Buh-bye, Pluto

“For the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who

That it’s namin’

For the loser now

Will be later to win…”

Bob Dylan

And, go fuck yourself! I’ve never hated any planet so much! This small, distant orb of pain is transiting out of my sign, Capricorn, January 20, 2024 and I couldn’t be happier.

Pluto will be entering the sign of Aquarius for the next 20 years. But, what could the impact of the planet of death, destruction, and rebirth mean individually and collectively?

The last time Pluto was in the zodiac sign of Aquarius was from 1778 to 1798. During that time, we experienced the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. Pluto exposes the shadow side of people, what is simmering below the surface, such as a desire for freedom, equality, and justice. While it was in Capricorn, which is associated with business and money, there has been a growing awareness of late-stage capitalism and exploitation, be it of people or the earth.

Pluto began its residency in Capricorn in 2008 with a bang. There was the stock market and real estate/banking collapse that took several years to rectify with a whole host of safeguards built-in to the restructuring. How I make money is as a real estate agent, so the ensuing years were particularly difficult. Many people lost their homes, values plummeted, and the only people to make money were the sharks.

Concurrently, with the financial debacle of 2008, my parents, simultaneously, had their health spiral and fracture. On all sorts of levels, it felt like the universe took a sledgehammer to all that felt like my foundation. Collectively, and personally, we were in uncharted waters and land was not in sight.

Once the banks started feeling more secure and the bottom had been reached in the real estate market, family members started dying. Pluto’s force is to destroy, to raze, and it was doing this in a routine manner in my personal life. Not to miss a chance to have me question every aspect of my being, the man with whom I was expecting to grow old with, abruptly vacated my life for no reason whatsoever, save the fact he was a damaged, emotional midget. Within months, I had to move, move my last family member, my mother, into assisted living, watch her die, and then part with my family home I thought I’d have for the rest of my life. Everything that created a sense of permanence was now gone.

One might remind me that nothing is permanent. Whatever we perceive as “real” is just some transitory and illusionally induced mirage of vibrating atoms. On an intellectual level, I’m there. I get it. We are all just porous, vibrating energy packets. But tell that to a weight-gaining, perimenopausal, depressed, aging woman who was waking up to random gray hairs growing in odd places on her face. When astrologers would remind me that I had the slowest moving planet on lockdown in my sign taking a massive shit all over my life, knowing that this was suppose to be a wonderful time of growth and rebirth, I’d just bury my head in my hands and wish I could just go away…far, far away.

But, as I now gleefully await the exit of Pluto, I’ve gone from brown haired to heavily gray; I was svelte in 2008, now I’m chronically chubby; and not to put too fine a point on it, I’m barren. Fabulous! Do I have a new sense of my identity on a deeper level? Have I learned to let go and let death transform me? Is there an abundance of renewed confidence for the future? Oh, hell no!

Sure, I’m glad that COVID exposed the economic injustice inherent in the capitalistic culture here in the US. George Floyd’s murder did change the world, but racists seem stronger than ever. A preponderance of the world appears to be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. The old way of doing things is showing it’s vain, unjust power play. So, what can Aquarians look forward to after this Saturday?

Supposedly, since Aquarius is the sign connected to humanity and social justice, we might see more conflicts exposing the dark, hate-filled, fear-based underbelly of corporations and countries. The needle should move toward human rights, justice, and equity (equality is a bit much to really expect). It’s anticipated that since well over 200 years ago, we started the Industrial Revolution, we will see tremendous advances in technology. Other than AI, who knows what life might look like in 20 years.

All I know is that I can watch the upcoming, significant changes from the sidelines. I’ve paid my dues. Have fun, Aquarius!

Photo by NASA on Unsplash