Zero Degrees and the Jester

Art by Joseph Jones

As I sat down to look at the chart for the New Moon in Virgo on August 23rd, I was struck by how weighted it is with evolutionary significance. Firstly, this lunar cycle begins in the sign where the nodes are stationed, meaning, there is some evolutionary purpose at play. But secondly, the fact that it falls at 0° places it at the entry point of the mutable cross.

This is a long post, so grab a cup of coffee, tea, or a glass of wine, and let’s dig in.

Not only is our New Moon at Zero Degrees Virgo, but we have so many other planets dancing around the Zero degree mark this year. Whenever we see these repeating resonances in the cosmos, its worth meditating on what this all means… CLUE, Meaning itself has everything to do with it.

If you follow Astrology, you may have heard something akin to the statement “So many planets are changing signs this year,” and,” this is revolutionary”.

It is true, this is a banner year astrologically. ALL of the planets are changing signs.

It is not unusual for our inner (between the Sun and Earth) planets to change signs. Mercury and Venus circle the Sun more frequently than the Earth does. Mars has a two year orbit. So it changes signs every two weeks or so when it is moving at full speed. Jupiter takes about a year to change signs and Saturn does so every 2.5 years. In other words, these planets “change signs” fairly regularly. Meaning it's not necessarily something to write home about.

But when it comes to the outer planets, the story is somewhat different. First of all, some of them have an elliptical orbit, like Pluto. Meaning their path around the sun is more egg shaped, than circular. This means that they spend a different amount of time in each sign. For instance, when Pluto is closest to the Earth in Scorpio, it spends just 11 years in this sign. When it's furthest from the Earth, like in Pisces, it spends 25 years here. Uranus spends an average of 7 years in each sign. And Neptune averages about 14 years. All this to say, when these planets change signs, it’s a big deal. When they ALL do it in ONE YEAR, it’s a VERY BIG DEAL.

What these longer orbits translate to is SLOWNESS. They move slowly. Which means they linger in the same zodiacal neighborhood for a very long time. As they are all changing signs this means they are lingering over the last and first degrees of the signs they are exiting and entering. The 29th degree and 0 degrees of each sign is significant. They are called “crisis” degrees. The 29th degree usually amounts to the culminating lessons of that Planets residency in the sign. So when a planet is at 29 degrees, we may be asked to alchemize all that has happened for us when the planet transited through its sign. For instance with Pluto in Capricorn, that meant being asked to look at all of the ways corruption in hierarchical systems affected our lives.

For the purposes of this writing, I want to focus on the 0 degree placement, and the fact that we have so many planets hanging out in this neighborhood. Pluto in Aquarius, Saturn/Neptune in Aries, and Uranus in Gemini. The Zero degree in any sign marks the entry point to one of the “three incarnational crosses”. Pluto is on the Fixed Cross, the Saturn/Neptune conjunction is on the Cardinal Cross, and Uranus is on the Mutable Cross.

Let’s first look at the meaning of each cross, then we will flesh out what this all means for us.

The most famous of the three crosses is the Cardinal Cross. It lays across the signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. Each sits at one of the four cardinal points of the year, marking the solstices and equinoxes. This Cross is the basis for the tropical zodiac. When we were young and taking Earth Science, we may recall learning about the tropic of Cancer, and the Tropic of Capricorn. Yes, that has to do with this cross and the path of the Sun.

The Cardinal Cross is called “the Cross of Matter” or “the Cross of the Personality” in esoteric astrology. It represents incarnation, the process of the soul taking form and engaging fully in the physical, social, and personal realms.

Cardinal signs initiate seasons and new cycles. They’re associated with action, leadership, and the will to begin. On this cross, that initiating impulse manifests through the building of a personal life in the world.

The Fixed Cross lays across the signs of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius, which fall in the middle of each season.

In both traditional and esoteric astrology, the Fixed Cross is the Cross of the Soul. It governs stabilization, endurance, and the deep inner work of aligning the personality with the soul’s values and purpose. It is all about how we wrestle with and develop shared values in the world.

Where the Cardinal Cross initiates and begins things, the Fixed Cross holds, sustains, and consolidates. It represents the phase of spiritual development where one learns constancy, inner power, and the ability to stand firm in one’s principles despite pressure to compromise.

The mutable cross consists of the signs Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces marking the transitions between seasons.

