The last decan of Sagittarius is the most stable of the three, and “steadies the adventure” while showing us the way to spread the word, or hear the word that’s being spread. We are at the end of the harvest time, “gathering our medicine” we we begin to celebrate the impending “return of the Light” after the Solstice. This continues to be an intensely transformational period, and this time offers us a chance to enjoy life, see the potential, let go of obsolete rules, structures, and assumptions, making time our ally as we approach the threshold of a new 20 year and 200 year era.

Our year of “tag team retrogrades” have helped us to a new view of just about everything. We had periods to rethink, review, rehearse, rework, and re-plan areas ruled by Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto in May and June as a prelude to the intense squares and oppositions dominating July, August, September and October generated by Cancer transits and Mars making multiple squares to the Capricorn stellium. We’re now done with the challenges of 2020, and face the future which holds a huge Aquarian promise to us all!

The Capricorn Compressions Are Over and Aquarius Compressions Coming!

This is the fulfillment, renewal, and mutation of many things promised by the many conjunctions in Capricorn last January and March. As I explained in the main article on The Great Compressions of Early 2020, 2021, and 2022, in January through March we experienced the second of four consecutive compressions of planets. The first was In early 2019 when all the planets were bundled in about one third of the sky. Throughout 2019 they expanded into half and then two thirds of the sky, creating a Bowl and then Locomotive Jones pattern, with the Moon adjusting the pattern based in its position.

We again contracted into a Bowl in January 2020 while hitting maximum compression in March which created a Bundle chart, the rarest pattern of all! While the inner planets have all traveled outside the Bundle since May, they now approach the Bundle again, with maximum compression coming in January 2021 when all of the planets will be within a 101 degree span, creating a very intense zone of activity wherever we have late Capricorn through early Taurus.

Depending on the position of the Moon and the inner planets relative to the outer planets, different months bring us different Jones Patterns. These patterns operate their own independent influence, regardless of which planet is in which sign.

Currently, the outer planet occupied span begins with Pluto, Jupiter, and Saturn in late Capricorn, and proceeds through Neptune in Pisces, Mars in Aries, and ends with Uranus in Taurus. Now that the inner planets are in between late Scorpio and late Sagittarius, they’re closing in again on the outer planet span, while Mars remains within the occupied span through January 2021.

So given the positions, the planets are spread out in half the sectors in a somewhat symmetrical distribution. With all the outer planets in a span of 103+ degrees, less than a third of the sky (excluding TransPluto, since Jones didn’t use it in defining his patterns), it means that since early May the Jones pattern in the sky is primarily influenced by the position of the inner planets, which has shifted the pattern continuously between June and now. In this chart, the Lunation, Mercury and Venus are in a waning relationship to the Capricorn group, with only one unoccupied sign between Scorpio and Taurus, creating a hemispheric layout of a Bowl pattern.

So What is a “Bowl Pattern” and how does it work?

This type of spread, with all the planets occupying approximately half of the signs with an empty half opposite the occupies half, creates a “special type of conscious selfhood,” which Dr. Jones says “marks the Bowl type of temperament. He goes on to state “Fundamentally it is an extreme self-containment,” which “holds things, and a Bowl individual is one who always has something to bear.”

He goes on to state that with the Bowl, “the whole dynamic of man, his total power of achievement, arises in his instinctive realization that he is set off against a definite part of the world, that there is a complete segment of experience from which he is excluded in some subtle fashion. The Bowl not only holds something, but also places whatever it holds into relationship with a larger consideration.”

Dr. Jones continues that “the occupied segment of the Bowl horoscope reveals the activity and organization of the self, since planets are significant according to their place by sign and house, and the unoccupied segment becomes a challenge to existence, or the need and emptiness to which the native must direct his attention. The outstanding characteristic of the Bowl temperament is its marked sense of what is self-contained in contrast with what the self cannot hold, and this take an everyday form in an advocacy of some cause, the furtherance of a mission, an introspective concern over the purpose of experience.”

