“The world is always bigger than one’s own
focus…”—M.C. Richard, Centering
A woman astronaut looked back at her first voyage into space: “Up there,”
she says, “looking down on our beautiful blue planet, with no borders anywhere
to be seen, I felt so at one with
humanity…and, I have to tell you, I was especially
happy to be away from my neighbor’s annoying dog for a few days.”
To my astrologer’s ear, this anecdote evokes Neptune, which operates—as
every planet does—on different dimensions of existence. The feeling of being
“at one with humanity” is a profound, spiritual perk of Neptune, while avoiding
the neighbor’s dog is a nice bit of personal, Neptunian escapism.
That perhaps silly example provided my opening for an article that was
published in The Mountain Astrologer in
Feb/Mar 2018, entitled “The Disappearing Personal/Collective Divide: Helping
Clients to Navigate Insecure Times.” As I recall, it was inspired at the time
by not only the lingering impact of the 2008-10 “great” recession here in the
U.S., but also by a rush of news about technological developments that seemed
sure to cause dislocations in the job market and more havoc of the sort from
which people were still trying to recover.
From today’s perspective, those times almost seem innocent compared with
what we’ve experienced since as a nation, but it all makes sense, looking back:
in the midst of a 7-year mutual reception between Uranus and Neptune
(2003-2010, from Pisces to Aquarius), a fiery new late Sagittarius
Jupiter-Pluto cycle clicked into place in December, 2007, followed by a new late
Aquarius Jupiter-Neptune cycle that conjoined our national Moon in May, 2009,
perhaps enabling the Opioid crisis and a host of mental health dysfunctions we
are experiencing as a nation yet today.
Then, on June 8, 2010, Jupiter and Uranus convened at 00°+Aries,
with Uranus disposing a late Aquarius Neptune conjunct 00°+Pisces
Chiron a semi-sextile away—all keen to weaponize deep national divisions and
wounds that we might have forgotten existed. Could there be a more blatant
erasure of the collective/personal divide than our tortured history with race
and the caste system it has sustained all these years? Some benefit; some
suffer; the shadow boxing goes on.
Clearly the post mutual reception period acted like a key turning point.
So, my goal in writing that 2018 piece was to explore how astrologers can
tease out the sometimes subtle personal/collective connections that their
clients are faced with every day in trying to plan for the future. As I put it
then, it’s healthy to recognize that these domains can’t
help but overlap (and often collide) in every realm of life: Employment,
career, relationships, family and community life, not to mention our
relationship with the environment and geopolitics, are all at stake in these
overlaps.
Underlying these concerns, of course, is the universal human need for security, so while we might like to tune
out from the broader concerns of our times, as the astronaut did with that
annoying “dog,” there’s no real escaping that collective concerns do impact us very directly.
We’ve all endured a recent prime example of this, of course—the 2020-22
COVID-19 pandemic that we were all forced to navigate and
survive the best we could. On some level, we all have scars from that period: just
hearing the latest death tolls on the news every night became traumatic, even
if those tolls were describing others’ grief and not our own.
We all carry with us at least one searing experience from that time: my dearest
friend’s 96-year-old mother died alone in a hospital bed, forced to say goodbye
to her family by phone; globally, Humanity lost millions of loved
ones who died alone in hospital beds, comforted only by the heroic nurses who
allowed their hearts to be ravaged every day they reported for duty—some, at
the cost of their own lives. The virulent contagion of this virus confronted us with just how deeply and
completely we are “in this
together,” for better or worse.
This is how Neptune rolls as the
ruler of communicable viral diseases, of course, and the sooner we
individually accepted our vulnerability during the COVID crisis, the better we were
able to navigate its waves and resist the denialism that followed in its wake. Unfortunately,
too many individuals emerged from the pandemic traumatized and dealing with new
addictions, coping with their grief and dysfunction by trading one
Neptunian malady for another.
