What the F*** Just Happened?! - A Cosmic Perspective
Watching the election news last night, my primary feeling was shock and disbelief. I’m sure in the coming days we’ll learn about why the pollsters failed so miserably at predicting the outcome of the election, but if you want an answer to your “What the fuck is happening?” question in a cosmic sense, here’s an astrological interpretation:
Pluto, that tiny, not-quite-a-planet, is currently transiting through Capricorn. Even though Pluto isn’t a planet according to Neil Degrasse Tyson anymore, it remains a huge astrological player. Pluto, who in Greek mythology is Hades, the King of the Underworld, represents the death-resurrection cycle. Wherever we find Pluto, we’re going to find the things that need to die, need to be shed, in order that we can be reborn. Ultimately the processes of Pluto can be looked at in a positive light; they do represent a very powerful transformation that goes much, much deeper than the surface level. We can see Pluto at work in the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly, in a phoenix rising from the ashes, and in the nutrient rich volcanic soil that nourishes new life even after the volcano itself has destroyed it. So ultimately, it is a very hopeful message, but we cannot forget that what happens in the in-between stage is not pretty. The caterpillar turns to goop inside the chrysalis, the phoenix bursts into flames and dies, and the volcano destroys everything in its wake.
So currently Pluto is transiting in Capricorn. Wherever a planet is, that is how it will express its energies. Capricorn is, in fact, the sign associated with government. It is associated with hierarchy, authority, doing things “the traditional way,” and – because Capricorn is the sign of the goat – scapegoating. So when Pluto is transiting through Capricorn – what does that mean? It means that everything that is dead, dying, decrepit, and needing to be shed about Government has to rise up from the Underworld – the unconscious – come to the surface, be destroyed, and ultimately healed.
We can see that Pluto is playing a major role, not just here in the US, but actually in many governments currently around the world. It also has been doing this for sometime, pulling up these issues so that we can no longer ignore them. It’s been in Capricorn for about 8 years, so this energy has been at play for sometime. But in recent months, Pluto has been transiting around 15 degrees Capricorn, which puts it in direct opposition to the Sun in the natal chart of the United States, putting extreme pressure on us as a country.
We can see Pluto’s energy in the skepticism many people had about both Trump and Clinton before the election; we can see it in the resurgence of white nationalism, which shows how much racism has never really gone away; we can see our unconscious sexism, where a man who talks about grabbing women by the p***** can win over a woman with 30 years of political experience; we can feel it in our stomachs as anxiety; we can see it in the plummeting stock market; we can hear it in the cries that the world will never be the same. Even if we don’t know how the world has changed, intuitively we feel this truth; we feel it and we cry it out.
What has been becoming clear for the past few years, and what became very clear last night as Donald Trump took the presidency, is that the US has failed on its original promise; the promise that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, and that the Founding Fathers signed the day this country was born:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
In the US right now, it is clear that not all people are equal. And this is what Pluto is showing us. This is what Pluto is pulling up from the Underworld. African Americans aren’t equal; women aren’t equal; Hispanics aren’t equal, Muslims aren’t equal, LGBTQ people aren’t equal. We have failed. Honestly, the forefathers probably didn’t even realize what they were promising anyway when they said all men were created equal – but as we have grown as a nation, we have come to regard that phrase “all men are created equal” as really pertaining to all people.
But we have still failed in its implementation. If we are truly, truly to live up to the promise of this nation, to become the country that we have the potential to be, then we have to take a very long look at our own Shadow. We have to look at where we are still not equal, where systemic and structural forces are preventing some of the people of this nation from achieving the dream of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We have to look at our own unconscious attitudes, and see where we are feeding into these systemic and structural forces.
The advice that as an astrologer I would give someone who was undergoing such a strong Pluto transit is this: you really have to feel it. You really have to go through the slugfest, trusting that the energy of death is also the energy of rebirth.
This is the advice I give now to the US.
We’re really going to have to feel this people. We’re really going to have to feel angry, and despairing, and like our stomachs are eaten away by anxiety. We might have to face some very ugly things. Transits of Pluto really do destroy things; they really do change things irrevocably. We cannot pretend this isn’t happening, or that it will go away, or that it will go away before we are forever changed.
But if we can walk through this Pluto transit with compassion and wisdom, then things will be changed for the better. We have the opportunity to really examine our own attitudes, to see where we are not in line with the promise of equality. Already I see hopeful signs – friends declaring on Facebook that they can no longer be silent politically; that we must stand up for our brothers and sisters who look or think or believe differently than we do. Already I see people passionately declaring that we have work to do, people dedicating themselves anew towards justice.
Despite Donald Trump’s victory last night, I still believe in the promise of our country. I believe we can use this pain to create something better; we can use this moment as the launch pad from which we begin to finally create a country where all people are created equal, where all people are able to pursue life, liberty and happiness.. These truths are self-evident. Now we just need to create a world that honors them.
