#synodic cycle

[astrallines]

Earth to Air #01

The most pertinent astrological event of these years is the once-every-two-centuries transition in the elements of the Jupiter-Saturn synodic cycle. In December 2020, we are moving from an earth age to an air age. I will be cataloguing reflections and predictions, as well as amplifications of the elements and their zodiacal signs. Here are the first four.

Small Things and Small Views We are seeing deeper specialization, we are seeing narrower reality tunnels. The final act of the epoch of earth was kickstarted by the narrative of fake news, and relative truth. There were no longer supposedly objective news sources. Ideologies became more specific as milieus were reduced to echo chambers.

What I realize as I observe this is the movement from earth to air. Virgo is the airy part of earth, and rules sand, particles, and details. The microscope—and the tiny worlds emergent from observation through that tool—are ruled by Virgo. The finale of the atomic understanding of the universe is the overbearing strain of the intellect toward the asymptote of infinite detail. Ultra high resolution. Next, we shall not find bits, but qubits. We shall not find things, but processes. Not nouns, but verbs.

The Undead Dragon It doesn’t always go down like this, but in 2020 when Jupiter and Saturn conjoin for the final time in an earth sign, they will then be moving together, still close, into Aquarius, officially inaugurating the synodic air epoch.

That this earth-based synodic cycle should conclude with Capricorn is fitting, and even more fitting the continuity into Aquarius. These two signs are both ruled by Saturn, and are indeed the only adjacent signs ruled by the same planet. Thus even the proximity of these two signs testifies to Saturn’s constriction, endurance, and authority; the sun will always take twice as long to cross Saturn’s domain, as it is the only “double-space” on the board.

The entire tension of the last 30 years can be summed up between Capricorn and Aquarius, despite all the spectacular aspects in other signs during this time. But basically the cultural backdrop across much of the planet has been about the tightening of regulations and infrastructure amid struggles for independence. The capitalist narrative in the final act became less fascinated by the amount of goods it was possible to produce; nor was the focus anymore on the acquisition of land and deriving its highest yield. These stories were still around, but the new focus was on the abstraction of capital itself: people began to ask “how do we keep this going? How do we keep the system alive?” Like an increasingly desperate necromancer. And more and more bare was the inherent symbolic magic of the system, as banks were bailed out with conjured funds, and new companies with no profit were monstrously inflated with venture capital, their entire worth a fabrication of promise.

This is both Capricorn in decline, feebly attempting to carry on the work of prolonging the life of its institutions; and it is the anticipation of Aquarius, the wish, the hope, and that a company’s acumen is prized above the goods themselves.

Virtual Black Squares In the black square too I see one of the final proclamations of the age of earth. The square (and cube) is a classical symbol of earthiness and materiality. Blackness too is associated with earth: the deepest, heaviest, earthiest hue. But it is no object that we are seeing in the black square: it is a digital image, a projection of light with no weight. It is not in one place, as a physical object is. It is diffuse across platforms. In this sense it anticipates the air epoch.

Earth is also the element of value. It is desire that coheres matter into form, and those forms inspire evaluation. Do I value the green cube or the blue cube? “Where I come from, we sit on blue cubes! We eat green food! These are my values!”

The black square phenomenon speaks to our collective experiments with value over the last 200 years. It reminds us that we are individuating away from objective materiality into deeper recognition of our personal reality tunnels. To some, they are posting the black square in informed solidarity; others post it as accidental sabotage; still others post it deliberately for counterrevolutionary purpose. When people look upon it, some see a dramatic collective statement; some see a tacky thing; some see a distraction. For certain casual witnesses, this cyberspace abstraction is their main statement on the historical moment.

During the revolutionary protests, the first widespread issue to cleave the gap in values was the “looting” of Target, a temple of goods. For some, the seizing of commodities was irrelevant to the issues of the protest; others sensed the close relationship between the capitalist temple and the racial and social inequality it engenders.

The multiplicity of values ignited and bared by the proliferation of the black square—this flat image that invokes the form of earth, but does not present it—is one fitting summary for what our preoccupation with material goods has born. America forgot that black lives have value, and now it believes black squares matter.

Devil and Clown As it has stood til now, “the devil is in the details.” Virgo is the sign of detail, and the scientific paradigm of collecting an infinite amount of samples, rules, and categories has crept into the corporate and legal systems that rule the social order. In the US we find it is rather difficult to bring charges to a police officer, due to the meticulous legal attention it requires. The law finds a way to break down an incident into particles of appropriate size so that it can reconstruct it into a version that preserves itself.

