Jan 5, 2023 | RAMBLINGS, REFLECTIONS and RUMINATIONS by Daniel Giamario |
Under the power and magic of this wildly out-of-bounds full moon in Cancer, also known as the Magi Moon in the school’s history, I am sharing some provisional thoughts about the two major planetary ingresses in 2023: Saturn into Pisces on March 7, and Pluto into Aquarius on March 23.
SATURN INTO PISCES
On March 7, 2023, at 13:35 UT, Saturn enters the sign of Pisces. Saturn was last in Pisces from May 21, 1993, until April 7, 1996, (including a brief retrograde back into Aquarius). This return to Pisces on March 7, 2023, will last until an initial ingress into Aries on May 24, 2025.
The experience these past few years with Saturn in Aquarius emphasizes the important need to differentiate between the essential intent of Saturn as a planetary process from the way most have interpreted Saturn in the last 2000 years or so. For the greater historical time-frame beyond the last 2000 years, Saturn symbolized an operating manual for surviving well in 3D density. This included practical advice like not jumping off cliffs or sticking your flesh into fire. It was also a time-keeper, known as the great chronicrator, and correlated with phases of life and the maturation process. It did not include the more recent concepts often related to the Freudian super-ego, including guilt, shame, judgment and feelings of deficiency. These more recent injections comprise, in my view, a hijack of Saturn.
Also connected with the monotheistic and patriarchal hijack has been the view of Saturn as a harsh and judgmental father/senex principle. I have always seen more of the archetypal feminine in Saturn, and it does, after all, appear on the feminine side of the Tree of Life. The strong identification of Saturn with Capricorn has inspired TOTAMS to perceive Capricorn as a matrilineal council of elders or circle of grandmothers and not, as more popularly seen today, as patriarchal hierarchy and a version of conservatism only concerned with the quarterly profits, with an unwillingness to let go of control.
This recent hijack of Saturn has indeed resulted in the attempt by Saturn to control Aquarius, resulting in rigid collectivism, unwarranted trust in technology, and aversion to individuality and sovereignty. Now, with the imminent ingress into Pisces, what is the intent, taking into account essential Saturn and the hijacked Saturn?
Pisces, as a Mystery School, has two essential features (all somewhat related to Neptune). One is the well known essence of trans-personal compassion, empathy, and a universal desire to heal and help others. A bit less well-known is the hunger and desire for altered states of consciousness, for self, with others, and with the celestial or upper world. Saturn, as an objective, 3D, middle world initiator will attempt to curtail these tendencies. I think that the hijacked version of Saturn will desire to shut off the heart and make it harder to grieve all the things that have been lost to Human 1.0. On the positive side, it can reign in the delusional and spacey tendencies that have been prominent while Neptune has been in Pisces. It is important to note that both Saturn and Neptune leave Pisces in 2025!
It’s also possible that Saturn in Pisces will create the intense experience of what is missing, namely deep love and the capacity to fully grieve. My prayer is that massive suffering will not be the requirement for the opening of more hearts.
PLUTO INTO AQUARIUS
On March 23, 2023, at 12:24 UT, Pluto enters the sign of Aquarius. Pluto was last in Aquarius from 1778-1798, a time of major change all over the world. There won’t be another such time for 248 years!
Unlike many other schools of astrology, TOTAMS sees Pluto also as archetypally Feminine – the dark underworld feminine of such goddess figures as Kali, Durga, Ereshkigal, aspects of Shakti, and Hecate. Like the patriarchal hijack of Saturn, a similar thing happened when Zeus allocated the entire world to the three brothers, and since then Pluto/Hades is assumed to be masculine.
