Pluto Stationing Direct in Capricorn Conjunct Saturn and Resisting Everyday Fascism

Lord of the Underworld Pluto stations direct at 20 degrees Capricorn on October 2 (11:39 p.m. PDT) within a conjunction to Cosmic Daddy Saturn, and patriarchal bureaucratic hierarchy's got us down!

Even recognizing the invisible, top-down, coercive hand of Everyday Fascism in the functioning of mainstream society is challenging and exhausting, let alone resisting it while using our own steely wills to chart a different course.

But recognizing and resisting this Everyday Fascism and then choosing a different course through our daily lives is exactly the challenge that has been laid at our feet under the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn (exact in January 2020).

The rigid, artificial rhythms for daily work and life that have been set out for us are internalized by most at a very young age. We're born into it. This is just "what's normal." It's "what's done." It's "the way things are."

The Machine tells us: when to wake up, when to eat or drink, when to get in our cars or on our buses or trains, when to start work, when to stop work, when to take a 15-minute break from work, when to speak (and what to say), when not to speak (and what not to say), when to take a piss, when to pay our bills, when to take our allotted leisure time, when to be entertained, when to have sex, when to go to sleep. Then rinse and repeat.

Above all, The Machine tells us: faster, faster! More slick! More efficient! More impressive! Just more!

Can't rest. Can't slow down. Can't re-direct. Can't stop. Can't show signs of weakness with the wolves at our doors.


In this "digital age," the artificial rhythms and routines are speeding up to the point where a biological organism cannot keep up over the course of time without doing severe damage to itself, to its relationships, to its environment. 

We're racing off the side of a cliff, oh-so-anxious to out-pace all competitors!

And we're wading through sick, soupy stretches of anxiety and depression as our biological systems rebel, as they whisper, then speak, then scream: "Something's wrong! This is not the way human beings were meant to live. This is not the way human beings were meant to be treated."

With Pluto stationing direct, we are reminded - under the layers of fear, terror, paranoia - of our own power within these manufactured structures that so often make us feel powerless. We're reminded that we can simply decide to get off the ride. We can commit to choosing our own pace, to setting our own daily rhythms, to defining our own versions of success. And we can carve this out to a satisfying degree even within the control-based structures as they exist.

We can remove our allegiance to The Machine as our timekeeper and life-structurer and goals-setter. We can instead seek the rightful timing of the universe, of nature, under the guidance of our higher power or our own conscience or both.

Pluto is stationing direct in Capricorn within a loosening square aspect to Venus in Libra. Venus will move into the sign of its detriment, Scorpio, on October 8 for a transit that lasts until November 1, 2019. 

In light of this upcoming Venus transit and under the currently-concentrated Plutonic energies, I'm re-posting an excerpt of an article written for the Venus retrograde in Scorpio last fall. As Venus prepares to cross into "the dark half" of the zodiac once again, the themes appear to this anarchist astro-reporter to be as relevant as ever...

From November 24, 2018, "Venus in Scorpio and Addressing Socially-Acceptable Addictions" 

"Scorpio is a sign that relates to addictions, and with Venus transiting Scorpio [October 8 to November 1, 2019)...we're addressing some hidden addictions in ourselves, in our relationships, and in our society.

Scorpio is also a sign related to detrimental karmic patterns, like addictions, that play out generation-after-generation due to suppressed emotion, psychological damage, and unresolved trauma.

Until now.

Until us. 

We make the hard stop. We draw the firm line. We say no and no and no again until we've broken through. Until it loses its charge and its draw. Until the moth no longer gives a shit about the flame...

The standard, recognized addictions in our society certainly cause enough misery and mayhem: drugs, alcohol, gambling.

But with Venus in "deep subtext" Scorpio, we're required to dig up even the socially-accepted addictions, the addictions that are allowed - that are straight-up engineered by our power structures - because they bolster and fuel the toxic and dysfunctional societies and systems within which we are existing.

I've said in the past that without coffee (or similar stimulants), there would be no consumer capitalism - at least not the rampant, go-go-go, "constant growth" model that currently exists.

