Pluto in Capricorn: A Personal Recollection

Written By Ruth Svelmoe

For those of you who aren’t into astrology, bear with me for a bit, ‘cause the accuracy of this transit is wild and weird and I wanna tell you about it. The dwarf planet Pluto was first discovered in 1930, hanging out in the sign of Cancer (directly opposite the United States’ Pluto in Capricorn). Pluto in Cancer signaled the first world war, the great depression, and the beginning of depth psychology and its’ dive into the unconscious. Its movement into Leo in 1939 saw the rise of fascism and the creation of the first nuclear weapons. Because of these harrowing and irreversible changes in our society, Pluto became known to astrologers as the destroyer, or on a good day, the transformer. 

Wherever Pluto is in your birth chart shows me the area of your life where I know you’ve fuckin been through it. But the destruction that Pluto brings is always purposeful, if you let it be. Pluto asks what needs to be destroyed, and what will we plant in its place? I could tell you a number of Plutonian stories in my life, like how I was born with it in the house that rules my partnerships, and uhhh… well! If you’re not gonna grow with me, you’re gonna get left behind. 

We could talk about how the United States’ Pluto Return has been correlated with the complete breakdown of our economic system. In the birth chart for the U.S. (‘birth’ being the signing of the declaration of independence), Capricorn rules the area of money, values, and resources. In 2008, we began to revisit the very ideas this country has been founded on and idk if you remember anything weird about that year and the great recession and how good that has all been going since then. Astrology is spooky, yeehaw!

Today Pluto moves into Aquarius, never to devastate the Capricornian area of our lives again. (Sup Aquarius placements? The next 20 years should be fun!) The transformation story I want to tell started 16 years ago, when Pluto moved into the sign of Capricorn on January 25th, 2008. The very next day, on January 26th, I began my studies at Moody Bible Institute. Spooky? A little. Wait til you hear what part of my life is affected by this transit according to astrology.

Capricorn rules the area of my chart that contains our expansion of awareness. Demetra George states the themes of the 9th house as follows:

  • The search for meaning

  • The “higher” or superconscious mind

  • Collective thinking

  • Abstractions

  • Philosophy

  • Metaphysics

  • Religion

  • Ecclesiastics and clergymen

  • Religious rituals

  • Philanthropic, philosophic and spiritual tendencies

  • Your belief system, ethics and morals

  • Long journeys

  • Exploration

  • Distant discoveries

  • Far-reaching communications

  • Higher education

  • Publishing

  • Prophetic dreams

  • Consciousness-expanding travels

  • “Trips”

  • Teachers and gurus

Robert Hand summarizes this transit as a time when your “overall view of the world around you will change considerably, often because of crises in your life that demonstrate the invalidity of your former views.” Over the coming months, I want to tell y’all about my journey through the underworld and the deep-soul transformation I underwent - from a biblical literalist and evangelical conservative, to an apatheticist who needed to break with all forms of spiritual dogma for a time, to the subversive crone witch that fights for our psychological and spiritual liberation that you know and love today. From someone who surrendered my willpower to external forces out of fear of eternal retribution, to someone who courageously allows for my intuition to guide me through my interactions with all the forces that be.

At the end of a Pluto transit, if you have been faithful with the growth that has been asked of you, you become an expert at that specific area of your life. In true Leo fashion, I think false humility is a waste of time. It is funny, however, to think that I am an expert in the area of spirituality, because all that means is that I know how much I don’t know. (I even know how much I don’t know that I don’t know, ya know?) But holy shit, y’all, I know what I have left behind in pursuit of god, love and truth. I guarantee that unless you’ve been pressing the avoid button (and just straight up suffering for it) for the last 16 years, wherever Capricorn is in your chart describes the ways that you are an absolute bad bitch too.

I’m excited to share the harrowing, embarrassing, at times hilarious, other times quite heavy and the (yes) humbling story of how I went from a spirituality that offered toxic semblances of love to a spirituality that is grounded in a growing love for this harrowing/embarrassing/hilarious/tragic/cringe experience of hurtling through space with the rest of y’all.

Ruth Svelmoe