The week of Shabbos haGadol: Mars and Saturn conjunct in Aquarius; Jupiter-Pluto Conjunction and Corona Virus Star Patterns

Friends, I will cut right to the chase here. There are two huge things happening in the stars this coming week. One is the conjunction of Mars and Saturn in Aquarius on Tuesday March 31, and the other is the first of the three Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions of 2020, which happens on Saturday April 4, Shabbos Parshat Tzav. 

Medieval astrologers understood the conjunction of Mars and Saturn in Aquarius as being the signature celestial pattern reflecting the presence of plague. 

My interpretation of these two events is that the coming week will see severe spikes in infection news and the result will be a big government crackdown on personal movements - even more strict than measures currently in place.

 
I am hoping that by Chodesh Iyar ("Ani HaShem Rofecha") we will see a lot of healing. The Jewish Calendar would indicate that the plague to turn around by Lag b'Omer (May 12) with significant relief by Shavuot (May 30) but ONLY IF YOU STAY THE F*&K HOME. If you don't stay home, we'll all be quarantined until Tisha b'Av.

Regarding the Mars-Saturn conjunction, which is relatively rare: The last time Mars and Saturn were conjunct in Aquarius was March 1992, during which the "Michelangelo computer virus" ravaged DOS-based computer systems world-wide. 

The time before that was February 1964, during which the USA was in the throes of Beatlemania, an extremely contagious phenomenon. This was also the peak of the Rubella epidemic. Rubella, also called at that time “German Measles”, infected 12 million people and 20,000 babies were born with severe complications from the disease.

The time before that was January 1934, during Hitler was elected Chancellor of the Reichstag and when Nazi Germany passes the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring". I don't think I need to elaborate on the contagious nature of vile antisemitic hatred - that's obvious to all.

So: Sunday March 29 and Monday March 30 the Moon is in Gemini, with the Sun in Aries, you can bet on a lot of aggressively delivered information, data dumps, and Mars enters Aquarius on Monday as well, leading up to his conjunction with Saturn on Tuesday.

The point where Mars and Saturn meet in Aquarius meet on Tuesday is 0 degrees Aquarius – the exact point of the upcoming “Great Conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn in December 2020, the one I’ve been talking about here on this podcast, on my FB page and my blog, etc. for months and months. Events taking place around the Mars / Saturn conjunction this week will be revisited, dare I say with a vengeance, at the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at the same cosmic address in December. 

The Moon moves into Cancer Tuesday morning the 31^st as well, preparing for her First Quarter Moon Wednesday. That’s what you call “reva l’Pesach” – 15 minutes before Passover – on the cosmic clock or the Cycle of Sacred Time known as the Jewish Calendar. Moon in Cancer is food, home, mother, money. These security triggers will be HUGE this week, especially on Thursday as the Moon in Cancer opposes Jupiter and Pluto in Capricorn, and later in the day when the Moon moves into Leo, opposes Saturn and Mars in Aquarius. The inherit emotional volatility of this week will be a wild ride as every possible trigger will be activated. 

Friday with Moon in Leo adding a dramatic dimension to just about everything – and melodramatic in many cases – sees Venus move out of her Earth-home sign of Taurus and into Gemini, followed by Mercury’s conjunction to Neptune in Pisces. Widely varied interpretations of data and the level of distortion around the flow of information both skyrockets. 

Saturday April 4 is Shabbat haGadol, the Great Shabbat before Pesach. Venus in Gemini trines Saturn in Aquarius which might supercharge creative ways of overcoming loneliness during this time of self-isolation. Connection to each other will be the prime directive as later on Saturday Jupiter makes the first of his three conjunctions of 2020 to Pluto at 24 degrees Capricorn. Remember Jupiter supersizes and giganticises everything he touches, and Pluto is raw power, raw ambition, raw need to seize what is desired: control, and wealth. They don’t call it a “Plutocracy” for nothing – governments controlled by the wealthy. I think we will see a power grab move by controlling powers which may in the short term, or medium term, be seen as a drastic measure to flatten the curve or stop the spread of the corona virus, but in the longer term these measures will be fought against and opposed by some. 

