I just figured this out and I'm so annoyed. I want to throw 2020 in the garbage.

But first I have to reveal a small dirty secret that drops me a few notches on the Smart Person cool index.

I like astrology.

I once told one of my smart friends this and the conversation did not go well, and I feel like we both ended up feeling insulted in the end; her because she is invested in hard science, and me because it was like I told her I thought a god out of a D&D manual is real and will grant me wishes. Which is a shame. So I don't talk about it much. (But it is still very interesting.)

I'm not an astrologer. I just find it interesting to keep an eye on planetary positions and transits, mostly the outer planets. I think it's interesting to think of the natural cycles of a person's life as measured by something other than moon and sun. For instance, a popular transit most people know about the Saturn Return, which happens around age 28/29, because Saturn takes that long to make an orbit of the sun and return to the position it had at someone's birth. Right now I'm going through Uranus transiting opposite natal Uranus, which is the halfway point of Uranus' 84 year orbit and some people experience as a "mid life crisis" event. There's other examples, like Saturn squaring itself every 7 years might be the famous "seven year itch". Stuff like that.

So we've all been going through something called a Great Conjunction or Grand Conjunction this past year, involving Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto at the tail end of Capricorn and the first few degrees of Aquarius. These are planetary heavyweights. Saturn conjoined and passed Pluto in December of last year. By April, Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn were all within 6-7deg of each other, went retrograde in May (which means that when viewed by earth they appear to be moving backwards across the sky), returned to forward motion in October, and are due to wrap up with one final transit of Jupiter conjunct Saturn on the winter solstice, December 21 at 0deg Aquarius.

I'm not going to get into the meaning of these planets because actual real astrologers put it much better, but if you were looking for a outer space marker for the pandemic and turmoil that has been 2020, this would be it. Some people will feel the impact harder than others if they have natal placements around 24deg of the cardinal signs Capricorn, Ares, Cancer, Libra (like me, hooray). One of the reasons why I like astrology is because it emphasizes that things pass. This is a temporary (but slow) transit. The planets may go retrograde and pass over a point a couple times, but they will eventually move on. So I've been really really looking forward to Christmas because it would mean that things will finally lighten up. The transit will pass. THE TRANSIT WILL PASS.

But son of a bad...word, today I see that we are due for a total solar eclipse on December 14, the electoral college date. Total solar eclipses are rare events. Like, could we not? Please? The solar eclipse on summer solstice opposite the galactic center was cool and all, and we've got winter solstice booked up with an amazing sky event, so could we chill until then, maybe? No?

It's not easy to say an eclipse means "bad" or "good". They generally mean change, but any change is stressful. If I recall correctly, in ancient astrology they thought eclipses posed danger to the King, which is why it was so important for court astrologers to predict eclipses accurately. This one is in the fire sign of Sagittarius. I dunno about you, but I am ready for some boring. My last nerve is fried. Whatever the universe version of listening to Enya is, that's what I want. I feel like a bee stung toddler at the end of a hot sticky summer day, and my ice cream has just fallen off my ice cream cone on the gritty pavement, and I need a nap. C'mon universe. Just wrap it up and let us get to Christmas. :-(

Best article on the Saturn/Pluto conjunction I have found.