There is an earth devil and an air devil, and the earth devil is the one who instrumentalizes the masses to its own purposes. This is the devil of fascism. By comparison, the air devil fills people with radical individual self-interest. That devil does not grow its arms into the polis, it turns people into violent free agents. If we are using Virgo, mercury-ruled, as one example of an Earth devil, then its analogue in air is Gemini, mercury-ruled. Gemini is the clown, the unpredictable, volatile, independent actor driven mad by apparently irreconcilable cultural forces. We have spent the last few years with this little boogeyman, in the joker movies and the IRL clowns who were scaring people a few years ago. Were these a symptom of the school-shootings, the random and senseless outbursts?

Virgo, and the other Earth signs, convince us that things are ultimately reducible to discrete parts. We wanted to isolate the killer clown, wherever we found him, separating him off from the rest of us. We were focused on the independent actors, and relatively unconcerned with the systemic oppression which produces the social and psychological circumstances that birth such nihilism. Only now, in the final years of the earth age, has the police state and capitalism become flagged as the central issue among the masses. Systemic relations are the concern of air. The clown, master of affective mutability, is frightening because it contradicts atomic positivism. This is something else that is anticipated the age of air: the interdependency of things, the leaking of identity into the individual from the environment. There are no independent actors anymore. No fixed objects of any kind, only becomings.

[manmetaphysical]

3: Neptune Enters Aries with Saturn

Neptune leaves Pisces and enters Aries on March 30th/31st and dips back into the late degrees of Pisces and as mentioned bringing on mental relapses and possibly uncomfortable trauma-induced flashback. It retrogrades through Aries July 5th back at 29° Pisces by October 23rd pre-samhain -and then returns to stay in Aries from January 27th of 2026. That is for another approximately 165-year cycle, spending around 14 years in each sign.

But the shift from the end of the zodiac and the beginning is monumental. Neptune and Saturn don’t meet exactly for another year, not until February 26th 2026. But we get a preview when they are close when Neptune conjuncts Saturn first degrees of Aries in May (1° apart).  But Neptune in Aries can be the spiritual warrior, pioneering compassionate causes, new modes of art, music, and appreciating the poetry of life. Neptune and Saturn meet around every 36 years and is said to be connected to events in the history of Russia as it was present in Leo at the formation of the rigid Bolshevik ideology that was the Soviet Union in 1917 and at the death of Stalin in 1953.

The last time Neptune went from Pisces to Aries was 1861- peak of the Victorian industrial era and expansion of the British Empire- where it considered itself the ruler of the seas. It was also the time of the American Civil War where viewpoints clashed and battle lines were drawn and contested across the then disunited states. Abraham Lincoln (12/2/1809) who was born with a Saturn- Neptune conjunction in Sagittarius became president of the US in 1861 when Saturn and Neptune came together again. He declared that ‘If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” He is remembered as being a great speaker and as an emancipator of people held in slavery and with the assassination that took him out. 

The ‘Mind-Melt’ era as I have been calling it is receding, but during 2025 there could be a sinkhole quicksand effect to that endpoint of the zodiac. While Neptune is still hovering on the edge of 29° to 0°, it can push people to the verge of madness where delusions and addictions are more common. We need to keep that rooted feeling wherever possible or our heads can be turned. We are also still mopping up the mess, having to disentangle the blurred boundaries once again which Saturn has helped to do in its way through Pisces.

There is a layer of deception in most media channels. The era ‘deep fakes’ became possible with the rapid growth of A.I., and it appears that people prefer oblivion which seems more attractive than hard core reality. Hamlet said “To die; to die to sleep, perchance to dream” about a longing to be elsewhere than facing life. So, it can be a hard time for people to stay awake, to not fall back into slumber or back onto a comfortable bed of lies, or even irrationally some people actually wish for death and non-existence which is very Piscean.

But the remainder of that quote takes it a step further “Ay, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come? When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.” But while we have Neptune at the 29° degree- this is in the last decan of Neptune – there are still people ‘exiting’ the planet, from natural death, wishing to go, lack of will or lack of Eros, actual suicide, and multiple diseases and conditions arising from overly toxified bodies that compromise the immune systems. There may be a another health crisis here, but I hope not in the way it was imposed in 2020.  Saturn going into Aries rolling over the North Node going into Pisces with Neptune dipping back into Pisces and over the North Node could be troubling but also energising. 

