American astrological aficionados know what’s coming up in 2022 – America’s first Pluto return. Pluto takes 246 years to revolve around the sun.

What does Pluto represent?

Pluto, you may recall, is the Lord of the underworld. About Astrology (About.com) informs me that the underworld is a wealthy place and Lord Pluto owns it all which is the origin of the word “plutocracy.”

About Astrology describes Pluto as ruling “extreme transformation.” Pluto’s discovery came about the same time as the atom bomb, the site says, which threatens us with total annihilation. On the other side of annihilation is rebirth.

That’s heavy stuff for a culture that produced Disney innocence (although Disney does have a character Pluto).

In what sign does Pluto reside in the US horoscope?

It resides in the cardinal earth sign of Capricorn. Capricorn, like Scorpio (which is ruled by Pluto) is a sign that takes the activities of life very, very seriously. Capricorn is the controller, the government, the career type who follows the rules until he’s at the top making the rules.

Both Scorpio and Capricorn are controlling signs. Scorpio is emotional control and Capricorn is physical and financial control.

What does a Pluto cycle that begins and ends at 27 degrees of Capricorn mean?

Pluto as Evolution

Self-described evolutionary astrologer Jeffrey Wolf Green describes evolution in this way:

“Evolution simply comes down to, and means, the changing of form, the changing of structure, the changing of energy, and the change of anything. The very word change implies evolution.

Evolution is always proceeded by another natural law called involution. What this means is that for a change or evolution to occur, relative to some structure, form, energy pattern, dynamics, etc., it is always proceeded by an involution, which simply means the ending or destruction of something that pre-exists.

That which pre-exists, when evolution or change becomes necessary, implies and means that some pre-existing something, a dynamic, structure and so on, is promoting a state of stagnation or non-growth. In all life forms, in anything that exists as phenomena within the totality of the Creation, there exists another natural law called survival. When this natural law is ignited or stimulated, for whatever reasons, it will always cause the natural law of involution, leading to evolution, to occur, so that the ongoing survival of a life form, structure, and so on can occur.”

Is America reaching a 246-year state of stagnation – Capricorn-esque stagnation?

In the 1970s the America had an economic state called “stagflation” which boggled the minds and disrupted the theories of economists who couldn’t believe that inflation and unemployment would increase at the same time.

Was that unusual economic stagnation a sign that we ignored?

Since the 2008 economic meltdown, America has had three rounds of “qualitative” or “quantitative” easing.

I love this term, by the way. “Easing” sounds so nice. It would be so “easy” for the bank to just put six zeros after my current account balance to “ease” the payment of my bills. Just six zeros, empty spaces really, bytes on a screen, would “ease” my life considerably.

Is that what’s happening to the US economy? Are we just adding zeros?

When Pluto returns, will adding zeros be enough to solve a complex economic problem?

The Taurus Owning Cycle

Before looking at the Capricorn Pluto cycle, let’s take a look at another American earth-sign Pluto cycle.

Taurus is the fixed earth sign that likes to accumulate. Virgo is the mutable earth sign that likes to work. Capricorn is the cardinal earth sign that likes to control. All earth signs have a focus, a theme, a foundation in material reality.

Slavery in America began with Pluto in Taurus. It has always boggled my mind that an individual could draft a nation’s bill of rights stating all men were created equal yet at the same time hold slaves. Viewing this as simple hypocrisy doesn’t make sense. When I began to think of freedom as a commodity in a capitalist system, the equal rights/slavery schism made more sense.

If you have less freedom, I have more.

The first slaves were imported into the United States in 1619 when Pluto was in nine degrees of Taurus. Taurus seeks material goods mostly for security and comfort. Owning people takes materialism to logical extremes.

When Pluto returned to nine degrees of Taurus 244 years later (1863), the slaves were freed.

Settlers in the United States also began “owning” the land in 1619, a foreign concept for Native Americans.

“My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away” —Black Hawk

Pluto will be in nine degrees of Taurus next in 2107, 94 years from today. What will we own then?

The Capricorn Corporatizing Cycle

Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, crystalizes, makes things tangible or official. Without this official-ness, we can’t identify and label and thereby understand ourselves in relation to that crystallized thing.

Marriage, religion, government, military and the corporation – these are some of the faces of Saturn on the activities of man (love, spirituality, law, war and commerce). I can have law, but with no enforcement, it is merely an idea.

Corporations are structured, controlled Saturnine manifestations where Capricorn types thrive. Corporations have a clear hierarchy so you know who is more important and who is less important. Pay is attached to that importance and therefore represents one “worth” in this world.

