1948Saturn-360°/0°-Pluto1983: 1982

All quad­ra­ture align­ments appears at the time of a given tran­sit, but we need remem­ber that rep­re­sent devel­op­ment over time. A con­junc­tion (360°/0°) comes at the begin­ning of a wave but also rep­re­sents the end of the pre­ced­ing one. Moments con­nected to con­junc­tions come infused with a sense of the new, while also con­tain­ing a feel­ing  of pass­ing or fad­ing away. The dis­tinc­tion here comes in list­ing the con­junc­tion as 360°/o° instead of o°/360° to point back to the wave end­ing rather than the one ascendant.

Boomers Come of Age

The 2–3 years sur­round­ing the 1983 con­junc­tion dis­play marked dif­fer­ence in Cold War episodes. The once scary USSR lurched from one incom­pe­tent pre­mier to another. The United States had image prob­lems related to its Mid­dle East inter­ven­tions. OPEC aligned nations still held pub­lic atten­tion that under­mined west­ern con­fi­dence. Much of the promise of the 196os had faded into regrets and ret­ri­bu­tion. Wel­come to the ‘Me Decade’.
As far as the over­all Cold War, the Pol­ish Ship Strike of 1980 had begun the slip­pery spi­ral toward inde­pen­dence from Soviet tyranny. In many other places, the diminu­tion of Soviet power set off a new round of inter­na­tional power-broking.
Both sides of the Cold War would con­tinue time tested pro­pa­ganda cam­paigns, despite ques­tions from the pub­lic, espe­cially in the Soviet Bloc, about claims of power. In real­ity, Soviet inabil­ity to develop an inter­na­tional mar­kets for goods had as much do with its even­tual decline as did any mil­i­tary imbal­ances. Plus, in other ways the world had moved on to con­cerns about energy sup­plies and com­pe­ti­tion out of east Asia. The roots of glob­al­iza­tion began to talk hold.
Yes, the Cold War ended closer to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but the begin­ning of the end starts here. Whether Reagan’s arm buildup or the ill-fated Soviet-Afghan War brought down the USSR is still debate worth hav­ing, the signs of decline grew more clear as the 1970s pro­gressed. Equally, some of the shine had come off the rose in the US as Nixon’s res­ig­na­tion ush­ered in an era of mis­trust, very much in con­trast to pub­lic feel­ing under Tru­man as the Cold War began.

Next: 1983Saturn-Pluto2020

Thus,  1983Saturn-Pluto2020 begins as the Cold War fades as Thatcher/Reaganism ush­ers in ‘trickle-down’ economies, now at the root of our cur­rent fis­cal episode. The Iran-Iraq War and the pre­vi­ously men­tioned Soviet-Afghan affair hinted at changes to come, both play­ing a role in 9/11 attack that appears exactly at this waves mid­point (1983Saturn-180°-Pluto2020:2001). As with his­tory, and all outer planet waves, Saturn-Pluto waves build on one another, as the advent of the Cold War at the begin­ning of 1948Saturn-Pluto1947 built on the events of 1915Saturn-Pluto1947, which tran­scribed the World Wars. Thus does 1983Saturn-Pluto2020 build on the post-Cold War episode that begins with the early 1980s.

Extend­ing the Story Line

Mad­Men will end one day, but his­tory moves on. Outer planet quad­ra­ture align­ments act like the series, pro­vided snap­shots in time that pro­vide con­text and per­spec­tive. Now, what no mat­ter we the casts ends up we can use the outer plan­ets to project their direc­tion. And much like Mad­Men, per­spec­tive will change accord­ing to age and back­ground. Also con­sider that as I gather mate­r­ial for this effort, I notice new mate­r­ial avail­able in a wider vari­ety of media than ever before. How we com­mu­ni­cate changes his­tory and how we see it. Quad­ra­ture align­ments sim­ply pro­vide land­marks, a grid that aids our ever more dynamic view of the past, present and future.

Now if I can only get Don Draper’s ear.