Uranus Square Pluto

Uranus in Aries, Plu­to in Capricorn

Uranus in Aries will square Plu­to in Capri­corn from 2012 till 2015. What was released in 1965–66 as a new dis­pen­sa­tion, a new dynam­ic in the rela­tion­ship of Mind and Will, between the Indi­vid­ual Spir­it and the Col­lec­tive Order, will now reach a cross­roads in their dynam­ic dance of Thought and Space.

The last time Uranus and Plu­to squared one anoth­er was 1932 to 1934. Remark­ably Uranus was in Aries then too, while Plu­to was in the oppo­site sign to now, in Can­cer. That was indeed a time of great chal­lenge and change, but it was a wan­ing square of Uranus/Pluto. A wan­ing square is a time for “decon­struc­tion”; it is a time for a cri­sis of con­scious­ness that expos­es the ideas that must be chal­lenged, test­ed and tran­scend­ed so that bet­ter spaces for spir­i­tu­al growth may develop.

This time we are expe­ri­enc­ing a wax­ing square, so this is a cri­sis of for­ma­tion, a time to make a choice about what to be cen­tered upon, a time to estab­lish deep­er, truer foun­da­tions… it is a time for action. This turn­ing point will build upon the themes that were released at the con­junc­tion (dur­ing the Six­ties), but those themes (and counter-themes) have now reached a crit­i­cal mass. What is put before us, or bet­ter, what we have put before our­selves is a cross­roads which demands that we choose one path or anoth­er. We should look upon it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for build­ing a New World more than the decon­struc­tion of an Old World.

To under­stand the nature of the chal­lenge and choice we must look to the mes­sage bear­ers of this turn­ing, to jux­ta­pose Uranus in Aries with Plu­to in Capri­corn. By exam­in­ing each plan­et’s func­tion as focused through the sign they are in will guide us to the deep­er mean­ing of this moment.

The Two Themes:  Uranus in Aries & Plu­to in Capricorn 

Uranus in Aries

Uranus is squar­ing Plu­to from the sign of Aries, so we must under­stand what the mes­sage of Uranus in Aries means. The gen­er­al theme for Uranus in Aries is that this is a time for the resur­gence of Indi­vid­u­al­ism, Ide­al­ism and Inven­tions. Uranus here acts a cat­a­lyst for cre­ativ­i­ty in the sci­ences, arts and social orga­ni­za­tions. Tru­ly it is a time that we expe­ri­ence the re-emer­gence of new forms of true Lead­er­ship as this time calls out for trail-blaz­ers in all walks of life.

Though the past can­not be a per­fect pre­dic­tor of the future, it still can pro­vide some out­line as to the effects of this expe­ri­ence. The last two times for Uranus in Aries were 1843–1851 and 1927–1935. In the 1840’s the US was trans­formed as indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies joined togeth­er in a great pil­grim­age across the coun­try to the Cal­i­for­nia and Ore­gon ter­ri­to­ries, which was then great­ly stim­u­lat­ed by the gold rush that began in 1848. The coun­try was being bound togeth­er through the pro­lif­er­a­tion of rail­roads and the inven­tion of the tele­graph. The feel­ing of a spe­cial pur­pose seized many with the claim of a “Man­i­fest Destiny”.

In the late 1920’s into the 30’s Uranus in Aries accom­pa­nied the dev­as­ta­tion wrought by the Great Depres­sion; Uranus helped to bring to a soci­ety and a cul­ture (that need­ed it) a whole range of inven­tive spirit­ed­ness, which led to rev­o­lu­tions in tech­nolo­gies, indus­try and in social orga­ni­za­tions and gov­ern­ment. Again, bold lead­er­ship was need­ed and rose to meet the challenge.

