A poignant moment captured by the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette
When
the jury delivered their verdict of guilty on all three counts against
former-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the George Floyd
murder trial,
Jupiter was transiting exactly conjunct Sibly Pallas (Biwheel #1 below) and a mere 1° from the Sibly Moon—a reflection of the broad sigh of relief that the public heaved, including many police officers, when the word “Guilty!” rang out across the airwaves. Chauvin had stepped over a heinous line that had little to do with "protect and serve” and more to do with total indifference to George Floyd’s humanity, and the jury felt there was no shadow of a doubt that he deserved conviction.
Of course, for those who fear for their lives every time police lights flash behind them, the struggle to reform the policing of black and brown Americans is only getting started. Also in keeping with that Jupiter-Pallas conjunction, the U.S. Justice Department just announced a new investigation into Minneapolis police practices and culture. Attorney General Merrick Garland had this hopeful comment, describing the action:
"’The challenges we face are deeply woven into our history. They did not arise today, or last year, building trust between community and law enforcement will take time and effort by all of us,' Garland said. ‘But we undertake this task with determination and urgency, knowing that change cannot wait.’"
We’ve been discussing Jupiter cycles with other outer planets a lot lately, and this development in Minneapolis raises another important one that’s quite relevant right now—the Jupiter-Uranus cycle that is now in its 3Q phase, due to launch anew in 2024 at 21°+Taurus. I was reminded of this connection listening to some law enforcement experts commenting after Chauvin’s verdict: one man, who had once been involved in police training himself, said that he was struck by how the trainees are taught to assume that every person they stop is capable of (and perhaps intent on) killing them, if they get a chance. In other words, the People are the enemy, and police work is a kind of war. Not exactly the “Protect and Serve” culture we’re led to expect.
Given
that war-like stance, it’s only too easy to see that if an officer
harbors even a hint of racial bias, that bias will only heat up the
“terror threat” they carry around in their guts and amygdalas and send
them into “fight or flight” mode. Knowing this, it’s easy to imagine
what happened with then-Office Kim Potter, who shot 20-year old
Daunte Wright (in a Minneapolis suburb) instead of tasing him; fears
and deep-seated biases trip people up all the time, causing them to say
and do stupid, mean, even tragic things. Motive doesn't really matter tho; knowing how bias played a role in this mistake won't bring Mr. Wright back to his family.
IMHO, if police can’t be trained to relax and deal professionally with the person in front of them as a fully-fledged citizen, protected by the State with inalienable rights, no matter what color they are, they are simply not qualified to wield police power. And, if police officers are trained to think that everyone they stop is a an enemy and a mortal danger to themselves, of course they’re going to be distractible and trigger-happy; that’s like going off to war every day of one’s life! If anything’s the enemy here, it’s that kind of training and the culture that supports it!
Getting back to the idea that police work has been framed as War, however, here’s what cycles expert AndrĂ© Barbault1 has to say about Jupiter-Uranus cycles over the past century or so:
“In short, you just have to look at this line-up—1914, 1941, 1968, 1983—to smell the gun powder.”
To that I might add these cycle dates: 1775 (Revolutionary), 1858 (“Bleeding Kansas,” Civil War), and 1997 (Middle East terrorism and wars). This disturbing list makes me wonder all the more, of course, what the 2024 cycle will bring.
Just
for the sake of reference here, I’ve provided cycle launch information
from U.S. history (1775 onward) in Table 1 below—as
you can see, the cycles that we’ve been associating with war through
U.S. history begin in a range of signs; no one sign seems to be more
war-producing than another because the overall context is key. Some signs and modes (cardinal, fixed, mutable) do
tend to be prevalent when hostilities break out, however--a story for another day. The American Revolution began on April 19, 1775.
On another important note, of course, war and/or police brutality aren’t ever just about Jupiter and Uranus, but as we’ll see in Biwheel #1 below, those two phenomena can certainly play key roles.