It is interesting that the issue of assisted death has come up in the UK with the new bill that has had its second reading in parliament. Death is presented as a ‘choice’ where doctors who diagnose terminal illness might be encouraged to suggest assisted death as a pathway. This trend towards exiting the planet was forecast in my video of Jupiter/Neptune conjunction of 2022 and unfortunately it has turned out to be true. That lingering confusion and malaise won’t become clearer until Neptune enters Aries. As if to reemphasise this point of dipping our heads back into the old and then establishing the new Venus goes Retrograde in April along with Mercury from the same degrees Pisces to Aries – Water to Fire reinfused by Water.

When Saturn comes in to Aries on May 24th as well with Neptune it sits on the world axis degree. That’s the real and unreal combined. That gives the potential to make dreams concrete and real provided you put in all the discipline required to do so. Saturn is the marker of boundaries and limits and obliges you to do the work before any achievement is claimed. Aries loves directness and speed, and takes action in a straight line to its goal, but Neptune is the nebulous curly line looping forwards and backwards on itself where the goal may be more unseen and quasi-mystical.

It could be a flushing out of those we idolise as May 2025 is when the P. Diddy trial starts in the US in earnest and that promises already to be a non-stop media circus. Careers are going to be not just tarnished but destroyed. That is already happening but can have a deglamourising effect, a peeling back of all the illusions where people finally begin to see how they have been played by being sucked in to the celebrity world. That’s not a nice feeling but may be necessary. It will have the power to shift people’s views about celebrities and allow us to see them for who they really are with much less idolisation. We might very well ask: Exactly how were these particular people raised up to the limelight get their positions of esteem? Was their power and influence honestly earned? Or are they just trumped up mediocrities? What real achievements support their prominence and did they achieve them ethically?

There is one aspect that is super interesting for 2025 Pluto, Saturn/Neptune and Uranus in a triangular relationship known as a ‘minor grand trine’. This came into not exact formation during September 2024, but it does become exact in 2025 getting close in July and peaking in August and September of 2025.  Pluto at 01° in Aquarius trines Uranus at 01° in Gemini; and Saturn with Neptune is equidistant at the midpoint sextile to both hovering over the world axis point end of Pisces beginning of Aries.

This is quite rare to see all the outer planets connected like this. It rides high above the fray and promises a kind of ‘zeitgeist’ influence that radiates strength of inspiration where it is most needed amid all the challenges. It is quite magical as it connects Saturn in a triangle Pluto and Uranus trine with Saturn in the middle, and during the eclipses Saturn/Neptune becomes the head of a beautiful and inspirational kite formation. So each of these house areas of your life where the planets are can become connected. This heralds a time where manifesting a new more innovative way of being can manifest more easily. It brings stronger, more powerful inspiration for new things to be realised. It’s a cohesive enabler aspect activating any superpower we may have, but especially for anyone who has planets at the first degrees of Aries, Aquarius and Gemini.    

[nj-stone]

