06 May Pluto Retrograde
Distortion, Lost Promises, & Hungry Ghosts
by Tiffany Harelik, MA, RYT
Time for a vibe check. Pluto retrogrades 5-6 months each year, offering time to reconsider where we use our energy, strength, and power. Be open to plot twists that unfold slowly. What you said ‘yes’ to earlier this year may be worth rethinking if you’re paying an energy-price now.
The Themes: Pluto in Capricorn: 2008-2024
- Shadow Themes: business structures, patriarchal constructs, dirty money, dark sides, hidden agendas, collapsing empires, burials, government, sex crimes, underground mines, force majeure events, international power plays, systemic financial crises, disruptions in order, redistribution of resources, organized crime, handouts, homelessness/rent issues
- Awakened Themes: life force, powerful intimacy, eyes wide open, healing gifts/talents, magic, death/rebirth, yoga, regeneration, gold
Pluto Retrograde Horoscope
- Aries: make bold changes in your career
- Taurus: time to change your social circle
- Gemini: facing some demons
- Cancer: you’re impacted personally, at every level
- Leo: handle your finances with maturity
- Virgo: your communication systems break/repair
- Libra: your sense of belonging, home, and family are changing
- Scorpio: your creativity is being challenged
- Sagittarius: focus on your health, change your daily routine
- Capricorn: your relationships are changing – let it happen
- Aquarius: your shared resources and deepest bonds are evolving
- Pisces: the way you feel about your world is forever changed
Last Call for Alcohol
… or whatever you’ve been addicted to, checking out with, or using as a distraction. The wake up call that started in 2008 is getting louder. Ignoring it creates more obstacles. For those looking, the astrological weather illuminates a world of suffering and reminds us that life doesn’t get better—but we do. Our thoughts that ‘things will be different than they are’ is a cause of suffering. Deeply knowing ourselves through Human Design helps us navigate any climate.
Are you familiar with the Buddhist concept of hungry ghosts? Hungry ghosts are tormented by desires and obsessions that can never be sated. This Pluto retrograde season (May-October) we will see themes around deep desires. Desires can propel us forward, but they can also confine us. When we don’t have healthy bonding, safety, and our basic needs met—we find unhealthy substitutes to find and secure power, resulting in a false sense of control. It’s this false control, and the false promises we tell ourselves that are losing their hold. The illusions and distortions are fading.
Deconditioning from Distortion: The Trojan Horse
This Pluto retrograde season falls between the first and second marks of the U.S.A.’s Pluto return. Astrologer Adam Gainsburg describes the U.S.A’s Pluto return as a…
“massive experiment in consciousness.”
He reminds us that the U.S.A’s founding agreements, rules, and agendas have been running underneath and concurrent with a lot of secrets, manipulations, and underground events. As a result, he says the country hasn’t been run by the people for the people—but rather it has functioned as a trojan horse for those in power. The main undercurrent that is prime for revolutionary change is the misuse of power.
The Art of Letting Go
Rick Levine, the Merlin astrologer teaches the things we give to Pluto, we don’t get back. And in the absence of those things we surrender—a hunger is left. The illusion of materialism (that only what we can see is real), is fading. More and more deceptions are being uncovered. We’re forced to let go of what we thought was real in many areas of life. Since the outer world reflects the inner world, he says it’s important to continue to understand your own inner process.
There is a ‘last gasp’ effort of control. Whether we feel prepared or not, this is a season of forced changes. But there is hope.
The Hope
The hope during this season is to uncover more about yourself, and find what’s real for you. This brings freedom, happiness, peace, serenity, and makes us useful to others. Simultaneously, as we take responsibility for our personal peace over time— there is a departure from operating our lives from fear, regret, feelings of uselessness, self-pity, selfishness, anxiety, and depression. This is a season to gain a deeper perspective and find a renewed purpose or new direction in life. This is a powerful time to find forgiveness, redeem ourselves, accept reality, and evolve spiritually.
This is our wake up call. As the program of recovery teachers, “We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity. We will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. The feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”
