News Items for Pluto’s Current Retro into Sagittarius
Marriage redefined in California…more financial industry dirt coming to the surface…high food and gas prices forcing lifestyle changes…
Each of these news items relates to Pluto’s January entrance in Capricorn: The underlying structures of our world, policies and lives come to light. Pluto when it enters a new sign stirs up a flurry of issues related to that sign, and the issues being kicked up now have to do with the current structure of our society.
And in case you’re wondering: No, it couldn’t be any less noisy or significant. Pluto’s directive is to turn over existing soil to find out what’s underneath. How do our banks and monetary & stock markets work? What should be the definition of marriage and (more importantly) who gets to decide it? How does our goods-to-consumer infrastructure, designed for something like $12-15 per barrel for oil hold up when oil selling at ten times that price?
So, that’s the Cap business. Last week Pluto retroed into Sagittarius, the previous sign, where it hung out from 1995 to early 2008. Sagittarius relates to putting an intuitive finger on what might be true, and in the natural zodiac is followed by Capricorn, which aims to bring into manifestation whatever is perceived to be true (for more on this, see my other “Pluto in Capricorn” posts here).
When anything retrogrades from Capricorn to Sagittarius, it’s time to revisit the beliefs we’ve been fashioning during the Capricorn time relative to the planet retrograding. As an example, take the marriage business in California. Two questions come to mind to go with this transit, ones we would serve ourselves well by being open to asking:
Is a belief that society is held together by defining marriage as a man-woman thing more important than the fact that people are people, that we all love and want to spend our lives with someone we love? Is the truth of who we are less important how this word has been defined?
There’s a dose of reality waiting for us in each of the three situations mentioned above, of which we’ve gotten a taste since Pluto entered Capricorn in January. Will we choose to examine our beliefs from now to late November, when Pluto re-enters Capricorn until 2024? Or will we blow our tops because we don’t want to change, and don’t even want to know where we could change?
Pluto’s questions as it transits are about addressing what doesn’t work, what isn’t serving us anymore, what’s outdated that we’re clinging to, and how we can be more truthful about who we and what we want. It wants to know what’s hiding under the surface that might be a truer reflection of who we really are. Being willing to look into ourselves and at our beliefs during this period brings the opportunity to empower ourselves by choosing to change, instead of feeling it forced on us with no way out, the feeling that most of us experience with Pluto transits - it doesn’t have to be that way.
See Tom’s website to order a new true Black Moon Lilith natal report and to book a private consultation.
June 20, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
Pluto in Capricorn & Gender Identity
A few weeks ago, I wrote in a post here that Pluto’s entrance into Capricorn can call up questions about what men and women are supposed to be and do.
I listened today, rapt, to an NPR radio story on a family dealing with the assertions of their child that he is not inhabiting the right sort of body.
That this radio series focuses on children is an imporant point: Our Capricornian nurturing styles, which are certain about how to classify and treat boys and girls, can be challenged to adjust to information coming from deep under the surface that doesn’t fit with our surface version of how things should be. In this case, the emotional realities of the children themselves represent the deepest sort of Plutonian self-knowing and the parents are confronted with the challenge of change.
Capricorn seeks to make symbols of individuals, at times leading people to try to embody the lowest common denominator of the collective consciousness in order to fit in or succeed. What happens when some individuals just can’t seem to fit into our predefined categories can vary, but these parents have chosen to adjust, seeing that their child’s true nature is not subject to redefinition by conventional standards based in a consensus mechanistic reality.
Not all parents who hear such paradigm-busting things from their children are so receptive and respectful of the needs of their children, of course. But perhaps Pluto’s transit through Capricorn can inspire more to rethink and refeel their stances in general, and accept the difficulty as a challenge to grow into the present, changing reality right in front of them.
May 8, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
Emotional Healing with Astrology
To have the kind of life we want in the present, we must heal our memories of and attachments to the past.
Astrology offers a vocabulary for and means to heal whatever we’re carrying from the past into our lives in the present day.
Evolutionary astrology is based in the fact that people change, over the course of a life and over the courses of many lives. One of its aims is to help people heal and release the past and gain awareness of the present, so they can choose to develop the kinds of lives they’d rather be living.