And the list of such maladies goes on, haunting our times with gang- and drug-related
crises at home and abroad (Haiti and Ecuador come to mind, but they’re not
alone) and, critically, with climate change and its known tendency to unleash
rising sea levels and destructive weather patterns. How could these collective
challenges—all tightly entwined with the thorny (also Neptunian) issue of
immigration—not have personal ramifications? Do we pursue Neptunian escapism
and dismiss the seriousness of these problems, hoping they will fix themselves?
Or do we accept personal and collective responsibility for doing our part,
whatever that might be?
Bottom line, individual and collective wellbeing only seem separate;
in fact, they are as enmeshed as our individual minds, bodies and spirits are. Or
as entangled as our current geopolitical realities are. I would argue here that
mundane astrology can help us better grasp these realities and their implications
for our personal lives.
For instance, during the worst of COVID, epidemiologists often reminded us
that “the virus is in charge,” and that a massive public effort was needed to
halt its spread. Instead, too many, from then-president Trump on down to ordinary
citizens, turned to conspiracy theories that spun masking, social distancing
and vaccination recommendations into a tyrannical plot against us all. Talk
about self-sabotage…and for what?
Neptune’s transit through home sign Pisces (ongoing since 2011) has proven
to be adept at spawning misinformation and conspiracy theorizing, a type of
mental “virus” in its own right and one that seems to undermine the ability of
many to think rationally and to approach issues like vaccinations without
irrational fears taking over. Of course, rationality and science are the
province of Saturn, which can counter Neptunian fog and delusions,
but as we’ll see, since reaching their 3Q waning square in 2015, Saturn and
Neptune have been ill-at-ease with each other—a situation that came to head during
the COVID years.
Saturnian institutions like the CDC and the WHO have been
undermined over the course of this Saturn-Neptune passage, which weakens all
our public health defense mechanisms. Unfortunately for our overall COVID death toll and current
public health in the U.S., Saturn is in a particularly weakened
relationship relative to Neptune today, transiting in Pisces in the deep
balsamic phase of their 1989 cycle (first launched at 12°+Capricorn that March). It
will remain in this phase until it reaches a new conjunction in February, 2026.
If there was any silver lining at all in the COVID crisis, it was that the
worst of it was behind us before Saturn entered Neptune-ruled Pisces in March
2023.
To examine this Saturn-Neptune dynamic a bit more closely, let’s briefly consider
a chart for the inception of the disease in the U.S. In case it’s not burned
into your memory, consider the following bit of history from the U.S. Center
for Disease Control’s COVID-19 timeline:
“January 20, 2020—CDC reports the first
laboratory-confirmed case of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus in the U.S. from
samples taken on January 18 (added emphasis) in Washington state and
on the same day activates its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to respond to
the emerging outbreak.”
Displayed below is a noon chart for that infamous January 18th
day, set for Washington, D.C. because the emergency declaration implicated the
entire U.S. Before we focus on Saturn and Neptune and the influences they brought
to bear in this chart, however, we’ll consider the “big picture” of the chart’s
cyclical index numbers.
Chart #1. First COVID-19 case found in the U.S., January 18, 2020, 12
p.m. (noon chart, no time known), Washington, D.C. All charts are cast on
Kepler 8.0 with Tropical Equal Houses and True Node and courtesy of Cosmic
Patterns Software.
If you’ve frequented this site, you’ll know that cyclical index numbers are derived from the
degrees separating each of the outer planets in their various cycle
relationships, as listed in Table 1 below. It follows that the algebraic
sum of all ten of these cycle numbers (adding both positive waxing ones and
negative waning ones) then becomes the cyclical index number for this
particular chart and its moment in time.
