Saturn in 2020: in the beginning, with Pluto, the end; in the end, with Jupiter, the beginning.
Once again, we have reached the end. With the New Moon, we reached the end of the lunation that began right after Christmas, when the eclipse season opened, a season that culminated with the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, signifying the GREAT END – a conjunction that also concluded now its peak (partile conjunction, of one degree). However, it leaves its indelible mark – or milestone, an undeniable before-and-after – and unfolds in many aspects and events with a Capricornian hue throughout the year. The long awaited – and dreaded – year 2020 began with the end and will end with the beginning. But let’s start at the end, the big end. It is from it, the end, that the beginning will come.
Saturn-Pluto
Saturn conjoins Pluto approximately every 30 to 36 years. However, this conjunction happening in Capricorn takes us back to a much longer period. The last time these two heavyweights met in the structural sign of Capricorn was in 1518, a period in which significant astrological aspects were added; and discoveries, invasions and the renaissance restructured worlds.
Before that, this meeting took place in 1284, a year that brings an interesting peculiarity: it was when the Serenissima Republic of Venice began to issue the Ducat in gold, countering the Florin, of its rival Florence, and in response to the devaluation of the Byzantine Hyperpyron, which until then was used to pay for goods from the East that the Venetians brought to Europe. The new Venetian coin – containing 3.5 grams of 99% fine gold, of the highest purity that medieval metallurgy was capable of producing – becomes the main one in the Eastern Mediterranean and the standard for Europe for the next 600 years, becoming imitated by other countries. The Ducat therefore, appears, with Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, a sign of credibility and durability.
The next conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn will take place in 2754, seven centuries forward – but, let’s not get too far ahead now. Nonetheless, let us have perspectives on the significance of our time.
Aspects are not really single agents nor lone messengers, but participate in a certain context, in a certain astrological configuration of a moment or period, composing a message, indicating certain themes – sometimes as supporting actors, sometimes as protagonists, but never truly isolated.
The Saturn-Pluto conjunction is certainly a protagonist. It brings the tone of the end and, at the same time, of what is firmly established at the root. What is plucked out by the roots, because it is no longer its time, and what is established and invigorated, with deep foundations.
Jupiter-Saturn
Another protagonist of the remarkable year 2020 is the conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn in Aquarius. This is the beginning. The period of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions in the element Air sets flight. These two planets meet approximately every 20 years. However, they keep their conjunctions in the same element for about 2 centuries and, when there is a transition of elements, significant socioeconomic changes are observed. Since 1842, Jupiter and Saturn had been meeting in the Earth element, when, with the advent of the industrial revolution, impressive possibilities of materialization arose – since then, how many new objects have emerged… Material development has strongly marked this period. Now, from matter we will move on to themes of the Air element for the next two centuries – until 2219, when they will conjunct in Scorpio, a Water sign.
We will more effectively perceive how everything that is solid melts into air… Digital connections propagate through invisible channels and words and images are transmitted almost as fast as thought. What is perhaps the most symbolic representation of of the material, money, moves into the digital sphere – either through the growing use of cryptocurrencies, or through the digitalization of the banking system itself. At the same time, the lack of consistency in the financial system is evident. The information war intensifies. The importance of shared ideas and ideals starts to weigh more in how it shapes our lives. If the production of objects does not guarantee our existence, what is it that brings us meaning? In the element of Air, we find the space for sharing, where we can meet the other – how then do we articulate? How do we articulate amongst ourselves? No longer like a tree, but like a rhizome.
Jupiter-Saturn come together at zero degree of Aquarius, and the Aquarian tone will be seen in technological growth and infrastructure innovations – such as the New Silk Roads, the Belt and Road Initiative. We see the Chinese commitment to increasing technological advancement, and also political restructuring details being conducted in Russia, decentralizing and better distributing, thus granting, the power. If in Leo there is concentration in the figure of a star or a king, in Aquarius there is irradiation, with a whole sky of stars combined.