He concludes his explanation of how the pattern works with “The Bowl native always has something to give to his fellows, whether literally or psychologically, whether constructively or vindictively, because his orientation to the world arises from division; that is, frustration and uncertainty. The leading planets, determined in exactly the same way as for the Locomotive pattern, give a point of application, and shows where and how the native seeks to carry out his mission or gain his everyday justification for existence.”

He brings up another important point of analysis, as he states “the leading planet is of secondary importance in the Bowl pattern, unless it is found in a strong opposition or cosmic cross. The fundamental attack on the problems of life by the Bowl individual is indicated more significantly by the tilt or house-position of the Bowl-segment.”

He concludes this section by stating “the Bowl character is definitely more self-expending, or self-seeking, and more practically interested in what things mean and what they are. It continually throws the emphasis from the signs into the houses. It a general way the Bowl tends to ‘scoop up’ things and initiate experience when the position of the leading planet ranges from the fourth cusp, up and over the ascendant, to the midheaven cusp, and then inclines to “capture” things or consummate various phases of life when the leading planet is placed similarly from the tenth angle down over the descendant to the nadir.”

Venus in Scorpio is the leading planet, and thus the entry to the entire pattern. So we lead with the productive and regenerative magnetic “interventions” promised by Venus at 29 Scorpio sextile Jupiter and Saturn, and close the pattern with the revolutionizing Uranus in Taurus showing us how to “use knowledge and skill to anticipate events to come.” We lead experience by eliminating our blocks and allowing Spirit to adjust how the structures of the Capricorn stellium will express in 2021 as an Aquarius field of energy.

The Outer Planets Anchor the Pattern of A Third of the Sky

Because Jupiter has been approaching the outer planet span for several years, it has played a major part in how we entered life experience. It's why sometimes these past few years have seemed like a wild ride, an adventure, a quest, and more! With willingness, power, vision, and greater possibilities to contribute to a greater future good, we are now in the midst of a Cosmic “judgment day,” and must choose how we will express ourselves in our world, for better or worse. This has prepared us for the forceful awakening happening now, with the great mobilization happening.

In 2020 Jupiter entered the outer planet occupied span, and will be there for several years. This year it made multiple conjunctions with Pluto, expanding and purifying that powerful energy wherever we have late Capricorn in our charts. Now that Jupiter made its third conjunction with Pluto, Pluto again leads the outer planet occupied span for decades to come as that occupied span opens up after Jupiter conjuncts Uranus and moves into Gemini in 2024.

As you know from previous posts, the BIG NEWS is we have a “Grand Mutation” Jupiter conjunction with Saturn on the December 21 Solstice at 1 Aquarius, launching us into a new 20 year and 200 year era! Depending on how your organized, reorganized, or restructured your life in 2020, you’ve prepared to find power flowing to you and from you as we all move into a vaster tide of evolution related to long term wave forms related to Aquarius set into motion in April 2020.

Though the outer planets expanded to a wide spread these past 20+ years since the last Saturn conjunct Uranus, the outers are now compressing. Both Jupiter and Saturn already made their karmic rendezvous with Pluto, with Jupiter having just finished its third conjunction while on its way to the historic conjunction to come with Saturn. The great Compressions each year for the next 2 years will create a several month set of “Bundle” patterns, since at times the planets will all be within a 120 degree span as they were in January, February, and March 2020. Because Mars will not conjunct Uranus until January 2021, it too will remain inside the outer planet span for the next month.

In this Solar Eclipse New Moon, we have three intense occupied spans. The first is the Lunation plus Mercury between 21-24 Sagittarius, the second is Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto all within a 5+ degree span at the end of Capricorn, and the third is Mars at 21 Aries and Uranus at 8 Taurus, affecting all planets in the late degrees of the Cardinal signs and early Fixed signs. This month the inner planets are concentrated, with Venus at 29 Scorpio, Mercury at 21 Sagittarius, and the Lunation at 24 Sagittarius, giving that 24+ degree span the primary personal focus. That makes these sectors very highly active these next 4 weeks (and to some degree, the next 5+ years!).