And you can see how many of the socially-accepted (and socially-engineered) addictions work to reinforce this sick, soulless, and unsustainable model of society and economic production. They work to keep people content within a system that is slowly (or not-so-slowly) poisoning them.

Some of these socially-accepted addictions include: 

➝ workoholism or constant "busy-ness"
➝ caffeine, sugar, and processed food addictions to fuel the workoholism
➝ obsessive accumulation (money, property, cars, etc.) or compulsive shopping
➝ habitual "social drinking"
➝ over-reliance on prescription medications
➝ co-dependency, being addicted to another person or to a relationship
➝ sex addiction or serial dating
➝ an addiction to the high of falling in love, leading to an inability to maintain a stable, long-term relationship because the high wears off, and the person gets "bored."
➝ cell phones, social media, video games, television, film, and music - the inability to remain unstimulated by one or more of these things for even a short period of time (very prevalent in the younger generations)
➝ narcissistic obsessions with physical appearance, the body, status symbols, luxury lifestyles, and fame

The roots of addiction often (not always) involve unresolved and unacknowledged trauma and grief. Often, there is a root to the trauma and grief of generations past that have been brutally exploited by the wealth- and power-holders of their day. 

Two sides - that had no real beef with each other when you get right down to it - set up to slaughter each other in a manufactured construct called "war." This manufactured construct called "war" was designed to benefit those at the top of the pyramid schemes of power through the acquisition of land and resources, through the dispossession of people from the land, through the destruction of homes, businesses, and communities, through the self-extermination of the people, through the divide-and-conquer tactics that kept the people weak, unable to rise up in common force against their oppressors and dominators.

And also through the inevitable pain, grief, confusion, chaos, and coping-mechanism addictions and dysfunction that would then be passed on and passed on and passed on...

Eventually, the roots became "invisible." So many generations wanting to put it all behind them that this tyranny was placed into an "olden times" context, far removed from our current day, despite the obvious signs that it was still with us and still wreaking havoc.

And the systemic violence and poisoning of the people that continue to current day, embedded in the very structures of our societies, became "invisible," too. The violence of a corrupted (Scorpio) money system (Venus) and the corrupted (Scorpio) societal values (Venus) that go along with it became invisible. Just people going about their daily lives. Nothing to see here.

We're being poisoned by the current power structures, by the governments and corporations and financiers and Old Money bloodlines. It's in our air, in our water, in our food, in our psychic and mental environments. It's layer-upon-layer of radiation, chemicals, heavy metals, electromagnetic pollution, poisoned emotions, forced rhythms, manipulated media, artificial values, corrupted food, degraded life.

But we've also been tricked into poisoning ourselves. We've been tricked into poisoning our relationships. Parents have been tricked into poisoning their own children.

As Venus picks its way through the emotional/psychological landmines of the sign of Scorpio...[we will be required to address unresolved trauma and generational grief, as well as] the addictive nature of modern society and the toxic social dynamics in which we are immersed. 

In many ways, current, consumption-driven societies are built on these invisible addictions. The standard day is often structured around them, going from one fix to another to another, continuing under the guise of normalcy and standard routine.

Scorpio is associated with suppressed emotion, and one of the main seats of suppressed emotion in the body is the liver. In particular, suppressed anger and rage are stored there. (And honestly, if you aren't at least a little irritated with the state of things on this planet, you aren't paying very close attention...)

We have generation-after-generation of suppressed rage running through our biological systems, as well as a heaping helping of rage to process within our current moments, the rage that bubbles and boils just below the surface of day-to-day life. The rage that too-often erupts into violence and destructiveness, including the subtle emotional/psychological warfare running so rampant in human society these days.

If you look at many of the addictions that are playing out - drugs, alcohol, coffee, sugar, chocolate, processed foods, overeating (especially red meat) - they give an absolute shit-kicking to the liver. So do the roiling emotions kicked up by the toxic ways in which people are interacting with each other. 

We're abusing our livers, we're abusing ourselves, and too often we're abusing each other, even in small ways, in ways that are easily shrugged off as inconsequential.

These angry livers need our attention. They need us to remove the layers of poison that are providing their daily, socially-accepted beatings.

But more importantly, we must address the toxic systems and structures that force these addictive coping mechanisms.

