A Convoy in Capricorn: The Astrology of Canada’s Trucker Convoy 2022

Like many people across Canada and the world, I have been eagerly following the story of the trucker convoy that is making its way across Canada in protest of COVID vaccine mandates and border restrictions.

I want to take some time to look at the astrology of the moment and how that’s hitting Canada’s natal chart. It’s a bit hard to pick an exact time for the transits, because truckers are coming from both west and east, and it’s an ongoing process where people will be arriving in Ottawa over a period of time over the next couple days. According to the convoy’s website, the first people will head to Ottawa on January 28 and most will be there by January 29.

So, I decided to use noon on January 29 as the transit chart, as that seems likely to be close to the culmination of the event. Here’s a bi-wheel showing Canada’s natal chart on the inside and the January 29 transits on the outside:

One glance at this chart and it’s extremely obvious as to why this event has blown up and is receiving widespread national and international attention: check out that stellium – a literal convoy of planets! – up in Capricorn, Canada’s 10th house. The 10th house is the most public, outward-facing part of Canada. It is our national reputation, our government, our Prime Minister and celebrities. It also represents the employment rate, which is certainly part of all of this.

With the arrival of all those planets in Capricorn, there’s a huge amount of competing energies and forces affecting our national reputation. This convoy is in direct response to the government’s mandates and they are seeking an audience with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directly.

The biggest celestial event of the day is Venus stationing direct at 11 Capricorn, after spending over a month retrograde. Venus began this retrograde cycle in close conjunction with Pluto, who stands at the end of this celestial convoy, brooding and dark and speaking of all the deep transformations our nation has been going through.

I wrote about Venus’ retrograde journey through Capricorn as an underworld journey, so allow me to be a bit douchey and quote myself:

“The day of Venus’ direct station is quite an intense day for space weather … 2022 begins with a lot of very heavy Capricorn energy. This recalls the Capricorn Singularity (as I like to call it) that Pluto has been opening up there since 2008. It reminds us of the 2020 Saturn-Pluto conjunction, which happened at 22 Capricorn on January 12, 2002 – a degree that Venus will pass over three times throughout her retrograde cycle.

Capricorn represents the various structures of our world – government, financial, military. Upon Pluto’s ingress into Capricorn in 2008-09, we got the global financial crisis and ensuing recession, the invention of Bitcoin, the swine flu pandemic, and the escalation of the War in Afghanistan.

Now that Pluto is traversing the last few degrees of Capricorn, we see how these themes are being repeated and intensified: the 2020 stock market crash followed by runaway inflation, the surge in price and popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the COVID-19 pandemic and the end of the War in Afghanistan with the fall of Kabul.

Though the first two months of 2022, Venus explores these themes for herself. She cannot stop Pluto’s merciless transformations of these areas; instead she bears witness. Fused with the alchemical Plutonian energy, as Venus journeys through this part of the zodiac she plants seeds that will manifest much later. The Venusian areas of life – relationships, art, entertainment, children – will grow into a testament of this period in history.”

Add this trucker convoy to the list of Pluto in Capricorn themes! This is one for the history books, and not something that will be soon forgotten. It may well become embedded in Canada’s cultural mythos. I don’t know that we’ll get any new national celebrities out of this, as this is a grassroots movement and there isn’t really one single face of it. But hopefully we won’t forget this anytime soon. 

Venus stationing direct on this day is a good thing. The degree of her station (11 Capricorn) is only three degrees away from Canada’s Midheaven, which definitely means this will ripple throughout the nation and be very public. I see Venus turning direct as a better chance for productive relationships and peaceful negotiations.

The part of the chart that worries me the most is that Mars-Moon conjunction right at the very top, around 3 degrees of Capricorn. In any chart where Mars is at the top, there’s a heightened sense of outward, visible conflict. Mars-Moon conjunctions are a classic signification of conflicted, tense emotions. No doubt a lot of emotions will be running very high this day.

In mundane astrology, Mars represents conflict, fire, soldiers/military, and strikes, while the Moon represents the common people, public matters and public attention, and crowds. Again, all very literal – we have a very public situation involving a crowd of people who are there to protest martial mandates, the entire nation is focused on it, and there’s a heightened chance for conflict and violence. Undoubtedly the police will be mobilized, and I expect the army may be called in as well.

Unfortunately, this is not a great transit as it means there is a very real chance for the day to turn violent, or at the very least for there to be arson or other fiery outbursts.

As the Moon travels through the early degrees of Capricorn this day, it will get closer to Venus (exact conjunction with Venus is around 8pm) and therefore closer to the issues of fairness, judgment and personal relationships. This is good, as it means emotions should start to even out a bit, and I think the chance for violence will start to dissipate. Or if the situation does get ugly, it should be resolved quickly at least.