The Sabian Symbol for the New Moon Solar Eclipse

A New Moon sets the seed forms for what the following month will demonstrate. This Lunation falls at 24 Sagittarius, and it is said that the last third decan) of any sign deals with the individual, mental, and spiritual levels of life, and being the third decan of Sagittarius it has a sub-influence of Leo with an added dose of Saturn. While I've given you a sense of this degree up to now, this is where we go into depth.

The Sabian Symbol we’ve been given for the 24th degree of Sagittarius is "A bluebird standing at the door of the house.” In the original notes from the Marc Jones class on the symbols published in The Astrology of Personality, Rudhyar says this degree is one of “the blessings bestowed upon all those who are true to themselves,” “unexpected assistance,” “happiness,” and “sheer good fortune.”

In his Astrological Mandala, he offers that this degree offers us “the reward which meets every effort at integration into a social environment for those who remain true to their own selves.” He says the bluebird is a symbol of happiness and “a spiritually oriented mind.” Houses are both symbols of our personality, as well as structures which are part of a community.

He continues “the implication is that its inhabitants are well-adapted, either to the life of the community, or to their … togetherness.” He says that this is a technique for “successful living” where we develop “a consciousness in which peace and happiness dwell.” The offers “there is also a hint that good fortune is going to bless your life,” and states this degree this degree falls in the Span of Detachment in the Act of Group-Integration, and is the technical degree on the emotional-social level of the Scene of Transference.

Dr. Jones says this degree is about “the persisting imminence of real rewards in experience,” and our need “to see and welcome them.” He speaks of “the need for a conscious worthiness of selfhood as the foundation for any self-fulfillment” and our need to capitalize “on the opportunities to be found in everyday reality.”

He offers “there must be a creative alertness to the signs and portents by which the world speaks to (us), or else all personality is lost in an eventual nonentity.” He offers us the keyword FORTUNE, and states when operating in a positive manner, this degree is one of “radiant good will and an ingratiating proficiency of self-interest.”

From this symbol we see that the theme of the next month (and wherever this degree falls, the next 5+ years), involves themes related to happiness, social and emotional integration, and techniques of transferring something. Even though Eclipses take things away, I suspect that all things considered, this being a degree of rewards, happiness, “radiant good will and an ingratiating proficiency of self-interest,” and “good fortune,” I can’t see how it will turn out badly. Again, I am reminded of an old phrase in the I Ching, “sometimes one is enriched through unfortunate events,” where things which are usually unfortunate turn out to the benefit of someone involved.

I believe this Eclipse is a blessing to cultivate happiness! Be true to yourself while experiencing your connection with others, especially your spiritual group. Welcome experience and the rewards it brings, or take a look back at those times you welcomed new experiences and received rewards! Be alert to the signs and signals life will send, and reap “good fortune” by generating “radiant good will” which finds recognition in the service you do.

Important Aspects

Remember that in reading a Lunation chart (as well as a horary, inceptional, electional, or any event chart) the forming aspects show things to come, while separating aspects show things already past. Partile separating aspects show what’s been going on in the Now. This section covers only forming and partile separating aspects.

We’re done with our run of transit to transit oppositions except for when the Moon is outside the occupied span. We’ve now experienced the oppositional energies of the Cancer, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio transits. Of course those with planets in late Cancer, mid-Virgo late Libra, and early Scorpio have already been dealing with oppositions due to the outer planets, which will continue for some time to come. Once Jupiter and Saturn enter Aquarius, they usher in the numerous oppositions to planets in Leo throughout 2021 and 2022. Coming weeks will continue the oppositions to natal planets we may have in the signs above, as well as Gemini.

This Lunation features some very productive aspects promising great happiness to those who are willing to integrate their energies, and two powerful evolutionary configurations! This month we have almost no friction with sextiles deciles and binoviles The major aspects are the Lunation decile Jupiter and Saturn; Mercury trine Mars, novile Jupiter and Saturn, and square Neptune; Venus sextile Jupiter and Saturn, tredecile Neptune and septile Pluto; Mars is binovile Jupiter and Saturn and square Pluto; Jupiter conjunct Saturn; and Uranus biseptile Pluto activating the Grand Irrationality via Venus.

