Pluto in Aquarius
On the Pluto-Aquarius cycle, the meanings of Aquarius, and the dynamics of cultural evolution
This essay follows on “Outer Planets, Inner Patterns”, in which I explored the archetypal meanings of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto as context for my examination here of Pluto’s current ingress in Aquarius.
I. Revolutionary Change: Historical Patterns of the Pluto-Aquarius Cycle
Pluto enters Aquarius on January 20, after spending the last 15 years in Capricorn. Pluto will briefly retrograde into Capricorn later this year—from September 1 - November 19—before beginning its 20-year cycle in Aquarius. Unlike most planets, Pluto moves irregularly through the zodiac, spending anywhere from 11 - 30 years in a single sign and 132 - 360 years to complete a zodiacal revolution.
Thus, we have two views of the Pluto cycle: the micro-cycle of its ingress in a single sign and the macro-cycle of its movement through the entire zodiac. The micro-cycle of Pluto’s movement ingress in Aquarius is situated within the larger cycle of its previous transits in Aquarius, most recently nearly 300 years ago.
An examination of past Pluto-Aquarius cycles indicate periods of reform, innovation, and revolution. Some key events from these past cycles include:
60 CE: the time of the Boudican Revolt by Celtic Britons against the Roman Empire.
305 - 329 CE: the reign of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, which ushered a period of religious tolerance via the Edict of Milan (313 CE).
795 - 819 CE: the reign of Charlemagne, initiating a period of lasting socio-political reform and an expansion of cultural activity via the Carolignian Renaissance.
1041 - 1063 CE: the Great Schism of 1054, dividing Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths; the invention of movable type printing by the Chinese alchemist Bi Sheng between 1041-1048.
1286 - 1308 CE: the end of the Mamluk Dynasty, the Edict of Expulsion by King Edward I expelling Jewish peoples from England, the end of the Singhasari Kingdom, the English invasion of Scotland in 1296 and the ensuring War of Scottish Independence, the establishing of the Ottoman Empire, the advent of manuscript culture, and the invention of eyeglasses.
1532 - 1553 CE: the Protestant Reformation, the founding of the Jesuit Order in 1540, the birth of Akbar the Great (1542), Copernicus publishes his theory of a heliocentric universe (1543), the Italian War of 1542-1546.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it illustrates some of the correlation between Pluto-Aquarius cycles and periods of cultural transformation.
The most recent Pluto-Aquarius cycle was also a period of marked social and cultural change. This 20-year cycle (1777 - 1798) was an intense period that saw the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions; the Northwest Indian War (1785 - 1795); the discovery of Uranus (1781); and the administration of the first smallpox vaccine by Edward Jenner (1796). Several notable publications also characterize the intellectual revolution of this time period: Kant’s Critique of Reason (1781), the first published theory of black holes by John Michell (1783), the U.S. Constitution (1787), the Bill of Rights (1789), William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). We can see that the overall pattern of the Pluto-Aquarius cycle features themes of independence, warfare, revolt, innovation, and renaissance.
Tarnas views the events of the late 18th and 20th centuries within the extended context of the Uranus-Pluto cycle, noting the only Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 20th century (1960-1972) and the atmosphere of social liberation and counterculture that pervaded it. Tarnas considers a similar dynamic at play amidst the 18th century Uranus-Pluto opposition (1787-1798), noting the tumultuous parallels between the decades of the 1960s and the French Revolution in particular. His study of outer planetary cycles and cultural history makes a case for an observable correlative dynamic between outer planets and the forces of collective change.1 In particular, Tarnas examines these two revolutionary periods via the development of several social movements: feminism and women’s movements, civil rights movements, nonviolent civil disobedience, and radical socialism.2 He also notes a concurrent technological revolution:
. . . the entire sequence of Uranus-Pluto alignment periods in the modern era that we have been examining in terms of revolutionary social and political phenomena happened to be eras marked by equally significant scientific and technological revolutions and advances . . . .3
There is an inherent difficulty in focusing too narrowly on astrological phenomena, and that is the issue of dynamics. The 18th century Pluto-Aquarius cycle is not attributable only to Pluto’s ingress, but represents a dynamic interaction between Uranus and Pluto—or what Tarnas calls the “collective empowerment (Pluto) of the Promethean impulse (Uranus)”.4
We are not currently within a Uranus-Pluto cycle (either by conjunction or opposition), but during the Pluto-Aquarius cycle, Uranus will successively enter the signs of Gemini (2025), Cancer (2032), and Leo (2039). While Uranus is in Cancer and Leo, it will form an oppositional dynamic with Pluto.
