The Path of Pluto's Transits, Part One
Moments in the Flow...Pluto's Power of Transformation Revealed, from Aries to Virgo
Hello Again,
Pluto shifted signs from Capricorn into Aquarius at 3:29 p.m. EST on November 19th. I have already given my version of the astronomical and astrological information about this event. My current Moondays Report, still available to read without paid subscription, is the best place to find this.
A Truth About Pluto and Scorpio
What I’d like to share with you now is an important truth about Pluto and Scorpio. The lower nature of both planet and sign is control, manipulation, and secrecy: the power trinity of transformation for personal gain.
This is how Pluto and Scorpio get things done whether or not they would be seen as acceptable if all could witness the process. And Pluto is particularly well known for making unseen transformations.
One example is the transformation process of sperm and egg into a human body. It takes place, unseen within the fallopian tube and then the womb of the mother. (That example is something I will come back to when we postulate on transformation taking place during the passage of Pluto in Aquarius in Part Two.)
Another was immortalized in the title of Neil Young’s album, Rust Never Sleeps. Leave rust on the metal of a chair’s leg and over time it weakens the strength and durability until this transformation becomes obvious when the leg breaks.
And this is why we know more about Pluto transformations once they are complete…and once Pluto has left one sign to enter another. Then we can look back and see the focus and power of the transit and what has changed.
What the Past Reveals
Astrologers will tell you that two planets are hard to predict. Uranus, ruler of Aquarius, not only brings change, but also surprises. We used to call it the ‘wild card.’ The best accuracy we can give for a Uranus transit in a birth chart is where and when the surprise or change will take place. We could describe a bit more, including the qualities of the sign and house position. Aspects are also revealing and give information about timing. And we could get more help from using the quality of Uranus: intuition.
The other planet that is hard to pinpoint is Pluto. We know there will be deep level transformation wherever Pluto’s transit takes place, and the sign and aspects may give clues. Looking back, you can see that the changes form a specific flow as Pluto works its way through the signs.
Pluto’s Transformations Since It Entered Aries in 1822
Let’s look at how Pluto has worked to change society’s standards in recent history. Part One will begin with Pluto’s current journey through the 12 signs of the zodiac from Aries to Virgo (1822-1972). The period prior to this produced the revolutions in the US (and our US birth chart Pluto in 29 Capricorn) and France. The Napoleonic era dies with him, while in captivity, near the end of Pluto in Pisces. One year later we begin to recognize the shifts Pluto brings that helped create the modern world.
We will also see that once Pluto has begun its most recent transit of Aries, there is a definite uptick in shifts and change compared to earlier transits of this sign. In fact, despite how many things I’ve included in my summaries for each sign, there is so much more taking place around the world.
Why?
I believe that answer can be found in the Mayan Calendar stepped-stone pyramid. For the full description I suggest you watch a wonderful lecture by the late Ian Xel Lungold, The Mayan Calendar Comes North. It was recorded during the approach to December 2012 when many were hearing about the big shift that would occur then and wondering what it would bring.
In this lecture he discusses calendars and specific information about how the Mayan Calendar shows evolution and the length of time it takes for things to change. The length of the steps gets shorter as they approach the top, and change occurs in shorter time-frames. We reached that plateau on the top on December 21, 2012. This is when we entered ‘timeless time’. And what is that? We had no idea then, but we can see now that timeless quality in change that is constantly occurring.
We can all see examples of how quickly things change now. Buy the latest smartphone and see the ad for the newer version on your way home. Visit a website you know how to navigate and see a different display. You can think of many more. Sometimes that constant change becomes overwhelming.
Pluto transits since 1822 have produced shifts that brought us to this point. They have transformed countries, governments, our societal values and agreements of what is right and acceptable in general.
There is a lot of information in the listings below. Skim as you will, and rest assured--there’s no quiz!! I think you will see enough to agree that Pluto’s transit in a Sign brings major, lasting transformations related to the sign’s areas of influence.
(Please note that retrogrades cause some overlap of the years for Pluto in signs.)
Pluto in Aries 1822-1852 The Formation of Territories, Rapid Invention, and New Means of Transport
Aries is the sign of new beginnings, invention, identity and independent action. It is also a sign of war. As this era begins, the transformation of identity in the Western Hemisphere is expanding.
The newly independent US is exploring and acquiring new territories. Identity shifts include changes in the south: Mexico, Central and South America. Mexico has its first independent Empire, and the prince of Brazil declares independence. Both countries are ruled by an Emperor.
US President Monroe passes the Monroe Doctrine (in cooperation with Britain) that precludes any foreign country from colonizing the western hemisphere. It warns that such activity will be seen as an act of aggression against the US.
