Pluto in Aquarius: False Hope or False Hopelessness?

The space between false hope and false hopelessness is a chasm.

When I worked to find adoptive and permanent families for teens in foster care, I’d often hear from other child welfare workers, “You’re giving the kids false hope.”

It was always said as a bad thing, as if carefully involving teens in their own permanency planning was unhelpful, unreasonable, or in some way detrimental to their mental health.

For example, one time I was working on behalf of a 16-year-old. At a quarterly meeting with the Powers That Be*, I was told, “Look, this girl’s already been hurt way too much in her life. You can do your job, but please stop getting her hopes up.”

Usually folks had good intentions when they’d say something like this. Despite how frustrating it was to my ears, they were trying to be protective. I got that.

But I also saw that something significant was being overlooked, “I hear what you’re saying, but my colleagues and I establish permanency for the majority of kids we work with. Not everyone, that’s true. But most? Yes. Chances are, I’ll find her an adoptive family, or at least a committed adult who will be there for her unconditionally down the road.”

Taking a fresh approach to ingrained ways of thinking oftentimes goes over like a lead balloon, though.

They objected, “But you’re giving her false hope!”

“Well,” I replied, “you tell me, which is worse: False hope, or false hopelessness?”**

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“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

- Buckminster Fuller

One of the biggest astrological happenings of the decade takes place on January 20, 2024: Pluto enters Aquarius, a sign it hasn’t fully occupied for over 200 years!***

When a slow-moving planet changes signs, it heralds generational shifts, and we look to what was happening the last time the planet was in the sign for clues about what may echo down through history. Themes re-emerge.

Are we seeing any whispers from 1777-1778, when change agent Pluto last entered revolutionary, freedom-loving Aquarius?

In astrology, mighty Pluto represents transformation, power, regeneration, metamorphosis, and mutation. It reminds us of where we feel out of integrity.

Where do you sense the urge to unclog the pipeline of your life? What’s hiding in the shadows? This is a great time for some type of therapeutic deep dive in community with others, if that feels aligned with your path. Where can you shine a rehabilitative light on places normally too shrouded to look?

Authenticity is paramount with penetrating Pluto. Is there something you need to shed in order to heal – a habit that‘s holding you back, a person who treats you badly or disempowers you, or lodged ways of thinking that have you repeating the same unhelpful storyline over and over, like a skip on a vinyl record?

Powerhouse Pluto lets us know: That which is disingenuous must go. What in your life is not serving your growth? Where are you grasping too tightly? Deep Pluto excavates these areas for release; it’s time for the rot and decay to meet the door.

Folks familiar with astrology don’t tend to look forward to Plutonian adventures, because they can also be affiliated with a death and rebirth of some sort. But keep in mind: There can’t be a renovation without first letting go of something.

What needs renewal in your life, and how can you strive for love over fear during this time? If you’re not sure, innovative Aquarius may help you see outside the box.

Visionary Aquarius is a fixed air sign. The fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius) offer unbending, tenacious determination; they generally keep things on steady footing. And the air signs (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius) are connected to information, communication, mind gymnastics, ideas, and perception.

Newbies to astrology often wonder: If Aquarius is the sign of the Water Bearer, why isn’t it a water sign?

When I imagine the Water Bearer, I like to picture a person carrying a shoulder pole attached to buckets of water… with those pails swinging through the air. The Water Bearer carries the water of knowledge to those willing to drink its nectar.

Community-minded Aquarius is concerned with society and the groups to which we belong. It’s a progressive sign that asks us to consider the long view of the future and to connect. It also offers the ability to peek around the corner and observe what others haven’t arrived at yet.

For example, pretend you were born with lots of Aquarian energy. And let’s say that you and a friend are traveling in a car on the highway together, and your friend is driving.

To get to your destination, you need to take the exit two miles away. The car is currently in the passing lane, and as you and your pal chat about the party you’re headed to, your friend is blissfully unaware that the exit is coming up.

Meanwhile, you and your Aquarius planets are thinking, “We should probably get in the exit lane soon!”

You know what’s ahead, even two miles out. Your friend will come to that conclusion eventually. But forward-thinking Aquarius will simply arrive there first, seeing it without effort.

With intense Pluto moving through humanitarian Aquarius, we’re all being asked to peek around the corner with future-vision goggles so that we can take the exit in time, before it’s too late.

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So what’s worse: false hope, or false hopelessness?

In her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön teaches that hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. Whenever we have one, we also have the other, she says.

Further, she encourages abandoning both, so that we can live more fully in the present moment.

Wait… what?

Fear, sure – I’ll happily try to let go of that! But hope?

And yet.

The thing about believing you’re right is that sometimes you’re wrong.

I see Pema’s point: Both hope and fear land us in a minefield of expectations. And attaching expectations to things can be an unfulfilling and dicey game.

As my sister-in-law always says when she hands me a wrapped gift, “Keep your expectations in the basement, and we’ll be fine.”

She says it half-jokingly. But there’s some wisdom there.

So how do we put all this together without getting stuck in disempowering patterns of thinking?

With inventive Aquarius illuminating our future, maybe I’ll hang onto hope, but with the understanding that it might come at a price, with expectations embedded. Pluto is a truth teller, fundamentally.

Consider: Do you have entrenched outlooks that no longer serve you? If so, how can you take your deep-rooted viewpoints and turn them upside down to see anew? And what opportunities do you have to think and build in groundbreaking and collaborative ways, for the benefit of others?

Healing Pluto in socially conscious Aquarius for the next 20 years is asking all of us: Can you be more substantive in how you think and communicate, how you innovate, and how you participate and move through the world?

After all, when you begin to network and help others, a funny thing happens: You may just find that you help yourself, as well.

Essay ©2024 Jen Braun, JJ Boots Productions LLC

Artwork ©Carol Braun
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* Quarterly meetings involved collaborating with many of the professionals in each youth’s life – county social workers, therapists, lawyers, guardians ad litem, foster parents, and more.

** Michelle Chalmers came up with that gem of a phrase! She and I founded Ampersand Families together. To learn about AmperLand’s roots, I invite you to read Saturn in Pisces: Make the Dream Real.

*** Pluto doesn’t change signs very often; it takes 248 years to go around the Sun. Its orbit is elliptical, staying longer in some signs than others. Using sloppy math, it stays about 20 years in each sign, give or take 10 years. Because of retrograde motion, Pluto also takes a few treks back and forth between the sign it’s leaving (Capricorn, where it’s been since 2008) and its new Airbnb (Aquarius). Pluto also had a brief dip in the Aquarian pool last year, from March 23 – June 11, 2023. Pluto in Aquarius is not *quite* here to stay yet: There will be a couple months this fall when it dips its toes back into Capricorn (September 1 – November 19, 2024). Then, on November 19, Pluto re-enters Aquarius for the next 20 years!