Retrograde Mercury is exactly conjunct Pluto at 26 Capricorn on this day too. A giant convoy of trucks stretching for kilometres down the highway and causing huge traffic delays for days: can you think of a more literal manifestation of Mercury retrograde conjunct Pluto in Capricorn? Seriously, this is an example I will be using for the rest of my life. It’s just so *chef’s kiss* perfect.

I wrote about 2022’s Mercury retrograde cycles already. As I noted in that piece, because the retrograde cycles begin in air signs and then move back to earth signs, they will be less cerebral and involve more materiality, including more headaches associated with travel. That sure proved immediately true with this first retrograde cycle! The conjunction with Pluto is also undoubtedly amping up the intensity of this particular Mercury retrograde, too.

I also noted that this first Mercury retrograde of 2022 will deliver some (potentially misleading or confusing) news about the themes of the ongoing Saturn-Uranus squares, like ongoing labour disputes, travel restrictions, lockdowns and lockdown protests. Yep, that’s sure coming true with this event!

Now that we’ve looked at the Capricorn stellium in Canada’s 10th house, which shows a huge amount of various energies concentrated on Canada’s national reputation, government and leader, let’s look at how this ties to the rest of Canada’s chart.

• Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, which is at 17 Scorpio in Canada’s 8th house of foreign financial relations – i.e. cross-border trade, the heart of this protest.
  
  
• Transit Saturn is at 15 Aquarius, conjunct transit Sun at 9 Aquarius, in Canada’s 11th house of legislation and parliament. This convoy is a direct reaction to legislation passed by parliament, so it shows the Saturnian restrictions/rules being directly related to Canada’s leader (Sun). As well, this Saturn-Sun conjunction is square Canada’s natal Saturn in the 8th, showing conflict between the PM’s legislative rules and our foreign financial relationships (cross border shipping).
  
  
• Canada’s natal Mars is at 5 Virgo in the 6th, casting a supportive trine to the Capricorn transits. The sixth house rules sickness, epidemics, public health, the military, and workers – so again all very literal, as we have a group of workers protesting public health measures enacted due to a pandemic, which has had military involvement and is receiving widespread public attention.
  
  
• Canada’s natal Pluto is at 15 Taurus in the 2nd house, pulling in themes of money and finance. With transit Uranus in Taurus that adds some unpredictability and revolutionary drive in the realm of Canada’s finances; in the context of the trucker convoy, consider the fact that they’ve raised almost $6 million dollars in donations at the time of writing. How’s that for some Uranian accounting?
  
  
• Canada has natal Uranus and Sun exactly conjunct its IC at 8 Cancer in the fourth house, which is opposite the Capricorn stellium transits. The 4th house is the land itself, crops, people and democracy. Uranus is revolution, the free-market, anarchy and individualism, and the Sun is the leader/Prime Minister and national champions. So we have our natal revolutionary impulse related to our land (borders) and crops (the goods we ship) and our people, which are tied to revolution and individualism, directly opposing all the Capricorn forces involved in our government and national reputation.
  
  
• Canada is about to have a Jupiter return – that goes exact on February 2. I wrote about this previously, and thought that it might signal another development in the discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools that happened in 2021, when Jupiter had gone into Pisces the first time. That may still happen, but this also marks a time of national inquests and involvements of the judicial system, so that might tie into this trucker convoy as it’s putting a lot of pressure on our legislation. It might also herald the start of legal suits that are being brought against the government over vaccine mandates and similar measures; this convoy might be the loud, distracting public face of an inquest that will mostly occur behind the scenes.

There’s always so much to say! But I’m going to end this here, so that I can get this posted sooner rather than later.

In summation: this is a historic moment for Canada. It is busting through the stereotype of the polite, reserved Canadian – with all those planets in our 10th house, we have been thrust forward on the world stage, and the face of this movement is a group of long-haul truckers. For better or worse, all eyes are on us, and things will reach a crescendo as the Moon moves through Capricorn over the next couple of days.

When the Moon reaches that MercuryRx-Pluto conjunction on the evening of January 30, we will get some news about the results of this endeavour. By the time the Moon ingresses Aquarius early in the morning on January 31, the convoy will have started to disperse. The New Moon occurs late on January 31, and as this represents a union of the people (Moon) and the Prime Minister (Sun), perhaps this will be when Trudeau meets with the leaders of the convoy. Or, maybe this will be when Trudeau posts a response to these events. Either way, it will be a moment of moving on and the start of something new.

When the Moon conjoins Saturn in Aquarius on February 1, I think we’ll get a message from the government providing a final decree on the border restrictions. I don’t know what that will be, but to be honest I think they will probably double down on them. Saturn-Moon conjunctions are tough, as Saturn seeks to impose control and rules over the emotional, unstable Moon. However, this is occurring in the 11th house of legislation, so maybe we will see some changes in this area.

Exciting times, Canada. May everyone be peaceful and respectful, and may we listen to and honour alternate points of view.