New Year’s Day in the Western calendar always packs a multiple punch. It begins the month, laying out the themes of January. And it also begins the solar year, which means its transits constitute the birth chart of 2024.
The big news for the month and the year – not to mention the next two decades — is the re-entry of Pluto into Aquarius on Jan 20th. The Sun will have conjoined Pluto mere hours before the big ingress, so this should be a red letter day.
Aquarius is the sign that knows that groups can do things that individuals cannot do alone.
Back and forth
Pluto was here last spring as well, dipping its toe briefly into its new home sign. That first ingress excited a flurry of speculation about AI, rocket ships, demographic diversity and other choice Aquarian issues.
Then Pluto moved back into Capricorn, where it has been melting our collective bones since 2008, a job still far from complete. But for most of this year, (1) Pluto will be in Aquarius, the sign of the Future.
The future
Which is a mere concept, of course. As everybody knows, the future never arrives. We live, ever and always, in present time.
But Aquarius specializes in concepts like The Future. It is a conceptual sign, shimmering with mental energy, fascinated with the human mind and its concoctions. The specialty of this sign is the creation of ideas.
Keep this is mind when you read about the wild and crazy things pop astrology says about Pluto in Aquarius. In truth, it’s not so much about “aliens” as our concept of aliens; it’s not about outer space so much as what humankind thinks about outer space.
Essentially, the sign is about ourselves, homo sapiens. It tracks how our perspective on our own species has evolved.
If the Goddess is merciful and we play the transit right, the next couple of decades could break down the worst of humanity’s cherished ideas about our role in the universe, inspiring a more workable view.
New Moon
On a personal level, the lunar cycle is the most palpable of the many cycles at play. The first of January begins the calendar year, but the Moon will be waning. We many not feel an immediate rush of beginningness until the 11th, when the Moon is New.
As the first lunar cycle of the year, it is the ideal time to set your intentions for 2024. Especially if you have natal planets around the 21st degree of cardinal signs, it may feel like things are really getting started.
The Sun and Moon will be conjunct in Capricorn, putting the spotlight on the underlying structures of our individual and collective lives: how we build patterns, habits, and institutions, in order to stay cohesive.
Or at least, try to. If the skeleton of your psyche has been patched together with duct 
tape, and is coming loose at the joints, now is the time to identify where it’s starting to wobble. Commit to building a new infrastructure.
The first test of this commitment will arise at the Full Moon two weeks later, on Jan 25th.
Note
(1) This next round of Pluto in Aqua will take us from Jan 20 through September 1, ‘24. Then Pluto will go retrograde again and head back into Capricorn. Finally on November 19 it’ll re-enter Aquarius for the duration, until March 8, 2043.
