Ceres and Pandemics

I first wrote this and mailed it to a couple friends at the end of October 2020. Updates to it are in bold italics. Updated 9/20/2021.

While the planets and their relationships to each other provide a template for the energies at play at any given time, the four major asteroids represent the fields on which those energies play out. Ceres is representative of the physical plane and relates to the most basic physical human needs: food, water, shelter, and physical security. Negative or stressful impacts to Ceres can create real or perceived existential threats and reactions of fear, panic, or paranoia. Viruses are perfect for creating this kind of negative impact. They are invisible, transmit silently and unobtrusively, can be horrific and deadly in their effect on the body, and readily mutate which can make them difficult to deal with.

1918 Pandemic: Pluto/Jupiter in Cancer

The 1918 Flu pandemic began in Haskell County in western Kansas at the beginning of February 1918 while Ceres was at 20 Sagittarius. It was identified as a particularly nasty flu. It infected dozens of people in that sparsely populated area, killing several, and then abruptly disappeared.

It re-emerged 300 miles to the east at Camp Funston, Kansas, home to almost 60,000 young men training for war – including many from Haskell County. On March 4th, 1918 the first soldier reported to sick call with the flu. This was the same day that Ceres entered Capricorn. After three weeks 1100 men were hospitalized with flu and thousands more with symptoms were being treated.

It was World War One and the young men at Camp Funston would be heading to France. And while this flu was uncommonly deadly, it was not so deadly as to attract undo attention. Men were shipped off to France carrying the virus and passing it to soldiers from other nations fighting in the region and infecting civilian populations they came in contact with. Wounded and infected troops were moved by ships back to their home bases spreading the infection to those locations as well.

On May 4, 1918, Ceres went retrograde at 9 Cap 47 and moved back into Sagittarius until it went direct again at 25 Sag 48. During that retrograde period the flu continued to spread through Europe and everywhere in Asia that the British claimed sovereignty: India, Burma, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia. The form of the virus that was spreading was highly contagious but the symptoms were generally mild and not notably lethal.

In some places – like the United States – it had not become pandemic, in other places it seemed to have vanished altogether. On August 10, 1918 the British military declared that the virus had disappeared- an opinion that a British medical journal echoed 10 days later. It had not disappeared. It had mutated.

Shortly after Ceres turned direct again on August 15th, the 2nd wave of the virus emerged and this one was both highly contagious and very deadly. It emerged simultaneously in Brest, France; Freeport, Sierra Leone, and in Boston. By the time Ceres re-entered Capricorn on September 23rd the virus was raging. The period between mid-September and early December of 1918 accounted for approximately 1/3 of all the deaths in the entire two year period of the pandemic. During this period, Ceres opposed Pluto (Oct 20th) then opposed Jupiter (Nov 18th).

The pandemic seemed to have subsided by late November, 1918. It had not disappeared, it had mutated again and as Ceres moved into Aquarius (December 27, 2018) the 3rd wave of the pandemic arrived. This wave, like the second, was lethal. Unlike the 2nd, this wave did not appear everywhere. This wave lasted through February.

On Mar 14, 1919, Ceres moved into Pisces. As it transited through Pisces, the pandemic went into a period of random, blossoming hotspots – locales where it would erupt for a time then go away. After Ceres moved into Aries on June 16, 1919, the pandemic was over – it wasn’t entirely gone but it had lost most of its potency.

By tracking the direct and retrograde movements of Ceres through the last three signs of the zodiac, we see a pattern of emergence with its entry into Capricorn, a remission or subsidence during the retrograde period, and a far more deadly resurgence with the resumption of direct motion.

The placements of Pluto and Jupiter are crucial. Ceres will pass through Capricorn every four years, so Ceres by itself means nothing here. With Pluto in Cancer opposing Ceres, a layer of meaning comes into play but that combination, by itself, still does not a pandemic make. However, add in Jupiter in the same sign as Pluto and you have a signature – one that will not occur for another 521 years.

Another consideration was the relationships between the transiting Jupiter and Saturn. They were in a sextile relationship either by aspect or by sign for pretty much the entire span of the pandemic – not a relationship one would look to for a global crisis. Saturn, on the other hand, was opposing Uranus and was conjunct Neptune for a good part of that time.

