Children of the Supernova: Pluto in Leo

Hello and welcome back to journeys! For this months second offering we are dipping into the cycles of Pluto again. In a previous article I have discussed Pluto in Libra and Pluto in Scorpio. This time were going to look at an older generation of Pluto, Pluto in Leo. If you would like to support the future of this journal and these series, please join me on Patreon!

“But it’s been no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race
And I ain’t gonna lose

We are the champions, my friends
And we’ll…“

_ Queen, ‘We Are The Champions’

To place this article in context and to remind you of what I have said earlier in this journal about Pluto and its cycles, please read the refresher below, taken from my article on generational or collective astrology:

“Our interaction with the macro cycle of Pluto (note – not the cycle itself) is contaminated with the karmic consequences of our relationship to nature and the controls we have imposed within ourselves as a result of our awareness of our own impending death i.e. its awesome power is denied us by our attitudes to being a mortal being. It is ‘blocked’, to use a therapeutic term. The blockage is not our fear of dying, that is just one of its symptoms, the blockage is instead about our denial of the place death has in the cycle of life, a denial which obscures our awareness of our continual rebirth as part of an ever transforming universe. We seek to control nature as a way to continually blind ourselves to the stark role death plays in the natural cycle, and into the gap of awareness which we vacated various religious views have sprung up seeking to put a plaster on the ‘problem’ of death. The Pluto macro cycle became saturated with these issues and now seeks to guide us back to a more genuine and sincere acknowledgement of the healing power of death. It’s a little risky for me to say these things as it seems I am blaming monotheistic religion for the problem, but that is not my intent, my intent is to show that when we stopped seeing ourselves as part of nature and instead as something divinely charged to shepherd and control it, we erred dramatically by seeking to remove ourselves from the natural cycle. Suddenly, we were not like the other things we lived with, not like the stars or the grasses, the winds or the valleys, the animals and the rocks. We became in effect possessive of all of them, obsessively so and in a truly Plutonian way.

So the macro cycle is about the cleansing of this blockage and its cleansing leads to a renewal of the human spirit and the resurrection of a new but old awareness of the power of life and death we each hold in our hands but which collectively we can wield to unprecedented effect, given our current numbers. The Pluto macro cycle gradually leads us to the place where we can look upon this terrible power and what we have done with it, so that we can pierce the darkness ahead to choose wisely how to use it in the future. However, like Neptune, the extremity of its orbit leads to a less cohesive awareness of his role in us collectively, which translates to less groups organising and forming through the influence of Pluto in the signs. Movements of his tribes are rarely begun with a conscious intent, instead they arise out of necessities.

The micro scale of Pluto in the signs is uneven due to his ovoid movement around the Sun and its inclination into the disk of the solar system. This means he spends more time in some signs than others:

1882-1914 (Gemini) – 28 years
1912-1939 (Cancer) – 27 years
1939-1958 (Leo) – 19 years
1958-1972 (Virgo) – 14 years
1972-1984 (Libra) – 12 years
1984-1995 (Scorpio) – 11 years
1995-2008 (Sagittarius) – 13 years
2008-2024 (Capricorn) – 16 years
2024-2044 (Aquarius) – 20 years
2044-2068 (Pisces) – 24 years
2068-2097 (Aries) – 29 years
2097-2129 (Taurus) – 32 years!

As can be seen, he speeds through Scorpio but spends almost forever in Taurus, which is a potent clue to his collective nature because it shows that the collective psyche goes through periods where it is greatly imbalanced towards most people being alive with Pluto in Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer. These often turn out to be powerful generations as far as the astrology of Pluto is concerned, with global events that affect everyones lives being more common. This will happen again in the latter half of this century and the first half of the next. Conversely we can say that those with Pluto in Scorpio have far more complex situations to deal with (Plutonically speaking) since they have a wider variety of Pluto tribes to negotiate the future with.

This skewering of Pluto sideways into the orbit of the solar system also means that the only macro cycle effect that we all experience is the Pluto square Pluto transit, but it happens at different times of life for different tribes of Pluto. For example, the square first happened to the Pluto in Scorpio tribe 40 years after they started to arrive, but it first happened to the Pluto in Gemini tribe starting at the age of about 76. For some time in recent decades this aspect has arrived in the mid 40s for most of us, leading astrologers to attach it to the mid-life crisis, when in truth it is not part of that initiation, it is merely that the midlife crisis is emphasised for people with Pluto in certain signs. This is another interesting feature of Pluto’s collective astrology we need to keep in mind as we move forwards in our understanding of his cycle and how it shapes different generations of human beings.

