On 21st December Jupiter and Saturn meet to begin a new 200 year cycle, having moved from the element of Earth into Air. I wrote about the kinds of things this represents here.

There is another aspect to this cycle that I also want to discuss. Jupiter and Saturn meet every 20 years and describe the Zeitgeist – the Spirit of the Age.

It is said that in the first 10 years of the cycle Jupiter is dominant over Saturn and in the final 10 years vice versa. Jupiter is a symbol for expansion, growth, freedom and ‘more’ (the Greater Benefic) and Saturn is contraction, limitation and ‘less’ (the Greater Malefic).
As a general theme for the decades where Jupiter and Saturn each have the upper hand, you can see this playing out in recent history:

1920s (Jupiter) – The ‘Roaring 20s’ (in France, the “années folles” – ‘crazy years’) with social, artistic and cultural prosperity, the flourishing of jazz and the development and use of cars, telephones, movies, radio, and electrical appliances in the west.

1930s (Saturn) – The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression (which began in 1929), leading to the collapse of the international financial system and widespread unemployment and poverty; the rise of Fascism

1940s (Jupiter) – Mostly dominated by the Second World War, and so doesn’t to me really fit the Jupiter-Saturn cycle pattern (although interestingly I once read about an astrological study of the main Nazi leaders and the most prominent planet in their charts was Jupiter – whose shadow side is an insatiable desire for more. The Nazi idea of Lebensraum (‘living space’) – was essentially that Germany needed to expand its territory into much of Central and Eastern Europe to have enough space for its survival.)

1950s (Saturn) – Post-war austerity; food rationing in the UK continued until 1954 and many items were more strictly rationed than during the war.

1960s (Jupiter) – The ‘Swinging Sixties’ – a new and modern era characterised by hedonism and a thriving art, music and fashion scene. Post-war economic prosperity and liberal values. In the UK, following the abolition of national service in 1960, men had greater freedom (Jupiter) and fewer responsibilities (Saturn)

1970s (Saturn) – The energy crises of 1973 and 1979 led to a surge in oil prices and stagnant economies.

1980s (Jupiter) – Sudden deregulation (‘de-Saturn-isation!) of the financial markets (The ‘Big Bang’). The ‘Yuppie’ era, where there seemed to be no limits to the amount of money to be made in the financial world. In culture it was the time when ‘big hair’ ruled! Also the period of greatest population growth.

1990s (Saturn) – Widespread economic recession in the early 1990s. Spiralling interest rates in the UK led to the housing crash at the start of this decade when property prices dropped by 20%. Iraq invaded Kuwait causing a surge in oil prices.

2000s (Jupiter) – A massive rise in house prices (Jupiter was in Taurus) – house prices in the UK more than doubled in the early 2000s, until the financial crash in 2008.

2010s (Saturn) – The aftermath of the financial crisis – many people losing their homes, increased unemployment, government austerity measures and, the coup de grâce at the end of this Saturn period, COVID-19 and its associated lockdowns and economic crisis.

2020s (Jupiter) – We will find out! My feeling is that one of the big areas of expansion in the coming decade will be the widespread adoption and use of cryptocurrencies and its associated technologies / systems of Decentralised Finance and Smart Contracts.

Astrologically this is because the Air element is technology (e.g. ’The Cloud’) while Earth is physical. Moving away from physical money to digital currencies. And also because Uranus (revolution, as well as technology) is in Taurus (finance) from 2019 to 2026.

No one planetary cycle plays out in isolation. You always have to take the whole picture into account. Yet Jupiter’s influence over the next decade or so promises to bring some ease, positivity and good things to this time of huge transformation of humanity.

In 2020 the struggle for Jupiter to have an influence on proceedings has been greatly heightened by it spending much of the year in close contact with Pluto (the ‘Lord of the Underworld’), who is also in Capricorn. Jupiter moving into Aquarius on Saturday (19th Dec) marks his breaking free of Pluto’s grip.
So here’s to a new decade of expansion, growth, learning, new opportunities and freedom! Jupiter is also connected to travel and foreign countries, so hopefully more freedom of movement will also be on its way soon.