Pluto enters Capricorn. Oh, what does it mean, what does it mean? Like no other, this planet issues the missive: transform and heal. The only way is up – or rather, down. It can feel like a slow descent into the deepest parts of oneself, into a personal hell where we’re asked to give up everything we knew was true for something more eternal.

When you come out of a Pluto transit, you are changed forever. In another state. But during the process you don’t realize what’s happening. Life can get pretty dark. With Pluto, you can’t look ahead. You can’t be impatient. Most of all, you shouldn’t be afraid, because in the end there is nothing to fear. You just have to surrender to the mysterious process of complete and total transformation.

That’s Micheal Lutin, from the article first published in Vanity Fair. He does a fine job of weaving the personal process with the collective one, with an emphasis on what this will mean for America. Every Cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) will eventually feel the personal effects of this planet in a dramatic way, but undoubtedly everyone in America, the country founded with Pluto in this sign, will.

Special Alert: Horoscope U.S.A.
A planetary configuration not seen since 1776 is coming our way, heralding chaos, revolution, and rebirth. Let the stars guide you through the coming storm.
by Michael Lutin VF.COM December 6, 2006

All alone and more paranoid by the day, President George W. Bush is getting it from all sides, and despite his bravado, which some people call a defensive, adolescent swagger, he can’t trust anybody, not even his mother. (Especially not his mother.) His detractors blame him for the state the world is in. Extremists go one further and say the world is coming to an end. Most of us in this country just want gas prices to go down, the dollar to go up, and America to go back to the good old days.

Astrologers can tell you that that’s not going to happen, but that, no matter what, we’ll never go broke either. They can also explain George Bush’s predicament by pointing out that he’s a Cancer, and that in coming years Cancers are going to be challenged to expand their whole worldview. In fact, we can all gain perspective on what is happening politically, culturally, and socially in America by turning to the Zodiac, especially the signs of Cancer and Capricorn. For nations, like people, have horoscopes.

America was born on July 4, 1776, when the Founding Fathers decided it was time to separate from England and start a new life as an independent entity. That makes America a Cancer nation. Cancer is the sign of fertility, and America sees herself as the world’s nurturing mother. But because of the hostile presence of Mars and Uranus in our solar 12th house, we’re the kind of nurturer that can bomb the hell out of a country one day and send over sandwiches and coffee the next. That makes the rest of the world love us and hate us. We’re like the rich relative everybody is jealous of but still visits for the holidays because there’s always plenty of food. It is the sincere and conscious wish of every Cancer, including the U.S.A., to make sure that all those under its wing are safe—and if you mess with them, you must be ready to face the Special Forces.

Security and home are primal drives of this sign, sometimes to the point of clannishness or even xenophobia. America is and always has been about property, taxes, and land ownership. Conveniently, we forget that when the early settlers arrived they took one look around and said to the Indians, “What a gorgeous place you’ve got here! Get out!” Territory is everything, and if anyone tells you that the essence of the American Dream is just about liberty and freedom, don’t kid yourself. It’s about mortgage rates.

But are we, in the end, ruthless imperialists doomed to be brought down by our degenerate culture? That is the question Pluto’s transit through the sign of Capricorn over the next 19 years will answer. It will challenge us as we have never been challenged before—until it will seem that the whole world is against us—but it will also reveal the secret of how we need to change.

The sign of Capricorn has always been strong in our Cancer nation’s horoscope, and it’s going to get a lot stronger. We were born with Pluto in Capricorn, and now, more than two centuries later, Pluto is coming back to the same place. The seeds that were sown back in the 1770s are sprouting at last. That’s how Pluto works, over hundreds of years.

Though Pluto has recently been demoted by astronomers to a not-quite planet, try telling that to any Sadge who’s been to hell and back over the last 10 years, thanks to the passage of Pluto through Sagittarius. The power of the little dwarf is so profound and catastrophic that it doesn’t matter if you call it a planet or not—it’s a killer. But, oddly, it’s also a healer. When Pluto moves into your sign, it threatens to devastate you emotionally and physically, letting you know along the way that you must stop whatever you are doing. However you were conducting business or your personal life, that’s over. Finito. Kaput.

When you come out of a Pluto transit, you are changed forever. In another state. But during the process you don’t realize what’s happening. Life can get pretty dark. With Pluto, you can’t look ahead. You can’t be impatient. Most of all, you shouldn’t be afraid, because in the end there is nothing to fear. You just have to surrender to the mysterious process of complete and total transformation. This is about to happen to the United States as we deal with an opposition of Pluto in the sign of Capricorn to our Cancer sun. And while Cancers and Capricorns will be most strongly affected by this planetary motion, we will all be touched in business as well as in our personal lives, no matter what sign we were born under. Because of Pluto’s slow motion through the heavens—it takes it nearly 250 years to go through the 12 signs of the Zodiac—it rules over mass movements and great political and social changes. So it might be useful to look at what happened the last time Pluto passed over the position it holds now and will hold for the next 20 years.