We are approaching double lunations in Capricorn this Cancer season and my oh my, the way it has me reflecting on our last Pluto transit? I am bursting with all of the Capricornian feels– disappointment, time earned wisdom, guilt coupled with a dose of exhaustion, as well as a bit of accomplishment and relief. Some of this sounds bleak but if you happen to resonate, I promise that these themes are all very necessary to evolution.
It's possible that we are collectively remembering something that was momentarily forgotten. Not in the way of learned experience completely evaporating from our bodies, but more like how something can leave your immediate surroundings and over time, you just forget what it was like until the thing or the person walks back into your life. Suddenly, the same feelings or sensations remind you of how it used to be, how much information it held about your life and your belief systems, and how maybe you left some of that back there for a reason. Why is this? We are in both a personal and societal transition at the moment.
Some astrological jargon:
Pluto transited Capricorn from 2008-2023 and in the last year it has begun its shuffle dance between Capricorn and Aquarius to prepare for the next 20 years, it's likely felt like having one foot in two different realities. Pluto first ingressed Aquarius at the end of March 2023, retrograded back into Capricorn on June 11th 2023, re-entered Aquarius on January 20th 2024, will retrograde again back into Capricorn September 1st 2024, and will finally put an end to all of this back and forth on November 19th 2024 thrusting us into a consecutive Pluto in Aquarius transit until 2043. Both 2023 and 2024 have likely shown you the "old life" versus the "new life" and building the bridge between has probably been weird, heavy, and has required that we cut off dead weight to survive the transition (not easy).
We know that New and Full Moons work in smaller six month cycles as well as annual cycles and for the last two years, the lunations that have coincided with Capricorn have been direct references to these marked Plutonian transition periods. The last New Moon in Capricorn perfected on January 11th 2024 at 20º Capricorn and this Full Moon is one step in completing that biannual cycle perfecting on June 21st 2024 at 1º Capricorn, the second Full Moon will perfect a month from now on July 21st at 29º Capricorn (a Moon that restores lunar balance).
What does it all mean?
Pluto has a reputation for bringing out the extremes of a sign, sort of blowing up an archetype in a way, saturating our experience with specific zodiacal themes; it is impossible to miss these kinds of transits (when looking in the rearview) due to the sheer length and potency of characterization. Pluto in Capricorn has been about capacity, responsibility, time, isolation, business, production and how productive we are. Pluto has demanded these things in such severity, fundamentally changing the sign and its meaning in our lives permanently. That's what Pluto's job is, to make irrevocable changes to how we interact with an archetype in our lives, its hope for us is to reach our highest evolution through such extremity. As a society, we have reached peak burn out and have had to confront serious limits on our capacity whether through illness or other permanent life defining conditions (be that a divorce, major money loss, natural disasters, mental health concerns, etc.). Obligation is no longer enough of a reason to put ourselves in compromising situations or, if we are still clinging to these fears of being unable to fulfill a duty or responsibility, we are finding the consequences of "being responsible" to be too great a cost. Pluto always demands its pound of flesh and in Capricorn, it is demanding the very bones that our flesh resides on.
Many of us have had realizations about these things since 2020 in particular (as this was one of Pluto in Capricorn's most potent and active years with conjunctions to the social planets) and have been making active changes in the last four years to rebuild the harmful foundations of our Capricorn houses– but it's not easy is it? Not when the last 15 years have reinforced these limiting ideas about what we are responsible for and what responsibility has to look like.
Those who have Capricorn on the angles especially (Capricorn, Cancer, Libra, and Aries risings), have been examining this in the most sensitive areas of their lives. These are the individuals who have an ingrained and motivated guilt around their families, their careers, their interpersonal relationships, and themselves. Anyone with dominant cardinal (or Saturnian) placements have been confronting the consequences of obligation. Will you or have you let these things affect your health? Your finances? Your own needs and desires? Pluto in Capricorn has been about where we set aside the things we love or the things we need to thrive because of our need to be productive, successful, or to survive. You've likely been awakening to another, more efficient way of operating that doesn't require you to give up the things most vital to you.
That has been the journey over all, but personally, I have noticed since the New Moon in Capricorn back in January 2024, I have regressed a bit. There are certain patterns that I thought I had worked through in the Capricorn sector of my chart and it turns out, there is still more work to do. I wouldn't be surprised if something happened in your world where you took on an unnecessary or inhibiting responsibility that thrust you back into old behaviors and has forced you to confront your guilt, personal rage, balance in partnership, or how you care for yourself. The nodal axis has challenged these same cardinal themes and the shocks and surprises of the last six months have conducted the shift toward destiny and where Pluto is going next–> the Aquarian realm of innovative support. If we stay in Saturn's Capricornian font of obligation and rigidity (that we are all used to and comfortable with) we cannot possibly read Aquarian's script where we put the obligation to ourselves first to then appropriately engage and benefit from the rest of society. In the last six months, it is likely that you've noticed some missing pieces and are hopefully ready to awaken to the final shifts that need to be made before Pluto fully settles into Aquarius.
If you've also took some missteps with your energy these last six months you may be finding that you're not exactly sure how that will come to fruition or what that will look like. Seeing the what but not the how and considering that this is only one of two Capricorn Full Moons paired with Pluto's final retrogression, this is a good place to be! This is what I feel these transits to Capricorn will be doing, contribution to this one final lesson, enough tension to bridge the gap in our knowledge. If you have regressed at all this year, consider it perfect timing. I hope that this is the beginning of the end of harmful obligation and that you are witnessing a shift for the better.
I also feel it important to note that we had a similar lunar occurrence in the cardinal modality last year in Spring of 2023 right before the nodes ingressed Aries-Libra. On March 21st 2023 we had a New Moon at 0º Aries (the beginning of the sign) and a New Moon/Solar Eclipse at 29º Aries (the end of the sign) a month later on April 20th 2023.
This is relevant for a few reasons:
Poignant beginning-ending symbolism in Cardinal signs.
It's like being able to experience the full range of a sign all in one month (but also subsequently throughout the biannual and annual lunar cycles) that we are now experiencing again in Capricorn, a sign that squares Aries.
Restoration of the lunar cycles.
We can see that the double New Moons in Aries were when the lunar cycles shifted from our typical New Moon opposing the sign the Full Moons perfect in to the Full Moons preceding the New Moon in its opposing sign. For example: We just had the New Moon in Gemini on June 6th but the Full Moon perfected in Gemini's opposing sign, Sagittarius, before on the 23rd of May. Since we'll have double lunations in Capricorn with a New Moon in Cancer between them, we are essentially synching back up, things may begin to make more sense or at the very least, feel more like a natural sequence.
• The Nodes.
Last year's lunations in Aries are also important because the double New Moons foreshadowed and began the nodal story through cardinal signs and now the nodes are present on this axis and very much in the middle of their story at the time of the double Full Moons in Capricorn.
All of this to say– these Full Moons are deeply connected to the Aries sector of your chart and to the nodal-eclipse story that has been playing out since last July. These are two initiatory signs, the ones that have the ability to begin something completely new as well as carry it through in a sustainable way. It's likely that a new approach is necessary to each of these areas and that whatever major tension we saw with Pluto at the Nodal bendings last summer kicked off these changes.
Reflect on how far you've come because even while there may have been some regression, maybe that was necessary for future acceleration. What have you learned? What is it time for? What is ending? What is beginning? What will you do differently now?
Your friendly neighborhood astrologer,
Katie
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