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Sun square Pluto

This is your Horoscope Highlight for the week of April 18 – April 24, 2022, with world-class astrologer, historian, and author of The Cosmic Calendar, Christopher Renstrom.

This week, the Sun in Aries will form its final square to Pluto in Capricorn – a combination that will not take place again in our lifetime. Christopher asks us to reflect on how our relationship with authority has transformed since 2008, and in what ways we have learned to step into our own sense of power.

If you’d like more personalized guidance from Christopher, make sure you subscribe to receive your free Weekly Horoscope so you can read what the week ahead will bring for your sun or rising sign, delivered to your inbox every Sunday!

✨Timestamps

0:00 Intro

0:20 Sun in Aries vs. Pluto in Capricorn

3:46 Relationship to Authority

6:00 Patriarchal Authority

8:03 Nature of a Square

9:25 How Has Your Relationship to Authority Transformed Since 2008?

12:06 Aries and Authority

17:20 Capricorn and Authority

21:43 Ballet in the Context of Capricorn

27:35 What is Your Response to Correction and Authority?

33:35 Being Your Own Authority

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Transcript

This transcript is automatically generated. Some miswording might be present.

Christopher Renstrom 0:12
Hello, my name is Christopher Renstrom And I’m your weekly horoscope columnist here on astrology hub. And this week, I wanted to talk to you about the upcoming Sun Pluto square on April 18. Now this particular square with the sun and Aries going up against Pluto in the zodiac sign of Capricorn is very important this week, because this week is the last time that these two planets will be forming their square in these two respective signs. Yes, this is the last time that the sun in Aries will be squaring Pluto and Capricorn for the next, I don’t know 240 ish years. So it’s definitely the last time that we will be seeing this square in our own lifetimes. Now the sun in Aries squaring Pluto in Capricorn, is what we call an angular square. It involves the two cardinal signs, and it pits them against each other because it is the nature of squares to describe the characteristic of conflict in astrology. In other words, when one planet squares another planet, they are in conflict. We can see this easily because the sun is exalted in Aries, the zodiac sign of spring. So the sun represents everything that’s fresh and youthful, and starting out in life. It’s very robust and full of vim and vigor and energy and sort of marching on out into the world to prove itself to go on Heroic journeys and wonderful adventures. This is the sun and the zodiac sign of Aries. And so it’s going up against it’s forming a square to Pluto in Capricorn. And Pluto in Capricorn has a tendency to sort of bring out the more old crotchety immovable qualities of the sign of Capricorn, Pluto and Capricorn sort of speaks to age and the sense of like, I’m not going to move from this position of power and authority that I have in life. And I will not relinquish this crown that I wear on my head for nothing. Okay, so what you have here is a kind of like, Beowulf motif if you will. Beowulf when he’s younger is the is the wonderful hero who’s coming to the rescue and slaying villains and, and being in doing all sorts of good in terms of liberating his people and rallying them around him. And then Beowulf, when he becomes king, when he becomes king, holds on to his crown and throne, jealously, he guards it jealously, and he won’t sort of give it up. I mean, you’ve seen these characters all the time, like whether it’s

