Is There Hope for Humanity?
Pluto in Aquarius and the Death of Exceptionalism
Aquarius, ruled by disruptive Uranus in modern astrology, is often associated with rebellion on a personal level and revolution on a social scale. Pluto has recently entered Aquarius, where it will stay for the next 20 years, with the exception of a brief retrograde back into Capricorn from September 1 to November 19 (election season) of this year. In Tarot, Aquarius corresponds to The Star, a future-oriented card of hope. Pluto, as the modern ruler of Scorpio, has connections to the Death card and is also associated with Judgment (or Liberation in several modern decks).
Many of our conversations now, in February of 2024, revolve around hope (or a lack thereof) and system change, or even explicitly revolution. There’s a way in which the history of revolutions during the last period of Pluto in Aquarius (1778-1798) are referenced in order to point to the inevitability of revolution during this current period of Pluto in Aquarius. There’s a feeling of hopeful, if trepidatious, waiting -- along with hopeless despair when the revolutionary change that’s expected doesn’t seem to be arriving. I’ve begun to see this sentiment reflected in collective expressions and memes as “we’re all just waiting to see who’s going to go first.”
One of the reasons I draw on history when I read Tarot is to ground it in reality. Most of us who have been reading for a long time have personal life experiences that we’ve collected around the archetypes, both to better understand the cards and in turn to better understand our experiences. If we read for others, we also have other people’s personal experiences in our memory when we draw the cards, shaping the meaning we make of them. I like to consciously and intentionally add historical events, movements, and lessons into the library of experiences that collect around the archetypes so that “Emperor” energy, for example, doesn’t become too abstract. We can think about real Emperors and Kings, and their political descendants, and see the effect of their behavior in practical reality. We can also imagine what a more liberated version of the Emperor card might be – our imaginations are invaluable tools for building a better world. But I think we also sometimes miss the fact that there have been living examples that give glimpses of the futures we want. Those histories are often buried, but we can revive them and draw lessons from them, too, as we use the cards. For example, a nonhierarchical, non-patriarchal version of Emperor energy doesn’t have to be a total abstraction. In my book, I talked about the Gulabi Gang, a group of women who beat men who were abusing their wives in order to set and enforce a community boundary, as an example of what Emperor energy can also look like in addition to the examples of tyrants we’re used to seeing – not to idealize any particular group, but to have more iterations of the archetype, grounded in history, that we can learn from.
Like when we think of the Emperor only as men abusing power over others, when we think of Aquarius only as revolution, or only as its correspondence with the Star as a miracle we can put our faith in, then we are limiting our own agency. Our agency is already limited: by other people, by oppression, by the spirit-world, Universe, or Fate; all kinds of limitations. Magic and divination give us the ability to expand the furthest edge of our agency just a bit. I’m interested in using them in a way that empowers us collectively, and I think that often means facing some hard truths – both internal and external truths. I’m seeing a lot of learned helplessness play out in readings of Aquarius and Star energy, as if there will be some divine intervention that will save us all, inspired by a mythologized, romanticized history of previous revolutions. I’ve also seen people saying that this period of Aquarius energy entails a rejection of the energy of the opposite sign, Leo. There’s this way of stereotyping “Aquarius time” as being all about the collective and “Leo time” as being all about the individual.
I don’t see any of the archetypes that way. In my book I described how there’s an energetic current between two cards that share the same numerology, in a very similar way to how there is an energetic current between two opposing zodiac signs. Two opposing signs aren’t “opposite” in that they have mutually exclusive qualities from each other – often they are concerned with the same things (like Capricorn and Cancer both being concerned with security, but from material versus emotional points of view). I think it’s more fruitful to see these pairings as dialectical and co-creative. Conveniently for this discussion, the numerological pair of Strength (8) and the Star (17) are the same as the opposing zodiac signs, Leo and Aquarius.
In my view, both Leo and Aquarius have important things to say about the individual and the collective. Leo is able to shine because of the support they receive from others. They absolutely need the collective to exist as their best self. This is sometimes reduced to “craving attention” in personal horoscopes, but a more generous interpretation is that Leo is aware of their relationship to the collective and appreciates all that they gain from it, and they want to give back through their generosity in sharing their talents. Likewise, Aquarius is not only about selfless humanitarianism. The story of Aquarius is the Biblical story of Noah’s Flood, drawn from the ancient Sumerian story where the sea-goat god Enki helped save one human when Enlil the storm god was annoyed and wanted to wipe out humanity. Being a specially chosen, unique individual is as much a part of the story of Aquarius as the humanitarian effort to ensure that human beings get to continue living on Earth, and we see that in modern horoscope stereotypes of Aquarius being weird, an outsider, or a loner.
