Five years ago, the main celestial event that was on the lips of every astrologer was the May 28 2000 conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Taurus. Today, rarely anyone mentions it any more, although it is that very conjunction of the two Great Chronocrators that signals the main theme for the subsequent twenty years. The traditional approach to mundane astrology always used the chart for the latest Jupiter/Saturn conjunction as a starting point for predicting the course of events for a nation.

Of course, planetary placements by sign and their aspects at the moment of the conjunction are the same for all the countries of the world. But, the house placement will differ from country to country. Traditional rules state that the upcoming 20-year cycle which the conjunction signals will be particularly felt and focused in those places on Earth where the conjunction is angular. So, let's take a brief look at an astrolocality map to establish those places:

Astrolocality Map for the Jupiter Saturn Conjunction, May 28, 2000

• Jupiter/Saturn on ASC: Atlantic Ocean


• Jupiter/Saturn on MC: USA, Canada, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru


• Jupiter/Saturn on DESC: Chad, Congo, Cameroon, Libya, Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia


• Jupiter/Saturn on IC: Mongolia, China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia

It is simply impossible to analyze all of these places in a short article. A much better approach is to choose one of the places emphasized by this chart, and study it further. Given the choice of the above places, and keeping in mind the events that unfolded in the first five years after this conjunction, the USA seems like an interesting example.

The angles are the main points of interest in this chart, because, as already mentioned, they are specific for a certain place alone. There is the potential for the chart cast for the capital of the USA to be activated when any of the angles are activated. But, before venturing into the times to come, let's first see how this chart compares to the USA birth chart, and try to establish the most probable area of national life that will be brought into focus by this conjunction.

The Washington, DC angles from the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction chart make two strong contacts with the USA natal chart. Those contacts are with the USA 6th house cusp and Moon (the conjunction chart's MC, Jupiter and Saturn conjoin the USA 6th house cusp; and the Desc conjoins the USA Moon). And, if we take the most important points from the USA chart, the lights or luminaries (Sun and Moon) and the angles, we see even tighter relationships between these charts; the USA IC is conjunct the Moon of the Ju/Sa conjunction chart; and USA Desc falls on the Sun (and exactly on the Sun/Mars midpoint) of the Ju/Sa conjunction chart. To summarize:

Ju/Sa Conjunction Chart		USA Independence Chart
Points/Planets	Degrees	Degrees	Points/Planets
ASC/DESC	28 Leo/Aquarius	27 Aquarius	Moon
MI/IC/Saturn/Jupiter	22 Taurus	22 Taurus	6th house cusp
Moon	3 Aries	1 Libra/Aries	MC/IC
Sun Sun/Mars midpoint	7 Gemini 12 Gemini	12 Sagittarius/Gemini	ASC/DESC
		13 Cancer	Sun

The fact that this list has the angles and luminaries emphasized does tell us that the events to unfold will be of great importance for the people of the country (Moon) and its leadership (Sun).

Besides these points, we only have the 6th house cusp as a pointer of the possible nature of events. In traditional astrology, the 6th house is one of the three houses in the chart that are considered "bad", so having it emphasized in this way is not good news. The two other "bad" houses are 8th, the house of death, and 12th, the house of self-undoing. The 6th house represents all the bad things that happen to us without our own doing; it's the nasty things from outside of us that are inflicted on us. And it's a Mars type of affliction, since this is the house where, traditionally, Mars like to be -- it's the house of its joy. To quote astrologer John Frawley, "This is the sword turned against us. But, this is also the sword we can pick up and use in the fight against all the nastiness in the world around us." The sixth house is also the house of servants and service. Since the military is one way for people to serve their country, in a national chart we look to the sixth house to describe the armed services.

Let's refer back to the above table. Whenever something of major importance happens, we'd expect to see these degrees emphasized. To confirm this, let's quickly check the chart for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center:

In the WTC chart,

• Early cardinal degrees: Nodes at 3 Cancer/Capricorn and Mars at 1 Capricorn
• Mid-cardinal degrees: Asc/Desc at 14 Libra/Aries, Mercury at 14 Libra, Jupiter at 12 Cancer
• Mid-mutable degrees: Saturn at 15 Gemini, Sun at 18 Virgo

Note that Mars and the nodal axis in the WTC chart are making square aspects to the Ju/Sa conjunction Moon and the USA natal MC/IC axis.

Mundane astrology also relies heavily on ingress charts. These charts are made for the ingress of the Sun into the cardinal signs, which marks the beginning of each season, and they are of the utmost importance. The Aries ingress especially gives the flavor for the whole year ahead from one spring to the next.