In the square orientation of the South Indian astrological chart, Cancer and Aquarius are horizontal opposites. This constitutes a dynamic of “opposition” that is not entirely identical to the Western astrological idea of planetary opposition. Seven years later, Uranus will enter Leo, another “opposite” of Aquarius. Leo and Aquarius are diagonal opposites, each placed in angle to the other, with mirroring qualities. This is to say that the latter period of the Pluto-Aquarius cycle (2032 - 2043) will be within the orb of Uranian influence for 14 years in what is bound to be an especially heightened period of social and cultural change.
II. Kumbha: Aquarius, Amrita, and the Storage of Water
Symbolically, Aquarius encompasses the collective—culture, society, humanity. As the “Water-Bearer”, Aquarius is an instrument of nourishment, upliftment, blessing and provision. In Indian astrology, the Aquarian image is often illustrated by the Purānic myth of Vishnu churning the ocean of milk into the nectar of immortality (amṛta). Vishnu becomes the “Water-Bearer”, holding a vase filled with the nectar of immortality in universal offering. There are a few versions of this myth: in one version, Śiva holds the poison produced by Vishnu’s churning in his throat, which turned him blue. This story establishes Śiva as an immortality symbol—the holder and transformer of poison, the Tantric god.
In Aquarius, we see the Vishnu-force of sustenance, bringing nectar to all of life. We also see the Śiva-force of transformation, the conversion of poison into nectar, “death” as an avenue of continual rebirth. As a Plutonian archetype, Śiva represents the alchemical nature of Pluto’s influence—the harbinger of death and rebirth, of destruction and renewal, of Thanatos and a new current of Eros.
In the classical source-text of Indian astrology, Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, we find the following descriptions of Aquarius:
Kumbha is a jar-holding man, deep brown, (bhabru) color, medium bodied, two-footed, vigorous during day, standing in the middle of water, airy, Front Rising, Tamasic, a Sudra, abiding in the western region and Lorded by the son of the Sun.5
Kumbha means “pitcher” and is the Sanskrit term for Aquarius, a clear reference to the Water-Bearer. In Indian culture, kumbha is a religious symbol, referring to a clay vessel used to store holy water (especially from the Ganges River). The river goddess Ganga, an Aquarian archetype, is traditionally depicted holding a kumbha. This clay pot is equally a fertility symbol—an image of the womb (or cosmic container) and the potter (or creator). The kumbha is also a cauldron, a cooking pot where an amalgam of materials is unified into a single substance. According to one myth, the first kumbha was created by Prajāpati during Śiva’s marriage while another myth recapitulates Vishnu’s churning of the ocean as the origin of the first kumbha.
In emphasizing the kumbha (or pitcher), Parashara invokes Aquarius as an archetype of regeneration and nourishment. The fluid metaphors embedded in kumbha are alchemical symbols of the vital essences—rasa / śukra / bindu / ojas—which are refined into an inner elixir of rejuvenation. The immortalization suggested by Aquarius is not necessarily a permanent physical state, but the notion of continuity and renewal, as well as a condition of “timeless” spiritual realization. In Aquarius, we are given an essence that endures, a constant store of vitality that manifests an evolution in consciousness.
Parashara’s descriptors are somewhat elusive, but they hold the keys to understanding an Indian cultural view of Aquarius. In characterizing Aquarius as “two-footed”, Parashara is indicating a human symbol compared to the non-human symbols of other signs. “Vigorous during the day” means Aquarius is endowed with a yang quality—an initiatory, expansive, rising, and creative energy. This stands somewhat in contrast to the watery qualities that typify Aquarius, but this is also contained in Parashara’s description of Aquarius as “standing in the middle of water”. This is the image of Vishnu standing in the ocean of milk, his body rising from the water, kumbha in hand.
“Airy” refers to the association of the Air element with Aquarius; “tamasic” refers to the quality of inertia; and “sudra” references a laborer. From this, we have another mixture of meanings. The air element endows Aquarius with mobility, creativity, and intellect while tamas seems to indicate the opposite. However, an additional meaning of tamas is “darkness” and “ignorance”, issues that are within the Aquarian motivation to lighten humanity. Elsewhere in the text, Aquarius is correlated with vāta dosha, a fixed modality, a cruel6 nature, and the bodily region of the lower leg (knees to ankle).
“Lorded by the son of the Sun” is a reference to Saturn, the ruler of Aquarius. Saturn is an archetype of time and therefore of mortality. Saturn’s exaltation in Venus-ruled Libra suggests the nature of time and karma as the ultimate sources of balance and “justice” in the world. Saturn is the temporal and karmic context of the collective and the higher intentions of service and self-sacrifice.
In addition to the correspondences described by Parashara, I note correspondences from a Chinese medical context: Aquarius as an image of the Bladder. In Chinese medical theory, the twelve organs are described allegorically as officials in a court. Each organ has a province of function and an accompanying physiological pathway. On the nature of the Bladder, Chapter 8 of the Su Wen states:
The urinary bladder is the official functioning as regional rectifier.
