Navigating the Storm of Global Change

An astrological update

Last year, in my Navigating the Storm of Global Change series, I presented an astrological analysis of the archetypal dynamics underlying our chaotic times of crisis and change. This essay provides an update — where are we at now and what does astrology have to say about our trajectory for the rest of this decade? 

Given the obvious signs all around us of extreme cultural crisis and distress – the radical polarization of worldviews, the decay of our mainstream institutions, the devastating effects of the pandemic, threats of ecological catastrophe, technological dystopia, escalating horrific violence – many of us are understandably concerned about where all this is going. Is there any room for hope?

I’m of course aware that many continue to see astrology as a holdover from our pre-modern past which should be enjoyed at best as a form of light entertainment. I suspect most skeptics reach that view on principle rather than a considered examination of the evidence. While I don’t want to take up space in this essay defending the intellectual basis of astrology, it’s good to understand what astrology is and what it is not. As a predictive tool, astrology is not very good at forecasting specific outcomes, such as who will win the next election or which stocks to buy. But as a predictor of the cultural zeitgeist – the overall collective gestalt – astrology has a reliability approaching that of a Swiss clock. That’s why it’s said that astrology is archetypally, not concretely, predictive. The number of ways any given archetype might manifest in concrete reality is virtually unlimited, yet we can still make out the unmistakable character of the archetype itself. 

For example, when I first learned astrology at the California Institute of Integral Studies back in the early 2000s, my classmates and I naturally became interested to know what was coming our way in the years ahead. Even then, it became a thing of common knowledge in our community that human civilization would very likely be confronted with some kind of major world crisis in 2020. How did we know that? Because 2020 involved a conjunction of Saturn (the archetype of constraint and limitation) and Pluto (the archetype of intense and profound transformation), the combination of which throughout history has correlated consistently with periods of intense contraction and crisis: the start of wars, the empowerment of totalitarian ideologies, times of economic hardship, and yes, pandemics. We didn’t know in what form the crisis would come – we couldn’t predict Covid – but we all knew that, somehow, someway, humanity was headed for a hard collision with reality in 2020.  

In my Navigating series, I argued that, from an astrological perspective, the big picture context for understanding our global meta-crisis is the shift from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. Astrological Ages are thought to last around 2150 years. As a new age comes in, the fundamental organizing principles of society start to change in accordance with the archetypal qualities associated with the new sign. One of the main distinctions between the Piscean and Aquarian Ages is that the former was structured primarily by top-down centralized hierarchies (in alignment with the Piscean ideal of Transcendence) whereas the latter will be organized through horizontal, peer-to-peer decentralized networks (in alignment with the Aquarian ideal of Equality). Much of the chaos of our times can, I think, be understood in terms of the clash between these operating systems.

The reality, however, is that there is no broad consensus among astrologers about when the Age of Aquarius exactly begins. Astrological Ages are not precisely definable, unlike the timing of other astrological phenomena such as aspects between planets. Ages are defined by the constellation of stars into which the sun rises on the first day of spring. That point – the vernal equinox – is always moving against the constellations, and it takes about 26,000 years to complete a cycle through all twelve signs. Currently it is somewhere in the liminal zone between the constellations of Pisces and Aquarius, moving gradually toward or into Aquarius. But because the boundaries of the constellations are imprecise, it is impossible to say exactly when the Age of Aquarius will begin (or has begun). 

Yet our lack of certainty about the precise starting date of an Astrological Age does not, in my view, make the concept unimportant. The Astrological Age defines the core archetypal structure of consciousness around which everything in society is organized. For example, the Age of Cancer (around 8640-6480 BC) correlated with the height of goddess worship and matriarchal culture, the Age of Gemini (around 6480-4320 BC) saw the creation of the root languages of almost all modern languages, the Age of Taurus (around 4320-2160) involved the invention of money and banking and the worship of the Bull deity, the Age of Aries (around 2160-0 BCE) brought the era of the warrior kings, and the Age of Pisces (around 0 AD to ?) saw the emergence of the great world religions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.¹ The Age of Aquarius is sure to be equally epoch-defining. 