On the next page are the four cardinal ingress charts for 2001. Note that the Ascendant degree of the Apries ingress for Washington, DC is at 22 Taurus, the Ascendant degree of the Cancer ingress is at 26 Taurus, and the Ascendant degree of the Capricorn ingress is at 22 Taurus. Thus, in three out of four ingress charts for 2001, 22 degrees of Taurus -- the degree of the Great Conjunction -- is emphasized.

The fourth chart, the 2001 Libra ingress, lacks any emphasis on these fixed degrees, but it has all four angles within the first 3 cardinal degrees (again emphasizing the Mars of the WTC chart, the Moon of the Ju/Sa conjunction chart, and the MC/IC of the USA chart). A very close Moon/Saturn opposition across the mid-mutable degrees in the Libra ingress chart clearly confirms that this period of the year is very important.

But that's past. Let's move on into the future and see what's in store for this year, or, more exactly, for the rest of this year.

Looking at the 2005 Aries ingress above, we have a Mercury/Jupiter opposition at the mid-cardinal degrees. Of course, every Aries ingress cast for this date for any place on earth will have this opposition, but what makes this important for the USA is the fact that the Washington MC/IC axis falls directly in square to it. Therefore, if the Aries ingress gives the flavor for the whole year, then for the USA this Aries ingress obviously shouts "Important!" for the period from spring 2005 through spring 2006.

Of the remaining three ingresses, only the Libra ingress seems to have many of the sensitive degrees emphasized:

• Early cardinal degrees: Mercury at 4 Libra
• Mid-cardinal degrees: Nodes at 14 Libra/Aries
• Fixed degrees: Mars at 23 Taurus
• Mid-mutable degrees: Asc/Desc at 14 Pisces/Virgo

This clearly tell us that we should investigate this period further. Now, what we do next is investigate various other mundane charts that we have at our disposal. Eclipses are of prime importance, of course, and we have an interesting eclipse less than two weeks after the Libra ingress:

In this October 3 eclipse chart:

• All four angles fall in early cardinal degrees, emphasizing both the Moon in the Ju/Sa conjunction chart and the MC/IC in the USA chart.


• The eclipse itself is close enough to activate the mid-cardinal degrees, plus, of course, the Nodes didn't move too far from where they were during the Libra ingress.


• There's no activation of mutable degrees, but there is this Venus/Mars opposition across the sensitive fixed degrees. And this is stationary Mars -- it turned retrograde just 2 days previously, and it did so less than a degree away from the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction of 2000.


• This Venus/Mars opposition has even more importance because Venus is the ruler of Libra, the sign in which the eclipse happens.

Lunations are a yet smaller cycle at our disposal. Charts made for each New and Full Moon will help us divide a 3-month long season into 14-day chunks. Investigating all the New and Full Moon charts for this period, I concluded that the November Full Moon chart is of the most interest:

In the November 15 Full Moon chart for Washington, DC,

• The Asc/Desc axis falls within orb of the mid-cardinal sensitive degrees. The fact that this axis also squares the Solar Eclipse degree adds to its importance.


• The Full Moon axis falls across the sensitive fixed degrees, including the degree of the October 1 retrograde station of Mars at 23 Taurus.


• The ruler of the Lunation is the planet that is the dispositor of the sign in which the Luminary which is above the horizon falls. Here, we have the Moon above the horizon, and it falls in Taurus, so the Lunation ruler is Venus. We find it on the Descendant, activating sensitive cardinal degrees, and squaring the eclipse degree.


• And, finally, even mutable degrees are activated by Mercury's position at 10 Sagittarius.

What can be concluded based on this?

Heavy emphasis on 23 Taurus stimulates 6th house issues in the Independence USA chart. As mentioned, this is not a pleasant house, and it also rules the military service. Now, Mars turning retrograde on this very degree suggests, in the most literal sense, "army retreating". US officials keep telling us that there will be no army withdrawal from Iraq before spring 2006. In early February 2006, Mars will cross this degree once again in its direct motion, and that might well be the trigger for the start of troop withdrawal from Iraq. Yet, we cannot overlook the importance of the stationary Mars retrograde station on October 1, 2005. So, I would be inclined to think that this fall we can expect some serious movement of the US army. While it may not be a retreat from Iraq, it is possible that there would be deployment of troops to another place, or a major re-arranging of troops. There may be a shift of troops from one area of Iraq to Afghanistan, or something of that nature. It does appear that for the US military there will be some kind of significant movement.

And, as already mentioned, the 6th house is the house of all the nasty things that the world inflicts on us, so we also have a potential for violence. It can be the sword turned against the US. Or, maybe the US will pick up the sword against another country.

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Copyright © 2005 Branka Stamenkovic. All rights reserved.
All maps and charts generated by Solar Fire 6 Deluxe Edition.

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