No one wants to relive the pain of the past, yet we don’t often have the awareness to heal it and put it in its proper place and move in the present. We end up, then, reliving what’s comfortable, which is often painful, and wondering how to move out of these destructive patterns that keep us from enjoying life and being happy about what we’re doing here.
Some key players in the emotional healing process:
- The South Node of the Moon, the ruler of that node by sign (Venus for Taurus, Jupiter for Sagittarius, etc.) and Pluto (all three players by house, sign and aspect) offer the vocabulary for any person’s emotional imprinting from past lives. These configurations speak to our past-life conditioning and wounding. Identifying and integrating the lessons we’ve set ourselves up to learn, as told by these symbols, is a key to beginning to live in the present moment and move into the arenas of our unique syllabus of soul growth.
- The asteroid Lucifer (1930) tells us about a person’s relationship with the notion of a higher power. What’s a person’s relationship with what could be called his or her inner goodness barometer? Another side of it: Has the person learned how to develop a healthy, distinct sense of ego while serving something greater than the self?
- The true Black Moon Lilith (BML) represents the instinctive, primal & wild part of us we’ve experienced shame and punishment from others for expressing. As the empty focus of the Moon’s orbit around the earth, the true BML is a part of our emotional makeup. As a point that’s never visible from the Earth, however, it often seems an elusive part of us, usually seeming best left in the shadows of our psyches. Locating and reintegrating our hard-wired portion of Lilith energy means finding creative and constructive means to express our wildness, based on house, sign and aspect.
Tom is available for private consultations. See his website for more information and to order his new Black Moon Lilith natal report, available when the Sun enters Gemini. Pre-orders at a discount are available until the Sun leaves Taurus (May 20th, 2008).
By Tom Jacobs
Pluto in Capricorn: Dis-covering Authentic Sexuality
Underneath multiple uncomfortable and discomfiting layers of conditioning lies a particular sexual animal that is uniquely you.
There, that wasn’t so hard to read, was it?
Good. But those are just words.
Pluto’s transit in Capricorn offers each of us an opportunity to get clarity on and, if need be, overturn any conditioning we carry (and each of us tends to carry a lot of it).
A blog post about sexuality from me isn’t about drawing you in to read me - and I’m not selling you anything. And this is not about sex - it’s about sexuality. An important distinction, given that we use sex to sell everything and we almost entirely misunderstand sexuality.
I’m interested in taking away the layers of conditioning any of us has so we can find out who’s really inside us. Given the Capricornian excesses we generate to cover up a natural sense of human sexuality, it was only a matter of time until my Pluto-in-Capricorn wanderings took me there.
Are you wondering what authentic sexuality is?
I don’t know how you’ll take this, but you’re the only one who can answer that question for you.
Capricorn is the normalizer of the zodiac, the denier-of-all-spice, the suppressor. We need its systematic approach and work ethic to organize ourselves into society (schools, courts, roads), no doubt. But Capricorn in essence works to distill each of into an aggregate of shoulds and should-nots, and that only works for individuals as far as it does. It’s the anti-individual sign, and I don’t know about you, but I see tons of people all the time hungering to be more individually who they really are.
Pluto’s present retro through Capricorn (it began April 2nd & lasts 5 months) offers anyone who’s willing to look insight into the depths of their social/cultural programming. Use the time to allow layers to peel themselves away, to observe your habits and preferred reactions. Learn the skill of seeing how what you do might be informed by what others think you should do - whether they’re actual presences in your life or nameless and faceless masses. And where in the timeline in your life you learned to adopt any particular stance.
Re authentic sexuality, ideas of what men do and what women do, but really what it means to be a man or a woman, are the playing field. How you’ve internalized external expectations of the expression of your most basic and natural self.
The retro period is about the idea. New action is not best initiated during retro periods because the energy is working differently than normal. But if you do begin something new, allow that revisions will be necessary and you might change your mind a lot along the way. So, it’s an idea at present. Gaining awareness of your assumptions about what is and is not involved in sexuality, in your sexuality, is the point.
For a few months, anyway.