The goal of independence sees more countries declaring independence, resulting in more wars in new areas, including colonies of the UK and Europe, the Franco-Prussian war and the established independence of Greece.
The Aries nature of this Pluto transit sparks more territorial wars in more areas of the world than can be listed here. There are also rapid inventions that change the way we do things.
Throughout history, ships and horse-drawn wagons have been the major transport, Canals are built to connect areas to assist this. Steam is a power source. Now, the first railroad opens in England. It involves the burning (Aries) of fuel and the easy and cheaper means of transport for coal, a substance mined in the underground, which is also fuel burned in homes.
Two schools of higher education open in London.
Later in the transit, people living as slaves in the UK and US begin the insurrection in a fight for freedom. Abolition occurs in England. Slaves in the US and the Cherokee fight for their rights while wagon trains explore the west. The Indian removal act brings war and removal to reservations, changing the identity of this part of the western hemisphere. The Mexican American war takes place, and the US receives more territory.
The adventurous Charles Darwin’s journey begins. The first electric motor was created. The expansion of publishing increases literacy. The music of the Classical and Romantic Era produces great composers still venerated today. The Great Exposition devised by Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert, opens in London in a unique construction made of glass. This event is the first opportunity for the general public to see exhibits of scientific breakthroughs and items from cultures around the world.
The Women’s Suffrage Movement begins in England. The Seneca Falls Conference in 1848 is the beginning of the suffragette movement in the US.
Pluto in Taurus 1852-1884 Transformation of Territory, Finances, and Foreign Cultures.
Taurus is a fixed earth sign, concerned with nature, food, real estate, personal finance and possessions and personal values.
Pluto was in Taurus in the “Victorian Era” of the late 19th century and a standout effect was the British Colonial expansion. When it was complete, it transformed the identity of an area, roughly the size of the US state, Oregon, into the ruler of vast sections of land and resources around the world. It had also transformed the society, language, religion and customs of the people who lived in the countries that became part of the ‘Commonwealth.’
India joins this list wwith a rebellion against the East India Company and Britain assumes a rulership of the British East India Company, that will last 90 years.
The phonautograph was invented, the first machine to record sound.
Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. The Civil War begins in the US as the South seeks to secede from the Union due to the effect on their financial situation if slavery is abolished. The North won the war, and the southern states remain part of the US. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishes slavery. Lincoln is assassinated.
Earthquakes and famines around the world, the Pony Express, the opening of the first London Underground transportation, and the first transcontinental railway opens in the US. The first trade unions. And a ‘long depression.’
Charles Dickens, Tennyson, the Bronte sisters, Oscar Wilde, and many more classic authors and poets.
Pluto in Gemini 1884-1914 Transformation of Thoughts, Information, Communications and Travel
Pluto was now in this mutable mental air that is about thinking, communication, information gathering, and short journeys at the beginning of the 20th century. The Industrial Age was producing new inventions.
One of these that caused great wealth for some in the US was railroads. This also transformed ways to travel and ship goods. The Robber Barrons (also associated with land taken for railroads and use of slave workers) created the Stock Exchange.
Originally, just a place for the wealthy, they soon saw the opportunity to increase the value by convincing the new upwardly mobile middle class to take a chance on investing in stocks. This transformed thoughts about the way to increase financial income. Newspapers brought information, opinions, entertainment like comic strips, and reports on the value of your stocks.
Communication is transformed with the invention of the Tesla coil that could send and receive radio signals. The first transmissions on the wireless radio were government messages sent in 1900. Radio begins to enter our homes.
Edison creates the phonograph and tests his first lightbulb.
The first commercial telephone exchange is open in New Haven, CT. Pasteur invents the first vaccine and changes information and thoughts about medical treatment. The first electrical power plant and grid opens in England. The first car with an internal combustion engine was created by Karl Benz, who also sells the first commercial automobile. The first section of Paris Metro opens.
Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Impressionists.
Pluto in Cancer 1914-1938 Transformation of Home, Family, Safety
After a few tentative dips into this sign, Pluto shifted into Cancer in September of 1914. Cancer, representing a need for security for home and family, would bring transformation into accepted standards of warfare. Shortages of food supply will also characterize countries at war, and many will lose their homes or must flee. A stock market crash will occur between WWI and WWII, dramatically transforming the security of homes and families and life in general for a large part of the population in the US and elsewhere.
In brief: WWI started with the assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary and would escalate from a war between this nation and Serbia, (a country back in the news in the late 1990s). By August, just before the final entry of Pluto into Cancer, the assassination spirals into war between Europe, UK, Russia and more.
A Plutonian transformation in warfare comes through new weapons and methods. The US becomes involved when the new technology of submarine torpedoes (unseen) kill Americans on a passenger ship (the Lusitania).
