What next?

It’d be very convenient to blame the peculiar conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn for the Covid-19 virus and the significant protests currently raging across the nation. Blame won’t help us deal with the situation, however.

We need to sit down, especially with people who come from different backgrounds and cultures, and seriously look at the sameness of our goals. Nearly everyone wants to have a better life; if not for themselves as individuals, surely for their children. The next generation’s wider possibilities, however, can only be started by the elders responsible for their care, nurturing, education. As the adults in charge, we should work hard at creating a vastly improved world for our children and grandchildren to thrive in.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at this conjunction.

It’s powerful. Pluto may have been downgraded at one time by rush-to-judgement astronomers, but it was never discarded as a planet by astrologers. Pluto is the planet which, though the smallest orbiting about our Sun, destroys to rebuild something better. It’s considered the ruler of nuclear energy, which also comes from something very small but has extreme consequences if not handled carefully and responsibly.

Saturn is the dour planet of responsibilities, revealing where yours or another’s weaknesses lie, and anyone trying to control a situation or worse, another person.

During the recent sequester for most people, they turned to conserving what they had observed their elders doing and built upon that framework: trying older skills like bread baking, sewing, home canning, starting a garden, carefully repairing what they had and improving its function or appearance.  

As Pluto encroached closer upon its conjunction to Saturn by degree, the danger of Covid-19 became apparent as doctors realized someone could be infecting others without knowing they were ill. Saturn also has rulership over old age, and a disproportionate group of the elderly succumbed to the disease. A new social responsibility emerged – keeping others well with social distancing, handwashing, wearing a mask – and you could expect the same consideration for your health from others, even strangers. Then jobs began to be lost. The situation changed again.

As we become somewhat adjusted to the presence of Covid-19 for at least the foreseeable future, we should keep the new skills we acquired during self-isolation as a bulwark against lack or a possible economic downturn. And then find ways to assist those who’ve been left behind for too many years in the competition for better work, homes, schools by bending Pluto’s tremendous energy for good instead of simply leveling the old without a plan of something much better to replace the outworn.

There is much work to do. We stand at the edge of creating a new civilization that is equitable, fiscally responsible and fosters the very best in each of us. We must respond.

Madame Zombra