Mercury's New Synodic Cycle Begins on March 14th - Lilith Rebellion

Venus and Mercury are unique in that their orbits are inside the Earth’s orbit, closer to the Sun. Aside from the Earth’s Moon, they are the only planets that can come between the Earth and the Sun in an interior conjunction. These interior conjunctions with the Sun occur fairly regularly. We see it happen about 12 times a year with the Moon (conjunctions which we refer to as “New Moons”). It occurs approximately 3 times a year for Mercury, and once every 1.5 years for Venus. The Sun and Venus are never more than 48 degrees apart (never more than 2 signs away from each other), and the Sun and Mercury are never more than 28 degrees from each other (Mercury will only ever be in the same sign as the Sun, or in the sign before or after). (*some differing opinions on this out there – fact check me if you have alternative degree parameters from solid sources!) It is impossible to have a Sun-Mercury square, or a Sun-Venus opposition in an astrological chart. And Mercury and Venus, unlike other planets, experience both an interior and exterior conjunction with the Sun (other planets, excluding the Moon, only experience exterior conjunctions with the Sun). Therefore, Mercury and Venus are intimately associated with the Sun. They travel together with our core essence and life-giving purposeful urges (the Sun), holding sway over personal human realms of experience such as perception, learning, thinking, communicating, relating, connecting, attraction, love, pleasure and money. On March 14th, Mercury will be halfway through its retrograde period, which is demarcated by the interior conjunction with the Sun. Many astrologers consider this to be the beginning of Mercury’s next ~116 day synodic cycle (roughly 4 months). Symbolically, what does it mean that Mercury experiences both an interior and exterior conjunction with the Sun? How are the two conjunctions different from each other, archetypally? How might we experience them differently here on Earth? I’ve been reflecting on these questions so much over the last 6 months – especially since I live with an exact Mercury-Sun interior conjunction in Pisces in my natal chart, within two degrees of today’s interior conjunction. I used to think of the interior and exterior conjunctions in the same way. It’s easy to dismiss the difference between them, because from the perspective of an astro chart, they look nearly the same – except that the interior conjunction only occurs during a retrograde so you’ll see the rx symbol beside the Sun-Mercury conjunction when this occurs. But if you zoom out for a perspective from outer space, the two conjunctions are entirely different. During the interior conjunction on March 14th, Mercury is closest to the Earth, in front of the Sun, with no interference between us. Mercury has a diameter of 4,879 km. The Sun has a diameter of 1,392 million km. That is a ginormous difference in size. So in contrast, during an exterior conjunction let’s imagine we’re here on Earth having a conversation with Mercury the messenger, and then the Sun gets in the way. Like, the Sun REALLY gets in the way. It’s like trying to have a conversation with a small child when the 1970’s Mr. Universe winner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, walks in-between us, flexing. (Arnold, incidentally is a Sun-ruled Leo, of course) At the time of both the interior and exterior conjunction, Mercury is invisible in the sky to the naked eye, but with the exterior conjunction, Mercury is truly quite far away on the other side of the Sun, whereas with the interior conjunction (occurring on March 14th) Mercury is very close to us. If Mercury symbolizes our thought processes, our communications, and the power of language and information, what does this mean to have Mercury so near? One thing is clear, Mercury’s typical tricks have certainly intensified in a big way over the last few days as we neared the March 14th conjunction. For example, Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram (arguably the most dominant social media tools) were erratically, frustratingly glitchy and experiencing off and on outages throughout Wednesday, March 13th (and continuing today from what I can tell). Everyday communicative social media is Mercury’s domain. In the last 48 hours, acquaintances realized that they would have to cancel $5000 worth of tickets for a family vacation to Florida because at the last minute they realized the father’s passport had expired (Mercury is ruler of travel details and modes of travel). Luckily they were able to get credit for the tickets, but when they went to make other flight plans during this very busy travel time (students’ march break)… they ran into the backed-up mess that has erupted since Boeing suddenly grounded their entire fleet of 737 Max airplanes on March 13th in Canada and the U.S., out of concern that there may be something faulty in the design following two crashes earlier this year. Thousands of people and their travel plans are potentially affected by this disruption and delays due to reduced airline capacity during a very busy season – but safety is important! Randomly, in Ontario on Tuesday, March 12th, a small plane overshot the runway [Mercury/Jupiter] and crashed onto the highway, nearly skewering a vehicle on the road (everyone survived thankfully!). In Britain on Wednesday, March 13th, “after a day of high drama, lawmakers [Mercury/Jupiter] defied the government [the Sun] by voting 321 to 278 in favour of a motion that ruled out a potentially disorderly “no-deal” Brexit under any circumstances.” (CBC News) Securing deals and contracts are Mercury’s cup of tea. And then, also on Wednesday, it came to the public’s attention that rich celebrities and other highly privileged folks, had been bribing University coaches and staff to get their kids into top schools in the U.S. (Mercury rules learning, as well as cheating, and the Sun-Mercury conjunction is square to Jupiter in Sagittarius, which is associated with universities as well as