A Review of 2022’s Astrology

collage for the astrology of 2022

2022 has been a year of extremes. On the one hand, many around the world began stitching their lives back together after two years of social distancing and lockdown. In-person events resumed. Communities flocked together and experienced more “IRL” connection than they had for a long time. But on the other hand, COVID-19 variants continued to grow wilier and more contagious. Lives remained deeply impacted by this ongoing pandemic. In the US, the autonomy of people with uteri came seriously under threat. And in Iran, people of all ages and genders rebelled against the human rights abuses inflicted on them in what became the country’s largest civil rights movement since the 1979 revolution.

Yet, that’s not even the tip of the melting ice caps.

In this article, we delve into the world events that occurred in 2022 and pinpoint exactly where the year’s astrology anticipated or mirrored what unfolded.

Content warning: This article mentions white-supremacist and gender-based violence, as well as other subjects that may be distressing to read about. We will flag each of these sections as we come to them, so you can take care of yourself as needed.

Jupiter in Pisces

May 13th – July 28th, 2021
December 28th, 2021 – May 10th, 2022
October 27th/28th – December 20th, 2022

Let’s start with some good news: We began the year with Jupiter in Pisces. Jupiter is our planetary wise one and gift-giver. Known by the ancients as the “greater benefic,” it bestows abundance, fortune, and generosity. As we discussed in our 2022 Guidebooks and Year Ahead readings, Jupiter wasn’t working at full potential in 2020 and much of 2021 because it was passing through Capricorn and Aquarius (two signs where Jupiter’s gifts get restricted). Our friendly giant rules the sign of Pisces, however, which means that during the first quarter of 2022, Jupiter had maximum potential to deliver its wisdom, healing, and bounty.

So what good things did Jupiter in Pisces deliver in the past year? Let’s unpack them.

Maya Angelou became the first Black woman to be featured on the US quarter. The design depicts the writer and activist with her arms lifted against the backdrop of a soaring purple martin — a bird native to Arkansas, where she grew up. This image also pays homage to Angelou’s famous poem Caged Bird, which includes: “A free bird leaps / on the back of the wind / and floats downstream / till the current ends…” Like Angelou, Jupiter in Pisces advocates for freedom without bounds — not freedom premised upon one’s race, class, or gender identity. Angelou had Venus (the planet of art and beauty) and Mercury (the planet of communication and writing) conjunct in Pisces, so this initiative coincided with a once-in-12-year event for her natal chart: Jupiter transiting two personal planets.
523 acres of California redwood forest were transferred back to 10 Indigenous tribes in the state. The region will again be known as “Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ,” which means “fish run place” in Sinkyone. Jupiter rules giant trees like redwoods, and Pisces (“the sign of the fish”) doubly approves of this land-back decision.
The COVAX vaccination program delivered its one-billionth dose in nations that were less resourced to access the vaccine against COVID-19. As of October 2022, 68.4% of the world’s population received at least one shot. Traditionally, Jupiter rules growth and expansion, so this mass dissemination of vaccines is appropriate for our greater benefic being empowered in its home sign.
Jupiter relates to healing, as we mentioned above, and in a momentous gesture of potential healing, Moderna announced in January that the first doses of a vaccine against HIV had been administered. This marked the beginning phase of their clinical trial.
On April 1st, 55% of staff at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse voted to unionize. This decision initiated a major victory for Amazon employees, forcing the corporation to recognize the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) for the first time. It also came 11 days before Jupiter’s rare conjunction with Neptune in Pisces — a transit that has everything to do with “unions” and uniting toward a common cause.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to become the first Black woman to serve as a Justice of the US Supreme Court on April 7th. This moment occurred once Venus had left Aquarius — where the planet of love, connection, and femme folks was cornered by the two malefic planets, Mars and Saturn — and entered Pisces, where it was exalted and co-present with Jupiter, the cosmic gift-giver. In this event, Justice Jackson played the role of Venus, getting elevated (aka “exalted”) to the US Supreme Court and marking a historic and long-overdue moment for Black Americans — especially Black American women, who have systematically been excluded from institutions like the Supreme Court.

But of course, Jupiter in Pisces wasn’t the only transit that textured the astrological landscape of the year.

