At the farmer’s market I heard a confused person mention how Pluto will become less influential in our charts since it was downgraded from planet status. All evidence to the contrary, I would say. This planet of revolution, death, intensity, finance, transformation and psychic experience will never go out of style. One look at the last time Pluto entered Aquarius is all we need to see evidence of how Pluto symbolism was mirrored in our world long before we even discovered it was there (although its presence was known by Vashishta in ancient India).
The first high point of the orb of influence would have been during 1776, so the American Revolution itself is certainly showing Pluto’s fuel for the independence of Aquarius. Breaking the rules to make improvement is a hallmark of Aquarian symbolism. But Pluto then entered the sign in April of 1777 and danced around that first degree and many astrologers agree the stationary portion of a retrograde is when a planet is most powerful.
Aquarius is the sign of human progress. By February of 1778, a New Orleans businessman created what we know as the dollar sign. Later that year the 1st US Budget was passed. March of 1779 Congress approved the US Army Corps of Engineers. Then, as Pluto moved along, all the Aquarian characteristics of technical advancement were intensified: the first hot air balloon 1783, the first parachute and power loom 1785, first threshing machine 1786, and first steamboat 1787. Pluto, that great amplifier, had begun to send Aquarius into overdrive, both its good and not so good sides. It’s easy to forget that the Aquarian emphasis on the collective and group thinking sometimes means mob mentality, which was also on the rise as we saw the first modern guillotine put to use (a lot) in Paris in 1792. In our time, we’re seeing the first AI, the first robots and personal drones; a lot of firsts, and a lot of mob mentality for sure.
Pluto in Aquarius also is known for crazy leaders and insanity in the corridors of power. The Madness of King George III was in full swing during this time. So we can expect similar madness now. I think it has been with us for awhile, especially when you consider that the orb of influence has been in effect these last few years. It’s important to note that it doesn’t matter who gets elected President in 2024, they will have problems. It may not be porphyria, but it will likely be disorder of the mind as Aquarius is an air sign. Hopefully our present day doctors will offer better treatment than those pigeon slippers they gave to King George.
This puzzled me. Why is Pluto trouble for leaders when it’s in Aquarius? Then I realized that the opposite sign, Leo, is the sign of leadership and royalty and the glory of the individual. Aquarius is all about the people, the group, the wide network. So Pluto is opposing Leo and showing us the intensity of the masses. That energy is either drawn out of, or alternately over-intensified in the leader, the Leo. So get your pencils and scorecards ready, it will be a wild ride.
Pluto is also known for bizarre psychic events and crypto-hominids and remote viewing; all that unexplained yet ever-present stuff. But if you look closely, Pluto is just trying to show us reality. He’s just so far away that the message can get pretty twisted.
Take Bigfoot sightings for example. In this case, the solution appears to be fairly mundane, and all too human. I don’t want to burst anyone’s Plutonian bubble, but you may notice that not many Bigfoot sightings have happened in the last forty or fifty years, compared to the earlier 20th and 19th century periods.
What may have originally been at work in this arena could be something called hypertrichosis. When this genetic trait is at an extreme, people can be born with hair covering their face, eyes and ears, even the whole body eventually. It can be passed on to the children. Nowadays we have the knowledge to adjust this difficulty and a person can live normally, but many years ago that was not the case. Monks in the middle ages wrote about the “dog-faced people” who lived on the edge of villages and rarely came into town because people would throw rocks at them. It isn’t hard to discern what must have happened to such people, and their difficult straits. Living in caves, making homes deep in the forest away from others; that would be the logical chain of events for someone or some people who have a face covered in hair. Living on berries, squirrels, and probably fish – this was their means to survive. A few worked for the circus or wound up as entertainment in Royal circles, like Petrus Gonsalvus at the Paris court of King Henry II (Petrus’ story probably inspired Beauty and the Beast). Over time, the less fortunate ones would have been seen only on rare occasions, and as our medical knowledge grew the people born with hypertrichosis were helped at birth, and the sightings largely disappeared.
Pluto might represent these oddities because he shows us things that we fear. He is the God of the Underworld after all. But the planet does have a heart, even if it’s literally made of ice (a huge nitrogen glacier identified in 2015). We fear the unseen hand of power, the mafia, and even the bigger changes in our lives. The revolutionary movements we have in our country are scary, and so are the physical revolutions we have in our bodies as we age. Most of all we really fear Pluto’s specialty, the unknown. But like Bigfoot, the real story is eventually not so bad. We find out what’s around the corner, and then we see the truth isn’t so scary. But it might take a lot of pain and confusion before we get there. Expect some highly intense periods, positive and negative, in October 2023 when Mars squares the Pluto Return in the US birth chart. Also April of 2024 when we have the nation’s Chiron Return, and that September when Mars aligns with Jupiter and passing Jupiter will align with Mars.
Be sure to order your reading for the coming six month period, you may be in for a pleasant surprise.