I often say that the relationship between a numerical pair of cards or opposing zodiac signs involves one correcting for the others’ excesses or shortcomings in some way. Ideally, Leo’s desire to shine in front of everyone wouldn’t become too egotistical because it would be countered by Aquarius’ desire for all of humanity to thrive. However, we live in a deeply individualistic society under the influence of white supremacy, and I think something of the relationship between individual and collective within the story of Aquarius has been damaged or lost over time (not to everyone, but certainly in the cultural environments where white dominance has the most influence).
One way to read the story of Aquarius is that the person who was spared the flood is exceptional in some way, and deserved being saved because they were exceptionally devoted or they were an exceptional specimen of humanity, while all the others were disposable. I imagine that a more collectivist culture, not as tainted by hyper-individualism, might see it differently: that there was nothing superior or exceptional about the one who was saved from the flood, but that this person could have been anybody because anybody and everybody carries with them all of the aspects of the culture they represent. Every single human being is a “good” example of humanity, and to say that doesn’t devalue anyone or make the claim that they are all the “same” or “interchangeable” – but that if you can only save one, any one you save will have the qualities that are needed to be representative of the group, as well as their own individual qualities, and no one person is superior to any other. I think about this whenever I get particularly attached to the story of an individual Palestinian, whether it’s Bisan beginning her reporting each day saying “I’m alive,” or the specificity of Hind, the 6 year old girl who called her mother for help on the phone when all of the family members around her in their car were shot, and then the paramedics who were sent to save her were killed before Hind herself was murdered. I remind myself that this story is specific to Hind, but it’s also the story of every single Palestinian child – trapped with nowhere to go, surrounded by death and violence, calling for help that doesn’t come. Every single one has their own unique and precious life story just like Hind does, and at the same time, they are each representative of the collective experience.
I believe we were given the opportunity to see the story of Aquarius through this lens of the unexceptional yet uniquely individual representative, in order to begin to divest from exceptionalism, very soon after Pluto’s entry into Aquarius this year.
“Israel” accused twelve members of the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees) of being directly involved with the Hamas operation on October 7, 2023. Those twelve members were immediately fired, before any evidence was provided (and now, several weeks later, know that some of the accused were not employees, some were not alive, and there was no evidence against the remaining ones). Not only were those employees fired, but the United States immediately cut funding to all of the UNRWA, which is the primary relief effort for Palestinians suffering from bombings and intentional starvation under “Israel’s” occupation and genocidal campaign of ethnic cleaning. Understandably, people were outraged that accusations against such a very tiny percentage of employees would impact the entire organization in this way. It’s a logical response to distance the greater collective from the minority that is putting it in danger and say that those individuals don’t represent the whole group. One would think that would be the best way to protect the greater good, by sacrificing those few individuals and letting them go. That is not what happened – even though they were fired, all of UNRWA was still punished, and while of course that is categorically a terrible thing to have happened, I think there’s a lesson we can take from it that is a lesson that we absolutely need to learn for this Pluto in Aquarius period. Just like Leo needs the collective context in order for being in the spotlight to make any sense, Aquarius also needs the particularity of the individual in order for the whole group to have meaning.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Pluto moving into Aquarius is happening during a Strength Year (by the numerology of 2024 adding up to 8, and the eighth Major Arcana, Strength, corresponding to Leo). It’s not enough for us to just look back at the last time Pluto was in Aquarius and say “it’s time for revolution.” I think we also need to look back at the last time Pluto was in Leo, to see how we responded to things that began during the previous Pluto in Aquarius, and to look at what we learned from Pluto’s time in Leo, so that we do things differently during this new period of Pluto in Aquarius. The last time Pluto was in Leo was 1938-1957 – the start of World War II, and then the Cold War. We are very obviously now dealing with fallout from that exact period of time, addressing how Europe “solved” the “Jewish problem” by creating “Israel,” and seeing a resurgence of fascism. Yes, the cults of personality around Hitler and Roosevelt are connected to the Leo archetype, as is our current collective conversation around celebrity culture, but I think there’s more to examine there about the dialectical relationship between individual and collective.
In the antifascism section of my book, I explain briefly how totalitarian regimes purported to be “collectivist” through nationalistic chauvinism, but in reality, they encouraged hyper-individualism, because they were hierarchical and there was a lot of safety and reward that everyone was competing for by being closer to the top. In a system based on the concept of supremacy, like Hitler’s “National Socialist” regime, exceptionalism within the system was rewarded even while a collective identity and collective loyalty was enforced. In contrast, antifascist anarchists tend to respect individual identity and autonomy, but nonhierarchical mutual aid creates a truly collectivist culture rather than an individualistic one. Today, those of us who have been indoctrinated by white supremacist histories tend to have learned that any kind of collectivism is synonymous with losing your identity and with totalitarian control, largely because of anticommunism. Unfortunately, some big-C Communist states did have aspects of totalitarianism and demanded cultural conformity. But that shouldn’t mean a rejection of all forms of collectivism, or even of little-c communism when it is disinterested in nationalism. We have to grapple with the history of distorted collectivism and totalitarianism just as much as we have to grapple with cults of personality and the hyper-individualism of capitalism.
