Pluto Measures The Generations
People love to talk about the generations, how they’re different from each other and how they react to each other. We are different generations because we came into different worlds.
It may sound like silly pop culture, but people have been commenting about the differences between the age groups for centuries. Understanding the issues and reactions of each cohort is an important way of understanding how our society functions.
Looking at the different generations, I came to realize that the given dates roughly matched up with the dates of Pluto’s slow movements from sign to sign.
What if Pluto’s motions are what measures the length of each generation? Do Pluto’s signs signify the issues that define each of these generations?
If it is true that Pluto puts the stamp to each individual generation, then that means Pluto provides the zeitgeist for the portion of time of each generation. Each cohort has its own concerns, and I found I could match up issues for each generation with themes suggested by the sign Pluto was in at the time. If this is true, it means Pluto creates an emphasis on issues represented by each astrology sign it passes through.
You could say Pluto dominated events in the environment influence the childhoods of those that grow up in them, or you could see them as being stamped with the same energies represented by those particular signs.
Pluto seems to rule the energies that are the underlying and fundamental workings of our society, refreshing each theme in a broad way as it moves through each sign.
You can see that the dates are roughly similar in most cases. I feel like using the dates of Pluto’s signs makes measuring the generations more accurate, especially around the beginnings and ends of each generation.
It also makes the generations and their differences easier to understand. Each astrological sign will provide the theme that will be of great concern to that generation. Each generation will then carry this energy signature into the future.
One of the most important changes to generational reckoning that results from following the Pluto signs is to divide the Boomers into two generations, the Boomers and the Joneses. This realization was actually years in the making, and one of the things that drew me into this project. I have friends and relatives that are Boomers and Jones. Besides observing thier respective behaviors, I also love to talk about astrology with my friends, and how thier life experiences reflect thier charts. I began to notice something about my pals in the Jones generation. I came to learn that they do not seem very comfortable with the common description of their generational status.
Pluto was in the sign of Virgo from the years 1958-1971, and Virgo can be a self-effacing sign.
Virgo people focus on the functioning of the world around them and are serious and detailed oriented, they commonly don’t have flashy personalities. They might not have time for much self-reflection. The only thing these reserved people seemed to know about their generation, was that were NOT Boomers! They all make this face when they say it, this big stubborn frown. It’s not that they express hate for the Boomers, the Boomers are their beloved older brothers and sisters, but, they are not the same.
I’ve had them tell me, without confidence, that they were Gen X. But no. They’re the Joneses. It makes the most sense for them. Ask them!
The other thing I noticed right away, when I started to delve into this idea, is that Pluto does not stay in the signs for the exact same amount of time, so the generations are not naturally of equal proportions. Unlike the inner planets and gas giants, Pluto has a wildly irregular orbit. This Pluto effect means there’s a lot more of certain energy influences than others mixed into society. There are a lot of Boomers, because not only was the birthrate high, but also Pluto stayed in Leo for seventeen fucking years. You get the effect of more of certain kinds of energy in our society going forward, as members of a generation carry that energy, and also different amounts of time spent on each social issue represented by that sign.
I think Generation X is the smallest cohort, with Pluto only being in Libra for 11 years, and the birthrate in the 70’s being relatively low.
Pluto went really long in the earlier generations. Before the Boomers, Pluto was in Cancer from 1914 to 1939, that’s 25 years. This is the generation that Ronald Reagan and Ruth Bader Ginsberg come from. The Silent Generation. Before them, the Lost Generation, saw Pluto in Gemini from 1882 to 1914, 35 years. Pluto has recently moved in Aquarius, and will stay in the sign for 19 years. This indicates a long gradual development of Aquarius themes. Later in our century, Pluto will be in Pisces for 22 years, and then Aries for 29 years.
Pluto seems to have the capacity to deeply transform our culture throughout time. It creates powerful changes using the stresses and anxieties that well up from each individual to create sweeping changes in our way of life.
When I first began to study this phenomenon, I thought that Pluto would cause problems to be solved. After observing this process for awhile, I came to realize that what Pluto actually does is make problems much worse.
As Pluto moves slowly through a sign, it seems to increase the intensity surrounding the issues the energy is working through. Once Pluto is in the last degrees of a sign, the problem will begin raging out of control. An example of this is in our present time, where Pluto has just left cardinal earth sign Capricorn. Pluto has been in Capricorn since 2008, recently leaving the sign in the end of 2024. Capricorn has to do with the wealthy, elites, responsibilities and privileges. I could really see events and personalities that share these themes becoming more toxic, and exerting more and more pressure on more and more people. By now, everyone can see that some people’s extreme wealth and privileges are a problem for the rest of us.
Pluto energies seems to work similarly to how our bodies deal with poisons and toxins. Pluto raises a boil on the skin of the body cultural. The toxins below the surface are gathered and concentrated, and then forced to the surface, where this ball of poison gathers in intensity as it painfully erupts through the surface.