Saturn in Aquarius

March 21st – July 1st, 2020
December 17th, 2020 – March 7th, 2023

Just as the ancients considered Jupiter the “greater benefic,” they named a “greater malefic” too. That’s Saturn — the planet of restriction, boundaries, and discipline. Since late 2017, Saturn has resided in the signs that it rules: Capricorn (from 2017 to 2020) and Aquarius (from 2020 to 2023). As we explained in our 2022 Guidebooks and Year Ahead readings, that’s meant that we’ve been experiencing Saturn at its peak levels of constraint and isolation. But there’s a “lesser malefic” too — Mars, the planet of confrontation and war. When Mars and Saturn joined forces in Aquarius in March 2020, we experienced the first lockdowns in Europe and North America. Subsequently, every time these planets encountered each other with a hard aspect, we discovered a new variant of COVID-19 or an influx of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. This pattern continued into 2022 — but that’s not all Saturn and Mars conspired for us this year.

Content warning: War

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, just 10 days before Mars (the planet of war) entered Aquarius and began its sign-based conjunction with Saturn. The ensuing war has killed thousands, displaced millions, and triggered economic and energy crises around the world. Venus (the planet we associate with peace) also entered Aquarius on the same day as Mars, on March 5th. In the weeks that followed, as Ukrainian cities were literally “besieged” by Russian forces, Venus was sandwiched by the malefic planets, Mars and Saturn — a condition that ancient astrologers described as “enclosure,” or indeed “besiegement.”
In April, COVID-19 cases mounted in Europe and East Asia due to the highly contagious Omicron BA.2 variant. The timing of this surge coincided with the first conjunction between Mars and Saturn since March 2020, which occurred on April 4th, 2022. Later the same month, the CDC announced that COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death in the United States for the second year in a row.

The conjunction between Mars and Saturn in Aquarius on April 4th took place eight days before the union between Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces on April 12th. For context, these planets hadn’t joined together in this sign since 1856, a time that coincided with spiritualism, seances, and other forms of contacting the other side. Neptune is the planet of escape and delusion, and Jupiter brings a Miracle-Gro quality to everything it touches. So when the two come together, they inspire a collective will to dwell outside the bounds of material reality — especially if that reality feels limiting or grim. In 2022, this desire to transcend limits played out via the loosening of pandemic restrictions. Just as we clamored to tear off our masks and resume business as usual, the COVID-19 virus adapted itself to become more contagious and difficult to detect — we can thank Jupiter’s “Miracle-Gro” quality for that too. The spread of misinformation, disinformation, and denialism is another feature of Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces, which influenced the lead-up to the 2022 US midterm elections, though we’ll discuss that a bit later.

Lunar Nodes / Eclipses in Taurus and Scorpio

November 19th, 2021: Lunar eclipse in Taurus
January 18th, 2022: Lunar nodes enter Taurus and Scorpio
April 30th, 2022: Solar eclipse in Taurus
May 15th, 2022: Lunar eclipse in Scorpio

This shift officially began on November 19th, 2021 — during the first Taurus eclipse of this series — but it continued into 2022 when the nodes of the Moon entered Taurus and Scorpio. The lunar nodes are the points in space where the ecliptic (i.e., the path the Sun carves in the sky from our point of view on Earth) crosses with the Moon’s orbit. If that’s hard to visualize, don’t worry. All you need to know is that these points in space relate to the Sun and Moon’s alignment. Every time a New or Full Moon occurs near one of the lunar nodes, eclipses happen. For that reason, they were considered danger zones by the ancients.

On January 18th, the North Node of the Moon entered Taurus, an earth sign that relates to money, food production, agriculture, and the natural world. Because Taurus is ruled by the planet Venus, this sign also corresponds to traditionally “Venusian” beings and things, including beauty, sensual pleasure, women, and femmes. Now, the North Node wasn’t the only long-term guest in Taurus this year. There’s been another planet residing here since 2018: Uranus, the planet of change and disruption. In our 2022 Guidebooks and Year Ahead readings, we talked about how this combo would stir up volatility for all things related to currency, markets, supply chains, food production, and food distribution. And it has — but it has also seriously disrupted the bodily autonomy of people with traditionally “Venusian” organs, including uteri.