The beginning, which happens at the end – the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, deserves its own further address. Here I focus on articulating the end and the beginning, which not merely by chance happen with Saturn, marker of limits and time. With Pluto the end, with Jupiter the beginning – even if each end can, in itself, also be a beginning. 2020 is not just made of beginnings and endings, and transformations in humanity are not limited to a single year. However, there are years that become unique, through acts of both rupture and sewing, that restructure the fabric of time and of worlds.
In Unmistakable Mutation
The passage of the GREAT MUTATION – as the cycle of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions in the elements is traditionally called – into the element of Air takes place on December 21, 2020. But there is a whole year ahead, which has already begun with the threat of a great end, instigating the Imaginary by concrete means – the brutal and intentional murder on January 3, by the United States, of Iranian Major-General Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, leader of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, triggering questions on the threat of a WWIII.
Until this January 2020, when the conjunction of Saturn with Pluto in Capricorn finally culminated, a tension had been intensifying, making itself felt more and more concretely, both with the parallels between these planets (2015-2016), and the entry of Saturn in Capricorn (Dec/2017). As we walked towards this January and reached the height of Saturn-Pluto, it was like walking towards the end, towards a very high precipice – vertigo, gravity, collapse – as if death were pulsating more than life. But as it happens to be the case with the instinctual drives in us, even the death drive can be, when creatively inscribed, convert itself into life. Death deepens life, and makes us awaken. In fact, this month of January brought incredible alchemical power, making possible definitive ruptures with instinctual patterns and the establishment of new mappings of the vital force in us – Kundalini elevation, we would say in India.
A significant astrological detail of this conjunction of Saturn with Pluto is that, on the day of the exact aspect – January 12, 2020 – on at the same degree 22 of Capricorn, also the Sun and Mercury conjoined. The Sun illuminating the core of the drive, and Mercury bringing his caduceus, a staff adorned by two serpents in an ascending direction – from the intertwining of the death and life drives, an alchemical elevation, from which a considerable power for accomplishing things arises, which is now the tonic, the feature of this time.
Even if we walk towards such an emphasis on the element of Air that I referred to, let us not be mistaken: the serious and concrete reality of things now has much significance. This meeting of Saturn and Pluto in the structural, mature and demanding sign of Capricorn speaks of the importance of the material dimension.
This is a year in which doing what really matters, with consistency and dedication, is what matters. Concretize, own it. Observing the Moon in Leo at the moment of the conjunction, show what you came here for. This happens to be so because the essential responsibility of each person with their contribution to the world is now urgent. No rush, and no delay. It is not a year for the anxious and the hurried, but rather a year for the consistent. It is neither a time for ambiguous positions – they will not be respected. The radical nature of that which has roots and firmness of purpose makes it possible for what is built to have consistency.
But is it all hard and touch? Yes and no. In geopolitical terms, the footprint is very serious. Capitalism has always fed on threats of the end to reinstall itself. However, overwhelming neoliberalism does not allow alternatives even for itself. There is an Empire in decline that resists, kicking fiercely, and the advance of a multipolar world still with many challenges. With the current astrological configuration, it is unequivocal to state that these are times of changes in the very world-system. We are in a clear reconfiguration, which is made explicit in the Battle of the Ages, as explained by Pepe Escobar.
Beyond the end, the life force is always – and perhaps even more so when threatened – exuberant. There are personal astrological charts in which the heavy weight conjunction makes a difficult square; whist in others, it makes facilitating trines – challenges and blessings of everyday life. R.E.M., already in the late 1980s, faced the end and said “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” There are even those who might sing, like Rihanna, “We found love… in a hopeless place.”
It does seem like a pretty hopeless place, doesn’t it? However, there is always music, the arts, the ones that we appreciate and the ones that we dedicate ourselves to, our crafts, living, love, all of that which turns the global madness into an epic adventure. If, with Gramsci, we could again observe that the old is still dying and there is not yet a new world, it is because we still need to dream it, create it among us. The abyss is also a mirror of the sky, as my friend Tiago Rocha Pitta shows in his sublime work, The Abyss. And if Capricorn’s emphasis highlights the work, let’s make this adventure a beautifully lived work of art. Beyond the end, the beginning.