What I found is that instead of healing problems, Pluto actually magnifies issues into gigantic problems, which in turn makes us deal with the problems. Pluto does its works by exaggerating flaws, magnifying them until they are such huge problems that the whole system threatens to break down. Then everyone has to stop and pay attention to this problem and fix it. Eventually it gets to the point that you have to stop and lance it and get the poison out, before you can continue with normal life. Pluto’s energies are a strong purgative.
Pluto energies are subtle and complex. The planet is far out in our solar system, and has a long, slow orbit compared to earth. These Pluto themed events are ongoing, complex and take a long time to build up, and then a long time to be worked through.
Because of the complexities of Pluto themes and actions, it can be seen that the problems represented by the current astrological theme are foreshadowed and ready to be a crisis soon after Pluto changes signs. Examples are the presidency of George W. Bush, his republican administration embraced a forgiving attitude towards the wealthy. Government regulators looked the other way, allowing moorage banks and brokers to pretty much do as they please. AS Pluto went into Capricorn, which again, represents the wealthy and powerful, the subprime mortgage crisis erupted.
Another example is how the civil rights movements paved the way for divorce laws to be revolutionized throughout the seventies. The most recent example is the election of Donald Trump after his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It’s the perfect crisis for Pluto in Aquarius, as fixed air sign Aquarius has to do with equality, liberty and fraternity.
Each generation has its own thematic issue that it has to be concerned with. We’ll concern ourselves here with the generational issues that we deal with today, For the most part, the Boomers and the generations that came after that are the ones shaping the action of the moment.
We refer to the Pluto in Leo generation as the Boomers. The Boomers were born to the Silent Generation, when Pluto was in Cancer. They were raised to get married early, get jobs and start having kids. Throughout the sixties and seventies, many Boomers rebelled against these notions. They were turned off by the idea of bland family lives and being the stable pillars of society. Leo has to do with individuality and authenticity. Boomers wanted to express themselves rather than committing to just being cogs in the machine. I think the struggle of Pluto in Leo has to do with developing an individualistic self, rather than falling into the trap of simply developing a very powerful, but superficial, ego, and has to do with individual desires verses the dictates of society.
The next sign Pluto moved into was Virgo, from 1958 till 1971. Virgo has to do with bringing health and wholeness, with an emphasis on the details on the details of the material world and daily life that keeps everything in functioning. I feel like the Joneses have been engaged in improving systems that makes possible healthy and functional daily routine. The fight against cancer typifies this struggle. Pluto in Virgo children were born to Silent Generation parents who were veterans of both world wars. Cancer rates shot up among veterans exposed to new chemicals and pollutants newly used in warfare and general manufacturing. Cancer detection was in its infancy in the 60, and many in the Jones generation suffered the loss of a parent to cancer. Since the sixties, we’ve had an absolute revolution in cancer detection and treatment. I feel like this is the true legacy of Virgo in Pluto. The sixties also saw an agricultural revolution that we’re still dealing with the consequences of, good and bad, today. Agriculture can defiantly be related to Virgo, Virgo is the sign of late summer, early fall when the harvest begins. The Green Revolution occurs in the 60’s. This was a time when petroleum products began to be used wholesale in food production. New strains of grain crops were developed at this time. They were extremely productive, but needed lots of fertilizers and pesticides to produce these bumper crops. These seeds and petroleum products were prompted alongside new times of farm equipment, more efficient tractor and harvesters. This new style of agriculture was marketed worldwide, and brought with it higher yields, which staved off famines, but also introduced pollution and CO2 on a scale never seen before.
I feel like this is a generation that has been underapprectiated, which is also a Virgo theme. This generation is the one keeping the lights on, the bridges working and the hospitals running. They don’t understand this new childish version of the self that’s popular now, and they don’t fit in. We’re all gonna be screwed if we don’t figure out what they know before they retire.
After spending thirteen years in Virgo, Pluto moved into cardinal air sign Libra. The sign Libra is traditionally ruled by Venus, and is concerned with relationships. The symbol for Libra is a women holding a pair of balanced scales, iconography borrowed from the Goddesses of justice. Pluto stayed in the sign Libra from 1972 until 1983.
During the 70’s, divorce laws around country were updated, reflecting civil rights fights for women’s rights in the 60’s. State after state changed the old laws and introduced no fault divorces. Marriage was transformed, and divorce rates skyrocketed. Many Gen X’s either suffered through their parents divorce, or had a close friend that did. Divorce became much more common, but was still considered shocking and scandalous. Articles and talkshows centering on broken homes and latch key kids captured the national spotlight.The evil step-parent was a popular theme in movies and shows. This generation went on to transform the conventions around romance and families. Gen X shocked the country by getting pregnant in high school, and then just having the babies and raising them like it was no big deal. Generation X married later, and had less children than their Boomer parents.Studies have shown that marriages begun with the partners in their late 20’s and early 30’s are far more successful and long lasting that marriages begun with both parties in their late teens. Family structure and romantic relationship transformed in the proceeding decades, with blended families becoming perfectly normal and dating protracted well into what was traditionally considered established adulthood.