In esoteric astrology, the Mutable Cross is often called the Cross of Humanity or the Cross of the Disciple in the Early Stages. It represents the phase of spiritual development focused on collective consciousness, adaptability, learning, and service. Its function is to refine awareness and integrate the many levels of consciousness, personal, cultural, and planetary, in preparation for full soul embodiment.

Where the Cardinal Cross initiates and the Fixed Cross stabilizes, the Mutable Cross edits, adapts, distributes, communicates, and integrates. It governs the flow of ideas, the testing of beliefs, and the movement between different states of consciousness.

With all three of these world crosses being activated by the outer planets changing signs, this means we are in for MAJOR changes as a collective. It activates a true “crisis of meaning”.

As you read, the crosses pin our material reality in place and help us collectively work with the project of individual soul making. When they are activated, the collective underpinnings of reality begin to reverberate. The planets that are intoning these zero degree placements, have everything to do with collective and social consciousness and how we view the world.

This feels important to discuss now, because not only are these crosses being “pinged” by the outer planets, but our upcoming New Moon takes place at zero degrees Virgo, along the Mutable Cross. The cross of information and consciousness.

We are in a year of so much change, it is imperative to not only MARK and HONOR what is passing away. But to also make meaning that collectively contextualizes what is being born.

What we don’t make “sacred” we don’t give meaning too. The very act of sacralizing something gives it meaning.

This is why we see the news, peddling meaning to us. Telling us what we need to care about and what we don’t. News, nowadays, isn’t so much about the distribution of information (mutable cross) as it is a PR machine for our country’s interests. Protecting our assets. I often see mythic guardrails applied to how our News Story’s are framed. Because our mind recognizes myth.

One of the things I predict may happen, as Uranus is transiting the mutable cross, is that we will see new stories being created. We may move from the model of the mono myth (the hero’s journey) which is how we see war narratives written. Where we are cast as the Hero, and those we are warring with, are cast as the enemy. Moving from the Hero, to stories about the Trickster.

The trickster is the character that strikes sideways. Who comes in to break up ossifications, and calcifications in the system. Donald Trump is undoubtedly a trickster character. Trickster energy can “shock the conscious”. One of the trickster’s tools is to evoke disgust. Enough disgust to make us uncomfortable enough to initiate change.

Art by Donkey Salad

We’ve begun to see this character appear in the rise of independent news. Those who are questioning the mainstream narrative. Pointing out the truth in plain sight.

The Trickster is the archetype that is meant to disrupt the expected trajectory. It thrives on unsettling what has become too rigid, stale, or unquestioned. When systems ossify, when beliefs, structures, or identities calcify into something immovable, the Trickster slips in to shake them loose.

This figure is not purely destructive. The Trickster’s chaos can be medicinal. It cracks the shell so something new can emerge. It upends our assumptions, often through humor, irony, or sudden reversal. By refusing to play by the established rules, the Trickster exposes where those rules have become lifeless, revealing fresh possibilities.

In myth, Mercury/Hermes, Loki, Coyote, and The Heyoka all embody this sideways-striking energy. They challenge authority, mock the overly self-serious, and reveal the hidden shadow in systems that believe themselves to be pure. On a personal level, the Trickster appears when we are stuck in loops, interrupting with unexpected insight, reversals of fortune, or events that force flexibility.

Spiritually, the Trickster is a necessary force for evolution. Without it, growth slows, hierarchies harden, and consciousness loses its adaptability. The Trickster ensures that no structure, inner or outer, can remain immune to change.

Let’s now look at how the Trickster energy is coursing through the collective by way of our Outer Planets…

Uranus entering Gemini marks the arrival of a powerful collective Trickster current. Uranus is the planet of disruption, rebellion, and sudden awakening, the force that breaks apart ossified structures and jolts systems into new configurations. In Gemini, the mutable air sign ruling communication, language, information exchange, and social connection, this disruptive power moves through the realm of the mind and narrative.

Uranus in Gemini reconfigures the way information flows, dismantles gatekeeping, and forces adaptability. It is a period when the cultural “rules of speech” and the infrastructure of communication itself are up for renegotiation, sometimes through upheaval that feels destabilizing but ultimately serves to clear space for new intelligence to emerge.

Like the mythic Hermes, Coyote, or Heyoka, Uranus in Gemini challenges authority and refuses to let collective consciousness stagnate. It shakes up the language of power, scrambles established narratives, and demands multidimensional thinking. This is a Trickster cycle that forces both individuals and societies to become more agile, to question what they know, and to navigate the uncertainty between the collapse of old systems and the formation of new ones.