The body liquids are stored in it.7
The concept of “rectification” can be understood as “uprightness”. In many respects, it is the Bladder meridian that holds us up, with its pathway traversing up and down the entirety of the back. Heiner Fruehauf has described the Bladder meridian as a cosmo-physiological narrative that illustrates the mythology of Kunlun Mountain—a Daoist paradise that is a metaphor for Kundalini yoga. Kunlun Mountain is notably the name given to the point Bladder-60, the fire point of the Bladder meridian. Kunlun Mountain is an extension of the Indian Mount Meru—the alchemical center of the universe and the crown chakra.
Worsley describes the Bladder as the “official in charge of the storage of water”, a phrase that accurately depicts the nature of Aquarius. This usage points to the Chinese medical idea of the Bladder holding not only urine, but fluid essences as a whole. The Bladder is thus another type of kumbha, a container for the inner resources of an alchemical “rectification”.
III. The Myth of Progress: Death Denial, Death Wish, and Ego Death
Uranus and Pluto represent two vectors of evolutionary movements: the movement toward life and creativity (Eros) and the movement toward death and destruction (Thanatos). Originally Freudian ideas, the motion of Eros and Thanatos describe two contrasting human influences, both of which are necessary in the cycles of life and culture.
As we have seen, the Pluto-Aquarius cycle marries archetypal themes of transformation and restoration, nourishment and destruction, death and rebirth, Eros and Thanatos. In my view, the upcoming Pluto-Aquarius will be accompanied by an emerging focus on the collective in social, cultural, and individual terms. This cycle is bound to bring forward a period of collective changes, as we have seen historically, but the direction of this current is not predetermined. The Pluto-Aquarius cycle could lead to positive social and political reform or it could lead to an intensification of the exact opposite. Directionality depends on human choices and how we respond to the upsurge of psychic material from the unconscious—individually and collectively.
Wilhelm correlates Pluto’s influence with that of “ego death” and the subsequent removal of structures that have exhausted their value. Pluto will bring many old paradigms to an end, but we live in a culture that denies death.8 When necessary dissolution is disallowed, repression comes forward to compensate and bury the unacknowledged ashes of the past. This is why periods of great cultural change are often accompanied by aggression. Pluto’s focus in Aquarius will increase a focus on groups of all kinds—social, political, religious, and spiritual. Movements may rise or fall and this will depend on how well a given collective will acknowledge the unseen, cooperate for a shared purpose, and recognize the nature of unity.
The other side of death-denial is death-wish, and a culture can simultaneously enact both. The Pluto-Aquarius cycle could plunge us deeper into the shadows with an intensifying societal death-wish for more epidemics, ecological devastation, and warfare. The opposite is equally possible: we could see a massive outgrowing of Industrial Age outlooks that lead to consequential positive change in the domains of medicine, ecology, and politics.
If we view Aquarius as a symbol of continuity and persistence, then this next 20-year period could lead to an embrace of sustainable paradigms that ensure a healthy future for the human community as a whole. More than this, Aquarius indicates the need for humanity to recognize its inherent unity as a collective that is now globally self-aware. A humanity-centered consciousness sees beyond the boundaries of identity politics and operates on the basis of a priorly unified body politic (or “everybody-all-at-once”).9
Yet, we are likely to see dual currents of Eros and Thanatos moving in a complex evolutionary dynamic, and both are necessary to effect positive change—something has to fall away for something new to appear. The non-linear nature of this growth-pattern creates difficulty, where micro-regressions are misunderstood as macro-failures, and macro-failures are mistaken for micro-regressions. We have a choice either to “transcend and include” or “transcend and repress”.10 In other words, regression is always a lurking possibility in the latency of the unconscious, making the Pluto-Aquarius cycle a complex period of change and challenge.
In terms of personal impacts, the interpretation of Pluto as a natal transit will be unique to each individual, so I have limited my scope here to a mundane (collective) context. But I will say that Pluto is an important transit for you if you have any self-factors11 in Aquarius and/or if Pluto is transiting your 1st, 4th, 7th, or 10th house cusps. While the transit of Pluto in any house is important to examine, these four houses represent the most personal domains of our life—body, home, relationships, and career—with shifts in these domains altering our life-paths in consequential ways.
It is worth noting that throughout the 20-year Pluto-Aquarius cycle, we can keep our attention on the nodal micro-cycles as well. Currently, the lunar nodes are positioned in Aries / Libra, but they will complete a full circuit of the zodiac during the Pluto-Aquarius cycle. By 2043, the concluding year of the Pluto-Aquarius cycle, the nodes will be back in Aries / Libra. For this reason, I would highlight the period from July 27, 2026 – March 26, 2028—when the north node will be conjunct Pluto—as an amplified micro-cycle early in the Pluto-Aquarius period.
