pluto Archives - Magic of the Moon Astrology & Tarot

The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. – J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings

We have just celebrated the Winter Solstice, and the days are ever so slightly growing longer. The seasons are changing as Winter gradually thaws to spring over the next several months, and the light progressively grows each day. Just as the seasons change each year as a result of the earth’s tilt respective to its axis around the Sun, so the larger eras change as a result of other planets moving in their cycles around the Sun. As we move toward 2024 and reflect on all of the change that happened during the past year, most of us would agree with the sentiment in J.R.R. Tolkien’s quote above.

This morning, a blanket of fog surrounded my house as I looked out the window at the pre-dawn world. I was reminded of the power of the Air element, and how different the world can look depending on the condition of the air (foggy, smoky, clear). Astrologically, we have been in the midst of big shifts to the Air element since early 2020 (the start of the pandemic), and we will get even more shifts to Air in 2024. The two big outer planet changes happening this year are planets moving from Earth signs to Air signs – Pluto to Aquarius, and Jupiter to Gemini.

At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the Jupiter/Saturn conjunctions which happen every 40 years moved from occurring in Earth signs to Air signs. For the next 200 years, when Jupiter and Saturn meet, it will be in an Air sign, not in an Earth sign. What does this mean? Jupiter and Saturn are the two most outer planets that are still visible to the naked eye and so have been foundational throughout the history of astrology. The meeting of these two slow-moving giants every forty years marked a change in “tone” that astrologically-minded societies followed. This Jupiter/Saturn cycle moves us from an earthy world to an airy one. And that will be increased even further with specific planets moving from Earth to Air signs this year. The pandemic definitely “knocked us off our feet” and out of the earth element in early 2020. Our fears moved toward the Air – an invisible virus we can’t see, an enemy that we couldn’t easily face. Our interactions moved to Air – more video calls where we ephemerally talk into our computers instead of talking to people in person. As the Jupiter/Saturn cycle shifted, we have all moved from a more stable, well-understood earthy place to a more phrenetic airy place.

However, this is a 200 year cycle that has happened before – many times – during human history. So this isn’t the end of the world; it’s just the beginning of a new era. And the beginnings of new eras in which we have to adapt to changing energies is always a little challenging.

Furthering the focus on Air, after a brief time in Aquarius earlier in 2023 before dipping back into Capricorn, Pluto will be moving into Aquarius again in mid January, setting the tone for our entire year. The Plutonian depths will be plumbed in the areas of social and technological advances. What humans can do and what we can do responsibly have often been two very different things, and we will see a spotlight shown on that for the next 20 odd years. What lessons do we have to learn about the potentially “scary” underbelly of society and technology? What can we learn from that scouring of the depths that helps us move forward as better humans and better developers and users of technology?

For the past year with Jupiter in Taurus we have seen a lot of themes around material goods…. inflation and the rising cost of food, more difficulty purchasing houses because of high interest rates, labor movements in various sectors. Food, shelter, work…. these basic needs are very Taurean. What will Jupiter in Gemini look like? Rather than focusing on a rising cost of food, we will be focused on the rising cost of ideas. What ideas have we held that may not be relevant anymore? What have we outgrown that we just haven’t been ready to let go of yet? Likewise, what new ideas are emerging and just waiting to be embraced? Gemini is curious, and this will definitely be a time of rampant discovery. We may not know how to use all of the tools yet, but we will definitely develop the tools!

Whereas Earth signs anchor us downward into our feet, Air signs pull us up into our heads. Earth is about concrete things; air is about philosophical ideas. Earth is about slowness and denseness; Air is about speed and “airy-ness”. Unlike the Earth, Fire, and Water zodiac signs, the Air signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) all represent either human figures (the twins of Gemini and the water-bearer Aquarius) or human-made tools (the Libra Scales). Where other signs are more nature and animal-oriented, Air signs have always been very much about the human journey and the human collective.

It makes sense that there would be an astrological focus on Air instead of Earth this year. 2023 has been a year for many of us of emerging from several years at home during the pandemic, and we are learning how to be social and “in the world” again. After focusing on our basic earthy needs the past few years (health, our homes, the economy), we are ready to move into the world as humans and as thinking, feeling, talking, socializing entities. It also is striking to me that 2024 is an election year in the United States. This will likely bring people out in droves, attending debates, campaigning for their favorite candidate, and advancing their human ideas and opinions in a way very resonant with both Pluto in Aquarius and Jupiter in Gemini.

Air and all of the ideas and imagination around it are where technological and social advances come from. If we get past the hype around Artificial Intelligence and AI “taking over the world”, what we see is that we are actually starting to define what it means to be human. If AI can respond like humans, answer questions like humans, have conversations like humans…. what does it mean to be human? As we think about the ways humans have historically treated humans, does this Pluto transit give us an opportunity to think about what unites us as humans rather than what divides us?

Grounding rituals are important this year; otherwise we are likely to spend the entire year wrapped up in phrenetic, chaotic thoughts in our heads! But there is opportunity with air too… it has no weight, it has no baggage… it relentlessly moves. If anything in your life or in society has been feeling stuck, this is the time to shake it free! As with all astrological weather, the energies of 2024 offer us both challenges and opportunities. It’s time to get off the couch, move into the world, and shake things up! If we do this intentionally and thoughtfully we will be able to look back on 2024 as a year where we experimented a lot and learned a lot. 2024 can be a year that fundamentally changes us and shapes who we are as a society (Pluto in Aquarius) and what we believe in (Jupiter in Gemini). It’s an absolutely phenomenal time to set intentions and then get moving!