Christopher Renstrom 3:06
the The Hobbit and then the Tolkien stories with with the Lord of the Rings. Or you’ve seen them in Game of Thrones, you know, these kind of crotchety, sort of despotic kings who have, you know, stayed on that throne too long. And you know, you’re going to have to pry that crown and scepter out of my my hands, okay. And, and so the youthful energy comes on in and says, you know, I will defy the and, and they go at it. Basically what you’re seeing is a battle between spring and winter. That’s what’s what’s what’s being illustrated by this particular square. This particular square has been occurring for all of us once a year, meaning annually since the year 2008. Okay, so the square between the sun and Aries has been going up against Pluto in Capricorn since the year 2008. And it’s since the year 2008, that you may have been struggling or dealing with authority issues in your own life very, very much. If you’re born under the zodiac sign of Aries and Capricorn. You’ve absolutely been dealing with authority and what an authority figure means to you in your life and really sort of your your journey on the road of really understanding what authority is since 2008. And now it culminates here with their final square in 2022. So that’s the question that I sort of want to ask you this week. What is your relationship to authority? You know, authority, the things that you can, the thing that you can not live without, and the thing that you have to have in your life. Okay. Who are the authority figures in your life? Is it a boss? Is it a government agency? Is it a client? Is it a spouse? Is it a parent? And what has been your relationship to this authority? And how much has it really transformed? That’s the word that I want to use for you. How much has it really transformed since the year 2008. Again, this is going to be pertinent to people born under the zodiac signs of Aries and Capricorn. But it’s also going to be very pertinent to you, if you happen have Aries or Capricorn prominent in your chart. Let’s say you’ve got Aries or Capricorn rising, you’ve got Aries or Capricorn in the midheaven. You have Aries or Capricorn as as a moon sign, where even if you have an Angular, fourth house, seventh house, these are going to be issues that are going to be very powerful, very, very strong and very resonant for you. And the authority that we’re talking about here is basically a patriarchal authority. It’s a patriarchal authority, because I have found that Aries and Capricorn are two of the three zodiac signs that really speak to the father in a horoscope. What I mean by that is that if you’re born under Aries, Capricorn or Leo, then chances are the father is going to be a very strong and powerful figure for you. And you can have three versions of the Father you can have the heroic father, as established by Aries or sometimes what I call coach dad, the one that sort of like, encouraging you if not coaching you or challenging you to to be the best self that you can possibly be. You can have Leo, which is the benevolent father doesn’t mean that if you’re born under Leo, that your father was particularly benevolent, but that is reference to the time of year which is summer, which is a time of abundant heat and light. And so Leo will often represent the good father, the the Father, that we always wanted to be in our lives, whether that person actually showed up or not. Okay, and then Capricorn. Capricorn is always associated as referred to earlier as the dark father. This doesn’t mean that if you’re a Capricorn, you had a disciplinarian strict remote or unfeeling Father, what it simply refers to as the time of year, the time of year of the winter solstice, which is the time of shortest days and longest nights, which is associated to the zodiac sign of Capricorn. This is a time in which there’s a feeling that the father might not have really been around, he might have been absent physically from the home, he might have been a removed character, or he might have been someone who battled with his own

