Pluto Goes Direct (2022)

At the end of April this year, Pluto, the planet of transformation, death and rebirth, stationed Rx for its annual Rx motion. On October 8th, it is set to resume direct motion at 26 degrees of Capricorn. Pluto retrogrades in and of themselves are a regular astrological event but this time, this stationing is extremely significant because it is during this episode of direct motion that Pluto will exit Capricorn and step into Aquarius for the first time. In 248 years.

From October 8th until March 23, 2023, Pluto will go over all the final, critical degrees of Cap - from 26 all the way to 30. This marks the beginning of the end of whatever it is that Pluto is transforming in this Cap area of your life. This is the first sign of the ultimate closure.

What is interesting is that Pluto will go only up until 0 degrees and 20 mins of Aquarius before it stations Rx again next Spring, so it is premature to talk about the opening of the "Pluto in Aquarius" chapter of our individual and collective lives. But it is timely to talk about the ending of the "Pluto in Capricorn" chapter because it is in the course of the next 6 months that Pluto will go all the way until the end of Cap.

Very interestingly, Pluto will complete its sojourn in Cap at the same time at which Uranus is squaring Saturn and Mars is squaring Neptune. That's a lot of tension. Uranus is freedom, rebellion, anti-establishment energy. Saturn is the establishment, the form, the structure. Mars is action, drive, go-do-it energy. Neptune is illusion and lack of clarity. The cherry on top - Pluto, the planet that intensifies, reaches the critical degrees of Saturn's home sign. Transformation of the establishment.

Saturnian themes here are "under attack" from Uranus and from Pluto albeit these two energies work from different signs and aspects. All of this is peppered with a lot of unclarity (Neptune) around what is actually happening (Mars is where the action is).

And that's not everything.

As Pluto goes over all final degrees of Cap, it will do so in almost constant opposition to Black Moon Lilith (not a planetary body but a mathematical point which shows where the Moon is most isolated from the rest of the planets; the point where the Moon, the community-maker, withdraws).

Pluto stations direct in applying opposition. This opposition becomes exact in November and December and begins to fall apart in January and February but it remains within orb until Pluto's ingress into Aquarius.

In myth, Lilith was the first wife of Adam who was banished from the Garden of Eden for not obeying Adam. She was described as "hot and fiery". Her name comes from the Hebrew words for demon and nocturnal spirits who attacked men.

In Greek mythology, Lilith was a princes who had an affair (and children) with Zeus. Upon finding out, Zeus's wife killed Lilith's children. As a result, Lilith started eating any child she could find to soothe her pain over the loss of her own children. She also suffered from insomnia and to help her Zeus gave her the power to take out and put back in her own eyes so that she could get some sleep. This resulted in Lilith having shape-shifting abilities - various demons were able to transform themselves into beautiful women. Later myths describe her as a seductress, a courtesan, a serpent-woman.

In astrology, Lilith is associated with intuition and psychic abilities. Because of her shape-shifting abilities and her being a creature of the night, she is often referred to as the dark moon. It represents the rebellious female, the area of life where we are unwilling to compromise, to play by the rules (be a good wife to Adam; be a homemaker/Moon; be a mother/Moon), to put aside our ideas of who we are and what we are here to do in favour of a conventional relationship with out environment.

Essentially, between now and March 23 2023, Pluto will be going over the final degrees of Cap in a T-square with Lilith and Eris, the Goddess of Discord.

So to recap.

Pluto, the planet of transformation, death and rebirth, is wrapping-up its journey through the sign of backbone structures, rules & regulations, power & control, governments & big corporations (roughly called The Establishment; the Father). Doing so in a tight tense conversation with the Goddess of Discord and that point in the sky where the Moon, the community-maker, the home-maker, society (in mundane astrology, the Moon rules over the masses) withdraws from the Earth and worldly events. The factor that glues people together into a community (the Moon; you can read more about this association here and here) is diminishing and the Goddess of Discord and the God of the Underworld take over.

Pluto and Lilith are both associated with heightened intuition and with the emtional undercurrents of events. Pluto ruled the Underworld. Lilith is a dark moon. Pluto rules over intense feelings. Lilith is the hidden side of the Moon/emotions/intuitive understanding.

It seems to me that the following 6 months will be permeated with an intense psychic feeling that we are plunging into some sort of purifying, rebirthing (Pluto) darkness. Withdrawing in darkness to let the transformation take place because on some inner level we know we need to let the Old die for the New to emerge.