Photo by Claudio Testa on Unsplash

The energetic shifts of March were intense! With Pluto, Saturn, and Mars all changing signs within two weeks of each other, the seismic shift in energy created was enormous. And, just as with a geological earthquake, an energetic earthquake also has aftershock waves that continue to reverberate as a new equilibrium is found.

If we think about what an actual earthquake consists of, we start to more closely see the parallels between our energetic experiences last month, and where we find ourselves today.

Earthquakes occur when the giant set of tectonic plates that make up the earth’s upper crust shift against each other and the pressure becomes enough to cause movement along the boundaries of the tectonic plates (or fault lines) as they shift to release pressure that has built up between them.

Most of us have heard of the “aftershocks” that often come after an earthquake, but what are they really? According to The United States Geological Survey, Aftershocks are a sequence of earthquakes that happen after a larger mainshock on a fault. Aftershocks occur near the fault zone where the mainshock rupture occurred and are part of the “readjustment process” after the main slip on the fault.

This, friends, is what the month of April is really about! Several large shifts have occurred, and there is a readjustment process that has to occur to find the new “normal” after all of this tension has been released. Practically, what does that look like?

If we look at what our biggest “fault lines” were in the month of March, they consist of Pluto at the end of Capricorn and in early Aquarius, Saturn at the end of Aquarius and in early Pisces, and Mars at the end of Gemini and in early Cancer. For those with personal planets in any of these areas of the zodiac, the energy shift will have felt even more momentous. Post seismic shift, let’s look at where the energies will settle out over the next few months (and, in Pluto’s case, years).

With Pluto being the slowest moving planet, its movement is likely to create the largest and most far-reaching cosmic shift. We are now experiencing the early days of Pluto in Aquarius. Pluto will retrograde back into Capricorn in June and will continue moving back-and-forth across the Capricorn/Aquarius boundary for the next few years. These early days of Pluto in Aquarius are likely to feel initially less restrictive. Capricorn is a highly structured sign, and Pluto moving through Capricorn has given all of us reason to feel more keenly the bonds that societal structures place on us. When we pair Pluto’s move into Aquarius, with Saturn moving out of Aquarius with its disciplined energy, there will be ways in which Pluto in Aquarius feels incredibly freeing from a societal perspective. This may mean moving more fully toward the end of covid, being freer to move about freely without restrictions, travel, etc. It also may mean more freedom in the way we interact societally. For example, many of us are now very used to using video calls and other means to stay in touch with people beyond just in-person conversations. For the new group of people working from home more permanently, there is a whole new freedom in the way they can show up to work (i.e. their cat walking in front of their computer screen during a meeting, or wearing yoga pants instead of dress slacks). A lot of this energy is freeing and amazing.

However, Pluto will never let us linger blissfully ignorant at the surface. Pluto will always prompt us to go deeper and to understand more fully. With so many of us having spent so much time by ourselves and in our homes during covid, what does reintegrating with society look like? Is it more stressful for us to interact societally? Are we realizing that what was “working” for us societally before was only working because we didn’t know any other way? Pluto in Aquarius will be helping us plumb the depths to understand our relationship with society and our place in it. Whereas several years ago, we may have seen ourselves by default as members of specific communities, neighborhoods, and friend groups, we may now be questioning whether those are the groups we want to be part of. What in our existing pre-covid societal structure was working for us, and what actually wasn’t that we now want to change? These are questions Puto in Aquarius will encourage us to ask. There may be people considering job changes, moving to new cities, and intentionally creating new friend groups, because they are starting to realize the limitations of their previous communities.

In the midst of this big shift as we try to parse what we did and did not like with our previous societal interactions, we have a New Moon in Aries – the second one this year! It is rare to get two New or Full Moons in the same sign in the same year. However, we had an Aries New Moon kicking off the equinox at 0 degrees of Aries in March, and now we have a second one a month later in the final degree of Aries right before the Sun and Moon move into Taurus. And to supercharge this rare second New Moon in Aries even more, it takes place within a few degrees of the North Moon Node, meaning that it is also a total solar eclipse.

What does this mean, especially as we are all trying to stabilize after the intensity of the planetary shifts in March?

This Aries New Moon and Solar Eclipse will be about embracing new ideas, new paradigms, and new ways of “being” after this cosmic shift. Rather than focusing on how to “get things back to normal”, which wouldn’t allow us to integrate the learnings from the past few years, we can use the New Moon/Eclipse energy to make the deep, Plutonian changes we need to make. Oftentime, recognizing a change that needs to be made is Step 1, but if we can’t get beyond that to actually making the change, the new energy withers before it really gets going. In the synchronicity of the Universe, right after this tectonic shift comes, it is followed by initiatory energy to help us take that shift and run with it to create something better – in our own lives and in our communities. This is the great task for all of us throughout the month of April – identify the old and stale that is no longer helping us, determine what changes we need to make, and start working to make those changes in a real and concrete way. We can even think of this as a break-down to build-up. Wherever we feel stuck and limited, and feel like we can’t build farther, those are areas that are prime candidates to start deconstructing during this month to build a foundation for a whole new set of behaviors and structures. Big work like this takes time! So remember that small, baby steps in this direction are perfect; certainly don’t feel the need to complete all of this by the end of April! If we all start taking positive steps and making positive changes, we will see more opportunities emerge to take that energy farther as we move further into 2023.

Photo by Jason Ortego on Unsplash

Category: pluto

Dec 2023: The World is Changing

April 2023: Finding a new equilibrium