Pluto Retrograde in Capricorn: Collective Reckoning

Pluto in Astrology: Power, Loss, and Transformation

Pluto is the modern ruler of Scorpio and was named after the mythological God of the Underworld. In Evolutionary Astrology, Pluto is seen as the force of evolution, connected to our Soul’s true desires and evolutionary intentions. In Psychological Astrology, Pluto has to do with everything unconscious, with what belongs to the realm of shadows. Connected with what we consider dark, hidden, and taboo, the modern ruler of Scorpio is associated with issues of power and control, as well as with all transformational processes, death and rebirth cycles, and the inevitability of loss. 

Pluto asks us difficult questions. How do we relate to the feeling of having no control? How do we relate to loss, death, and impermanence? Do we resist evolution or embrace it? What do we fear the most? And what desires of ours scare us, and why?

Pluto needs roughly 15 to 20 years to complete his transit through a sign. While doing so, he exacerbates the shadows, distortions, and darkness of the sign where he’s traveling, while also offering us access to its higher evolutionary potential.

Pluto Retrograde in Capricorn: End of a Journey

Capricorn has to do with self-mastery, self-responsibility, and our relationship to the time-space reality and its limitations, rules, and boundaries. This archetype is connected to the journey of embracing our personal definition of success, creating material security, and finding our place within society by learning the rules of the game and how to play it.

Ruled by Saturn, the Lord of Time, Capricorn sheds light on our duties and responsibilities and the karmic impact of our actions and choices. Connected with both external authority and our inner sense of authority, Capricorn has a lot to do with how consciousness, society, and reality itself are structured.

As Capricorn is an Earth sign, when Pluto is here, there tends to be a significant resistance to change and a tendency to gravitate toward what is known, stable, and secure: in this case, adhering to traditional values and maintaining the status quo becomes a way to generate a sense of security.

In Capricorn, Pluto revealed the shadows of governments, authorities, and institutions, exposing corruption, decay, and abuse of power at the top of the social hierarchies. This transit has emphasized the unsustainability of the prevailing social, political, and financial paradigms and the need for drastic and lasting changes.

On a personal level, Pluto revealed to us how our relationship to responsibility is distorted and underlined the need to understand how past conditioning still impacts us. His transit through Capricorn forced many of us to drastically restructure our lives and our definition of success, challenging us to recognize how much our beliefs, behaviors, and values were shaped by traditional, typically patriarchal, societal values.

Pluto’s activation of 29º Capricorn

For the entirety of his remaining time in Capricorn, Pluto is going to hang out over the last degree of Capricorn, the 29º.

The 29º of any sign is considered to be a point of extremes, a point of chaos, a point of both crises and opportunities, as it represents the transition from one evolutionary phase to another. Pluto is going to station direct on October 11, still placed on 29º02’ of Capricorn. Until Pluto enters Aquarius again, on November 19, we can expect to witness more upheavals, turmoil, and a general feeling that long-standing issues are coming to a breaking point to force us to find new solutions.

During this period, each of us as individuals will be invited to have an honest look at how our personal life needs to be restructured and transformed from the inside out, at where we lack integrity, and at how shadows and unprocessed pain from our past are sabotaging our present and our future. We will have chances to see how we resist change and evolution, how early conditioning is still impacting us today, and what needs to be dismantled within ourselves and in our external realities for further evolution to take place.

Lastly, it is interesting to pay attention to the fact that, on July 21, 2024, we experienced a Full Moon at 29º of Capricorn conjunct Pluto at 0º Aquarius. While Pluto is traveling retrograde on this degree, the issues and themes that we were dealing with back then could come into the spotlight again, as the same point of our natal chart will be activated.

The Last Pluto Retrograde Period in Capricorn: Collective Reckoning

A long, intense journey that started in 2008 is coming to an end. Pluto’s retrograde time in Capricorn offers us an opportunity to revisit and reflect on what was taking place in our lives while Pluto was on the 29º of Capricorn in 2023 and during January 2024, but also throughout his entire transit through Capricorn. Pluto’s final retrograde through Capricorn represents an opportunity for us to resolve unfinished business, consolidate the changes that have been taking place since 2008, and notice what still needs to be structurally transformed within ourselves and in our lives.

By forcing us to confront underlying issues, assess the impact of past actions, and make necessary changes, Pluto’s final pass through Capricorn represents a time of collective reckoning and accelerated growth.

Pluto removes what is in the way of our Soul’s evolution: if we collaborate, this process can be organic, if we resist change, it tends to be more cataclysmic and drastic. The last weeks of Pluto’s transit through Capricorn are likely to be particularly intense, serving as a final push for us to dismantle what is not built on truth and acknowledge how we may be out of integrity. During this time, we are called to recognize how we might have built our lives based on fear, control, rigidity, or outdated ambitions. As we approach the end of this transit, the focus is on releasing the old with faith, even if we don’t know what’s coming next.

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