The equinox still point occurs om Saturday, March 20, at 10:37 AM UTC (6:37 AM Eastern Time). You can use the worldtimeserver converter to calculate this for your time zone. It will be spring (vernal) equinox in the northern hemisphere, and fall (autumnal) equinox in the southern. As I live in the former, I am focused on spring! That said, both the equinoxes represent significant balance points in the Earth’s seasonal cycle, when Mother Nature undergoes something akin to an electromagnetic reboot.

The vernal and autumnal equinoxes universally represent a time when the earth energies as well as our own bio-energetic systems are dramatically shifting gears, as the life sap is awakening and moving upward in the northern hemisphere, and is slowly starting to release itself and flow downward in the southern. Because of these deep movements in all of nature (ourselves included), our emotional and physical health can be quite sensitive, and we need to take care to protect our life force, stay steady, and tune into nature’s wisdom.

During the day before, day of, and day after the equinox (March 19-21/Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), the Sun is in a highly transitional stage and so this is not considered an opportune time for muhurta (elective astrology), meaning it is not a good time to launch new ventures or projects. It is however a good time for setting new intentions, and for creative, spiritual, and healing practices and rituals. It’s also very important to be out in nature around the equinoxes when possible, and also to make sure you take enough rest.

We are now in the month preceding the Vedic New Year (Chaitra Shukla Pratipada) which will occur on April 12 at the New Moon on the exact Sun-Moon conjunction in Pisces. This will be the beginning of the Vasanta Navaratri festival, the blessed Vedic celebration of Nine Nights of Mother Divine. In classical muhurta (again, elective Vedic astrology), the last paksha (two-week period) of the old lunar year is also considered to be unfavorable for setting any new ventures into motion. This year, that period will be from March 30 to April 12, but there are some good dates for muhurtas starting April 12 and into late May before the beginning of eclipse season, Mercury retrograde, and the solstice which sets off the waning half of the solar year (dakshinayana).

We have had a Kala Sarpa Yoga (Dosha) in place every other two-week period since the second week of January, but it will start to break as the Moon moves beyond the nodal axis on March 19, and finally as Mars passes beyond it on March 26. This “Serpent of Time” combination occurs when Rahu and Ketu, the Moon’s lunar nodes, contain all the planets between them inclusively. When another planet moves out of their axis, it breaks the combination (the Moon does this every two weeks for two weeks’ time). The good news is that in in the equinox chart, which sets the stage for the next three months up until the June 20 solstice, the Moon has broken past Ketu, and so the Kala Sarpa is out of play as we move forward into the second quarter of this year.

The Kala Sarpa has triggered a heightened sense of entrapment within the extreme polarization, vicissitudes, alienation, anger, fear, and stress unleashed through the negative power during the past year. This is recently further exacerbated by the fiery, aggressive, and potentially violent Angaraka Dosha which occurs when Rahu and Mars conjoin, as they are now in sidereal Taurus. Using a 10-degree applying orb, this started March 12 and is gaining in intensity as we move toward the exact conjunction on March 26, and it will slowly start to dissipate in the weeks afterward as Mars separates beyond Rahu and then finally moves out of Taurus on April 13.

And all this leads the way for some grace to descend on us as Jupiter will move into sidereal Aquarius April 5. It will transit here until September 14 when it will retrograde back into Capricorn until November 20, at which point it will return to Aquarius until April 13, 2022. Mostly in 2021, Jupiter will be in Dhanistha nakshatra (expanding diversity, wealth, and business), and will transit briefly in Shatabisha nakshatra from May 22 to July 20 (focus on healing). Jupiter will station retrograde at around 8 degrees of Aquarius (in Shatabisha nakshatra) on June 20. It will station direct at 28 degrees Capricorn (Dhanistha nakshatra) on October 18, and will transit into Shatabisha nakshatra again from January 2 until March 2, 2022, after which time it will move into the fiery and passionate Purvabhadrapada nakshatra into late April.

Jupiter in Aquarius in general, and especially when well-aspected and well-placed in the horoscope, has strong intellectual, scientific, technological, humanistic, populist, and futuristic qualities. With this, we will see the further rise of techno-populism, as well as ongoing ET/UFO Disclosure, and groundbreaking medical or scientific breakthroughs and inventions as have occurred in previous transits, including the mercury thermometer (1714); bifocal lenses (1784); the early smallpox vaccine (1796); the first pediatric corrective heart surgery (1938); first human limb attachment (1962); discovery of a genetic component in Alzheimer’s (1986); and the first live-liver transplant surgery (1998).

With Jupiter in Aquarius, the spiritual wisdom and high intelligence of the “Water Bearer” flows abundantly. Some well-known individuals whose birth horoscopes hold this planetary placement include Swami Sri Yukteswar, Ramana Maharshi, Alan Watts, John C. Lilly, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Bernadette of Lourdes, Dannion Brinkley; J.R.R. Tolkien, Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein; Germaine Greer, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and Rush Limbaugh.

Jupiter transits into Aquarius about every twelve years. Looking back in history, there have been some interesting and some difficult world events that occurred during this transit too, including WWI, WWII, the Great Mississippi Flood (1927), the Cold War/Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Chernobyl disaster (1986), and the Temuco Earthquake in Chile (2010). The Euro was founded when Jupiter transited in Aquarius (1999), and the politically and economically controversial ACA “Obamacare” law was enacted the last time Jupiter transited in Aquarius in 2010.

The challenges of previous Jupiter in Aquarius transits are largely related to the other progressed planetary events occurring at the time, but also because Saturn, the traditional ruler of Aquarius, is the opposite of Jupiter: Saturn can be sparse, contracting, pessimistic, and limiting, whereas Jupiter is abundant, expansive, optimistic, and all-embracing.

With Jupiter in Aquarius, if there is any kind of Jupiterian excess and intemperance, it will have to be reined in by dispositor Saturn. Saturn will demand transparency, honesty, and individual accountability. Saturn is transiting in Capricorn, twelfth from Aquarius, suggesting that multiple shadowy twelfth-house themes can further block Jupiter’s natural grace and plenty. These may relate to unresolved karmic matters such as ingrained mental and physical health problems, and anything else that lies festering within our collective consciousness, including the hidden agendas that form the underbelly of society, such as the never-ending historical cycle of victim-perpetrator; justice; cultural divisiveness and upheaval; prisons and prisoners, the economy;  borders and immigration; crime, politics, national and international conflicts.

In addition, Rahu is a co-ruler of Aquarius, and Jupiter in Aquarius will form a transiting T-square with both Rahu and Ketu (in Taurus and Scorpio), pointing to a time when multiple ideologies are continuing to clash and shift. Saturn and Jupiter in semi-sextile, with Saturn twelfth from Jupiter, points to a quest for new meaning, but also suggests the need to go back and heal, integrate and release some of our past mistakes.

Jupiter is much more beneficial in Aquarius than in Capricorn, where it’s been transiting for much of the past year. Capricorn is Jupiter’s sign of debilitation or weakness, where it can represent oppression, stagnation, negativity, and a tremendous loss of hope and wisdom. Thus, one may be encouraged that this upcoming transit in the freedom-seeking sign of Aquarius will bring some positive reform, such as the end of government lockdowns and social distancing restrictions, and a dampening of other forms of autocratic societal and political elements which have grown so far out of control in the past year and especially since late January.