Pluto into Capricorn: With Open Eyes
As uncomfortable as it may be, you may soon begin to experience certain aspects of reality that you’ve seen fit to edit and omit from your consciousness.
At some point, a recognition of reality apart from our selective visions is to be faced. I seem to think this is what happens on the deathbed, and with certain tragedies and traumas that can serve to wake us up, when we find ourselves working from within a new and clear paradigm of spotless vision. And yet it seems to be in the air at the moment - at least in my circles and of what I’m hearing of people’s experiences these days.
Capricorn is the sign of slow development and maturation that comes from hard work. And yet as the sign concerned with status and reputation, it’s also the sign of the veneer of slow maturation that comes from hard work. What I’ve been writing about Pluto entering Capricorn has been based in my understanding that Capricorn operates according to a lot of shoulds, and there could be some hollow structures that hold our lives and societies together. Whatever they may be, Pluto entering this sign is the surest (if not the quickest and least painful) route to begin to see how we might be running on a lot of shoulds that aren’t based in reality or contributing usefully to it.
Last week I moved to a new place, and a few days ago met one of my neighbors, an artist and writer named Alex Forman. She told me about a photography & writing project she’s done, and it struck me as wonderfully illustrative of the energy of Pluto in Capricorn.
She photographed 2″ high figurines of the American presidents from Washington to Nixon, and each is accompanied by text reflecting research of various sorts of records - letters, medical records, biographies, etc. - which let us in on what are perhaps little-known aspects of the presidents’ lives. The result is what would make my 1st grade teacher believe she was near an apopleptic fit: A look at these men as the humans they were, with human concerns, desires, challenges, weaknesses and urges. As men with personal & intimate lives not ending with what the office of the presidency (I suppose that’s to be capitalized?) is supposed to be about. Each was made to be as much a symbol of the “should” life of the country itself as possible, and I have to believe it’s only a matter of time before stories based in reality come out.
The truth is that the vast majority of us constantly create a veneer of self-image based on shoulds (in what ways have you responded to media versions of how people should look? - that’s big enough for another post!). And it takes a lot of energy to keep out of consciousness the other, left out aspects of reality that fill reality out. Think about what it is that you don’t want to know about, don’t want to hear. Think about why you spend as much energy as you do keeping certain things out of your consciousness. Alex offers an example of this on a large social and historical scale with information about the real lives, the sometimes messy and gritty lives, of the presidents represented in her project.
Take a look at her site (Tall, Slim & Erect) and understand that this sort of revelation of truth, being faced with the unglamorous bits and pieces of reality that in actuality make us up, is the kind of thing we’re all in for with Pluto’s Capricornian ingress - the kind of thing we all have the opportunity to experience if, that is, we’re at all tired of keeping the messier, unglamorous and perhaps shameful-seeming corners of our realities out of consciousness and ready to try something new.
And this, as all things do, comes down to the challenge of self-love: Can you accept the parts of yourself that you don’t want to be part of you? Can you choose to be more whole by admitting a broader scope of yourself, as shown by an honest look at the reality of you?
Tom is available for karmic astrology & intuitive consultations. See his website for more information and to contact him.
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January 11, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
January 11th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
[...] January 2008 by hitchhiker72 Carrying on the Saturn/Capricorn theme, I read something on evolutionary astrologer, Tom Jacobs’ blog that resonates with my last post. Much has been [...]
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
[...] Pluto into Capricorn: With Open Eyes As uncomfortable as it may be, you may soon begin to experience certain aspects of reality that you’ve seen fit to edit and omit from your consciousness. At some point, a recognition of reality apart from our selective visions is to be … [...]