The Challenging Astrology Of 2020-2022 & The Future
What the hell has been happening & where are we going?
To point out the obvious, it’s been a challenging last couple of years. What the hell’s been up with that and will things get better?
* FYI, there have been a variety of astrological transits in the last few years that have signified challenges, but I’m just going to focus on a few of them in this post.
2020
While many astrologers didn’t predict a pandemic specifically (although a few did, more on this below), they did see 2020 as a particularly challenging year because of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction. We don’t always know the specifics of how things will manifest when we look at the astrology but we can tell what the overall energy looks like (challenging, harmonious, etc.), and we can also look at what has happened during these planetary cycles in the past.
In Richard Tarnas’ book, Cosmos and Psyche, he points out that, “The alignments of the Saturn-Pluto cycle coincided with especially challenging historical periods” and signify an “end to an era” and the ending of life as we had known it. Tarnas gives us the examples of how the First and Second World Wars both began when Saturn and Pluto were in a hard aspect to one another, the September 11th attacks in the United States happened when Saturn and Pluto were in opposition, and the Black Plague and the AIDS epidemic happened during a Saturn-Pluto alignment.
On The Astrology Podcast, Tarnas states that “the Saturn-Pluto combination is often one of confinement; the capacity for courage under great pressure, facing extremely dangerous circumstances, tremendous powers of organization and ordering and extremely hard labour being focused on a particular purpose that is sustained day after day with great intensity…And often the things that happen under the Saturn-Pluto alignments tend to endure in their consequences.”
We had this confinement with the lockdowns and people being isolated in their homes. There was the ordering of hard labor with essential workers having to continue to show up, put their health and lives at risk to care for society. As Tarnas points out, “All of these people were being exposed to COVID of the way the social inequalities are hierarchically established in our society, and on they’re facing the Saturn-Pluto more at that level of facing death, facing mortality, risking themselves with very hard labor.”
We can see the enduring consequences of that Saturn-Pluto conjunction with covid as it’s still a virus hanging around and some people are experiencing the effects of long-covid. Of course, there are other long-lasting consequences people are facing like with housing, losses of loved ones, unemployment or change in employment, etc.
Saturn represents hard structures, boundaries, restrictions, death and dying, suffering, maturity, authority, security, reliability, the establishment, tradition, status, law and order, long-lasting systems, discipline, control. Pluto intensifies whatever planet it’s aspecting. Pluto signifies depth, extremes, power, death and rebirth. These are not “bad” qualities in and of themselves. But, the cosmic combo of these two harsher, more intense planets can indicate a darker time.
2021
The Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020 happened in the sign of Capricorn (the earth sign it rules), which deals with the physical structures of our society. Capricorn as a nocturnal sign is reflective. Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn forced us to reflect on the foundations that make up our societies.
Saturn asks us to reflect on what’s working and what’s not working. It calls us to mature. Pluto intensifies whatever it touches making this time a deep reflection.
Have we? That still remains to be seen.
In December of 2020, Saturn changed signs and conjoined Jupiter in the sign of Aquarius (Saturn’s air sign) where they stayed throughout most of 2021. A new Jupiter and Saturn cycle began.
Saturn in Capricorn had us reflecting on the past, where have we been? Saturn in Aquarius has been getting us to think about the future, where are we going? Where do we want to go?
But, still in a slow, deliberate manner because Saturn is cautious and focused.
Aquarius can represent medical innovations, thus with Saturn and Jupiter there, this is when the vaccines were distributed. This gave us some hope (Jupiter) for a future (Aquarius).
There began this push pull of control versus freedom with covid, however, with variants popping up in 2021 just when we thought we would get a handle on the virus with the vaccines. The Saturn-Uranus square was getting stronger indicating this push pull.
2022
We thought 2022 would be better but it has proven to be quite a challenge as well. Saturn restricts and controls while Uranus breaks free and disrupts. Control and restriction versus freedom and independence. Saturn has been trying to keep things together but Uranus has kept distrupting things. Along with trying to manage the virus, we’ve seen challenges with trades, markets, inflation, basic goods and needs as well with Uranus in Taurus squaring Saturn in Aquarius.
Saturn represents the past while Uranus represents the future. This square has caused tension between controlling what has been versus innovating something new for the future.
The Saturn-Uranus square has been challenging for those who want things to go back to what they were in the world or in their own life. There is no going back, however, as new cycles have begun. For those open to moving forward into the future, into something new, this energy has probably felt more supportive though not without its challenges.
2022 was also particularly challenging because Saturn was squaring the eclipses that happened in Taurus and Scorpio. As my astrology teacher, Chris Brennan, says, eclipses are times of great endings and great beginnings. With Saturn squaring them, these endings and beginnings came with a big reality check and harsh lessons for some.
So…..
Is the future brighter?
A lot of shifts are coming. For one, Jupiter re-entering Aries on December 20th, 2022 at 0 degrees indicates big, new beginnings. Saturn will leave Aquarius and enter Pisces on March 7, 2023, and when it does, it will have a more harmonious relationship with Uranus.
Saturn and Uranus will be collaborating instead of arguing. This can make changes that we want to happen materialize more easily as Uranus brings change and Saturn makes things happen in a concrete way. Uranus likes to innovate, Saturn likes to improve so this is a great aspect for making things better.
In May 2023, Jupiter enters Taurus, where it will join Uranus. This will boost this positive configuration with Saturn in Pisces even more. Jupiter will offer fortune opportunities for future change.
There will always be difficulties in life and Pluto moving into Aquarius on March 23rd, 2023, will be a doozy to say the least, but
Pluto brings an opportunity for rebirth. The Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020 and Pluto changing signs in 2023 for the first time in 15 years represents something dying in order for something new to be reborn.
Conjunctions indicate a new cycle so with the Saturn-Pluto and Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions of 2020 and the future conjunction of Saturn-Neptune (2026), all point to a rebirth, new beginnings, a new era.
In Dan Waites’ and SJ Anderson’s, The Astrology Of The 2020s: The Man Who Predicted The Pandemic video, they talk about how late astrologer, Andre Barbault, predicted the pandemic of 2020 and said “it would be over in 2026 when a new world civilization would be taking shape.” Why did he predict this? Because, this is what he saw in the astrology chart of 2026. We look at the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune & Pluto) for future predictions since they visit a sign for much longer than the other planets. And, in the 2026 chart, the outer planets are in harmonious aspects with one another, which is quite different from what we’ve had since 2020.
Pluto is trining Uranus and sextiling Saturn and Neptune, and aspecting Jupiter, a positive planet. Neptune and Saturn are trining Jupiter and Jupiter is sextiling Uranus. Sextiles and Trines are the two most positive connections in astrology.
Of course, this future “new civilization” won’t be without problems but what we see in this chart is a lot of harmony between these planets, and this is something we have not seen in our lifetime.
Because we haven’t seen this in our lifetime, it is hard to predict, but what we astrologers know of astrology shows us positive things ahead (amidst all the thorns that will always be there), and that is some light we can look forward to emerging out of a dark time.