For some people, finding out what’s really going on with tantra will be important - not what you overheard at a party or read in magazines about sexy tips and tricks, not what the guy who tries to pick you up tells you with a wink. Tantra is a way of approaching, using and engaging with energy (a way of being) that is tremendously healing for those who’ve bought into too many Capricornian injunctions against being what we truly are (the vast majority of us). You could use the next five months to explore what it means to relate to the world energetically-as-you, instead of as an aggregate of rules, shoulds and should-nots.
Whatever you do, understand that what you find in those layers peeling away are not yours - they’re ours. You’re a member of a system that’s run via inculcating its members with beliefs and expectations. You’ve taken them on as yours, as the good little member of a Capricornian group that you are.
In the notebook in my head, there are several dozen stars next to this sentence:
Resist the urge to shame yourself for whatever might come up, and be grateful to get to see the deeper layers.
Capricorn is famous for being willing to shame itself for being what it is, and your opportunity is in tapping into and running the Cap energy that takes responsibility for its directives as a collective, understanding that you don’t have to internalize anything that makes you feel less like loving yourself.
Collectively, then, a major opportunity is for us to learn to recognize that taking responsibility for how we’ve conditioned ourselves is critical. And I take this opportunity to remind you of the Uranian truth that all collective change begins with individual change.
One last thing: if when these layers are peeling away you find Lilith (or someone like her) and are not sure what to do, call me - I’ve got some notes for you.
Tom is available for intuitive evolutionary astrology consultations. See his website for more information.
April 7, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
Pluto’s 2008 Retro
Tomorrow, April 2nd, the planet of digging below the surface begins its annual 5-month trip against the grain.
As this retro includes a trip back into Sagittarius, Sagittarian stuff can be now be revisited in terms of what Capricornian efforts have been begun the last couple of months. Our deepest motivations for thinking, feeling, believing and doing are going to be more readily accessible to our conscious minds during this retro period.
It’s a great opportunity for anyone interested in participating more consciously in their own lives.
A full article on this is here - scroll down to the section with my name.
Tom is available for soul-centered, intuitive astrological consultations. See his website for more info and to book a session.
April 1, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
Pluto in Capricorn: China & Human Rights Dialogue re 2008 Summer Olympics
As the dialogue about potential boycotting and sponsors pulling out develops over the coming weeks & months, consider how huge an opportunity these games are for big business to establish or deepen a footing in China.
No one wants to turn down the opportunities that a presence in China will mean, economically, in the coming decades.
And yet no one really wants to be seen supporting China’s human rights record.
The US president recently said that he will attend the Olympics this summer, stating that the games are about the athletes and not about politics. Almost smooth, pres, almost. How many of us are in the dark enough to think he would say or do anything to endanger the development of footholds of American business anywhere in the world?
One angle on Pluto in Capricorn illustrated in this ongoing conversation is the prioritization of business concerns at all costs. Capricorn represents business and Pluto wealth & power, but more importantly this combo in part represents the drive to achieve big things via business activities.
On the collective level, Pluto shows us the depths of our evolving desires. Pluto ploughs up the settled earth and shows us what’s under the surface. Sometimes we forget we need to see whatever’s down there - there’s a reason it’s buried, after all! But we need to learn just what it is, and to see how pursuing it and admitting it into consciousness can change us…so that we can decide if those desires are really getting us where we want to go.
There’s nothing wrong with business, and there’s nothing wrong with money. Yet if we use the pursuit of either to cut ourselves off from a part of ourselves, Pluto’s transit through this sign will cause us to become aware of it. We’ll have to face ourselves with new and unprecedented levels of honesty. We then have the choice about how to respond to what we’ve been doing and creating, and allowing that we might need to change is the key to smoothing out the typically-dreaded transits of Pluto.
The evolving conversation about which is more important, human rights or business, is a fantastic illustration of how we’re navigating Pluto’s recent entry into Capricorn. For cultures more or less disconnected from a feeling of being a part of life as a whole, these might not seem like real questions.
And yet more and more individuals are reconnecting to themselves, and in the process reconnecting to life as a whole. One of the opportunities of Pluto in Capricorn is changing the structures (Cap.) from the inside out (Pluto), which certainly does involve individuals affecting the concensus by shifting, and changing their minds about how to participate in the world.