Table 1. Jupiter-Uranus cycles in U.S. history
Date | Jupiter | Uranus | House- Wash DC | Sibly House |
|
|
|
|
|
6/8/1775 | 3° Gem 25’ | 3° Gem 25’ | 8 | 6 |
6/29/1789 | 3° Leo 29’ | 3° Leo 29” | 11 | 8 |
9/13/1803 | 10° Lib 26’ | 10° Lib 26’ | 2 | 10 |
11/10/1817 | 14° Sag 20’ | 14° Sag 20’ | 3 | 1 |
3/21/1831 | 13° Aq 07’ | 13° Aq 07’ | 2 | 3 |
2/8/1845 | 3° Ar 44’ | 3° Ar 44’ | 4 | 4 |
5/23/1858 | 29° Tau 26’ | 29° Tau 26’ | 3 | 6 |
6/5/1872 | 28° Can 43’ | 28° Can 43’ | 4 | 8 |
8/18/1886 | 5° Lib 30’ | 5° Lib 30’ | 3 | 10 |
10/20/1900 | 10° Sag 06’ | 10° Sag 06’ | 4 | 12 |
3/3/1914 | 9° Aq 32’ | 9° Aq 32’ | 4 | 2 |
1/24/1928 | 00° Ar 23’ | 00° Ar 23’ | 6 | 4 |
5/7/1941 | 25° Tau 38’ | 25° Tau 38’ | 7 | 6 |
10/7/1954 | 27° Can 23’ | 27° Can 23’ | 11 | 8 |
12/11/1968 | 3° Lib 39’ | 3° Lib 39’ | 9 | 10 |
2/18/1983 | 8° Sag 51’ | 8° Sag 51’ | 6 | 12 |
2/15/1997 | 5° Aq 55’ | 5° Aq 55’ | 5 | 2 |
6/8/2010 | 00° Ar 18’ | 00° Ar 18’ | 9 | 4 |
4/20/2024 | 21° Tau 50’ | 21° Tau 50’ | 6 | 6 |
|
|
|
|
|
On the flip side of that, Jupiter and Uranus are not just about war, either—we often look to this cycle for the rapid expansion and development of new technologies and new entrepreneurial efforts. It is an historical curiosity, however, that new technologies tend to expand and develop in amazing, unexpected directions precisely during times of war. Just a very partial list here: aviation was greatly developed during WWI (1914 cycle); basic computing and nuclear technology were products of WWII (1941 cycle); the early Internet (Arpanet) was developed during the Viet Nam era (1968 cycle); PC computing, GPS, the WWW and more so-called “information” technologies were pioneered during the pre-Middle East wars 1983 cycle.
And, no surprise, weaponry and robotics have been developing more lethal and sophisticated form over all these cycles, and in fact, we might be looking at a future in which war will be waged entirely in cyberspace! What an oddly appropriate use for a Jupiter-Uranus cycle in Taurus (2024)—if material gain (Taurus) of some kind is all war is about, anyway, why kill people and further damage the Earth by engaging in a physical “shooting war?” As it is, climate change has been decimating some economies in smaller developing countries and there’s legitimate cause for bitterness there—those nations certainly didn’t cause the lion’s share of the problem. It’s grievances like these that fester and eventually explode in some way (terrorism, in cyberspace or not): to my mind, we’d be better off working with the rest of the developed world to get ahead of the climate crisis during this upcoming cycle, and to give struggling nations some technological assistance and support.
Getting our own climate change act together is an important first step, of course, and who knows? Biden’s pretty adamant about moving us forward in this arena (he’s hosting a summit for world leaders to work on this issue even as I write this), so it’s an arena that might look pretty different by the time this new cycle launches. If this new cycle could be reframed around a “war” against climate change, we could probably make some serious progress.
One last thought about this cycle’s tendency to conflate war with technological development: the all-encompassing need for national security is always cited and used to justify this conflation. The question is, which come first, the technologies (and their associated investments, looking for a return) or the wars that justify their existence? Food for thought.
Biwheel #1-Chauvin conviction and the Sibly chart
Let’s very quickly focus on a few key points in this biwheel—please note that the timing on the outer wheel (Chauvin’s conviction) comes from observing when the jury was brought back into the court room in Minneapolis and the judge began reading the verdicts for the three charges.