The next Pluto sign was Scorpio. Fixed water sign Scorpio is ruled by Pluto, and is considered deep, raw and even scandalous. Pluto passed through fixed water sign Scorpio during the years 1984 to 1995. Scorpio has to do with sex and death and darkness, the primal truths these highly charged topics hold.
In 1981, the first infections with the virus that causes Aids were reported. The AIDS virus and its scandals arose at this time, which certainly did thrust sex, scandalous sex, and death into the spotlight. Society remained preoccupied with its attitudes towards gay people, and arguments over how AIDS patients should be treated.
These archetypal astrological energies can have more than one face and can manifest themselves in ways we’re not expecting. As I thought about the Millenials and what their generation has been through, other types of Scorpio themes presented themselves.
Scorpio’s nature is tribal, and one of the things that it is highly concerned with is loyalty. During the 80’s, the power of the wealth began to grow for the first time since the great depression. Elites formed a tribe of their own, and began to shape our government and the world, in their own interests. Our government turned its back on the people as the wealthy pushed back against the reforms and civil rights gains of the 60’s and 70’s. Globalization went into high gear. The American government engaged in class warfare with such programs such as the war on drugs, and the creation of the Child Support Program, which creates more child poverty than it alleviates. Conservatives worked to restrict access to welfare and food stamps, while also pushing through tax cuts for the rich that began the growing the inequality that we see today. The wealthy formed their own tribe and turned inward. During the 80’s they unleashed the forces of alienation and disempowerment that as still with us today. This social malaise has dogged the Millennials throughout their struggles to attain independent adulthood and middle class status. Their launch was marred by the subprime crisis. As they attempted to recover financially, covid hit, and now the housing crisis. This is a well understood situation, and yet there has been no assistance or programs designed to help them. This is a generation as a whole that society has been disloyal too.
Grass roots organizations have struggled with this trend. Since this time, we have seen the rise in popularity in community action. Community wasn’t part of the popular discourse during the 80’s. Through the efforts of people abandoned by the government and the mainstream, the American people have found new ways to organize and help each other. A community is one where the people involve are of equal value, and all are committed to a common goal or lifestyle. People have begun to use community to leverage people power to solve problems that government or larger structures don’t care to address.
Recently, Taylor Swift, who is a Millennial, showed how badly we need these types of connections by forming a huge community of her close-knit fan club. We’ve now begun to form our own tribes.
More recent influences from Pluto have created problems that are still raw and new. Younger generations are just beginning to enter the adult world, and grapple with the problems their decades of birth presented them with.
Pluto was in Sagittarius from 1995 to 2008. Sagittarius is a mutable fire sign ruled by the planet Jupiter. Its areas of concern are education and religion. Concerns grew regarding the state of education in America, as it was feared that America was failing to meet satisfactory standards in education. George W. Bush’s administration passed The No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. This act was supposed to increase funding to schools, but was contingent on schools reaching certain goals measured by standardized testing administered nation wide. The act was unpopular with conservative as it was seen as allowing the federal government to meddle in local matters, and unpopular with Democrats because it did not address inequalities in school funding for different regions.
The most sensational event during the passing of Pluto through Sagittarius was the sex abuse scandal of the Catholic Church. The shocking revelation of ongoing sexual abuse by priests changed the attitudes towards religion of billions of faithful around the world. The emergence of these allegations broke the rock. Through cascading series of events, church membership has plunge to the point where many churches have closed down and sold their property.
You could see how both of these problems had been building up energy under the surface of our society’s awareness in the decade before Pluto went into Sagittarius. Obviously the church organizations were moving problematic priests around, instead of handing them over to the justice system. This furtive action build up the explosive power with which this issue emerged. The push back against education spending in the Pluto in Scorpio Regan era caught up with America when we started to compare poorly with other country, when in the past our education system had been America’s pride.
Problems with religion and education have not disappeared from the American landscapes we continue to work these issues out.
I raised in an East Coast suburban area in the 70’s and 80’s and I got an excellent public education. The only flaw I have found in the education I received, is that I wasn’t taught enough about the nature of my civil rights. I though they were sacrosanct, a gift from the founding fathers, set in stone forever in ages past. I should have been taught that my rights are precious, and that they needed to be fought for, ongoing, to be retained. That has been something I’ve had to learn for myself, and if I had understood that from early on, maybe I would have done things differently.
Obviously these issues are both still being fiercely contested. There is currently a great power struggle between those that would prefer to elevate faith over education, and those that would have the opposite. We do not have an acceptable common philosophy that tells us the place of education and religion in our lives.
Pluto has been in Capricorn since 2008, recently leaving the sign in the end of 2024.
