January 12, 2020 Great Conjunction - Part VI

Great Stellium in Capricorn
The 10th House

Mine is an attempt to read the Great Conjunction chart as the Birth of a New Era for the World. The series starts HERE. I will explain the meaning of each Zodiac House using some of the methods I use to read any Birth Chart. This way the reader will also have a sense of how I work. I start here a series of posts revealing the meanings through the houses rulership.

Saturn and Pluto

Following the rulership of every cosmic body in the chart, they all come back to Saturn rulership. The theme is Saturn! He is the Lord of this Chart, the Lord of Karma and Time (Chronos), societal conventions and structures, and its political institutions that ensure people's security through civilization. 

Saturn is the natural ruler of the 10th house, and is the host of the other five planets. Saturn likes to keep things as they are, always dwelling in the past. Remember that he ate his children because he didn’t want anything to change. Especially, he wanted to avoid being overthrown by them. In, Capricorn, his own house, Saturn loves his own structures and walls.

Chronos and his child - by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610-1662) public commons

But, Pluto, one of his children and enemy, came to show Saturn the crumbling chambers of his ancient house. Pluto brings to the surface the decadence, the rot, the decomposing pieces that don’t work anymore in society, and political structures, and need replacement. 

The cycle Saturn Pluto revolves around destruction and reconstruction, dissolution and redistribution of power, and the rise and fall of divisions, walls and empires. Because without them, without leaving behind what doesn’t serve us any longer, human evolution and progress cannot take place.

During the balsamic phase, in 2018-2019, we witnessed the decomposition proper of the end of an era. We witnessed the corruption, malfunction, deficiencies and unsustainability of the global economic establishment. Since Capricorn rules public material security, it is important to realize that the hunger for power is always motivated by economic reasons. Countries and other entities of power seek resources to maintain themselves, and the need for expansion arises when the resources are scarce or only available in other places; then they have to fight to gain access to them. 

In that regard, this New Era is not different from previous ones. Today's economy is so competitive because there are many power players, and each one is looking after their own interests. Resources like energy sources, water, agricultural land and food are at stake in the modern world. But with the technology boom of the last few decades, the hidden riches of the earth (Pluto), like minerals, metals, and chemicals are most coveted. This Chart shows that those who are in possession of the resources are the ones dominating the rest. They will risk war if necessary to appropriate the coveted resources. 

How can the common people help to deescalate those economic wars? We need to change the materialist consumerism mentality. If people don't buy useless and unnecessary commodities, the markets will not strive to keep up. Then Humanity can evolve towards a world of being instead of having. 

The Sun and Mercury

The blueprint of the January 12, 2020 chart, with the Sun, Saturn, Pluto and Mercury in Capricorn, however, doesn’t seem to show but the strengthening of the dominant powers. Even though, the power may be redistributed, it will continue to be concentrated in the hands of a very centralized oligarchic elite, possible a unipersonal authoritarian head of state. Most probably, a powerful (Pluto) centralized entity (Sun) with a regulated structure (Saturn), that also monopolizes communication, planification, agreements, business markets, work and services (all Mercury matters) will manage and administrate the Earth resources and wealth (Pluto).

Communication, publicity and propaganda (associated with Mercury) is already used to manipulate the masses towards consumerism. People will need to develop a higher level of discrimination and critical thinking to sort out what is true and what is just fabricated information with a marketing agenda. 

Ceres

The Asteroid Ceres is part of the conjunction at 22º. Ceres is the Roman equivalent of Demeter, daughter of Chronos (Saturn), Greek Goddess of agriculture.  "Ceres is the goddess of the harvest and presides over grains (cereals) and the fertility of the earth. Although she was most often referred to as the goddess of the harvest, she was also goddess of sacred law and the cycle of life and death, because she nourishes life" (wikipedia).

Her virgin daughter Persephone was abducted by the god of the underworld riches, Hades (Pluto). In grief, Ceres endlessly searched for her daughter.  Because of her loss, the seasons halted and living things stopped growing and died. At this point, Jupiter, intervened and sent his messenger Mercury, to the underworld to bring Persephone back and prevent the extinction of all life on Earth. Hades agreed to Persephone’s relief but she was bound to him for one third of the year.

