Dear Friend and Reader:

Events the next week will reveal the direction of events to come. The vernal equinox, that is, the Sun’s arrival in Aries, takes place late Thursday in the United States and early Friday in the U.K., Europe and Asia.

As we move through the remainder of the year, the equinoxes and solstices are extraordinarily powerful — even more so than usual — owing to the events that happen concurrently with them. We reach a potential point of resolution, which is likely to manifest as some form of social transformation. This is depicted by Jupiter conjunct Saturn in the first degree of Aquarius.

Meanwhile, plenty happens over the course of the next week or so, with another major peak coming on April 4 when Jupiter makes its first of three conjunctions to Pluto.

How Freaky This All Is

But first, a word about how freaky this all is. As of last week, much of American and European society is postponed indefinitely, closed or canceled. Some places, preparation is on the level of what you might expect for a civil defense event such as World War III, as Andrew McLuhan has observed.

People are panicked, and in some places fighting over toilet paper, while stocking up on junk food. (I guess they’ll need the TP in that case.) Many have no concept how to prepare for time away from normal availability of provisions. They’ve never even gone camping. Heck, many people don’t know how to pack a picnic. Or for that matter a bag lunch.

Other places, such as the Planet Waves research facility located in a barn in Tidewater, Oregon, are ready to live off the grid for weeks, because the power goes out for that long on a regular basis. Our bureau chief there is grinding cornmeal as I write.

However, many businesses around the world, large and small, are already feeling the impact of the panic, which is going to affect nearly everyone in some way. Many people are already living paycheck to paycheck (if they have one) and cannot afford to prep. If you are in a position to, please help at least one other person get ready for possible supply line interruptions.

Much of the legitimate fear about this problem is associated with the low capacity of our medical system in the United States. It’s usually running at or close to maximum, and now we’re talking about adding some unknown increase in demand, of potentially very sick patients. Meanwhile, the U.S. has not been friendly to scientists, and is not prepared for even regional emergencies, like a hurricane, which happen regularly.

So let’s see: the National Guard has been sent into New Rochelle, NY, a town with more than half of the state’s coronavirus cases. Are they all wearing biohazard gear?

What We Don’t Know

There is a lot we don’t know, including how this is going to play out, and whether the preparations being made most places will have an effect of flattening the epidemic’s growth curve somewhat. We don’t know if there was some extenuating factor in Wuhan. Was there some factor that was responsible for lowering immunity? Did this stuff escape from a lab, and have a concentrated impact?

There is in fact a virology laboratory in Wuhan that researches coronaviruses and SARS. I just read about that in The Wall Street Journal, my new favorite newspaper, in a March 5 article.

The institute “contributed to China’s fast identification earlier this year of the outbreak’s source as a novel, or previously unknown, coronavirus.” It’s called the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That sounds like a fun campus to visit, drop by the bookstore and pick up a teeshirt. Now for the spin. Get ready.

Ready?

The newspaper said in a March 5 article: “The institute’s location at ground zero of the most infectious epidemic in China’s modern history has also made it a target for peddlers of alternate theories that humans first contracted the virus as the result of an accident of some kind at the laboratory. Leading scientists in China and internationally have dismissed such views, saying that the virus likely originated in wildlife, perhaps bats, before spreading to humans, possibly through a food market in Wuhan.”

Oh really. So, it was purely a coincidence.

There is a biohazard level 4 (the highest) SARS and coronavirus facility in Wuhan, where scientists handling glass vials full of plague pathogens waddle around trapped in body-shaped balloons with air hoses, but the virus exploded in that very city first because someone ate a bat for lunch. Or maybe a bat, we don’t know. Maybe it was a lizard who ate the wrong kind of caterpillar.

Peddlers of alternate theories? Are you effing kidding me? You mean nothing ever goes wrong at labs, or in nuclear power plants, or chemical manufacturing facilities? Thank you, I am SO reassured.

How about askers of perfectly obvious questions? If it did escape from the lab, that could have two positive benefits: maybe that’s why it was so intense in Wuhan, and maybe they have the antidote. Of course they could not say they have the antidote because that would be a huge clue that it escaped from the lab. Or maybe it would be another coincidence.

Meanwhile, life continues as normal some places. My father just called me asking how to change the battery on his guitar tuner, which is all around a good thing. His wife Yael, who is Israeli, added that she got an email (in Hebrew) that said, “I haven’t received an email about the virus in the past three minutes. I think everyone except me is dead.”

The Astrology Surrounding the Equinox

The season changes Thursday, March 19, at 11:49:33 pm EDT. The Sun enters Aries, making a conjunction to the Aries Point (the first degree of the zodiac). This is an amplification point, and an intersection of the individual and the collective (which gets busier every hour). This is likely to come with an escalation and acceleration of the virus issue.

That is what the Aries Point does. Note that there will be an annular solar eclipse on June 21 in the first degree of Cancer, which is being activated by the Sun’s entry into Aries on Thursday. The equinox also activates the Dec. 21 conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on the Capricorn solstice, so we may see a microcosm of the rest of the year played out this week.

The important thing about the Sun in Aries is that it lights up the nodal axis, now in early Cancer-Capricorn, which is itself loaded by Chiron, Salacia, Pholus and Quaoar. Put simply, a lot of energy is about to move.

The other major event connected with the equinox is Saturn entering Aquarius, its other sign of rulership, for the first time in about 29 years. I could go on about details of the astrology but I want to end with a commentary about this, in particular.

Aquarius is about to become the center of focus. Yes, for a long time it’s been Aries and Capricorn, and we’re still not done with that — in fact we’re about to see what it’s all about as the Sun enters Aries. However, over the next three years, Aquarius will be increasingly the focus, and that begins this week, when Saturn enters it.

Aquarius is the sign of groups, of social patterns, of inventions and (correspondingly) of technology. As I suggested on Thursday, we must take current events as an opportunity to make a better world. That means getting together, forming useful social patterns, and using our technology in clever, positive and inventive ways.

We need to cooperate. We need to work together. We need to understand leadership, coordination, collaboration, and the sharing of vital information.

That is Saturn in Aquarius.

With love,