Pluto in Aquarius & the Multi-Polar World Order
The tectonic plates of global politics are shifting, and astrology affirms it
The phrase “new world order” means enough to our cultural zeitgeist that there are actually multiple Wikipedia pages about it.
For some, the term evokes conspiratorial notions of cabals, small groups of powerful men sitting in dimly lit rooms, smoking cigars and plotting their evil agendas. You might be reminded of Henry Kissinger’s shady foreign dealings, or George H. W. Bush describing the post-Cold War era, or the Cheney/Rumsfeld-aligned Project for a New American Century. The history of the phrase actually traces back at least as far as Woodrow Wilson, who hoped to start a “new world order” in the aftermath of WWI with the League of Nations.
But although they’ve been tossed around by hubristic elites for a century, the words “new world order” still have a certain zing. Maybe that’s because now more than ever, it looks as if the old world order — the one where the west dominates, and the one where the United States has a functional government — is crumbling.
If you look in the right places, people are talking about what’s coming next: a world where military, economic and even cultural power is not concentrated in a single nation, but distributed more evenly between a few. There’s a shift from the uni-polar world order, where the US has been the single ruling power for over three decades, to a multi-polar order in which countries like China, India, Russia, Brazil and other large, well-resourced nations rise to create a new geopolitical balance.
You won’t hear this shift named in any American mainstream media, however. You might see predictions on China’s failing economy or fear-mongering about Russian weapons production, but the western narrative is far from acknowledging the real changes taking place on the world stage. The American elite are following in the footsteps of their predecessors in other collapsing empires by refusing to see what’s happening in front of their eyes — or if they do see it, suppressing the narrative.
Since the public mainly gets its news through sources that pedal elite narratives, and since most of us were educated in the American public school system, your average American also has no idea that this change is taking place. Although it’s getting harder and harder to argue that the US itself is stable, it looks like more dramatic upheaval will be required to shake loose the self-aggrandizing American mythos that most of our population was programmed with from birth.
In the mainly leftist political spaces that do recognize what’s happening, there’s been analysis for years documenting collaborations like BRICS and the Belt and Road Initiative, projects initiated in the early 2010s, that have slowly solidified economic alliances outside of western influence. But it’s not easy to pin down an exact timeframe for when such a change will occur, is occurring, or has occurred.
If we look through the lens of astrology, however… it’s obvious. It’s happening right now.
Pluto’s transition from Capricorn to Aquarius, which started in early 2023 and is complete on Nov 19th, 2024 tells us, with remarkable archetypal accuracy, that the shift from a unipolar to a multi-polar world is happening now. Pluto’s a slow mover, and at this time we’re more in the phase where the old order crumbles than the one where the new order emerges. That could take the next two decades, since Pluto doesn’t leave Aquarius until 2042. But it’s happening, and I think it’s important for Americans to face it. Nothing is ever going back to how it was.
I know that’s a bitter pill to swallow. But if there ever were a time to release your illusions about the United States as an eternal benevolent monarch on earth’s throne, it’s now.
THE OLD ORDER
Despite its recent scientific demotion, Pluto still packs a punch as an archetype, and one of its main themes is power. The year it was discovered, 1930, was the year that scientists first split the atom, a breakthrough that was key to the development of atomic energy and the nuclear bomb. 1930 was also the year Mein Kampf was published in its abridged version, which went on to sell millions of copies. In next 15 years, the Holocaust happened, the bombs were dropped, and the military-industrial complex — the cancerous economy of people who benefit from war — was seeded.
Today, the global war machine (and especially America’s role in it) tracks directly with Pluto. A few examples include the final US evacuation flight from Afghanistan on Oct 5th, 2021, the day before a Pluto station; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24th, 2022, four days after the first peak of US Pluto Return; and Operation Al Aqsa Flood on Oct 7th, 2023, three days before a Pluto station and the final peak of the US Pluto Return.
Back when Pluto last changed signs, from Sagittarius to Capricorn in 2008, the US was implementing “surges” of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, over-extending itself further into the illegal wars it ultimately lost. The ensuing Capricorn transit has corresponded not only with those losses, but all kinds of other cultural, economic, political and military shifts that have cracked both the facade and the foundations of western hegemony. There was the economic crisis of 2007–2008 followed by the Great Recession, including the US government’s bailouts of the big banks, which put a bandaid on the much deeper, festering wound of finance capital corruption. There was Donald Trump’s election, a shocking affront to white liberals everywhere, and then the acute phase of Covid, the 2020 uprisings, January 6th. Each event made America’s dark sider harder to ignore.