Exactly opposite the North Node is the South Node, which entered the sign Scorpio at the same moment the North Node entered Taurus. Scorpio is a water sign that we associate with deep emotion, mystery, and secrets. As we explored in our 2022 Guidebook and Year Ahead workshops, when the South Node is in Scorpio, it forces us to reckon with something that feels gruesome. It prompts us to confront the horrors of life, including things that feel too taboo to talk about. When eclipses are in this sign, we come face to face with the gnarliest, most repugnant sides of ourselves and the societies we live in. We’re asked to truly claim our bitterness and cruelty, lest we unleash it onto others.

Now, the first eclipse season of the year occurred between April 30th and May 15th. Let’s look at how these themes materialized.

Content warning: White-supremacist violence and mass shootings

On May 2nd, Politico leaked the US Supreme Court draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, compromising the autonomy of people with uteri.
The world monkeypox outbreak began on May 6th, when a British resident returned home from travels overseas. Note that Scorpio rules the genitals, a key region afflicted by the monkeypox rash.
The US experienced a nationwide shortage of baby formula beginning in May, after one of the main producers of American formulas had to shut down their labs due to bacterial contamination. By the middle of May, many states were experiencing 40–50% out-of-stock rates, which worsened through June and July.
The May 15th eclipse in Scorpio occurred with the Sun conjunct Algol, the fixed star symbolized by the head of Medusa. As we discussed in our 2022 Guidebooks and Year Ahead readings, Medusa’s story is one that grapples with horror, physical betrayal, and femme-led rage. These themes materialized in the US with the Roe v. Wade decision, as many experienced betrayal on the deepest of levels. Outraged, thousands of people with uteri, and their allies, took to the streets. The marches and rallies against the leaked decision to overturn Roe v. Wade peaked the weekend of the eclipse (May 14th and 15th), with 450 events taking place across the country, and 20,000 people marching in Washington DC alone.
A white supremacist terrorist mass shooting occurred in Buffalo, New York, the day before the May 15th Scorpio eclipse. Ten people were killed and three injured, all of whom were Black. The shooter was a self-proclaimed “ethno-nationalist.”
Another mass shooting occurred nine days later at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24th. An 18-year-old former student killed 19 students and two teachers and injured 17 others.
Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24th, 2022, as the Moon crossed Uranus and the North Node in Taurus. It’s also notable that when Roe v. Wade was initially adopted in 1973, Uranus was passing through Libra, the other sign ruled by Venus (the planet traditionally associated with women and people who can get pregnant).

Jupiter in Aries

May 10th – October 27th, 2022
December 20th, 2022 – May 16th, 2023

The cosmos’ benevolent helper, Jupiter, journeyed through Aries from May 10th to October 27th this year. Our 2022 Guidebooks and Year Ahead workshops discussed how Jupiter in Aries is brave, spirited, and trailblazing — but also a little reckless. Because Aries is a cardinal sign, and the first sign of the zodiac, this transit corresponded to some significant “firsts,” as well as new things being birthed into the world.

On May 13th, Karine Jean-Pierre became the first Black person and the first openly LGBTQ person to serve as White House Press Secretary.
The Biden-Harris administration announced a program to relieve student loan debt on August 24th. Now, Jupiter loves to give gifts, but Jupiter in Aries must answer to Mars, who slowed its pace in September and October due to its approaching retrograde. In this time, as Mars ground slower and slower, the student loan relief program faced numerous legal challenges.
Mary Peltoa was sworn into Congress on September 13th, making her the first Alaskan Indigenous person to serve in the House, and the first Alaskan Democrat in the House since 1972. She beat former Alaska governor and Trump-backed Sarah Palin in the special election held on August 16th.

Uranus / North Node / Mars Conjunction in Taurus

July 31st: The North Node conjunct Uranus
August 1st: Mars conjunct Uranus
August 7th: Mars square Saturn

Our 2022 Guidebooks and Year Ahead readings anticipated that the pileup between Uranus (the planet of disruption), the North Node (the symbolic head of the hungry dragon), and Mars (the planet of war) in Taurus would create some of the most volatile astrology of the year. Mars is a planet known to inflame situations, after all — and in some cases, it was quite literal, as global temperatures continued to rise.