Neither does our imprecision about the celestial situation make the beginning date of an Age entirely arbitrary. While we cannot determine the exact moment of birth from the stars, we can deduce the signs of a new age by observing the nature of events on Earth.  Astrology is after all based on the principle that there is a correlation between celestial and earthly events — as above, so below — so when the cosmic picture is ambiguous, we can look to what is happening on Earth to clarify the situation in the sky.

With that in mind, I think there’s a strong case to be made that the principles of the Aquarian Age started to become visible as early as the birth of modernity in the late 18th century. In the American and French revolutions, we see the Aquarian spirit of equality and brotherhood — power to the people, ‘liberte, egalite, fraternite’, the end of the divine right of kings, the emergence of modern democracy, etc. In the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions we observe the Aquarian themes of technological and scientific genius. In the Enlightenment we find the Aquarian principles of rationality and humanism. These Aquarian themes only intensified and expanded of course throughout the twentieth century and onto today.

So I think we have been moving into the Age of Aquarius for some time. Nonetheless, I believe that the years 2020-2026 represent a crucial inflection point in that journey, an initiatory crisis that is propelling us, for better or worse, into the Age of Aquarius proper. Why?

For one, it’s fairly obvious that for most people alive today the global pandemic (and its aftermath) represents the watershed event of our lifetimes. Although many prophetic voices had been warning about the unsustainable trajectory of modern civilization for decades, prior to the pandemic the structures of the old era were still fundamentally intact. With Covid, the global meta-crisis finally exploded into plain view for all. There seems to be a consensus now that we are living through the end of one era and the beginning of another. 

Second, the nature of the shift strongly reflects a transition from Piscean to Aquarian themes. Arguably the most striking societal change that accompanied the pandemic was the sudden transfer of so much human activity onto the digital realm. (Anyone who had Zoom stock in 2019 was probably feeling pretty good by the end of 2020.) Aquarius is associated with innovative technologies, especially those that bring people together in new ways. Yet this recent digitalization of modern life is like pre-school compared with the AI juggernaut about to lift off. There is probably no clearer indication that we are entering the Aquarian Age proper than the science fiction future promised by AI. 

Another sign is the fact that so many of our traditional top-down institutions (e.g., in media, education, politics, entertainment, academia etc.) suddenly appear tired, dysfunctional, and outdated, while new initiatives based on the principle of decentralization appear to be popping up everywhere. Consider, for example, the precipitous decline in popularity and status of many traditional forms of broadcast media versus the explosion of independent content on decentralized platforms like Substack, Youtube, Spotify, and so on. The battle for narrative control between centralized and decentralized media can be seen as a clash between Piscean and Aquarian paradigms of collective sense-making. A similar tension can be observed today in virtually every sector of society.

A third reason I think we’re at a critical threshold of the Aquarian Age is the sheer number of suggestive astrological symbols to that effect. Astrology is a language for decoding the unfolding logos of the universe, expressed in symbolic form. For those who have studied the code, it can sometimes seem as if the universe is winking at us. 

In December 2020, for example, Jupiter and Saturn came together in a conjunction at zero degrees of Aquarius. To the ancients, the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, the largest of the visible planets, was seen as the most significant celestial event of all, one that signified the arrival of a new era. Modern astrologers also associate Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions with the start of new eras, often associated with a generational shift in the leadership structures of society. The fact that the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction occurred at the very first degree of Aquarius was widely heralded as a powerful symbol of the birth of the Aquarian Age. 

Then, on March 23 this year, Pluto moved into zero degrees of Aquarius. (On that very day, Open AI connected ChatGPT to the Internet, and for a brief period everyone was talking about AI.)  Pluto was in Aquarius from March to June this year, then moved back into Capricorn, where it will stay until January 20, 2024. Pluto will re-enter Aquarius from January 20 to September 1 next year, before returning to Capricorn one final time. It will then enter Aquarius ‘for keeps’ on November 19, 2024, where it will stay for almost twenty years. 

Pluto represents the most powerfully transformative energy of our solar system. Its transit through Aquarius is a very big deal, destined to reshape society at every level on Aquarian principles. Coming right on the heels of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at zero degrees Aquarius, Pluto’s ingress into Aquarius is another potent symbol suggesting the arrival of the Aquarian era. 

