An Astrological Skeptic Was Helped By Astrology in 2020, Can It Help You in 2023?
Like early 2020, big changes in the heavens are afoot in spring 2023, maybe astrology can help you adapt?
Skeptic, I hear you because I was you. This is the story of how that changed for me, why it has made my 2020s better and why it might help you in 2023.
The Setup: How I Retired (Most of) My Astrological Skepticism
You don’t need a weatherman to know which the wind blows.” -Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (released 1965 when Saturn was in Pisces)
With all that hair protecting you from the elements, Bob, perhaps you didn’t need a weatherman, but how about a psychological weatherman? Could that person have saved the world from the dreadful Dylan and the Dead?
Pardon my dreaming…
Think about it, this is a person who can give you hints or insights into what the upcoming zeitgeist might feel like, and provide ideas about how you could navigate that zeitgeist. Does that sound like it might be helpful?
Since 2020, it has been for me. And by “it” and “the psychological weather,” yes, I’m referring to astrology.
Hey Super Skeptic, yeah, you, the one who just spit up your Wheeties! Settle down if you would, I’d like to offer you a way to read this article: anthropologically.
That is, study me from a detached perspective. See what makes me tick. You’re under no obligation to change your mind that I’m nuts. Or at least that this part of me who loves astrology is nuts. Just observe and report your findings as scientifically as possible. Deal? After all, with hard-working, disciplined Saturn in the 29th degree of super-sciency Aquarius until March 7th, the stars suggest it!
I’m sorry, was that a cheap trick? Perhaps so. Again, please forgive me.
You see, I very much understand the skeptic’s perspective on astrologer. Growing up, while I was never anti-astrology, I certainly didn’t think there was much to it. Why would I? Like many people in the West, my only connection to it was reading sun sign astrology reports in daily newspapers and I was told that science had long ago disproven it. I was well into my 30s before I began to overcome this cultural bias against astrology and it took me 10 more years before I began to seriously approach the subject.
The purpose of this article is to share how I overcame that astrological skepticism and how this has empowered me. Perhaps, by doing that, I might aid you down a path of astrologically inspired empowerment. Or …
perhaps, all this article will do for you is provide a bit of laughter (and a science experiment, which we’ll get to). Hey, if I can help you laugh a few times, that’s great!
Okay, here’s that little science experiment. Hypothesis: March through May will be a time of noticeable, even rapid, change. That’s what the stars suggest and most astrologers are making media saying as much. Go on, test that hypothesis. Hell, write a blog post in June about your findings!
And now, last, perhaps you’re getting another bonus: Just knowing that a certain field of study, which studies cycles in time, says big changes are likely coming this spring, you may be empowered to be better prepared psychologically for those changes. (At the end of the article, I’ll share some resources that can help you look into these changes.)
Breaking the Wall of My Skepticism Was a Decade-Long Process
So yes, absolutely, I can hear some of you asking, “Astrology, Bryan? Really? Didn’t that go the way of the iron maiden sometime around 1542?”
As a skeptical Capricorn, I very much understand this perspective. In fact, that skepticism was basically my perspective until my mid-30s in the late 2000s and, it’s my recognition of that skepticism that told me I must write this article in this way, because I’d like to act as a bridge for people to cross — even you sulking skeptics — into an astrologically informed experience of the world.
You see, like a lot of people in the modern, Western world, I grew up only knowing about my Sun sign astrology — Capricorn — and I just couldn’t relate to how it supposedly defined me: conservative, ambitious, money-and-success oriented. I’ve had a liberal, go-with-the-flow, money-doesn’t-matter-that-much approach for most of my life. So I basically thought astrology was for the birds.
Along Came a Book: Cosmos and Psyche
However, around 2007 a book called Cosmos and Psyche by cultural historian Richard Tarnas crossed my path. I wish I remembered why I read it, why I obviously dropped some of my skepticism about astrology, but I’m glad I did. This book is an epic undertaking by a man who received many awards for his The Passion of the Western Mind, an intellectual history of the West.
Cosmos and Psyche quickly became one of my most underlined books in a lifetime of being an under-liner. Not only is the writing brilliant, with deep psychological and historical insights, but Tarnas uses the cycles of the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) and finds astounding patterns in history. This field of astrology is known as “mundane astrology,” and it includes looking to the past to better understand current events as well as to make forecasts about where humanity may be going.
