“We’re building it up
To break it back down
We’re building it up
To burn it down
We can’t wait
To burn it to the ground”
                                                – “Burn It Down” by Linkin Park

The above lyrics so perfectly encapsulate the upcoming conjunction between Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn!  Though we’re a couple of years away from this significant astrological alignment (which occurs on January 12, 2020), this is something we’re going to want advanced notice of for a number of reasons. For the purposes of this post, for now I’ll just say that it be becomes VERY important to be careful of what we’re building up in our lives and how we’re going about accomplishing this during the time period leading up to this conjunction.  Whatever it is, we have to be nuclear conscious that it’s firmly rooted in integrity or a lesson may come in the form of it being razed to the ground. Prep for this now, because if there is a goal you could see yourself committing significant amounts of time and energy into for the foreseeable future (and many will be with Saturn soon moving into Capricorn on December 19), this conjunction may prove a crucial make-or-break point.  Our basic energetic framework has to be rock solid, because if it isn’t we may well discover a fatal structural flaw at this time; a rot that goes down to the very bones of the thing and acts like a cancer.  I do get the feeling of a potential “Sisyphean Task” with this conjunction – for those not familiar with the mythos, Sisyphus was the ancient king of Corinth; an evil man with a horrid totalitarian streak and also a cunning liar who fancied himself more clever than Zeus.  His wicked ways eventually caught up with him and the Olympian gods sentenced him in death to forever roll a boulder up a steep hill in Hades, and just before the boulder would reach the top it would roll back down again.

The myth is applicable to the potent conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn for a number of reasons; the first being that if he hadn’t been such a lying, thieving, rotten scoundrel who had managed to give himself such a bad reputation as to rouse the ire of the gods then perhaps this whole outcome could have been completely avoided.  So the first takeaway is how important integrity is; how there is no substitute for making sure we’re building upon the right energetic underpinnings in word & deed. Ethically funky conduct WILL come back to bite us during this conjunction; particularly if/when it stems from repressing shadow aspects of the Self. Getting real about where we have internal work to do – especially as it pertains to ambition and our drive for success – and checking ourselves BEFORE moving forward with the plan can help us turn those character defects from liabilities into core competencies.  Think of it as an anchor that will help us to avoid the potentially unpleasant side effects of this energy.

Secondly, as illustrated perfectly in the lyrics above Saturn’s conjunction with Pluto in Capricorn has a build/scrap(/re-build?) theme that in and of itself seems rather Sisyphean.  I don’t mean to imply that it’s necessarily futile; rather in the context of there being an up/down cycle of construction/demolition along the vein of Newton’s Law of Universal Gravity that states “What goes up must come down”. This isn’t inherently a bad thing in itself; for example if we depersonalize it a bit we can see how the capacity of this energy to both build and destroy not only old outdated systems (like Patriarchy) but it could also be helpful for constructing more functional and sustainable models of government and business.  Pluto’s motto is “Let go or be dragged”, and if we’re clinging to corrupt non-functional status quos for the sake of “stability” or “normalcy” maybe it does have to reach a breaking point where it gets bad enough to be leveled as a means toward an end: renewal.  We may be very close to this point in the USA – America’s Pluto Return is in 2022, just two years after this conjunction.  What that said, taking it from the macro back down to the micro it’s important to understand that whatever we’re building in the next two years will be subject to this same Universal Law of Gravity cycle; if not directly then by virtue of the fact this conjunction has such deep geopolitical implications for the world at large that it will be difficult to avoid one way or the other.  This doesn’t mean “panic”, but what it does realistically mean is our plan/model should be built for resiliency and mustn’t be so rigid that it couldn’t withstand a restructure of some kind should the need arise in the future. And the important keynote will be having the wisdom to know when to execute that contingency plan, which is a crucial component of risk management.  Holding onto something with an iron grip while riding it off the rails is hardly a desirable outcome – prevent this by pumping the brakes before it gets to this point, even if it means taking a loss. Sometimes the “win” is just in surviving; calculating what is a recoverable loss vs. a total loss and pulling the plug before it all winds up going down the drain.

Third, there is some measure of wisdom in contemplating the nature of Sisyphean Task in the truest sense of the word regarding wastes of time/effort/energy.  Hearkening back to what I said a moment ago about differentiating between a recoverable loss vs. a total loss, there’s wisdom in knowing when to pull out of things that aren’t yielding sufficient and tangible ROI (Return On Investment) as this conjunction draws near.  If we think of the conjunction of Saturn with Pluto in Capricorn as representing the crucial test of a “make-or-break” point mentioned earlier, by the time this astrological alignment perfects in January 2020 if we’ve embarked on a project/mission/goal and have found ourselves sinking slowly into literal or energetic debt without substantial yields it may be time to fold.  It’s about consolidating any losses and taking them as a lesson learned rather than letting them bankrupt us.

11/19/2017