Time for a little astrology.
As many of you may have already heard, we are going through a major astrological shift right now. And that shift is the planet Pluto changing signs, going from Capricorn ( where it’s been for the last 15 years), into the sign of Aquarius.
That shift is not yet complete, as Pluto is now hovering at 30 degrees Capricorn, and won’t make the permanent move into the sign of the Water Bearer until mid November 2024.
And as the ancient rock band the Grateful Dead has said many, many times “What a long strange trip it’s been.”
Pluto is the planet that rules things like death, rebirth and transformation. It is named after the god of the underworld in Greek mythology, and so it always heralds a descent of some kind into those hell realms of the shadow world, the unconscious and our deepest psychological and emotional wounds that we are often reluctant to encounter.
It’s a fierce planetary influence and shows us where we have been hurt and disempowered in some way in our lives through things like trauma, betrayal, exploitation, abuse, violence, catastrophe, oppression, victimization, heartbreaking loss and scenarios that are most often classified as nightmarish.
Pluto scares people. And rightly so. It’s not an energetic force to be taken lightly. It demands a lot of respect.
But Pluto really speaks to a deep truth of what it means to live in this world as a vulnerable, embodied being. You really can’t make it through this life without experiencing some form of deep hurt and disempowerment. Whether the disempowerment comes from being in an abusive relationship with another human being as a child or having our hearts broken through rejection, abandonment or death, or losing our sense of agency through illness or an accident that changes your body forever, or through some kind of political or natural disaster, we can’t escape that experience of being out of control and unable to affect the outcome of a particular situation.
And those experiences leave a mark on our souls.
These Plutonian twists of fate are usually incredibly emotionally intense and one of the ways that we deal with that intensity is to repress or bury the emotions engendered by these experiences deep in some hidden vault in our psyches.
Because even though it’s the disempowering situations and events that are the hallmark of Pluto, it’s the emotions of terror or rage or overwhelm that accompany these events that contribute to our feeling out of control. And since we can’t control the thing that is causing us so much distress we try to at least control the feelings themselves. Which means we can find ourselves walking around only half alive because some aspect of our being has been walled off and is no longer accessible to us.
So wherever Pluto shows up in your chart or whenever it makes an appearance in your life through transit or progression the task presented to you is to courageously take that journey into the depths of our souls, climb over that wall and feel all the things that we have hidden away out of fear of it being too much, too overwhelming, or too unbearable. This process is sometimes known as soul retrieval, reclaiming your power or coming back home to yourself.
It’s not often fun but it’s an extraordinary opportunity to reconnect with potent aspects of your soul and your being.
So what I’ve been describing here is what it looks like when Pluto shows up on a personal level for an individual person. But what does it mean when Pluto is in a sign and impacts all of us on a collective level? And what happens when it changes signs?
Since Pluto moves so slowly and stays in a sign for anywhere between 12 and 30 years ( depending on the sign) Pluto is also often associated with particular generations. And it’s interesting to see how various Plutonian themes are played out on each generational stage.
Since Pluto is all about unearthing the dark side of an archetype (which is what the signs are) in order to, hopefully, bring healing and awareness to that archetype, it can be helpful to look at past transits of Pluto through some of the signs.
So for example, the Baby Boomers are known as the Pluto in Leo generation. And the dark side of Leo is unbridled individualism, toxic self expression and the need to always be right and in charge of any situation. Some of the hallmarks of this ME Generation, sex, drugs and rock and roll cycle was the birth of the whole concept of rockstars ( with their narcissistic hotel destroying ways) and aging baby boomers who won’t ever give up the reins of power.
Pluto in Virgo are the Gen X’ers where the dark side can look like an emphasis on an inhuman work ethic, the idea that technology will save the world and making a god of productivity. This is when corporate culture just assumed that people would work 60 -100 hours in a week and it was considered a GOOD thing.
Pluto in Libra’s dark side has to do with superficiality, transactional relationships, and valuing a good looking presentation over any kind of substance. Think instagram influencers and high ticket business coaches that don’t really have the experience or expertise to back up their claims. They’re just really good at marketing.
Pluto is very at home in Scorpio, and Scorpio wants to go DEEP into the most uncomfortable truths and hidden power dynamics. So this transit brought to light all kinds of forbidden and taboo subjects that were very alive in the dominant culture like sexual abuse and systemic racism. This was also the period of the AIDS epidemic so issues impacting the LGBTQ communities were in the public eye in a bigger way.
The dark side of Pluto in Sagittarius is the zealot. This is the energy of the true believer who has a strong opinions about right and wrong and where freedom is the only true value. But those opinions don’t necessarily have to have any basis in reality. What matters is the strength of their belief. They can make a religion out of anything and be unwilling to learn or admit to anything that potentially challenges those beliefs as outgrowths of their allegiance to tribal ideologies. This is the the virulance of not only the MAGA culture but cancel cuture and self righteousness of the left.
And finally there is Pluto in Capricorn which is where we are now and what we will be leaving soon. The shadow side of Capricorn is the autocrat, the fascist, the authoritarian and the tyrant. It’s the malignantly ruthless authority figure whose primary value is worldly power, status and material success. It’s about the bottom line being everything and creating monolithic structures that are considered “too big to fail.” And the ruthlessness and power grabs that makes sure that failure is not an option. It’s the need to be in total control and doing whatever it takes to keep that control including exploiting, repressing and colonizing others.
Hopefully you get the picture. Pluto brings to light and even intensifies some of the shadow elements of each sign as a cultural phenomenon. And the purpose of that is to bring more awareness to these patterns in order to eventually bring about healing, growth and change.
Now of course, there are all kinds of positive qualities that are expressed through these astrological constellations. But I wanted to focus on the dark side for the purposes of this article.
These shadow qualities ( as well as the good stuff) show up not only in the people who are born with that particular configuration, but they also make their presence known via whatever zeitgeist you are living through.
As a bona fide baby boomer I am continually working personally with the Leo in Pluto archetypal energy dynamics in my own psyche, but I’ve also been impacted by all of the themes that have been expressed as Pluto has moved through the other signs.
And as we are nearing the end of Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, I find myself reflecting on some of those shadow themes, considering what they have taught me and how they have influenced me and my own healing over these past 15 years since Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008, which I will address in my next blog post.
Love this, Chris! Your simple, clear straight forward astro insights are so welcome. Please do more of these!