Besides these, other aspects include the Sun and Moon conjunct Mercury, quindecile Venus, sesquisquare Uranus and semisextile Pluto; Mercury is sesquisquare Uranus and elftile Pluto; Venus quadranovile Uranus; and Mars is elftile Neptune.

Outer planet aspects include Jupiter trielftile Uranus; Saturn is trielftile Uranus and semisquare Neptune; and Uranus is back to a semisquare with Neptune, again anchoring a potential “Rhombus Diamond” with its “cutting, grinding, and polishing” quality triggered every time there’s an Octile series aspect made to either of these spiritual powerhouses.

Special Configurations in Evolutionary Astrology

This month there are two evolutionary configurations directly in play. The first involves Mercury trine Mars and novile Jupiter and Saturn, with Mars binovile Jupiter and Saturn. That sets up a powerful 9th harmonic spiritual configuration which will yield tremendous insights. Either something that’s been gestating will finally yield revelations, or some things need to gestate before the next revelation can come. This triggers “realization zones” around 1-2 Libra, Aquarius, and Gemini, 8-12 of Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, 18-22 of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, and 28-30 of Capricorn, Taurus, and Virgo. If you have a planet in any of these zones, spiritual revelations are on the way!

The second configuration is The Grand Irrationality with Venus triggering it through its septile to Pluto, even though it’s quadranovile Uranus. This lights up three points of the seven pointed Star of Destiny represented by the Uranian/Plutonian pulses of the Grand Irrationality V.2.

This configuration will bring major future oriented choices and changes to those with planets or points near 22-26 Capricorn, 14-18 Pisces, 6-10 Taurus, 27 Gemini-1 Cancer, 18-22 Leo, 10-14 Libra, and 1-5 Sagittarius. If you have something in one or more of these zones, you’ve been making crucial long term choices all year about how you want to position yourself within a greater collective work.

Explaining Harmonics

As I mentioned, this month is a mix of relatively minor friction, with a lot of harmony, and complex spiritual energy. There are a lot of specializing aspects, with 2 quindeciles and 4 deciles. Spiritual aspects include 2 noviles, 2 binoviles and 1 quadranovile , showing many things either need to be put on the shelf for a while, or that which has been gestating can now move forward. If you want to know more about this important “spiritual gestation” series which mark points of potential spiritual realization and integration, there are several articles in the archives.

This month we have 2 elftiles and 2 trielftiles, and in the nonrational septile series, we have 1 septile and 1 biseptile. The former indicate that faith is required to deal with some dualities, and the latter indicate the “follow up choices and changes” to prior forks in the road of destiny.

The novile (9th harmonic), septile (7th harmonic) and elftile (11th harmonic) series all feature spiritual aspects. All novile series aspects represent gestative energies that can lead to great spiritual realizations. Septile series aspects represent forks in the road of destiny, while the elftile series aspects represent issues and points of evolution where we confront the need to resolve some sort of duality by making a leap of faith to attain a form of mastery over that type of duality. This series tests our faith.

The quintile and biquintile (5th harmonic) and related 10th (decile and tredecile), 15th (quindecile), and 20th harmonic (vigintile) aspects are all specialization aspects. You can find more by going to Astrology Class on the Specializing Aspects Pt. 1 – The Quintile and Biquintile, and Astrology Class on the Specializing Aspects Part 2 – The Decile, Tredecile, Quindecile and the Vigintile.

You can find out more about the spiritual aspects (septile, novile, and elftile series) by referencing this brief overview of the Spiritual aspects, complete with glyphs for all of them.

Element Balance and Who’s Leading the Sun

This month we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 6 signs in a very imbalanced element distribution. We have 4 planets in Fire (inspiration and warmth), 4 planets in Earth (practical grounding, 2 in Water (feelings and experiencing), and none in Air (relatedness and communicating). This month we have Scorpio, Sag, Capricorn, Pisces, Aries, and Taurus represented, with no planet in the other signs.

