Pluto In Capricorn: The Movie

By Shelley Jordan

Like an action film that opens with car chase scenes and pyrotechnics galore, the drama of Pluto’s entry into the sign of absolute authority is starting off with a bang. Beginning last year, Pluto launched its 16 year journey through Capricorn, a sign that has not experienced Pluto’s cleansing properties since the American Revolution in the 18th century. When the colonists booted the monarchy out of the New World, a chain reaction of democracies was triggered that resulted in a new world order. What can we expect today?

Consider these sobering circumstances: the polarized state of our nation, the tanked economy, global warming, loss of jobs, the poor condition of American health and the battle over health care reform. These dire areas require immediate attention and healing. Pluto, prone to dramatic large gestures as it cathartically purges and purifies, is heralding an entirely new mise en scène which will occupy us for the next 15 years or so.

Since Saturn rules Capricorn, we can look to it as the front line planetary herald announcing this new Plutonian era. Saturn has been locked in a polarized opposition to Uranus during the past 12 months. Saturn’s aim is to achieve stability and permanence while Uranus struggles for radical change and innovative progress.

We can view this aspect, the Saturn-Uranus opposition, as the dramatic overture while the curtain rises on a new historic period. The music is turbulent and agitated, with a sense of uncertainty and anxiety as it shifts between major and minor keys. This tense and defiant confrontation between conservative Saturn and radical Uranus describes this moment of conflict: seismic confrontations between Republicans and Democrats, the health insurance industry versus the agents of health care reform, women's rights and the suppression of their freedom, the polluters pitted against the environmentalists. We are surrounded by sharply contrasting opinions and policies the outcome of which will shape the future. If we see the victory of President and Nobel Laureate Barack Obama as an indication of the logjam shifting in the direction of change, we can face the upcoming transition with hope and optimism. A Uranian personality himself, President Obama has Aquarius rising with Uranus conjunct his Descendent. He both personifies freedom (Aquarius rising) and is a conduit for Uranian independence and forward movement for others (Uranus conjunct his Descendent).

At this taut moment pregnant with change, Saturn is in Virgo, the sign associated with health, service, diet, jobs and the purity that opposes pollution. Virgo can get bogged down in detail and criticism. Uranus is in Pisces, the sign of compassion, dreams, imagination, universalism, and is the domain of large institutions like hospitals. Pisces can lean toward deception and represents the victim who needs rescuing. The multi-billion dollar insurance industry is spending a fortune every day in its attempts to prevent the radical humanitarian reshaping of health care in America. Together, Virgo and Pisces often represent issues of health care and healing, and service driven by compassion. The combination says “serve or suffer”.

The dates of the Saturn-Uranus opposition bear looking into. The first exact aspect at 18° Virgo/Pisces occurred on November 4, 2008, the day Barack Obama was elected President. The tension leading up to the election was almost unbearable, but hope burst through the membrane of fear and history was made as the University of Chicago law professor became America’s first black president. As someone who lived through the incendiary years of the civil rights movement, this joyous achievement for democracy was almost unbelievable in its positive impact.

Days after the second pass of Saturn and Uranus at 20°Virgo/Pisces on February 5, 2009, the stimulus package was enacted to attempt to reverse the economic meltdown.

The final opposition occurred on September 15, 2009 at 24° Virgo/Pisces. While the congressional vote on the United States National Health Care Act had been planned for September, 2009,which would have been coincident with the third and final opposition of Saturn and Uranus, conflict has delayed the vote until this current month of October. It’s looking hopeful as a surge of support from American voices call out for health care reform and an end to the health insurance-pharmaceutical medical monopoly.

While the Saturn-Uranus overture has set the stage for the Pluto in Capricorn Zeitgeist, we will most likely witness upcoming big purges and power struggles in the realm of corporate America, one of the ultimate incarnations of a Capricornian, pyramidal institution. The Plutonian battleground between the limits of capitalism and the role of government in curbing or fueling corporate greed is just beginning to be defined. Until 2024, the prevailing paradigms of authority, leadership and law will be undergoing deconstruction, cleansing and transformation. Will we see anti-trust laws finally applied to health insurance companies? Will Corporate America itself step in to curb global warming because of the negative impact on its profits, with a global clean-up producing many new jobs? Will Barack Obama become the new paradigm for future American leaders? Stay tuned through 2024 to find out.