The Saturn-ruled astrological sign Capricorn has to do with responsibility, work, society’s maintenance and also privileges. Saturn has to do with the principles of reality and responsibility. You can try and ignore reality, and for a while you can live in your fantasy world. But if you don’t attend to your responsibilities, inevitably, it will catch up with you. But if you do do your work, there are rewards. The rewards of Saturn are long lasting and stabilizing. Such things as the nice home and car, and good reputation and being able to afford to educate your children are what faithfulness brings. And of course, we all know that performing our duties properly also leads to privileges. Traditionally (a very Capricorn category), those who make the greatest sacrifices receive the greatest privileges.
Capricorn is a hard nosed and conservative sign that can sometimes be judging. They’re the administrators that faithfully arrive at their desks everyday and keep everything in order. They are the first to let you know that you are a lazy slob who is basically surviving on their coattails. The world needs Capricorn energy, but it is not an easy sign to deal with, even for the Capricorns themselves. Capricorn traditionally signified such elites as bankers and administrators of the state. It has to do with the wealthy do the work of running the state, or other important jobs that affect all of society, rather than the wealthy who just play and party and don’t contribute.
In this case, the intensifying effects of Pluto seemed motivate elites and wealthy to really push their boundaries. They seem to want to forget the connection between privileges and responsibilities, and have the first without the second.
This era started right out with a huge financial collapse caused by the wealthy. The subprime mortgage collapse, where rich people took advantage of loopholes in moorage rules to make out with a bundle of loot. George W. Bush’s presidency, who embraced a policy of deregulation, set the stage for this. The Federal Government backed off on concerning themselves with the activities of banks and mortgage brokers.
This irresponsible bullshit came home to roast, right as Pluto went into Capricorn in 2008. It affected our entire economy. Instead of being punished for this, the insidious power of Pluto created a situation where they were basically rewarded for this catastrophe. Had they been allowed to sufferer their fate, this would have been a good pruning for the wealthy, who had been growing unchecked since the elite-friendly 80’s.
The decision was made that these corporations and institutions were “too big to fail”. Maybe they were. We don’t know what would have happened if they had been left to the cascading powers of atrophy.
Ha-Joon Chang talks about this event in Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. American car company G.M. was in terrible shape financially, and was really affected by the economic setback caused by the subprime mortgage collapse. Because G.M. had been focusing exclusively on creating profits for shareholders for decades, they did not have money in reserve to get them through times of financial set back. Instead they had to be bailed out by the government. The CEO’s of these wealthy corporations used the bailout money to buy back more stock, making taxpayers money into a direct contribution to their own coffers. Because of favorable Capricorn winds, they buoyed up by the powers that be, instead of being punished.
With the continuance of the policies of laxly regulating the activities of the wealthy, privatization has wormed it’s way into almost every aspect of our lives. The wealthy can now convert almost all of our everyday needs into revenue streams. This activity intensified as Pluto moved deeper into cardinal earth sign Capricorn. Food, education, medicine, entertainment, and then finally housing has all been turned into ways for rich people to make tons and tons of money.
In 2017, when Pluto was at 17* of Capricorn, the Trump administration with the assistance of congress enacted the deepest cuts for the wealthy since the Pluto in Scorpio Reagan era. This was another direct transfer of wealth from people of America to the wealthy of our country.
As Pluto recently moved through the last degrees of Capricorn, it raised the pitch of the energy around wealth and privilege to an incredible degree. The wealthy and elites are currently raging out of control in America, and in many other countries in the world, with devastating consequences for the citizens of the whole world
When Pluto first went into Capricorn, it was considered scandalous and extreme to criticize the wealthy on social media. I know because I did it, and people unfriended me. Fourteen years later, I can post “Eat The Rich” and this sentiment is now greeted with warmth and feelings of camaraderie. As I have watched the power of the super wealthy grow, I haven also watched the rest of the population become more and more radicalized around this issue, as everyone reacts to the increasing pressures that Pluto exudes.
Capricorn should be conserving ideals, not cash and property. The idea of responsibility is the heart of what Saturn-ruled Capricorn is about. Privilege should be tied to responsibility always. If you sacrifice your life for public service, there should be some privilege attached. Capricorn should be conserving values such as being answerable to American people, carrying the work load that keeps the system that cradles the lives of so many, keeping strong the safety nets that protect all these precious fragile little lives. That is the true Capricorn energy. Pluto’s passage through this sign has caused the rot hidden in the elites to rise to the surface. It has caused the hidden work of the wealthy in our system to be flushed to the surface. It has made them into such a huge problem, that we will not be able to move forward until this Capricorn energy has been restored to balance and proper proportions.
I find it hard to connect with the idea of Pluto as a solely masculine energy. I have come to associate Pluto with the archetype of the goddesses of Fate. In the cards Pluto energies and consciousness appear to me in the High Priestess card and the Death card. Pluto has a large moon half it’s size that it is tidal locked with, they are always facing each other. Some astronomers consider Pluto and it’s moon to be a double dwarf planet system. This seems to resonate with the fact that throughout pagan history, the gods and goddesses of fate and the underworld are frequently doubled. Queen Mother of the Kingdom of the Dead, and the messenger who comes to fetch our souls. Hades, Peresophone, Charon and Mercury are all rulers of the Underworld and guides to souls in European culture.