Jupiter will make his second conjunction to Pluto June 30, at the same degree of Capricorn, but Retrograde. This week during the first Jupiter-Pluto conjunction, Mars will be in Aquarius, the futuristic sign of progress and science, at same zodiacal point of the upcoming Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in December, signaling a change in leadership or the rise or fall of a society or government. At that second conjunction in June, the retrograde one, Mars will have just entered Aries, the sign of war. It’s possible civil liberties and personal privacies superseded by emergency conditions in April will, by June, be revised with aggressive resistance. 

The final conjunction of Jupiter and Pluto on November 12 occurs when Mars is in Retrograde Aries. That conjunction, exactly on the Saturn-Pluto trigger point of January 12 which started this whole thing off (seems like a million years ago, doesn’t it?) brings the progression of these three conjunctions to a climax. But OMG, it is impossible to know what life will be like in mid-November. Will America even have an election? Will there be some big power grab by the government? Will Mars in aggressive Aries square Jupiter-Pluto reflect G*d forbid people taking the law into their own hands? A massive march on Washington? Nobody knows, and I’m not guess-estimating. 

So keep a lookout for key events this week; they’ll be revisited over and over again this year as we try hard to find a place to rest our foot during this freefall, during which the old normal is dead and the new normal hasn’t really begun.

Saturday April 4^th is Shabbos HaGadol is also Parshat Tzav, which includes the details of the "Thanksgiving Offering" brought by someone who survives great danger, as well as the warning to Aharon the High Priest & his sons the priests not to leave the confines of the Tabernacle for the entire 7-day inaugural process. We are supposed to be a "nation of priests" and this week we need to understand that we must not leave the confines of our homes. We may also take this time to contemplate what kind of "offering" we are moved to give to this world if we are blessed, please G*d, to survive this (and may we all be!). We give to G*d by giving to each other. What might be your gift? Something to think about here.

CHODESH NISSAN: FIRST THE PLAGUES, THEN THE REDEMPTION

"When Israel went out of Egypt" (Psalm 114:1) occurred under the sign of Aries," states the caption to an illustration in a 1769 Haggadah manuscript from Amsterdam, scribed by Yehoshua ben Mordechai of Wolentz. . In the painting, a lamb can be seen floating in the sky; connecting Aries to the Pesach sacrifice.

CHODESH NISSAN: FIRST THE PLAGUES, THEN THE REDEMPTION 

Chodesh Nisan 5780 (March 26 – April 24, 2020)

 

Why is this Chodesh Nissan different from all others which have gone before it? It’s the first time since the original Chodesh Nissan during which the Israelites experienced the Ten Plagues from the safety of their dwellings that we’ve huddled indoors, either alone or with our families, praying that the Angel of Death will pass over us.   

The celestial cycles have spoken: the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of January 12 kicked off these traumatic times. April 4^th will see the first of 2020’s three Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions triggering larger and larger waves of powerful paranoia, doubt and fear. Government crackdowns on personal freedoms during times of great global pandemics may trigger rebellious reactions by those whose trust in our societal structures and institutions have already been eroded by the untrustworthy actions of those institutions themselves. 

Nissan is the month in which we remember and reenact the deliverance which seemed impossible by human standards, and yet came anyway. The Full Libra “Super” Moon of Erev Pesach April 8 brings hope as we recall how the burden of Egyptian slavery was rolled away in a single night – the night we hid ourselves indoors. 

The Last Quarter Moon in Capricorn with the Sun square Pluto April 14 on the eve of the seventh day of Pesach reveals the impotence of top-down structural solutions to a crisis which can only be addressed from the bottom up. Individual responsibility rather than governmental caretaking or corporate culpability turns out to be the defining difference between life and death. 

The Sun/Saturn square April 20 reveals the uselessness of an “us vs. them” mentality. The decisions you make today determine your own future as well as those you’ve never met. The virus of contagious collective fear must be battled by individual faith. Choose wisely and choose life while you still can!

Saturn in Aquarius and Celestial Notes for This Week

This week: At 15 minutes before midnight Eastern Time on Sunday March 22, Saturn entered Aquarius, and will spend the majority of the rest of 2020 playing zig zag, running between the final degrees of Capricorn and the first degrees of Aquarius, before settling in for the long haul of about the next 2 ½ years of Saturn in Aquarius, beginning in December 2020. 

