From cold and dry to warm and moist

when Pluto is in Aquarius, we stop pretending we care about "moist"

Upcoming Astrology:

There are plenty of week ahead resources out there (the CHANI podcast is a good one), so I thought it might be more fun to read a focused interpretation of one dynamic in the sky.

Gird your loins etc: The big story is Pluto’s entrance into Aquarius right along with the Sun on Sunday (the Sun’s day, wow, what timing!). Not a week to be going crazy on purpose.

For your own chart (which I highly suggest you learn how to review!), you’ll want to look at what planets you have in the first three degrees of the Fixed Signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius). This is especially true for your Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, and Mars. A little bit for Jupiter and Saturn though that’s less significant. 

If you have one of those planets in one of those degrees in one of those signs (have I lost you?) then you will want to think about potential metamorphosis in the areas represented by that planet and in the areas of your chart ruled by that planet. 

Ex: If I have the Moon at 1° Taurus, then I’ll think about my body, my emotional history, and whatever house I have in Cancer.

This is a small part of your larger story. If you want to talk to me about it, let me know! I offer hour-long readings for $80 and can answer quick questions free via email/text.

Pluto in Aquarius.

Looking ahead to Sunday (1/21/24), we’re about to get the Sun and Pluto sitting together at the very beginning of Aquarius. The last time we saw this was January 21, 1779. (This is just the last time both the Sun and Pluto were there. Pluto made a brief dip into Aquarius last year from March until June.)

I don’t spend as much time working with or thinking about the modern planets (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, or any of the thousands of asteroids). They weren’t in the schema as the bulk of the astrological techniques I work with were developed. That said, they’ve all got their own interesting histories and have been tracked symbolically to cycles of events from before their discover and after. If you want a fun read about these cycles and the histories of these planets, anything by Richard Tarnas is great but especially Cosmos and Psyche. 

I am biased with a very loud Moon-Pluto opposition in my birth chart, but I think that Pluto’s relationships in the chart are some of the most interesting. Basically, Pluto represents death and rebirth, destruction and change, disintegration and reintegration. We see Pluto’s sign position as reflective of rough sub-generational divides. Pluto in Libra for the early Millennials, Pluto in Scorpio for late Millennials, and Pluto in Sagittarius for Gen Z. Those of us with Pluto on the edges of a sign typically align with a generational transition with a little bit of each flavor. 

Because of the long 15-20ish years it takes for Pluto to move across a sign, the sign is less personal and the relationships between your other planets and Pluto become key to understanding your relationship to Pluto’s significations. Is your Sun square to Pluto? Maybe we see particular friction between your identity and a fear of death. Mars conjunct Pluto? We might look for a fight to survive, an intrinsic disbelief in physical safety. These dynamics aren’t always active in a chart, but, when they are, we can expect their aftershocks to be felt like those of an atomic bomb. 

As a collective, I think it’s helpful to start reflecting on this at the level of element. Along with all changes between the general meanings of Capricorn and Aquarius there is the relatively simple one of element. A shift from earth to air. From cold and dry to warm and moist. What does that mean for our experience of change?

Change was in the earth and now it’s in the air.

When Pluto moved into Capricorn in January 2008, we were living in a very different world. Meet the Spartans and 27 Dresses were winning at the box office. Heath Ledger had just died, Blogger boasted 20 million more users than Facebook, and Instagram wouldn’t be invented for another two years. 

If you boil down what astrologers generally say about the time that Pluto spent in Capricorn, it comes down to money and resources. As Pluto moved through the cardinal, earth sign Capricorn, we saw global markets collapse as it was revealed the money behind the housing bubble was not really there, we saw continued and expanded wars over earthy resources like oil, and we saw the climate crisis blow up even faster than expected. Watching friends in Texas deal with pretty much yearly freezes that cut off water and shut down power, it isn’t lost on me that a winter storm in Texas would have been pretty much impossible to believe when Pluto first entered Capricorn. 

I am struggling to make the connection here that I want to, a connection between temperatures and capacity for change. The thought occurred to me yesterday as it snowed through the day, adding another layer to what had been dumped on the ground overnight, that it is really hard to take action when you’re cold. It is hard to make a change when you’re dried up. These are environmental factors that suggest rigidity which suggests breakage which suggests splintering. I would say that the last fifteen years of Pluto in Capricorn have felt splintering. Change has often not flowed during this time, it has crashed.

So what happens when you apply that same deconstruction and reconstruction, rot and renewal, essentializing and exploding to the Aquarian? Aquarius is an air sign and air signs are warm and moist. Not as hot as fire and not as wet as water. Aquarius is still Saturn’s sign, probably the least gentle of the air signs, but it is absolutely not rigid. A strong, constant wind. A different way to experience change.

One loud symbol for Aquarius is the populace -- in Aquarius we see a community without a king, a community that provides first for the edges and works inward. We also see networks, technology, futurism. Robotics and free association. We see this all happening already of course and it doesn’t take an astrologer to tell you that things will look different when Pluto enters Pisces in 2043. But if we take Pluto in Aquarius seriously, then we see a time in which the idea of a society blows up and reconfigures. 

The last time we saw Pluto in Aquarius there were revolutions and newly formed nations all over the globe. We saw the establishment of the United States and, more notably, the successful Haitian Revolution. Marie Antoinette lost her head and liberal democracy built credibility globally. Pluto in Aquarius could suggest, then, that we’re due for something new, something that does not cater to a ruling elite. 

So the question: What level of involvement do you want in that? What is in reach and what is on the wind, blowing toward you? Most importantly, who do you want to surround yourself with through that process? 

Always a lot of credit goes to the people who have been my teachers, both directly and through their freely shared knowledge, and so many books.