The square itself is about reaching a turning point wherein whatever is rotten or corrupted from the way we have lived our lives is uprooted, sometimes forcefully, and forced into a regeneration. This happens mostly at the individual and personal level where it is frequently a crushing burden because this is a collective force that would best be met by a collective response, which we lack due to our perceived differences at the individual and personal level. The whole problem here is that we lack a coherent and cohesive collective awareness as a species – we divide bitterly on race, creed, gender and sexual identity, religion, politics, every spectrum of life – and so we are incapable of integrating these powerful stages of life, either properly or at all. Sometimes we perceive this at this time, and yearn for a major transformation to change the way things are in the world. Yet this impulse is often ignored, shushed and brushed aside as a childish dream. It would not be so with a tribe of other people at our side openly declaring the same thing.

A key mechanism of the Pluto square is that it causes whatever is corrupt or rotten in the tribes eyes to become a greater threat to its existence, with the sign the square is coming from providing the new threat levels. So for example with Pluto in Leo, the tribe born into the atomic and nuclear age, once Pluto entered Scorpio the threat from these things reached an apex of intensity and danger in the eyes of the Pluto in Leo generation – there was Chernobyl, the height of the Cold War and nuclear warhead proliferation. Then, this pressure is transformed in some way. The Cold War ended, the wall here in beautiful Berlin came down, it seemed for a while we were all collectively turning a corner away from that precipice. Yet we only turn away from those threats when we recognise the corruption within us for what it is, take steps to change it, and integrate those lessons into culture and society. Otherwise, these encounters merely serve to release the pressures after ramping them up to dangerously high levels, but things remain toxic beneath the surface.

Within the micro cycle of Pluto in signs, each tribe therefore has a different agenda and a different encounter with that agenda at a different time in their lives, and some tribes find themselves with smaller numbers and surrounded by a greater variety of other tribes, while others have massive tribes that include almost every adult alive at the same time and who experience greater impacts from major global events affecting more people.

Since Pluto is such hard to handle material and causes such intense inner reflection it is wise if Pluto tribes do not work alone. Working with the Elements at the level of Pluto’s collective astrology seems like the best option because the trine relationship always softens the impact of Pluto enormously. Therefore, the tribes of Pluto in Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces should work together when they can, and the tribes of Taurus and Virgo and Capricorn too, as well as those of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius and finally Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. To get the most out of Pluto we need to soothe him first, we must sing to him to pacify him, because hell is after all hell to rule. This soothing of the Plutonian spirit is easily evoked in a mixture of tribes that all hail from Pluto being in the same Element. Again, the oddities of Pluto’s orbit mean that this will not always be possible, because it can involve too big a time gap in some instances, and this oddity also causes the generation gap that the different Elemental tribes would have to work with to be different. This is another telling way Pluto shapes our astrology at the collective level.”

Iterations of Pluto in Leo occur over a cycle of about 248 years, the time it takes Pluto to travel through all 12 signs. As I have explained above, he will spend about 19 years in the sign each time he comes to visit, which is neither a short nor a long time for Pluto, and in the modern era this will produce a tribe consisting of hundreds of millions of people (global population growth rates spiked in this period, adding about 1 billion people). The Pluto square will arrive when this tribe reach the ages of about 42-45, which is why we have the idea that the Pluto square is connected with mid-life crises – these people are living, while those with Pluto in Aries, Taurus and Gemini are in true Pluto style both rotting in the grave and waiting in the wings to show us that it is not (though some truly ancient Pluto in Gemini people still breathe).

Generations of Pluto in Leo, 1000-2100

• 14th September 1201 – 1st June 1220 (not including 5th Dec. 1201 – 17th Jul. 1202, 16th Feb. 1203 – 22nd May 1203, 19th Oct. 1218 – 2nd Jan. 1219 or 14th Aug. 1219 – 4th Apr. 1220)
• 3rd August 1447 – 25th May 1466 (not including 18th Jan. 1448 – 12th Jun. 1448, 10th Oct. 1464 – 6th Jan 1465 or 8th Aug. 1465 – 9th Apr. 1466)
• 3rd September 1692 – 3rd June 1712 (not including 29th Dec. 1692 – 13th Jul. 1693, 14th Mar. 1694 – 10th May 1694, 18th Oct. 1710 – 18th Jan. 1711 or 17th Aug. 1711 – 17th Apr. 1712)
• 7th October 1937 – 10th June 1958 (not including 25th Nov. 1937 – 3rd Aug. 1938, 7th Feb. 1939 – 14th Jun. 1939, 20th Oct. 1956 – 15th Jan. 1957 or 19th Aug. 1957 – 11th Apr. 1958)
• The next iteration of this pattern begins in 2183.