Pluto is the holder of the wise destructive energies, Kali, Ereshkigal, the Erinyes, the Valkyries, Hel, Fra Holle, Baba Yaga, Sedna, Eli, The Morrigan, Ai Cailleach, Marzanna and many more demonstrate her type of power in myths, fables and fairytales.
Her potion is a deadly poison and a healing draught at the same time, you take a swig, shudder and vomit everywhere…and then feel better than you have in your whole life.
It seems that Pluto’s job is to protect the flow of life force, it talks about the extreme intensity of the life force, and how it is bound to always move forward, like our blood stream. If blood stops moving, we are dead.
As Pluto moves to inhabit a sign, she wants to fill all of things associated with that sign with a free flow of the life-force. Wherever she finds something that blocks her forward motion, she begins applying pressure until she can break through. Here is where her destructive nature arises.
Pluto seems to carry a black hole energy in the sense that there is nothing that she can’t destroy.
In this way the nature of our society is constantly being refreshed, as the life-force’s unstoppable impulse expresses itself through the different aspects of human culture, as well as through the natural world all around us.
It seems that what happens is that we develop habits that ossify into structures, and then the big, heavy social structures start to restrict the natural flow of the life force. In this way the things we think are most permanent about our society and lives are burst apart as society grows and evolves and moves forward. For example, up to the late 1960’s, it was extremely scandalous for a woman to attempt to divorce her husband. It was expensive, she had to have some proof of mistreatment or misbehavior. At the same time, it was often the case that she was pressured into the marriage as a young and inexperienced woman, though societal or economic forces. But these marriages did not create or hold love, and love wants to exist for real in our world. Pluto in Libra built up so much pressure in these unhappy relationships that the dam was broken through. In the seventies, states across the country changed marriage laws to make divorce easier. Love wants to relate. And so the force of love, engorged with Pluto energies, burst through the obstacles created by society.
We have a problem with ideas about destruction and creation in our culture. We tend to see creation as good, and destruction as bad. Life contains both patterns, and either can be positive or negative. We love it when some horrible disgusting thing is destroyed, just like we hate it when some deadly and problematic thing is created. Destruction can be a force for good, and we have to be able to accept that to work with Pluto energies.
It is paradoxical that it is the Gods of the Dead and the Underworld are the ones that tend to the life force. If there is an entity that has left the main stream, and has traveled on an eddy into a stagnant side pool, where it lingers in a half life, or there is a body that is too damaged, then They come to tidy you away, so that life can move on.
Pluto measures the generations the way the way the Fates weave, measure and cut the thread of your life.
I have found astrology to be an excellent research tool. Especially for the most elusive and transcendent of things, the meaning and purpose behind historical trends and events. No one can accurately predict the events of the future, but we can learn what the events and times we live through are trying to tell us about ourselves. I feel like astrology offers meaning and answers the why? behind history’s flow.
People complain and start up talking about free will when you start mentioning astrology. How can the planets control us they ask? That is stupid, they say. Which I agree with, it would be stupid. The system we live in is far more elegant than that.
After studying these ongoing celestial activities, I have come to believe that the planets and their interactions create different energies. These energies are imbibed by our psyches, and they subtly affect our behavior. I think the energies created by the planets work like different types of fuel seeping in our psyches. Some people handle some energies well, and other won’t be able to deal with the same energies as easily. The solar system simply provides the fuel, it’s on us how we use it and how we react to it.
How does it exactly work? Who knows. Maybe it’s a quantum entanglement of the heart.
Alternative scientist Itzhak Bentov, in his book Stalking The Wild Pendulum, says that system that is sufficiently complex could be a container for consciousness. Perhaps the bodies of our solar system have huge consciousnesses, and we are the little fishes that swim unknowing in their huge tides and the currents they create.
Astrology itself has long been the enemy of the reductionist viewpoint. Since before the reductionist view point even existed.
Our culture has been strongly shaped by the reductionist, materialistic viewpoint that was forged at the birth of modern science. The still dominant idea of our reality was created by Issac Newton and scientists up to Eistein, who came to believe that everything in our universe could be explained by the motions of tiny particles, and that alone. Scientists believed that if you knew the location of all the particles in the universe when the universe began, that you could predict everything that would ever happen with surety.
Modern science belies these ideas. Between quantum science and systems science, we have learned that our reality is far more “alive” than we had come to believe.
Here is Stuart A. Kauffman, who is a scientist who studies complexity in systems, from his book Reinventing The Sacred.
“You and I are agents; we act on our own behalf; we do things. In physics, there are only happenings, no doings. Agency has emerged in evolution and cannot be deduced by physics. With agency comes meaning and value. “
He explains that our ecosystem displays an emergent complexity that arrises spontaneously, quantum physics are not able to predict how natural systems will evolve. Emergent complexity is creativity, and creativity is agency.