In the last few years, with the US Pluto Return in the final degrees of Capricorn, the pillars are fully crumbling. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Gaza genocide both present big challenges to the US-dominated international order. Domestically, the American social safety net is dissolving, and it doesn’t matter who wins the election in November — there’s a slide toward fascism that’s highly unlikely to stop. We can only hope that the chaos of climate collapse prevents it from fully taking hold.
Like other empires before us, we’ve become a hulking military shell with a depleted core: a vastly increasing homeless population, underfunded education and infrastructure, and a healthcare/insurance system that regularly lets people die of preventable causes. The astrology tells us that a threshold is being crossed. America may or may not survive long-term as an entity, but it’s definitely never going to wield the same level of influence on the world stage again.
Pluto is about all forms of power, both hard and soft. This means geopolitics, the ever-shifting balance of resources, economic alliances, military might and cultural cache between different countries around the world. Pluto’s movements have information for us about how power is being utilized, distributed, countered and supported at these global levels.
The sign of Capricorn is associated with structure, hierarchy, tradition, big business, and in its shadow form, the cold calculus of capitalism, where human lives become numbers in massive, impersonal systems. There’s no sign more representative of the “old world order”, in which patriarchy, white supremacy, oppressive Christianity and capitalism itself have left us with rigid, narrow rules, norms and possibilities in which to live our lives.
Meanwhile, Aquarius is decentralized, non-hierarchical, non-traditional, and an inherent rebel. Historically, the last two times Pluto made this transition, major established power structures were coming down: the monarchal colonial structure in 1777–1778, during the American Revolution; and in 1531–1532, the rule of the Catholic Church over the Christian European nations during the Protestant Reformation. 1532 was also the year the Incan Empire fell to Spain, initiating a new phase in the recently born colonial project and the corresponding transatlantic slave trade. Although in these cases the new order wasn’t any less brutal than the old, the overthrow of the tyrannical Catholic Church and the inheritance-based monarchy do represent some kind of progress towards the freedom Aquarius craves.
Today, it’s the capitalist and military tyranny of the United States that can’t hold its ground anymore. But what will rise in its place? And how can we influence it — how can we channel the energies towards a less brutal manifestation?
THE NEW ORDER
Pluto moves so slowly that it’s usually operating below the surface of our conscious awareness. This transition means that in terms of the old order, something is complete: a threshold has been crossed, an old incarnation has died, and there’s no going back. But it doesn’t mean the new order is fully formed, or that anything will change overnight. Both history and the archetype of Aquarius tell us that we have some agency here, and that decentralized, subversive approaches will be our best path forward.
However, some aspects of the “new world order” are already tangible, and westerners would be wise to take note. The best example is BRICS, an economic alliance started in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa after all five countries were categorized as “emerging economies”. BRICS is a counterbalance to the G7, the alliance between the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Today, it’s expanded from its original five members to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE, with many more countries applying to join. BRICS created the New Development Bank as an alternative institution to the corrupt western structures of the IMF and the World Bank, and encourages trade between developing nations in the global south.
So far, the G7 hasn’t been set back by increasing trade between BRICS countries. But there are some crucial discrepancies between the two groups: the current BRICS countries occupy about 30% of the world’s landmass with about 45% of the population, while the G7 countries have about 15% of landmass with 10% of the population. The G7 has the higher combined GDP, with about 43% of global GDP in 2023 compared to about 28% for BRICS. But the G7’s abundance is only maintained by the exploitative colonial structures that will continue to weaken as the global south gains autonomy.
Perhaps the most embedded of these structures is the petrodollar. Formally, it’s an agreement reached between western oil companies, their representatives in government, and the state of Saudi Arabia during the oil crisis of 1974, in which the Saudis agreed to price their oil exports only in dollars, in exchange for American military protection. Informally, the petrodollar became the post-Bretton Woods gold standard, an arrangement that incentivized other oil-rich countries to follow suit and that led to almost all oil being traded in dollars since.
The petrodollar is the reason the US dollar stays strong. The agreement has no technical expiration date and at this point is still broadly intact. Saudi Arabia, which is estimated to have 17% of the world’s oil reserves, recently applied for BRICS but then backed out of joining, and seem to be straddling the old and new orders for as long as possible. But China and Russia have already begun trading oil and other commodities in yuan and rubles, and the concept of “de-dollarization” comes up often in discussions of multipolarity. An international shift away from the petrodollar could cause chaos in the American economy.
Another important development is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an effort begun in 2013 by China to build infrastructure in less-developed countries. In the past decade, China has supported Pakistan, Kenya, Laos, Indonesia, Thailand and others in building roads, railways, ports, energy pipelines and high-speed rails. Chinese workers provided labor for the Panama Canal expansion that finished in 2016, and Chinese companies maintain a presence on both sides of the Canal today. These investments have helped China widen its sphere of influence and position itself as an economic center.
