Over the next two weeks, we will be entering a consequential seven-week-period.  This is the impactful time frame that I’ve been talking about the economic implications of for over a year.  I had no idea that COVID-19 would facilitate the financial challenges that I foresaw, until this past February when news of the impending pandemic began to break.  Now is when we’ll see and experience the monetary cost of the virus.  Hopefully we will avert a second wave of infections.  I’ll be writing more about Venus going retrograde in the sign of lungs and respiration in next week’s edition.  To start, this week includes a sign change for the lunar Nodes, a full Moon in Scorpio and the beginning of Saturn’s retrograde.  By the end of next week money planets Venus and Jupiter will also be retrograde, and later in June Neptune and Mercury will be retrograde.  On June 25th Venus goes direct and on July 1st Saturn re-enters industrious Capricorn, marking the end of the cycle we’re now entering.

I lived in California for over twenty years. There one gets “used to” earthquakes. Most are very small and short, but no one welcomes them. As a Californian, one comes to accept their spontaneous onset and permanent inevitability. When they strike, there’s an instantaneous assessment of one’s immediate surroundings and options, and an immediate determination as to what, if any, action needs to be taken. But beyond moving to a safer nearby spot, there’s not much to do but ride it out and hope for the best. That includes hoping for mortal survival. Working our way through our current economic circumstances, as businesses struggle to reopen during a pandemic, is eerily reminiscent of those earthquakes. During them, including the Northridge Quake of ’94, two thoughts always emerged: get your bearings and get through this. We will reach July 1st, but the next seven weeks are paved with obstacles and turbulent financial news.

Taurus is one the most reliable signs of the zodiac. As the fixed earth sign, it is associated with raw materials, resources, real estate and the economy. Right now the Sun is midway through it, and Mercury is transiting it for one more week. In fact the Sun and Mercury are conjunct in Taurus on Monday, Mercury forms constructive trines to Pluto on Saturday and Jupiter on Sunday, with both in the fellow and equally productive earth sign of Capricorn, and the Sun and Mercury each have cooperative connections with Neptune during the week. Stability is the hallmark of Taurus, and its determination to maintain it is unmatched. But change is unavoidable, and the first of this week’s cosmic reminders of that inescapable truth is the shift of the Moon’s Nodes.

“The Nodes of the Moon are not planetary bodies; they are points formed by the Moon’s orbit around the Earth intersecting with the Earth’s path around the Sun.” – Jan Spiller author of Astrology For The Soul

Underscoring that Universal point about change being a necessary part of life, the Nodes shift into the mutable signs of Gemini (North Node) and Sagittarius (South Node) on Tuesday. They will be in these signs for the next eighteen months. Mutable signs are fluid and complete their respective seasons. Thus they’re associated with instability, flexibility and release. Gemini and Sagittarius are also where the next series of eclipses will start taking place on June 5th. Thursday’s full Moon in purifying Scorpio is another expression of the death and rebirth cycle. Ruled by relentless Pluto, Scorpio thrives on honesty. Taurus’ truth is measured in the tangible world. Scorpio’s is deeply emotional and more intrinsic. Their opposition means that we will have to reconcile these differences.

As I see it, light will be cast into the complicated, inter-connected and sometimes shadowy corners of the financial industry. In gold (tangible) futures (intangible) for instance, it is perfectly legal for the same ounce of gold to be simultaneously sold to several different buyers. It’s a paper promise on deliverables, and it works, until it doesn’t. Home (tangible) values (intangible) are another example. With seven percent of US mortgages already in forbearance since the passage of the CARES Act, banks are pulling back credit for new loans and refinancing. And with 30 million people out of work and 30% of April rents unpaid, landlords will have to weigh material (Taurus) and emotional (Scorpio) interests. Whether it’s simple examples like those or sophisticated financial instruments like BTOs (the new CDOs), derivatives or mortgage backed securities, things are about to get real. Astrology has a planet who not only embraces reality, but imposes it. That planet is Saturn.

Since March 21st, the Taskmaster has been exploring the experimental and humanitarian world of Aquarius. The scientific and futuristic sign is not a natural fit for conservative Saturn. Yet when Saturn’s dedication and discipline are paired with Aquarian peculiarity and genius, their innovative talent is remarkable and reliable. The retrograde getting underway late Sunday lasts through September 28th. It will bring Saturn back into Capricorn on July 1st, and this autumn Saturn will come within orb of Pluto (more aftershocks from their January 12th conjunction on the way?). But once Saturn returns to Aquarius in late December, it will be in this inventive, technologically advanced sign until March of 2023. Between the Nodes moving into adaptable mutable signs, a transformative Scorpio full Moon and even traditional Saturn trying on a new pair of celestial shoes, there is a cosmic message to make necessary adjustments. Now is a good time to get one’s bearings.

For an overview of the astrology of spring 2020, check out this edition of “Surfing The Psychic Waves“.