2023, the year of transformation

Pluto in Aquarius symbols

So far in 2023, I’m discovering that a lot of people are already feeling the transformative energy baked into this year. I did more annual astrology reports in December/January than in the lead-up to 2020. I’ve asked clients for the specific thing they’d like me to look for. The answers are all over the place – a move, a marriage, a baby, a career change, a foreign trip, a parents’ health…You get the idea. People are feeling…well, something.

In 2020-2021, we felt this same transformative energy due to COVID, shutdowns, little or no travel, masks or no masks, vaccines or no vaccines, the schisms in families, among friends. J 6 happened, then a committee about J6 held hearings and issued their report. It sure looked like trump was in charge of the insurrection.

On February 2, 2023, the NY Times published an article about the number of mass shootings so far this year. “As of early February, the Gun Violence Archive has counted 54 mass shootings in the United States this year. Six of them involved four or more fatalities.” The article is here.

Then there’s the continual drip of information about just how corrupt trump is – and was while he was president. And he’s still walking around free. So are most of the guys who were in his inner circle. You know – Meadows, Guilliani, Eastman…So, if 2023 is the year of transformation, does that mean trump and his cronies will be indicted? Trump already has  been compared to mobster John Gotti.

In his book People vs. Donald Trump: An inside Account, prosecutor and defense attorney Mark Pomerantz alleges that trump got rich “through a pattern of criminal activity. He demanded absolute loyalty and would go after anyone who crossed him. He seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law,” Pomerantz wrote.“In my career as a lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family.”

This whole saga exemplifies what Pluto’s transit into Aquarius is about.

So does the 7.8 quake in Turkey & Syria that already has killed more than 15,000 people as of tonight, February 8.

Biden’s state of the union speech is another example of Pluto’s transformation. The speech was powerful and the way he turned the social security/medicare issue around on the Republicans was brilliant. So we all agree? Biden said at one point. No cuts to social security, medicare, medicaid?

Republicans couldn’t exactly contradict him with more than 27 million people – voters – watching. Yet, Biden went on and focused on optimism, bipartisanship, and how far the country had come since he’d become president.

At one point, the cameras found Marjorie Taylor Green in the audience. She wore some weird white coat with a fur collar and cupped her hands at the sides of her mouth and shouted, LIAR. At various times, there were jeers from the republican side. That’s also Pluto transiting Aquarius.

The actual transit doesn’t begin until March 23. But on a collective level, I think some of these themes are evident. For nearly 3 months, until June 11, Pluto travels through Aquarius. It changes us from the inside out – or at least starts that process before it slips back into Capricorn on June 11.

In January 2024, Pluto enters Aquarius again and this time sticks around for 20 years, until 2044. So think of these 10 weeks or so as a glimpse of your personal future – and our collective future as a democracy. My hope is that the transit will be like the Broadway musical Hair:

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

But if this is the beginning of the Aquarian age, it doesn’t have much to do with the moon in the 7th house or Jupiter aligning with Mars.

It has Pluto, a planet demoted to an asteroid by astronomers, turning on the light and love in our personal and collective lives by transforming us from the inside out. But what do we have to experience to get to that point?

It’s going to be an intriguing journey.

PS A week after Pluto entered Aquarius, trump was indicted. Nice beginning to this transit!