Table 1. Cylical index for January 18, 2020 (see Chart #1 above)
|
Cycle
|
Waxing angle of separation
|
Waning angle of separation
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jup-Sat
|
|
-347.00
|
|
Jup-Ura
|
|
-248.03
|
|
Jup-Nep
|
|
-294.02
|
|
Jup-Plu
|
|
347.45
|
|
Sat-Ura
|
|
260.49
|
|
Sat-Nep
|
|
306.48
|
|
Sat-Plu
|
00.31
|
|
|
Ura-Nep
|
46.00
|
|
|
Ura-Plu
|
99.42
|
|
|
Nep-Plu
|
53.42
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sub-totals*
|
+200
|
-1804
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total
|
|
-1604
|
|
|
|
|
*Figures are rounded to the nearest degree by
totaling the minutes column separately from the degrees column and then dividing
the total number of minutes by 60 to find any extra degrees.
With so many waning cycles in the mix in this chart, it’s not surprising
that the cyclical index total in Table 1 is deeply negative. The more
subtle nuances of positive and negative index numbers are a long discussion for
another day: suffice to say here that the ups and downs of the index are
thought in classic mundane astrology to reflect the social and political “tone”
of the times for which they are calculated [1]. These numbers—especially when
considered over a stretch of time—can speak to the nation’s trending “mood,” its level
of dysfunction and its readiness for change.
But these numbers speak to frozen moments of time, as well: the
deeply negative index total above clearly reflects the negative and dysfunctional
mood of the nation at the onset of the COVID pandemic, despite the brave faces
people put on to meet the challenges.
Turning our focus now to the Saturn-Neptune cycle and the additional
influences each planet brought to bear during the pandemic, we see in Chart
#1 that on the day of that fateful CDC discovery, the Saturn-Neptune cycle
was well into its institution-debilitating 3Q phase, a phase that was being
empowered and influenced at that moment by Saturn’s then-recent Capricorn conjunction
with Pluto (first exact on January 12th).
So, there were weighty, even ominous feeling forces at work, feelings that
may have inspired the backlash that spiraled as COVID vaccinations (Neptune)
were rolled out. Many opposing masking, vaccination regimens and school closures (so necessary in the beginning) cited the “tyranny” of these collective
mandates—looking back, it’s quite possible they were picking up on the potent new
Saturn-Pluto “vibes” afloat at the time. Yes, there has been an ongoing drift
towards authoritarianism in this nation since 2020, but the government’s
response to COVID was the least of it.
Others unhappy with this response, however—or just sinply out to score
political points—allowed conspiracy theories about evil vaccination-related plots to overtake their thinking and fill their social media feeds. Saturn and Neptune were more than
implicated in all this.
Notice that Saturn and Pluto (Capricorn) tightly squared disruptive Eris
(Aries) in this chart: it only took then-president Trump a hot minute to
realize that he could politicize the pandemic and could tap into those
aggrieved feelings by playing the contrarian—refusing to mask up or promote the
vaccinations his CDC had developed. He refused to support the CDC’s
recommendations, even to protect those around him (Chris
Christie comes to mind!) or the American people. Most outrageously,
he pushed ineffective and potentially dangerous vaccination substitutes like hydroxychloroquine
and bleach instead. Forbes magazine sums
up how seriously Trump was flirting with people’s lives with these actions:
“The former president, Donald Trump, repeatedly
promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine in the spring of 2020, as both a
preventative against and treatment for Covid-19. He did this despite the drug
not having proven effectiveness or safety. According to a study published in
the February 2024 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Biomedicine &
Pharmacotherapy, the pharmaceutical has now been linked to approximately 17,000
deaths.”
Trump also made a habit of referring to the COVID-19 virus as the “China
virus”—blatantly stoking anti-Asian sentiments and behavior and using them to justify his “Zero
tolerance” and “Remain
in Mexico” anti-immigrant policies at the southern border. The
Saturn-Neptune cycle is often significantly involved during fraught
immigration-related times, and these were definitely those times.