The Saturn/Neptune conjunction in Aries can be read through the same Trickster lens, but here the disruption is not airy and quick like Uranus in Gemini, it is deep, structural, and ideological. Saturn is the architect of reality, the planet that sets boundaries, establishes hierarchical systems, and defines the rules of engagement. Neptune dissolves boundaries, blurs definitions, and infuses reality with the dreamlike, the visionary, or the deceptive. In Aries, the sign of initiation and raw will, these two archetypes meet at an edge where new cultural and ideological blueprints are forged from the collision of structure and dissolution.

Because Aries governs beginnings, this cycle plants the first seeds of long-term ideological architectures. We can see this bifurcation now in the collective, which I would say is a function of this transit, and it’s sextile to Pluto in Aquarius, and Uranus in Gemini. The Trickster here is subtler. It is the shape-shifter who destabilizes our certainty about truth and pushes us to adapt to a more ambiguous reality. The risk is disorientation or collective susceptibility to illusion; the opportunity is the creation of new frameworks that are both visionary and resilient.

Pluto’s entry into Aquarius brings the Trickster current into the deepest layers of collective structure and power. Pluto is the alchemist of the underworld, the force that breaks down what has decayed so that something more essential can emerge. Like the vulture. In Aquarius, the fixed air sign of ideology, collective systems, and technological vision, Pluto’s transformation moves through the architecture of the future itself. This is not just an upgrade of the operating system; it is the dismantling and rewiring of the network that holds our shared reality together.

Seen through the Trickster lens, Pluto in Aquarius does not squash the machine in one blow. It works laterally, hacking into the code of collective structures, political, and technological, exposing their hidden shadow. It reveals the places where utopian ideals have hardened into control systems. Like a mythic trickster infiltrating the king’s court disguised as a jester, Pluto in Aquarius destabilizes from within, forcing a confrontation with the underbelly of progress.

The work here is not comfortable. Aquarius’ shadow is the belief in an abstract greater good that overrides the individual, and Pluto will make visible the power dynamics, surveillance systems, and ideological blueprints behind that facade. At the same time, the Trickster force opens channels for new, disruptive networks to form, including grassroots movements, technological rebellions, and visionary systems that refuse to replicate the old hierarchies. This is a transit that will test whether our collective future is built on living values or on the brittle skeleton of outdated power.

All this is to say, the very structure, or architecture of our world is changing across every, and all strata.

And our job, while it all happens, is to make meaning for ourselves, so we enter this new era attached to the sacred. We might also say, it is our job to befriend and embrace the trickster archetype.

Making meaning is essential because it is how we orient ourselves in a constantly changing and often unpredictable reality. Without meaning, experience can feel fragmented and directionless. With meaning, the same experiences become integrated into a coherent story that gives us both guidance and resilience.

When we create meaning, we map the landscape of our lives. It helps us know where we are, why we are here, and what direction to take next. This is as true for small, personal events as it is for collective moments of upheaval. Without this orienting process, we are more vulnerable to confusion, manipulation, and despair.

I recently had an experience like this when I lost touch with the Spiritual Underpinnings of my son’s death. Instead of remembering the sacred aspects, I had begun to relate to it strictly through the lens of “wrong” and meaningless. This story became rigid and unmovable. Yet I was totally unconscious of how this story shifted inside me. When I awoke to it, I was able to reconnect with the Spiritual aspects of his departure.

Life presents us with contradictions, loss, and change. Making meaning allows us to weave these disparate threads into a larger pattern. It transforms events from random or purely painful into part of a deeper arc, which makes it possible to carry the lessons forward rather than becoming stuck in the wound.

In the absence of meaning, we default to narratives handed to us by others, family, culture, media, institutions. Choosing to create our own meaning is an act of sovereignty. It lets us decide what our experiences signify and how they will shape us, rather than passively inheriting someone else’s interpretation.

In addition to meaning making, as we saw above, the FIxed Cross asks us to examine and lift up our values. We can make meaning in alignment with what we value. We don’t have to accept the stories that are handed to us.

There is so much more I can say about these zero degree transits and the fact that these zero degree placements mean that the planets are all in conversation, but I will save these sentiments for a future writing, as I am aware how long this transmission became. In the meantime, I suggest, spending some time observing and relating to the archetype of the trickster. Inspect your values, and how they are constantly shifting in a world that is constantly shifting. And sacralize what is dying and being born through a meaning making project.