On April 29, 2:36 PM ET, Pluto stations retrograde in Capricorn. Shortly later, at 6:23 PM ET, Mercury leaves Taurus and enters Gemini.
After a few months with all planets in direct motion, Pluto is the first one to come to a standstill, inviting us to renew, rethink, and redefine our relationship with power and authority, while acknowledging where we are at in our empowerment journey. A few hours later, Mercury enters its domicile of Gemini, speeding up our thought processes while stimulating our curiosity and our desire to learn.
Let’s see in more detail what these shifts are about.
Pluto in Capricorn: Transformation of Inner & Outer Structures
Pluto, named after the mythological God of the Underworld, is the modern ruler of Scorpio. In Astrology, it is connected to our journey of empowerment, evolution, death and rebirth processes. It has to do with all that is unconscious, with shadow work, with the emotional patterns that are at the core of our psychology. Pluto has been in Capricorn since 2008 and this long transit is coming to an end. Pluto is entering Aquarius in 2023 and will remain in the sign for 12-15 years.
During the last few months of Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, we have an opportunity to reflect on the metamorphosis that has been taking place for us so far. Capricorn teaches us to master form and structure, boundaries, and responsibility: it is about our maturation process. The transit of Pluto through the sign has been deeply transforming the structure of society as well as the structure of our consciousness, inviting us to become our own authority and exposing the corruption at the core of those systems and institutions we have been relying on until now.
Pluto retrograde: Renewing our Relationship to Power & Responsibility
When a planet is retrograde, it promotes a process of self-inquiry. It invites us to slow down, turn inwards, and take time to integrate and elaborate on the experiences we had while it was direct. Pluto retrograde represents an opportunity to deepen our shadow work, gain more awareness of the unconscious emotional patterns and attachments that have been leading our lives, confront our fears, and notice where we have been giving our power away and why.
Pluto stationing retrograde invites reflection, reconsideration, and revision of our relationship to power and responsibility. It invites us to redefine our boundaries and see whether we are leaking energy or giving power away in exchange for a false sense of security. It is an opportunity to see our blind spots and transform patterns of behavior rooted in unconscious fears, traumas, unacknowledged needs and desires.
This transit, lasting until October 8, is a chance to move towards a deeper embodiment, a deeper trust in our personal authority, a deeper authenticity, and deeper responsibility. Pluto stationing retrograde will be felt the most by those of us who have personal planets or angles in the last degrees of Cardinal signs Capricorn, Cancer, Libra, and Aries.
Mercury in Gemini: Curious Mindset
On April 29, the planet of communication, logic, and learning enters its home sign of Gemini, where it is going to remain longer than usual. Mercury stations retrograde in Gemini on May 10, comes back to Taurus, and stations direct there on June 3, to enter Cancer only on July 5.
Mercury in transit reflects our changing orientation relative to logically understanding our reality and ourselves. Gemini is the Air domicile of Mercury: here, the Messenger can express itself comfortably. Gemini is a Mutable Air sign: both Air and Mutability support Mercury’s versatility, love for knowledge, and need for a variety of stimuli.
Mercury’s transit through Gemini invites us to adopt a curious mindset, improves our capacity to adapt and encourages us to listen to different sides of a story in a non-judgmental way. It inspires us to initiate conversations and debates and to exchange opinions with others as a way to learn more about our environment and ourselves.
Mercury enters Gemini: Versatility & Multitasking
While Mercury is in the sign of the Twins, our thinking speeds up, our interests broaden, we are more drawn to communicate and interact with a variety of people and have long conversations about many different topics. The amount of data we gather, process, and share is likely to increase, and our capacity to multitask and be versatile is going to be supported by this transit.
Mercury’s journey through Gemini is favorable for learning, speaking, writing, and all pursuits surrounding sharing of information. Mercury in Gemini supports our analytical and intellectual capacities while encouraging us to see our reality in new ways. Some risks of this transit could be getting lost in an endless search for new data, getting distracted more easily than usual, and failing to deepen the knowledge we already possess.
Navigating Retrogrades & Eclipses
Retrograde season is starting: after Pluto, several other planets will station retrograde. Mercury’s upcoming retrograde in Gemini will encourage us to question our habitual way of thinking, communicating, and learning. When Mercury is retrograde, it is always an invitation to think critically and decondition from outdated ways of perceiving the world: in the sign of Gemini, this may imply questioning where we get our information from, exploring different sources, and embracing unfamiliar ways of making sense of our reality.
Moreover, in just a few hours, we experience a Solar Eclipse in Taurus conjunct Uranus, which opens the Eclipse portal, a time of fast changes, karmic shifts, and shifts of fate. Pluto is the planetary ruler of the Lunar South Node, currently in Scorpio. The South Node ruler informs us of ways of being, psychological patterns, and emotional attachments that we need to release for our evolution to continue. Pluto’s influence will be strong on tomorrow’s Eclipse also because it will still be stationary, which means that it is closer to Earth and its influence is more powerful than usual.
Meanwhile, Mercury on the first degree of Gemini is still in an out of sign trine to Pluto that sharpens our perceptions and aids the psychological integration of what we are going through. The Mercury-Pluto trine has the potential to help us understand ourselves and the purpose of what takes place these days on a deeper, more profound level.
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P.S. for a deep, more personalized guidance for the month of May we invite you on the journey to explore our May Horoscope which comes in both e-book and audiobook formats. To get your May Horoscope simply tap here. Enjoy!
