HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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The Jupiter/Saturn Conjunction in Aquarius:— (visible)
The astrological chart:
December 21, 2020
1:22 PM EST Washington, DC
Lat: 77W02 Long: 38N54
Note: Jupiter/Saturn conjunctions take place approximately every 20 years, take about 800 years to go through all the signs, and stay in a series of Earth, Air, Fre, and Water each for about 199 years. This process is called a mutational shift. We are now leaving the Earth series that began in 1802 and moving into the Air series.
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For around the past 50 years, our popular culture has embraced the coming of a “New Age” that promised peace, prosperity, harmony, and enlightenment. The 1960s was seen as a decade of an emerging youth culture, who looked to this possible future through the lens of their music, their “hippie” lifestyle, racial and economic equality, anti-war movements, and tree-hugging environmental ideals. They also embraced meditation, alternative religions, and sometimes drug use in order to attain the “bliss” of the human potential movement reaching for an expanded consciousness.
Obviously, this grand expectation did not result in a grand achievement. Many of the individuals who participated in this effort chose instead to move toward getting as rich as possible and made Wall Street the focus of their ambitions; thus the “baby boomers” framed the society we have now with all its contradictions, economic inequalities, environmental catastrophes, and political polarities. However, these ideals have not disappeared from our line of sight. You might say, they had been “sidelined”. Most people remember the Broadway Show “Hair ” and the song it imprinted on our collective memory: “This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.”
The great ages, that last approximately 2100 years, move “backward” in the Zodiac, moving the Vernal Equinox pointer through these constellational periods. We are now leaving the Age of Pisces whose beginning roughly coincided with the birth and death of Jesus Christ (the early Christians having adopted the symbol of two fishes swimming in opposite directions). Pisces is a sign concerned with consciousness expansion, spirituality, diverse religions, music and the fine arts, liquids including bodies of water, chemicals, drugs, inspiration that flows through genius, illusions and disillusions. The two fishes expressed in the symbol of Pisces could be interpreted as one fish swimming upward toward Heaven (compassion, sharing of resources, and enlightenment) and the one swimming downward into Hell (selfishness, greed and war.) The traditional planetary ruler of Pisces is Neptune, the ancient God of weather and the Seas. This Age is going out fighting for its issues: conflict among world religions, rising drug abuse and alcoholism, disillusionment with abusive governments and people in power, oceans rising due to melting glaciers and global warming, populations fleeing local disasters across oceans and borders, and the spread of civil wars and pandemics. There are those, however, who are looking to the fish swimming upward toward heaven, breaking out of the great floods and emerging into the sky, the air, and the clear light of day. Pisces, at its best, reflects the “doctrine of brotherly love” and a belief in the eternity of the soul.
The End marks the Beginning:
In the book, “The Zodiac by Degrees”, author Martin Goldsmith characterizes the 1st degree of Aquarius where this conjunction takes place as: “A traveler comes upon an ancient temple in the desert, part of it fallen into ruin and part of it adapted for modern use.” This particular placement suggests that the previous age may fall into ruins, but will not represent a total destruction. Instead, what is left on earth and in our civilizations will likely be rebuilt within a modern framework, both technologically and in terms of our societies and cultures. Aquarius, and its ruling planet, Uranus, are associated with genius, science, breakthroughs, and an ideal of economic “equal opportunity” combined with broad respectful alliances and friendships among people and nations. This is the sign most closely associated with Democracy, science and the flow of information. It is inspiring to remember two great Aquarius men of the 19th Century, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, born the same date the same year! Pluto will enter Aquarius in 2023 for a twenty year transit that will likely amplify, challenge, and spread these ideas to an even greater extent. By 2026, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus and Saturn line up in a framework of trines and sextiles (harmonious) aspects that may symbolize the most exciting and opportune era in this century.
As I have discussed in previous newsletters and books, there is a “dark side” to this Age, characterized in Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” and the Stanley Kubrick motion picture science fiction masterpiece, “2001 A Space Odyssey.” This represents a kind of dehumanization that is reminiscent of the Biblical “worship of the golden calf” – an idealization of mechanistic materialism – falling in love with our robots, space ships, computers, to an extent of “replacing” humans and killing ourselves off by missing the richness and depth of human life, our collective soul, and our endless capacity to create. The looming question will be: what does “evolution” mean and what direction does it take?
Star Trek:
- As I have been reporting in previous newsletters, NUCLEAR FUSION, arguably the biggest breakthrough since the invention of the wheel is on its way to becoming a reality and will effectively end the age of fossil fuels. Smaller fusion chambers are being developed for possible use in ships, rockets, and airplanes. My target for the implementation of this in at least four large international sites, is 2026. Preceding this are three renewable energy companies: Jinko Solar Holding, Brookfield Renewable Partners (solar and wind), and Bloom Energy (Solid oxide hydrogen fuel cells to store energy), that are all already up and running. In the December 2020 issue of Scientific American, an extensive article by Senior Editor, Clara Moskowitz was published entitled “Fusion Dreams.” She reports: “Humans are an energy-hungry species, and our current sources of power are not cutting it. Nuclear fusion, the process that fuels the sun, might offer the kind of clean, abundant energy we need – if only scientists can figure it out. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or (ITER) is the biggest and most ambitious attempt yet to harness the energy produced by forcing two atoms to become one. The $25-billion experiment in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France, is a joint project of the European Union, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the U.S. Its ultimate goal is to do what no fusion experiment has done before: produce more heat than it consumes.” She goes on to say: “Scientists hope to press the proverbial red button and turn on the reactor in 2025, with the ultimate goal of running it at full power by 2035. If it succeeds, the payoff would be gigantic. Fusion has the potential to release much more energy than burning coal or oil or even nuclear fission, which fuels traditional power plants. Fusion produces no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste.” The complement to all this are the all electric vehicles that are being widely used throughout the world that give off no pollution.