Meanwhile Neptune, the archetype of mystical consciousness and universal compassion, is in the final degrees of Pisces throughout 2023 and 2024. I recently convened an experiential astrology workshop in which we looked at current world transits. The whole exploration was very meaningful. But one experience really stood out. When one of the participants stepped into the chart to pick up the symbol for Neptune at the end of Pisces, the room fell silent. There was an immediate palpable presence of deep stillness and poignant feeling. It felt to us that Neptune was holding space for humanity to grieve the dying of the Piscean Age. 

We had all been aware of the significance of Pluto moving into the first degree of Aquarius as a symbol of the birth of the Aquarian Age. But here we were understanding for the first time the symbolism of Neptune at the 29th (and final) degree of Pisces signaling the death of the Piscean.

Two more astrological sequences to note. 

I mentioned that Pluto enters Aquarius for good in November 2024. By July 2025, something very remarkable will have happened – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune will also have changed signs. That is, within a seven month period all five slow moving planets will change signs. As far as I’m aware, this has never happened before. It certainly has not happened since the discovery of Uranus (1781), Neptune (1846), and Pluto (1930) – which is to say it has not happened before ever in conscious human awareness. 

Whenever one slow moving planet changes sign, the shift in collective mood is unmistakable. When all five change signs within a cosmic blink of the eye, it has the potential to register as an historic event. We will surely feel propelled into a different world. 

Finally, in February 2026, Saturn and Neptune come together in a conjunction at zero degrees of Aries. Aries of course is the first sign of the zodiac, an eternal symbol of new life. The conjoining of two astrological powerhouses in Saturn and Neptune at the Zero Point of the entire zodiac is yet another profound symbol of the beginning of a new era. 

To summarize: I think the astrological signs suggest that the years 2020-2026 represent an initiatory crisis launching us into the Age of Aquarius proper. With the global pandemic in 2020 we entered a chrysalis of transformation. Notwithstanding the gravity of the current world situation, I believe that by mid-2026 we will feel that we have somehow passed through this particular phase of intense metamorphosis and have definitively entered a new era. 

This framework provides a context for understanding many of the troubling aspects of modern life in recent years: the widespread sense of crisis, the lurch toward political extremism and polarization, the increasing dysfunction of our mainstream institutions, vast epidemics of addiction and social isolation, the collapse of our ability to come to consensus about anything precisely at a time when we face multiple existential risks, etc, etc. It is as if human culture has become overrun by destructive forces determined to dismantle the societal order as we’ve known it. Yet despite the extreme discomfort of this process, here we can recognize within the destructiveness a hidden evolutionary purpose, namely, to accelerate the demise of outdated Piscean structures of top-down control in order to make way for the coming Aquarian technologies and social systems that will be far better adapted to managing the complexity of modern life in the digital age.

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So the astrological symbols are clear – an enormous shift is just around the corner. But what kind of shift can we expect? 

There is no getting around the fact that Pluto’s twenty-year transit of Aquarius will bring revolutionary times. Pluto’s last visit to Aquarius (1778-1799) coincided with the American and French Revolutions and the birth of modernity. The next twenty years will undoubtedly also bring radical changes to all aspects of society. Pluto’s function is to surface to conscious awareness anything hidden in the depths that is not aligned with the unfolding of the whole. During its transit of Aquarius, we can expect Pluto to expose the dark side of Aquarian themes, such as the negative implications of new technology, as well as tendencies toward groupthink, mob rule, and ungrounded utopianism. While we will no doubt see the introduction of many new and potentially liberating Aquarian technologies and social systems over the next twenty years, we will also be grappling with their unethical and potentially dangerous aspects. Ultimately, though, this process is designed to purify these emerging systems so that only those in alignment with the collective wellbeing will survive. It’s as though, as we enter the Aquarian Age proper, we will need to go through a phase of stress-testing the new technologies and systems that will form the basis of the coming era. 

Given these challenges ahead, I don’t believe that we are about to be re-born suddenly into a golden age. However, despite our current foreboding climate, I don’t think we are entering a dark age either. In fact, looking ahead to the last half of this decade, the astrological signs offer surprising grounds for optimism. In 2025, when all four outer planets change signs, they form an aspect pattern known as a Minor Triangle. Renowned French astrologer Andre Barbault called this pattern “the most beautiful configuration of the 21st century.” 