The current tribe of Pluto in Leo can turn to the tribes of Pluto in Libra (1972-1984, now aged 32-54) and Pluto in Sagittarius (1995-2008, now aged 8-21) for support in advancing their agenda. With the older Pluto in Libra people this tribe finds willing partners and opportunities for collaboration, as well as those who have the secrets they need relating to compromise and balance. With the younger Pluto in Sagittarius tribe they find a group who have a parallel aspirational nature, a seeking for victory and success, and they find a matching strength of will and conviction which can guide them to their lofty targets. The power of positive thinking coupled with forceful drive is extremely magical when these two tribes work together. On the other hand, there are plenty of explosive encounters and volatile clashes with the tribes of Pluto in Scorpio (1984-1995, now aged 21-32) and the coming tribe of Aquarius (2024-2044). The Pluto in Scorpio tribe have a will that is probably even stronger than that of Pluto in Leo but they have a very different agenda, thus there is a clash of stubborn wills that easily becomes destructive. However, the Pluto in Scorpio tribe hold all the occult secrets that the Pluto in Leo tribe need in order to manifest their bright and shiny wishes. They also know all about control and manipulation by despots, and have an innate instinct for rooting them out which benefits the Pluto in Leo tribe.

As I have done in previous articles in this series, below I present to you a list of historical events which have I compiled from my researches on the internet and in my books. This material is provided as a starting point for people wanting to do their own research into the patterns of Pluto in Leo as well as for those interested in mundane astrology. I’m also putting this material out there so the people who are interested in generational or collective astrology can begin to see the patterns that they are working with in their own lives as a result of the historical forces involved.

Historical Events

13th Century: Byzantine emperor Alexios IV Angelos is overthrown in a revolution; conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders (Fourth Crusaders take Constantinople by storm and pillage the city for 3 days); Theodore I Laskaris flees to Nicaea after the capture of Constantinople and establishes the Empire of Nicaea; a leader of the Fourth Crusade founds the Kingdom of Thessalonica; the Fifth Crusade reaches the Holy Land; the Children’s Crusade for the Holy Land is organised (two separate movements of young people, both led by shepherd boys, neither of which embark from Europe, but both of which suffer considerable hardship); the Albigensian Crusade is launched against the Cathars (massacre at Béziers); King Alfonso VIII of Castile besieges Almohad troops in Baeza (the famine experienced in the peninsula is such that neither army is able to fight); Temüjin is proclaimed Genghis Khan of the Mongol people, founding the Mongol Empire; Mongol forces under Genghis Khan invade the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty of northern China (Jin China is overrun by the Mongols under Genghis Khan, who plunder the countryside and cities, until only Beijing remains free, despite two bloody palace coups and a lengthy siege); Genghis Khan’s Mongols finally capture and torch Beijing (the city burns for more than a month); the church in the French city of Reims burns down (soon after, construction begins on Reims Cathedral); most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground, over 3,000 people die; fire breaks out in the Song Chinese capital city of Hangzhou, raging for 4 days and nights, destroying 58,097 houses over an area of more than 3 miles, killing 59 people and an unrecorded number of other people who are trampled while attempting to flee (the collective victims of the disaster are given 160,000 strings of cash, along with 400 tons of rice); King John of England rejects Magna Carta, leading to the First Barons’ War (Prince Louis of France, the future King Louis VIII, invades England in support of the barons – landing in Thanet and entering London without opposition, he is proclaimed but not crowned King of England at Old St Paul’s Cathedral); King John I of England raises £100,000 from church property as an extraordinary fiscal levy; Pope Innocent III declares Magna Carta invalid; fearing a French invasion of England itself, John of England requires every English male over 12 to enter an association “for the general defence of the realm and the preservation of peace”; Pope Innocent III places England under an interdict as punishment for King John of England rejecting his choice for Archbishop of Canterbury (under the interdict, Church sacraments including marriage and consecrated burial are probably stopped); John of England is excommunicated by Pope Innocent III; John, King of England, dies at Newark Castle; a reform of English currency; the Delhi Sultanate begins; first evidence of forced loans in Venice; Philippe Auguste of France grants a “conduit” to merchants going to the Champagne fairs guaranteeing the safety of their travel (the decision further increases the appeal of the fairs to merchants from Italy and the Low Countries); London Bridge is completed; Kamo no Chōmei writes the Hōjōki, one of the great works of classical Japanese prose; Bhiksu Ananda of Kapitanagar completes writing the holy Buddhist book Arya Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita (sutra) in gold ink in Ranjana script; The Macy Jug, from Iran, is made; sugar, an import from the Muslim world, is mentioned for the first time in a royal English account; Robert of Courçon writes his Summa; Gottfried von Strassburg writes his epic poem Tristan; Shazi makes Pen box, from Persia (Iran) or Afghanistan; Cambridge University is founded; Tsar Kaloyan is recognized as king of Bulgaria by Pope Innocent III after the creation of the Bulgarian Uniate church; Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor is excommunicated by Pope Innocent III for invading southern Italy in defiance of the Concordat of Worms and forced to abdicate as Emperor and King of Burgundy; the Dominican Order is founded, according to some sources; the Franciscan Order is founded; Pope lays down the principle that Jews are doomed to perpetual servitude because they had crucified Jesus; a peasant named Thurkhill in England claims that Saint Julian took him on a tour of Purgatory; Dominic de Guzmán claims to have received the Holy Rosary from the Virgin Mary; Hōnen and his followers are exiled to remote parts of Japan, while a few are executed, for what the government considers heretical Buddhist teachings; 4 year-old Guttorm is proclaimed King of Norway; his “reign” ends with his death a few months later; Philip of Swabia, King of Germany and rival to Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, is assassinated in Bamberg; King Henry I of Castile dies aged thirteen from the fall of a roof tile in Palencia, an event which his regent, Álvaro Núñez de Lara, attempts to conceal; death of William the Lion, King of the Scots.