“The evolution of the universe, biosphere, the human economy, human culture and human action is profoundly creative. It will take some detailed exploration of what are called Darwinian pre-adaptations to explain this clearly. The upshot is that we do not know beforehand what adaptations may arise in the evolution of a biosphere. Nor do we know beforehand many of the economic evolutions that will arise. No one foresaw the internet in 1920. This unpredictability may exist on many levels that we can investigate. For example, we do not know beforehand what will arise even in the evolution of cosmic grains of dust that grow by aggregation and chemical reaction to form planetesimals. The wondrous diversity of life out your window evolved in ways that largely could not be foretold. So, too, has the human economy in the past fifty thousand years, as well as human culture and law. They are not only emergent, but radically unpredictable.
This incapacity to foresee has profound implications. We live in a universe, biosphere and human culture that are not only emergent, but radically creative. We live in a world whose unfolding we often cannot prevision, prostate or predict -a world of explosive creativity on all sides. This is a central part of the new scientific worldview.”
Scholar and astrologer Bruce Scofield in his recent book, The Nature of Astrology, describes astrology as a systems science, a set of techniques for mapping and analyzing a self-organizing system, namely, our solar system.
“There is another theme central to this book that concerns since, perhaps the most important one. Since the seventeenth century, the preferred methods of science have become mechanistic and reductionist in the context of a material metaphysics (I refer to this in the book as reductionist-mechanistic-materialistic or RMM, in my view a useful generalization of the dominant trend in science over the last ~350 years). In this version of science, which includes methodologies of falsification and checks of data against hypotheses, the parts of something being studied are isolated, tested, measured and explained in terms of a mechanism. This particularist approach, which works so well in physics and chemistry, now also informs molecular biology, behavioral psychology, parts of the social sciences, and modern medicine in general. In contrast to this is systems thinking, a way of doing science that approaches phenomena like weather and climate systems, organisms, mind, personality, consciousness and society from a broader perspective. Here, the dynamic properties of a system in it’s entirety -or, in other words, the sum of connections, patterns, feedback loops and emergent properties (which resist reduction) -are the starting point in a scientific investigation. This more general and process-oriented approach to knowledge is multidisciplinary and is practiced in some branches of engineering and psychology, and also ecology and organism and evolutionary biology.
Systems are complicated and not static, which is why reductionist science is not always the right tool for investigation. Systems also exhibit many unusual properties and processes that turn out to be extremely resistant to reductionism, including the phenomena of emergence and self-organization, which are central in understanding topics like origins of life, mind and self-consciousness. Another important quality of systems is that they often display strong responses to very weak signals. The field of astrology, as I will argue in this book, has been studying systems for the past three millennia, at least. It is not fortune-telling, pseudoscience, nor bunk. The field of astrology studies a type of environmental signaling, and is actually a kind of system science, or a least a set of techniques for mapping (including temporal trajectories) and analyzing self-organizing systems. In this sense, it has the potential to contribute toward a more inclusive scientific program.”
Our solar system is a self-organizing system. Astrology is considered an art as well as a science because it studies our solar system, which is complex, with many different bodies creating influence, changing influences, all at once. The solar system’s history demonstrates complexity above the sum of its parts, as a living system would do, and an unpredictable emergent evolving complexity.
Our solar system is a giant mind, turning in space time.
We can learn to think with it. Totally accurate prediction of events is impossible, but I think the movements of the outer planets can teach us the meanings of the times we live through. The astrology signs show the lessons, the pieces of ourselves and our belief systems that we need to learn more about. Where we need to be brave, and let the life-force flow.
Evolution is at it’s most intense on earth, where delicate eco systems and extremely self-aware human communities are constantly changing.
I think the movements of the planets through the signs shows the evolving soul of our solar system. We are co-creators with the other bodies of our solar system.
Pluto moving through the signs demonstrates the living complexity of these forces. Though each astrological archetype has a core, it can manifest in new ways each time it passes slowly through a time. We don’t know yet what Libra, or Scorpio or Aquarius can hold. The themes come to life as Pluto dons them as her regalia, and each time the archetypes learn and grow. As Richard Tarnas says are multivalent and multifaceted.
I have learned so much from studying astrology, and I have found that knowledge offer me comfort in the face of seeming chaos. I glean a lot of useful perspective from it. Sometimes a fresh perspective really helps.
With Pluto moving from Capricorn to Aquarius the tides of the life force have turned, and there is a new hope, but also new dangers.
I began to study the effects of Pluto during the time of Pluto in Capricorn, so I knew what I was looking for. I knew that I would be looking for issues surrounding privilege, and responsibility, wealth and elites.
I learned a lot about privilege. Capricorn is an intense sign for America, becuase America has Pluto in Capricorn in it’s natal chart. We tell ourselves that America was founded on the ideals of freedom and equality, but that’s not really the case is it? America was founded by wealthy white men who were slaveholders and owned huge tracts of property. Our democracy has been more emergent than encouraged. Pluto in Capricorn forced America to deal with some of the skeletons in it’s closet. I learned a lot about privilege in the last 15 years.