Minor Triangle Aspect Pattern, July 15, 2025

A Minor Triangle involves only harmonious aspects – a trine and two sextiles – between the planets involved. In this case, Uranus is trine Pluto and Saturn and Neptune are in a sextile with both Uranus and Pluto. In astrology it matters a great deal whether an aspect between planets is a ‘hard’ aspect, such as a square or opposition, or a ‘soft’ or ‘harmonious’ aspect, such as a trine or sextile. As one might expect, hard aspects bring friction between the planetary archetypes involved, resulting in more challenging circumstances that force growth and change. Soft aspects involve a more harmonious blending of archetypes, resulting in circumstances more conducive to creativity, ease, and a sense of natural flow. 

Like most people, I’m very concerned about the state of the world today and the intensity of the passage immediately ahead.

Yet if the outer planets were about to move into squares or oppositions with each other, I’d be much more concerned, because the historical record shows unequivocally that these are the periods that involve the most extreme collective difficulties and hardships. But that is not what is happening. The outer planets are moving into trines and sextiles with each other. 

Let’s consider specifically the Uranus-Pluto trine that moves to within 5 degrees of exactitude in mid-2024, and will remain within that range through to 2029. 

When Uranus (the principle of rebellion, originality, and freedom) meets Pluto (the principle of power and total transformation) we get revolutionary periods of counter-cultural rebellion often accompanied by a sudden awakening of Dionysian impulses. The 1960s – the decade of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, and the only decade in the 20th century involving a conjunction of Uranus and Pluto – is a recent paradigmatic example. When the aspect between these planets is a square, these principles tend to combine in more problematic ways that bring out their less exalted qualities. For instance, Uranus was square to Pluto during the 1930s – a revolutionary period to be sure, but obviously a profoundly dark and dangerous one. Uranus was also square to Pluto more recently throughout the 2010s, and again we saw a radicalized period of highly destabilizing social and political change, including the rise of dangerous forms of intolerant extremism on both left and right. (Indeed, many made explicit comparisons between the polarized American political situation of the late 2010s and the dynamics of the Weimar Republic.) 

In contrast, the last time Uranus was trine to Pluto was during the 1920s – the ‘Roaring Twenties’. Wikipedia’s entry for the Roaring Twenties describes it as “a period of economic prosperity with a distinct cultural edge” whose spirit was marked by “a general feeling of novelty associated with modernity and a break from tradition.” The period featured the large-scale development and use of automobiles, telephones, films, radio, and electrical appliances by millions in the Western world, and significant new cultural trends such as the popularity of jazz and dancing. It was, in other words, a time of striking social, artistic, and cultural dynamism. Here, with the trine, we see the Uranian principle of originality and rebelliousness combining more creatively and positively with the Plutonian principle of Dyonisian power. 

So the last half of this decade promises to be less like the intensely fractious climate of the 1930s or 2010s and more like the creative dynamism of the 1920s. (It’s true that the 1920s gave way to the 1930s, but in our case the dynamic is reversed – rather than the trine being followed by the square, the square is leading to the trine.)

While this is good news, the picture is made more complex by the Saturn-Neptune conjunction that will be in effect throughout 2025-2026. Saturn-Neptune periods are typically characterized by the complex intersection of ideals and visions (Neptune) and the harsh or tragic aspects of reality (Saturn). It can be a time of disenchantment and disillusionment, accompanied by a widespread sense of discouragement, profound sorrow in response to tragic events, and loss of faith in ideals. On the positive side, Saturn-Neptune periods can draw forth a deeper faith in the face of tragic realities, a widely felt impulse to engage in selfless service, and a strong determination to work steadily toward the pragmatic manifestation of spiritual ideals.  

The picture that emerges for me when contemplating the next three years is a complex one. With all five outermost planets changing signs between November 2024 to July 2025, it seems clear that an enormous shift in the cultural zeitgeist – comparable to a birth – is right around the corner. With Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto in harmonious aspect with each other through to the end of the decade, the overall gestalt after that shift appears (surprisingly) promising, pointing toward a period of cultural innovation and creative dynamism as we open into a new era. On the other hand, the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in 2025-2026 indicates a potential mood of disillusionment and grief, a sober time of coming to terms with something profoundly tragic, a general sense of spiritual fatigue and ennui – as if humanity may be experiencing a kind of collective postpartum depression alongside the awareness of having entered a fundamentally new age. 