- Space X is currently launching its historic first NASA astronaut crew mission. We are on our way to sending humans to Mars, and using space robots to mine multiple asteroids and our moon. Our outer space surveying technology has been and still is traveling throughout our solar system, sending pictures and information back to us that is mind blowing!
- The terrible COVID pandemic has accelerated the development of anti-viral vaccines and medicines, all of which we will be implementing over the next two years. There are now four giant pharmaceutical companies that are ready for approval to launch a giant vaccination program. The first shots may be administered this month to emergency health care workers. I project February 21 2021 (Mercury goes direct in Aquarius) as the go-ahead time to vaccinate the public-at-large. Cures and preventative medicines for cancer are showing promise. The whole field of genetics and bio-genetic engineering is moving forward with a speed unseen in decades. Neuroscience is a rapidly developing field with potential cures for dementia, and a pantheon of neurological diseases.
International Relations and Trade Agreements:
Yahoo News announced in November that – “Fifteen Asia-Pacific nations signed the world’s biggest free trade deal, seen as a huge coup for China in extending its influence.” This includes 10 Southeast Asian economies along with China, Japan, So Korea, New Zealand and Australia with members accounting for around 30% of global GDP. The Jupiter/Saturn conjunction is on the ascendant of the astrological chart for China and Pluto will cross their ascendant in 2024-26. The US cannot continue its recent “isolationist” policies as China has now surpassed us as the biggest economy on earth and has widely extended its power and influence, including military bases. President-elect Biden has already stated he will rejoin the Global Climate Accord and re-establish strong ties to NATO.
However, the past forty years of moving American manufacturing overseas to avoid paying workers a decent wage and observe environmental laws has decimated many regions of our economy and led to the biggest transfer of wealth into the hands of the few (giant corporations and bankers) in our history. China easily stole our technology and then surpassed it in many ways. In recent years, they have “hacked” huge American data bases, including Equifax and Marriott. Since the 1990s, we have abandoned American workers and “outsourced” jobs in manufacturing to China and Mexico and software development primarily to India. These nations, have generated killer air and water pollution over their regions and continue to generate the most in the way of greenhouse gasses that are spreading over all regions of the globe. China has taken over Hong Kong’s democracy and brought it under their umbrella of a totalitarian police state. Next will likely be Taiwan’s demise as an independent entity. The South China Sea has been claimed as their territory and they are dominant in the region. We cannot ignore this. The question remains as to HOW we can re-engage.
The Economy:
This month, the “melt up bubble” will likely expand this month in the financial markets as optimism around vaccines and a more peaceful presidential transition will be revealed. The December 14th Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius sheds a joyful light on things. Interestingly, this is the date the Electoral College designates cast their votes.
Next year, there will be a “debt reckoning” on all levels – government, corporate, and private – the largest ever recorded. Over 30 million people in the US alone owe student loans. This is why the Feds will keep interest rates at near zero levels. For some time now, I have predicted an all digital currency modeled on the block chain technology (Bitcoin) and a global economic “reset”. In 2021, Saturn in Aquarius will square (conflict with) Uranus in Taurus, forcing us to face the reality of an economic depression around the world and here in the US felt by the bottom 80% of our population. The displacement and poverty and injustice among minority populations has stood out in stark relief, as the Black Lives Matter movement has spanned this nation and the globe.
Automation is replacing human labor at a pace we have never seen before. Our political parties are still very much at odds over the government’s place in our economy and in our personal lives. We will have to reinvent more equitable economies with the speed and motivation that we are using to create all our exciting space-age technology. I will discuss this in my January newsletter.
Final Thoughts:
We will all remember 2020 as an unforgettable year of crisis and upheaval. For many people, it has been an era of stress and strain – of sickness and death. For others, it has been a time of personal reflection and even revelation about what is important to us as we journey through whatever time we have left in the span of our lives. Here in the US, we held a successful presidential election with the most votes cast in our history and one of the most secure voting systems, in spite of a pandemic, widespread conflict, and economic disaster. This points toward our ability to overcome great odds, step up to the plate, and do what we need to do.
Now, the challenge ahead is to measure up to what could be the greatest era of achievements humanity may envision. The choice we will be compelled to make – extinction or evolution – will be the motivation that could bring out our genius, wisdom, and compassion radiating from the heart – to create a new earth.
This is the season of victory over death. This is the season of rebirth. This is the season of light.
May you all have a loving and inspiring holiday season!
Blessings,
Linda
Linda Schurman
Important Points of Reference (for Astrologers):
Full Moon Lunar Eclipse at 23 degrees Sagittarius, semi-sextile Pluto, conjunct Mercury and trine Mars and square the Lunar Nodes on Dec. 14; New Moon at 8 degrees Cancer Dec. 30; Venus in Scorpio is sextile Jupiter and Saturn on Dec. 15; Mars is square Pluto Dec. 22; Mercury is square Neptune Dec. 13; Jupiter is conjunct Saturn at 00 degrees Aquarius semi-sextile the Sun Dec. 21; Venus in Sagittarius is square Neptune and square the Lunar Nodes Dec. 30.