Christopher Renstrom 7:53
handicaps, his own difficulties, his own trials and tribulations in life, things that would be associated to Saturn, which is the ruling planet of Capricorn. So here we have a square a clash, and a square between planets is kind of like world wide wrestling, if you think about it, okay, it’s the two wrestlers in the opposite corners, and, and they’ve got their face paint on or their, or their outfits or whatever, and they look at each other, you know, and they go rushing at each other, and they Body Slam, or they throw the other one down to the ground or up and over the rails, and, you know, all these sorts of things, and the crowd goes wild. The crowd goes wild, okay, so this is what happens with the square, the two planetary energies go at it, they’re, they’re combative and or they are competitive with each other, neither is going to yield the field, neither of them is going to give an inch, neither of them is going to allow for any leniency as they sort of like fight it out. Okay. And what we do when we look at a square between, for instance, the sun in Aries, and the Pluto in Capricorn, is that even though we begin with this idea that they’re fighting it out that they’re very, very combative, what we do is that we examine what they have in common. And as I said before, what they have in common is the idea of the father. Okay? So it’s the idea of leadership, and it’s the idea of authority, okay? And what you’re going to want to do is really sort of ask yourself, what is your relationship to leadership and authority? And how has it transformed since 2008, and I’m deliberately using the word transformed instead of change, because transformed is a Pluto word. Okay. Pluto is the planet of ordeals, and the transformations that arise from them. So in other words, whenever you have a powerful Pluto passage, and we’ve had Pluto in Capricorn since 2008, and and it leaves in In 2023, whenever you have Pluto very strong, or a very strong Pluto passage, there is this descent down into the underworld. So Pluto with its stay, or its tenure in a sign begins with kind of losing the things that the sign stood for in your life. Okay, so maybe Capricorns toad in 2008. For you, maybe it stood for some sort of financial security or some sort of financial status, there was something about it, that whether you liked your the authority figure in your life or not, there was a solid authority figure that you could rely and depend on. And, and this was sort of a good thing. So Pluto begins with a descent. So so this was the first thing to sort of unravel, or to go or depart or to leave your life, particularly if Aries and Capricorn is very, very strong in your chart. And then you went through this journey, this, this this, either it was the loss of an authority figure, or having to leave an authority figure because maybe they had gotten too oppressive. Maybe it was being kicked to the curb, or the side of the road, something like that. And so what began was was a very deep questioning of what you could trust in your life. That’s not who you could trust. What could you trust? What could you trust in your life? To be a parent to be a father? What could you trust in your life to protect? And what could you trust in your life to secure and what could you trust in your life to stabilize? And then of course, what was your relationship going to be to authority? These are all the themes that would have been relevant since 2008. I start with 2008, because that’s obviously when Pluto entered Capricorn. And these are the things that are coming to culmination right now. Okay, so that’s why I’m asking you to ask the question, What is your relationship to authority? What is relationship to your father? What is the relationship to people being in charge, you have two very different ideas. As I said earlier with Aries. There’s that heroic fresh youth. The sun is exalted in Aries. It’s exalted in Aries. Because of the spring equinox, it begins, Spring Equinox begins the agricultural years. So there’s this idea of youth and freshness and vitality, you know, sort of sort of going forward into the world, which is a very sort of Aries thing, we have to also remember that Aries is ruled by the planet Mars, named after the Roman god of war. So there is a soldierly feeling or soldierly flavor to the zodiac sign of Aries. It’s not like the other two fire signs which which can be more about you know, I’m true to myself or I’m true to my mission in life. Okay, true to myself as Leo and true to my mission in life, the higher purpose that is coming through my life is very Sagittarian Aries by nature, the fact that they were ruled by Mars or looking for a leader, pet peeve. disclaimer here. From from me, I find that I find myself often very perplexed as to why many astrology books will describe Aries as being a natural leader, I’ve actually found the opposite to be true. I think that the idea of Aries as a leader comes from the fact that it’s first it’s the first sign of the agricultural season. So Aries wants to be first and it wants to be out there and Aries wants to take the lead. Okay, that that, to me fits with Aries, but the idea of leadership, okay, which is all eyes on you. Leadership, which is about giving direction leadership, which is about delegating responsibility and and marshaling the four forces and organizing them that I find to not be the strongest of the area’s qualities. Arias wants to be the soldier or the policeman or the Enforcer. It wants to be the person who enforces the will of the person in charge. It wants to be the person who makes sure that things are obeyed and things are done, okay. And areas because of its fiery nature. And Mars is very much about things that are critical, and very much about things that are urgent, and very much about things that need to be done now. Okay, so this is very Aries. So Aries wants someone to follow Aries very much wants a leader or someone in charge. But Aries doesn’t just blindly sign on for this. Aries can get very critical about the person who’s in charge. And if Aries feels for a moment that this person isn’t up to snuff, or that their credentials are a little wonky, or that they’re not showing the toughness and the firmness and the focus that we need from Allah either a leader should be better than who we are. As far as an Aries is concerned than an Aries in true David versus Goliath fashion will take a stone, throw it in a slingshot, whip it around its head a few times and take Goliath out, okay? Aries will be the first one to challenge the leader in worldwide wrestling. They kind of like challenge that duel and take the leader out, okay, and reveal the leader for being this this weak willed person, this person who didn’t have the character, this person who didn’t have the backbone, this person who was inept or incompetent and didn’t have the nerve or the courage to lead, okay, Aries will reveal this, you know, and so everyone, you know, applause Aries Huzzah. Huzzah, that was very good. You revealed this person who wasn’t able to lead that’s wonderful. So Aries, why don’t you take the crown? Why don’t you take the lead? And that’s where you see areas get very uncomfortable. They’re like, No, no, that’s not that. That’s not why I did this. That’s that’s not what this was about. I was fight fighting, just cause and why don’t we give the crown to Susie over here, okay, so, so Aries will go, you know, after fighting fight and overthrowing the tyrant, Aries, you know, with, with people, you know, giving the responsibility of leadership to Aries, well, I have found more often than not go and give that crown or that mentor that position or that place of leadership to someone else. You know, Aries is very uncomfortable in a leadership position, because it knows that all eyes are going to be on it. And it’s going to have to live up to this. And Aries doesn’t always feel like it can. That’s because this is a sign that really emphasizes striving over arriving. Aries is a sign which is about rising to the occasion of a challenge, but it gets very suspicious of those who are in charge. And I don’t know if it’s an elitist thing. Or if it’s a you know, sort of like anti snotty thing or, or you know, people away from the heat of battle aren’t really as real as the people who are involved in it. I don’t know exactly what it is. But this is something that I’ve observed. And so this is something that’s going to be very much a part of the conversation or the dialogue that’s going on. Let’s flip it. Let’s go to Capricorn. Capricorn is the person who’s in charge, and probably didn’t want to be okay. Capricorns find themselves I mean, they’re the mountain goat they’re climbing up, you know, and then we have this marvelous relationship between rams and goats and like they are not the same species. And how does that work out? Okay, but, but Capricorn is the mountain goat it climbs up to the heights. And in everyone who say, Oh, it’s ambitious, it’s driven in its power hungry Capricorns they need to be on top and, and things like that. Capricorns need to be on top. Because Capricorns live with an enormous amount of fear. Okay, they live with.