Air and Earth are “cool” elements, while Fire and Water are “hot” elements. With this distribution, we are almost balanced with slightly more heat than cold. Still, we have less of the “lightness” of Fire and Air and slightly more of the “heaviness” of Earth and Water. This of course will shift in a huge way over the next few weeks, with a lot more Earth and Air on the way!

Because the New Moon falls in late Sagittarius, Venus at 29 Scorpio is the planet currently leading the Sun. That means “the Gateway to the Light” involves Venus, the planet of relatedness and value as the way to approach the Greater Light. Venus is in its “exile” in Scorpio, but still very powerful due to Scorpio being the second house from Libra. Again, given its degree, Venus is very powerful as a mediating and moderating force. Just hang in there, and if you have to say goodbye to someone or something, it will help you see where you fit in and what you need or don’t need.

The current sequence at present of Deciding, Feeling, and Thinking

We’ve been through several different sequences over the past few months. There are six patterns, and each has their strengths and weaknesses. As a process of moving through events, this New Moon continues last month’s pattern, showing that over the next 4 weeks the most effective “firing sequence” for approaching life and experience involves leading with our feelings, then thinking, and then deciding.

This pattern leads with feelings, and then searches for information to confirm or deny those hunches. With Mercury in Sagittarius, it may be tempting to jump on your horse and ride in 6 directions at once, but be clear about your vision of where you’re going before riding off in all directions. After you’ve allowed your feelings to move you into a search for meaning, information, or a vision, then reduce everything to a simple fact based on which you can make a clear and simple decision you can act on.

Those with deciding/doing at the end of their pattern always need to remember they are on a journey of ten thousand decisions which allow them to take it one step at a time. So during this time period, open to a deeper feeling-knowing, but strive for objectivity and a new view or understanding of whatever presents itself. Then when you’ve considered the information or vision from enough angles, make your decision and take the single step to move everything forward that one step.

So when you are moved by a feeling or experience, it will naturally lead to a quest for new information or a new vision or understanding. Once we get the view or understanding we need, then make your decision and act accordingly. You will find a new feeling-experience naturally arises after the decision and/or action, which will naturally lead to a quest for even more information or understanding.

Summing Up

This Total Eclipse New Moon in Sag shows us the dawning of a new day! We continue to reap rewards for having paid our dues or redeeming something we’ve been working on. Having entered a “ritual of divine service” in a “world of transcendent activity” and found new heart strengths in the difference in our lives now from how they were in April, we now can commit to living our truths on our own terms.

We’ve all graduated into a new realm of being this year which will open doors of opportunity beginning in January, with a huge acceleration and expansion beginning in April 2021. This Eclipse may take some things away, but what’s left will be a balanced way of being happy. If you feel called to mediate, or do prayers and meditations to interrupt or mitigate karma (to whatever degree is permitted), even if you don’t know how to do what to do then imitate a way to do it anyway!

This Eclipse brings value to all we’ve lost, and all which will be taken away. Do not clutch, and learn to dance with the swirl of inspired energies freeing us for greater things. We’ve now entered a period of living our highest inspired teachings. Scorpio continues to be good for removing what we no longer need, and in the favorable sextile to the Capricorn stellium we should have harmony, productivity, and stability in all our houses and planets in the last decan of Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces.

We approach the end of the end of a 200 year era. While we are still feeling the final effects of the Capricorn energies set loose this year, we also approach the threshold of an era unknown to humanity since the 13th and 14th centuries. Even then, we were still in the depth of the Age of Pisces, so the awakening of new ideas then were relative to the old era, whereas what’s coming involves wave after wave of Aquarian energies, pushing us to the coming Great Age emerging in the second half of this century.

Of significance is that Mars conjuncted Saturn at 1 Aquarius at the end of March, setting those archetypal Aquarian energies into active motion within the preliminary structures offered by Saturn. The promise and potential of the new Aquarian pulse will expand into a greater social and cultural vision beginning at the Jupiter conjunction with Saturn, the Grand Mutation of the Solstice also at 1 Aquarius. So we have 20 years of Aquarian energies set into motion by that conjunction!