To me, the pressing question is what happens between now and then. 

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Before I look at the astrology of the next 12-18 months, I want to offer one more framework for understanding our current initiatory crisis. 

In my essay Birth of the Aquarian Age, I considered our current moment in terms of the model of transformation developed by psychologist Stan Grof. To recall, Grof observed that patients undergoing psychedelic therapy consistently cycled through four basic stages of experience that corresponded with distinct phases of the human birth process. He called these phases “Basic Perinatal Matrices” (BPM).  

BPM I is the phase in the birth process before labor has started and the baby is still safely and fully within the mother’s womb.

BPM II is the phase when labor has started but the cervix has not yet opened, creating an intensely claustrophobic condition, a sense of being stuck and with no way out.

BPM III is when the cervix has opened and the baby starts to move through the birth canal. This phase is usually experienced as a tumultuous, dynamic, and dangerous process — a titanic life-and-death struggle with a truly uncertain outcome.

BPM IV is the moment of birth itself, when the baby emerges from the womb. This tends to be associated with a sense of sudden, unexpected release from an all-or-nothing struggle for survival. It is felt to be the beginning of an entirely new phase of radically expanded possibility.

Grof theorized that the birthing process itself was a template for the process of transformation more generally, with these same phases comprising the underlying dynamics of all genuine initiatory processes, whether in individuals or society at large.

In my earlier essay, applying this model to our current period, I argued that our pre-Covid world could be said to correspond with BPM I in Grof’s model. However problematic those times might have been, we still felt ourselves to be held within the basic contours of our familiar world. The structures of the old era were still essentially intact.

When Covid hit in early 2020, it was like the waters broke. The labor had started, the birth contractions were happening, but for some time there was very little forward movement. For most of 2020, we were in lock down, with no vaccine or other solution on the horizon. 2020 thus seemed to correspond well with BPM II in Grof’s model. 

In 2021, with the introduction of the vaccines, an apparent solution was presented, and the energy started moving again. Many got the vaccine and there were attempts to re-open the economy, but there was also widespread opposition to the official Covid response, an ever-increasing polarization of views, and a near total breakdown in our ability to come to consensus on anything. When I wrote my original essay in late 2021 I said:

 “As of writing, the atmosphere feels increasingly tense, as if something has to give, as if we are waiting for the deeper convulsions of change to erupt forth in the collective. It is starting to dawn on many that we have arrived at a truly dangerous fork in the road, with various dystopian scenarios awaiting us if we choose poorly. There is a growing sense of deep disquiet and genuine uncertainty about our capacity to make it through the initiatory crisis intact. Our current moment thus feels thematically very resonant with Grof’s BPM III.”

In the intervening two years, that sense of disquiet and uncertainty about the future has significantly deepened. With the war between Russia and Ukraine, and, as of writing, the escalating tragic conflict between Israel and Palestine (and its wider consequences), ‘the deeper convulsions of change’ have indeed erupted in the collective, activating existential fear and profound grief in millions world-wide. As we move closer to the AI revolution, fears of its unknown and potentially catastrophic impact on human civilization are rising. Concerns about climate breakdown and ecological cataclysm continue to grow. The intensifying sense of being caught up in a genuinely dangerous collective struggle for survival suggests to me that we are deep in the BPM III phase of Grof’s model of transformation.

When might we expect to experience BPM IV, the moment of (re-)birth?

I’ve already mentioned the significance of the five slow moving planets changing signs between November 2024 and July 2025, the Saturn-Neptune conjunction at zero degrees of Aries in 2026, and the favorable Minor Triangle aspect pattern between the outer planets pointing to an imminent historic shift, comparable to a BPM IV-like birth moment. 