15th Century: Christopher of Bavaria, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden dies with no designated heir, leaving all three kingdoms with vacant thrones; while supervising a siege of English occupiers of Roxburgh Castle, King James II of Scotland is killed when one of his own cannons explodes; Vatican Library is founded by Pope Nicholas V; Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor becomes the last to be crowned in Rome; Pope Nicholas V issues the bull Dum Diversas, legitimising the colonial slave trade; Vlad III the Impaler becomes reigning Prince of Wallachia for two months before being deposed; Constantine XI Palaiologos is crowned Byzantine Emperor at Mistra (he will be the last in a line of rulers that can be traced to the founding of Rome); the last Antipope, Felix V, abdicates; Oirat Mongols defeat the Ming dynasty army and capture the Zhengtong Emperor of China who is officially deposed; Battle of Seven Oaks (Jack Cade’s rebels are driven from London by loyal troops, bringing about the collapse of the rebellion); Nicholas of Cusa invents concave lens spectacles to treat myopia; a major eruption of the South Pacific volcano Kuwae in Vanuatu has a subsequent global cooling effect (the eruption released more sulfate than any other event in the past 700 years); Siege and Fall of Constantinople – the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror ends the Byzantine (or Eastern Roman) Empire after more than a thousand years by capturing the capital, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul); mortars are perhaps used in battle for the first time in this action; the consequent closure of the traditional overland route from Western Europe to the Far East and need to identify new maritime routes leads to the Age of Discovery and ends the Middle Ages; the Hundred Years’ War comes to a close with the French recapture of Bordeaux, leaving the English retaining only Calais on French soil; Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York becomes Protector for the insane King Henry VI of England; the press of Johannes Gutenberg (at Mainz on the Rhine) produces the first printed documents bearing a date; the Gutenberg Bible is the first book printed with movable type; the Wars of the Roses begin; a retrial of Joan of Arc acquits her of heresy 25 years after her execution; according to a legend, the wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz; a monk, Leonardo da Pistoia, arrives in Florence from Macedonia with the Corpus Hermeticum; Corpus Hermeticum is translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino; Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli become students of Verrocchio; University of Barcelona is founded; Machu Picchu (Quechua: Machu Pikchu, “Old mountain”) a pre-Columbian Inca site located 2,400 meters (7,875 ft) above sea level believed to be under construction.