Thus, if you hear someone speaking about something like a “Saturn/Pluto cycle,” using two of the planets further out from the sun and thus with “slower” transits through the Zodiac, they are likely speaking the language of mundane astrology, recognizing that these two planets “meet” in the sky about every 33–38 years (due to Pluto’s elliptical orbit — -always gotta be the oddball, Hades!). We can take the cycles of these outer planets and, like Tarnas, do all sorts of fascinating research into history, such as Daljeet Peterson’s series using Pluto to look into the dharma of each generation.
Collective Souls: The Astrology of Generations
Can astrology show us the dharma of out generation?medium.com
But back to Tarnas and Cosmos and Psyche. Much as I loved this book and how it fed my expanding perception of the world where I began to feel the lived reality of “as above, so below,” I put off my serious astrological studies for another decade. Instead, throughout the 2010s, I would sometimes listen to astrology podcasts and when people on social media spoke about astrology, I was more open to it than I had been before.
However, in late summer of 2019, a year when my intuitive voice was perhaps at its loudest volume in my life, that voice, which never speaks in an Obi Wan-esque echo-y whisper-command, told me something like, “Bryan, it is time. Time to go deeper.” “Deeper? What do ya mean? More swims in the river?” “No, fool, deeper into the cosmos and your psyche.”
I guess calling me “fool” still worked on me then because I listened to that voice and have been seriously studying astrology — -reading books, taking classes, joining schools, watching videos, listening to podcasts, talking about it with colleagues, etc. — ever since September 2019. And looking back from now, early March 2023, to the craziness of the past few years, man am I glad I listened to that voice. I can’t imagine how much harder all of these massive societal changes would have been had I not moved out of that skepticism and approached the topic with an open mind.
Ultimately, though, I appreciate skepticism and I recognize that it can be a long process moving from skepticism to a more open-minded place. By no means do I expect that reading an article like this will be the only thing someone needs to shift from “Surely, you jest! Astrology is pseudo-scientific bullshit!” to “Please tell me more! After all, astrology is a useful tool for making sense of our world!”
Rather, I’d like to think this article might just be one step along that process. And if not, well, it’s still not a bad science project and I know you have laughed at least once!
2020: The Year Astrology Began to Benefit My Life
In the fall of 2019, I began to watch a fair amount of astrological forecast videos on YouTube. I enjoyed the way people like Kaypacha and Pam Gregory were able to speak about the ever-evolving spatial relationships of the planets and how they impacted life on Earth, how they weaved in insights from psychology and mythology and gave pointers about how to navigate the times.
As the new year approached, I watched various astrologers speak about how the astrology of 2020 was extremely intense, kicking off with a very rare Saturn-Pluto-Sun-Mercury conjunction in Capricorn on January 12.
This focused me on an idea: integrity of our social structures. This is because both Capricorn and Saturn, which rules Capricorn, relate to social structures and integrity and when Pluto transits a sign, it brings things out of the shadows from the depths of that archetype and into the light. To ponder that, think about the era of 2008 to now, when Pluto has been in Capricorn and ask: How many revelations have we seen about the integrity of our social structures?
Here are just a few: The financial crisis of 2008–9 revealed the corruption and greed of Wall Street and the US housing market as well as how the US political system, even under a “progressive” like Barack Obama, is financially too tied to Wall Street to hold it accountable (while meanwhile punishing those not “too big to fail”); Wikileaks and Edward Snowden revealed corruption in the military and just how widespread the national security/surveilliance state had grown since 9/11; #MeToo revealed the sleazy dealings of too many powerful men in how they related to women; and investigations into the journalism of #Russiagate, as well as the Twitter Files have revealed much about the lack of integrity in major media institutions, not to mention Big Tech companies and the so-called intelligence community. Thank goodness for journalists like Matt Taibbi, Whitney Webb, Glenn Greenwald and Seymour Hersh, who continue to expose these things.