Christopher Renstrom 18:03
They live they are ruled by Saturn, which rules over fear, chiefly fear, it also rules over things like anxiety and depression and insecurities, Saturn rules over all those things that nobody ever really wants to talk about things that are considered weaknesses, okay, but where other signs can be paralyzed by their fears or hobbled by their insecurities, or wrestle or compensate even for their weaknesses. Capricorn actually is fueled by it. It’s fueled by fear. It’s fueled by weakness. It’s fueled by inferiority complex. These are the things that actually motivate the Capricorn up and over the mountain, in hopes that it will escape or maybe even master these things. It never does, but it sure gets a lot done. Sure, it gets very far, because it’s driven, almost spurred forward by these things. So there’s an unquiet soul with with a Capricorn and sometimes it can veer towards the dark, and sometimes, sometimes it can veer to the absolute light, which, which which, according to Mercy Lea for Chino was personified in the contemplative nature of Saturn, and in its world wisdom of Saturn, which is the ruling planet of Capricorn. So cap so so Capricorns will naturally take on the position that nobody wants. Okay? Capricorn will take on those leadership positions that nobody really wants. Because Capricorn knows that with a leader, the buck stops with you, okay. A leader doesn’t pass the buck to somebody else. A leader doesn’t say this is I’m I’m going to leave now and my country is at war and by I’m going to leave now and watch my country be at war from a faraway place. I mean, this is not what Capricorns are people under Saturn, do. They, they, they might have great fear. And they might have great dread, but they’re not going to let you see it. And they’re going to step up to the plate. And and they’re going to stand in that unenviable position of leadership where you’re standing for something, usually against enormously impossible odds. So again, our question is, what is your relationship to authority, we often think of authority as the person who’s telling us what to do, or, or cramping our creative style or, or a stuffy or whatever. But hopefully, I’ve actually, hopefully, I’ve described to you two signs that have a lot to do with authority, but they have maybe two different relationships to authority than then you might have assumed or presumed at once. One is constantly questioning, the person who’s in charge, although ironically, will follow their lead. And the other one who is questioning their ability to be in charge, whether they’re making the right decisions, but is spurred forward by their fears and anxieties, to do something that nobody else wants to do, okay to take on that leadership job that nobody else wants to take on. And Capricorns don’t do this for the glory, they do it because of the necessity, but they do it because someone has to step up to the plate and to do this. So another quality that these two signs have in common is of ruggedness. There’s,

