The year 2020 was quite unique in the known history of the planet earth. At the beginning of 2020 with Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto in the sign of Capricorn, the major governments of the earth all enforced the same mandate at the same time – social lockdown.

A statue should be erected to this unique event – an agreement of governments that crossed political, social, and economic systems.

The United States has natal Pluto in Capricorn and in 2020 was nearing its Pluto “return,” a time when a planet returns to its natal position (in this case 27 degrees of Capricorn). Pluto is evolution (and if you don’t evolve, destruction) and Capricorn is structure, rules, laws, authority (represented by the father), government, police, banking, and anything else related to social systems and hierarchies. Success and failure are Capricorn concepts as they relate to our relationship to society.

Individuals, Moses excepted, will not have a Pluto return as humans don’t live 248 years. But countries can have Pluto returns assuming we know the “birth” of a country. The birth of a nation is not as straightforward as the birth of an individual. For the United States, I use the symbolic July 4, 1776 horoscope as it is the cultural foundation of our society and taught as our “beginning.”

Contraction and Expansion

Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, the planet of contraction which can be, but is not always, limitation. Rules are contracting. Laws are contracting. Capricorn and Saturn create boundaries. While Saturn and Capricorn can get bad press because they are not fun, they rule the fence around your yard and your locked front door; not fun, but necessary.

Want to lose weight? You’re embracing Saturn rules and discipline to do so.

Does Pluto in Capricorn mean the US must evolve through contraction and limitation?

The US horoscope has Sagittarius rising and Jupiter/sun in Cancer which relate to abundance; the US is a country with massive geography and abundant natural resources. Cancer rules the emotions and stomach and Sagittarius/Jupiter rule expansion and the thighs which explains why approximately two-thirds of Americans are overweight.

After Pluto’s last transit of Sagittarius from 1995-2008 our Sagittarius rising financial expansion was extreme and excessive (called over leveraging) and resulted in financial meltdown when Pluto went into Capricorn in 2008. After the expansion, the contraction. After the Christmas shopping in Sagittarius (end of November through December solstice), the New Year’s resolutions and credit card bills in Capricorn (the solstice through late January).

While expansion/contraction is deemed a natural economic cycle, it may be a particularly American cycle, a kind of bipolar national culture. Moderation, conservation, balance, frugality, resourcefulness – these are positive virtues we might have read about in novels one hundred years ago but not today. We prefer excess and when it proves unhealthy, we then call Saturn for a fix rather than allowing Saturn in our daily lives.

Will the US continue cycles of expansion and contraction or will we evolve into something more balanced?

Saturn/Capricorn Authoritarianism

Saturn/Capricorn represents the father and authority. My armchair psychological observation indicates those raised with good parenting (completely subjective of course), specifically from the father, have a positive relationship to authority. Authority is respected and honored. For those with bad parental relationships, authority is simply someone or something in the way.

Authoritarianism, then, is also subjective. Where a fence is a boundary and where a fence is a cage is based upon our subjective relationship to authority. Managing of shared resources (not pouring oil into the water supply for example) involves either cooperation or some form of authority.

The evolutionary challenge of the US is to understand the polarity of citizenship (Capricorn) versus personal need (Cancer). Discouragement of cooperation through political polarization is a tactic for government to sustain itself rather than to solve collective needs.

At its root, authoritarianism means excessive control. Control of swaths of population has historically taken negative forms: physical deprivation, fear of violence, forced indoctrination, and movement control. If we’re honest about history, the US has employed all these measures on certain segments of its population.

Negative control tactics are easy to identify. But in our digital age, there may be another, less noticeable, form of control – consumed and distracted attention. This may be a particularly American form of control where it appears there is no control.

We choose to be distracted, right? It’s fun, right?

Low Capricorn focuses on fear, control and maintaining the status quo regardless of its efficacy. High Capricorn is ultimately about personal responsibility and being positively involved in society.

Neptune Relief

While all this Pluto-in-Capricorn responsibility, control, and challenge from authority is occurring, we have Neptune transiting Pisces, the sign it rules which is the chill pill of these chaotic times.

In the 1960s when Pluto and Uranus were transiting Virgo – the sign opposite Pisces – we had a generation (“Hippies”) wanting to “drop out” of the system who openly and unabashedly took psychotropics and engaged in sexual behavior both privately and publicly.

The children of the Hippies, born with Pluto and Uranus in Virgo, are now experiencing a Neptune opposition in Pisces. And how are they reacting?

Most of the Hippie behavior has been corporatized by Virgo anxiety and need for order which is aided by Pluto in Capricorn. Drug use has subsumed into pharmaceutical use. Social rebellion is now political opposition. Social media provides the activism. Fast fashion supplies the ragged clothes . . .

Low Neptune and Pisces wants to escape this cold, cruel world and prefers liquid (alcohol) and image (movies) but will engage in other forms of release such as gambling or excessive pleasures (eating, sex, etc.).

High Neptune and Pisces also wants to feel good but does so through the more arduous path of spirituality where personal consciousness is altered slowly and permanently without the side effects of temporary escape. Spirituality, contrary to its marketed image, is about staying present and often involves service to and interaction with others.

Low Neptune/Pisces are easier to spot and more lucrative than High Neptune/Pisces that can’t truly be monetized. Both are occurring during this transit.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson go to White Castle

While American politicians want us to believe that we are divided and tearing down the system (we’re going to have another Civil War!!), they are simply wearing out the nerves of the populace who then turn to Neptune in Pisces. With the population thus disengaged, it’s easier to control the system.

Expansion and contraction. Authoritarianism and escape. Too much work and too much play. Binge and purge. This is what is evolving.

Pluto is about to pass from Capricorn into Aquarius – the sign of the US natal moon. It will be about 12 years before it comes into aspect and transiting Neptune will then be in fire-sign Aries and Uranus will have gone through air-sign Gemini. These are more extroverted, social energies.

Americans who have checked out may check back in.