Racket News | Matt Taibbi | Substack
Regular news and features by award-winning author and investigative reporter. Click to read Racket News, a Substack…www.racket.news
In short, 2008–2023 has been one long list of social institutions proving lack of integrity and this is one of the gifts of a Pluto transit through a sign, in this case Capricorn (and, to note, Pluto will be bouncing back and forth from Capricorn to Aquarius between March 23 and mid-November 2024, so I suspect many more of these revelations during this period).
Now, at the time of that historic January 2020 conjunction, I was focused on the US Democratic Primaries for President, and over that weekend there was a major story that revealed lack of integrity. In it, former allies Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were split apart by a BS story that Warren’s team shared with CNN about how Bernie had told Warren in 2018 that a woman could never be president. Anyone with any knowledge of Sanders’ history knew the story was at the very least, as the fact checkers say, missing context, but CNN put all of its weight behind it as fact because all too many in the corporate media were aligning themselves with the Democratic Establishment to do everything possible to keep Sanders from being the nominee. (Apparently, Sanders’ new book talks about some of this history).
Having taken you down that detailed path of political history, the story that wasn’t on my radar screen — yet — on that second weekend of January 2020 was COVID-19. So what happened two days after that historic conjunction? Well, the World Health Organization tweeted about how Chinese authorities had “found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of COVID-19, even though it was reported a few months later in the South China Post that at the time of the tweet, Chinese authorities knew transmission was happening.
Thus, from the very beginnings of the COVID-19 saga, we had reason to question the integrity of the authorities. Having said that, it was because of learning astrology that I’d known to zero in on integrity. So when governments around the world began to shut down in reaction to COVID-19 in March 2020, I was already asking questions, finding cracks in their narratives, and recognizing that there was much more than meets the eye to the whole story.
At the time, yes, I was one of those people who asked questions about COVID-19 possibly being the result of a lab leak and I was called a conspiracy theorist for it.
Flash forward to 2023, and while the mainstream is now almost pushing the story that the lab leak is true (without ever admitting how a few years back they punished those of us who asked if it was), thanks to the work of investigative journalist/astrologer Eric Francis Coppolino, I’m less likely to think it was a lab leak. I still don’t know and wonder if I ever will.
I often remind myself that when I tuned into my intuitive voice in March 2020 and asked, “What is COVID-19?,” I heard a very clear answer, “A mystery” and over time, I have come to think this answer is mostly for me — I’ll never know — but it could also be true for the collective, as well. (Probably, COVID-19 will be put in the same folder for controversial major events in US history that people have many explanations for that also contain things like the JFK Assassination and 9–11, but I present to you one of the best COVID-19 timelines on the web).
But let’s get back to the astrology. You see, thanks to astrology, I went into 2020 with the knowledge that it was likely to be an historic year with very possibly a serious crisis and as the year unfolded that way, more of those scales of skepticism began to fall from my eyes.
In addition, the astrological forecasts gave me a sense of calm during the madness of that year and kept me from falling into nihilism and cynicism. This is because one of astrology’s chief lessons is that everything works in cycles and nothing lasts forever. This means that now, much as I love the work of people like Matt Taibbi, when I hear them expressing fears about some nefarious policy or trend worsening and never changing, I don’t get weighed down in those fears. For one thing, I know that the astrological cycles suggest that 2026–7 is when a new era will dawn. Of course, first we must get to those years!
And again, with some major astrological transits happening this month, things might become challenging in a whole new way, so perhaps just as I was aided through Act I of the 2020s (2020–2022), you’d be aided by it through Act II (2023–2025). But perhaps you aren’t convinced yet and would like a more specific example of an astrological forecast that helped me.
A Specific Astrological Insight That Guided Me in 2020–2021
In April, 2020 on her Accessible Astrology podcast, astrologer Eugenia Krok talked about the upcoming transit of the nodes of the moon from May 2020 to January 2022. She suggested that with the north node — our best path for our soul’s evolution — in Gemini, the best thing to do was to enter Beginner’s Mind, asking questions from an earnest place of curiosity as a young child does, and with the south node — our karma, where we get stuck in old habits — in Sagittarius, the thing not to do was to get on top of Mt. Pious, self-righteously claiming to the flocks that you alone had the Truth.