Let’s begin.
Biwheel #1. (inner wheel) U.S. (Sibly) chart, July 4, 1776, 5:10 p.m. LMT, Philadelphia, PA; (outer wheel) Derek Chauvin Conviction, April 20, 2021, 5:10 p.m. DST, Minneapolis, MN. Tropical Equal Houses, True Node. All charts cast on Kepler 8.0, courtesy of Cosmic Patterns Software.
Conviction Jupiter (Aquarius) conjoins Sibly Pallas-Moon (Aquarius); Conviction Moon (Leo) conjoins Sibly No. Node (Leo) and opposes Conviction Saturn (Aquarius). We’ve already discussed the importance of the Jupiter aspects here—Pallas embraces the elusive American ideal of Justice, which is dear to the American People (Sibly Moon), of course. Jupiter here supported that ideal in this conviction, however Conviction Saturn is following behind and opposing Conviction Moon (Leo), so here’s our chance to actually achieve some deep structural reform, and yes, time is of the essence (Saturn). As one commentator put it, we can’t wait for “hearts and minds” (Leo-Aquarius) to change; thoughtful, fair policy reform will have to do.
Conviction Mars/Saturn (midpoint, Aries) conjoins Sibly Chiron (Aries) and squares Sibly Pluto and Conviction Pluto (Capricorn). Mars and Saturn speak directly to policing and law enforcement, so it’s significant here that their midpoint falls conjunct and square the Sibly points that most closely address America’s painful wounded history with slavery, racism and Jim-Crow-style police abuse. As we’ll see ahead when we discuss the upcoming Jupiter-Uranus cycle, we’ll also be going through an exact national Chiron return during its 2024 launch; the Cosmos seems determined that we will finally address these heavy issues this time around.
Conviction Venus (Taurus) conjoins Conviction Uranus (Taurus); Conviction Uranus semi-sextiles Sibly Uranus-DSC (Gemini), sextiles Sibly Sun (Cancer) and inconjoins Sibly Saturn (Libra). This Venus also sextiles Sibly Venus-Jupiter (Cancer), so it’s possible there will be surprising movement in the economy and in trade relations, yet a certain build-up of tension in 6th house issues like labor and the military is also possible. Uranus is transiting within the final 30 degrees of its return to Sibly Uranus, which will probably force the U.S. to prove what it’s made of once again. A similar situation existed in 1940, 1858 and 1774—not exactly the most stress-free periods in our history.
Finally, the Uranus inconjunct Sibly Saturn (Taurus-Libra) sets bureaucracy (Saturn) against pragmatic change (Taurus Uranus, including technological change), creating frustrating waits and complications. This probably applies to industry-wide changes (such as in “green” technologies) that are waiting in the wings. Chances are good that some of these changes will begin to roll out during the final 2 years of the current Jupiter-Uranus cycle—auto makers are starting to commit more seriously to producing fleets of electric vehicles, and it’s likely we’ll start seeing more electric (or electric/gas hybrid) public transportation fleets and shipping/delivery trucks (by Amazon, for instance) fairly soon. Even so, we can probably expect a much more expansive field of possibilities to open up in the early days of the new cycle, from April 2024 on. Pluto’s 2023 ingress into Aquarius should provide supportive financial/investment ground for these large-scale developments, and of course Aquarius is disposed by Uranus, so Jupiter-Uranus and Pluto will ping off each other pretty readily. As for Pluto’s move out of Capricorn after the U.S. Sibly return, more detail on that in a future post.
The 2024 Jupiter-Uranus cycle
At this point it makes sense to switch gears and look at the upcoming Jupiter-Uranus cycle for what it can tell us about the urgent issues afloat these days. To make sense of it within the U.S. context, we will then check out a few ways in which the 2024 cycle chart interacts with the Sibly chart.
Chart #1. Jupiter-0-Uranus 2024, April 20, 2024, 9:54:39 p.m. DST, Washington, D.C. Tropical Equal Houses, True Node. All charts cast on Kepler 8.0, courtesy of Cosmic Patterns Software.