Between July and August, heatwaves in Europe resulted in tens of thousands of evacuations and 53,000 deaths. This was largely due to changing jet streams, which make heatwaves three-to-four times worse in Europe than in North America.
In Pakistan, a heatwave corresponded to a more-severe-than-usual monsoon season, which culminated in the worst floods of the country’s history. Since June, the floods have killed over 1,700 people and cost the Pakistan government $40 billion (USD).
A public health crisis escalated in Jackson, Mississippi, in late August when the Pearl River flooded, causing the local water plant to stop treating water indefinitely. As a result, 150,000 residents were left without drinking water. On September 27th, the NAACP filed a federal complaint against the state of Mississippi, accusing the government of directing funds meant for ensuring safe drinking water away from Jackson (where 80% of the population is Black) and toward smaller, white communities.
On September 28th, Hurricane Ian became the deadliest hurricane to strike Florida since 1935, causing 147 fatalities and wreaking $50 billion (USD) in damage.

As mentioned, the earth sign Taurus corresponds to the natural world, as well as material concerns such as money, food production, food distribution, supply chains, currency, and the economy. In August, the Uranus / North Node / Mars pileup in Taurus squared off with Saturn, the planet of scarcity and restriction. The result? Some of the highest inflation and interest rates we’ve experienced since 1981.

Inflation started to rise in late 2021, thanks to supply chain issues caused by the pandemic. But prices truly began to swell after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. By August, annual inflation in the US increased to 8.3%. Similar rates have occurred around the world, with some countries hit worse than others — for example, Turkey’s inflation rate reached a staggering 80.21% in August 2022.
As costs increased and everyday goods grew more expensive, the largest companies responded by increasing their prices to compensate for lower sales. Between July and September, Procter & Gamble raised their prices by 9%, and Nestlé hiked theirs by 9.5%. Similarly, used car prices increased by a whopping 52% from August 2019 to August 2022. While these prices have started to level out, new car prices continue to escalate and are currently up 18% from last year.
The global markets have also suffered since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The S&P 500 dropped to its lowest level since 2020, and in turn, the Nasdaq 100 plunged by 33% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 20% this year. Cryptocurrency values followed this trend and then some, with Bitcoin losing 60% of its value.
In an attempt to diminish European support for Ukraine, Russia cut off its gas supply to Europe, triggering an energy crisis in the region. As European countries scurried to source enough energy to last them for the coming winter, prices surged between 300 and 500%, an unaffordable increase for many citizens.

Astrologically, it’s important to note that these themes are continuing to unravel. The North Node will journey through the same sign as Uranus until July 17th, 2023. And in addition to having an impact on our markets and food production, this volatility has rippled into our political systems and governments — whose actions both respond to and trigger economic slumps (or indeed freefalls). The UK offers a prime example, as we’ll explore below, but it’s far from the only one.

Content warning: Government violence against women, young people, and children in Iran; war

