June 2023: Horoscopes for Moderns

Pluto returning to Capricorn is akin to the penultimate moment in the War of the Worlds, where the aliens are in a balls-out crusade to wipe out whatever structures are resistant to their mission.

“Pieces of the world came apart in front of her eyes.” —Clive Barker. The Hellbound Heart

COME MID-JUNE, a retrograde Pluto moves back into the 29th degree of Capricorn—and remains suspended there until July 27th of this year. Stationing direct on the winter solstice, it returns to 29 degrees Capricorn for the start of the new year before re-entering Aquarius in late February 2024. So that’s a lot of Capricorn’s 29th degree to contend with.

Regular readers are familiar with my assertion that retrograde planets have little to do with all the ‘re’ words: rework, reevaluate, rewrite, retread. Empirically, this hasn’t been my experience, nor is it what I’ve witnessed working with clients.

What isn’t usually highlighted is the power unleashed through the stillness of a planet in the midst of turning direction—either stationing retrograde or direct. Given the planet’s orbit falling out of sync with that of the Earth’s, a condition is created that’s similar to a magnifying glass that concentrates a beam of sunlight into a static spot—and ignites a fire.

As I wrote recently in an article about Jeffrey Dahmer, the 29th degree of any sign is a hyper-hybrid zone of the Zodiac.

“Experience has taught me that planets at the 29th degree have a near-manic power...If the zero point of a sign is raw and filled with limitless potential, the final 29th degree has an effulgent, near-to-bursting expression about it.”

The 29th degree is similar to the mysterious perturbations that occur when a cell is about to divide. A sudden concentration of energy propels mitosis, and as relates to a Zodiacal sign, the qualities and organic tone we associate with the sign are amplified to a startling degree.

Pluto returning to Capricorn is similar to the penultimate moment in the filmed version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, where the aliens are in a balls-out crusade to wipe out whatever structures remain in the world they wish to colonize.

Pluto’s ‘mission’ through Capricorn began with the 2008 global financial disaster. The rot (Pluto) of infrastructure (Capricorn)—both literal and figurative—combined with endless opportunities for exploitation—precipitated an unfettered, vulture-like scramble by those with the means to hoard their control.

As the world moves towards the dream of ‘singularity’—where a handful of corporate interests control the majority of assets on the planet (as well as those in government in place to supposedly protect consumers against monopoly), it’s logical to envision a reckoning once Pluto settles into Aquarius (a sign aligned with sociocultural equality and the return of ‘power to the people’) for a twenty-year transit. (See my recent close read: Pluto Enters Crazy Town.)

But first, there’s this final Plutonic pass to contend with while the planet returns to Capricorn and drills through the sign’s volatile 29th degree.

On the personal level, there’s only one way to accommodate Pluto as it loiters in the late degrees of the sign—poking at and disturbing the shaky yet seemingly stable ‘routines’ and ‘habits’ that comprise our lives.