On Participating in the Aquarian Era

In Part 1 of this essay, I explored why the public emergence of generative AI in the spring of 2023 struck me as one of the earliest cultural expressions of Pluto’s journey through Aquarius. Rather than treating that observation as a prediction, I approached it as an astrologer’s field note—a tentative recognition of an historical atmosphere that would continue unfolding over the next two decades.

That raises a more practical question. If astrology can help us recognize the symbolic character of an era, what do we actually do with that insight? This is the question that has shaped my own practice for many years, and it’s what I have come to call applied astrology.

What follows is an example of how I have learned to work with astrology in my own life. I’m sharing my own process in the hope that it encourages you to become more curious about yours.

Recognizing the character of an historical era is only the beginning. Every major planetary transit eventually confronts me with a more personal question: How do I choose to live within it?

This is what I’ve come to call applied astrology. Beyond using astrology as a symbolic language for understanding the world, I have sought to experience it as an orientation practice, one that helps me cultivate the qualities each historical moment seems to ask of me. Predicting the weather is useful. Dressing appropriately for the conditions is where the real work begins.

Applying astrology this way has become an increasingly valuable tool, as my capacity and skill with it has improved over time. But it’s not the only tool in my kit. It forms one part of a much broader ecology of practices that includes philosophy, psychology, meditation, mythology, history, and my work as a writer and media craftsman. Each offers me its own way of understanding my humanity, and each continually informs the others. Together they provide multiple ways for me to orient myself within a rapidly changing world, allowing any single perspective to remain provisional while contributing something meaningful to my evolving perspective. The whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

As I see it, every major transit invites us to cultivate particular capacities. Pluto in Capricorn (2008–2024) asked us to understand systems, institutions, and the structures that shape collective life. It surfaced issues of authority and tradition, ambition and achievement.

Pluto’s journey through Aquarius (2024–2044) will ask something different. It will call for greater adaptability, experimentation, and a willingness to engage directly with rapidly evolving technologies and forms of communication. It will surface issues of equality and idealism, progress and reform. The work will be to cultivate the capacities that will allow us to participate more consciously in the unfolding historical moment we’re living through.

How do I know that? Because I’ve already done it once.

Over the sixteen years that Pluto moved through Capricorn, from 2008 to 2024, it was transiting the Second House of my natal chart. It was the first time in my life that I was able to consciously observe an entire Pluto transit through one house and sign in real time. Rather than simply reading about its symbolism, I gradually learned how to apply it to the actual conditions of my life.

Note: If you’re following your own chart, this is exactly the kind of question I’d encourage you to ask. Where is Pluto moving? What part of your life is due for a transformation? What capacities is that particular house inviting you to develop?

Over those sixteen years, I worked my ass off. I put in the long hours, worked my way up through organizations and institutional structures, gradually increased my responsibilities, my influence, and my compensation. By the end of Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, I had built a career that provided more stability than I had ever experienced before. I was earning more than I ever had, had finally purchased my own home, and had reached a place where I genuinely felt resourced. Looking back, I see those practical accomplishments as inseparable from the symbolic work Pluto seemed to be asking of me throughout that transit.

But approaching that transit with greater awareness didn’t necessarily exempt me from its challenges. Pluto still demanded change. It still asked me to examine my relationship with value, security, and the structures I had built my life upon. It forced me to question my ambitions, my desires for status and wealth, and how much I was willing to sacrifice for financial security. In the long run, what changed was my relationship to the process itself. I learned to accept the loss and found a catharsis in letting go.

Which allowed me more freedom to anticipate what came next.

Earlier I mentioned that astrology is just one tool that I use within a broader kit (my “ecology of practices”) that I use to navigate the course of my life. I’ve always found mythology to be an equally useful tool. For me, the two go hand in hand. I’ve often joked that I’m not entirely sure whether the gods inspired the planets or the planets inspired the gods. And the more I’ve sought to integrate both into my understanding, the more poetic that question has become. To my mind, they both participate in the same symbolic imagination we inherited from our ancient ancestors, where cosmology and mythology were never really experienced as separate ways of understanding reality.

