A Reflection on Pluto in Aquarius

There is no more solemn a sound than a neighbor’s rooster heralding the dawn of a celestial upheaval. That was when My Cousin Elmo stumbled into my study, clutching a newspaper and muttering about Pluto “reigning” and Aquarians rising from their watery depths. Or something of that sort.

“Tom,” he panted–for that is what he calls me when he’s not calling me a fool), “have you heard the news? Pluto is in Aquarius! The Golden Age begins!”

Elmo is a man of many peculiarities, but the most notable is his unique ability to declare each Tuesday the beginning of a Golden Age. But this time, he seemed unusually sincere.

I took the paper from him and read aloud: “The 20-year reign of Pluto in Aquarius begins today, ushering in the Golden Age. The last time this happened was during the French Revolution.”

“Well, El,” I said, folding the paper neatly, “if you’re implying that Pluto—a frozen rock the size of an ambitious potato—is capable of fomenting revolutions and birthing Golden Ages, then I must insist on being paid for my time.”

But Elmo was undeterred. “Don’t you see, Tom? This means transformation! Rebirth! Progress!”

“Progress?” I scoffed. “The last time Pluto stirred Aquarius, they guillotined half of France and invented powdered wigs so large they required scaffolding. If that’s progress, count me out.”

Elmo, bless him, ignored me entirely, already lost in visions of a utopia where robots fetched slippers and every man, woman, and Aquarian owned a flying wagon.

The days that followed were a spectacle of celestial hysteria. The astrologers, who previously couldn’t agree on whether Venus in retrograde meant ruin or romance, suddenly aligned, like the planets themselves. They proclaimed the dawn of a new era: an age where humanity would transcend greed, embrace innovation, and recycle with religious fervor.

People prepared for this Golden Age in earnest. Blacksmiths abandoned their forges to dabble in artificial intelligence. Farmers replanted their fields with quinoa, the alleged grain of the future. Even my Aunt Clementine—who once mistook a telephone pole for a prophet—declared her intent to “streamline society” by sorting her knitting needles by planetary influence.

Meanwhile, I looked into this Pluto business. I consulted books, maps, and a parrot at the general store–the parrot was far more informative than the books. I came away knowing Pluto moves so slowly that it has seen civilizations rise, fall, and invent karaoke without blinking. That it happens to be in Aquarius now is less a sign of destiny and more a sign that even celestial bodies occasionally need a change of scenery.

By the end of the first week of Pluto’s “reign,” the cracks in the Golden Age began to show. The farmers lamented that quinoa tasted like soybeans. The blacksmiths’ attempts at robotics yielded nothing but smoking piles of metal, and Aunt Clementine accidentally invented a sweater so itchy it sparked a small revolution at the knitting circle.

Elmo returned to my study, disheveled and disillusioned. “Tom,” he said mournfully, “I don’t understand. The astrologers promised transformation, rebirth, progress!”

“Ah, El,” I replied, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Transformation is a fickle thing. It doesn’t come from planets or potatoes in space. It comes from people doing their best to make sense of the messes they create.” I looked around my study with a guilty eye.

“But the Golden Age…”

“Golden Ages,” I said with a chuckle, “are like Aunt Clementine’s sweaters—nice in theory, but prone to unraveling.”

And so, the world returned to its usual state of hopeful chaos. The astrologers revised their predictions, the farmers returned to their corn, and Pluto carried on its icy way, indifferent to the human melodrama it had sparked.

As for me, I learned a valuable lesson–if you want to survive a Golden Age, keep your head low, your wits sharp, and your skepticism sharper because while the stars may guide us–it’s usually off a cliff.