Christopher Renstrom 21:34
there’s little comfort that both sides have in taking on these particular stances, or taking on these particular positions. I was having a conversation with my husband a few weeks ago, he’s, he’s the artistic director of a ballet company. And, and I’ve talked about the late before on these podcasts. And I’m going to talk about ballet a little bit again today, simply because there is a martial element to ballet, meaning that there is a soldierly element to ballet, what’s what what is asked of the body is more than most people could compare, okay, it’s an athletic demand that’s made upon the body to perform over and over and over again. And like athletes, ballet dancers do this. And they do with the knowledge that their body is not going to be in great shape. As a result, you know that their body is going to suffer the consequences of these demands that are being made upon it. And I’ve also spoken about the Saturnian quality to belay. I spoke about it before in the context of Aquarius, but now I’m going to talk about it a bit in the context, or just sort of bring up the context of Capricorn because Aquarius and Capricorn are both, of course, ruled by Saturn. And what we, what we see here is this idea of discipline, and, and and of severity, austerity, there’s, there’s a discipline, to ballet, the whole point of ballet, is to be constantly critiqued, is to be constantly corrected. Now, we all experience some amount of critique or corrections in our lives, particularly in employment. And, and and, you know, this is how you can do a better job, or might I suggest this or something along those lines. But believe me, we don’t experience it to the extent that ballet dancers do, all right. Even athletes get sort of like yelled out, or whatever, you know, but, but not all athletes, there are some athletes who you know, in which they are critiqued, their performance out on the field or on the skating rink, or whatever it is, is really gone over with great specificity. And that is, that is absolutely what a ballet dancer goes through. Not only are they continually looking at themselves in the mirror, and they look at themselves in the mirror to correct to correct their body placement and alignment as well as to memorize their body placement and alignment because there’s not a mirror in front of them when they’re performing on stage. But, but it’s a constant critique that they also do upon themselves. You know, they’re looking at themselves and they’re looking at the other dancers in the company. And they’re, they’re comparing, and so, something which is a mainstay in the field of ballet is this idea of corrections, which is very Saturnian to, to me, you know, here’s a correction. This is what I need you to do to make your performance better. Okay. And so dancers acceptance, this is a ballet dance of success. This is what being part of a professional company is. And so Oh, you know, the idea that they’re going to get correction is something that they expect. Okay. But on an early morning walk with our dog, you know, Adam was talking to me about the fact that there were three types of dancers, okay. Which I found rather intriguing like, okay, what are the three types of dancers? And he said, The first type of dancer simply takes the correction, okay? They’re like, Oh, okay, that’s what you want. And they, and they take their correction. I’m like, Okay. And then he said, then there’s a second type of dancer and I said, Well, what’s the second type of dancer and he says, The second type of dancer thinks that the correction has nothing to do with them. Think about that for a moment. The second type of dancer thinks that the correction has nothing to do with them. Which I was like, Oh, my God, that’s like, so fantastic. And then I said, Well, what’s the third type of dancer and he said, The third type of dancer, the third type of dancer thinks that if they’re getting a correction, that that means that they are absolutely the worst dancer in the entire world. Okay. So the fact that they’re getting a correction means they’re the worst dancer ever. And I was thinking to myself, Oh, my God, that’s so hysterical. Because I, you know, I’ve seen it over the over the years, and the different companies that Adam has, has, has worked with, but I thought, Oh, my goodness, that so applies to