Of note is that Mars will transit Aquarius in March and April 2022, giving a new impetus to the Aquarian structures which begin to grow in 2021. The next time Mars transits Aquarius is February and March 2024. It will conjunct Pluto at 1 Aquarius in February about 3 weeks after Pluto’s first ingress into Aquarius. That begins the Pluto in Aquarius “generation” of the 21st century which lasts until 2043. As there will be a Jupiter conjunction with Pluto at 15 Aquarius in 2033, we’ll see the “expansion of the Angels of the Age of Aquarius” at that time.

Much of what happens is directly related to the Mercury direct station at 29 Aquarius, promising us all a “graduation into a new realm of Being,” activated by Mars in mid-May. We are all actively in a long term “metamorphosis” which will open a new adventure for all of us by the Summer of 2021. And because the last two degrees of Aquarius show us what the end of the coming Age of Aquarius is about, remember you are a Being of Light, a Superstar shining the Light of your Eternal Love into your world.

The Cancer Solar Eclipse at the June Solstice helped us all turn a Cosmic Corner and move in a new direction. We’ve “lowered one flag and raised a new one” and will continue to do so for many months and years. The “Cosmic Recycler” quality of the eclipse shuts down parts of our daily life, and no doubt old connections and sentimentalities will go by the wayside. Many old needs, many old lines of supply, many things we’ve taken for granted have ended, are ending, or will end.

This Eclipse will also remove all we do not need from our Sagittarius response in the house in which it happens. Still, rather than a removal of happiness, I believe this Eclipse will remove all which blocks our happiness. I am looking forward to the restoration of more humor, more freedom, more largeness of vision, and greater truths and futures promised as old obsolete Sag forms are taken away.

Keep it simple as you further the bonds of fellowship with others who are in your spiritual community. We have entered a long term period of focusing on the fellowship between people, ridding ourselves of preconceptions and opening to a greater sense of grounded connection with our Spiritual Brothers and Sisters.

We’ve awakened to and been practicing some “special quality” in our personality to find new ways of expressing our Higher Self. We have been in training for long term group work, where we can find nourishment among those with whom we are linked on a Soul level. New groups of Spiritual communities have formed this year, and those which are Aquarian in nature will be “lifted on the wings of angels” in 2021. We are learning not to play to the generic confusion, irrationality, and misleading notions. Revolution is in the air! And when you find things and people of eternal worth, value them with all your heart.

Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend

Saturn is now completing its long stay in its home sign of Capricorn, so take one last look at the individual, mental, and spiritual level of the group work you’ve been doing for over a year. Even when Saturn re-enters Aquarius in a few days, it will continue to be the final dispositor of all planets transiting Capricorn and Aquarius from now through 2023. It was a major influence in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Eclipses, continuing its years-long power behind events.

Because Saturn plays such a large part in ruling the stage of Life for many months and even years to come, if you haven’t gotten your copy already, please give yourself the timeless gift of my book, Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend. We all need to make friends with our inner Saturn if we would claim our power to fulfill our higher purpose for being alive as Spirits in the material world.

Saturn helps us give form and structure to our quest for Self-realization. We now resume building our “organized personal structure” in Capricorn, preparing for moving into the greater Aquarian group work to concretize a spiritual ideal for the future, with an eye to the greatest good for the greatest number. We now continue our structuring and restructuring to fix our spiritual energy making our spiritual life come alive.

This book shows you the way to take command of your power to steer your life in a conscious way, using Saturn’s strengths and skills to be led to mastering life on our own terms. As Saturn is such a dominant energy at this time, by owning our ability to manifest the best of Saturn's virtues in our world, we take command of our destiny and become the living purpose we were born to make manifest!

It was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers, and will assist your understanding of how your life experiences assisted your Soul growth and power to turn away from unhelpful karmic cause and effect patterns. Each time you re-read any part of it you’re sure to find undiscovered gems of insight helping you throw off attitudes which frustrate your ability to live your higher Purpose on your own terms.