This time period unveiled some privilege ideas that been pushed back into the shadows in previous generations. I was watching the wealthy, but I realized that there are really poor people who felt privileged too. There are some lives so bare, that the simple color of their skin makes them swell with pride.
During this time I also learned how the feminist movement had been damaged by privilege. Bell Hooks talks about it in her book on feminist theory. The modern feminist movement was begun at the Universities of the 60’s and it’s first proponents were middle class educated white women. By failing to reach out to and include women of color, they were not able to build a big enough base to amplify their message. Feminism was unable to market itself as family-positive and ended up being labeled man-hating and left of center. Feminism has not been able to recapture the diolgaue surrounding it and make itself appealing or trendy to the majority of women, and many, many women who benefit immensely from the work and suffering of the women and men before them reject the label. My proof of this is that 52% of America white women voted a rapist into office in the 2024 election.
And I learned that I had privilege too, privilege that I did not recognize.. All my life, I’ve been privileged to ignore white supremacists and racists. I’ve seen them around of course, the dudes with that dark energy, and the sneering eyes. I instinctively draw away. I look like a liberal, and they don’t like me, but I don’t have to feel real fear in thier presence, because I’m a white woman. Men who look they are probably racists make me uncomfortable, I hate being reminded they have to exist, but, I didn’t really have to deal with them. That was my privilege as a white woman.
But now that privilege is gone, because they are horrifyingly destroying my homeland, the one that I had immoveable faith in, right in front of my eyes. This fascism this could have been dealt with. It could have been weeded out decades ago.
There has to be some solution. Maybe not with violence, but with therapy. We have court ordered anger management classes. We could have court ordered hate management classes as well. Hate should be treated as a disease, it is a disease in the body public. There are people who have been involved with, and then left, hate groups. They could form an organization such as AA, which is routinely used by the Justice system to help people modify their behavior. People convicted of hate crimes and conspiring with hate groups could be sentenced to attend group therapy.
Pluto in Capricorn flushes the toxic truths to the surface. The reason racism and fascism weren’t rooted out, is because this racism is a valuable resource for elites. It’s a home grown army ready to do anything for anyone who will give them permission to give free rein to their strange passions. Too many people tiptoed around the racism, or just accepted it. We looked at the history of America with eyes of horror, and felt bad for minorities, but kind of still felt snug and safe in our well-lit homes. Well, I guess that wasn’t right, and now we all have to deal with the consequences.
Capricorn is a very conservative sign. It’s good to conserve things, like our humanity. Our civilization valuable, and we need these stable spaces to each reach our full potential. The problem is when people try and conserve weird shit we don’t need, like racial bias or their own wealth, instead of conserving the things we do need, like a functional infrastructure, an excellent and robust education system and stringent voting rights. Or a clean air and water. We need those with the most privileges to take the most responsibility. For Capricorn the important values to conserve would be more like professionalism, honesty, integrity and democratic values. Some sense of responsibility to the American people.
You know, the real stuff.
I late December 2024, Pluto moved into fixed air sign Aquarius. Aquarius is ruled by planet Uranus. Pluto is represented as a P in the chart below. The symbols inside the tan circle depict where the planets were on July 4th 1776. The green symbols on the outside of the circle show where they were on December 17, 2024, when Pluto was at 0* Aquarius.
I submit that the move of Pluto from Capricorn to Aquarius signals a change in the cultural zeitgeist.
Pluto In Aquarius
Things are looking pretty dark right now, as Pluto’s fifteen year stay in Capricorn has boiled up all the darkness and keeper-energy that was hidden in the elites.
It certainly does make for a good story. The hapless forces of liberty and democracy are threatened at ever turn. These precious energies have to run a gauntlet of dangers to advance into the future. The very existence of our way of life is threatened by the overweening power of the super wealthy. Right now our democracy is the hero tied up with the blasting laser slowly coming into focus on its heart. It seems like it could be the final hour.
Luckily Pluto in Aquarius is just the turn of events that we need. Pluto in Aquarius is our deus ex machina.
Aquarius is a very different sign than Capricorn. Capricorn focuses on the nuts and bolts of the big structures of our society. Aquarius is concerned with society as well, but is more interested into the eternal principles than the weekly administrative routines. Aquarius energy jives very well with the ideals of our founding fathers, Aquarius is the most progressive sign, and values equality, liberty and fraternity.
Astrological sign Aquarius is ruled by gas giant Uranus. Richard Tarnas argues that the planet should have been named after Prometheus instead, and that Prometheus’s story matches the planet’s energy better than the myths of Uranus. The planet seems to represent the progressive nature of the human spirit. Humans are fiercely revolutionary creatures. Leaps of insight and breakthroughs on the material and philosophical planes characterize human history. Our nature reflects the ongoing and rapidly developing nature of the universe better than any other animal. Titan Prometheus stole fire and gave it to us so we could be more than animals. To be human is to move the light of consciousness forward through time.