Spy networks to smuggle Allies out of enemy territories become another facet of warfare, as does the ghastly trench warfare (underground), bombs, grenades, and mines (often left in ground after the war). The silent but deadly gas as weapon left many soldiers with lasting lung and heart disease. The origin of the psychological disease, ‘shell shock’ is like what we now call PTSD: a sudden, irrevocable alteration of reality creates a permanent traumatic shock syndrome.
In 1927, the first successful demonstration of electronic television took place in San Francisco. The Public was introduced to TV in 1938, but homes in the US began having them in the 1950s…with Pluto in Leo.
Pluto is still in Cancer when a desire to overturn the loss incurred and poor economy in Germany along wih a desire to renew the strength of ‘the homeland’, included increasing the size of the land controlled by another smaller-sized nation. German invasions of other countries began WWII. Pluto, the planet that rules the underworld and the sign of death, created one transformation that wasn’t widely known until the Allies liberated the concentration camps where genocide was practiced. Another had transformed the government of Germany to be a dictatorship with rigid compliance.
Pluto in Leo 1937-1958 Transformation of Royalty, Entertainment, Loyalty, and the Societal Status of Children and Role of Parents
Pluto shifted into the fixed fire sign of Leo, the realm of personality and self-expression and those things listed in the headline. WWII is beginning and will create Allies who remain loyal supporters of the besieged nations of Scandinavia, the UK, and western Europe.
The war would transform the status of the United States from an isolationist country to protector of the world. This came after the Japanese (allied with Germany and Italy) attacked and killed Americans at the US Navy Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. US soldiers and weapons fought another war that was not on US soil, both in Europe and in the Pacific.
Forever changing the nature of effective battle and the risks of warfare for civilians was the greater number of airplanes used to drop bombs and fire on enemy aircraft. And there was the successful completion of the secret US project to create a bomb so powerful that it would end the WWII Pacific battles, giving a final end to the war. It was believed that this devastating power would frighten others from beginning a new war in the future.
The secret information would be controlled so only a few Allied countries would have access to the Atom Bomb. But another secretive tradition became more empowered…spy networks that wanted access to information so other nations, particularly Russia at that time, could learn how to create their own.
It also created the State of Israel which transformed the status quo in the area, putting the new country under threat from day one. The area transformed from a desert into food producing land. But it also created a place for the Allies to enter what had increasingly become an area of great wealth from an underground substance that was also being used to power planes and automobiles: petroleum, crude oil, or gasoline.
And as a general social standard, Pluto in Leo transformed the nature of the entertainment industry. During WWII people went to the cinema to see the newsreels and then see a film where they could be entertained and, leaving worry behind, feel better. In other Leo ways, the romance seen in the movies may have spiked the number of babies born after the GI’s returned, creating what is now known as a Baby Boom. But along with this, the attitude about and care of babies transformed the status of children to their current place of importance.
While Pluto in Leo would minimize the presence of royal families, it elevated the status of performers in all areas of entertainment, including sports and music. and brought Entertainment and news were brought into the home with the invention of the television, surpassing the purely audio version on the radio.
Pluto in Virgo 1956-1972 Transforming Work, Health, Rights, and Environment
Transformations included an increased diet of prepared foods and eating at restaurants. The working class was strongly motivated to transform their lives to get ahead.
Housework was transformed by the introduction of electronic appliances for dishwashing, laundry, cooking, and cleaning.
The way work was done outside the home transformed through the use of new devices like the pocket calculator, improved typewriters, the first prototype of the internet, the first email, and the first supercomputer.
The medical and health aspects of Virgo were transformed in the US by the creation of Medicare and Medicaid which gave protection to the health of the retired and elderly. The movements for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and the antiwar movement protests influenced these areas to transform society.
The agricultural aspect of Virgo saw transformations as the first environmental concerns show up through Rachel Carson and others, warning of unsafe, unhealthy, and unseen practices, like widespread use of pesticides.
Certain pesticides were banned, and the rhetoric of this desire for safety and purity inspired the ‘back to the land, vegetarian, and organic foods’ movement. Certain pesticides are banned and the creation of Greenpeace, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Earth Day transformed a level of societal engagement in our personal health and that of our planet in general.
The appearance of GenX marks a transformation of values to authenticity and motivation to improve business and health.
I’ll be back next week with Part Two…Pluto in Libra through Capricorn, some projections about changes with Pluto in Aquarius, and Pluto’s transit through the houses.
And if you want more information about the changes here, visit the timelines for each century on Wikipedia.
See you next time!
This is fascinating, Shellie, thanks for putting so much into this piece. I can’t wait to read part two! I remain cautiously optimistic…somehow.