abundant wealth and fame). This involved the exchange of money, as well as manipulating test scores, and photo-shopping the heads of the young applicants on to the bodies of top athletes (some Mars-Neptune absurdity?!). Gross. Interestingly it seemed in many cases, the kids and future students themselves didn’t realize that their rich parents were pulling strings behind the scenes. Arguably the Sun (and Jupiter) could signify the rich, famous parents as well as institutional authority figures, while Mercury could signify the students and the admissions process. In the case of the university bribing scandal, the grounded planes, and the expired passport, some very important information came to light and decisions were made, based on this new information. What does this mean in regards to Mercury’s interior conjunction on March 14th? I feel I need to experience and observe a few more Mercury cycles at least, to begin tracking patterns unique to either the interior or the exterior conjunction. However, the beginning of any life cycle, any cosmic cycle, commences on the deathbed of the previous one. Beginnings follow endings. New growth follows decay and disintegration. What is wrapping up in your life, and what is beginning? In what ways have you acquired new insight and inspiration that you can now apply to Mercury’s next trip around the Sun? Perhaps this heightened Mercury retrograde craziness around the end of a synodic cycle is highlighting what needs to be fixed, what can no longer be hidden… so that we may go forward into the next cycle with greater clarity and direction. The dross of Mercury’s prior cycle, the contamination and pollution it acquired while traveling, are being burned away by the Sun’s fire in an alchemical purifying act. Pay attention to the 48 hours surrounding this auspicious interior Sun-Mercury conjunction! What time is it occurring for you? You can find out the exact time for your region using planetwatcher.com. Be receptive to the guidance and messages the Universe wants to deliver to you, but also, be active in your co-creation and intention-setting. What type of Mercurial journey do you hope to embark on over the next 4 months? In about a week or so, Mercury will join Venus, visible in the morning sky, calling in the Sunrise (i.e. “the helical rise”). Here we will see Mercury’s new cycle released from the birthing process as the synodic seeds grow and manifest above the soil. I’ll speak more to the exterior conjunction when we next arrive there on May 21st, 2019, but on a personal level, what I noticed from the last synodic cycle was that at the interior conjunction on November 27, 2018, I began really investing into new creative projects and artistic endeavors in the wake of releasing my regular posting on Lilith Rebellion. And then, at the culminating point of the previous synodic cycle (the exterior conjunction), on January 29th, 2019, I had a really bizarre 36 hours where I received six different requests from a wide variety of people (some of whom I hadn’t heard from in over a year), asking for my immediate help and assistance with their creative projects. It was uncanny. I had to reach deep (reaching past the Sun) to access the power of my voice (Mercury)! It was a frustrating couple of days where I felt taken for granted as a resource machine (I love and appreciate the people involved, but it was very strange timing). It was through this challenge and struggle (really, because of it), that I gained a lot of clarity and successfully reclaimed my voice, grounded myself in my worth, and prioritized my direction via setting boundaries and becoming more comfortable with saying no to external pressure. So that’s what the synodic story arc looked like for me! There are other variables involved though- the conjunction was in my 6th house in an exact degree aspect to my tight Chiron-Saturn-Venus configuration and globally, there was a Mars-Pluto square building I believe (with its associated power struggles) – so I need to do more real life research! Now, with this interior conjunction occurring right next to my natal interior Mercury-Sun conjunction… I’m wondering what’s next! I believe the interior conjunctions are often quieter than the exterior conjunctions (much like a New Moon), and we may only recognize their correlations in retrospect… but stay open to what is being burned away and seeded in your life as we pass through this holy chamber, as Demetra George calls it. Tuesday morning (March 12th) I was up at 4 am to take this cutie to the airport to send her across the country to live with her real (human) mom, while Mercury was closing in on its interior conjunction with the Sun in my 8th house of shared resources and energy. This sweet dog has been living with us for a year now and I have become so accustomed to her curious and warm presence in the house. I will miss her so – I already do! But I’m relieved that she arrived safely and that she is providing some much needed companionship. I generally associate Taurus with farm animals (especially cows), Sagittarius with wild animals (especially horses), and Mercury with house pets and domesticated animals, although its not often discussed. I see this association as relevant both through Mercury’s sign Gemini, as well as Virgo. With Gemini, the sign of the twins and siblings, we have the image of a pet as a friend and a constant playful companion. If I remember correctly it was Steven Forrest, who referred to Mercury as the Sun’s buddy and sidekick because of their close proximity. Through the sign of Virgo, I can see the dedication to caring for a dependent animal, and the need to maintain a consistent daily routine of care-giving that involves both food and perhaps regular walks (for a dog). Furthermore, Virgo is the sign of health and wellness, and animals can have a profound healing impact on their fellow humans. I was phobic of dogs as a child (well, I was phobic of just...

Lilith Rebellion: Mercury’s New Synodic Cycle Begins on March 14th - http://www.lilithrebellion.com/2019/03/14/mercurysynodiccycle/