And it’s possible that in your life, there’s a microcosm of this issue up for review. A scale of it that’s all about you and how you treat yourself. Where are you in the human rights vs. business conversation? What are you learning about how you prioritize things?
March 21, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
Pluto in Capricorn: Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase and The Fed
The day the news about Bear Stearns broke, I heard a surprised radio report about the surprising situation and drastic measures the Fed authorized, and I thought, “Geez, if that isn’t Pluto in Capricorn…”
Bear Stearns hit a liquidity (aka cash) crisis as a result of the shifting structures of the housing crisis stuff in the US that you can read about all over every media outlet. JPMorgan Chase offered a bailout, backed by the Fed.
I felt we needed to tease this out and take a moment to smell the aromas of the complexity of the developing scenario. Aside from what it is and means, what it is and means that the Fed stepped in and engineered the solution is huge in this.
But, then, all of a sudden we’re looking today at JPMC buying Bear Stearns at $2 per share, drastically lower than recent Bear Stearns prices.
If you allow that this situation represents that existing structures (Capricorn) need to be dramatically, irrevocably overturned (Pluto), you can understand that we need to see these how things are really working, how they’re really set up. And if you get this, you will not take this situation to mean that we are doomed, which is the vibe coming over the airwaves.
But here’s what I have to say about this whole thing: Notice if your belly is contracting.
Notice your feelings about the idea of a threat to your/our financial security.
Watch whatever feelings might be arising about this, and understand the collective, global need to see how huge banks/corporations/governments are set up so that we can consciously improve what might not be working.
I’m reminded that there is a huge invitation open to us right now as time seems to be speeding up, as we near whatever big shift we’re collectively headed for. Most of us aware of it will feel it as a constant challenge to remain connected to our feelings.
I’m recommending you don’t shut down from the fear that’s coming over the airwaves and ethernets. Also that you keep your eyes and ears open to how this develops, and see how this giant thing might hold keys to understanding the personal, smaller-scale situations in your own life relative to Pluto turning over any of your existing structures.
Some questions to ask with this transit, individually and collectively, are who’s in charge?, why?, how does this thing really work and can we say it really does work?
Tom is available for private intuitive astrology consultations. See his website for more info and contact information.
March 17, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
Profile & Current Events: New York Governor Eliot Spitzer
First of all, I usually stay away from analyzing the astrology of public persons who meet with dramatic turns. Mostly, I just never want to be the astrologer who says, “Oh, lookie! You can see why [name of public figure] [verbed] [horrible and tragic life circumstance]!” A fundamental truth of humans is that we have free will, and people respond to the energies being called up in their lives with choice.
Now, our choices are based in our conditioning - who we think we are, what we believe we’re supposed to do, etc. - and I’m clear that the themes of our conditioning can be seen in our charts. So of course I know I don’t have to be that kind of astrologer, but it usually doesn’t interest me on that level enough to dive into their charts.
But.
But as I listened a second time to the public statement by Eliot Spitzer following revelations that he’s been a customer of a prostitution ring, I had to go straight to his chart. Maybe I’d got used to hearing remorse or regret in the voices of politicians who are revealed to be two-timers or whatever?, yet what I heard in his voice was impatience.
An impatience to have to deal with the whole situation.
Which surprised me, so I was drawn into his chart (June 10, 1959, Bronx NY, time unknown).
First thing to see is South Node in Aries, with the ruler Mars in Leo conjunct Venus, with both of them quincunxing (inconjuncting - 150 degrees) a retrograde Saturn in Capricorn…which is square the nodes. With transiting Saturn retrograding in early Virgo trining that Saturn…and nearing a conjunction with his natal Pluto, retrograde in early Virgo…
Yeah, yeah, I know - that’s a mouthful. I’ll spell out what it said to me:
South Node in Aries: He’s coming from a karmic past full of Marsy experience. He’s used to the fight. He expects the world to be about Aries issues, and he will be drawn into them in this life in one way or another.