Pluto’s transit through a sign will reveal the shadow of that sign by amplifying the main essence of the sign, increasing its power, and exposing its secrets. Pluto in Capricorn certainly amplified the patriarchal excesses of Capricorn: corporate hierarchical bureaucratic control, quarterly profits and the hubristic dominion over and domination of our Earth Mother. This blindly ignored a deeper essence of Capricorn, which is to make decisions for the benefit of the many generations to follow, while honoring the wisdom of our ancestors. This is quite hard to do in recent times, as an orphan culture with few recognized elders. Being old does not make you an elder. Pluto in Capricorn certainly demonstrated the absence of elder wisdom, replaced by “leaders” based on wealth, fame, celebrity, and propaganda, rather than wisdom through spiritual initiation and training.
Pluto in Aquarius will complete the mission of exposing the shadow of Aquarius that I wrote and spoke about many times as Saturn was traversing Aquarius.
Here are a few insights: The Dawning of The Age of Aquarius, What?…Again? https://youtu.be/yVo9GD5LDdU and Aquarius and it’s Shadow Revisited https://youtu.be/PUkMbjx6_EY
In addition to revealing the shadow of the sign, Pluto’s function is to compost that which needs to be composted; that which is no longer life-supporting or healthy for Gaia / Mother Earth. Out of the compost comes new life. I prefer this image to the oft-used “phoenix from the ashes.” It was Liz Greene who decades ago describes Pluto as a synthesis of damp/dark soil with running sewers. It is pretty clear at this point that the shadow of Aquarius is rampant AI / digital technology with a trajectory toward a collectivist hive/borg, with a small technocratic elite making unelected decisions for all. This is intended to lead to the merging of organic human beings with AI. It is also the apparent victory of the once debunked philosophy of “utilitarianism” and its doctrine of the “greater good.” This is also the shadow of Aquarius as it leaves out the sovereignty and autonomy of the individual which can be found in the resonant polarity sign of Leo. As a member of the Pluto in Leo generation myself, despite the shadow of our generation, we pretty much assumed that the celebrated “Age of Aquarius” would obviously include the uniqueness and value of the individual and our connection with spirit, the higher self and essential divinity.
Some others have referred to Pluto in Aquarius as “power to the people.” Maybe … but the shadow of this is mob rule, the problems of majority rule (democracy), and the power of the egregore which is when a collective energetic entity takes over (the egregore is a non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people). Obvious examples of this are the German Nazi cult, the Pol Pot Cambodian genocide, and I dare-say, the current mask / social distancing covid cult.
An important topic in our school (as well as an exam question) is: What is the main difference between Saturn and Pluto? This could be the topic of an entire video blog or class! But here is what is most relevant to today’s inquiry: Saturn is primarily rational, linear and “in time.” Saturn is also a human faculty. It can figure out objective reality, and often that objective reality may not be what we want to accept the reality of. But it’s a human based principle that can span all the way from existential despair and depression to the most extreme hubris and narcissism in the belief that we can be better than God (the Luciferian impulse).
On the other hand, Pluto has no concern at all for humans or for our vaunted moral, ethical ideals or judgments. It’s irrational and instinctual and serves the natural order of life. An example I often use is that of a large cheetah chasing down a young eland or wildebeest and crushing its skull before feasting. Saturn screams: “It’s horrible and so unfair.” Pluto has no opinion. It’s the natural world of living and dying; birthing and deathing; growing and composting; Spring and Fall.
I was asked recently to opine on the “positive” contribution of Pluto in Aquarius. I think it is that Pluto will not allow the shadow of Aquarius to succeed. One way or another, the technocrats and their attempts to merge human with digital / AI will fail. Pluto, without even caring about humans, will compost what is not life-supporting to the planet and natural, organic life. Consequently, humans may yet retain their connection to our spiritual identity and a capacity to welcome the incoming energies of the etheric Christos/Sophia next phase of human evolution; and abort the final throws of the Kali Yuga: the attempted victory of the Ahrimanic forces and their attempt to demonstrate the victory of materialism through the merging of humans with AI in the Metaverse. Just do not comply.
Stay tuned for lots more on these topics …
And in the meantime, you may enjoy listening to this recent interview: https://audio.pwfm.tech/interviews/21226-giamario.mp3