17th-18th Century: The Knights of the Apocalypse (a secret society formed to resist the Antichrist) are formed in Italy; the Bank of England is founded through Royal charter; the Bank of Scotland is founded by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland; the Great Fire of Warwick in England; Queen Mary II of England dies of smallpox aged 32, leaving her husband King William III to rule alone but without an heir; notorious voyage of the English slave ship Hannibal in the Atlantic slave trade out of Benin, ending with the death of nearly half of the 692 slaves aboard; a window tax is imposed in England (some windows are bricked up to avoid it); Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire; after many years of construction, the Potala Palace in Lhasa is complete; gold is discovered in Brazil; in Amsterdam, the bank Wed. Jean Deutz & Sn. floats the first sovereign bonds on the local market; in England, the ship HMS Royal Sovereign (formerly HMS Sovereign of the Seas, 1638) catches fire and burns at Chatham, after 57 years of service; Great Recoinage of 1696; Peter the Great becomes sole tsar of Russia; a famine wipes out almost a third of the population of Finland and a fifth of the population of Estonia; “Mother Goose tales” published in Paris; the 13th century royal Tre Kronor (“Three Crowns”) castle in Stockholm burns to the ground – a large portion of the royal library is destroyed; St Paul’s Cathedral is opened in London; the Palace of Whitehall in London, England is destroyed by fire; first Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth, England, illuminated; Thomas Savery demonstrates his first steam pump to the Royal Society of London; William Congreve’s controversial comedy “The Way of the World” is first performed in London; Lions become extinct in Libya; the Collegiate School of Connecticut (later renamed Yale University) is chartered; English agriculturalist Jethro Tull invents a drill for planting seeds in rows; William III of England dies of complications following a fall from his horse; the revenge of the Forty-seven Ronin; the Man in the Iron Mask dies in the Bastille; Isaac Newton publishes his Opticks; the Act of Union with Scotland is ratified by the Parliament of England; the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain first meets in London; War of the Spanish Succession; the last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan; Great Frost of 1709; publication of the first modern edition of William Shakespeare’s plays in London; Anne, Queen of Great Britain, meets the Four Mohawk Kings.

20th Century: World War II (ending in start of the atomic and nuclear age of conflict); the Holocaust; Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions; establishment of the United Nations Charter and NATO; victory of Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War; the development of radar, ballistic missiles, radiocarbon dating, the jeep and the passenger jet aircraft; the microwave oven; ‘Casablanca’; ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’; era of innocence and children under threat in Disney (‘Bambi’; ‘Dumbo’; ‘Pinocchio’; ‘Alice in Wonderland’; ‘Peter Pan’); ‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; The Diary of Anne Frank; ‘Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller; ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ by Ernest Hemingway; European Common Market; Mount Lamington erupts in Papua New Guinea, killing 3,000 people; television becomes commonplace; invention of the modern solar cell; invention of the transistor; Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth; U.S uses Federal prisons, mental institutions and pharmalogical testing volunteers to test drugs like LSD and chlorpromazine; U.S. started experimenting with transorbital lobotomy; Francis Crick and James Watson discover the double-helix structure of DNA; an immunization vaccine is produced for polio; first successful ultrasound test of the heart activity; CERN is established; NASA is organized; jazz-influenced big band style; crooners; Rock-and-roll; abstract expressionism; Pop art; ‘Rear Window’; ‘The King and I’; musical song and dance films and television shows; Spanish Civil War; a brilliant aurora borealis described variously as “a curtain of fire” and a “huge blood-red beam of light” startles people across Europe and is visible as far south as Gibraltar; oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia; first appearance of Superman; fire destroys 214 buildings in Ludza, Latvia; Black Friday: 71 people die across Victoria in one of Australia’s worst ever bushfires; Texas City disaster, Texas (at 9:15 am an explosion occurred aboard a docked ship and the subsequent fires and explosions is referred to as the worst industrial disaster in America – a minimum of 578 people lost their lives and another 3,500 were injured as the blast shattered windows from as far away as 25 miles (40 km). Large steel pieces were thrown more than a mile from the dock. The origin of the explosion was fire in the cargo on board the ship. Detonation of 3,200 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer aboard the Grandcamp led to further explosions and fires); Port Chicago Disaster (a munitions explosion that killed 320 people); the Windscale fire, the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain’s history, released substantial amounts of radioactive contamination; heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis knocks out Max Schmeling in the first round of their rematch at Yankee Stadium in New York City; a 450-metric-ton meteorite explodes about 12 miles (19 km) above the Earth near Chicora, Pennsylvania; first ascent of the Eiger north face; rise and fall of Churchill; Amelia Earhart is officially declared dead after her disappearance.

