Corona Virus and the Saturn-Pluto Conjunction: the situation in China

In this article we are going to talk about the Corona Virus from an astrological perspective. This is going to be a series of articles. So, in this first post we are going to talk mainly about the outbreak in China. We are going to be using astrocartography and transits to see whether we can find some clues about what’s going on—and hopefully—what’s next.

Generally speaking I think the whole situation is related to the Saturn-Pluto conjunction we had on January 12, 2020. This conjunction is about (Saturn) boundaries, fear, control, taking responsibility and (Pluto) death, rebirth, deep transformation, and confronting evil.

At the moment, all these significations are clearly triggered on a worldwide scale: all nations are strengthening boundaries. They’re trying to take control over what’s going on. They are inducing fear in the population that is clearly confronting death—and—fear of death.

So let’s jump right into it by looking at the astrocartography map for the Saturn-Pluto conjunction.

Astrocartography Map for the Saturn-Pluto Conjunction

The Saturn-Pluto conjunction occurred on January 12 2020, and it perfected at 11:59 AM (EST +5:00). Astrocartography is able to tell us in which parts of the world this conjunction perfected close to the angles—the most powerful spots in an astrological chart.

At first glance we can see that the conjunction was particularly powerful in the spots close to the colored lines. The red line (AS, ascendant), green line (MC, midheaven), yellow line (DS, descendant) and light blue line (IC, imum coeli).

What immediately caught my attention was the light blue line (IC). This because it falls relatively close to Wuhan—the Chinese city where the pandemic started (see the red circle). So I checked the chart at that time for Wuhan, and as you can see in the chart below the conjunction perfected very close to the IC.

Of course this is not enough to say “this had to happen there” also because the ascendent line (in red) and the midheaven line (in green) are way more powerful. We are going to take this into account later on. However, if we look at the Natal Chart of the People’s Republic of China we can find some other evidence.

The Saturn-Pluto Conjunction for China

As you can see, in the chart below the conjunction is taking place exactly at 22° Capricorn, falling on Jupiter in the twelfth house. The conjunction is partile—exact to the degree. This means that the aspect not only occurred in the twelfth house (Saturn and Pluto are transiting there) but also exactly on a planet in the twelfth. The result is a twelfth house activation—worsen by a never-ending stellium in Capricorn (house emphasis).

Now, the twelfth is traditionally a malefic house. It is the house of hospitals and it rules with the sixth house the Health Care System of a country. We are mainly taking into account the twelfth because it is specifically the house of loneliness, seclusion, confinement—in other words, quarantine. However we need to focus on every possible point of the chart that has to do with diseases and health.

Focus Points

So what we are going to do, is checking every planet falling in the twelfth and the sixth, as well as their rulers. On top of that, we are going to take Saturn into account as well. Why Saturn? Because it is the natural ruler of diseases, plagues and famines. So overall we are going to be looking at:

• Saturn;
• Planets in the Twelfth House and Sixth House;
• The rulers of the Twelfth and Sixth House (I use ancient rulerships).

We are going to be using a wide 4° orb because we are going to display the aspects of transiting Saturn and Pluto graphically. Mainly we are going to focus on the spots where the curve is above half of the possible range, which translates in a 2° orbit. However, having a 4° orb allows us to have a more gentle and readable curve. Please note that the peaks of the curve (especially perfections) don’t change according to the chosen orb.

Transiting Aspects

In regards to the Natal Chart of the People’s Republic of China, we are interested in looking at:

• Saturn;
• Planets in the Twelfth House and Sixth House: Jupiter and Uranus;
• The rulers of the Twelfth and Sixth House: Saturn and the Moon.

As you can see only Jupiter and the Moon are involved. The transit of Pluto on natal Jupiter is a slow two-year process, that has started in 2019. That aspect alone was not enough to trigger this pandemic scenario. Nevertheless, it provided a context in which Saturn—ruler of plagues—could take action.

Jupiter is the Great Benefic and in the chart of China it rules both the eleventh and the second house. We can interpret that in a very simple way: 1. this has to do with masses or large groups (eleventh) and 2. it affects the economy (second). The transit of Saturn on Jupiter started way before January, and as a matter of fact we have the first cases of the virus tracked back since late November 2019.

This is a summary about how the Chinese government handled the situation. It roughly reflects the transit graph with its peak on January:

The first person known to have fallen ill due to the new virus was in Wuhan on December 1, 2019. A public notice on the outbreak was released on 31 December.  WHO was informed of the outbreak on the same day. By January 7, the Chinese Government were discussing prevention and control of COVID-19.

A quarantine was announced on January 23, 2020 stopping travel in and out of Wuhan. Private vehicle use was banned in the city. Chinese New Year (25 January) celebrations were cancelled in several places.

On January 26, the government instituted further measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, including health declarations for travellers and changes to national holidays.

Wikipedia — 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic — Domestic Response

Is this going to be enough?

We don’t know whether these precautions are going to be enough to overcome this situation anyway soon. What we can say though is that astrologically speaking there is another wave coming in May, when Saturn is going to be transiting on China’s natal Moon.

The Moon in fact is the ruler of the sixth which represents the health of the nation. And it is on the ascendant, one—if not the—most important spots of the chart. In addition, in mundane astrology the Moon is the natural ruler of the masses, and this strengthen the signification already triggered on Jupiter as ruler of the eleventh.

To the positive, this might mean that the population is going to be involved—and possibly mobilized—for the discovery of a cure. That would lead to a mass vaccination. To the negative, that another outbreak might take place and China will have to start it over back again.

Final Thoughts

Honestly I have to say that transits of Saturn on the natal Moon are very challenging. The transit is going to mainly take place next year, so we can look at the entrance of Saturn in Aquarius—and his first conjunction with the Moon—as a sort of preview of what’s coming for China next year.

In the next articles we are going to discuss about the situation in Italy and the U.S. If you don’t want to miss further updates please subscribe to the Astronomicon Newsletter through the banner on the top of the websites.

Thanks for reading! 🙏

Roberto Corona

I consider myself a free researcher in western spiritual disciplines, in particular Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and the Neoplatonic Hermetic tradition. I have a three-year training in Astrology at the CIDA delegation of Trieste, the Italian Center for Astrological Disciplines. I graduated in Computer Engineering from the University of Trieste.