Pluto in Capricorn Themes

Capricorn rules the knees. As Pluto has entered, exited and finally re-entered Capricorn this year, I have been through a process of sorting out my knees. I’m loathe to admit it, but I’m a bit flat-footed, and over the years my joints had compensated for this – giving me, so I’m told, a hip-swinging feminine gait from the rear! But that is now all in the past, and as Pluto approaches my Capricorn Mars, I am at last starting to walk like a man!

I’d started getting a lot of pain in my knees, and the doctor thought I should just bust my way through it. I wasn’t impressed, and I persuaded him to book me in to see the physio. She gave me a load of correctional exercises, and I said I’m not doing them for the rest of my life. She did say, however, that there is such a thing as a podiatrist, who specialises in feet, and I said yes, that’s what I need. The podiatrist cautiously gave me some raised insoles, and I said raise them as much as you can, and she went all cautious on me again, but agreed. 6 months later, just as Pluto finally entered Capricorn, I noticed that my knees don’t hurt any more. I am obviously deeply attuned to the zeitgeist!

I am not the only person so attuned. Pluto in Capricorn is also about control by the government (Capricorn) of private information (Pluto), as well as general control-freakery (Pluto) by the authorities (Capricorn). In the UK, Parliament is currently up in arms because the police raided not just the home and constituency office of an MP, but his office within Parliament. They also arrested him. This was on 27 Nov, the day Pluto re-entered Capricorn. The arrest and search was on suspicion of "aiding and abetting misconduct in public office" and "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office", in relation to an investigation into unauthorised disclosure of confidential material from within the Home Office.

In other words, Damian Green – the shadow immigration minister - was using leaked information to hold the government to account, which is a necessary part of our democracy. Gordon Brown, the PM, made his name as a young MP through using leaked information. In the 1930s, Winston Churchill, who was then in the political wilderness, used leaked information from the Foreign Office to repeatedly warn Parliament about German re-armament. His source was eventually discovered and came to a sorry end.

So everyone is finding this arrest bizarre. MPs are enraged at having had the police on their premises, particularly as it has turned out that they did not have a search warrant and could have been turned away.

Who is Pluto and who is Capricorn is hard to say here, but it is an interesting twist on the theme. Damian Green has Sun in Capricorn opposite Uranus, so you can see the event as an externalisation of a tension in his chart between supporting the establishment (Capricorn) and freedom/rebellion (Uranus).

Even more bizarre is that 2 days before Pluto left Capricorn in June, the shadow Home Secretary David Davis resigned as an MP, and stood for immediate re-election, all in the cause of a wider debate on the single issue of erosion of civil liberties. This was also a Pluto in Capricorn issue, and like Damian Green, David Davis has Sun in Capricorn opposite Uranus! In Davis’ case, however, he made the event happen, rather than have it come to him.

Another part of the Pluto in Capricorn flurry has been the landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights this week that British police were wrong to retain the DNA of 2 young men who were subsequently cleared of any crimes. British police have DNA samples from 4.5 million people, and it will have huge implications for their database.

Many people are strongly against this database, seeing it as an invasion of people’s privacy. Exactly how it violates people’s privacy is never said. I have a bit of a gut reaction against my DNA being on the database (it isn’t on it), but I find my reaction hard to justify. I think it is no different to officialdom having your name, date of birth, marital status, employment, home address etc etc. I can see the database being enormously helpful in fighting crime. Like the protests against GM food, speed cameras, and fox-hunting (both sides), the issue is driven one-sidedly by emotion over reason.

I think if the authorities want to victimise someone and invade their privacy, they don’t need a DNA database to do it. They can do it anyway. The issue is how much that sort of abuse goes on, not the particular means by which they do it.

I suppose if I had a reservation it would be that the government has shown itself to be spectacularly incompetent at guarding the details they have on people. They get lost in the post, left on trains, in cars etc. As the understanding of DNA progresses, you wouldn't want this information leaking out to the highest bidder.

All the same, as I've said before, I would prefer the government having any amount of information on me than living in a traditional small village where everyone knew my business.

Finally a few points from one of my readers, Geoff King, taking a historical perspective on Pluto in Capricorn:

The last time but one was 1516 to 1532 . During that time two very Pluto in Sag things happened. One was the reformation, the other the dissolution of the monasteries. We can forget nowadays that the Monasteries were a key economic feature of life at that time, with vast wealth bequeathed to them over the preceding centuries and something like 1 in every 500 males living in them.

The message then was that the traditional Capricornian authority was being Pluto-ed.

The next Pluto in Cap was 1762 to 1778. That was the start of the industrial revolution and the way I would interpret that is that up to that point the traditional authority (Cap) based itself on land. There just weren’t many other ways to gain wealth in Britain prior to 1762 other than by owning land. Then Pluto comes along and erodes that traditional wealth.

I’m sure we will see something similar this time round, it's just working out which institutions and establishment figures will be eroded. Obviously banks are very Capricorn but I think also the shift of power from West to East is another manifestation. I’m sure the Royal family will come under attack too but I’m sure there are other things I’m missing from this.

One thing that surprised me is that I expected Pluto in Cap to mean that we realise commodities like oil and metals are finite but so far the values of these things is going down rather than up.