It seems that tremendous change, if not disaster, has come to everyone in one form or another. What gives? Weren’t all these Grand Trines supposed to bring earthly nirvana, wonderful bounty, and make it really easy to get what we want? Apparently not. Of course, I read trines as an ease in expression; I don’t necessarily see this as positive. So, I’m not surprised by the many traumas and major life developments all around me; I am surprised, shocked, even, by the extremity of the manifestations, by the sheer magnitude of the events. We’re not just seeing death in the vicinity, we’re seeing the life-altering death of parents or siblings or spouses; we’re not just seeing the loss of a job or position, we’re seeing the security and income of entire families wiped out; we’re not just seeing the disintegration or severing of relationships, we’re in the midst of bruising alterations of vital relationships, the kind we use as an emotional refuge, now gone from the face of the earth with a tsunami-like influx of change–but what’s really driving this?

The nature of the change shouts Pluto, and with it sitting at 00 Capricorn we may be seeing Pluto’s blunt introduction of what its time in Cap will really be like: paring everything it touches to the bone. Why didn’t this happen when it first entered Capricorn last winter? Possibly the effect was downgraded somewhat, particularly by the encounter of Pluto and Jupiter in December; that set up the origins of what’s occurring now, but so subtly that we didn’t take those tiny tremors for anything we couldn’t handle, and didn’t already have figured out. We met what came, adjusted, and felt we’d weathered the storm, patting ourselves on the back and thinking we’d come out of that with barely a nick–silly mortals!

As I mentioned in writing about this pairing at the time, this conjunction has the habit of triggering major changes that take some time to surface. Look back twelve years, and tell me there wasn’t a similar, irretrievable shift in your world then, too. The unfortunate part is that currently we are both extremely capable of handling these crises and even making the most of them, but we are also simultaneously incapable of discerning exactly where the correct path lies, and fear is a major factor here (Neptune, North Node, Chiron conjunct; Saturn conjunct the South Node; Mars quincunx Neptune/ North Node, Mars opposed Jupiter, for a touch of exaggeration!)

It reminds me of what was my basic theory of the situation on the show ‘Lost,’ before the story shot off in a thousand different directions: I thought each character was in a netherworld where they encountered their deepest, most secret fear; a fear of not being able to step up to the task or the challenge or the responsibility, to be honest, to walk away from the addiction, to keep someone important to you alive and safe, to love. I suspect that’s the mechanism here; we’re meeting a form of our worst fear, and we must call up from our best selves all that the situation requires. 

What can we do to cope? Hang tight, and even if you’re a born pessimist, become both a realist and an optimist; the combination of clear seeing and faith in the positive is in my opinion the ticket out of this. I’m not talking about hope–that’s something we offer when we are able to, or intend to, do nothing–I’m talking about an attitude that trusts the Universal wisdom and the rightness of all things and pairs this with a willingness to do, to be inventive, to allow inspiration, quite literally, welcoming the Universal spirit, and  continuing to dream, to live, to become.