80 to 90 years there has been a crisis; these crises started very small and local to part of North America and each crisis has become larger and more global. This is discussed from a non-astrological perspective in the book the Fourth Turning by Neil Howe and William Strauss. Howe has a new book coming out called the Fourth Turning Is Here whose title says it all.
The keyword concept I give for this is World War III, otherwise known as the war in Ukraine but perhaps expanding into a war with China. But another concept that is certainly important here is a change from the unipolar world, a world with one dominant power, to a multipolar world with some powerful countries but none are considered the “top dog”. The world has never experienced the multipolar world before in human history; before it was unipoloar the world consisted of separate nations; this was before the Europeans had expanded to colonize the whole world. Globalism and the Unipolar world started 500 years ago with Spain being the first Single Pole. Since the US has the conjunction of Sun, Venus, and Jupiter which I’ve described before as double plus good the country has been very very lucky in its expansion so the United States is currently the Single Pole.
The unipolar world could only exist once Columbus discoverd America as far as Europe was concerned and the cat was out of the bag that there was a large undiscovered part of the earth that could be exploited by the the nations of Europe. That is what the last 500 years have been about and that is about to come to an end. I am reminded of the original Dylan who wrote a famous poem as his father was dying: “Do not go gentle into that good night Rage, rage against the dying of the light”. The American Empire is dying and that empire is certainly raging against its dying of light. The country must realize there is life after death.
Multipolarity is an entirely new way of running the world. For the West the feudal world gave way to the modern world 500 years ago and to what brave new world to (coin a phrase) will this period begat? Pluto already knows the type of brave new world it wants. Will Uranus figure its reply to this?
The Sixth Crisis
I’ve listed five factors that determined the crisis, factors that have reoccurred every 80 to 90 years since the beginning of this country. The first crisis was very local — Jamestown — but each succeeding one got larger and more geographically widespread. The fifth crisis was World War II. These five factors are all illustrated in the graphical ephemeris above. The first was Neptune making a demi-return to the natal Neptune of the United States (Number 1). Then there was Neptune over the MC or IC of the US and Neptune at either 0 Aries or 0 Libra (Number 2 and 3). Finally there was the Uranus return (Number 4) and Uranus crossing the Descendant of the US (Number 5). These five events occur during the whole decade from 2021 through 2029. The Neptune demi-return — illustrated above — started early in 2021 and the final pass of Uranus over the U.S. Descendant — illustrated below — happens in early 2029.
Watching the behavior of the United States at this time is like watching a divorce where it is obvious to everyone except one of the principles that the relationship is over and he/she struggles to keep the marriage together (often by doubling down) and as a result the outcome of the divorce for that person is much worse that otherwise would have been the case. Is this a real life “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe” (a play/movie by Edward Albee) but with less alcohol? The situation could go so much better for the United States if the country had better leaders. I believe this current situation should be a chapter of a newly updated version of Barbara Tuckman’s March of Folly, a masterful book about what the title says: How stupidity and hubris (something the Greek dramatists were aware of 2500 years ago) leads to downfalls, starting with the Trojan War with the Wooden Horse. (I imagine the conversation at that time went something like this: The Greeks left this beautiful wooden horse before they departed; Wouldn’t it be a good idea to bring this into the city so we can play with it? What could go wrong? There’s some chick named Cassandra who thinks that is a real bad idea but she is so into conspiracy theories I don’t believe a word she says.) America is so besotted with war propaganda (hello, Neptune) that is difficult to find any public figure commenting clearly.
Uranus at Descendant
We’ll talk about the third IT in Part II — this third IT is a threesome also.
In the previous post I discussed the six crises that have beset American history with the sixth currently happening. Perhaps you haven’t seen the current crisis yet — to paraphrase Gil Scott-Heron, the crisis will not be televised, or for this day and age, the crisis will not be YouTube’d. It is only in hindsight that you can truly judge the strength of the crisis; who could predict the full scale of World War Two from the Japanese invasion of China. And even with a marked start of that crisis — Germany’s invasion of Poland — hindsight is better.
But there is another historical/astrological cycle that is important — what I’ve called in this blog in 2018 a Zeitgeist Change; these are shown by a midpoint configuration involving the three outer planets. This happens two or three times a century, with usually Uranus or Pluto as the apex planet.
