Back in the 1930s, the ancient swastika symbol which can be found in various forms in ancient art across the world was used by an authoritarian regime as their logo. Asian Buddhists, North American Hopewell, South American Mayans, Ancient Greeks – all have some form of this rotating hooked cross. It might represent the flow of life force, projecting our thoughts outward and circling back to move us through time and space.

Or it might be something else.

The mass manipulators of the 1930s turned the symbol around. Instead of moving forward, it moves backwards.

The symbol is still symbolic but of a deeper meaning: how forward movement can be halted and turned into backward movement; how symbols and images are used for manipulation.

Likewise, today’s mass manipulators are taking the concept of awakening – “woke” – into a negative, backward manifestation. It’s stunning how easily a concept that is clearly positive can be turned into the opposite.

Astrology can help with awakening by reminding us we live in cyclical time, we are in polarity, and that duality is a human construct based on sports and war cultures with clear winners and losers.

What team, what tribe, what country never loses?

Waking Uranus

The three outer planets which govern generational human cycles are Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Uranus is the great awakener. Seeing clearly is a prerequisite for other types of growth. Clarity, like all thoughts, is subject to debate. Spiritual awakening, this astrologer believes, is personal. It’s the “aha” moments of one’s life which can be intensely personal or involve life concepts.

Awakening, like waking up in the morning, can feel both good and bad. If you wake up from a cozy bed in a hotel awaiting room service in advance of your fun, planned activities, waking feels nice.

If awakening in the morning to rain outside and water damage in your home, that feels bad. But now you know that you have a leak. You are more aware now.

Finding out that your spouse has been seeing others since the beginning of your marriage is called a “rude awakening.” But now you know.

Spending private time examining your life may provide the awakening that your greatest happiness in life would be to work in nature, so you decide, inspired, to open a floral shop.

These awakenings are in the realm of Uranus. The placement of sign and house in the horoscope indicates in this life the area of greatest clarity and awaking. Awakenings create energy for growth much as nuclear fission releases energy.

Transiting Uranus has been in Taurus for the last seven years and will soon move to Gemini. During that time, we’ve had awakening and clarity about areas governed by Taurus – body, property, self-worth, supply chain, money, the earth, and boundaries.

If we Americans have awakened, we understand toilet paper supply chain and how dependent – not independent – we are of others for our clean butts.

Sleeping Neptune

If we awaken in our hotel room excited about a fun-filled day, our Neptune experience will provide bliss, spiritual feelings of connectedness, and the wonder of creation.

In contrast, if we’ve awakened to the flooded house – also a Neptune water experience – we may feel overwhelmed. We may not know what to do and worry about the house and resources to fix it. In this feeling, we may seek to escape a little bit, maybe with other forms of water like alcohol (“spirits”).

If we let our feelings process and then return to Uranus clarity, we have processed both Uranus and Neptune. We were overwhelmed, experienced it, maybe even had a beer, but then responded to the problem.

Neptune may call for help. Neptune may feel victimized and later sue the realtor who didn’t reveal the house was in a flood zone. Or maybe Neptune will glamorize the situation as savior (“How I Saved Raccoons During the Flood”).

Being stuck in Neptune involves avoiding the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness by looking for an escape hatch – intoxicating substances, excessive media, excessive pleasures, and denying that a problem exists.

If there is no problem, there is nothing to solve. It’s commonly called burying one’s head in the sand. It’s like sleeping – close your eyes and it goes away.

The placement and sign where Neptune resides in the horoscope indicates areas where we idealize or feel a glamorous allure but also an area where we may avoid reality and choose fantasy or escape instead.

Transiting Neptune just moved from water-sign Pisces – and last sign of the zodiac – which it rules to fire-sign Aries, the first sign of the zodiac. If Americans have learned from this transit, we understand there is no “me” and “them,” that we all share a planet. I and we are the same, like water. Pollutants in the water now span the entire globe. 

Alarm Clock Pluto

If we’ve integrated Uranus and Neptune, there is no Pluto. Astrological advice: integrate Uranus and Neptune so there is no Pluto.

The best image of Pluto in American culture is the scene in The Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch of the East, who we never meet outside of her shrunken feet, perishes when a house falls on her head. She did not see it coming and we’ll assume her witchy behavior in Munchkin Land was punished in the most harsh way the fates.

Let’s go back to the flooded house. Had Uranus been active, the event may not have occurred due to the Uranus focus on perfection and continuous improvement. Yet, things happen even with the best of planning.

Should Neptune decide, for whatever reason, to avoid the situation, then Pluto arises. Neptune with spiritual focus but avoidant tendencies may do “spiritual bypassing,” by looking to the universe when it ought to be looking in the supply cabinet.

There’s an old joke that explains the Neptune spiritual avoidance and the Pluto response:

A terrible, extreme storm occurs in a small town that brings a tsunami of water. A spiritual man living in a small house moves to his second floor when the water rises into the first level. Then when the second floor becomes flooded, he moves to the attic. The water keeps rising and he finds himself on the roof. On the roof, a neighbor in a boat passes and offers him a ride. His response is that his maker will save him. Another two boats pass and his response is the same. Finally, the water overtakes the roof and the man drowns. Upon entering the afterlife, he asks his maker why he wasn’t saved. The response: “I gave you three chances.”

Pluto rules death, the passing of physical to non-physical existence. That’s the ultimate Pluto which we will all experience. Before the Big Pluto, we’ll have our little life plutos.

Pluto alarms include the house falling on one’s head, the ground shaking beneath us, the rug pulled from under us. After that occurs, we may not find ourselves in the afterworld, but we will feel like a different person. As an astrologer I can feel what someone’s Pluto transit might be like, but I can never really explain it to them, to their frustration.

You can read a line of poetry and decided to abandon your life and walk the earth with a knapsack. Or you can be planning to stay put, do what you’ve done for the last several decades and learn the government is going to knock your house down as Right of Way. Pluto uses force so if not internally-driven is destruction. If one decides to do Pluto on his/her own, it’s a more conscious evolution.

Had our flooded house person passed the Uranus and Neptune tests, he/she might have rebuilt the house to be more secure, a Pluto response of transformation. Remodeling is a great hobby of house-loving Americans, so we already embrace the positive aspects of Pluto by rebuilding all the time.

Transiting Pluto moved from authoritarian Capricorn – where it was during America’s Declaration of Independence – to humanitarian Aquarius in 2024. As America was “born” in 1776 with Pluto in Capricorn, in 2022 we had a Pluto return, a 248-year cycle of evolution. If Americans have learned from this transit, we have learned that there is more to life than climbing the ladder of success at the expense of the family . . . and the world.