Under the Bleak, Institutional Lighting of Pluto in Capricorn Until the End of the Month

The Pluto-infused sea goat stellium continues to dominate the zodiac, and the reverberations from this one can have that distinctly Plutonic feel: intense, pressurized, gut-churning, horrifying, nauseating, exhausting, bleak, demanding everything we have.

When the overall energetic atmosphere really makes you want to puke, you know some big things are unfolding from the depths...

Small consolation.

So we're under pressure now. Coal to diamond stuff. Things have an edge to them that may leave us emotionally or psychologically shell-shocked. A little shredded.

Going to the other end of the spectrum, Cancer, will give us some balance with this stellium, and this involves extreme care - self-care and care for others who are getting it rough at this time. This is a time to baby ourselves, no guilt.

Things are coming up from the depths now, things that can no longer be contained by those who carry them.

The energy has to move, and it has to move responsibly. Old constructs cannot contain us.

We're at the points where feminine-directed change, soul-directed change cannot be denied. These points have been uncovered - for the time being. We can see them, but we have to work quickly before the soil is kicked over and they are again obscured.

We're setting things up and being set up within the next echelon of things as we move through January 2013. This is a tricky process. But there are long-term frameworks being set up now, particularly through relationships, partnerships, and people on similar soul trips, that have to sustain us for the long haul. This is serious. We have to build it right. Every step has to be sound. These frameworks build on the past but also advance well beyond the constructs of the past toward a mind's eye vision for a desirable (livable? tolerable?) future on this planet. A future we'd actually choose to take part in, if it were up to us.

This is some gut-lurching Plutonic progress toward the future...

Dreadful and bird-flipping exhilarating at the same time.

Love, money, and relationship planet Venus in Capricorn triggers the Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto Yod formation January 14 through 17. It will quincunx Jupiter in Gemini January 14, conjunct Pluto in Capricorn January 16, and sextile Saturn in Scorpio January 17.

This kicks up awkwardness, a feeling of being alien, some loneliness and anomie - but also the possibility for major breakthroughs in communication, connection, and understanding. We're interacting from very odd angles here, but the interactions are meaningful, as long as enough restraint and mutual respect can be mustered.

Keep your eye on the big picture during the second half of January. Push through the odd Yods. Forgive yourself and others for awkwardness or for being weird. Understand that this is a time when we can feel disconnected, isolated, and depressed. It's in the air. It's in the transits. There's not much we can do but work with it.

We feel Venus in applying conjunction to Pluto all this week, and this is not comfortable territory for our lovely and lovey aesthete Venus. Everything is under bleak, institutional Pluto in Capricorn lighting for the next couple weeks. Relationships can make us want to die a little. No worries. It goes with the territory. This is a temporary increase in pressure that starts to be alleviated after the Venus-Pluto conjunction is exact January 17.

Soul mate asteroid Juno is also conjunct Pluto at this time, making things extra spicy, and this forms a Venus-Juno-Pluto conjunction. I've written in detail about that in a paid article for 2013: Venus, Juno, and Pluto: the Reconfiguring and Renegotiation of Marriage and Commitment in 2013

Venus will be in Capricorn at both the beginning of 2013 and at the end of 2013, which includes the next Venus retrograde period (December 21, 2013 to January 30, 2014).

As we open into Gregorian 2013, initial frameworks are being set up with an eye toward the relational soil-turning and shifts indicated by the Venus retrograde at the end of 2013. Some first steps are being taken. Some decisions are being made as far as how to build upon initial foundations. The people and relationship themes in our lives now simmer throughout the year and come back into full focus during the Venus retrograde in Capricorn at the end of 2013.

Venus in Capricorn comes out of the conjunction to Pluto January 17 and moves into the degrees of its next retrograde period January 19 - 30 (13 to 29 degrees Capricorn). These are important degrees. Taking stock of relationships and partnerships - both personal and professional - at this time and making solid, strategic goals and moves related to where you want to go can provide stronger positioning for what is to come at the end of the year.

Commitments that are made and solidified during the last 10 days of January have a longer-term feel. Make your decisions wisely for mutually successful partnerships (and partners), and only take the steps you are sure of. Going too fast is never a good thing when Capricorn is involved, especially not when the dispositing planet is Saturn in Scorpio. Potentially nasty missteps from rushing or caving under pressure, when we'd so desperately like to put something else in place.

You can be sure that whatever is coming up naturally and organically in your life relationship-wise now has some legs. It has some roots. It is complex beyond what is currently visible. And for the most part, it has no easy answers.

We're past the easy part of the examination, if you hadn't noticed.

This involves love, relationship, marriage, money, business, career, and frameworks for collective progress.

With Pluto involved, it also involves the macro level.

The Idle No More movement, spurred by Canada's native people and gaining support worldwide, is one example of this macro-level context. It seems that some things will get done through meetings between native chiefs and the federal government. But the problems, the corruption, and the power imbalances run throughout the structures and institutions of native government, failing the people, just as in non-native. There is a whole reconfiguring necessary here, too. Nothing that is fixed overnight.

The Idle No More movement originated in my home province of Saskatchewan, a place with a history of grassroots movements. This is where Canada's universal health care system was born. This is where labour rights have been battled out for decades upon decades. This is a province where shit gets real.

And let me tell you, though its advances are inspiring, the Idle No More movement has barely scratched the surface.

It isn't just the native folks who are at an "enough's enough" point.

There are many, many people of particular energetic make-ups that are hanging on by the skin of their teeth at this point, attempting to survive the sheer insanity and toxicity of the Pluto in Capricorn, early Aquarian era versions of "progress" and "success."

We all have some highly legitimate beefs here.

Once the people and the issues start dove-tailing in true, organic, and necessary fashion (IF they do), we'll start to see the real momentum behind the force for deep, systemic and structural change. The joined forces of the Plutonic emissaries. The ones who don't quit till it's quitting time.

And it's not even close to quitting time.

Juno will be welded to Pluto's side into early February, keeping the often harsh Plutonic themes humming. We're working with our soul mates here - with those of like mind, but also those we're frictional with. We're the motivating thorns in their sides, and they're ours.

The Sun and Mercury form an exterior conjunction at 28 degrees Capricorn on January 18. Both bodies enter Aquarius January 19, and from there, the Capricorn stellium starts to break up.

The bleak, institutional lighting starts to lift a little.

Venus enters Aquarius February 1, and this should also be an official breath of fresh Aquarian air relieving the compacted, stale, and pressurized Plutonic energy we've been working with during the start of 2013.