South Node ruler Mars in Leo, conjunct Venus: His role centers on being proud, good with people, direct, a man of action.
natal Saturn retro in Capricorn and square the nodes: The issues of work, balancing life in the public sphere, the sense of and the right sort of maturity to develop, are unresolved issues (squares to the nodes represent something we know some about but need to learn to make different choices about).
that Saturn quincunx that Mars-Venus in Leo: Whatever is misunderstood about work, life in the public sphere, and appropriate maturity development are having what feels a power struggle within him - and everything in astrology works in our external lives so that we can have opportunities to explore our internal conflicts.
transiting Saturn trining natal Saturn and conjuncting natal Pluto: Major lessons of authority (Saturn in Cap) & self-responsibility (Pluto in Virgo) are being helped along by transiting Saturn.
Oh, but then hey, the transiting North Node is right on his natal Chiron, at 27 Aquarius…
Putting all this together, I can’t help but feel that the opportunity he has is to be humbled & connect with his vulnerabilities (Tr. NN on Chiron), to choose to allow his reputation to be reframed in terms of the reality of his behavior and choices (Saturn transits). And to spend some time with himself to check in with how and why he does what he does (Saturn retro transit to conjunct natal retro Pluto).
Oh but then with the asteroid Arjunsuri (20300) natally on his Libra North Node, conjunct Pallas Athene and Juno in Libra, there’s a call to learn to listen to others (NN in Libra) who stick with him (Juno-Pallas Athene in Libra), to learn a new level of give and take (Libra NN) that works in conjunction with the parameters of his conscience (Arjunsuri) and how co-operative life with others works (Juno-Pallas Athene on Libra NN). But also to allow his conscience to guide him (Arjunsuri on the NN).
The latest news tonight was that he’s planning to spend time with his family in the short term - no word as of yet if he’ll stay in office. Developing the stuff mentioned the previous paragraph could be very much needed, and to make time and space for whatever in our lives is much needed, some of us have the knack of clearing our schedules in sometimes rather dramatic ways, just to make sure we have the opportunity.
March 10, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
Pluto in Capricorn and Fake Autobiographies
I’m captivated by an NPR story about fake autobiographies.This kind of thing has been going on for a very long time, but the transit of Pluto in Capricorn may offer a frame of understanding.
Or, at least, that’s what I’m thinking about today.
In particular, authenticity in Capricorn relates to the reality of time. Capricorn says you get to be the authority if you’ve put in the years. Effort matters, too, yes, but years have almost as much weight as effort. Staying power from this perspective is merit - if you can last at something, you’ve got something that’s worthwhile.
Uncovering (Pluto) the fact of any claims to authority (Capricorn) is called for. This phenomenon and the attention it’s receiving at present hints at a greater theme, one that we’re all experiencing to some degree.
In early April, Pluto will begin its annual 5 month retrograde cycle. It will retro back into Sagittarius (I know, I know – haven’t we come such a long way from those days?!), and the opportunity for individuals and the collective will be to get a fresh perspective on whatever we were Sagittariusing for the last 13 years (intuiting and/or assuming is most likely true), and how our recent Capricorning (beginning to make the physical world reflect what we intuited and/or assumed is most likely true) might be adjusted to better reflect that fresh perspective on our truth.
As far as the fake autobiography thing goes, the reason for impersonating who you think might be a more interesting person than you think you really are could be the thing. The truth is that people are fascinating, and when our inner worlds are given some air, fantastic stories are revealed. This is true in everyone, I don’t care who you are - or who you think you are or aren’t.
Tom is available for soul-centered, intuitive karmic astrology consultations. See his website for more information and contact details.
By Tom Jacobs
Eating the Wild: Notes on Hillary Clinton
Our mothers understood something essential: the green is poisonous to civiliation. If we eat the wild, it begins to work inside us, altering us, changing us. Soon, if we eat too much, we will no longer fit the suit that has been made for us. Our hair will begin to grow long and ragged. Our gait and how we hold our body will change. A wild light begins to gleam in our eyes. Our words start to sound strange, nonlinear, emotional. Unpractical. Poetic. Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants, p. 145
A student tonight asked to work on Hillary Clinton’s or Barack Obama’s chart for her lesson. I knew the birth time of Obama was uncertain, so I looked up Clinton’s. Hers is, too, of course, but I didn’t know that - I only recently began following politics again. (Awareness of these things is one way to re-enter the world, after years of holing up on what might be called the spiritual plane - at any rate, a plane less involved in the physical world.)