Aquarian themes are everywhere here: alliances in general are Aquarian, and so are the infrastructure networks that link us together, like pipelines, railways, canals and power grids. While none of the BRICS countries are particularly revolutionary (with the possible exception of Brazil/Lula), there is a fundamental rebelliousness needed to defy the violently-imposed will of the west, and that’s also an Aquarian trait, a refusal to fall into line or accept the status quo. Finally, multi-polarity and decentralization of power are Aquarian characteristics, and that’s exactly the direction these alliances intend to take the world.
These new developments are tangible. They’re already in motion. And despite western media’s incessant fear-mongering, the international approach does not seem to be direct pushback against the west or an active effort to destroy it. Honestly, I think the leaders of these other countries are smarter than that. Given the violent and overreactive nature demonstrated by the western empire’s history, they’re making the wise choice to siphon the west’s power economically and culturally, and work towards a more sustainable system while waiting for this one to implode.
PLUTO’S KOAN
Based on its orbit and composition compared to more recently discovered celestial bodies, Pluto’s astronomical demotion from regular planet to “dwarf” makes scientific sense. But symbolically, it strikes me as ominous. Pluto speaks to humanity’s destructive impulse, as well as our survival drive. With enough bombs to blow up the world and a climate apocalypse imminent, we are literally at an adapt-or-die moment. And yet, at least in the west, we’ve tucked the doomsday potentials into a psychological back pocket, just like we’ve decided that Pluto’s not a planet anymore.
In mythology, Pluto has a helmet called the Helm of Hades, that makes the wearer invisible. In astrology and in life, Pluto tends to show up in a similar manner: as something that develops below the surface of consciousness, until it suddenly appears and changes your life. I’m afraid that as Americans, we’re on a very dark Plutonian edge, and we won’t really know it until its fully on top of us. If you’ve been shocked over the past year by the mask-off US support for the Gaza genocide, that’s one layer of Pluto’s reveal. But the imperial boomerang probably has something even worse in store.
While nuclear doomsday is always a potential, the world is bigger than westerners realize, and some of it will remain intact even if Israel and the US collapse in on themselves in fits of collective psychosis. Over the next twenty years, some semblance of a new order will begin to develop from the foundations that are already being laid.
That last time Pluto was in Aquarius, the American and French revolutions wrested power from monarchies and ultimately landed it in the hands of an elite/bourgeois class. Much less discussed however is the Haitian revolution (1791–1804), the first successful large-scale revolt by enslaved people in modern history. The process was long and bloody, and to this day, the colonizers have not forgiven Haiti. But the Haitian Revolution shows what’s possible with Pluto in Aquarius — it shows the truly revolutionary spirit Aquarius stands for at its core, combined with Pluto’s power, resiliency, and inescapable survival drive.
The koan is a concept from Zen Buddhism. It’s a paradoxical statement or riddle meant to be grappled with in meditation, as a practice for getting the logical mind out of the way and opening up to higher levels of awareness.
I think Pluto’s archetype presents a profound koan for westerners wanting to grapple with the looming dark reality we can no longer ignore. How do we show up to this adapt-or-die moment? How do we handle the fact we belong to the systems and culture that brought humanity to this brink? It is possible to channel this energy in a different direction, to be truly transformed by the crisis in a positive, life-affirming direction, to let it awaken our highest potentials?
Maybe more than any other sign, Aquarius knows that interdependence is crucial for surivival. It asks us to move away from atomized structures of care like the nuclear family, and towards community, village, mutual aid, mutual sacrifice. Pluto’s transit here will guide us through both death and rebirth around these themes, no matter where we live on the globe.
I love the metaphor of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly for understanding this process. If we — as Americans, as westerners, as humans — are going through a metamorphosis, we are each cells in the larger organism, and we each have an essential role to play in the transformation. The roles don’t all look the same: the eye cells of the butterfly don’t tell the wing cells, or the liver cells, that they’re doing it wrong. We need to find our individual paths by trusting ourselves, especially our hearts and our bodies.
Moreover… we need to let ourselves die. Just as the caterpillar in the cocoon becomes a ball of goo before its new form emerges, Pluto tells us that we in the imperial core should be ready for our current world to dissolve. Not everything will change immediately — collapse takes years, decades and centuries.
But if we want to channel this energy into the least-awful manifestation, the first thing we have to do is say yes to Pluto — yes to a spiritual death.
Yes to the release of the American mythos.
Yes to the uprooting of the dreams planted in our beings by the capitalist death cult.
And yes to the impermanence of all things — especially world orders.
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