Which aligns beautifully with on of my favorite quotes about mythology:

A myth is something that has never happened, but is happening all the time.”
—Joseph Campbell

That insight completely changed the way I approached Greek mythology. I stopped reading the myths as stories about the distant past and began exploring them as enduring patterns of human experience. They became a living corpus of symbolic wisdom, preserving insights into the human condition that remain just as relevant today as they were to the citizens of the ancient polis.

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about two brothers from Greek mythology: Prometheus and Epimetheus. One was made famous for stealing fire from the gods; the other infamous for opening Pandora’s box.

Beyond the myths themselves, the etymology of these two names is itself wonderfully revealing. In Greek, pro means ‘before,’ while epi suggests ‘after’ or ‘upon.’ Both names share the root mētis, a rich and beautiful word that evokes intelligence, practical wisdom, discernment, and thoughtful counsel. Prometheus is the one who thinks ahead. Epimetheus is the one who thinks afterward. The brothers embody two complementary ways of cultivating wisdom, each offering its own relationship to time. Prometheus prepares through foresight. Epimetheus learns through reflection.

Looking back over Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, we can recognize that what we’ve just been doing together is an Epimethean exercise. We’ve been looking backward over the past sixteen years, reflecting on the symbolic terrain Pluto has already traveled through, asking what life was cultivating through the actual conditions we experienced. That strikes me as one of the unexpected gifts of applied astrology. It doesn’t require us to have been paying attention from the very beginning. Reflection itself becomes a way of participating. By learning to recognize the patterns that have already shaped us, we become better prepared for the patterns that are only beginning to emerge.

So if you’re familiar with your natal chart, you can begin by noticing where Capricorn falls. Which house did Pluto spend the last sixteen years moving through? That area of your life became the symbolic landscape through which this long transit unfolded, inviting a transformation that was uniquely your own. Every chart tells a different story, because every chart begins the journey from a different place. A Pluto transit to the 10th House of your career is going to feel much different than one to the 7th House of your relationships.

This is where the transpersonal becomes personal.

Now, with that part of your life in mind, look back over the years between 2008 and 2024. Did Pluto encounter any of your natal planets in Capricorn during that transit? How did that transformation unfold? Gradually? Through a series of turning points? Did it occur gradually, through a series of turning points? Or through one unmistakable rupture? Maybe it was a strange mix of both at once?

Then consider what changed in you. What structures were built, dismantled, inherited, or quietly outgrown? How did your relationship with authority, responsibility, ambition, security, or resources evolve over that time? Which capacities did life seem to cultivate through repeated experience?

This is the gift of Epimethean reflection. It allows the archetypal pattern to become visible through the life you’ve already lived.

Only after spending some time with those questions would I begin turning toward Aquarius. Pluto has already crossed into a new sign, and with it, a new house in every natal chart. We are all entering the same historical atmosphere together, yet each of us is encountering that atmosphere through a different field of experience.

The question now becomes wonderfully Promethean. Having reflected upon what the previous cycle prepared you to become, what capacities might this next chapter be asking you to cultivate? Where does Aquarius fall in your own chart? Which planets will Pluto eventually encounter there? Hold those questions lightly. Observe. Experiment. Let your own life become the laboratory in which their meaning gradually reveals itself. Promethean foresight becomes more trustworthy when it grows from Epimethean reflection.

Those were exactly the questions I challenged myself to answer as Pluto prepared to leave Capricorn. Looking back had given me a deeper appreciation for the symbolic terrain I had already crossed. It also gave me a growing confidence that the next chapter deserved to be approached just as consciously. Rather than trying to predict exactly what Pluto in Aquarius would bring, I became interested in something much more practical:

How might I begin participating in it?

That question has led me into one of the most surprising and creatively fertile periods of my life, and it continues to shape the way I think, learn, communicate, and create today. It’s a journey I’d like to share with you next.

[End Part 2]