If the Taurus cycle was about owning, I’m wondering if the Capricorn cycle is about corporatizing.

For example, the corporation Monsanto owns food (not all food, just some). Not food production or land or some food that exists, but the very genetic material of food – food itself.

Monsanto might not own all the food at the moment, but isn’t it logical that it would try?

Food, water, natural resources and money itself – are these becoming corporatized? What does it mean when our food and money are owned by corporations?

Corporations are people, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney reminded us in 2011. He pointed out that “everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.”

I don’t disagree with Romney, I simply think the statement isn’t finished. What corporations earn goes to “some” people. I think it works well for Americans because we get the benefits of corporate culture. Other countries sometimes, unfortunately, have to sustain the losses.

Haiti, for example, is not just poor but environmentally devastated. Where did that wealth go? Is the multi-national corporation simply a means to redistribute natural resources from one country to another?

Will the US begin to feel internally the effects of its external economic policies?

Corporations can do much more than individuals. As corporations have grown, our ability to work outside of a corporation is shrinking. When the 2008 economic collapse threatened large corporations, some were saved by the government, most especially banking.

2022

The year 2022 is the end of America’s Pluto cycle that began in 1776. To get a sense of where a cycle may lead us, I wanted to see where the cycle that ended in 1776 began.

The cycle that ended in 1776 began in the year 1530.

America is a word used by all of North America. When the US identifies as “America,” Central and South American countries recoil in exasperation because they, too, are America.

In 1492, when Columbus “sailed the ocean blue,” Pluto was in Scorpio. While Pluto transited Sagittarius, “exploration” occurred. Sagittarius is the great traveler of the zodiac.

Then In 1519, Spaniard Hernán Cortés sailed from Cuba to Veracruz in a land we now call Mexico. Just two years later in 1521, the entire Aztec empire fell.

Pluto was in ten degrees of Capricorn.

The Americas were conquered during Pluto in earth signs. Puritans in the north sought religious freedom while Conquistadores in the south had both openly material (“la sed del oro“) and religious goals.

Pluto in Capricorn, then, brings radical, overwhelming and uncontrollable changes to the entire social structure. Puritans in the north and Conquistadores in the south may have had different intentions but the results were the same – the annihilation of existing culture.

Pluto today is precisely in nine degrees of Capricorn.

The Americas, north and south, are in the second evolutionary cycle since colonization of the new world in the mid 1500s.

For the United States, the first cycle was ownership and colonization. The second cycle was independence and corporatization.

What’s the next Capricorn evolutionary level?

I consulted the astrological blogosphere to see what astrologers consider to be evolutionary cycles of Capricorn.

Rose Marcus of Astrolink has an extremely well-written, highly-informative blog on Pluto in Capricorn (“The Ending of an Era”). In her section entitled “The Evolutionary Push Forward,” she writes:

“Marking an essential restructuring phase for the collective soul and for individual evolution too, Pluto’s transit through Capricorn brings the conditioned consciousness and all of its manifestations to a maturation peak. Pluto’s transformative mandate will serve to create a progressively reordered state of existence itself. Countries, borders, and geography will be significantly and forever altered; so too, the political, economic, cultural and societal standards that regulate common everyday life.”

Later she writes:

“Collectively and individually, Pluto’s transit through Capricorn compels us to learn a new way of creating our everyday realities. That which can no longer support the evolutionary requirements will be dismantled and discarded. That which can house and support the evolving form will build greater dimension and definition. It is a testing time for the durability of existing structures, programs, and ideologies. Commonly accepted standards of economics, commerce, industry, business, politics, religions, customs, social ethics and hierarchies are put to the test. Also included in this list is humankind’s relationship to the manifested creation, or in other words, humankind’s relationship to the physical realms of the earth itself and the cosmos.”

Rose goes onto to talk about different evolutionary states. In the “Spiritual Evolutionary State,” she talks about “redefining the relationship to higher authority/the divine.”

Capricorn, which seeks respect, is the most respectful of authority of all the signs.

But what is authority?

Possibly changing views of authority will lead to colossal transformative cultural shifts, like the ones we saw in the 1500s. The current religious views of the Americas were imported, they did not grow organically.

Possibly the predominant religious figure of the Americas may be of some help to us during the Pluto in Capricorn transit – Jesus.

Jesus’ was born during Pluto in Virgo, the mutable earth sign. We celebrate his birthday at the winter solstice –

In the sign of Capricorn.