Christopher Renstrom 26:29
life outside of ballet studio as well, you know, and in our relationships to correction, our relationship to authority. And, and again, I wanted to really sort of frame it in the signs of Aries and Capricorn, you can get, you know, you’ve got 10 Other variations on a theme, but I really wanted to orient it in the signs of Aries and Capricorn, where there is a need for someone for both signs, there’s a need for someone to be in charge, there is a questioning about the person that’s in charge. But there absolutely is. This expectation of correction. This is something that both sides, very much have in common, whether it’s the militaristic background of Aries, or whether it’s the very disciplined and austere background of Capricorn, there is this expectation of correction. And I wanted you to think, or to ask yourself, rather, where do you fall in these three? Now, they’re not fixed, you’re gonna say Christopher, that silly is always liquid or whatever, but, but I really want you to think about it during this time that we’re experiencing the last son and Pluto square. Where do you fall in these three categories? Do you simply take correction? Do you take correction because that’s expected of you? Do you take correction because it sounds reasonable? Do you take correction because your automatic response to authority is like guess and to obey? Do you take correction because it’s your job to take that correction and figure out how that works in your life and you might have a more collaborative or a conversational attitude about correction is perfection something that you welcome you know, are you one of those people that really has no problem with Psalm one saying you know, you could do this better why don’t you try this or that and you’re like, wow, that’s fantastic. I never even thought about that before Are you one of those people? Okay, that all goes in in the first category of takes correction Well, kind of like sounds like a report card from the third grade like Plays Well With Others takes correction about but takes correction well is actually a very valuable and a good thing if you think about it, or are you in the second category? The second category is those who think that the correction has nothing to do with them. So do you just have this natural like oh, that correction was meant for everyone else but not for me? Like is that your relationship to correction? That this just doesn’t apply to me because I’m just a fabulous you know, do you have a disconnect you just don’t hear the correction at all because you’re involved in what you’re doing and and and it just never it just never enters your your your your head? You know, like you don’t you don’t hear it at all? Or do you have this feeling of the correction doesn’t have anything to do with you because someone’s trying to stifle your creativity or bring you down and so you’re going to respond with this correction has has nothing to do with me. I’m what I’m doing is completely my own thing. And I’m so fabulous, or just the correction have nothing to do with you because you don’t hear it. You know, is it correct? you’d made, but you just don’t hear it, it reminds you of something else. And you go to that something else that the correction reminds you of. And maybe you talk to that person about what you heard and what you took in. And the person who gave you the correction might be looking at you like, I don’t think you heard a word that I said, okay, so that can all go in the second category, you know, are you the exception to the rule? is an authority figure trying to stifle you? Or did you just not hear it for various and sundry reasons? And so the correction never gets applied? And then let’s, let’s, let’s conclude with the third category. Those that think that getting a correction means that they’re the worst dancer in the world. Okay, what is your relationship to correction? Okay. Do you tense up? Do you get very defensive? Do you get very afraid? Do you, you know, feel like you’re being called out that you’re being singled out? That that that, you know, if you admit to the correction, you know, if you, if you if you say, you know, what was that again? Or what was that correction? If you acknowledge, okay, if you acknowledge the correction, does that mean they found your weak spot?

Christopher Renstrom 31:24
Does that mean that they found your inadequacy? Does that mean that, you know, you’re going to be ripped to shreds or are critiqued like picking birds? You know, does that mean? Does it open up the floodgate of all of your fears and insecurities and inadequacies? And, and and do you begin to cry and get upset? And do you cry and get upset to the extent that the person has to take back their correction or has to modify it in some way or, or soften it? And, and that’s the only way you can make them stop, you know, type of thing? You know, are you not available for correction? Or? Or does correction, you know, make you suffer all of this all of this turmoil? You know, so, so anyone exercising authority over you? Is there is there’s some great fear that you’ve done something wrong? Or do you immediately go to a place where you assume that you’ve done everything wrong? And you get very upset about it? And and is that done to show that, you know, your, your, your you’ve been properly reprimanded? Or do you get very upset about it? Because that’s your way of shutting out? What the correction is that’s being levied upon you? Does it does it make you feel like, you know, you’re being tested and, and, and, and there’s no trust, and they’re just like, looking for ways to, you know, correct you and to torture you, you know, which is kind of like the flip side of, of category, too. So, what I want you to do in the privacy of your own home, while listening to this broadcast, is really ask yourself, what is your relationship to correction? What is your relationship to authority is authority is something you blindly follow. So authority is something you blindly rebel against, you know, is authority, unnecessary evil? Is authority, something that disappoints you over and over again? Or? Or in your reactions to authority in your education, with authority, in your experience with authority? Have you? Have you moved to a place where you are taking on the authority in your own life? Have you gotten to a place where where you realize that, that you are your own authority? And what does that mean? You know, are you your own authority? Because you’re blocking everyone out? Are you your own authority? Because you’re the best at what it is that you do? Or, or are you your own authority, because you’ve taken in these corrections you’ve taken in these altercations, you’ve taken in these experiences, and you’ve become enriched or marinated by them. So the question that I want to ask you to sort of think about as we conclude for this week is authority. I really want you to think about what authority means to you, and how and how, in these years since 2008, have you grown to become the authority in your own life?