Due to the progression nature of the sign, Aquarius favors cooperation. Things cannot move forward without the process of two equal camps mediating to come to an agreement and a compromise. Without this process, society just goes round and round in a circle, and doesn’t get anywhere. Equality, balance and communication are favored. Under the sign of Aquarius, all are equal.
Aquarius is the leveler, where the crowd stands shoulder to shoulder on even ground. In the end, Aquarius manages to be even more common sense than Capricorn.
I think during Pluto in Aquarius, all things of a progressive nature will come to intense life. The life force will inevitably blast out anything that tries to block forward progress. These themes will take time to develop enough to be visible, not unlike how a germinating plant takes time to pierce the surface. Power will begin to flow to grassroots groups, non-profit activist group, small and independent journalism, and those who work towards the goals of equality and diversity. Pluto is going to be in Aquarius for 19 years, so there is plenty of time for these energies and issues to develop. And heighten. Due to the purgative nature of Pluto, progressive elements, and whatever toxins they contain, will continue to rise powerfully to the surface.
These are living energies, they change and evolve in time. We don’t know everything that Aquarius and Uranus can stand for. I believe the core values of Aquarian energy revolve around equality and the progress of the human spirit.
This sounds good to me. But we have to remember that things are not all sweetness and light in the court of Pluto. Due to the purgative nature of the planet, the worst aspects of this sign will also rise to the top over time. It is true that perfectly good left leaning revolutions have been corrupted and overtaken by those sensing the power vacuum at the center of equality. Aquarius wants to be a good sign, but can be cold, distant and inhuman, dismissing more cuddly and instinctive human needs and values. You don’t want your revolution forgetting that some middle class goals are actually really desirable and can pair just fine with liberty and freedom for all.
David’s Wengrow and Graeber explain in their book The Dawn OF Everything, that the cycling between authoritarianism and autonomy has gone on throughout human history. There is archeological evidence of people living without rulers, such as ancient cities in Mexico, Ukraine, China and the mountains of France. Wealthy rulers leave lots of evidence of themselves, building huge palaces and storerooms to keep their jobs. It’s obvious when the ruins show that all the families had about the same level of material wealth. There are places were there is evidence of past revolts against powerful rulers, such as only the fancy parts of the city being burned down and destroyed, while the rest of the city lives on. Through out the Medieval ages there were peasants revolts and cities that fought off the advances of royal wealthy. The fight for freedom and autonomy is as old as human history.
One of the other things Aquarius rules is technology. Pluto foreshadowing has already brought these energies to the point where they are ready to be a real crisis. We are already having a lot of problems with our newest technological advances. Social media is threatening us on several fronts, from worsening mental health and social relations to threatening our whole democracy. Digital surveillance is ubiquitous and threatens our privacy and safety. China already has scary robots designed to subdue citizens and suppress civil disobedience. AI proliferates despite our many questions about its nature. I believe the purgative nature of Pluto will also show its destructive power in the realm of technology.
The best way to deal with the energies Pluto represents is with complete honesty. If people allow their egos to feed on, and swell with the intoxicating power of Pluto, everything they do will be a travesty of everything they say they hold most dear. In working with Aquarius energies, we need to be able to take a cold hard look at ourselves, and make sure that our intention is truly to serve The People, and not secretly about our own best interests. We need progress that supports everyone, not a cold harsh type of progress that cuts apart the human world.
Most of all remember, though many struggle to influence our world, no one human can be in control of the whole thing. There are other forces at work. Though we struggle to understand the nature of our world, one thing is for sure, no one person or group of people can control all events. We still have a change to grow and to become better citizens of our solar system.
Cool toned Aquarius values friendships over all relationships. So let us say friend and enter this new world together.
Books!
Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations Of A New World View Richard Tarnas Plume Books 2007
The Passion Of The Western Mind: Understanding The Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View Richard Tarnas Ballentine Books 1993
Reinventing The Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason and Religion Stuart A. Kauffman Basic Books 2008
Stalking The Wild Pendulum: On The Mechanics Of Consciousness Itzhak Bentov Destiny Books 1988
The New Science Of The Enchanted Universe: An Anthopology Of Most Of Humanity Marshall Sahlins Princeton University Press 2022
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center Bell Hooks South End Press Classics 2000
The Dawn Of Everything: A New History Of Humanity David Wengrow and David Graeber Picador 2023
23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism Ha-Joon Change Bloomsberry Press 2011
The Contemporary Astrologer’s Handbook Sue Tompkins LSA/Flare 2009
The Dream and The Underworld James Hillman Harper and Row 1979
Astrology of Fate Liz Greene Weiser Books 1984
The Night Sun Tarot Fabio Listrani Lo Scarabeo 2015
Santa Muerte Tarot Fabio Listrani Lo Scarabeo 2022