Frederic Leighton - The Return of Persephone (1891) public commons

Capricorn offers a barren soil for Ceres, Mother Earth, to nurture her children. Ceres conjunction with Pluto reflects in our consciousness the Earth trauma of being deprived of its fertility and abundance due to human irreverence, misuse, and pollution. The dryness, coldness, sterility and impassible materiality of methods imposed by Saturn withers the agriculture’s ability to fructify and nurture.  Ceres in Capricorn confuses nurturance with acquisition of goods, and mothering with achieving goals and taking responsibility. By believing ourselves to be the masters and owners of Nature, Human beings invented the concept of property and have defiled and plunder Mother Earth almost irreversibly.  Many are still blind to the Earth transmutation that is taking place at this time. However, she makes us well aware of the destructive consequences of the industrial revolution pushed to the extreme of 'raping' the Earth to extract her substance. We need to realize the need to transform our relationship with our planet, and create a sustainable economic system. Ceres demands protection, care, support and proper nourishment in order to survive.

Jupiter

Even though Jupiter (9º♑️20’) is far from the exact multiple conjunction, he contributes his expanding energy to the Sign of Capricorn. Being just a few minutes away from his conjunction with his own planetary South Node (9º♑️37’), though, denotes a process of releasing past and obsolete religious, cultural, ideological, and legal historical ideas and beliefs. It could nonetheless, exacerbate the clinging to traditional forms of dominance using dogma, fanaticism, extreme ideologies, cultural discrimination or harsh injustice. Read more about Jupiter in Capricorn.

Let’s not forget that Jupiter is still in orb to the square to Chiron. It looks that the extreme use and imposition of a uniform ideology, be it political, religious, cultural, or other,  presents a serious threat to people’s right to exist, to their identities, and to the cultural and ethnic diversity which has ensured so far the survival of our species through adaptation to each geographic location. 

Chiron in Aries has the perception that his right to occupy a space, a time, or a body of existence and act upon it is threatened or hindered somehow. All 2019, the world has heard protest in different regions and countries, of people reclaiming their own right to be, to survive. Their voices claim as well the right to think for themselves. For example, young people in Taiwan are not seduced by the old ideology of the mainland. They think that they know what they want and are willing to die for it.

Chiron's wound manifests also through the massive displacements and migrations of entire identity groups (Jupiter), that just for being who they are, are suffering rejection, abandonment and persecution. Examples of xenophobia for this reason abound anywhere one turns in the world. However, Rumi's saying goes: 'The wound is the place where the light enters you'. Hopefully, the pain awakens us to build a better tomorrow. 

Chiron, the Wounded Healer

Jupiter has an applying septile to Venus that can prove to be stressful due to important changes in the value system, read also ‘financial system’. Venus in Aquarius on the anaretic degree, in turn has an applying sextile to Uranus in Taurus, her own zodiac home. This provides an opportunity to adopt innovative values, develop technological resources, to serve the Jupiterian influence on the overall beliefs that may be imposed to people by the centralized power. Venus in Aquarius is about to complete her job of attracting scientific discoveries, networking in the development of cutting-edge revolutionary technologies, shaking the stock market, and setting goals for the adoption of future values. 

The Capricorn conjunction squares Eris

Saturn, Pluto, the Sun, Mercury and Ceres square the dwarf planet Eris. With a Golden Apple offered to the fairest, Eris triggered the discord among the most beautiful Greek women and their suitors, which provoked the Trojan War.  It was a conflict of passions, vanity, self-glorification, and unbridled desire for power. 

Golden Apple of Discord - Jacob Jordaens public commons

Eris in Aries, the rebellious Goddess in the home of the impetuous warrior, her own brother, turned direct just one day before, and is now exactly square the Capricorn stellium. Her rebellion has already been shown for a couple of years of protest in the streets of the world. What do the people want? They claim their right to exist. The tighter the powerful fist, the stronger the rebellion. 

Even though Saturn and the other planets are moving on, Pluto, the relentless pressure of political power, is digging his heels at 23º Capricorn, back and forth for one more year. When Mars takes his retrograde period (end August 2020 to January 2021) in Aries (square Pluto), we can be sure to see armed conflicts.

Finding Meaning

Yes, as Leonard Cohen signs "there is a crack in everything".  Apparently only when people goes through deep suffering, are they able to awake to the spiritual dimension of life. At this time, we are become aware of the need to have a different kind of social, economic, political system, with pure intentions and compassion towards life.  We should embrace the inexorable transmutation and regeneration that this historical astrological configuration is operating individually and collectively. Humanity is to evolve through the material experience in order to merge back to its Source, because 'we are a way for the cosmos to know itself" (Carl Sagan).