Knowing this was extremely valuable for me. With the intensity of 2020, the fears surrounding COVID-19 and the extreme government reactions to it, and what I perceive as the most sophisticated, broad propaganda war in human history on full throttle, it was very easy to latch onto a narrative and proclaim it as Truth. With a culture that has too often been stuck in acting out the Karpman drama triangle — victim, bully, savior — it was all too easy to get sucked into the Information Wars as one — or all — of those characters. The results were often bloody, at least metaphorically, with many relationships damaged or lost.
Certainly, I had my moments where I did this, but for the most part if I did get self-righteous I didn’t stay there long. Meanwhile, as I tried to follow Eugenia’s advice, I learned in the very tense and polarized summer of 2020, even asking questions could be seen as threatening by those who are trying to hold onto a rigid version of reality. Thus, I decided that the latter half of 2020 and all of 2021 was more a period for introspection than putting myself out there.
In fact, while I’ve written some poetry with astrological references and some fiction based on astrological transits, this is my first post speaking directly about my relationship to astrology and why I think it can be beneficial to others. Part of this is due to my respect for this subject; it seems there are some with a casual understanding of the topic trying to pass themselves off as experts in order to make a living. Such behavior, in my opinion, can damage astrology’s reputation. Astrology is one of humanity’s most ancient studies, with various cultural perspectives on it and it suggests a deep connection between our inner world and the outer one.
A Love Story For These Treacherous Times
In the not-too-distant future, an ancient storyteller dressed in a flowing robe exits his cozy cottage and walks toward…bryanwinchell-japan.medium.com
Another part of this is because, like most people, I don’t like ridicule and people who say they are into astrology certainly do face ridicule. However, three years of deep exploration of astrology has made my life a lot better and I think the same would go for anyone who earnestly approaches the subject. Sure, keep some of that skepticism, but keep your mind open enough to challenge it.
In fact, as I close, I will share with you that I’ve torn my hair out researching, writing, re-writing, editing, deleting, and re-writing this article all week. Originally, it was supposed to be about the upcoming transit of Saturn into Pisces (on March 7th), looking at the history of this transit (mid 1990s, mid 1960s and mid 1930s) and pondering how we can work with it.
Then, I thought it would be more about March as a whole, where not only Saturn but also Pluto makes a transit (into Aquarius), and after a long stay in Gemini, Mars transits into Cancer, too. This is highly unusual astrology — my research wasn’t conclusive, but it appears the last time two outer planets signs in the same month was during World War I — and it’s why the astrological community is suggesting that big changes are likely to result.
Will spring 2023 be as reality-changing as spring 20020? Who knows? Perhaps not. Or maybe it will be more subtle, or like a series of events that lasts into fall 2024 when Pluto finally moves into Aquarius for the next two decades. However, I’m much more inclined to believe that when we look back on March 2023 and spring 2023 more generally, from a few years down the timeline, we’ll recognize it was the beginning of a major new chapter, just as winter/spring 2020 was.
Anyway, I’d like to think that now that you’ve reached the end of this piece, you at least have the idea planted in your head that major changes are afoot and astrology can help you handle those changes. Go ahead and do your scientific experiment and report back to me! Let’s follow the science together! (Ugh, did I really just write that? LOL)
I’m considering using one of my upcoming March posts to explore some of the possible changes, but for now, I’m going to leave you with some resources where people have done just that. If you choose to go down this rabbit hole, I wish you happy exploring and welcome any questions or feedback that may help your journey go more smoothly. Happy trails!
Resources for Exploring the Astrology of March 2023 (and beyond)
Videos
Astrologer Steve Judd refers to the “big change” of March 2023 in this video.
Pam Gregory is always worth a listen in my book, and her talk on Saturn in Pisces is no exception.
For a historic perspective on Saturn in Pisces, looking at the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s, check out Cam White’s “The History of Saturn in Pisces” presentation.
And Molly McChord, Rick Levine and many others have been doing great work on the astrology of March 2023.
Podcasts
Adam Sommer’s mythopoetic and historical look at Saturn in Pisces is my favorite podcast episode on the topic.
Adam Elenbaas’s discussion with his colleague, Shawn Nygaard, about “The Astrology of 2023: Featuring Saturn and Pluto Changing Signs”
(Since I don’t want this list to be only Adams, Tareck Adeeb brings his always generous Sagittarian heart to the table with a livestream chat about March 2023.
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