For us now, we can and should hope that as Uranus moves through Aries from 2010–19 that we too will wit­ness the present pauci­ty of lead­er­ship giv­ing way to true lead­ers who inspire us as our cri­sis unfolds. Cer­tain­ly we have already seen numer­ous exam­ples of new forms of leading/organizing emerg­ing in this time. The dra­mat­ic evi­dence of the inter­sec­tion of new forms of con­nect­ing and the desire for greater indi­vid­ual free­doms have been made man­i­fest around the world, from across the Mid­dle East, through Europe (includ­ing Rus­sia now), and on to Amer­i­ca with the Tea Par­ty on one side and Occu­py Wall Street on the oth­er, and fur­ther on across to the rum­blings now com­ing out of China…all across the globe there is a quick­en­ing of the Spirit…and much of that we should know is because Uranus is again in Aries…But of course, there is some­thing more, much more at work on us and in our world at this time.

Plu­to in Capricorn

Plu­to is form­ing its square with Uranus from the sign of Capri­corn, and so just as with Uranus we must seek to under­stand the expe­ri­ence of what Plu­to in Capri­corn brings. Plu­to rules the Will, the pow­er to shape and re-shape spaces, it rules the pow­er of con­trol; it brings this influ­ence to bear in Capri­corn by either serv­ing to main­tain or trans­form the hier­ar­chi­cal worlds of cul­ture, soci­ety and institutions.

It would seem by look­ing at the his­tor­i­cal record that when­ev­er Plu­to moves through Capri­corn there is a pro­found trans­for­ma­tion, a death and a rebirth, of the cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal order.

When Plu­to moves through Capri­corn, which is about every 247 years or so, the insti­tu­tions and hier­ar­chies of a his­tor­i­cal peri­od have reached a turn­ing point where their space and exer­cise of pow­er has start­ed to fall apart, pri­mar­i­ly because new spaces and new pow­ers are emerg­ing. Often this end of an era and the birth of a new, this shift of spir­it, forces the old order, in the attempt to pre­serve that sys­tem, to go to ever greater extremes in the exer­cise of its power…but inevitably the emer­gence of these new forms of orga­ni­za­tion and pow­er bring about its trans­for­ma­tion or demise.

We can obtain some idea of the his­tor­i­cal pow­er of this pas­sage by look­ing back at the two most recent times Plu­to was in Capri­corn, 1515–1532 and 1762–1778. In the ear­ly 1500’s the Euro­pean world was in the throes of one of its most his­toric changes in over 1,000 years, the one church, the Catholic Church, which had been weak­ened by scan­dal inter­nal­ly as much as it was chal­lenged by the new­ly avail­able print­ed bible exter­nal­ly, was bro­ken apart by the Ref­or­ma­tion. The attempt by the Catholic King­doms to main­tain their pow­er led to dev­as­tat­ing wars between them and those who broke away to form Protes­tant realms. The old order, with its feu­dal sys­tem based on land­ed pow­er and the one Catholic Church was giv­ing way to the rise of absolute mon­archs accom­pa­nied by a new eco­nom­ic order empow­er­ing a grow­ing mer­can­tile class.

In the 1700’s colo­nial enter­pris­es of Eng­land in Amer­i­ca, the grow­ing imbal­ances between gov­erned and gov­er­nor were becom­ing increas­ing­ly unten­able. New forms of free asso­ci­a­tions were spread­ing in the New World, seed­ed by new ideas about the nature of Pow­er (Will) and Space (New Lands) as well as a new, more dynam­ic eco­nom­ic way of life. The old order attempt­ed to rein­force its con­trol over the colonies which led to protests, which led to fur­ther repres­sion, and even greater protests until a clash between Monar­chy and indi­vid­u­als in free asso­ci­a­tions led to the estab­lish­ment of a tru­ly new form of gov­ern­ment that became the mod­el for our cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal world… and that mod­el, that arrange­ment of Pow­er and Space is what is now com­ing to its end…

Three years ago, in 2008, Plu­to began its next jour­ney through Capri­corn and it will remain there now till 2024. And just as in the 1500’s and in the 1700’s a world will pass away and a new one will be born…And even more now, as Uranus and Plu­to line up in a series of squares between 2012 and 2015, this decon­struc­tion of an old order and the emer­gence of a new will most cer­tain­ly become very, very real.

The winds of change are blowing…and we must choose our path…

Remem­ber­ing that beat­en paths are for beat­en people…

This is our time…

And it is time for bright stars and trail blaz­ers again!