Pluto in Late Capricorn: Covid-19, the War in Ukraine, and the American Pluto Return
Pluto through the Social Signs, part 4. Introduction to Pluto-Saturn conjunctions and planetary nodes.
For the time period 2020 to 2023, we are mostly looking at a time when Saturn has been in Aquarius. I have already commented briefly on this transit in part 1 though, and I thought I’d save more commentary on Saturn in Aquarius for the next part, when we’ll be looking at Pluto’s entry into Aquarius and the Aquarius archetype as a whole. Suffice to say that it has been a time period of social distancing, an establishment gone “woke”/politically radical, a strong emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and a strong emphasis on loyalty to the cause, including in the ongoing war in Ukraine. How all these things tie in to the Aquarius archetype will be revealed in part 5.
There’s another thing I haven’t even looked at yet and that is the transiting Lunar nodes. Just as the South Node in an individual chart represents an old dynamic that needs to be outgrown and the North Node represents its evolutionary counterpoint, the transiting Lunar nodes tell us something about the collective window of evolution during a particular time period.
The nodes stay roughly 1,5 years in a couple of signs before they move - backwards - to the next two signs. During the last two years, we've had the South Node/North Node in the signs of Sagittarius/Gemini followed by Scorpio/Taurus. Before that, in 2019 and early 2020, the Lunar nodes were in Capricorn/Cancer, but this is not something I will look at more closely. In early 2020, there were a lot of planets moving through Capricorn, including Saturn and Pluto who went into an exact conjunction around January 12. This massive planetary presence in Capricorn, and the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in particular, is the story of the early part of 2020. The transiting South Node of the Moon was also there in conjunction with Jupiter - which is significant, only less so because it is a conjunction that occurs roughly every 7,5 years (as far as I can tell). A Pluto-Capricorn conjunction only occurs once every 40 years.
The Pluto-Saturn conjunction
Richard Tarnas has written about Pluto-Saturn conjunctions in his book Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. He connects Pluto-Saturn conjunctions - as well as oppositions and squares - to the theme of “conservative, reactionary, or repressive empowerment”.1 In my own analysis, I would describe a Pluto-Saturn conjunction as a perfect alignment between the visible status quo (Saturn) and the deep status quo (Pluto), making the worldly authorities acutely aware of deep questions around power, powerlessness, and collective survival.
Tarnas makes a convincing case that a particular Pluto-Saturn cycle, from one conjunction to the next, marks the beginning and end of an era. For example, the first Pluto-Saturn conjunction in the 20th century (1913-1916) coincided with the beginning of World War I; the second conjunction (1946-1948) marked the beginning of the Cold War; the third conjunction (1980-1984) coincided with the dawn of the neoliberal era, at least in the Western world, with US president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher at the helm.2
In 2007, when Cosmos and Psyche was first published, Tarnas could hardly be expected to know or comment on what the next Saturn-Pluto cycle would bring. We now know what it was. While there were a variety of things happening on the theme “conservative empowerment” in the years of the conjunction, there was also a point in time when everything changed: On January 11, China reported on its first death from a mysterious new pathogen. On the next day, Saturn passed Pluto in the sky, initiating a new cycle between the two.
Now, Tarnas doesn’t cover which signs in the zodiac a particular conjunction or other aspect takes place in. This is understandable: his analysis is large enough as it is, and he is trying to present a scientific case for planetary influences that might not have been helped had he also involved the signs of the zodiac. Nevertheless, the fact that the conjunction takes place in Capricorn fits the bill precisely: control, order, restrictions, quarantine, responsibility, strict rules and regulations. With the Moon’s nodal axis in Capricorn/Cancer, we also see the inherent danger that this Capricornian drive for regulations can become too strict (south node in Capricorn) and that the evolutionary goal is oriented towards nurturing and care (north node in Cancer).
In my previous post on Capricorn, I may not have emphasised enough this connection between the Capricorn archetype and control. To explain this connection, it may be a good idea to distinguish it from the Scorpio need for control, for these are two different things. Scorpio may seek to control an external source of power or an other person for fear of being overpowered, of losing control. This is not a particularly lofty expression of the Scorpio archetype, though: instead of trying to control everything, Scorpio needs to let in the external source of power in a way that allows for true vulnerability and deep sharing without risking violations of trust or abuse.3 Capricorn, on the other hand, does need to exert control, possibly including control over others. At its best, though, Capricorn's control is expressed as self-control (Cancer polarity point - internally felt), allowing Capricorn to show integrity and take responsibility for his actions as discussed in part 3.