Her South Node in Scorpio with Mercury-Venus in Scorpio and Jupiter in Sagittarius conjunct it tells of an acuity in the realm of politicking, in understanding the ways that people are, think and feel. A familiarity with the workings of power (Scorpio), how it affects people and how people affect it (Mercury-Venus in Scorpio). And with Jupiter there in that particular sign, an understanding of how to inspire people by formulating and expressing vision. And yet with the South Node ruler Pluto square the nodes, she’s her own worst enemy when it comes to the expression of her desire to be an aggressive, powerful authority figure (Saturn-Pluto-Mars in Leo square the nodes).
She’s got a karmic history of, on one level or another, going for the big office, or expressing the big idea (the whole story of her healthcare reform proposal from some years ago tells this story in parallel to her bid for the nomination, by the way), and in the end feeling that she didn’t do some part of it right (squares to the nodes indicate energies we need to learn to make different choices about - typically they tell of choices in other lives that didn’t serve us well because we didn’t understand all we needed to in order to navigate some choice successfully).
And then that North Node in Taurus. Taurus being the sign of slowing down, and the ruler of it, Venus, in Scorpio conjunct Mercury. If she were a client, I’d advise her to come to her senses.
Literally.
There’s a highly developed strength of observation and sensing of others with that conjunction in Scorpio on the South Node. And yet how much is her ability to listen and sense, and probe into deeper layers of reality, turned on herself? The aggressive expression that is the hallmark of her public persona (Saturn-Pluto-Mars in Leo) represents what is, from the viewpoint of the journey of the soul, an overdoing that I suspect is a repeat of a karmic scenario from her past, an investment in a deep desire that doesn’t actually get her where she wants to be (the respected authority who has the ultimate say in something).
With this node in Taurus, all things natural are called for. Natural ways of being, of perceiving. Feeling life through her body as part of her whole being. Connecting with the natural side of anything is what’s foreign territory for her. Taurus also calls for the development of a personal relationship with the natural world, with nature or, perhaps, Nature.
If she came to me as a client, I wouldn’t necessarily advise her to drop out, head to the wilderness, grow her own food and get off the grid, but I would advise to see how to heal the memories of the karmic past of not getting recognition as the authority figure - that she craves, that takes so much of her energy - and reconnect with herself as an extension of the natural world.
If she loses the nomination, her challenge for growth will be in understanding that what she’s offering doesn’t speak to the majority of people at this time. Taking it personally, which would be the reaction from habit, would only fuel the momentum of the karmic wound, with all the Leonine Saturnian-Plutonian-Martian action covering up the pain under even more layers of thwarted ambition.
My take on what does speak to us, what we’re hankering for in the present moment (aside from ideas for solutions for current concerns), is someone with heart. It’s true that Obama doesn’t have the experience that Clinton has, and yet it’s evident that more people are more willing to trust him. Anyone connected with him- or herself can’t trust people so obviously disconnected from heart-informed ways of being.
As Pluto continues its fresh transit through Capricorn, we’re getting the opportunity to see any assumptions we might have about what it would mean to have a woman in the White House. As I wrote here a few weeks ago regarding these assumptions, would she bring a compassionate stance to the office? Would having a woman in the highest office in the land mean having a heart-centered person as the nation’s chief executive? Would we automatically have an emotionally centered individual (a prevalent assumption about womanness) running the show, checking in with her heart instead of just her head (a prevalent assumption of manness)?
Anyone checking in with how they feel in their bodies when they hear her speak will be very clear that the answer is no.
And while I admire Clinton’s dedication, tenacity and clarity of purpose, I would hope she can learn to slow down. My wish for her is not just to learn to remember and eventually enjoy smelling the roses, but also to toss them into her mouth and chomp away with abandon, letting the natural world enter her, and share its emotion, and let its nonlinearity, unpracticality and poetics speak to her through her body.
(In case it’s not clear yet, the opening quote kind of hints at my wish for Clinton, whether or not she wins the nomination.)
Tom is available for heart- and soul-centered consultations. See his website for more information and contact details.
March 3, 2008 By Tom Jacobs