The Eternal Uphill Climb

I was looking at transit charts of 2004 and 2005 the other day, back when Pluto was in Sagittarius, and I thought to myself "those were easier times." Then I wondered if I'd become Grandpa Simpson temporarily (or permanently?), but I think it's true. Among other features of those charts, Pluto was not in Capricorn, and Pluto is now in the late degrees of Capricorn.

No one knows for sure what Pluto's going to do...ever, but it's also on a 248 year cycle, so we can't ask people what happened the last time Pluto was in a sign that's foreign to us in order to get prepared. We can look at history for clues, but we can't know for sure what will happen. We can look at keywords for a sign, and what it's like when other planets are in that sign, and we can make some inferences...then we can watch what it actually does.

Here are some Capricorn concepts: dealing with authority figures, being in charge, endurance, responsibility, not taking (or meaning) things personally, seeing the goal rather than the things standing in the way of the goal. Now add Pluto to the sign, and Pluto's about extreme empowerment and disempowerment. If you're having to go toe-to-toe with the people in charge, it's extreme. If you ARE in charge, it's extreme. Some of us have unwittingly found ourselves in an endurance challenge and we are wondering how much longer we have to go. Things seem unreasonably hard all the time. That's Pluto in Capricorn for you.

When were things consistently unreasonably hard all the time? How about the Great Depression? That occurred when Pluto was in Cancer, the sign opposite Capricorn, and after Pluto left Cancer for Leo, things took a turn, and that was 1940. While Capricorn is impersonal and goal-oriented, Cancer is personal and emotionally-oriented. Cancer focuses on now. Capricorn focuses on later. Cancer is literally worried about its next meal. Capricorn is worried about the supply chain. (Do you see how literal this is?) With Pluto in either sign, people simply do not have enough of what they need. In Cancer it was personal. In Capricorn it is societal (and therefore impersonal). Life seems mean in either case.

No one's asked me lately when COVID issues end. At first I thought once the Saturn-Uranus square subsided, but I'm changing my answer to when Pluto hits Aquarius, and I'm growing in confidence about that.

You may recall that people with Pluto in Cancer were the ones who lived through the creation of the nuclear family, moving away from situations in which extended families all lived together or near each other. Cancer=Family. My grandparents all had Pluto in Cancer. The set that I lived closest to hoarded leftovers until they died. Again: Pluto in Cancer: safety through food. Those with Pluto in Capricorn (people born 2008 through when Pluto leaves Capricorn) may continue to feel like the government, their boss, or some impersonal force has it out for them. Both signs have to do with survival, and with Pluto in them, getting through life was *hard.* Do you see where I'm going with this?

If you understand my argument and have a working knowledge of Pluto, please understand: its energy pulverizes things. When Pluto went through Sagittarius, the news media got pulverized...and how's that going these days? Once something has been leveled, it's a slow process to begin to rebuild on the rubble. So, in my experience, you have to watch to see when Pluto feels it's quite finished with whatever planet, point, or sign it's tearing through, and THEN rebuild on the rubble. When you've been personally impacted by Pluto, it takes about a decade to fully work through all of the impacts of that transit, because a lot of what happens at that time is subconscious, and seeds for the future also get planted at the same time that everything gets destroyed.

This is me being realistic: Pluto in Capricorn is bleak energy and there's no way around that. It will begin to enter Aquarius in 2023 and leave Capricorn for good in 2025. We simply don't know what Pluto in Aquarius will do because there's no one alive who can tell us what it was like the last time, but we can access some keywords and guess, which is another story for another day. In the meantime, hang in there.

Final note: learning empowerment is like learning the true meaning of Christmas: it's what's in your heart at the end of the day that you can control. No impersonal force can take that from you. 💜

XO,J