All eyes are on the sky this month. As most of us probably know by now, Jupiter and Saturn come together and form their every-two-decades conjunction on December 21. And this time they really come together – they stand only one-tenth of a degree apart. That’s close! They won’t “blend into one star” as some people have erroneously said – you will still see two points of light. But it will be a striking sight, something you may have never before seen in the sky.

One tenth of that. Close!

All of that is the “worse than that” side of the equations. What about “better than that?” 

Like everyone else who pays attention to the heavens, I am awaiting our once-in-a-lifetime moment on December 21st, but who knows about the weather? There’s another date that may actually be more memorable and more lovely: December 16. On that day, Jupiter is closing in on Saturn, standing only half a degree away – just half the breadth of your pinkie. What promises to make the view magical that evening is the Moon. It will be in its pretty waxing crescent phase and just five degrees below the two planets. If you are lucky enough to be under dark skies, you’ll see earth shine softly illuminating the dark portions of the Moon, and the whole thing will be glorious enough to put tears in your eyes – maybe an even more memorable sight than the conjunction itself just five nights later.

By the way, as most of us know, the conjunction will happen right at the beginning of the sign Aquarius. Meanwhile, on December 21st, the Sun is just into Capricorn. That puts the Sun about thirty degrees away from Jupiter and Saturn, just one whole sign before them in the zodiac. They are very close together, in other words. So the Sun sets, then Jupiter and Saturn set. What that means in practical terms is that you want your lawn chair set up facing west just after sunset. People who say “let’s catch the conjunction later tonight” will be disappointed. It will be over by then, at least in terms of our ability actually to see it.

Bottom line: when we take the long view, there is an unmistakable pattern of two-century Element cycles in these Jupiter-Saturn alignments.

JUPITER-SATURN CONJUNCTIONS 1425-2219

Mostly the listing is straightforward, giving the dates of the conjunctions, their exact degree positions, and the Element in which they took (or will take) place. You may notice that some of the dates are italicized. I do that only with the triple conjunctions, where the two planets come together three times over a period of a few months. The very first entry is an example of that, as Jupiter and Saturn formed three alignments in Scorpio over a period of about six months back in the Year of Our Lord, 1425.

At our present point in history, we are staggering out of a long cycle of Earth conjunctions. We had a taste of Air in 1980, then back to Earth in 2000. With this conjunction in Aquarius, we are entering a solid Air cycle that will carry us to Halloween 2219 – with one early taste of Water in 2159.

Looking at this Table in broad, impressionistic terms, we have a Water cycle that ran approximately from 1425 to 1603. What do we have happening then? The Renaissance, for one thing – a great flowering of Watery human imagination, not to mention the exploration of the world via sailing ships moving on water.

Fire gave way to Earth, running approximately from 1802 to either 1980 or to today, depending on how you define the Mutation Conjunction. What did we have? The Industrial Revolution, which was driven by fossil fuels and metals taken from the bones of the earth itself. We have an epoch of building, building, building. You can easily feel the Earth signature in all of that.

And what do we have? Well, this is a good time for me to invoke that reliable cliché, what does the fish know of the sea? Certainly the familiar term, The Information Age, is profoundly and obviously relevant to our moving under the wings of the Air Element. But Air is not just about cell phones and microchips. Here are some words I wrote in The Book of Air:

Humanity is becoming literally more crowded and more interconnected in so many ways. The pressing question is, can we listen to each other? Can this new Renaissance of the Air Element, beginning this very month, herald a vibrant, creative future for the human race – one with maybe a little dollop of Star Trek social culture, not to mention some Star Trek technology in the mix? Can simple Airy interest in each other replace some of this Pluto-Eris rage and the current need constantly to make everyone else “wrong” somehow? 

So point your lawn chair to the west on the evening of the 21st and let your faith bring faith to those who doubt that humanity can create a future worth living.

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