Pluto Enters Aquarius: Revolution From Within
Tomorrow, Thursday, March 23 at 5:14 a.m. PST/8:14 a.m. EST, Pluto dips its toe into Aquarius for the first time. It will stay for 11 weeks giving us just a taste of the changes to come in the years ahead. Pluto transits mark major turning points in life both personally and on a collective level.
Think back to 2008, when Pluto entered Capricorn, and consider how much both you and the world at large have shifted since then. Particularly if you have important placements in Aries, Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn (all of the cardinal signs) part of your world has done more than change, it has transformed. It has gone through a type of death and rebirth.
Life is full of cycles. Cycles of beginnings, cycles of endings.
In the language of astrology, everything has a rhythm contained within these various chapters of our lives. Each transiting or progressed planet, the evolving relationship of the Sun and Moon will touch everything within each individual chart revealing the personal patterns of the cycles of our lives over time rather intimately if we are willing to look and listen. They actively demonstrate our connection to something larger, some unfolding mystery at the core of our lives.
There is a Taylor Swift lyric on her more recent album Midnights that always makes me laugh because it reminds me of this process and how much we resist the inevitable process of change. How we are most often unwilling to let go and move forward thinking that it is the world outside that must change rather than ourselves. Here it is: “I’ll stare directly at the Sun but never in the mirror.”
Transits (and progressions) symbolize a time when we come to a critical crossroads in life–a time when we can decide to continue to grow or fall into the abyss repeating the patterns in our lives like Groundhogs Day. We have a chance to give birth to ourselves anew–to use what we know, to reinvent ourselves, to contribute and connect to the great flow of life, or we can resist all challenges to change. Every experience in our lives leads up to this moment. It too unfolds in a sequence. Everything before this moment was just grist for the mill. A process of growing, of unfolding. As I have said before we are continuously blooming.
All of the planetary archetypes symbolize an intrapsychic process as well as an experience.
Under a Pluto transit to a significant planet or point, on a certain level, we must die to ourselves over and over again. It’s the magic of death and rebirth. Some unconscious way of moving through the world, some idea about ourselves is too small, too limited for where we need to move for the evolutionary needs of our soul. What this all boils down to–the testing, the fight between our ego(our limited version of ourselves) and our soul ( our larger self that is eternal). When we consciously take the time to listen we learn to act with the world, because we understand that the world is our teacher. We no longer set ourselves outside of it, or against it. We are at one with it. This is the true power Pluto has been craving.
Pluto is known as the transformer. It is the archetype of wealth, mystery, secrets, our shadow, and true power. As the last psychotherapist David R. Wawkins said “Force can bring satisfaction, but only power brings joy.” But to get there we need to do something that Pluto excels at, we need to dig deeply into our psyche and truly investigate our motivations and assumptions both about ourselves and the world at large.
It is a slow-moving process, a slow-moving cycle and that’s also the secret to its profound results. Pluto demands that we dig deep, that we uncover buried treasure. That find the gold within. It won’t let us off the hook.
Right now and for the next two years those most affected will be people whose charts either have significant placements at the very late degrees of one of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn) or the early degrees of the Fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius). On a Sun sign level that’s basically anyone born between the 19th and 23rd of a month containing these signs.
The last time Pluto journeyed through Aquarius, between 1777 and 1798, the world’s balance of power massively shifted. The American and French Revolutions took place. The U.S. Constitution was written. It was the beginning and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This time as we enter we are already witnessing a revolution in artificial Intelligence.
It is a time of revolution, we will certainly see changes within society and communities at large. With the transit of Pluto in Aquarius, we must find our individual part to play. Aquarius is the sign of the individual. of autonomy, freedom, and community. It's not just about individuality. It's about individuality in the context of community. It is a time of healing, regeneration, and change. Most importantly it is an opportunity for revolution from within.