It's all well and good for the upper and upper-middle classes to look down on the less financially-privileged as "unhealthy" in their habits.

But poor, working class, and even many middle class people have not had the luxury of being insulated via financial privilege and social status from the most toxic and terrible conditions of these systems.

They often do not have expendable income for massages and acupuncture and therapists and energy healers and Pilates classes and organic groceries - methods used by the upper and upper-middle classes to make it through the day.

They are living in a society that expects them to work their guts out, that expects them to suffer, to literally work themselves into an early grave in exchange for the privilege of surviving.  

Often, these people are doing work at which the upper and upper-middle classes would turn up their noses.

Those who haven't done working class jobs, blue collar jobs, really have no idea. Those who have not seen their friends and family and community members working themselves to death - aided by those addictive substances to get through the day - really have no idea.

The truth of the matter is: in most cases (and across most socioeconomic classes), people are not living lives of their own choosing. They're living forced lives on artificial rhythms and schedules, repugnant to a free and natural human being. Enduring this state without reprieve has highly detrimental effects.    

It's the responsibility of all of us to improve conditions on this planet, and those with luxury and comfort have even more responsibility. It is the responsibility of these "luxuriating classes" to address the ways in which they are benefiting and profiting from toxic and unfair dynamics...and to create effective remedies.

We need to acknowledge the true roots of the suppressed emotion and unresolved trauma. The raging injustice and grief, passed generation-by-generation, that simmers just below the surface. We need to stop blaming ourselves and each other for set-ups that were engineered to be just this bad...and worse. We need to understand the illegitimate power structures and illegitimate power players that are creating these Hell scenarios for us on Earth. We need to stop turning it on ourselves - and on our poor livers. We need to stop turning it on each other. 

What's going on stems from much higher up the pyramid scheme. It stems from all the way up at the pyramid cap, at the very highest rungs of this hierarchical shitshow. It stems from the "invisible" actions and direction of people we will never meet, of people who will never know our names. These are the so-called "elite." A glaring misnomer if ever I've heard one...

Our societies are being engineered to be this toxic, this dysfunctional, this anger-inducing, this full-on insane and inhumane. 

And it continues with all those unaddressed, socially-accepted addictions providing (toxic) structure and routine to our day-to-day. It continues because the people who are benefiting from it simply go along with it. They justify it.

As lovely Venus moves through the sign most fear to experience (Scorpio), the way we love ourselves and each other, the way we love humanity and the living creatures on this planet, is to peel these layers of addiction, exposing and addressing the real root causes. 

We refuse to stuff it down any longer, including with holiday meals and drinks and sweet treats. We refuse to swallow the false versions of history, the false versions of reality, that have whitewashed the real stories and protected the real culprits, the real parties responsible for this pain and dysfunction.

If we aren't working with the roots, we're just glossing over things, treating symptoms that will never truly go away, that will never really heal.

We have to support ourselves and those around us to make the changes that are needed, even if these changes seem quite radical. They seem radical only because they are so long overdue...

Bring the deep, ancestral anger up and validate it. It's legitimate. It's real. 

But then use it as fuel to outsmart the socially-engineered traps that have been intentionally set out for us. See through the hierarchical bullshit - even when it benefits you in some way to go along with it. Refuse it. Refuse to accept the charity model as adequate. Work to change the power dynamics, creating a society and a system of currency where charity is not necessary. Refuse to take your cues from a soul-sick and damaging social order. Refuse to poison yourself, your relationships, or your community for even one more second." 

Back to present day...

As you might imagine from reading the previous text, Plutonic/Scorpionic themes are some of the most hardcore of the astrological paradigm. The deeper we go and the more honest we are about even squirm-inducing subjects and dynamics, the more personal power we will be entrusted with in our lives and in our spheres of influence. 

Both winged messenger Mercury and love-and-relationship planet Venus are about to enter Scorpio (Mercury on October 3; Venus on October 8), indicating a deepening of thoughts/conversations and of relationship dynamics. Surface turbulence or drama most often indicates a root to something deeper, often something that has remained unaddressed for too long.

Dig in. Be brave. And you will be rewarded. 

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