Venus-Pluto and the World Economy

Venus is currently doing a dance around Pluto. On 6 Feb she was at 2.27 Aries, exactly squaring Pluto at 2.27 Capricorn. Last Friday Venus went retrograde at 15 Aries, and will square an exactly stationing Pluto on 3rd April. The final square will be on 2nd May as Venus retraces her steps through Aries.

I think this series of squares will provide a time of reckoning for the world economy. Both planets have monetary associations. With Venus, the emphasis is on our personal attitude to money, money as a necessary part of life, and the sense of pleasure, prosperity and abundance that money can give. With Pluto, the emphasis is on riches and on the power of money.

So these 2 planets making a series of cardinal squares in the middle of the biggest economic crisis for generations has to be saying something.

What has characterised the crisis so far is the degree to which it is out of control. The politicians have to look as though they are in control, and be seen to be taking remedial measures. Obama hit the ground running in January with proposals for a huge fiscal stimulus to the US economy. He got it through, but the news keeps getting worse.

Sometimes life is like that. A ship in a storm just has to ride out the storm, and when it’s over the damage can be surveyed and repairs begun.

Cardinal signs like to initiate action and to control. So a cardinal square from Venus to Pluto is either a dynamic time of seizing control of one’s economic destiny; or it is a time when all attempts to take control are foiled – when the power of Pluto overwhelms the economic strategies of Venus.

In the 11 days leading up to the first Venus-Pluto square, the Icelandic banking system collapsed, and the IMF issued its worst outlook for the world economy in 60 years. This was at the height of Obama’s attempts to get his fiscal measures through Congress.

So I think the theme of this series of squares will be about economic planners bowing to the power of Pluto, rather than gaining any measure of control. The period leading up to the square of 3rd April is likely to be particularly defining. Pluto will be at his EXACT stationing degree – 3.18 Capricorn – when that square happens. So Pluto will be unusually powerful.

And Venus is Retrograde, and will be until 17th April. So this is a time for economic reflection, rather than bold new measures. All we have had are bold new measures for the last 6 months. They don’t seem to be working. As of last Friday, 6th March, a period of reflection has begun. Venus is telling us it is time to stop and look. No more hubris.

The economic responses so far have been worthy and traditional. They are not working because Pluto has entered a new sign, and a different sort of economy is therefore called for. We astrologers can say in broad outlines what that new sort of economy needs to be, that it needs to be more Capricornian and therefore more considered and prudent etc etc. But specifically what is needed right now, I’m not sure anyone knows the answer. The outlines of the new paradigm are still very hard to discern because we are still in the storm, even in the early stages of it.

So I think the message of this very timely series of Venus-Pluto squares is that the economy will continue to appear out of control if we keep acting as though Venus is Direct. Venus is not Direct for now. It is time to stop and to look and to listen for as long as is needed. Then Pluto will be on our side. He will give us the power to see, instead of just overwhelming us.

The US Venus is at 3.06 Cancer. What happens in the US economy defines what is going to happen in the rest of the world. This series of squares, and Pluto’s station, are happening in particularly tight aspect to the US Venus. So this time of reckoning applies very strongly to the USA.

To end on a very different note, Venus is also relationships. Something I have noticed in readings is that many people, even most people have issues to do with being pushed around by partners, letting their partner have their way inappropriately. (And vice-versa, though this is harder to admit to.) Men and women tend to have different ways of doing this or of letting this happen. So Venus Retro square to Pluto (power) is a very good time for reflecting on this in our own lives and making changes.