Jupiter in Aries Puts the Brakes On and Slides Backward Into a Square With Pluto

The quick burst of fiery forward expansion and movement we experienced as Jupiter and Uranus transited Aries over the past couple months has just come to a creaking halt. Jupiter went retrograde in Aries yesterday morning, joining Uranus, and our earliest of Arien progress is now being fused into place (or discarded if it is not to Pluto's liking) by a square to Pluto in Capricorn tonight at 10:20 p.m. Mountain.

We've reached an initial landing point, anchored a crucial starting place for next spring. The Sun in Aries 2011 is our grandscale birth point - at that time, we've reached daybreak, although we do not yet know what the light of day will reveal.

We're just finishing the planting of the initial seed points for the next five years with a six-week cardinal t-square on the early degrees along with the fifth and final Saturn-Uranus opposition July 26. We can all breathe a sigh of relief that that opposition cycle is completing, but we have to make it a quick one - we're being propelled into new territory on multiple fronts. Things are not as they were, and we're getting an instinctual feel for what that means moving forward.

At the same time, we are gradually moving back over this earliest of new territory and into the swampy, highly karmic morass of tail-end Pisces at the tail-end astrological Piscean era. Believe me. Very few of us are looking forward to this. But re-enter it we must. Because we never really left. There is mucho unfinished business – mostly collective, but also personal – including that little situation going on in the Gulf of Mexico. You might have heard something about it?

The reality of this situation has yet to sink in for many (a big part of which being the manipulation of related information through the media), but Jupiter and Uranus transiting back into the last degrees of Pisces – the last degrees of the astrological zodiac – will be a heavy reminder. Uranus Rx re-enters Pisces August 13 and Jupiter Rx September 8.

We're all antsy for movement, but for those who have not yet been released from the inertia and heaviness of two-and-a-half years of Saturn in Virgo opposite Uranus in Pisces, the traversing of Jupiter and Uranus of late Pisces will be a last drawing on of spiritual guidance. Hitting the final marks that click disparate parts into place and light us up with the full Piscean understanding of the situation of life on this planet. In particular, the connection of states of being and shared suffering around the world.

Once infused with this grand finale Piscean awareness, we are given some time to come to a state of acceptance before being spurred fully into new actions and directions indicated by Jupiter (January 2011) and then Uranus (March 2011) re-entering Aries.

As Jupiter and Uranus move back into late Pisces, keeping an eye firmly on our spiritual reasons for being here during these times, as well as on the impermanence of our trips, can help us find the courage to stay effective in the current moment while elevating us out of the oily, toxic mess threatening to pull us under.

We're in a period of potent and dynamic change and upheaval – indicated astrologically by the cycle of squares between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn (coming to exactness between June 2012 and March 2015). Think late-1920s/1930s vibe – the last time Uranus was in Aries, at that time squaring Pluto in Cancer.

Those who have not adjusted accordingly their actions, goals and personal directions in light of the stark and disturbing information Pluto has been throwing up into collective awareness from Capricorn for the past couple years will have a rough time of these squares. For people still in denial of the collective situation with which we find ourselves confronted on this planet, still attached to a 'business as usual' way of life, these squares will provide wake-up calls, at times unpleasant.

For those who have keyed in to the energy of what is being unearthed by Pluto's transit of Capricorn and have done their best to adjust accordingly, things should have a smoother tenor. As smooth as possible, anyway, which is still not all that smooth, in my estimation.

There is a real soul reckoning afoot. Those complicit within corrupt and murderous structures, those cutting corners, those looking the other way or skimming by while reaping the rewards for doing so are going to be faced with some major decisions about what is truly important to them during their trip to this little planet.

Saturn has just entered Libra (July 21) until October 2012, and our challenges now turn to relationship, social justice and the balanced, working partnership of feminine and masculine. The vehicle for the achievement of our highest potential shifts from self-improvement and mastery (Virgo) to working for balance, harmony and justice through relationship with others (Libra).

With a third and final square to Pluto in Capricorn August 21, the awareness of abusive patriarchal power structures is pushed to the surface, and we have the ability to become conscious of the influence of them in our lives while working to build something more dignified and fair (Libra). This is not going to happen overnight, of course. These are deeply embedded power dynamics that will require a great deal of effort and conscious awareness to shift. But the next two years of Saturn in Libra, followed by a period of mutual reception between Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn until September 2015, will give us a good start.

Saturn is the planet of, among other things, karmic challenges. Pluto is the sign of collective power dynamics and the necessary transformation of those dynamics. The influence of both these bodies indicates that it is some serious and long-standing karmic territory we are now traversing. Only a full commitment to getting down to brass tacks together, in a loving, mutually-supportive way, is going to go deep enough to truly be effective.

The relationships we enter into now cannot be entered into lightly. We need people in our lives who can be counted on when the chips are down, in light of the times in which we are living. There will be many decisions about what relationships to enter into, what ones to keep and how to restructure them and what ones are no longer viable moving forward.

The skills of the Pluto in Libra generation come strongly into play, also, as Saturn begins its transit of Libra and conjuncts the natal Plutos. Their relationship alchemy and understanding of core relationship realities will be necessary, especially within morphing work structures, and this generation comes into positions of leadership beginning now.

Getting down to brass tacks as far as true compatibility – meeting mutual, soul-deep needs – becomes even more important this fall with the Venus retrograde in Scorpio.