There have been three zeitgeist changes in the Twentieth Century; each marked a major shift in the reality of the world. The German word zeitgeist means the spirit of the age and when the zeitgeist changes a new reality becomes dominate, so much so that people begin to forget that the world was once different than it is now — perhaps the current is a New Normal.
First Zeitgeist Change of Twentieth Century
In the first decade of the Twentieth Century such a midpoint configuration existed with Uranus as the apex planet. This period involved a change into the “Modern” world and in fact is a movement called Modernism, seeing for example the development of relativity and quantum mechanics, two theories that completely changed the scientific view of the universe. That decade saw the rising renown of both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung; after their theories became popular the view of human behavior changed for good. Many artists such as Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky changed what was accepted as art. And while the automobile was invented in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, the automobile became popular in this decade with especially the Model T Ford in America. Also invented in the previous century but became extremely popular in the new century were both personal photography with the recently introduced Kodak film camera and motion pictures which allowed everyone to see a new reality. And this first decade of the Twentieth Century also saw the first powered flight that changed the world forever and made it seem much smaller.
Second Zeitgeist Change of the Twentieth Century
The second zeitgeist change of that century was at the end of World War II. This was marked by the explosion of three nuclear weapons — two dropped on Japanese cities — which seemed to cleave time in two and marked the beginnings of a new world. This period has been described as the birth of the Anthropocene Age where so many things changed in a short period of time, the consequences of which would not be known for some time. The direction of many trend lines, such as that for the use of plastic or pesticides, took a rapid upward slant starting after the War. This midpoint had the apex planet of Pluto which is totally appropriate for the beginning of the atomic age.
Third Zeitgeist Change of Twentieth Century
The third zeitgeist change was in the late seventies and marked the rise to dominance of the political philosophy known as neo-liberalism. Briefly, this is the philosophy that the markets are everything and that (to quote one proponent of neo-liberalism) there is no alternative. The apex planet in this case was Uranus. We now forget that time after World War II and before 1980 when the markets were not so all-consuming as they are now and the United States had the highest tax rate of over 70%.
The last time both events – crisis and zeitgeist change — happened in close proximity was at the end of World War II. With both these events occurring at the same time, the scale of the change was tremendous. Did this fifth crisis caused these massive changes that followed it or was it a coincidence? One can argue either way.
Crisis and Change in the Twentieth Century
Here is a chart that shows both the midpoint configuration zeitgeist change and the fifth crisis with Neptune near the MC and Uranus near the Descendant of the US. The date is that of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Normally Uranus or Pluto are the apex point of the configuration, but once in every 500 years the apex planet is Neptune; this is the type of midpoint we are having this decade. The previous zeitgeist change 500 years ago brought us the modern world and all that entails with the printing press and the New World, a place that would be totally unrecognizable to a citizen of the Middle Ages or of the ancient world. This was the start of the 500 year party. We could say that we will move into what could be called the “Post-Modern” world if that term were not already in use. Perhaps a better term is a post-party world. As I’ve said before, after a party you have to clean up all the messes made and replenish all the items used up during the party.
Major Zeitgeist Change Sixteenth Century
The midpoint configuration 500 years ago lasted 1503-1507, about half as long as the midpoint this time lasts. We are moving into the Post-Party world, but unfortunately manfy people do not want the party to end. We will see a major conflict as this zeitgeist change takes place.
Major Zeitgeist Change Twenty-First Century
I have previously sketched out the opposing forces in this drama. One side has already let it be known what they want this zeitgeist change to be in books such as the Great Reset by Klaus Schwab (a Bond villain if there every was one) and in the slogan adopted in many places: Build Back Better. Several people have named this side of the drama with such names as Global Capitalism or Mr. Global, but I prefer the more inclusive term (as spelled out previously) of Pluto. ` But for the other side — called by some the Greek word demos (which is not short for demonstrations) which means the people and from which we derive the word democracy and for which I use the symbol Uranus — there is no plan for what the zeitgeist change should bring, no plan B at all. Some ideas have been floated, such as the People’s Reset, but the demos — Uranus — had better get its act together to fight against the plans that Pluto brings, because never in history have the Pluto people had the concerns of the Uranus people in mind. As George Carlin put it: “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it”.