Boris Johnson resigned as leader of the UK’s Conservative Party on July 7th, necessitating a search for a new Prime Minister. His resignation followed a series of poor decisions, including a violation of his own lockdown rules last winter, as well as appointing Chris Pincher as the party’s deputy chief whip despite knowing about sexual assault allegations directed against him.
Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan on August 2nd, even though relations between the US and China, who considers Taiwan to be part of their country, were already fragile. In response, China conducted the largest-ever military exercise encircling Taiwan from August 4th to 7th. Ballistic missiles were launched over the island, air and naval operations crossed into Taiwanese territory, and Taiwan received 23 times more cyber attacks than average over the course of the four days.
Around the same dates, Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza — between August 5th and 7th — killing 49 Palestinians and causing 535 people to flee their homes.
Liz Truss won the UK Conservative Party leadership race and became Prime Minister of Britain on September 5th. She won on a platform of reducing taxes, despite inflation rates of around 10%. The result? The cost of food, energy, and goods raged even higher in the UK, and the British pound dropped to $1.07 (USD) by the end of September — the lowest rate since the 1980s.
Queen Elizabeth died on September 8th, reigniting global conversations about colonialism. (She was a Taurus, by the way — the sign where Uranus, Mars, and the North Node gathered in August, stewing volatility and instability.) While public mourning for the Queen was broadcast all around the world, many others reflected on the brutality of colonial rule. The British enslaved over 3.1 million people in Africa between 1640 and 1807 and transported them to colonies in the Caribbean, North America, South America, and other regions. Of this number, only 2.7 million people arrived. To this day, the British Crown has not made any reparations or accounted for this practice of systematic abduction and enslavement.
Twenty-two-year-old Zhina Mahsa Amini died on September 16th, after being detained in Tehran for not wearing her hijab in compliance with government standards, according to the Iranian morality police. Her suspicious death triggered already latent tensions, sparking protests and rebellion across the country. This intersectional civil rights movement has been led by women and girls (which connects to the volatility in Taurus, a sign ruled by Venus, the planet we associate with women and girls), and it’s become the largest uprising in Iran since the 1979 revolution. The theocratic and authoritarian government has responded brutally — invading schools, detaining hundreds of youth, and killing many, subsequently forcing their families to describe the deaths publicly as “suicides.”
After 45 days in office, Liz Truss resigned as leader of the UK’s Conservative Party on October 20th. Conservative Party cabinet member Rishi Sunak was then appointed to take her place on October 25th, becoming the first person of color to serve as Prime Minister in the UK.

Mars in Gemini

August 20th, 2022 – March 25th, 2023: Mars in Gemini
October 30th, 2022 – January 12th, 2023: Mars retrograde in Gemini

Mars (the planet of confrontation and war) added lighter fluid to some volatile situations when it joined Uranus and the North Node in Taurus. The aggravation didn’t stop when Mars left the earth sign though. That’s because Mars entered Gemini — a sign all about communications and exchange — where it will stay for seven months. This is an extraordinarily long time for the action planet, who normally scoots through a sign in roughly two months. The reason Mars lingers so long in Gemini this year is due to its retrograde from October 30th, 2022 to January 12th, 2023.

As we broke down in our 2022 Guidebooks and Year Ahead readings, Mars in Gemini leads with fighting words. We’ve experienced the effects of this already, as Mars entered Gemini in August, but the “fighting words” have grown all the more heated since the planet ground to a slower pace in October.

Content warning: Anti-LGBTQ+ violence, misogynoir, white supremacy, antisemitism, and mass shootings

