One of the most ancient forms of astrology, practiced since at least Babylon, is mundane astrology, the study of the fate of nations as reflected by the stars. The rise and fall of civilizations, mass movements, great leaders, natural disasters, and times of prosperity or woe for a nation are all part of the “mundane astrology” category.

One of the primary timekeeping devices in mundane astrology is the Great Conjunctions, the 20 year cycle of conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn. This past December, right at Winter Solstice, we observed a historic one. This cycle has the compelling trait that all the conjunctions occur in the same elemental triplicity for approximately 200 years. This past conjunction is also called a Grand Mutation, as it marks a shift from one element to another. For the previous cycle, all the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn have been in the element of Earth, but now they have shifted to the element of Air when Jupiter and Saturn conjoined in Aquarius, marking the beginning of a new era.

Many prominent astrologers and authors have written excellent guides to the meaning of this conjunction for the world or for the USA. I want to keep my focus more local and cover details that haven’t already been described at length, so I am going to delineate the Great Conjunction for Austin Texas in my upcoming series of posts. Mundane astrology is performed using the capital of a political unit as the chart location. Why Texas? Because I’m here and I’m curious.