For the first time since January 1778, the Aquarius Sun will be accompanied by Pluto. The two will enter the visionary, innovating air sign on January 20th, following their final conjunction in Capricorn. Pluto’s last full Aquarius transit took place between April 1777 and December 1798. Historic events of the period include America’s victory in the Revolutionary War, the ratification of the Bill of Rights and the election of the first U.S. President, the instigation of the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the initiation of the Haitian Revolution (slave revolt) and the Irish Rebellion of 1798. During that cycle, the Aquarian principles of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité were prominent and widespread. In 2024, the aspirations of billions of people will be expressed at ballot boxes across the globe. The list of nations where general, parliamentary, legislative and presidential elections are taking place in this single year includes South Africa, Algeria, Ghana and Tunisia, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Pakistan, and South Korea, Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela and the United States, and Russia.
Another influential alignment that took place during the previous Pluto Aquarius transit was the Jupiter Uranus conjunction of 1789. It occurred at 3º Leo from late June through early July, just days ahead of the July 14th storming of the Bastille. On April 20, 2024 Jupiter and Uranus will again conjoin. That earlier configuration placed Pluto opposite of Jupiter and Uranus, while 2024’s alignment will find the conjunction in a wide square to Pluto. Both angles tend to force change, a concept not readily embraced by planets in the staunch fixed signs. None the less, the archetypes of inventive, liberty-loving Aquarius and unorthodox, barrier-breaking Uranus are set to shape the year’s events.
After its Uranus conjunction, Jupiter will move into Gemini on May 25th. From the mutable air sign it will spread Aquarian winds of change, and likely foreshadow Uranus’s coming transit of Gemini, set to begin next year. Jupiter will then form a set of squares to Saturn in Pisces, lasting from August through December. Because those mutable-sign squares will cover such an extended period, they will bring a dissolving quality to the latter half of the year. In short, a pronounced surge towards the new and novel, with freedom and independence at its core, will coincide with the release of outmoded systems and outworn paradigms. In the near term, Mercury, Venus and Mars will also enter Aquarius during the current Sun cycle, and they will each conjoin newly arrived Pluto. Noting where in the natal chart those personal planet connections take place will indicate where the broader Pluto cycle will play out in one’s life. Additionally, locating the point of the coming Jupiter Uranus conjunction, approximately 20-21º Taurus, in one’s birth chart, will shed further light into the exciting and eventful year ahead. The Sun has arrived into original, futuristic Aquarius; it’s time to take flight.