The U.S. Pluto Return (Part Three)
The expectation is that the conjunction of transiting Pluto to its natal place in the horoscope of the United States will bring about some sort of great transformation within this country. So far, I have presented two possible ways in which such a transformation might occur. One is political and one is economic. However, there are other possibilities, some of which are already at work. One of these is the environment.
Evidence of climate change, such as the melting of the ice caps, the thawing of permafrost in Siberia and rising sea levels around the world, continues to grow. Some climate change deniers have actually changed their opinion in the last few years (though many of them still contend that the changes are not manmade). And yet, climate change continues to be like the weather, something everyone talks about but very few people seem willing to do anything about.
The reason for this is that climate change is incremental. The fact that the average temperature nudges just a little bit higher every summer might be alarming to climatologists but it is basically meaningless to the general public. It is certainly not a reason to stop burning fossil fuels or ban plastic bottles. How can cut through this apathy? One possibility would be a weather event of such shocking magnitude that it gets the attention of every American.
It’s hard to imagine what such an event might be. A category 10 hurricane? A wildfire the size of Colorado? It is also frightening to imagine what such an event might do, especially when we think of the number of lives that would be lost. And yet, one thing is certain. An event this awesomely destructive would be well within the astrological symbolism of Pluto.
Pluto was discovered in 1930, just nine years before the beginning of World War II and 15 years before the dropping of the first atomic bomb. The destructive power of those two events has colored our perception of Pluto ever since. When we are looking at Pluto transits in the horoscopes of individual it is actually much more common to see Pluto’s transformative energy entering the picture in slow, behind-the-scenes ways. In mundane astrology, however, Pluto tends to be more dramatic. The Great Depression developed as Pluto squared Uranus and both the first and second World Wars began under Pluto transits. When Pluto decides to get loud it can be very loud indeed.
And yet, as loud as Pluto can sometimes be, there is still a question as to whether it could ever be loud enough. The weather event we’re talking about, something that would wreck enormous destruction across a very wide area and end thousands of lives would have to sufficient in its impact to get a substantial number of Americans to start thinking of themselves as citizens of the world first and citizens of the United States second. That's a lot to expect, particularly in these Neptunian times in which news reports from people on the scene can be countered by trolls who know nothing about the event other than the fact that it doesn’t fit into their political agenda.
The fact is that a weather event sufficient to make stopping climate change the transformative idea of this Pluto Return would almost have to also be destructive enough bring about the kind of political and economic transformations I talked about in parts one and two of this series. And that is not a pretty picture. Of course, we could set back and let Pluto work in the slow, incremental way that is so often shows in our natal chart. The problem with that is that, by the time that this slow-cooked transformation is finally done, it might already be too late.
