Pluto in Aquarius: Creating a New Future
Aquarius is the eleventh sign of the Zodiac, a transpersonal archetype connected with individuation, deconditioning, progress, and liberation from the past. A Fixed, Yang, and Air archetype, Aquarius governs the future, networks, technology, science, and social movements, as well as the tension between our need to belong and fit in and our urge to be unapologetic and unique in our self-expression.
Pluto is the planet of death, rebirth, and transformation. Known as the Lord of the Underworld, Pluto reveals what has been hidden, repressed, or relegated to the shadows, to the unconscious, so that it can be transmuted and alchemized. His transits are slow and deeply transformative: Pluto strips away the inessential, confronts us with the truth of our Soul’s desires, and catalyzes irreversible changes.
Pluto is going to travel through Aquarius until 2044. This transit fuels a profound transformation of societal paradigms and our relationship to both technology and one another. It illuminates both the power and the pitfalls of group consciousness and innovation.
For the next 20 years, Pluto will expose the shadows of Aquarius: detachment, alienation, dissociation, and rebellion without a cause. As a collective, we are being invited to face the ways in which dissociation from our emotions, intellectual superiority, isolation, and hyper-independence have become survival strategies and prevented us from experiencing true intimacy and vulnerability. Aquarius, as an archetype, often carries the wound of being too different to fit in, and with Pluto moving through this sign, this wound is surfacing to be healed and alchemized.
Opportunity for Psychological Excavation
When a planet stations retrograde, it is closer to Earth and its energy is felt more intensely. These days, Pluto takes center stage and unconscious, shadow material may emerge, asking to be witnessed and integrated.
Retrogrades, consisting of the apparent backward motion of a planet from our perspective on Earth, are always a time to deepen our inner excavation, recalibrate, and reorient. For this reason, they are not to be feared: they accelerate our individuation and evolutionary process and offer us an opportunity to get to know ourselves better. If we have been too externally oriented, retrogrades point at the necessity of going inward and dealing with something we might have avoided.
When the Lord of the Underworld goes retrograde, we are being asked to deepen our inner work and engage in more emotional and psychological self-exploration. The upcoming months are an opportunity to deepen our understanding of how Life is asking us to evolve and consolidate the changes that already occurred in both our inner and outer reality.
Pluto retrograde in Aquarius: Unraveling Internalized Conditioning
Pluto’s retrograde through the early degrees of Aquarius is a call to unravel internalized systems that keep us tied to outdated ways of thinking, being, and living life. We have a chance to confront our resistance to change, our fear of standing out from the crowd, and the unconscious ways we may be controlled and limited by social standards, or by a reactive need to rebel against them.
In Aquarius, Pluto retrograde is an invitation to reflect on, restructure, and redefine our relationship with our communities, technology, the internet, AI, as well as those social movements we may feel part of or identify with.
Pluto retrograde in Aquarius is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of both our unique psychological nature and the psychology of the masses, group dynamics, and issues of belonging. This is a time to question the beliefs we internalized around fitting in, individuality, and being part of society, recognize the role we might have adopted to feel accepted, and acknowledge where we might have sacrificed our authenticity for approval or inclusion.
Amid exponential technological evolution, Pluto retrograde in Aquarius asks us to reflect on what it means to be human. This transit invites us to ponder what value we can offer to the collective in this day and age, when artificial intelligence is quickly taking over and the ways we connect with each other continue to evolve. During the upcoming five months, we have an opportunity to dismantle inherited conditioning, recognize shadow tendencies toward elitism or intellectual superiority, let go of escapist habits, and reconnect with our hearts while offering our authentic presence to our communities.