It’s worth noting first how concentrated the action is in this chart: only the Moon, Pluto and four key asteroids (Ceres, Vesta, Juno and Pallas) stand apart from the 4th-through-6th house gathering of forces, suggesting that practical grass roots, social and labor issues will be the main concerns of this cycle. Our national Moon (the People) wields power here, looking like “Ms. Smith goes to Washington,” elevated in the 11th house to represent those working away in the lower hemisphere, trine (out-of-sign) the recently ingressed Aquarius Pluto and trine Jupiter-Uranus (Taurus). Between that, the Taurus Sun square to that same Pluto, and the asteroids scattered in significant houses (2, 8, 10, 1), we’re probably looking at a number of high-profile women running for office that year.
Pluto (Aquarius) and Mars rules Scorpio ASC from 3rd and 4th houses. Pluto squares Sun (Taurus). Big practical, but existential questions will be pressing on government leaders in 2024 and forcing critical choices about economies and resources. In the late 1770s when Pluto was last in Aquarius, Saturn (Scorpio) was then in mutual reception to it, which was probably good for nation-building, but in 2024, Saturn will be in Neptunian Pisces, more global in focus and not particularly helpful to national boundaries and institutions.
Uranus-Jupiter (conjunct in Taurus) semi-sextiles Venus-Chiron (conjunct in Aries) and sextiles Mars (Pisces). This Mars also conjoins the Saturn/Neptune midpoint here (all Pisces), so this Uranus-Jupiter sextile to those Pisces points packs more punch than we might think. It will likely bring opportunities to tackle corrupt practices, especially on the local level. This effort should be reinforced by that 11th house Virgo Moon, opposite Neptune (more on this below). Venus disposes Taurus from its position conjunct Chiron, which as we’ll see ahead, could bode well for the progress of U.S. race relations and other historical wounds (health care, perhaps?) by that time.
The midpoint of the entire 4-6th house gathering, from Saturn to Uranus, in fact, is 18+Aries, so conjunct Venus and Mercury (Aries). Midpoints expert Michael Munkasey sees this midpoint as being about “balanc[ing] new ideas with conservative objectives.” When combined with Venus, he suggests that change can be brought about in a “more acceptable way,” and that such change can be “appeased.”2 Since the cycle we’re exploring has a lot to do with change, and given that the Jupiter-Uranus cycle conjunction semi-sextiles all this midpoint activity near Venus-Chiron, the appeasement power of Venus will probably be welcome at the time. Mercury’s role here is likely to have something to do with educational and/or language reform, although in the 5th house, conjunct No. Node, it could reflect lively new creative trends as well.
Notice that the Virgo Moon opposite Neptune noted above is the “spine” of a Grand Kite configuration, once we figure in the Moon’s trine to Pluto (Aquarius) and Jupiter-Uranus (Taurus). Yes, it’s a bit lop-sided, with the out-of-sign trine to Pluto, but I think because Aquarius is disposed by Uranus, it all hangs together and “flies.” It appears to be centrally focused on healing (Virgo Moon) Neptunian excesses through skillfully deploying and financing (Pluto) technological change (Jupiter-Uranus). The 6th house placement of Jupiter-Uranus suggests that jobs will be a major focus and Pluto’s 3rd house placement points to transportation issues, as well. All of this and Neptune’s 5th house placement suggests that the "party" has dragged on for some time, but it's time to get serious about sobering up and getting back to work, to heal our addictions (and the pandemic) and get back to pragmatically solving everyday problems.
At this point let's turn our attention to the ways in which this 2024 cycle chart is likely to interact with the U.S. Sibly chart. Keep in mind that Pluto will ingress Aquarius (disposed by Uranus) in March, 2023, backing out of that sign into Capricorn for some long stretches, during which it will revisit its 2022 (first exact) return to Sibly Pluto and continue to stimulate related issues. Its overall passage into Aquarius will be punctuated with two more forward-moving ingresses in January, 2024, and then one more for the duration, in November, 2024. It’s interesting that this 2024 cycle chart catches Pluto at a forward moving Aquarius “post retrograde shadow” period; yes, there will be one more do-si-do before it’s full steam ahead in Aquarius, but we should by then at least have an idea what Pluto’s agenda will be in this Saturn-Uranus co-ruled sign.