The 3Q phase of this cycle has the potential of tearing down essential
social institutions—we would hope for the sake of building them back better—but
as I write this in 2024, we have little reason to hope that the mistrust and
animus Trump inspired against the CDC, the World Health Organization and our
National Institute of Allergies & Infectious Diseases (headed by the
unfairly vilified Dr.
Anthony Fauci) will do anything but further debilitate all these
institutions.
As it happens, the health and welfare of the People is a major focus of
Saturn and Neptune and their cycle in our everyday mundane affairs. During the
2020 crisis, we learned that these two primal “gods” represent natural,
biological dynamics operating on the broad collective level (pandemic)
that we simply had to
come to terms with both individually and collectively if we wanted
to move beyond that crisis. Even Trump–through his own hospitalization with the
disease—was unable to suspend the laws of Nature, as hard as he tried to ignore
and downplay them. Causes will
always trigger effects (Saturn), and feedback loops (a
specialty of Neptune) can, if we stubbornly accept no limits, cascade totally
out of control.
Final thoughts
The good news is, as the COVID pandemic has receded into our rearview mirror
as a society, we’ve also experienced some relief from those deeply
negative cyclical index numbers weighing us all down in 2020. Every time a new
planetary cycle launches, of course, it’s added to the waxing column and begins
to elevate the overall index numbers. The day before Saturn and Pluto conjoined
in January, 2020, the index total was a whoppingly low -1598; when the planets
conjoined the following day (January 12th), the number rebounded to
a still-negative, but upward trending -1240. Yes, we hit bottom as the new 2020
decade dawned—and with COVID it felt like it—but in retrospect,
that new Saturn-Pluto cycle can be considered an important turning point.
Since that cycle launched, the index numbers have continued trending up: there’s
been a new Jupiter-Pluto cycle (April, 2020), a new Jupiter-Neptune cycle in
April, 2022, and most recently, a new Jupiter-Uranus cycle that kicked into
gear this past April 20, 2024, bringing the index number up to a modestly
negative -153. A minor “twinge” to the body politic compared to the heavy,
painful situation in 2020!
Obviously, a lot has transpired since COVID swept across the U.S., and
the unfolding higher index numbers have not cured all our national ills, by any
stretch. But key indicators like job numbers and economic indicators have been more
or less positive. Prices are high, but wages have also gotten a
boost in the wake of the pandemic, so people are still traveling, enjoying
Taylor Swift concerts, filling sports arenas and driving new cars. Congress is
still intensely dysfunctional (the Saturn-Neptune and Saturn-Uranus cycles are
still deeply waning) but dedicated (sometimes courageous) persistence
on key bills has broken through obstacles and produced some progress.
The tougher news is that the two deeply waning Saturn cycles are likely to
continue tearing down and potentially reinventing our national institutions—our
ability to get things done as a checks-and-balances democracy, basically. Also threatened are the international
institutions that support our leadership on the world stage—for years to come.
As noted, the Saturn-Neptune cycle doesn’t refresh itself until February, 2026
and the Saturn-Uranus cycle won’t complete until mid-2032. We can passively
or carelessly squander our democracy and succumb to its authoritarian reinvention,
or we can take responsibility for safeguarding the best this nation has to
offer.
As Benjamin
Franklin famously characterized that best: “a Republic, if you can keep it.”
Notes
[1] for more on this discussion, see Michael Baigent, Nicholas Campion and
Charles Harvey, Mundane Astrology: An Introduction to the Astrology of
Nations and Groups, Thorsons, London, 1984, pp. 169-174.
Raye
Robertson is a practicing astrologer, writer and retired 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,
U.S. history, culture and media, the astrology of generations, and public
concerns such as education and health. Her articles on these topics have
appeared in several key astrology journals over the years, including most
recently, the TMA blog. For information about individual chart readings,
contact: robertsonraye@gmail.com.
© Raye Robertson 2024. All rights
reserved.
© Raye Robertson 2020. All
rights reserved.