I believe the attack on the UNRWA gave us an immediate opportunity to see how we can approach the relationship between collective and individual differently. When those twelve workers were accused, part of the accusation was that at least some of them believe in the Palestinian right of return. Instead of distancing themselves from the accused, UNRWA had the opportunity to say that the right of return is something that everyone in the organization stands for. Yes, that might have put the whole group at risk, but the fact of the matter is that the whole group was at risk anyway and all of their funding was pulled anyway, and to go down standing proud about Palestinian values could have made an impact. It’s terrible that they lost their funding and I certainly don’t celebrate that happening, but at the same time, I have very real concerns about what it would have meant if they had successfully distanced themselves from their accused employees in order to save the rest of the organization.
I believe the very purpose of the accusations was to set a precedent where individual UNRWA members don’t represent the whole, precisely so that “Israel” could say that any individuals who might end up being charged with inciting genocide aren’t reflective of the whole. I think they wanted the UN to take the stance that these accused employees were “just a few bad apples” that don’t spoil the whole bunch but can be thrown out to preserve the rest of the barrel, allowing “Israel” to say that if that argument works for the UN, then it must apply to “Israel” too. The accusation came soon after the ICJ ruling, which said that “Israel” was plausibly committing genocide but that they didn’t have to stop anything they were doing as long as none of it had “genocidal intent,” and that genocide could be determined later through convicting individuals for inciting genocide. Israel already had the green light to continue bombing, because the ICJ refused to adopt South Africa’s suggestion, which were to cease military operations while a determination about genocide was being made. South Africa also suggested that the ICJ tell “Israel” to “desist” from genocidal acts, and the ICJ refused to use that word, instead focusing on “preventing” them, which signaled that they did not believe genocide was, as yet, underway – and this was further reinforced by the Nakba denial inherent in the document emphasizing October 7 as the precipitating event, ignoring South Africa’s recommendation that the Nakba of 1948 be taken into consideration as context. Far from being a ruling that placed limits on Israel, the ICJ decision allowed it to continue as long as genocidal language was not being used, and leaving a pathway for individuals to take the fall for “acts of incitement” while the setter-colonial project of ethnic cleansing would be untouched and allowed to proceed.
It can be a scary thought for us to think that “bad behavior” from any one individual will mean that everyone gets punished. We’ve probably all been in classrooms where that has happened, and it felt desperately unfair. But we are living in a society that is reflective of what happens when individuals are cut off from the collective, and are sacrificed for the sake of the collective. When individual police officers are “held accountable” for their extrajudicial killing, it preserves the whole system because they are seen as exceptions. How would it look if collectives genuinely took responsibility for each and every individual member? We would not be able to say that mass shooters in the Unites States are “lone wolves” or anomalies that we can’t understand – we would have to see them as a mirror of the whole nation. We wouldn’t be able to say “people are not their governments” because we’d have to acknowledge there is some relationship there – it’s true that we have limited choices and gross power imbalances and most of us don’t like who is in power, and it’s also true that some aspects of our values are reflected in them or we wouldn’t keep allowing them to keep power. Likewise, people try to preserve “Israel’s” reputation by focusing on Netanyahu as a particularly bad individual, but there has never been a leader of “Israel” who has not oppressed Palestinians, and settlers are complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians whether they like the government leadership or not. We as individuals need to take some responsibility for the collectives that we are a part of, and see what we do share with a group (such as our nation) even if we feel like outsiders or wish to distance ourselves from that group. This idea, that one drop of the ocean contains the whole ocean, and the ocean would not exist without billions of individual drops, is a transformation of the hyper-individualist, white supremacist understanding of what “collective” and “individual” mean. It’s the transformation that I think Pluto is asking of us during its entry into Aquarius. Collectivity doesn’t mean sacrificing individuals to maintain collective purity, and individuals don’t have to suppress their individuality to be a part of a collective.
What would we do differently if we weren’t afraid of losing ourselves in the collective, or of being thrust outside it, sacrificed for the “greater good” of the whole? If genuine collectivism meant neither of those things would happen, I think building that reality is where our hope lies, because hope isn’t a “thing” any more than “the collective” is a thing – it is something that we practice together, and hope is something than can only be practiced together. It’s not inevitable, and there is no person or spontaneous revolution that is coming to save us. But we can practice “individual and collective” dynamics differently, and if we can do that, there’s plenty of reason to hope that we’ll be the change we’ve been waiting for.