Between now and then, it appears that we face a period of momentous drama and intensity. The north node of the Moon, which sets our overall evolutionary direction for about a one and a half year period, entered the warrior sign of Aries in July this year, and will stay there until January 2025. During this time, the collective mood will tend to be combative and confrontational. It will be a time when moral lines will be drawn and stands taken. Decisive leadership and acts of physical and moral courage will be favored, whereas vacillating weakness and tepid ’both-sidesism’ will tend to be seen as an inadequate response to the moment.²

When we consider this generally combative mood alongside the titanic power of Pluto moving back and forth between the first degrees of Aquarius and final degrees of Capricorn, the passage immediately ahead appears to involve an extraordinarily intense shake-down of any Piscean Age structures that cannot adapt to the new Aquarian template coming in. It seems that, as we approach the great shift of 2025/2026, the evolutionary power of change is forcing to the surface many ancient conflicts and cultural divisions for a decisive confrontation, the outcome of which will determine the fundamental shape of the coming age. Yet without in any way minimizing the tragic cost of this process on the human level and the ethical challenge it poses to each and every one of us, I think it’s crucial to understand that even this fiery passage can be seen from a larger perspective as a Kali-like purge that is preparing the ground for the birth of the new era.

Furthermore, the signs suggest that this intense conflagration will not lead to a protracted conflict, but may resolve surprisingly quickly. 

As early as January next year, when Pluto moves into Aquarius, we will experience a distinct shift in mood. With Pluto in Aquarius, the atmosphere will tend to become more future-oriented – lighter, quicker, more dynamic. Our attention will start to be drawn forward much more toward the possibilities of the new.

Then on April 20, 2024, Jupiter and Uranus meet in a conjunction at 21 degrees of Taurus. 

When Jupiter, the principle of expansion, growth, and optimism meets Uranus, the principle of innovation, rebellion, and freedom, we typically encounter periods of dramatic cultural and political awakening and exciting scientific, artistic, and technological breakthroughs. For example, the critical events that launched both the American War of Independence and the French Revolution took place during Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions. Technological leaps during Jupiter-Uranus alignments include the invention of the telegraph, the invention of the electric lightbulb, the first radio broadcast, first sound motion picture, first television transmission, and the first Internet transmission (among many other examples).  

To me it seems very likely that the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in the first six months of 2024 will be when we will see major quantum leaps in AI and other innovative technologies. And even though there is currently very well-justified concern about the dangers of AI, I suspect that, due to the influence of Jupiter-Uranus, at least some of these breakthroughs will be met with a sense of unexpected positivity. It would not surprise me, for instance, if a technological advance occurred that seemed like a liberating ‘game-changer’ for humanity. 

Every archetypal complex has its shadow. 

The combination of Jupiter’s propensity for grandiosity and inflation and Uranus’s excitability is potentially explosive. It could manifest as reckless and impulsive risk-taking which, in the current climate, could be very dangerous. We could see a sudden onslaught of technological innovation to the point of excess, an impulsive embrace of new technologies without sufficiently considering their long-term implications, and/or irresponsible social and political urges for freedom at any cost (among many other possibilities).

Yet there is no other archetypal complex more suggestive of the BPM IV moment of birth – ‘’the sense of sudden, unexpected release from an all-or-nothing struggle for survival” – than Jupiter-Uranus. I think, therefore, that during the first six months of 2024 we could experience some kind of striking social, technological, and/or political breakthrough that catalyzes an extraordinary process of change that will effectively carry us into the new era.

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In all honesty, on a human level, I find the ferocity of primal aggression that has been unleashed on the world stage to be frightening. I find myself feeling wary of sticking my head out in the line of fire, yet also called to take a stand for what I believe to be true. At times, I’m aware of a primal anger rising from within the depths of my own psyche in response to the naked aggression on display in the world. At other times I feel a deep sadness to sense humanity seeming to be pulled inexorably toward war.

Yet in my heart of hearts, I believe that we are approaching a profound systemic phase change and that even this intensely painful passage can be seen as a necessary stage of that process. I think we are about to experience a form of the death-rebirth mystery on an unprecedented collective level. We each will have to live this process fully, as individual human beings, with all our reactions, doubts, despair, and struggle. But even, or especially, in this dark hour, we would do well to remember that the devastatingly destructive force of death is inextricably linked to the miraculous power of birth.

1. See Robert Fitzgerald’s research in Signs of the Times.

2. Having said that, the ultimate purpose of this transit is to break apart relationships and alliances based on unhealthy compromise, and reform new ones based on higher order win-win dynamics.