Date	Ceres Position	Event
Feb 1, 1918	20 Sag 00	Virus emerges in Copeland, KS
Mar 4, 1918	00 Cap 00	First ill soldier reports to sick bay. Within days the count went to 100 to 500 to 1100.
May 4, 1918 July 7, 1918	09 Cap 47 SRx 29 Sag 59 Rx	100s of 1000s of soldiers, many infected, move back and forth across the Atlantic for the war, bringing the infection to Europe. By August 10th the British were declaring the virus gone. They were wrong.
Aug 15, 1918	25 Sag 48 SD	2nd wave begins: a more virulent form of the virus simultaneously emerges in Brest, France and Freetown, Sierra Leone. A third breaks out it Boston.
Sep 23, 1918	00 Cap 00	2nd wave spreads to Boston area through the military (Ft. Devons)
Oct 20, 1918	06 Cap 37	Ceres opp Pluto. The second wave crests and begins to subside
Nov 18, 1918	15 Cap 28	Ceres opp Jupiter. The second wave dies off
Dec 27, 1918	00 Aqu 00	3rd wave already in progress for 2 – 3 weeks
Jan 18, 1919	08 Aqu 34	3rd wave fades
Mar 14, 1919	00 Pis 00	Intermittent hot spots flare up
Jun 16, 1919	00 Ari 00	4th wave. Lethal but intermittent with hot spots flaring up and dying out. Continues with less and less frequency throughout the Aries transit.

Covid-19 Pandemic: Pluto/Jupiter in Capricorn

We can’t expect the Covid-19 Pandemic to exactly match the pattern and progress of the 1918 Pandemic. There are differences in circumstance but there are also two key astrological differences: the timing of the retrograde period and the position and relationship of Pluto and Jupiter both to each other and to Ceres. That said, the pattern thus far is holding up.

The Covid virus emerged shortly after Ceres moved into Capricorn and has progressed across the globe with the exception of the isolated island nations of Oceania. How deadly the virus has been has depended on the rigor of containment responses, population density, socialization habits, the underlying health of individuals when infected, and the capacity of local health organizations to handle the situation.

By late April, localities began easing containment restrictions and by June the pandemic infection rate seemed to be flattening in most – but not all – areas. New Zealand even went as far as to declare that the virus had been eliminated there. That’s where we are as of this writing.

If this pandemic follows the pattern of the 1918 Pandemic, we can expect that infection rates will continue to flatten or drop off – especially after Ceres goes retrograde on July 7th and continues retrograde until October 18th. After that, we may see a newly-mutated and possibly more severe virus that may really accelerate across the world as Ceres moves into Pisces. This wave may not begin to recede until Ceres goes into Aries on February 21, 2021 and is likely to linger, popping up in various hotspots across the globe.

Unlike the 1918 Pandemic, the retrograde period of Ceres in this case is in Pisces rather than Capricorn. This longer initial direct motion phase shows a longer first wave period than the earlier pandemic but it also suggests a shorter second wave period. Similarly, the relationships of Pluto, Jupiter, and Ceres to each other is different now than in the earlier pandemic.

In the earlier pandemic Pluto and Jupiter were opposing Ceres by sign and were themselves conjunct only once.

Date	Ceres Position	Event
Nov 16, 2019	00 Cap 00	Earliest known Covid-19 case identified on the 17th
Dec 1, 2019	05 Cap 43	First Covid case appears in Wuhan, China
Jan 13, 2020	22 Cap 47	First case outside China (Thailand). Ceres/Sun/Pluto/Jupiter/Saturn all at 23 Cap
Jan 15, 2020	23 Cap 50	First suspected case in U.S. (Seattle)
Jan 20, 2020	25 Cap 49	First confirmed case in U.S. (Seattle)
Jan 23, 2020	26 Cap 35	Human-to-Human transmission confirmed
Jan 31, 2020	00 Aqu 00	Throughout February, March, and April the virus spread to cover nearly all the nations of the world with the exception of some more isolated island nations – particularly in Oceania. Beginning in mid-March, countries began lockdowns either nationally, regionally, or by cities. These lockdowns were scheduled to end beginning in mid-April through the end of May.
Apr 23, 2020	00 Pis 00	Lockdowns begin easing off with pressures in many places to ease off earlier than scheduled as the epidemic seemed to be subsiding. By the end of May a top Italian doctor stated that the virus in Italy was gone.
July 7, 2020	12 Pis 49 SRx	After steady decline, infections begin a slow uptick
Sep 27, 2020	29 Aqu 59 Rx	Returning college students trigger uptick in cases
Oct 18, 2020	28 Aqu 36 SD	2nd/3rd wave acknowledged in Europe and U.S.
Nov 9, 2020	00 Pis 00	New cases have accelerated past 130,00 per day, exceeding 100,00 per day by Nov 4th
Jan 3, 2021	12 Pis 49	Daily cases exceed 200,000, still trending upward. New variants of the virus have emerged in U.K., S. Africa, and Brazil.
Feb 21, 2021	00 Ari 00	U.S. Reaches 500,000 deaths on Feb 23. New case rates showing signs of subsiding or flattening out.
May 8, 2021	00 Tau 00	4th wave driven by Delta variant. India is particularly hard hit
Jul 31, 2021	00 Gem 00	4th wave in full bloom globally. United States and Brazil very hard hit. Politics in both countries a major factor.
Oct 8, 2021	12 Gem 08 SR	date to watch
Dec 22, 2021	00 Gem 00 R	date to watch
Jan 14, 2022	27 Tau 57 S	date to watch
Feb 8, 2022	00 Gem 00	date to watch
​May 15, 2022	00 Can 00	date to watch