By John Townley, April 2018

For those looking to understand the physical workings and effects of the planets upon us on Earth, we are living in instructive times.

That’s because we are entering an extreme phase of planetary clustering, which historically repeats itself, that demonstrates the very physicality of how we interact with our neighbors – meaning, our planetary neighbors, though it may directly transfer to relations with our earthly ones as well. That history repeats itself on Earth, not exactly but with clear variations on the same themes, is exactly what happens on a planetary scale, and the two are likely linked. Right now, we are living through what should become another clear example.

Let us call it a roller coaster ride, because it looks and feels like one.

Normally, Earth and the other planets in the solar system tend to be distributed around the Sun here and there, with a general but changing balance around the 360 degrees of the planets’ plane of orbits (ours is called the ecliptic, but they are all pretty much along the same flat circle, except for Pluto and some other distant outliers whose orbits are more at an angle to the rest. That balance has been created over the eons as we passed the early days when planets used to collide or get tossed from their orbits by other, larger competitors. By comparison, things are quite peaceful now, as the planets have settled into orbits that are in reciprocal mathematical resonance with one another, like orchestral instruments in harmony.

When exterior planets bunch up and the Earth althernatey joins and leaves them, things get intense...

But things can still get quite stressful, especially for any given single planet when the rest kind of gang up on it, which is what is happening to us right now. Every now and then the planets outside of our orbit (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, the heavies) all bunch up on one side of the solar system, leaving us left out on the other side of the Sun for half our year, then pulling us racing back into the crowded side, after which we struggles to pull away from the bunch and proceed on alone until it repeats the process or the planets gradually redistribute.

This causes rhythmic gravitational stress on the planet as a whole, and if that long yearly rhythm filters down variously through our environment as upper-partial, overtone-series changes in timing and intensity, we all feel it. Without any physical theory, astrologers have noted the change across the ages. Such as:

When we’re outside the bunch, bowl or bundle charts predominate which are traditionally associated with more isolated personalities that can go it alone better (perhaps because natally they spend half their time with no direct transit conjunctions in the empty half of their charts). And we see lots less of the exterior planets in the night sky, as they're daytime objects blocked by the Sun.

This is also a period with fewer retrograde planets, also suggesting people and situations that act alone or with less reference to others. We think we're alone (we literally are), and we act that way.

 
Last winter was our first of a series of being stranded outside the bowl of planets (geo l., helio r.)

When we’re inside the bunch, bucket charts (usually w/Sun or inner planets) or locomotive charts, abound, both associated with highly motivated individuals with more specific exterior focus. When Mars is the handle, especially when it’s at the beginning of the series following first a depression/recession Saturn bucket sky followed by a recovery out-of-control Jupiter bucket, the danger of conflict is highest. A good example is the transition of the late 1930s and next year (<-- see inclusive time-animated skychart links)

This is also a period with lots of retrogrades, as we are rushing through the bunch, making some of them appear to move backwards as we race by, and generally associated with personalities and associations that require sometimes-crippling pause for thought, engagement, and readjustment. Interestingly, that's when we more regularly see those exterior planets in the night sky, feel their presence.

What you don’t see so much of in either is splash charts or see-saws, except from brief passages of the Moon, which would indicate more balance, a more inclusive view of the world.

For natal charts, that means two totally opposite sets of kids being born each year, and the same for events. Half the year things proceed as if we are an island able to ignore the implications of things we do, followed by the second half filled with retrogrades, course-changing, and remorse, the result of being right in among everybody and having to deal with them all, after ignoring them, sometimes too late.

So, essentially, we are running from pillar to post, constantly forced to reverse course, snap back into another mode before we’re used to where we are, just like a roller coaster, making it hard to keep up with events and causing widespread disorientation in the middle of too-rapid developments that get ahead of us.

 
This summer will be the first we're inside the bowl of exterior planets, retros abound as we race past...

Sound like what’s happening now? How often does it happen? What does it mean for the future?

Right now we are alternating between being outside in the winter months (there were no retrogrades from New Year until the first week of March), and come summer we will be plunged into the middle with four or five retrograde planets all season. And, this will continue for the next couple of years, until well after the vortex Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of 2020.

These clusters happen regularly, most often when the outer planets cluster and then are joined by Jupiter and Saturn in one of their 20-year-cycle conjunctions in or near the cluster. Example years (and the immediate periods surrounding) recently would be 1914, 1940, 1954, 1960, 1982, 1994. Not that infrequent recently, but sometimes, when the outer planets are widely distributed, it doesn’t happen for long stretches, like nearly three-quarters of the eighteenth century.

Although all were stressful times and marked periods of serious social change, not all were disastrous. It depends on how well-knit the social structure is and the potential for testing it beyond its durability, as well as the lead-up period. The most dangerous appears to be a Saturn-dominated period, followed by a runaway Jupiter period, featuring buckets with both, followed by their conjunction as in 1940, and the one about to manifest. If regular habits and beliefs are still strong or newly-built (as in the several post-War examples), then sometimes-perilous change happens but the dykes hold. When new media or rapid technology change is confusing and eroding the and perception of reality (as sound films, radio, the automobile, the airplane did in the 1930s and the Internet has now), chaos has a much greater chance of taking over. Ultimately, if the house on the ground is strong, it will weather any stresses from sky weather. If it’s in disrepair or under too much conflicting repair/rebuilding to batten down, then it’s a different story.

Clearly, this is a big one, for other reasons we have pointed out earlier. Strap yourself in for the roller coaster ride...