9:17 pm  AHST 03/17/2022
  12:17 am   PDT  03/18/2022
  10:17 pm   UTC  03/18/2022

The fog drifts in, as Sun, Neptune, Jupiter and Mercury all hang out in watery, emotional, sensitive, variable Pisces. Opposite the Sun is the Full Moon in Virgo, hanging out alone and pulling against all that watery, nebulous influence, asking us to become more critically aware of how we are using our energies, more discerning about our opinions, and more exacting in our connection to matters cosmic, spiritual and otherwise too large for our egos to handle. In short, this Full Moon is a perfect time to up our meditation time, to spend time getting as quiet as we can be, and let go of our judgements as much as possible.

And the Full Moon is backed up by an almost exact trine (120˚ harmonious angle) to Pluto, the underworld archetype of transformational awareness. But that kind of awareness that Pluto gives us puts our identification with our own egoic needs in its tiny place, asks us to pay attention to the larger picture.

Venus and Mars have been conjoined together for some time, now they are tripping together in the sign of Aquarius, mirroring the need for connection to the power of the greater community, the people of humanity. Saturn, too is in Aquarius, yet unaspected to any other planets at this time, which may mirror our continuing bewilderment of wondering what must be done, what structures to put into place while we are in this maelstrom of madness, this global violence.

And yet, and yet. One of Pluto’s hardest lessons is for us to look in the mirror and find there where we are connected to this madness. Just as no human being can be entirely 100% joyous and happy while violence and suffering are prevalent in the world, so too, our basic human connection to each other warrants that we all share all the dimensions and facets of what it is to be human, including the little dictator within each one of us. We are all responsible in some way for what Putin embodies. My Jungian analyst used to say to me, “well, somebody has to carry it” meaning those shadowy aspects of our psyche that we disown will land somewhere else, and often it manifests in someone or something which causes us suffering. In humanity’s case, it’s terror and terrorizing that has prompted an absolutely insane amount of nuclear weaponry planet-wide.

It's our fear, of course, that places us in these positions. People are afraid of Putin, afraid that Novichok or Polonium will end up in their tea, or in the lining of their underwear. A hero like Navalny carries that fear and yet continues to do as his heart tells him to, even in prison. Moon trine Pluto in this Full Moon chart has that kind of fearlessness, the intensity of purpose that speaks out and addresses what is wrong, and names what is evil.

Uranus forms a square (90˚ angle) to Venus and Mars in Aquarius, which to me is a challenge to face the reality of our fears, that often drain our energy and leave us feeling helpless and hopeless. We are being challenged to think out of the box of our former selves. Life in the middle of a paradigm shift is a huge challenge, but the archetypal forces at work—we must remind ourselves—are the forces that ask us to change and grow beyond our old outworn world view, especially the one that says, “there will always be war.”

Pluto rules absolute power, and unless that power resides in the people’s ability to rule themselves, there will always be abuse of that power. As the US is in the middle of its first-ever Pluto Return, we are getting some brutal lessons reflected to us about how one human being is not meant to have so much power over others.

In the natal chart of Vladputin, Saturn is passing over his North Node right now. The North Node is one’s destiny, the soul’s fulfillment of life-lessons learned. However, Saturn is the Lord of Karma, the energy of limitation and you-reap-what-you-sow. Putin has been building up to this moment for decades, and Saturn at this point will undoubtedly be the reaper of his karma. Violence almost always is met with same. With this transit, he may believe that this is his moment of glory, and yet Saturn’s placement now will be a harsh judge. I don’t believe he can last under this kind of transit.

Further, Saturn is in opposition to his natal Pluto, (exact April 8th) which clearly indicates that there will be a major challenge to his authority, one from which he cannot emerge victorious, given the present climate of major global outrage at his decisions. This is not the 20th century any more, and his modes of operation (though still common worldwide) are actually outdated in a certain sense. This is a moment where world opinion about the old imperialist paradigms of government has opportunities to change. Pluto natally in exact conjunction to his South Node (past life experience) means this is not the first time this soul has held absolute power over others, and that this lifetime must demonstrate the defeat of his belief that he is a rightful Dictator. Pluto’s lessons are inexorable, and unavoidable. And yet his defeat will be also a defeat of the world view, common now, that people cannot rule themselves, that it is the right of the one with the most guns/power/wealth to make decisions and rule over the “little people” of the world, i.e. authoritarian versus democratic.

The effects of these transits may appear soon, or they may take time to emerge in physical evidential reality. Meanwhile, we must bear the brunt of learning (yet again) how violence traumatizes whole generations, and rekindles those old trauma demons of fear and powerlessness. And yet unless we become conscious of the continual threat of nuclear annihilation, we will not change the way we do business together here on Planet Earth. We’ve been living in an acceptance and even a belief in the necessity of that reality, which is also a kind of denial of the horror of what we are capable of, each of us. Again, facing shadow, we become humble, which is to become fully human.

Remember, April 12th is the powerful Jupiter/Neptune conjunction in Pisces, an event that has not happened for 166 years. And then around the 26th of April there will be a very rare conjunction of Jupiter, Moon, Neptune and Venus all in Pisces, which could amount to the beginning of a global awakening of how to achieve peace. Again, these astrological events are marker points, and often take many years to manifest, but as an astrologer who has looked at the heavens for over 30 years, I know that opportunities for higher awareness are and will be streaming into our world. We must, each of us, find ways to take that awareness into ourselves and have it affect our reality in whatever ways we are called to do so. The revolution begins with each one of us making decisions, taking actions that reflect our awareness, and that spread out into the world.