There are several themes which emerge from this pattern. Perhaps the most telling and probably the biggest is that Pluto in Leo brings upon our awareness intensely dramatic events – these are periods in history in which extremely dramatic things happen which shape the future for decades if not centuries to come. What this tells us is that Pluto in Leo is connected with our desire for drama on an intense and overwhelming scale. We also see significant and remarkable fires and explosions, progress in the area of the use of light or our understanding of sight, significant transformations involving our obsessive love affair with the power of combustion, upheavals in the command structure (ending of empires, loss of leaders), dictators and tyrants and (frankly) monsters taking the reigns of power, an emphasis on colour in art and movies, themes of death and rebirth in literature, theatre and television, crusades against heresies, the emergence of important cultural centres, tragedies involving young children, themes involving threat to the innocence of the young, major developments in the monetary power system, and it generally seems not a great time to be a member of a royal family. There also tend to be major power struggles going on in these eras – in the past these tended to be religious juggernauts smashing each other across the world stage, but today they tend to be more political. Powerful, charismatic leaders are the norm – Churchill, Hitler, Khan, ‘Dracula’, King John – individuals who take control and make themselves central figures in their nation’s and then the worlds histories. Often they cling to power for extended or notable periods only to meet ignoble ends. The use of power to control individuals by other individuals seems to be a key pattern in the way human awareness has interacted with Pluto in Leo – we see significant events in the history of slavery and dictatorship. Yet it also brings us light, colourful entertainment, dramatic fun, controversial comedy and rock and roll.

So there is a kind of schism or clash in this pattern between things which are colourful bright, cheery and playfully musical and things which are extremely dark, oppressive, horrifying and intensely dramatic. The two themes dovetail into one another to produce a strange era that is both unsettling and entertaining. The world is often upended at the hands of obsessive individuals and launches itself into entertainment spectacles as a consequence. Essentially, this tribe is a tribe that lives for the drama of life and so it lives through extremely dramatic changes and events as a way to feed that hunger. The danger of course is that the drama will get out of control as it clearly did in the 20th century during World War II. The detonation of the two bombs over Japan and the consequent lead in to the age of nuclear power with its promise of perpetual power for everybody set the stage for this tribe and put it on a course which is only just today showing its consequences. They are the children of the supernova. With this tribe, the modern era was launched into its current celebrity obsessed existence, it’s a time when to be born you had to eventually become someone, when every individual birthed felt within their breast a burning desire to succeed and be noted for doing something spectacularly well. Our 15 minutes of fame was promised to us, and people set out to dig up and carve out their own golden statues.

Currently whenever Pluto is in the zodiacal sign of Leo it is placed either in the stars of Leo (when it is in a later degree of the sign) or in the stars of Cancer which inhabit the early portion of the Leo sign. In celestial Leo this intense need to shine is most prominent, while in celestial Cancer it is well concealed. Sometimes he might also appear lower down in the stars of Cetus, signifying a deeper root in the collective psyche that touches upon the very human desire to be collectively extraordinary as a species, the most obvious display of which is in our dominance of other living things. The Cetus seeded Pluto in Leo can be consumed by an irrepressible hunger for more and more, while Pluto in Leo in the stars of Cancer is in danger of repressed urges for control and power, and the celestial Leo placement emphasises a feral and predatory nature in the pursuit of command over ones life (all of it). When Pluto is in the Great Lion his energy is in expression and content far more Leonine than it is when he is in the stars of Cancer, and this Pluto brings with it more than a tinge of compulsive vanity and an urge for power and command over things.

This generation is driven to lay claim over some kind of territory, whether that territory is physical, emotional or mental, and to mark it as their own realm over which they have superior claims. They may feel within them a hunger for taking control and outshining everyone and everything else and may resort to suppressing or hiding this urge or expressing it inappropriately as arrogant complexes. Suppressing or trying to control and wield Pluto energy is absolutely disastrous, an analogy would be the pressure built up inside a volcano over years suddenly exploding. During this current Leo period the power of plutonium (Pluto) was unleashed upon the world in a dramatic, blinding manner (Leo). This caused a powerful and dramatic shift and transformation of the world which politically set up the emergence of powerful and domineering leaders to manage the global threat of nuclear proliferation. However this same influence also empowered the willpower and determination of its generation and gave them the courage to stand up to corruption, social injustices and entropy.

