World Bracing for Change in 2020

Astrologer says we’re on the cusp of a major redistribution of power

Like fingerprints or the tiny bumps and ridges on your tongue, no two astrological cycles look exactly alike.  Or unfold in exactly the same way.

But, over time, repeating planetary cycles often have a familiar ring to them. Some more than others give astrologers the jitters.

“What’s apparent at this time is we’re on the cusp of a major redistribution of power as solar system power brokers Saturn and Pluto are poised to form a conjunction that will culminate early next year in the astrological sign of Capricorn,” says financial astrologer Grace K. Morris, MA.

Morris is author of How to Choose Stocks to Outperform the Market.  She is Editor and Publisher of the Astro Economics Stock Market News Letter and Business Editor for the Astrology News Service (ANS).

She says conjunctions occur when orbiting planets occupy the same degree in an astrological sign whilst they careen through space on different timelines.  In the current cycle, the Saturn/Pluto conjunction aspect will be exact on January 11, 2020, with planet Mercury joining the configuration on the same day and the Sun two days later on January 13.

World Altering Changes

Archetypal Saturn is identified with structure and stability but also with physical and psychological boundaries and limitations.  Tiny Pluto is the explosive planetary energy firing radical or reactionary change and transformation. Morris says astrologers are wary because of the powerful, world-altering changes that have occurred in the past when these celestial heavyweights were sharing the same zodiacal degree, an event that occurs every 32 to 35 years.   Saturn and Pluto aligned 180 degrees apart in opposite astrological signs generates fireworks as well.

For example, In 2001, a Saturn/Pluto opposition when the World Trade Center in New York City was attacked and destroyed with 3,000 lives lost.  The Vietnam War began in February 1966, also on this configuration. And further back in history, in 1898, America became a world power following the Spanish/ American War.

In the Treaty of Paris in 1898, Spain gave its territories in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines and Guam to the U.S.  America suddenly became a colonial power with overseas dependents. Saturn was opposing Pluto in December of that year. 

Morris says that during a Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Cancer in 1914, World War I began with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. A power shift occurred following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the collapse of the Russian monarchy.

In the first Great War the allied powers were Great Britain, France, Russia, Japan and Italy versus the central powers of Germany, Austria-Hungry and Turkey.  The U.S. joined the allied effort late in the conflict and, at the end, American President Woodrow Wilson pushed for the creation of a League of Nations, which he believed could play a vital role in negotiating “an end to all wars.”

A lasting image from his Presidency focuses on the role he played in helping to redraw the map (boundaries) of Europe once the shooting stopped.    

Saturn is all about re-establishing parameters.  Restructuring the map of Europe was once again the order of the day following World War II when the planet conjoined powerhouse Pluto in August 1947 in the astrological sign of Leo.  With the dismantlement of Europe’s boundaries, and the continent’s leadership structure in disarray, the Soviets and the U.S. moved to fill the power vacuum that emerged. 

Unraveling of Europe?

In the April 22, 2019  issue of Time magazine an article entitled The Unraveling of Europe describes the push across Europe of far-right nationalists who have banded together to wage war against Brussels, the seat of the European Union (EU). They have won elections for the European Parliament and in several European countries (Sweden, Italy, Hungary and Austria) and are consolidating their power across the union.

Brexit, the British vote to exit the European Union (EU), also maybe be one of the factors that will eventually end the EU. As Morris wrote in her newsletter: “When the Brexit vote passed, Scotland would probably have another vote for independence in order to stay in the EU. And the Northern Ireland border with Ireland open since the end of the 1990s Irish war would now need to close again as Ireland is part of the EU and Northern Ireland is part of Brexit.”

In addition to the Saturn/Pluto cycle astrologers are keeping close watch on other celestial developments, like the transit of planet Uranus through the sign of Taurus that began last year and will remain operative until 2025.  In his book, Astrology for the Millions, the late astrologer Grant Lewi called the last Uranus in Taurus cycle (1935 -1941) the Age of Dictators because the 1930s produced Hitler, Mussolini, Tito, Franco, Tojo and other authoritarian leaders.  

The U.S. economy had flat-lined and the country was in the throes of the Great Depression in 1930 when Lewi predicted that the Uranus in Taurus cycle would manifest different ideas about wealth than the preceding Uranus in Aries cycle (1928 – 1935).  A contentious debate about the social programs intended to help jump-start the economy was touched off when Congress, seemingly on cue, passed the Social Security Act in 1935 as the Uranus in Aries cycle was ending.  

In 1935, financial astrologer Louise McWhirter published a study on the transiting nodes in her book, Astrology and Stock Market Forecasting, McWhirter reported that that the economy peaks when the north node is at 29 degrees of Leo and reaches a low point at 29 degrees of Aquarius, Leo’s opposite sign.

The economy most recently peaked May 2017 but will continue to plateau until about January 2022, when the economy will decline. The previous peak was October 1998. The economy remained high until the dot.com bubble burst in early 2000 and the ‘tech crash’ ensued. This pattern could certainly play out in the next three years.

Morris has updated McWhirter’s findings in the current era and reports that the economy last peaked in May 2017. Each peak is followed by a plateau period and then a slow decline from above normal to normal levels.  The slow transition to a below normal economy should begin after February 2022.   

“The stock market direction will probably continue to stay within a trading range as it has done since it peaked November 2017. The probability of a new bull market is low but neither should the market collapse any time soon,” she predicts. “Recession is not in the near future but slow growth is”.