The transiting Lunar nodes in Sag./Gemini
As 2020 progressed, Saturn ingressed into Aquarius and social distancing started to become a thing. Then, in the beginning of May, the transiting Lunar south node and north node went into Sagittarius and Gemini, respectively. This was followed by the death of George Floyd (may he rest in peace) on May 25th at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin. Many people naturally felt that what had happened was wrong (South Node in Sagittarius - morally wrong) and, as a result, wanted to make their voices heard, speaking the facts about what had happened (North Node in Gemini). And in reponse to this, large parts of the establishment now “took a knee” in a more or less convincing display of their commitment to egalitarianism - Saturn in Aquarius.
The Sagittarian connection to self-righteousness also made itself known once more, as a minority of protesters took to rioting and looting - taking themselves the god-given right (Sagittarius) to vandalize, steal, and destroy.
As tensions increased, there were tendencies towards an all-out religious war, heavy on self-righteousness, moralistic preaching, and shouting by all sides. The virtue-signalling (Sagittarius: virtue, goodness) went far beyond the boundaries of the United States, impacting social media, a vast variety of websites, advertising, and more.
Full disclosure: I don’t think our souls care about politics. They care about evolution. If two people are participating in a protest movement, raising their fists and shouting various slogans, for one of them it could be a genuine attempt to get the word out (North Node in Gemini) about a deep status quo of oppression at the hands of police and other authorities (Pluto in Capricorn). For the other person, it could be an act of signalling virtue (South Node in Sagittarius) by conforming to a different flavor of that deep Capricorn status quo: directing anger, judgment, and blame at anyone who doesn’t toe the line. Even if the gesture is identical for both people, the underlying significance could be worlds apart.
While the Black Lives Matter movement and protests had an impact on the larger world, it is clear that the time of death of George Floyd had extra significance for the United States (see point 5 among my guiding principles). The American Pluto, located in the second house Capricorn, is concerned with ownership, safety and survival. Originally, this is a country where people could be owned, and it is clear that the traumas connected with American slavery and other forms of institutional violence against black people are far from healed. The death of George Floyd not only coincided with the impending American Pluto return, but more exactly with transiting Jupiter conjuncting that Pluto, meaning that the collective outlook on things was suddenly colored by this deep, national theme of institutional (Capricorn) ownership (2H) and police (Capricorn) threats to survival (2H).
Another, more global theme during this period was the question of truth versus science in connection with the pandemic. There were people who felt talked down to (South node in Sagittarius) as the truth (Sagittarius) about Covid and the need for lockdowns and vaccinations was touted as the supreme virtue without any need for discussion (North node in Gemini). As a result of this, some people started following their own truth (Sagittarius), relying solely on their own intuition (The vaccines are meant to kill us!) without paying attention to the facts (Gemini). I am happy to say that I think Sweden managed to find a middle line here: The Public Health Agency was able to pursue its own, science-based (Gemini) recommendations without government interference, and the result was a very moderate lockdown that did not affect public schools or confine people entirely to their homes. In the end, Sweden had the lowest excess mortality in 2020-2022 in the entire EU.
A similar theme of intuition versus facts became prominent in the narrative of the stolen election, again in the United States. People just knew that the election had been stolen, contrary to all evidence. The subsequent storming of the US Capitol must also be counted as an expression of the impending American Pluto return, even though it was only transiting Mercury that was exactly conjunct the American Pluto on January 6th, 2021.
All in all, the transiting nodal axis in Sagittarius/Gemini seems to have expressed itself in a few different ways:
Needing to spread the word about the moral wrongs that happened
Virtue-signalling needing to give way to spreading the word, speaking the facts
Religious or moralistic wars that need to give way to dialogue, respecting the facts while being open to a variety of viewpoints
Listening to your own intuited truth so much that you don’t pay attention to the facts needing to give way to an openness and curiosity about these facts.
Finally, what happened with the much-hyped Saturn-Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius at the end of December 2020? What did it bring? There seem to be at least some astrologers (myself included) who have noticed that it correlated with the beginning of the first vaccination programs, with the first vaccines being approved earlier that month. Bearing in mind that this was Jupiter’s first entry into Aquarius, my interpretation would be: Innovative (Aquarius) status quo organizations (Saturn - big pharma in this case) opening up a new possibility (Jupiter) that changes the collective outlook on things (Jupiter) from one of lockdowns (Capricorn) to one of progress (Aq.) through the mass distribution (Aq.) of new, innovative and artifical technologies (Aq.). Most people who got vaccinated did so in the following year, when Jupiter was in Aquarius.
The transiting Lunar nodes in Scorpio/Taurus
Fast forward to 2022 and we find that the nodal axis went into Scorpio/Taurus around January 18th. At this point, Vladimir Putin had already been making threats and rattling sabers over Ukraine for several months, but most people found it incredulous to think that Russia would actually invade in the way they did. Then, on February 24th, Putin launched a full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in what can only be described as an attempted fratricide4 of Biblical proportions. Curiously, the dates around the invasion was also when the United States Pluto return made its first, exact hit - an interesting connection, although I wouldn't know how to interpret it.
