HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024
/How has this New Year evolved for you so far? Confusing? Disturbing? Or satisfying? The sky is the limit to our individual experiences. However, I offer this New Year’s newsletter guidance to discuss what is happening to the greater whole of humanity. For me, I am feeling extraordinarily stimulated, sometimes perplexed, but at times enchanted with the world these days.
Years ago, a musical arrived on the scene: HAIR! This was a production dedicated to the radical Sixties and the generation born into this era. Also folks who were coming into their adulthood. One of the song lyrics: “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius……” excited me. I was one of the baby boomers who was touched by this song and the message of this musical. To me, it spoke to the possibilities of a new age with greater equality, freedom, and a world that worked for everyone. Yet, astrologers would say that the 1960’s did not open to the Age of Aquarius but was influenced by the astrological transits of this time with Uranus and Pluto connecting and breaking open new thoughts and shifting paradigms. It was a majorly mystical decade with psychedelic drugs opening some folks to new psychic experiences along with political, and social movements challenging the patriarchy and the status quo. New scientific concepts and the quantum world were being revealed to the world.
For those of you unfamiliar with that concept of the Age of Aquarius, here is a super quick rundown. Every astrological age lasts about 2,160 years. Each age has the qualities of that sign. For example, the age of Pisces was largely governed by religion, as we saw with the popularity of Christianity for example.
In the year 2160 it shifts to Aquarius.
Uranus is the ruler of the sign of Aquarius. In the mid-1960’s Uranus was not in its home sign of Aquarius, but due the conjunction of two major transpersonal signs, Uranus and Pluto in Virgo, it felt like Aquarius energy churning across the world. Major shifts in viewpoints and expressions occurred. Uranus signals change with breakthroughs and upheavals. When this planet travels close to Pluto, the political, social, and economic systems can be destroyed, and new realizations established. Upheaval, change, and new creations can take hold.
Why discuss the 1960’s and the radicalism that occurred (not to mention the explosion of new music brought out by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, and the following music of the Doors and Jimi Hendrix)? Because we are currently on the eve of another shift into strong Aquarian energy with Pluto leaving the sign of Capricorn and moving into the sign of Aquarius. This occurred in March 2023 for a few months, and now it settles in for a longer term of 20 years. With the brief retrograde back into Capricorn in September 2024, Pluto in Aquarius is present until 2043. Yikes!!
Every year our Sun travels through the twelve constellations that represent archetypal energies as described in the field of astrology. On or around January 20th our Sun travels through the constellation of Aquarius and stays until the 19th or 20th of February. Aquarius is the sign that represents the Water Carrier. Aquarius is not a water sign, but an air or a mental sign. It speaks to an awakened mind and collective consciousness. The water carrier symbolizes the nourishing of the Earth and humanity through enlightened thoughts.
On Saturday, January 21st Pluto shifted to the sign of Aquarius. Yet to understand the significance of Pluto in Aquarius, we need to understand the influence of this dwarf planet on the psyche of humanity. Pluto is perhaps the strongest astrological force. While the planet Pluto is furthest away most times from the Sun in our solar system, it has the force of nuclear power. I find it interesting that the movie “Oppenheimer” came out in 2023 when Pluto was in its last degrees of Capricorn. In this sign, Pluto influenced the fiscal crisis of 2008, the rise of fascist, reactionary political forces, and current wars in Ukraine and Palestine/Israel. The invention of atomic bomb and its power has changed how we view our existence, particularly when we can destroy the world. Carolyn Myss, a mystical intuitive healer, spoke in a lecture (All the Power You Cannot See) that the nuclear age created a collective fear that human existence is at peril of extinction.
Pluto can represent our soul’s evolution and our karmic inheritance. On the collective level, Pluto can create deep cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. Pluto can reveal the deep shadow of our collective psyche of greed, hate, and other negative forces so we may bring light to reveal these hidden parts. Pluto’s key aim is to kill off what no longer serves our highest good. Thus, if we stick to the same negative patterns of behavior or continue institutions that do not serve all aspects of humanity, we may find decay, desolation, and destruction. The positive aspect is the rebirth part. There is the potential to create something that elevates humanity out of the ashes of destruction.
This is the hope of the mythical Age of Aquarius that Pluto entering this sign may provide. Stephanie Austin in her astrology news states: As Pluto moves through Aquarius for the next 20 years, how we use science and technology, how we determine social norms, and most importantly, how we define our humanity, take front stage. At its best, Pluto in Aquarius supports breakthroughs and quantum leaps in science, medicine, and technology, as well as radical transformation through egalitarian, grassroots movements, replacing competition and polarization with collaboration and unity.
However, as stated above, we can be exposed to the shadow side of Pluto as we witness negative events: Pluto’s transit through a sign reveals both the power and the shadow side of that sign. In Capricorn, Pluto has starkly exposed the consequences of worshipping “the almighty dollar,” the rise of corporatocracy, and the global ramifications of humanity’s disconnection and domination of Nature Without a healthy, internalized sense of authority, sovereignty, and responsibility developed in Capricorn, we succumb to the dark side of Aquarius, creating dystopia rather than utopia. We become hypnotized, addicted, and fragmented into blind conformity, dehumanization, and technocracy. Pluto inAquarius will challenge us to deal with what divides us from others, whether that involves gender, class, race, religion, culture, nationality, or other demarcations. It will impel us to address the shadow side and misuse of power in groups, social movements, and technology. (Austin)
The last time Pluto passed through Aquarius was between 1777 and 1798, an epoch that coincided with the French and American revolutions. While history never repeats itself exactly, we can expect dizzying technological advancements, climate crises, and social shifts to alter the world as we know it. With Pluto in and out of Aquarius until 2044, the responsibility falls to us to create new worlds in a time of old paradigms collapsing. There’s no denying this is a big deal, coming at a time when collective humanity seems at the crossroads of two distinctly different directions: the potential to evolve into a connected and compassionate global community, or engage in mutual assured destruction.
Okay, I did not necessarily intend to send off my first newsletter and blog of 2024 with such a strong message, but the more I ruminated about the events going on globally for the last several months, I felt it necessary to speak to the state of the world through an astrological lens.
We can expect 2024 to bring other astro/cosmic forces besides Pluto to expand, to heal, to invite, and to change the landscape of our lives. These astrological events not discussed in this blog post will be mentioned and explained in future postings coming to your inbox more frequently than the past year.
For me, the ingress of Pluto into Aquarius has great personal meaning as this planet is now sitting on my Midheaven in my natal chart. Being born on February 2nd at 11:50 a.m. (during the dark ages), my Taurus on the ascendant (my Rising sign) situates Aquarius at zero degrees at the top/apex point of my chart. What this can mean for me is the potential for a great transformation for my public persona whether my career or appearance to the world. This transit on my Midheaven through my tenth house of career may my work to establish a transformational community platform. Since Aquarius rules astrology, I may find my individual work as an astrologer to evolve within a larger community in the coming years. My work is this field already has served to connect me to many kindred-souls awakened to their divine potential to heal, to teach, to share inspiration to make this world a place that serves the highest good of all. Yes, that would be you, dear reader. Whenever, I conduct an intuitive reading, I feel a unity, a shared feeling of love. Thus, I hope I can continue to serve as a resource for your own quest in life, and to be able to illuminate all the possibilities life has in store for you.
In honor of January 25th’s first full Moon – The Leo Full Moon, may we all take time to remember our gifts and talents that we can share with the world. Leo is THE Sun sign and represents the light we can shine through our individual “Suns”.