2019: A brief look ahead

Every year at this time I have a look at the transits, lunations, eclipses and other factors to get a sense of what lies ahead for the year. 2018, last year was quite a year with very significant shifts in geopolitics and economics, as one can expect from Mountain Dog years. Those years come around every 60 years. If 2018 was a momentous year, then 2019 will be even more so.

2019 will be the Year of the Monastic Pig, or Earth/Yellow Pig. It is the last sign in the cycle of the Chinese Great Year of twelve years, which we otherwise know as a Jupiter cycle. The main focus for 2019 will be on economics. Without further ado, then, what are the main indicators for the coming year?

Eclipses are always a good place to start with looking ahead. And we start the year with two eclipses right off the bat – a partial solar eclipse at the new moon on the 6^th of January, followed two weeks later by a total lunar eclipse on the 21^st of January at the full moon. That eclipse will also be a super moon. I have already had people asking me about the latter eclipse because it is being touted by some sources as being one of those ‘special’ celestial events that only comes around every-so-often. Well, it is not that special. It should be treated as one would treat any full moon – as a time of making one’s greatest subjective contact, of going inward and of particular meditative effort. This one takes place on the first degree of the Leo/Aquarius axis. The Saturn/Culmination line (below, bigger) runs right through Washington, DC. The Sun/Culmination line runs through Brazil. The Moon/Culmination line runs through central China, Southeast Asia and Western Australia. The first activation it receives is by Mars on the 3^rd and 4^th of July 2019. Suggestive? It could very well be.

The Jan 21^st eclipse will affect the UK (Jupiter), Canada (Mercury) and Saudi Arabia (Mars). As for persons in the news it will affect Mohammed bin Salman (Venus). No, it will not affect Trump, except via the US. This is a waxing eclipse series, so it has yet to bestow its greatest events. It is a north node eclipse, which implies beginnings, but with Mars activations it is anyone’s guess what it will bring. In addition to what has just been outlined, that eclipse has Uranus squaring the full moon axis, and 4 days prior to that there is a moon wobble with the same square to the nodal axis, which incidentally falls on Trump’s Venus. The Democrats take control of all the House investigative committees in a few days, and with Trump’s recent pullout of Syria and draw-down in Afghanistan it is not hard to imagine what that might mean. The corporate masters are not happy about even one of their endless wars coming to an end and the defense industry is one of the biggest donors to congressional campaigns. If the media hyperbole in the US over these actions is any indication then January is going to be the start of a media feeding frenzy in the US. That will be one eclipse to watch closely as the year unfolds, especially with respect to the US. It may also point to earthquakes on the ring of fire in South America, or in East Asia.

And then, the solar eclipse on the 6^th has its Sun-Moon/Culmination line (below, bigger) running through Washington, as well as the Saturn and Pluto culmination lines. It also happens to fall at the 15^th degree of Capricorn, which is conjunct the US Sun. It receives the first activation by Saturn, which is really already activating it on the day of the eclipse. The exact conjunction is on 4 Feb 19 on the Li Chun for the Year of the Monastic Pig. 2019 will be a ‘doubly-blind’ year, meaning the Li Chun does not occur at either end of the year. It is considered to be most inauspicious. The Li Chun is the first day of spring in the Chinese solar calendar and is the defining point of the year pillar in the Four Pillars of Chinese astrology. The Year Pillar is always figured from the Li Chun and not the start of the lunar New Year. The 6^th is actually the start of the lunar New Year, being the new moon of Aquarius. But there is more to this eclipse.

There are significant midpoints with the 6 January eclipse. The Sun and Moon are at the Mars/Uranus and Saturn/Pluto midpoints, speaking of stress. Taking place opposite the US Sun, this has several meanings. The Sun speaks of leadership in general and solar eclipses have been said in the past to indicate the fall of leaders. In this case, before some readers might get their hopes up, the Sun rules the 9^th house in the US chart, which relates to foreign affairs and trade, as well as the judicial branch of government, religion, and institutions of higher education. US foreign relations are going to suffer this year. The recent pullout from Syria was a defeat for US interests, especially corporate interests, because it leaves in place a key state in the Middle East that is destined to be more than a bit player in the emerging greater Eurasian integration. And Syria views Iran as one of its chief allies. It was the Iranians who convinced the Russians to intervene in Syria. The midpoints for the eclipse combined indicate overextension, probable losses, sudden change of circumstances, separations and the possibility of injuries and accidents. That eclipse also affects the Greek Sun and Erdogan’s Ascendant. I am still working on a proving for the Greek chart, so I hesitate to say more about Greece.