On October 3rd, a week or so after Mars had transited over his Gemini Sun and Jupiter, Kanye (“Ye”) West attended Paris Fashion Week with the slogan “White Lives Matter” emblazoned on the shirts in his collection. He also publicly harassed Vogue editor and stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson after she called him out on the stunt. In response to public pushback, Ye doubled down on his hate speech online and in interviews, espousing antisemitic rhetoric in his posts. Subsequently, he was dropped by Adidas, GAP, Balenciaga, CAA, and UTA and is reported to have lost his billionaire status.
The Crimean bridge exploded on October 8th — one day after Putin’s 70th birthday — impacting Russia’s ability to transport supplies in their invasion of Ukraine. In an ultimate Mars-in-Gemini move, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council posted a video of the bridge on social media, along with a video of Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”
In response, Russia launched the most aggressive airstrike on Ukraine since the beginning of the war, targeting civilian areas and essential energy infrastructure. As a result of this bombardment, Ukraine suffered 908 civilian casualties and millions of households were left without power.
On October 21st, the House committee charged with investigating the January 6th attack issued Trump a subpoena to testify in the hearings.
Elon Musk completed his $44 billion (USD) deal to buy Twitter on October 27th, turning the public discourse platform into a private one. In the process, he fired Vijaya Gadde — head of Legal Policy, Trust, and Safety — who had permanently suspended Donald Trump from the platform. This occurred as Mars was stationing retrograde 6° from his natal Venus, which it had passed over in late September.
In addition to firing half of Twitter’s workforce and laying off 80% of their contractors, Musk decided to make the verified blue check purchasable for $8 per month. The response from Twitter users included a bloom of impersonator accounts targeting major companies and public figures — and they made real-world impact. Just one example: After an account impersonating Lockheed Martin tweeted that it would stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the US due to those countries’ human rights violations, the real Lockheed Martin, Inc.’s stock dropped by 5.48%. (Given Mars rules war, this is a particularly salient manifestation of its retrograde in Gemini — a sign that presides over communication and social media. Who said astrology doesn’t have a sense of humor?)
As midterm season in the US rolled around, it was established that 70% of Republican candidates running for Congress questioned or denied the results of the 2020 election. These findings came out right in time for Jupiter to re-enter Pisces (in close proximity to Neptune) on October 27th / 28th. As we mentioned earlier, this combination of Jupiter (expansion and dissemination) and Neptune (illusion and deception) can correspond to widespread misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and mass delusion.
In early November, layoffs plagued the tech industry all over. On November 9th, Meta confirmed its plan to lay off 11,000 employees. Amazon followed suit on November 14th, laying off 10,000 employees. Microsoft, Zendesk, Salesforce, Stripe, and smaller tech companies also cut hundreds of jobs. Again, Gemini is an air sign that relates to technology, and especially communication technology. With Mars retrograde in this sign, we expected the tech industry to get weird. The fact that the tech industry appears to be self-combusting is almost too literal.
On November 10th, union members at HarperCollins, one of the “big 5” publishers in the country, went on strike. In addition to communication technology, Gemini is a sign that rules over books, learning, and reading. This struggle for fairer wages — and the publishing delays this strike will no doubt bring — is another too-literal manifestation of Mars retrograde in this sign.
Strikes also spread all over the UK in November, with workers from nursing unions, rail unions, telecom unions, and teaching unions all beginning strike action, along with Royal Mail staff, dock workers, and air-ground handlers.
Another side of Mars retrograde in Gemini? Gumption and inflated egos. We certainly saw this on November 15th, when Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President. The day he made this announcement, the red planet was less than one degree from Trump’s Gemini Sun, galvanizing him to seize back the reins, even after his MAGA flavor of republicanism was rejected in the 2022 midterms. Analysts suggest this move was part of Trump’s ploy to make the federal investigations surrounding him more complicated and difficult to pull off.
Not to be excluded from the labor action, workers at more than 100 Starbucks locations went on strike on November 17th — aka “red cup day,” when the chain traditionally gives out holiday mugs. Mars is sometimes referred to as the “red planet,” adding an extra layer of connection between its retrograde and the timing of the Starbucks walkouts.
By November 18th, 1,200 of Twitter’s employees resigned. (That’s in addition to the 3,700 layoffs Musk mandated in the weeks prior.)
On November 19th, a mass shooting occurred at Club Q in Colorado Springs, the only LGBTQ+ bar in the town. In an area predominated by Republicans and Christian nationalists, who tend to rebuke the rights of queer and gender-expansive people, Club Q had served as a safe haven. Five people were killed in the November 19th shooting, including two trans people. Twenty-five more people were injured. The shooting occurred the day before the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors the lives of trans people that are murdered every year as a result of transphobia. It’s crucial to note that this violence doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In 2022, Republican politicians introduced more anti-trans legislation in the US than ever before: 155 bills, exclusively targeting the rights of trans people. (The number is closer to 300 if you include bills against other LGBTQ+ people.) As well, leading newspapers like the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the Washington Post have published a slew of articles questioning the rights — and in some cases the existence — of trans and nonbinary people. In such a climate, transphobia is normalized — and so is anti-trans violence. The shooting at Club Q occurred on the same day as the square between retrograde Mars (a planet associated with violence) and Neptune (a planet associated with deception), highlighting the horrendous damage that can be caused by the spread of propaganda and misinformation.
A few days after the Club Q shooting, on November 23rd, a manager of a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, opened fire on his colleagues in the staffroom. He killed six people and injured six others before shooting and killing himself. This event marked the 40th mass killing and the 607th mass shooting in the United States in 2022. This incident occurred on the Sagittarius New Moon, which was in a sign-based opposition to retrograde Mars in Gemini. The recent square between Mars and Neptune was still in effect, highlighting the public delusion and deception surrounding gun policies in the US.

