“We live in a relational universe. Everything is relationships.” – Keith Witt
“Attunement can be simply defined as the focus of attention on the inner world. Interpersonal attunement is the focusing of kind attention on the internal subjective experience of another.” – Dr. Dan Siegel
In my recent event, The Wheel of Myth & Sound Journeying, I realized the potential gift of Pluto in Aquarius, which is a complex understanding of groups. But more importantly, spiritual growth and consciousness expansion hinges on the junction of our individual growth and how it fuels the collective’s growth. I jokingly like to say that the ‘Namaste’ greeting for Aquarius is: my eccentricity honors your eccentricity. In this case, eccentricity, meaning my diversity and individual uniqueness, honors your individual uniqueness. Our very difference and diversity is the strong weave that will expand the group’s consciousness.
In a more creatively affirming manner, this is one of the many potentials of Pluto in Aquarius in the thickening plot for our collective liminal journey from a known paradigm to one that is just starting to unfurl. However, Pluto also tends to expose the fissures, revealing the decay underneath a foundation. It beckons us to take a fresh look at something we may have thought was a given. It shows what was dying and needs to be purged, eliminated, and often breaking taboos of what we never thought would be accepted. In biological terms, Pluto advances what is already in the body and hastens its decay; eliminate or be eliminated.
Aquarius’ upgrade in our relationship with groups
In thinking about Aquarius, one of its many themes will be groups and how we need to upgrade our relationship and consciousness around them, along with needing to focus on their ethical development. Our ideas/ideals about community and groups will ultimately utterly shift, and we’re still too early to know what they will look like twenty years from now when Pluto arrives in Pisces.
One of the ideas on groups and Aquarius is that it’s about like-mindedness. However, it’s also about trauma bonding, as Uranus, Aquarius’ ruler, is also linked to trauma. In recent years, we’ve been gaining a lot more understanding of what trauma is and how to heal it. With Pluto’s passage through Capricorn, we’ve been much more exposed to developments in Ancestral Trauma healing; ancestors are linked to the Seagoat’s realm. Now, in Aquarius, we will expand our understanding of how an individual’s healing can reverberate to the group and the collective. The idea that our individual healing will be part and parcel of our evolution as a society will be less fringe and more centerstage.
A core principle of Aquarius is the advancement of the whole, where groups can do what individuals can’t. Thus, the allegiance is on the idea, not the individual. And yet, it’s also the realm where one’s individuality is taken seriously (i.e. our individual healing affects the healing of our collective. The single affects the whole, and vice-versa.) I attribute this to the complementary and opposite relationship with Leo, the sign of the sovereignty of self. Thus, in Aquarian times, we are called to know ourselves, self-accept, like, and even love so that we can show up within our groups and stand by our slice of diversity to help the collective advance where we can’t manage alone.
Attunement and Aquarius
Although Aquarius rules our circulatory systems, ankles, and shins, the planetary influence of Uranus, its modern ruler, brings in electricity and the invisible energy of transmission. Think electricity, Prana, auras, X-rays, radio, computers, and telepathy among others. Uranus overthrows Saturn’s concept of time and space, bringing our focus towards INTERDEPENDENCE. Uranus, as the Great Awakener, will either electrify or electrocute us: breakthroughs or breakdowns. Through disruption, Uranus and, by association, Aquarius shake us off from certainties and take us to ask, “Why not?” Traveling faster than words, or time and space, brings us towards attuning with our environment in other ways.
“…the architecture of true human connection somehow includes yet transcends the personal; interdependence is at once deeply intimate and utterly universal. … To survive, much less to flourish, we must make conscious our essential interdependence and awaken into new forms of vibrant, sustained relation. … The relational field is a vast matrix of energy – information in motion – which exists within, around, and between us.” – Thomas Hübl
A creatively affirming way to imagine what Pluto in Aquarius can gift us is by first showing us where our ways of imagining our relationship with others and the groups we all belong to (i.e., family, community, work, and our larger societies) need a foundational transformation by removing the decaying structures while making space for healthier and more transparent relationships. Human beings are meaning makers and the stories we tell about who we are matter because they provide us with a sense of belonging, purpose, and, ultimately, direction. We need new stories, especially about who we are as a group. Pluto in Aquarius will make sure we ask this question again and again: what does it mean to be human, and what is humanity’s role in the evolution of our planet?
This is also an opportunity for us to continue Pluto in Capricorn’s work in terms of our ancestors’ trauma and now bring it towards healing our place within the whole. Trauma has separated us from ourselves and others. We are disconnected and unmoored. It’s no wonder because the shadow side of Aquarius is the archetype of the outcast. With the current transit, we are all invited to do our healing work around the outcast within.
Aquarius teaches us how to relate to seeing ourselves as individuals within a collective. It’s not about erasing who we are but more fully bringing in what we do to the evolution of the collective. Each of us is a node in the collective fabric of our world. Our energies are constantly flowing in this shared nervous system. So when we can be fully grounded in our bodies, we can then be present, adjusting our vibration to help bring cohesiveness (creation of a unified whole) and congruence (inner and outer are in harmony) to our relationship with the other.
By doing this, we can co-regulate with the other, individually and collectively, for we transmit our inner state to the outer environment. Plus, it’s only when we are grounded and connected with our inner state that we truly feel connected with another. A less fragmented self that feels whole and cohesive can better attune and relate to the other. The quality of this encounter has more space for accessing new ideas and possibilities.
This is both a daunting and yet exciting aspect for the coming years of Pluto in Aquarius, beckoning us to heal our traumas and get to know our shadow so that we can expand our consciousness on what it means to be a member of the human and world community. In an ever-crowded world, both people and undigested and unhealed wounds darting in every direction, we will need to learn to first attune to ourselves (here’s the Leo side of this cosmic pair, doing what is in my sovereignty to do for self) and then see how are attuning with others.
We can start by practicing these three steps:
- Reflection: Take time to reflect on our lives and our relationships. Create some inner spaciousness for introspection, what I’d call ‘nourishing solitude’ for attuning with ourselves to create a more relaxed space for reflection.
- Digestion: Through creating space for ourselves to attune with ourselves, we now have space to feel, think, and digest our experiences, especially the more challenging ones.
- Integration: From digestion sparks transformation. We see our situations and relationships from a broader perspective and space to see what is now in our power to create, transform, and upgrade our understanding.
Aquarius is the second to last sign of the zodiac. The rivers of all the signs end up in the oceanic waters of Pisces. Perhaps the gift of all of this Aquarian emphasis that this 2020s decade has kickstarted is to help us see the interdependence of our world. Through attuning with other fellow humans, we can learn to attune with the other-than-human beings who are also our fellow travelers on this awe-filled planet we call home. Eventually, we will all return to Pisces, where we will learn, perhaps for the first time, the synthesis of what it all is.
This synthesis was beautifully summed up in this quote by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (1877):
“I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be one.”
Photo Credits:
Main image: Wolfgang Hasselmann- via Unsplash
Subsequent images: Wolfgang Hasselmann via Unsplash
