“One does not discover new land without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a long time.” – Andre Gide
Recently, we had a wind and ice storm that brought down a lot of trees, broke power lines, left many without electricity for days, and destroyed many homes. Even where I live, one of the townhomes was halved by a tree that moved from shade provider to severing hand. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the scar of a half-destroyed townhome lingers. As I drive around, I see the marks of this destruction by the gap made from the fallen trees. Winter has this sobering clarity that invites us to reflect on our ancestors and how their fear of the cold hand of this season still beats a low hum in our blood to this day.
This sobering clarity of winter was also on the week that many astrologers have been waiting: Pluto’s second move into Aquarius on the heels of its conjunction with the Sun. The freezing front brought to mind Saturn’s severing hand, calling us to see more clearly through the broken trees.
As I mentioned in my previous article, planetary ingresses are boundary crossings that announce the multivalent themes we will explore as the transit unfolds in the years to come, in this case in Pluto’s 20-plus years of extended stay in Aquarius.
But as planets ingress into new zodiac signs and inaugurate a collective mood, I reflect on the theme of FINALITY and endings – the first stage on a liminal journey.
Not to be too morbid, but I wonder why the experience of death and dying is often a slow burn and not a flip of the coin. Granted, many things and people die suddenly, one moment here, another gone, but in general, for events, things, and people, it’s often a protracted unfolding, with the seeds of its demise planted many shades of the moon ago, often unnoticed and imperceptible.
The conjunction of Saturn and Pluto
So, while we may enjoy the hubba-bubba of all the drama and expectation of what Pluto in Aquarius will reveal, I’d like to invite you to see this Courageous Decade of the 2020s as an unfoldment of death and rebirth. For this, I’d like to return to the ‘big and dramatic’ transit of January 2020, but now considered ‘yesterday’s news,’ the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto.
I know this is not the current headlining transit, but it is the seed of some themes currently in crescendo momentum: the sense of ‘the end of an era’ and of contraction in multivalent of ways. Thanks to Saturn and Pluto’s union, we now speak of ‘polycrisis’ or ‘meta crisis,’ the end of humanity, the destruction of the planet, accompanied by the Four Horsemen of Crisis, Trauma, Tension, and the fearsome Reactionary Fundamentalist Forces.
Briefly scratch the surface when talking to someone, and we’re met with a sense of doom and foreboding and that people and situations are unraveling. The marriage of Saturn (gravitas, weight, and contraction) to Pluto (intensity, cataclysmic, and underworldly) leaves no stone unturned. However, this combination is also the making of both personal and collective “determination, unbending will, courage and sacrifice; by intensely focused, silent, strenuous effort in the face of danger and death; by a deepening capacity for moral discernment born from experience and suffering; and by the transformation and forging of enduring structures” in the words of Richard Tarnas in his seminal book Cosmos & Psyche. Lest we forget, it’s vital that we also take notice of the creatively affirming aspects of this transit. A nihilistic and doom-focused position is only another way that our ego uses to give itself a sense of control and power and for the powerful to hold on to their prestige. Be wary of this mind trickery.
There must be a reason (spiritual and/or evolutionary) for why death and its unfolding transition take time to unfold. I don’t know the answer to this koan, but reflecting on it can help us envision the geography of transitions (or my preferred word: liminality). Having a sense of the GEOGRAPHY OF TRANSFORMATION can help us avoid acting like disembodied headless chickens and do the work that Saturn and Pluto ask of us: find our gravity (a good Saturnian word) so we may journey through our collective underworld (a Plutonian concept that can also be understood as an experience of soul depth), a place with its very particular topography (more on this in later articles.)
How a transit unfolds
When considering the longer planetary transits and the liminality they bring forth, I invite you to imagine a more mundane situation, like quitting your job and starting another. It takes some time to start noticing that the current job is not working out. We go through a pre-contemplation phase (i.e., something is not quite right, but I’ll make no moves) to a contemplation stage (i.e., I’m not happy here, I should update my resume) to action (i.e., I’m actively applying for jobs), and finally to the change (i.e., I’ve quit and am starting a new job). This change into a new job is both an ‘end’ and the beginning of a new transition, often named adaptation. In other words, liminality unfolds in various stages, and its first signs are often only a dull din at a distance.
Another image I like to share with clients and students is of seeing planetary transits as a train coming to the station. Imagine yourself standing at the platform waiting. If you’re attentive, you can hear the dull din of a train coming from a distance. That’s the planetary transit announcing its presence. Themes start showing up in your life, but they’re coming from the periphery. As the planetary transit train approaches the platform (think exactitude), its sound is louder, and its themes come to the forefront. Themes are no longer fringe but are now in plain view. Then, as the planetary transit train moves away from the station, you can still hear its noise as it slowly disappears into the distance, and the themes brought forth continue to unfold and morph into something else.
The conjunction of Saturn and Pluto
The conjunction of Saturn and Pluto, the seeding union that unfurls for 33 years (we’ve already got three years of it under our belts), is now more clearly revealing its themes as we wrap up its ‘new phase’ (aka seed state from conjunction, akin to a new moon) to its ‘crescent phase,’ where the seed releases its casing and makes its way towards breaking ground. During the crescent phase, the theme of planetary conjunction becomes clearer, and the work ahead focuses on laying the foundation brick by brick.
As Pluto arrives in Aquarius, we must remember that it is also pregnant with its union with Saturn in Capricorn. Pluto carries the lit ember of the fires of transformation, fed by Saturn’s midwife power to help give birth to long-standing structures. Meanwhile, we have to find our own way of holding the tension of the opposites. This tension is between the depressive position that all is doomed, as both Saturn and Pluto also hold the image of death and endings, and the creatively affirming position that the seeds of the new need to be acknowledged and nurtured from what is unraveling. Don’t focus only on the wreckage, but see the new baby within that needs to be taken in and nurtured.
On a certain level, we can see the beginning of this Courageous Decade as a severance of an old way of approaching life, a trimming of outdated ways, as both Saturn and Pluto beckon us to focus on what is essential, rooted down, not superficial or superfluous.
Change doesn’t start with beginnings; it starts with endings.
The beginning of life is death. In doing so, we can better approach how individually we will serve as an expression of Pluto in Aquarius or even the upcoming conjunction of Jupiter and Aquarius in Taurus that’s exploding onto the scene in April.
As a reflection practice, until we next meet, I’ll leave you with this question: how are you holding the tension between what is dying and what needs to be seen and nurtured into being?
Photo Credits:
Main image: Nasa Hubble Telescope – via Unsplash
Subsequent images: Pawel Czerwinski via Unsplash