This, as a result, is the generation of individual creative people power. People of this generation have the ability to use their power both positively and negatively. World power and leadership will also be important issues for these people. This tribe understands both the destructive potential of such world power and its possible use to transform and purify. Keywords of Pluto in Leo are therefore the will to power, dynamic outbursts of emotion, the rule by force and tyranny/dictatorship, the power to manipulate, and the urge to control an energy which easily grows out of control. Its more positive potential involves creative transformation, the regeneration of life and its spirit, the power of rebirth and resurrection (awareness of eternal life), all the deeper Akashic magic of Tiphareth and the innate power of all beings to be in command of their own fate and destiny. Its white magic is profoundly life affirming, while its black magic is tumultuous and horrendously explosive.

Dynamic and dramatic but fixed emotions, the will to power, extraordinary achievements, prominence and despotic authorities are all keywords of this Plutonian force. Each child of the supernova must transform the urge to power and control within and without. Their own fanatical pursuits have the potential to destroy them and all that is in orbit around them; they can become so driven to outshine everything else that they can go supernova. Pluto in Leo urges humans to transform the complusive desires of the personality into pure light of being, creativity and a deep sense of fun and pleasure, to make them a powerful and passionate expression of the unique light of being within you. To never be ruled over by the darkness. It is a tribe with integrity, and that is its true nobility. It can squander its glory on lusts for control and power, or it can use it to elevate the entirety of human existence.

As I said before when we look at the events of world history during the time of Pluto in Leo, we see the first atomic explosions and the beginning of the struggle for control of nuclear power. This is very symbolic of the inner struggle which this generation faces. Their task is to transform and regenerate the power seeking drive of the individual self, its arrogant desires, self importance and egomania, thereby to perceive that these power seeking drives are intimately connected with our path of self destruction. This is a powerful stage in the revelation of human nature because it will show that the collective awareness, like plutonium, has the power to shine a Light of unstoppable power or release a dragon of unstoppable, terrifyingly destructive darkness. Just when we think it can’t get worse, it will. Or, just when we think it can’t get any better, it will. The choice throw down here is between self destruction through the seeking of power, command and dominion over nature or self resurrection and rebirth through the power of Light, self creation. This means waking up to the transformative reality that all life is eternal in spirit and that we have a sacred task to honour and celebrate it all, because we and all created things are its eternal children. That’s what the musicals and all the songs and dances are all about. It’s the true crowning glory of Leo.

The pattern of Pluto in Leo brings about an emergence of the true nature of the human race, its inner spirit, especially the dark aspects to it which remain hidden. From this pattern we learn for example what power does to us, how deep and high corruption goes and we can no longer hide or turn a blind eye to any destructive effect we are having on our world through struggles for control or power over resources and our general way of being at the collective level. So we are confronted with our darkness and asked to transform it with Light. This generation must not turn away from what is revealed to them about human nature and must instead find a way to illuminate and literally enlighten it.

As a supreme strange attractor, one with great power to rend and shred our lives if we do not deal with it, Pluto calls upon us to master some kind of compulsion and drive towards an aspect of darkness within us, like Arawn on a wild hunt for lost souls he relentlessly tracks down the parts of us that have become lost and wander, doomed, across an underworld. For Pluto in Leo this is our misplaced sense of being at the centre of things. We are at the centre, but so is everything else. It’s ALL at the centre of the universe from its own perspective, in the core of its being. We have collectively shunted this blinding light into an Underworld where it mirrors back to us as a distorted and repugnant egobesity. Pluto watches over everything in that place. We must face these aspects of ourselves when he brings them to our awareness because if we do not it is equivalent to adding another silo of missiles into our lives to guard against the threat or intrusion by these demons. Collectively, when these demons are repressed across the board for long enough, we see individuals arise who act to bring them to light and force us to exorcise them or perish, individuals like Hitler, Mussolini and their ilk. How we handle these issues has titanic consequences. It is never a good idea just to nuke them. They have to be understood.

Pluto in Leo is descriptive not just of dark urges for control, command, superiority, attention and the snare of hubris but also of fatally romantic approaches to life that can only bring about broken heartedness, regardless of the depth of courage brought to it, because there were bottomless expectations to begin with or perhaps because heroism and bravery are simply not called for. Maddeningly complex and deep issues arise from Pluto wherever he is placed and when in Leo there are games of power and control being played out in your life, either by you or upon you, but they cannot often be simply beaten back with ferocity just as a lion would defend itself, they must instead be examined very carefully for your own involvement and taken as invitations to transform your life. Claiming the moral high ground or taking a superior position like that of a king or queen will only poison relationships. The placement of Pluto in Leo with respect to the rest of the chart can plug all these overwhelming collective issues directly into our own life experience. This can place a fatal strain upon the heart. Before then it can get messy, but it can also be a source of tremendous strength, integrity, fun and willpower if we adopt a light touch with the controls. Be pussycats as much as lions, let the light within you emerge despite any darkness, and believe in yourselves.

