Gather round — we’re talking death and renewal and the backspin of the petite but potent planet Pluto, which will begin its retrograde in the fixed air of Aquarius on May 2.
A reminder, planets do not truly move backward but they do decelerate during retrograde cycles and APPEAR to be going in reverse from our vantage here on Earth. This happens when Earth, in its orbit around the sun, essentially laps a planet.
While Mercury retrograde is the best-known and most maligned of retrogrades, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto all get down with a slowdown at some point.
During a retrograde period, the prefix re is a real deal power player inviting us to remember, reflect, reimagine, renegotiate, rework, revisit, and reframe themes associated with the planet in question. During retrograde cycles, people, patterns and unresolved issues from the past tend to return to us so that we can reckon with and/or release them.
Talk to me about Pluto
Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the final planet in our solar system. The wee one of woe is named for the Roman god of the underworld; that maiden-abducting, pomegranate-sucking romantic known to the Greeks as Hades.
Apropos of this dubious association, the planet is linked to endings and downfall, the ashes before the ascent. As master of ceremonies for death, Pluto teaches us that destruction is the wheel grease of creation and that holding power is the ultimate test of our humanity. Pluto rules Scorpio, the fixed water sign associated with transformational trauma, shadow work, mind control, power struggles, and other people’s money.
Pluto is linked to endings and downfall, the ashes before the ascent.
As the planet furthest from the sun, Pluto’s orbit is the longest; the planet shifts signs once every twelve to thirty years.
After a seriously long stint in stalwart Capricorn, Pluto moved into the revolutionary realm of Aquarius last year. Pluto will retrograde in Aquarius before slipping back into Capricorn on September 1, finishing its retrograde on October 11 and staying put in the sign of the sea goat until November 19th when the dark dwarf shifts back into Aquarius where it will rule for the next two decades.
Come September, the planet’s nip slip back into Cap is about unfinished business, professional development and daddy issues, making sure we know where we’ve been so we can get to where we are going.
Meaning of Pluto retrograde in Aquarius
Astrologer Evan Nathaniel Grim of Inner Worlds Astrology imparts, “This retrograde marks an intense five-month period in which the collective realizes their greatest hopes and dreams risk extinction (Pluto) unless they collaborate with one another (Aquarius) to rally behind a common cause. A cause that promotes the rebalancing of power towards the individual.”
Fittingly, and a little frighteningly, Pluto will complete its retrograde just as we enter the final throes of election season, indicating that we are on the brink of seismic change. The choices we make and ballots we cast will echo in the era to come and it is up to us to decide if it is a sound we can be proud of.
Chaos or community chorus my dudes?
Pluto “tests” the mettle of its children and casts out and cuts loose what holds them back. Rarely gentle but always necessary is the name of the game here, and we can’t see what will be until we burn what has been. Loli Moon of Mystic Moon Medicine maintains, “This retrograde will highlight our unhealthy attachments and addictions to certain spaces, material items and taboos of pleasure indulged to suppress the guilt.”
With death and revolution dancing backward cheek to cheek, here’s some questions to consider/pose to your shadowy underbelly; how, where and why do you accumulate power and is your relationship to that power supporting or subverting the status quo?
We don’t get to walk head held high into a new world order if we’ve been pulling strings for the man. Get free, get weird, face fear, and dare to believe a better way is being born.
Astrology 101: Your guide to the star
- The 12 zodiac signs
- What are the astrology houses
- Here’s what each planet represents
- Sun, moon and rising signs: Get to know your Big 3
Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports back on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture, and personal experience.