The sense of betrayal was so strong because most people couldn’t imagine that it would come to this. President Zelensky himself dismissed the possibility of an invasion. When you trust someone not to try to kill you, it is all the more shocking when it actually happens.
If the transiting Lunar nodes in Scorpio/Taurus had been able to speak, I’m guessing they would have said something like this: We thought we could trust you. You have betrayed us (Scorpio). We can no longer trust you but must instead seek to become more self-reliant (Taurus) and safeguard our own security (Taurus) in a way that we didn’t have to do before.5 And so a great number of countries have started to detach themselves economically from Russia while shoring up support for each other and for Ukraine. Interestingly enough, the Russians feel exactly the same way: The West cannot be trusted. We must become more self-sufficient. How touching to see everybody agreeing on something for once!
Needless to say, the transiting Lunar nodes will also have all kinds of more specific meanings to a particular person. To understand the significance of the transiting nodes in your own birth chart, you need to:
Understand your natal Lunar nodes by house and sign.
Understand the transiting Lunar nodes by house and sign.
Understand how the transiting nodes express themselves on top of the natal nodes, coloring the theme while not fundamentally changing it.
In July this year, the nodes are changing sign again, to the signs of Libra and Aries. What will this mean for you and for your chart in particular? Book a consultation with me and let’s find out!
Planetary south nodes in Capricorn
I would like to end with a brief introduction to planetary nodes. Just as the Moon has its nodes, so do all the planets. (Only the Sun does not have nodes, as the nodes are the intersections between the orbit of the Sun and the orbit of a particular planet as seen from Earth.) The slower-moving planets, starting with Jupiter, remain many hundreds of years within a particular sign, fluctuating a little bit back and forth during the course of a year. Because they remain so long in one sign, they tell us something about karma and evolution on a truly collective level.6 Today we have the south nodes of Pluto and Saturn in late Capricorn and the south node of Jupiter in early Capricorn (rarely in Sagittarius). Together, these three planetary south nodes point to Capricornian themes that are familiar to us as a species on a collective level - so familiar, in fact, that we are getting ready to outgrow them. What are these themes?
They are negative expressions of Capricorn: harshness, rigidity, control, judgment, punishment, oppression, too many rules and hierarchies, too much focus on external roles and positions (including gender roles), hiding behind a facade of external achievement, looking for a quick profit without any consideration for the people standing in your way, etc. In short, they are themes of what Jeffrey Wolf Green called, in his usual Sagittarian bluntness, the patriarchy. It is where we are coming from collectively. It is also what we are invited, by the planetary north nodes in Cancer, to start leaving behind.
But sometimes it so happens that the past reasserts itself in a dramatic fashion. As Pluto and several other planets started gathering at the end of Capricorn, they did not merely conjunct each other; they also conjuncted the south nodes of Pluto, Saturn, and (partly) Jupiter. If this conjunction had been able to speak, it might well have said: “Bring on the past and do it fast!”
And, as it happened, the Covid-19 pandemic brought an unprecendented decline to levels of human progress and human development across the world, according to one estimate. Life expectancy fell, poverty increased, and child marriage became more common again in a number of countries. I don’t know why this was necessary, if at all, in the greater service of evolution. But I do know that Pluto is now, finally, starting to leave its own south node and that of Saturn behind. The worst is behind us. We probably have a few more difficult years ahead, but in the longer term I am optimistic.
This late Pluto in Capricorn era has also seen so many autocrats gain power around the world, but their time will soon be spent. They cannot lead, simply because they don’t have anything new to offer. They are stuck in the past, as are their mentalities and their solutions to contemporary problems. As Pluto starts shaking off the conjunctions with the south nodes in Capricorn, while simultaneously moving into rebellious Aquarius, the old guard won’t remain much longer. What follows may not be pretty in every way, but it will offer a way forward.
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Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche (2007), p. 219.
The years for these conjunctions are taken from a table in Cosmos and Psyche, p. 214, where Tarnas uses a 15° orb.
Michael De Baker, The EA School Online, Module 1, Chapter 1, Lesson 10.
Fratricide means killing one’s own brother. Putin, of course, argues that he is only doing what is necessary to protect Russia and Russian minorities in eastern Ukraine, but why that would justify the whole-scale assault on a country of over 40 million people is anybody’s guess.
This expression of the Scorpio/Taurus nodal axis was first suggested to me by Mirella Trimboli, about a month before the start of the Ukraine War. The exact source is this thread in the closed Facebook group Therapeutic Evolutionary Astrology.
Jeffrey Wolf Green, Structure of the Soul, chapter 2.