Another way of looking at this split is in how people think about dealing with the upcoming problems of the world that we now hear so much about from political leaders to individuals such Greta Thunberg. It is now the end of the 500 year party but most people only recognize some symptoms rather the underlying problem. One way of dealing with these problems is more technological fixes where all vehicles become electric and we eat meat that is grown in a lab or insects also grown in a lab because those in nature are dying. This proposes a techno-industrial future where we will only live in a virtual world because the natural world is so toxic. This future has been prophesied for a long time — see the story “The Machine Stops” written by E. M Forster over 100 years ago. But at least (from the perspective of Pluto) things do keep on growing and there is money to be made so that is a good outcome. The people who support these ideas are called Bright Greens or as I call them the Pluto Greens.
The other greens (Uranus — the people’s — Greens) believe that only by de-centralizing the governments and de-industrializing the world, returning to the natural, and a policy of de-growth and embracing natural health do we have any hope of saving the planet. One can see this is directly opposite to the Pluto Greens: more growth and “green” industry (an oxymoron), escape from nature, and industrial medicalized health. But there is not as much money made from following the Uranus green ideas. Again we see this basic split in humanity, one that I have referred to often as Pluto versus Uranus or Global versus Local.
Another term I have heard about what the change could be from the Uranus side is called the Great Awakening, perhaps an echo of the Great Awakenings in American history (at least two) that appear to be associated with Uranus-Neptune conjunctions. Note that in the second half of this decade we have a Uranus-Neptune sextile, an aspect not nearly as dynamic as a conjunction, though in this case Pluto is closely involved. I’ve heard that there is a move to form alternative institutions to the current ones which have proven time and again to be hopelessly corrupt. The biggest area of accomplishment seems to be an alternative to the mainstream media; the term I’ve heard used for this alternative is New Media, the kind you won’t find on YouTube or as these folks call it GooTube.
For thousands of years people have lived in a hierarchical society where those at the top, perhaps called kings or patricians (Pluto), had a say over those at the bottom, perhaps called commoners or plebeians (Uranus). That is the same separation into two groups that we see in modern times though now those at the top are so much more powerful than those at the bottom than ever in previous history. Perhaps a real change of the zeitgeist would be to have a real democracy where there is no longer a hierarchical society, so this may be a time for a call for the end of Hierarchy.
The world is heading for disaster (bad stars) in so many ways — a library could be filled with books describing the ugly futures (dystopias) now in store. End of the world books and movies have been around for a while, see for example When Worlds Collide from 1951 (based on a 1933 novel by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie), but now the number of these has increased dramatically.
Note that this division between Pluto and Uranus — Up versus Down — is different than the more classic Jupiter versus Saturn — Left versus Right — which is a concept that originated in the French Revolution. People make a mistake if they conflate these two polarities. Supporting Uranus issues is neither necessarily Republican or Democratic though both political parties like to pretend they do. ` The world has been under the leadership of Pluto for all these millennia. The wagon is racing out of control under the guidance of Pluto and it is demanding (to Uranus) that it be permitted to right the wagon. Pluto wants Uranus to believe that the problem is not with Pluto itself but rather it’s all the fault of Uranus and that Pluto has ways to keep the wagon on the road. Uranus must seize the reins of the wagon before it goes into the ditch. Pluto wants to keep the factions of Uranus separated and fighting among themselves so that Pluto has free reign. It is a long standing dogma of Pluto and why they fear real democracy (cf James Madison): those folks really don’t have the wisdom that Pluto has and so as their betters Pluto must lead them as if they were children.
To sum up, the world is seeing a huge crisis in this decade, one bigger than World War II, more geographically widespread, and involving more death and destruction, followed by the biggest change in (at least) 500 years. This is not surprising since a crisis as big as this one is expected to be will alter society so much that a huge change should be expected. What we are also seeing in this ten year decade is the biggest conflict in world history, something that has gone on for millennia, but, I feel, is coming to a historical climax. This crisis is very big and I believe it is the crisis itself that will change radically how people think of themselves and their so-called leaders. But since this crisis has just begun things have a long way to go. Or as a Scottish friend once said to me: “Hold on to yer hairdos laddies a big storm is coming”.
While there were several developments through 1989,1990, and 1992, the first public webpage was published on August 6, 1991 at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in a suburb of Geneva. In the years since, there have been millions and millions of web sites published, but it has only really been a short period — thirty years this summer. This chart shows the Uranus-Neptune conjunction that is the highlight of the early nineties. The Mercury Venus conjunction suggests the sweet embrace of this new medium by the populace.
500 Year Party 