Saturn-Jupiter Great Conjunction 2020

There’s a lot of buzz around the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction on 21st December. Saturn and Jupiter meet up every 20 years, but did you notice anything in 2000? Or 1980? Not really.

There are two reasons why this years Great Conjunction is different. Let’s give the whole event some context.

Some astrologers wonder if this is the ‘star’ the three wise men followed to find Jesus. Given that it is happening on the Solstice, close to Christmas which is all about the rebirth of the king, the coming of a new messiah, that makes a lot of sense. And although it happens every 20 years, this is the closest we’ve seen these two planets in our sky since 1226!

Saturn and Jupiter work in cycles

Astrology is full of weird and wonderful synchronicities. Here’s one: every 20 years Saturn and Jupiter meet in the same elemental astrology sign. So, for 200 years, they meet up in fire signs – Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. The next 200 years it will be in an earth sign. And so on. Crazy stuff! How could the universe be so orderly!!

In 2020, Saturn and Jupiter are shifting from earth signs to air signs. To put that in perspective, we’ve been living in a Saturn/Jupiter energy of earth since 1802, and that’s about to change. The last Great Conjunction in an air sign was over 800 years ago.

In the earth element these two energies are working to bring material progress. In air, which is where they will be from 21st December 2020, they are working with higher mind, technology, networks. Think creative groups of people imagining incredible new solutions.

The Pluto-Uranus Initiation

But not all the planetary information comes from astrology. Human Design gives a very different perspective.

If we look at the Human Design transits leading up to the actual event on 21st December 2020, we can see another reason why this particular conjunction is so significant.

This is the chart for the Full Moon on 31st October 2020, about 2 months before the conjunction. If you look carefully, you can see that Pluto was in Gate 61 in the Head Centre and Uranus was in Gate 24 in the Ajna Centre, making a channel together. You can also see that both Saturn and Jupiter are in that channel – both in Gate 61.

Pluto and Uranus created a gateway through which Saturn and Jupiter had to pass on their way to their historic meetup on the solstice! This is a profound initiation, not just for the archetypal energy of each planet, but also of their relationship to each other.

And that relationship is one of the main building blocks of our western democratic society. Hence the upheaval. Let’s explore how the Pluto-Uranus gateway influenced this conjunction.

The Old and New King

An era can be considered over when its basic illusions have been exhausted.

Arthur Miller (quoted from the book Civilized To Death: The Price of Progress)

In medieval astrology the moments of conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter were considered to herald a change in leadership, a shift from the old king to the new. We can see it in the mythology, the old king was Saturn/ Kronos and the new king was Jupiter/Zeus.

Saturn was the existing aeons-old structure that maintained itself by holding onto power through aggression. He was jealous of his power, fearful of being overthrown by his son Jupiter but was eventually tricked into submission. Jupiter banished his father and became king of the gods.

We can see that constant war-like mentality, the perpetual power struggles, in our politics. But how is it possible to reconcile these two archetypal energies within us, when they are always at war with themselves? That’s where Pluto and Uranus come in.

Revealing enemy patterning

Pluto draws us away from what’s safe and comfortable, slowly and inexorably breaking down our existing stories and creating them anew. It’s essence is the surrender of the lower self to transformation at the Soul level, to bring our will into alignment with the divine, and to make our efforts count towards our higher collective purpose.

At the moment of the Full Moon, Pluto is revealing this enemy-patterning built into our existing culture via the old warring kings – where we seek out an enemy, or are triggered into seeing an enemy. Instead of jumping into this age-old groove, Pluto is giving us a new option. We can simply see and know who people are and respond accordingly.

Pluto takes time

It takes a few years for us to grasp the lessons Pluto brings. Back in 2012 Pluto was in Gate 38 – the Gate of Opposition – and it feels very much like we are still struggling with this one.

The Gate of Opposition carries within it our ancient fear response from a time when humans lived very small lives and anything out of the ordinary was almost certainly a threat to survival.

Pluto in Gate 38

Synchronicity was at work when I read this by Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post today:

White evangelical Protestants have declined as a proportion of population over the last decade, but they have maintained an outsize presence at the ballot box … [which] has the effect of turning back the demographic clock by nearly a decade. In other words, we’re living in .. 2020, but our elections are being conducted, demographically speaking, in 2012 America.

2012. When Pluto was in the Gate of Opposition, creating fear in some people about having to mix with ‘the other’, people from difference cultures and races.

Uranus smashes the Saturnian container

Uranus is a revolutionary, smashing the old forms, initiating change. While Jupiter is an idealist, he can’t create change the way Uranus can. Jupiter sits within the orbit of Saturn, and even his imagination can’t take him beyond those bounds. Uranus cracks open the old limited Saturnian container, allowing Jupiter to work within a larger context of possibility. Suddenly we have faith that real change is possible! We begin to imagine – it doesn’t have to be like this? If not this, then what?

When Pluto and Uranus act on Saturn, he must transform. In this newly emerging Saturnian world, how might we restructure our own lives? How might society be better?

What we measure …

Every 20 years Jupiter and Saturn come together to renegotiate their relationship. In 2020, this meeting happens in the Gate of Limitations – gate 60. The venue seems to favour the more restrictive nature of Saturn, but maybe all is not as it seems!

