I’m going to tell you how I predicted the Covid-19 outbreak. I’m also glad you decided to keep reading, because I never did. No astrologer did. There have been a few out there that may have said so, but when I reviewed their predictions, they were very vague. One of the reasons it is hard to make predictions in astrology is that the farther away a particular transit or configuration is, the harder it is to predict the context in which it will occur. A good example was a prediction I made in December of 2018. I could see that there was going to be some sort of economic downturn when Jupiter and Saturn would move into alignment, but I had no idea that it would be a virus that would cause everything to shut down, and thus cause a major depression. Seeing the context of events as they unfold today, I still think the long term consequences are going to be about the reaction to the virus, and not the virus itself.

Looking back at how things unfolded in the past is one tool that astrologers can use to get some sort of idea on what may happen, or get some general idea of the context in which events will occur. So what was the trigger of the pandemic, astrologically speaking? For that, I have to explain the concept of Nakshatras, or the Indian Lunar Signs.

Before there were the twelve solar signs that we are all accustomed to, the Indian zodiac composed 27 signs, each with their own significance. It takes the Moon about a day to go through each sign, vs a month for the Sun to traverse a solar sign. In ancient India, they would use this system to time festivals, plant crops and even to build temples. It is still used in India today. At some point, about 3000 years ago, the concept of the solar zodiac reached India, most likely with interactions with the Persian Empire at the time. I’ve personally gotten mixed reviews of using the Nakshatra system. Some people find it confusing, while I see it as an additional tool astrologers can use to make predictions.

The next concept that I need to explain is the nodes of the Moon. which are not planets, but mathematical points in the sky, however, Indian astrology treats them as planets. Four times a year, these points come into contact with a full moon or a new moon, causing a Lunar or Solar eclipse. There are two nodes of the Moon: the north node and the south node. The north node generally represents a hunger, thirst or passion in life. It’s location in a chart shows the place where we have passions in life and also where our future incarnations lay. The south node of the Moon represents where we have been in the past, such as past lives, and thus is an area of life we have mastered and tend to fall back on in times of stress.

There is a particular pattern in the chart of the United States that seems to have consistently unfolded over time, and that is when the North Node of the moon transits into the the Nakshatra of Audra along with other difficult planets, there is some sort of challenge that triggers major change in the United States, so much so that it can define the next eighteen years. Eighteen years is the amount of time it takes the nodes of the moon to fully transit the zodiac.

The Nakshatra Ardra is located right in the middle of the solar sign Gemini and is represented by a teardrop. People that are born under this sign generally have some sort of tragedy in their lives that shape them into the person that they are. Their lives are ones of overcoming struggle to become successful later in life. Think of those “rags to riches” stories you sometimes read about, those are the Ardra people. So, the symbolism of tragedy is there. The North node of the moon worked its way into Ardra on September 22nd 2019 and left the sign on April 22nd 2020. During this transit, it had two major aspects: Mars and Jupiter in the sign of Sagittarius. The last time that the north node had transited through this sign was in 2001, right before the September 11th attacks. Winding back the clock, we can see how this transit affected major changes in the world. In 1983, there were several near misses and the United States almost had nuclear war with the Soviet Union. In 1962 and 1963, we had the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy.

Rahu is now out of the sign of Ardra and will not be back again for another 18 years, but that one is also looking much less eventful. Another powerful aspect that happened this year is that we had a major eclipse on December 25th, which in many ways, could also be seen as a trigger for the pandemic. That was a major eclipse that conjuncted Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury. I will cover that in another article