Reflecting on Pluto in Capricorn

What's changing for your sign after 16 years?

We live in a world where it’s pretty normal to crumple up the past and throw it away when we’re done with it, running full speed into the future. We don’t honor the passing of time. We don’t honor aging (or the aged, for that matter). The amount of learning from the past that we do as a world leaves something to be desired.

But astrology can’t exist without a rich understanding of the past. Looking at the cycles of time (AKA the transits) through the lens of astrology makes honoring time and especially the past absolutely critical – we would not know anything at all about astrology if we didn’t look back through history to determine which kinds of events align with which transits. In this way, astrology reconnects us with time.

As we stood at the threshold of the future over the last month while Pluto did its exhausting little jig in the place in the sky that we call 29º Capricorn, and as we move into this new era with Pluto in Aquarius, one thought often chuckled and marveled its way through my mind:

One of the craziest things about Pluto entering Aquarius after 16 years in Capricorn is the fact that so many of us have never done certain things without Pluto transiting the house relating to those things.

While Pluto passes through a sign, it symbolically passes through the house of your chart that contains that sign. Using the whole sign house system (my house system of choice), that means that since 2008, Pluto in Capricorn was in the following houses for each rising sign:

Aries rising: 10th house

Taurus rising: 9th house

Gemini rising: 8th house

Cancer rising: 7th house

Leo rising: 6th house

Virgo rising: 5th house

Libra rising: 4th house

Scorpio rising: 3rd house

Sagittarius rising: 2nd house

Capricorn rising: 1st house

Aquarius rising: 12th house

Pisces rising: 11th house

What will life be like for each of us without Pluto transiting the house it’s been in since 2008?

What will Virgo risings’ & Cancer risings’ love lives be like without Pluto transiting the houses relating to those things? If you’re a Virgo rising or a Cancer rising, have you ever dated prior to 2008? If not, you’ve never dated without Pluto in one of your relationship houses. Your whole vibe in your relationship could be totally different without Pluto in that house!

If you’re a Libra rising and you’ve never lived on your prior to 2008, that means you’ve never lived on your own without Pluto in your 4th house, the house of home. Maybe there is a totally different vibe available to you now, one with much greater stability within your home life or family life.

If you are a fire rising — Leo, Aries, or Sagittarius — and you never really worked without Pluto in one of your work houses. If you’ve never worked prior to 2008, you’ve never worked without that transit there intensifying everything relating to work. Maybe those intense highs and lows that you’re used to having at work are going to be completely different going forward.

If you’re a Taurus rising, you’ve had Pluto going through your 9th house for the last 16 years. Maybe you’ve been through a bit of a spiritual revolution, or maybe you didn’t even have a relationship to spirituality at all prior to that, or maybe you haven’t had one since then!

If you’re an Aquarius rising or a Scorpio rising, what’s your mental health been like since 2008? Have you been going through a lot of excavation work? Has that been a big focus in your life? Maybe that’s about to start calming down.

Or if you’re a Pisces rising or a Scorpio rising and you’ve experienced a lot of issues with friendships over the last 16 years, maybe that’s about to change. Maybe you’ll no longer find yourself in these relationships that are so intense and so deeply transformative.

If you’re a Gemini rising and you never handled your own finances or lived with a partner prior to 2008, you’ve never done these things without Pluto in the house relating to finances, intimacy, and deep spiritual and material merging. Maybe the entire way you approach these things will be different going forward. Maybe there will be more stability and certainty in these areas of life.

And finally, if you’re a Capricorn rising, practically everything in your life may have been in flux as you went through immense personal change in the last 16 years. Pluto in your 1st house has stripped off layer after layer of false skin until your truest color was revealed and you came into your power as that authentic self. I can’t wait for y’all to celebrate the person you’ve become.

Pluto will re-enter Capricorn for a brief 2.5 months in the fall, from September 1st ‘til November 19th, so we are still in transition and there may be more loose ends to tie up this fall. But there is so much to reflect on right now. How has this transit felt for you? Can you imagine life without it?

I hope this transition feels smooth and deeply meaningful to you. Whatever your sign, I hope that if the last 16 years have burned you down to the ground, you have also found your inner deeply empowered Capricornian sea-goat who knows the value of a steady foundation and a fishtail in flow.

If you’d like to learn more about what to expect from Pluto in Aquarius over the next 20 years, THIS is my article on it. I have another article on ONLY the positive things to look forward to in regards to Pluto in Aquarius too, and that can be found HERE. Also note: we had a brief preview of Pluto in Aquarius last spring, from March 23rd ‘til June 11th. Consider what came up around then if you’d like to gain some insight into what this next period of Pluto in Aquarius might feel like.

Wishing you all the best of luck!

xo,
June