We’ve already seen what the Saturn/Uranus midpoint may hold in store; I’m cautiously optimistic that we can avoid the worst possibilities of all this steely patriarchal feeling energy, but I don’t think we’ll be able to ignore that those worst possibilities are out there. Barbault associates dominant Uranus/Aquarius times with extreme right-wing movements, and as we know, 2024 will be a presidential election year, so we may still be far from out of the woods with those extreme tendencies in the GOP. If Marjorie Taylor Greene’s so-called “America First Caucus” reconstitutes itself and gets off the ground between now and then, we need to take its members, its promoters, and its message seriously.
Let’s keep all this in mind as we examine this biwheel.
Biwheel #2: (inner wheel) U.S. (Sibly) chart, July 4, 1776, 5:10 p.m. LMT, Philadelphia, PA; (outer wheel) Jupiter-0-Uranus 2024, April 20, 2024, 9:54:39 p.m. DST, Washington, D.C. Tropical Equal Houses, True Node. All charts cast on Kepler 8.0, courtesy of Cosmic Patterns Software.
Interchart Grand Earth Kite: Cycle Jupiter-Uranus (Taurus) trine
Sibly Neptune (Virgo) and Sibly Pluto (Capricorn); bisecting the
Taurus-Capricorn trine is the Cycle Moon (Virgo)-Sibly Neptune (Virgo)
opposition to Cycle Mars-Neptune (Pisces). In fact, this earth grand trine is bisected by another “kite spine” shooting through it, from Sibly Mercury-Sibly Pluto (also Cycle Aquarius Pluto). On the one hand we have the practical healing aspirations of the People (Cycle Moon-180-Neptune), conjunct Sibly MC (Libra); on
the other hand, we have the existing machinery of power (finance,
media) countering or perhaps even co-opting and containing those
aspirations in some way. If we’re still struggling over voter access to
the ballot box by that time, this issue could also boil up in a big way.
There’s a sense of very big plans being underway or on some Cosmic
“drawing board” at the time, but not being quite ready to manifest. It’s not
hard to imagine what kind of massive public works plans we’re talking
about: health care, green energy projects, earth restoration projects,
infrastructure and projects that will leverage a new generation of
robotic and AI technologies. Jupiter will still be in the new phase of its 2022 cycle with Neptune at
that point, but it’s likely that this “just getting going” mode will
begin to crystallize into results soon after this 2024 cycle launch. Jupiter's time in Pisces may create a drag, but it will pick up vitality and drive in Aries in later 2022-2023.
Cycle Saturn-Mars-Neptune conjoin (widely in the case of Saturn-Neptune) in Pisces and oppose Sibly Neptune and Cycle Moon (Virgo). We’ve seen earlier that this Cycle Mars sits right at the Saturn/Neptune (midpoint, Pisces) --it’s almost as if it’s trying to energize the 2026 Saturn-Neptune cycle (0°+Aries) a bit prematurely. Interestingly, the Sibly Progressed Sun and Moon are both invisible presences in this Pisces stellium, with PSun at 19°+ and PMoon at 20°+. You may recall from other posts that these progressed luminaries would have launched their new cycle just one month prior, in March, 2024, in this very degree area. The fact that all this coincides with an election year suggests that there will be an upswelling—perhaps even a tsunami—of grass roots activism during that election year, responding to the aspirations of that 10th house Cycle Moon.
With that said, all this Pisces energy could impact that election year in both hopeful and concerning ways: notice that the new Jupiter-Neptune and Jupiter-Uranus cycles are working in tandem here, with their inception points (23°+Pisces and 21°+Taurus) basically sextile each other. Cycle Mars is re-energizing that Pisces cycle point here, and doing so mid-way between Saturn and Neptune. Saturn-Neptune is about manifesting visions and dreams (uplifting, rather than corrupt ones, we can hope), so perhaps the Jupiter-Uranus cycle launch will help move all that along, too.
