Suzy Holbrook, MD
Pluto in Aquarius will enter for good November 19, 2025.
Pluto describes an area of life, a benchmark, that must be confronted and broken through to move forward with the next phase on the journey of Soul development. Pluto can be felt as many things including frustration, desire, restlessness, anxiety perhaps and ultimately, a profound weakness and insecurity.
We are all afraid of looking too directly at Pluto. It is not easy to face our deepest insecurities. We may take the easy road, trying to find a way to calm the qualms of the Soul that instinctively protects us from this profound sensitivity. We might reach quick fixes that we delude ourselves will fill the void of Pluto: food, material things, success, relationships, etc. In an individual chart, this avoidant-behavior, fear reaction and compensation may show up in the Natal Pluto House position, aspects, etc. The Natal Chart will show specific habitual patterns we have developed over lifetimes. We can also see old patterns repeating themselves through transiting Pluto’s house position and aspects to Natal planets.
Compensations for this fear can also be seen in the Natal placement of Jupiter. Jupiter can tell a story of excesses we participate in as a distraction, it is an easy energy to attain for us, usually. This can be the compensation energy for the lack we are too afraid to directly approach. Jupiter’s Natal Position shows many other things as well and can be the ‘Great Benefic”, our feel-good-go-to but not in all its expressions and at times it can perpetuate maladaptive patterns brought in from past lifetimes.
Pluto is transiting out of the Saturn/Capricorn Archetype. For each of us, the Natal placement of Saturn shows where our Soul calls us to be mature, stand tall and do the hard work. We can be held to a standard in many areas of life based upon the natal signature: work, family, relationships, leadership positions, moral issues of right and wrong and ethics perhaps. We are a role model in this facet of life or, if we haven’t been, NOW IS THE TIME. If Pluto shows past life desires and where our insecurities must be faced and worked on for the forward motion of Soul growth, Saturn shows where we must grow up, work, be the moral guide and do our part and potentially sacrifice our personal leniency for a tougher path. The combination of these archetypes gives a flavor for our process as transiting Pluto has been in Capricorn over the past 16 years. We have been asked to reconfigure and work on this path of moral accountability and to focus on any personal inadequacies related to this process, exposing our deep fears regarding authorities or being an authority. COVID, as a basic part of those years, has demonstrated where a lack of leadership may have put all of us at risk. Power struggles and the process of our moral path have likely been the background music we are moving to.
Now, Pluto moves into Aquarius. We are gifted with perspective and understanding. If well used, the deep fears and insecurities Pluto brings can be ameliorated with the distance allowed with Aquarius. Intellectualization takes the deep process of work and emotional pain into the rational mind where we can understand. Understanding brings tools: we can plan, predict and stay in control!
This can be great, however, for many of us we find it difficult to stay connected to the necessary emotional process when in the bliss of rationality. We can see all and intellectually understand, however simply naming the problem doesn’t always help to recover those deep vulnerabilities. Many times, we must re-experience at the emotional level, process, and make new choices based on those deep feelings. Only in the intensity of emotionality can we heal emotionally. So, the mind comes up with plans for making us feel better. We might decide, on an intellectual level, that someone with whom we are in a relationship is wrong for us. For example, we can understand that the half-truths told us by the other are their way of avoiding intimacy and vulnerability and so not leading to a healthy relationship and therefore life. This understanding allows us to break up. But the problem is that we must connect back to our contribution and really get messily into the actual deep emotional cause. In this case, our own deeply repressed emotional fear and therefore, our need for intimacy, Mars in Aquarius in the 7th House comes to mind as a symbolic representation of this example, has created this habitual process of attracting those who are acting out our own deep fears. When we connect back to our own insecurity in relationship, our difficulty with intimacy, then we can attract significant others that will be equal to us, not those who are wounded. This will finally break the habit of forming relationships with those who will play out our own fears: this will lead to liberation and the ability to attract and be attracted to those who are able to share emotional intimacy. The point is we must feel the pain and create new understanding and choices to change the dynamic. This type of deep change can only happen through deeply felt pain otherwise it is too difficult to change old patterns. My contention is Pluto in Aquarius is a placement where intellectual understanding is easy but emotional understanding may not be so easy and could foster skipping the necessary emotional process for complete processing and healing.
In each natal chart, the signs are situated in different Houses. If the Astrological Sign on the Ascendant is Aquarius at 1 degree, then you will feel Pluto starting in the 12th House and very quickly it will pass into the 1stHouse. You will be experiencing a change of dramatic proportion. Passage into the 1st House will accentuate the 1st Archetype energy of birthing, striking the match of activation and will not go unnoticed. With this Soul, the process of intellectual activation and the need to understand with the perspective of intelligence will gift their life with understanding. This energy will be irrevocably changed as Pluto moves over the Ascendent into their 1st House. Possible experiences could be many, but the foundation and intention of this transit is to realize that looking from a “bird’s eye-view” under the surface to the underlying truth is key to creating important insights. For each Sign of the Astrological Wheel there would be different but no less important insights.
Let’s, together, look at your Natal Chart to find which House Aquarius resides. This House will tell where a “bird’s eye-view” approach will bring dramatic understanding and bring a transformative energy. But be warned, if we allow a removed and overly intellectualized approach to dictate our process with this experience, we will be avoiding the Soul lessons available to us during this transit of Pluto through Aquarius.