This is the first time Saturn has been in Aquarius since the last time, the last time being February 1991 through the beginning of 1994, more or less, considering the retrogrades at both the beginning and the end of that period. But this Saturn in Aquarius differs in that it contains the conjunction of Saturn to Jupiter, the Great Conjunction, in the sign of Aquarius for the first time since 1405. This happens in December of this year, and the entire year is a lead-up to this celestial portent which signals the paradigm shift, change of world leaders, systems, and the end of the old cycle, beginning of the new. We’re in labor folks, and we’re dilated to 10 and we’re pushing! We’re pushing!

Also Sunday Mercury, back in Pisces but finally going in the right direction, that is to say moving forward, makes a sextile to Uranus in Taurus, which is going to make vague information (that’s Mercury in Pisces) more embodied (that’s Taurus) and solid, maybe in a surprising way or from someone “different” or unique, or perhaps it’s the information itself which comes as a surprise. Venus in Gemini sextiles Neptune and with the Moon in Pisces conjunct Neptune, I’d worry about too much data overload confusing everything, and the inability of those at the highest levels to see the forest for the trees. 

Monday March 23^rd, Mars in Capricorn conjuncts Pluto. Friends I’m going to try to spin this as positively as I can, but I just can’t sugar coat it, much as I’d like to! Mars in Capricorn is big business, Pluto in Capricorn is big power and big money. The conjunction of these two may trigger outrage and then maybe some outright rage later in the evening when the Moon leaves passive, too easily victimized by external circumstances Pisces and goes roaring into Mars-ruled Aries. 

The astronomical New Moon in Aries Tuesday morning makes a conjunction to the asteroid Chiron, the Wounded Healer. You know what I’d love to hear when that happens? “Hello, we’ve discovered a cure for the Corona Virus!” I hope and pray that’s the call. However because of the Mars/Pluto machinations of the previous day, what I’m the most worried about is Wednesday’s conjunction of the Sun in Aries to Chiron in Aries. With the Cardinal Fire sign of Aries, which remember is the Tribe of Yehuda so just think Yehuda energy but basically unrectified because this is the world we’re living in – The Sun illuminates the pain of this whole world, which is Chiron in Aries. Chiron is “the wounded healer,” this asteriod’s legend and archetype is this: a centaur who lived on Mt. Olympus as tutor to the children of the gods, Chiron was wise, kind, and beneficent to all – maybe a little bit too much so, for because he took pity on the human race and taught them the secret of fire, Zeus, the king of the gods, punished his centaur / tutor by giving him a wound which would never heal. The only relief Chiron could get for his wound was to heal others who were also wounded. So we have Chiron in Aries, the sign of blood, the sign of fire, the sign ruled by Mars, conjunct the Sun. I’d like to hope this means the healing ultraviolet rays of the Sun illuminate the consciousness of all of mankind and remove the primal woundedness from each person through self-awareness. OR it could be a violent (that’s Aries) manifestation of woundedness (people rioting via Zoom?) because the government is dragging their feet around sending relief and dealing with this thing? 

Rosh Chodesh Nissan comes on Thursday and the Moon enters Venus-ruled Taurus. Now things start to get real. We’ve moved out of Solar Pisces and even now out of Chodesh Adar into Chodesh Nissan – the month G*d willing of REDEMPTION, for the Jewish People and the Human Race, may it be so! 

The Moon in earthy Taurus squares practical Saturn in Capricorn on Thursday, prompting investment into solid and concrete value – stocking up on canned goods? Toilet paper? Buying stock in Weight Watchers because you know from all this stress-eating their stock is going to go sky high in the summer? The Moon in Taurus also makes a conjunction to Neptune Thursday evening, and a sextile to Pluto Friday morning. The rich get richer and the poor get angry. Revelations of powerful elites receiving favorable treatments and financial outcomes may stress the general public to the breaking point. That’s on a national level. On a personal level: Emotions are going to ping-pong all over the place, from hopelessness to empowerment, from fear to desperation to climbing the ladder of faith all over again. That’s a description of the New Normal but it’s also Thursday and Friday by the stars. 

Saturday which is the 3^rd of Nissan is Shabbat Parshat Vayikra, Venus in her home sign of Taurus trines Jupiter in Capricorn, and later trines Pluto in Capricorn as well. If you listen to Venus in Taurus what she’s saying is this: take a bath. Eat some chocolate. Make love. Jupiter and Pluto are only too happy to oblige, empower, and facilitate her requests. I suggest you cooperate as well. We are all going to need the most de-stressing of activities to counteract all the stresses going on all around us as the days turn into weeks of social isolation.