Notice that there’s a gaggle of Aries cycle points over the Sibly 5th house: Cycle No. Node-Mercury-Venus-Chiron-to-Part-of-Fortune, so five points within less than ten degrees, and all arguably conjunct Sibly Chiron. In fact, I find it flat-out amazing that this new cycle is launching in synchrony with our Sibly Chiron return, but I guess it shouldn't be too surprising. We’ve always seemed to experience these returns during pretty tumultuous times (in the 20th century, in 1923-24 and in 1973-74), and our deep woundedness over race relations is always somehow involved. The Ku Klux Klan was enjoying a heyday in the 1920s, a kind of mid-point during the worst period in our history of race-based lynching. The NAACP cites the statistics:
“From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black. The blacks lynched accounted for 72.7% of the people lynched. These numbers seem large, but it is known that not all of the lynchings were ever recorded.”
Interestingly, 1,297 white people were also lynched during that period, often “for helping the black or being anti lynching and even for domestic crimes.”
As for the situation in the 1970s, the White House Historical Association characterizes it here:
“Racial tensions were high in 1970, as blacks became frustrated with economic conditions that did not improve despite advancements in civil rights.”
In fact, the Nixon and Ford administrations of that period did push some important initiatives for the black community, but the 1980s and beyond saw a lot of coasting and stagnation, with the onset of globalization and a great number of jobs going overseas. As always happens, those who can least sustain the setbacks (disproportionately our black and brown populations) also suffer disproportionately.
Whereas we might expect that every Chiron cycle will bring some progress, however, the course of race relations has badly regressed in this past decade or so, as if electing a black president in 2008 freaked out too many people and caused a major backlash that we’re still living through. I’m hopeful, given the results of the Chauvin trial discussed above, that definitive progress will finally be made before the 2024 Chiron return. This karmic legacy doesn’t serve any of us, but truly healing it would release an incredible reserve of trapped vitality (Aries) that could be put to far better uses in our national life.
Just to reiterate why this Chiron healing process is so important for the road ahead with these Jupiter cycles, you might recall that the midpoint of this entire 4th-6th house gathering in the Cycle chart is 18°+Aries, so conjunct the two Chirons, Cycle Venus and Cycle Mercury (all Aries). The message appears to be that, if we want to accomplish the worthwhile goals of the new Jupiter cycles that we should be able to enjoy and benefit from, it will help to get to the heart of what is holding us back.
Final thoughts
Earlier we considered how the Jupiter-Uranus cycle is historically associated with periods of war, so one final thought on all that. A number of indicators suggest that, despite no lack of international challenges, and new generations of high-tech weaponry waiting in the wings, we are our own worst enemies right now. We've been warned repeatedly by the FBI and other agencies that the rise of right-wing extremism and related domestic terrorist incidents are the number one threat being monitored. At the moment, I don’t subscribe to the idea that we’re heading for a “second Civil War,” but I also don’t think that red and blue states are going to be singing “Kum bah Yah” any time soon.
Unfortunately, the past year has proven that when push comes to shove (as it has with the pandemic), we can’t really count on each other to step up and outside our social media silos to cooperate. Is it possible that 40-some percent of the country will simply refuse to be vaccinated when so much depends upon us all doing our part in this effort? At the same time these same people are the loudest objectors when governors have to shut things down to contain the resulting infection and death rates. Understandably, a small minority will simply be unable to take the vaccine for one reason or another, but 40%? Do such individuals simply not understand what is at stake? If they don’t, we need to step up our educational outreach; if they do understand what’s at stake, however, and still refuse to cooperate, I can only wonder what in the world they are trying to prove.
Raye Robertson is a practicing astrologer, writer and former educator. A graduate of the Faculty of Astrological Studies (U.K.), Raye focuses on mundane, collective-oriented astrology, with a particular interest in current affairs, culture and media, the astrology of generations, and public concerns such as education and health. For articles on all these topics, see her blog, at https://diaryofa-mundaneastrologer.net ; see the Publications tab on this site for a list of Raye’s recent E-books on current topics, including the newly-released title, The Mundane Moon: an evolving cosmic story for “We the People.”
For information about individual chart readings, contact: robertsonraye@gmail.com.