Many of those born in this generation will not have been made fully aware of their place in this emerging pattern until Uranus passed through Aquarius, from 1996 to 2004. During this period Uranus made an opposition to this generations Pluto, stimulating an awareness of what it represents and probably causing some kind of unwanted or uninvited upheaval in their lives. However if you found yourself being drawn into an occult or spiritual interest at this time the turning of your life upside down need not have been horrendous and may instead have proved enlightening. It seems to me that in general what occurred to this generation during this time was a wake up call concerning the state of the planet and their role in it alongside more personal dramas which were no less overwhelming at a personal level.

A deep distrust of current leadership is sourced in this generation’s realisation that all political systems are corrupt and all political parties are untrustworthy. They are turning away from the charms and persuasions of charismatic leaders and currently many of them, even though they are of an advanced age (the youngest are in their 50s, the eldest now in their late 70s), are seeking to break up the culture of monopolies and domination by a wealthy, aristocratic elite. The pooling of power by these people into a collective effort will be considerably stubborn and resistant to removal, neither Leo nor Pluto willingly accept defeat or accept backing down once their ire and heart is raised to act. This is a generation prepared to fight and do battle for what it feels is right and honourable and today this quality is being ignited by the presence of Uranus in Aries (2010 – 2019), a factor which brings them and all of humanity to the brink of great changes. Eris in Aries is also stirring the tribes pot right now.

As your generation evolves and learns you will be presented with many opportunities to use your own personal power or to engage in power struggles with others (especially those of your Pluto generation). This only becomes appropriate when you act for a collective purpose and not merely for self interest, which means you must be very clear about your motives when you are tempted by fate to manipulate the outcome of things. You may encounter power struggles as a kind of agreement made between you and others to test one another on your levels of ego attachment and self interest, but also as a means to drive you deeper in search of your own hidden power. Ultimately this Pluto is all about self determination and the right of self-rule and so these situations arise out of a need to display these strengths. Pluto leads you either to deeper and more intense grasping for control over your life or to a place where you yield to the inner Light within you and are transformed by it. When you touch your deepest level of self you will find a Light there which is brighter than 10 billion Suns and it is this Light that rests in the heart of Pluto in Leo.

Keep your love alive!

Pluto is in Leo in the horoscopes of Bob Dylan, Rollie Fingers, Samuel Johnson, Julie Walters, Dusty Springfield, Sir Ian McKellen, Voltaire, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Germaine Greer, Gordon Brown, Chuck Norris, Joan Baez, Tina Turner, George W. Bush, Al Gore, Bernie Sanders, John Lennon, Lily Tomlin, Ringo Starr, Virginia Woolf, Neil Diamond, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, Steve Martin, King Henry VII of England, David Hume, John Wesley, Glen Close, Stevie Wonder, Pinturicchio, Ralph Lauren, Benjamin Franklin, Al Pacino, Simon de Montfort, Christopher Reeve, Billy Murray, Bob Dylan, Pope Clement XIV, Brian Eno, King Richard III of England, Richard Branson, Neil Simon, Jack Broughton (English bare-knuckle fighter who produced the earliest known rules of boxing), Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Mark Knopfler, Zahed Gilani (Grand master of the Zahediyeh Sufi Order), Muhammed Ali, Peter Gabriel, Marvin Gaye, John Cleese, Rumi, Francis Ford Coppola, David Frost, King Henry III of England, Güyük Khan, Möngke Khan, Kublai Khan, Richard Dawkins, King James I of Aragon, Robin William, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Herb Ritts, Terry Pratchett, Harrison Ford, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Matthew Manning, Cher, Filippino Lippi, Elton John, Ian Anderson, Jakob Fugger, William Pitt, Pompeo Batoni, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Billy Crystal, Goldie Hawn, Mia Farrow, Bette Midler, Helen Mirren, Hieronymus Bosch, James III of Scotland, Canaletto, Leonardo de Vinci, Michael Crichton, Voltaire, John Dollond, George Galloway, Faye Dunaway, Michael Moore, King Louis IX of France, Roger Bacon, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, James Joyce, Lou Reed, and Mick Jagger.

(Individuals in bold type have Sun, Moon or ascendant in Leo conjunct Pluto in Leo)