IV. Collective Incarnation: Kali Yuga and a Truly Human World-Culture
Does the transit of Pluto in Aquarius represent the Age of Aquarius? This question seems to arise during any significant planetary transit in Aquarius. I personally do not utilize a concept of an “astrological age” beyond the cosmological yuga cycles proposed by Indian astronomers. According to most yuga-cycle conceptions (calendrical and spiritual), we are still in the Kali Yuga, which has a length of 432,000 solar years (the shortest of the four yuga cycles). In Hindu and Buddhist religions, the Kali Yuga is considered a degenerate age when spiritual ignorance consumes the world.
In The Holy Science, Sri Yukteswar presents a different conception of the yuga cycles. Sri Yukteswar calculates each yuga cycle as an equal period of 12,000 years with descending and ascending cycles within that. Sri Yukteswar’s calculations place the present-time within the ascending Dwapara Yuga cycle spanning (1900 - 3900 CE). In contrast to Sri Yukteswar, Adi Da recognizes the present age as the Kali Yuga, referring to it as the “Late-Time (or Dark Epoch)” throughout his oeuvre.
According to the Hindu doctrine of Avatars, the Divine is said to incarnate in human form during such a dark age, in order to restore the course of humanity. This idea is found in the Bhagavad Gita when Krishna tells Arjuna that he incarnates when “righteousness is on the decline” and Avatarically “manifests . . . from age to age”.12 Aquarius is, in fact, an Avataric archetype—the appearance of a spiritual source that nourishes humankind.
The Avataric concept is also found in the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra in a chapter titled, “The Narration of Avatars”. In this chapter, Parashara describes the nine Avatars of Hindu doctrine as incarnations of planets: Sun-Rama, Moon-Krishna, Mars-Nrsimha, Mercury-Buddha, Jupiter-Vamana, Venus-Parashurama, Saturn-Kurma, Rahu-Varaha, Ketu-Meena.13 Parashara establishes the manifest influence of the planets as an Avataric influence, mirroring the ancient idea of the heavenly bodies as “gods” presiding over the Earth.
In an early publication, Adi Da offered a nuanced interpretation of “Avatar”, defining it as a concept of collective manifestation:
The world is the Avatar, the totality of human beings is the Avatar.14
Adi Da is referring to the process of collective incarnation—when the Sangha becomes the Buddha, when culture embodies a living truth, together. If the collective is the Avatar, then humanity is the vehicle of a sacred emergence, an incarnation of wholeness that restores righteousness in a degenerate time.
Beyond the myth of progress is a vision of collective incarnation and agency. The initiation of a new Pluto-Aquarius cycle should inspire a vision of brighter possibilities, of a truly human world-culture15, and a revolution of cooperation, tolerance, and peace.16
Tarnas, Richard. Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New Worldview. Plume, 2007; 142-148.
Ibid, 149-158.
Ibid, 159.
Ibid.
Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Chapter 4: Rasi Characteristics, verses 21-22. Translation by Ernst Wilhelm.
Indian astrological texts distinguish between cruel (krura) and gentle (saumya) planetary influences. Here, the connotation of “cruel” is not necessarily negative. The Sun is considered a cruel influence, but it is also the source of vitality, creativity, and inspiration. A cruel influence mostly indicates a sacrifice where a gentle influence indicates nourishment.
Unschuld, Paul U. Huang Di Nei Jing Ling Shu : The Ancient Classic on Needle Therapy. University Of California Press, 2016; 158.
For more on death denial, see the work of cultural anthropologist, Ernest Becker, in The Denial of Death.
A phrase quoted from Adi Da’s work on social wisdom, Not-Two Is Peace: The Ordinary People’s Way of Global Cooperative Order, where it is prominently invoked as a reference to global humanity as the force of change in society.
These phrases are quoted from Ken Wilber in Up From Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Development.
Self-factors include Sun, Moon, the Ascendant Lord, and Ātmakāraka (planet in highest degrees). If we include signs, then the Ascendant and svamsha (the sign ātmakāraka is placed in the ninth divisional chart) are also self-factors.
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter Four, verses 7-8.
The order of the nine Avatars given by Parashara is not reflective of the order given in later texts. Parashara's order gives primacy to the order of the planets, rather than the order of the Avatars as described in Hindu mytho-history.
John, Bubba Free. Garbage and the Goddess. Dawn Horse Press, 1974; 335. Note that Adi Da’s later usage of “Avatar” appears to contradict his usage in this publication. This issue is intelligently discussed by Chris Tong in the following article: https://www.adidaupclose.org/FAQs/question10.html
A reference to Adi Da’s publication, The Truly Human New World-Culture of Unbroken Real-God-Man.
“Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace” is Adi Da’s “formula for world peace”, as presented in Not-Two Is Peace.
Wonderful analysis, if scary in terms of the upheaval likely in this country over the coming decade or two. change or die has to be the maxim...