In all, then, the first two eclipses this year will strongly affect the United States, but that is not difficult to guess. Probably the most significant political re-shuffle in the Middle East in many years is taking place now, and the US is being sidelined. The Iraqi parliament is now looking to remove the American presence from Iraq. The neighboring Arab states are making nice with Damascus, and this is partly to contain Iranian influence. These are also moves to be a hedge against any kind of neo-Ottoman ambitions by the Turks. Turkey is not in any position to take control of northeastern Syria. This is what we are seeing with the eclipse on Erdogan’s Ascendant. The Israelis can no longer hit Syrian targets for fear of losing their planes. They now have to hide behind civilian aircraft and launch missiles from outside Syria. What is taking shape is a Middle East no longer controlled solely by Western interests. But even the previous things of mention here are not to be the biggest story of the coming year.

In total there will be five eclipses, two of them preceded by moon wobbles. Those will thus be quite powerful. The last three of the moon wobbles have Saturn involved, and one with a Saturn/Pluto conjunction. The mood on those occurrences will not be the best. Added to this is that Saturn will be on the south lunar node, which has been called the ‘master of tragedy’. Since this occurs in Capricorn the focus will be on ambitions and business. Both Saturn and the south node are karmic points and represent the past in their own way. The combination of the Sun with the ‘master of tragedy’ simply points to separations, especially the moon wobble involving Pluto as well. All of the eclipses have their axes focused on the US, western South America and East Asia.

As an aside, it might be of real interest to have a look back in history at the last time we had the same moon wobbles with the ‘master of tragedy’ in Capricorn. The year was 1871. The month was March of that year, on the 26^th to be exact. The event that precipitated out of that on that date was the Paris Commune. The Gilet Jaunes protests in France are an echo of that very time, for very much the same reasons. There were also five very similar eclipses in that year, all in the Gemini/Sagittarius and Cancer/Capricorn axes, as we will have in 2019. And of interest with Paris, the Chiron/culmination line ran through Paris in the 1871 eclipses as it will in the 2019 eclipses. And for the United States in 1871? It was in the midst of the Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War. It was not a pleasant time in the US. The 1870s saw widespread organization of labor unions and workers’ strikes worldwide later in the decade. And that brings us back to 2019.

The world economy is on shaky ground. The central banks of the US, EU, Japan, China and London are all swimming in debt while we are being told that the markets are booming. Well, stocks have been booming, until 2018 when there started to be notable instability, with the worst Christmas figures since the Great Depression in the US. It was called “The Mnuchin Massacre”. We cannot trust the stock markets as a sign of economic health. The reason stocks have soared is because of the Trump tax cuts to corporations, enabling massive stock buy-backs. It has not helped the average American one iota. There are similar moves in other nations. It is what we will probably see in the UK if Brexit goes through. The value of the dollar has been falling since Trump has been in office. It was destined to do so anyway, not because of any masterful economic strategy, because many nations now are trying to find ways of trade in other currencies. The dollar is quickly losing its preeminence. This is yet another side of the solar eclipse of January opposite the US Sun. So, here’s the main point: If there is another large financial crash in 2019, which could well be and all the signals are there, it will reset world geopolitics.

The main takeaway for the Year of the Monastic Pig, then, is an economic reset of large proportions, which in turn will lead to widespread changes in the world order, with new blocs emerging, as we saw in the 1870s, and old ones fading more into the background. Germany began its 2^nd Reich under its unification in the 1870s, and we may see moves in Germany surface in the next few years which will upset the European order. There is nothing to fear in these times and much to gain, especially if we focus on unity and strengthening local communities. Everything that is taking place now is leading to a wider point of crisis starting in the next decade that will see the main economic blocs take shape that will take us through the intervening decades and yet another world order. It doesn’t need to be dystopian, nor do I expect it to be. But in 2019 the die will be cast and there will be no turning back to the 20^th century order and hegemonic powers.

Featured image from Guida Fisco