In the I Ching this is often called the Gate of Measuring. I found that really interesting, given that quantum theory talks about how we create what we measure. Think about economics – our GDP measures all the things we agree are valueable, like advertising, mining and nuclear power. It ignores the things that don’t matter so much, like parenting, caring for elderly family, taking your kids to the park … oh wait!

Our current way of measuring reality is delusional, and so is the way we organise our society around what we have, apparently, agreed is important.

This Great Conjunction is all about how we create, both personally and collectively, a much better set of measurements!

Dissolving rules that hold us from Flow

The Gate of Limitations (60) is a lesson in how not to get stuck in rules that prevent us from living sustainably, trusting the flow of life, learning from our experiences. We set healthy ‘limits’ by discovering what works in practice, how we balance our own capacity with the unlimited energy of universal flow.

Read: Uranus, Haumea and the Quantum Ring-Pass-Not in 2020

We are so accustomed to having boundaries and rules handed down to us from on high, it can seem strange and even unsafe to realise we have the capacity within us to flow with life in our own unique way.

Saturn and Jupiter meet up in line 5, this restructuring of human consciousness says we have to let go of ‘bitter measures’, rules that prevent us from enjoying our lives. Life is meant to be sweet, and sweet measures bring us good fortune. Saturn can be a punishing energy, and if Jupiter’s ideals are to enforce the laws Saturn has laid down we are left in a kind of police state.

Imagine a world where we are not constantly and vigilantly checking ourselves to see if we are right or wrong according to some external set of rules!

The Gate of Limitations (60) is in a channel that makes manifest the individual mutation, as we shift into a world of networked individual genius. This channel is the very beginning of a new world, full of potential seeking expression. But we shouldn’t be trying to rush things. We don’t yet know what we will create, or even how we will create it.

We first have to prepare the ground, weave a pattern of new meaning, find the basic principles and create a secure space to hold us through the change. This means, for you personally, focusing on what holds you secure when everything is in flux. You need this secure centre, it is your base from which to cautiously explore this new human territory.

Your ancestors lived for millions of years, until 10,000 years ago, in stable peaceful egalitarian communities, feeling grateful for the abundance nature gifted them. This stability arose from the practical realism of their actions. As modern civilized people we seem to have lost that skill of the real, and it has set us adrift in a world of unknowing. We have to create a new foundation for humanity if we are to survive.

What we are doing is actually that big a deal.

Patriarchy – a before and after story

Around 5,000BC, millennium of peaceful egalitarian human society got a series of shocks that changed life on earth. War-like tribes began to descend upon Old Europe, spanning out to eventually persuade the entire world that human-nature is violent and power-hungry, and also, paradoxically, that a few thousand years of modern civilization is somehow better than the entire previous experience of human history.

At the time these patriarchal tribes were riding their horses down from the steppes into Europe, the nascent masculine was just emerging from the all encompassing Mother Goddess. The rounded and fecund Goddess statues were becoming more androgynous, and the story of creation began to make space for the male fertilising power.

But that gentle evolutionary journey was cut short by the patriarchal tribes, who held the seeds of what we might call toxic masculinity – hierarchical leadership, ownership of women, dominion over nature, a philosophical position that denies reality but enforces it’s world-view by intimidation and theft.

This was, perhaps, the first great individual mutation of humanity.

A reset on masculine creation energy

With this 2020 meeting of the Old and New King (Saturn and Jupiter) we are doing a reset on the masculine, returning to that evolutionary fork in the road, recovering the true creative gifts men (and the masculine polarity) have to offer the world. We are restoring the partnership of the male fertilising principle with the female sacred potential.

Where is the Goddess in all this?

There are three powerful feminine archetypes in the channel with Saturn and Jupiter on 21 December 2020.

Chariklo and the Time Lords

Chariklo is a centaur, wife/daughter of Chiron, and just as important in your Design. Chariklo is wise woman and mentor, supporting us to be more conscious of what we are creating. She has the powerful gift of seeing beyond the horizon, particularly when it comes to science and technology. She is significant in the Designs of scientist Marie Curie and science fiction writers Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin. She also shows up in the chart of every single actor who’s played Dr Who! (Chariklo is in Gate 60 line 2)

Hekate and the Crossroads

Hekate is the ancient triple goddess, standing at the crossroads with Cerberus the three-headed hound. Hekate gives us three options – go back the way we’ve come, choose to move forward in the same way we have always done things, or choose a new pathway. (Hekate is in Gate 60 line 1)

A return of the creative power of the Great Mother

In Gate 3, in the same channel, we find powerful sorceress Circe, signalling the seeding of women’s creative potency back into human culture. Circe was trained by her aunt Hekate, giving her roots back to the origin of the creative power of the Great Mother.

2020 might not have been a walk in the park, but it has introduced us to a new concept called – things can change, suddenly and dramatically. Pluto is taking us through a process, the next step of which is to make slow steady changes within our own lives that collectively have a profound influence on where we go next. Although Pluto passed through the Gate of the Marrying Maiden (54) between 2015 and 2018 we are only just catching up with what it initiated.

Read: Pluto in the Gate of the Marrying Maiden

As Mars shifts back into the Gate of Increase on 15 December 2020 it completes the 2020 journey of teaching us how to make realistic and practical use of our energy. We learnt we don’t like rushing, and that there are lots of things we like to do that we weren’t choosing because … old rules!

Mars brings us to the next level of the Marrying Maiden energy – to learn how to flow with rapid change in a way that weaves a new reality from the emergent parts.

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