Eclipse Season, Take 2

October 25th, 2022: Solar eclipse in Scorpio
November 8th, 2022: Lunar eclipse in Taurus

As we talked about in our 2022 Guidebooks and Year Ahead readings, Mars retrograde connects to the other major event going on in the latter part of the year: eclipse season. That’s because Mars rules the sign Scorpio, where the first eclipse in this season occurred on October 25th. Mars is the planet we associate with war and violence. The Mars-ruled Scorpio eclipses have brought these themes to the surface, forcing us to reckon with the ugliest aspects of ourselves and our society.

The second eclipse in the season occurred in Taurus on November 8th, the same day as the US midterm elections. All eclipses tend to bring plot twists, fateful beginnings, and sudden endings, which we witnessed during this election, as well as others around the world.

Let’s unpack this further.

Content warning: Physical violence; Ibrahimi Mosque massacre

On October 28th, three days after the Scorpio eclipse, an intruder broke into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home with the intention of holding her hostage. Nancy Pelosi was away at the time, but her 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, was there. When the police arrived, the assailant violently attacked him with a hammer. The intruder, David DePape, avidly followed extremist right-wing conspiracy theories, such as those spread by QAnon. This attack followed the literal “attack ads” run by the Republican Party against Nancy Pelosi — some of which used gruesome and violent imagery.
In one of the most important elections in Brazil’s history, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (who just so happens to be a Scorpio) triumphed over the far-right incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro on October 30th. Brazil is the fourth-largest democracy in the world. This rejection of right-wing extremism sent a clear message far beyond Brazil’s national borders.
Legislative elections were also held in Israel on November 1st, leading to a parliamentary majority for former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. With Netanyahu’s party forming coalitions with other far-right parties in Israel, this government stands to be the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. Extreme right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir — who has faced dozens of hate speech charges — was appointed Minister of National Security. A detail that reveals how worrying this trajectory is for Israeli politics, and for all Palestinians living in the region: Ben-Gvir keeps a portrait in his living room of Israeli-American terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, which occurred in Hebron in 1994.
The US midterm elections occurred on November 8th, the same day as the Taurus lunar eclipse. What many people predicted as a “red wave” of Republicans taking over the Senate and House of Representatives turned out to be a raspberry-drink trickle. Historically, midterm elections trounce the party whose president is in office. For this reason, many predicted the Republicans would take over both the Senate and the House. Not least because the Republican Party tends to fare better during economic downturns, which has been a major factor in 2022. But voters had another plan in store. While ballots continued to be counted into mid-November, they showed neck-and-neck results in the Senate and very close numbers in the House. In the end, the Senate fell under the control of the Democratic Party, while the Republicans took control of the House. Given the precedent for the incumbent President’s party getting “trounced,” this election has been described by analysts as an anomaly — a word that aptly describes the plot twists of eclipse season. More crucially, these results center the influence of a new generation of voters: Gen Z, along with their rejection of fascism, extremism, and threats to reproductive freedom.

Studying astrological transits against the backdrop of major events is one of the best ways to recognize the cycles that we are living within. Cycles of violence and hate, but also the cycles of people who rally against these patterns. Generations and generations who have always united in refusal, with the savviest ways of subverting the powers that be. Like patterns in human history, astrology is always repeating itself — just slightly differently each time. That’s because the planets and points continue to orbit the Sun. By understanding what tends to happen on Earth during certain astrological transits, we become more aware of our own tendencies and traps — as well as our gifts to overcome them.

There’s no doubt that 2022 has been turbulent. Indeed, devastating at times. But buried amid all this upheaval, there lies a call to seize back the steering wheel of our lives. To claim how we relate to each other, how we work together, and how we live in reciprocity with the Earth. To practice the fine art of self-adjustment. To evolve, grow, and brave the paths of resistance that are necessary to make this world more livable, more equitable, and more just.

Understanding past astrology also helps us prepare for the coming year. In 2023, Saturn will wade into Pisces for the first time in 30 years, making our rule books decidedly more fluid. Then Pluto will enter Aquarius after 15 years in Capricorn, bringing a whole new meaning to the power (and cost) of information, as well as the power of the collective. The lunar nodes will also finish their journeys in Taurus and Scorpio and enter Aries and Libra, ushering in a whole new season of the self. What will this mean for you and your life? We will lead you through it all in Your 2023 Guidebook and 2023 Year Ahead readings.