As we enter the last leg of our journey with Pluto through the kingdom of Sagittarius, we can see the landscape behind us now and take a snapshot of the telltale events and trends, the saga to pass down to our astrological grandchildren, so to speak, the generations of astrologers to come, when we reminisce about this adventure.

Of course, the stand-out event is 9/11, not just the violence, but all that it embodies, i.e., the religious and cultural extremism, the release of long-pent-up fury against capitalism and liberalism.  Odd, how, years ago, Neptune in Sagittarius made for religious fanaticism that turned in on itself, i.e., Jim Jones’ Kool-aid genocide, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker’s fiasco, and the fall of so many spiritual gurus, such as Rajineesh.  This is such a contrast to Pluto’s explosive fury.

As a result of 9/11, the most obvious and practical manifestation of Pluto in Sagittarius is the transformation the travel and leisure industries.

On the other hand, Pluto’s transit materialized in some ironically humorful ways too.  For instance, Daniel Radcliffe, the young actor who portrayed the movie version of Harry Potter, appeared au naturale in “Equus,” playing a deranged adolescent who sexually abuses horses.  How many Pluto in Sagittarius references can you pick out in that reference?  By the way, this play was originally produced in London and on Broadway in the early days of Neptune in Sagittarius!

Furthermore, not only did Harry Potter transform the publishing industry, at least in the children’s division, so did Pluto in Sagittarius.

Although we might chalk up the internet phenomenon to Uranus and Neptune in Aquarius, no other industries were so altered on an everyman basis than sales, marketing, advertising, promotions, etc.  C’mon, admit it; when was the last time you really went out of your way to buy something at a mom-and-pop store instead of going to Amazon.com?

And speaking of sales, well, p.r., where would Paris Hilton be without Pluto in Sagittarius?  She’s the worst of what Pluto in Sagittarius has to offer – the death of meaning in favor of the power of shallowness -- and to add insult to injury, she knows it and is proud of it.  How apt that this one-woman circus would come from an heir to a hotel chain with an international city for a first name!

To boot, who ever thought Donald Trump could become a television sensation?  Well, obviously, he thought so, and Pluto in Sagittarius made for the right time for it.  And apparently, Tom Cruise became an expert in psychiatry as well as childbirth while Pluto was in Sagittarius.  Again, how many Pluto in Sagittarius references can you pick out in those examples?

Spectacle par excellence, however, is O.J. Simpson, whose scandal ushered in Pluto in Sagittarius way back in 1995.  It wrapped up all the Pluto-in-Sagittarius buzzwords and tied them up with a bow – the legal system, racial issues, the power of the media, publishing, truth, justice, ethics, civil rights.

As many astrology students know, when a major planet leaves a sign, it balances, so to speak, the developments from its ingress to that sign.  For instance, when Pluto entered Scorpio in 1983-84, AIDS came into broad public awareness.  When He left the sign, for the first time, effective “cocktail” medications came into existence, not as a cure for the disease, but as a successful management of it.

So, when the brouhaha about the publication of Simpson’s book, “If I Did It,’ took place, especially so close to a recent station of Pluto, it was no surprise to those of us who had been keeping an eye on O.J. through these years.   However, the story is much juicier than we expected!  At the time of this writing (November, 2007), it looks like Pluto is going to usher O.J. where he rightfully belongs—in jail—  maybe not for his murderous deed, but for a dozen other minor crimes.

Well, maybe that legal trial was a little rivaled by the impeachment of Bill Clinton, another social phenomenon that’s music to an astrologer’s ear when considering the indications of Pluto in Sagittarius, representing, among other things, the archetype of the Philanderer.  The various elements of Pluto in Sagittarius are obvious in this example, but what might be a bit obscure is the notion that Nero fiddled while Rome was burning.  In other words, the American public was fixated on Bill Clinton’s definition of sexual relations while Osama bin Laden was plotting 9/11.

Sagittarius symbolizes our Supreme Court, and Pluto certainly put that through the ringer too.  We recently saw the death of Justice Rehnquist, the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor (and the recent announcement of her husband’s love affair with a fellow hospital inmate with Alzheimer’s disease), the debacle of Harriet Miers and the recent steps to undo Roe v. Wade.

Similarly, Sagittarius is related to the office of the Attorney General and, not for decades, has there been such brouhaha about the visibility of these leaders.  Let’s just skip over Alberto Gonzales; he’s cooked his own goose in recent months.  John Ashcroft was a villain right out of Central Casting.  And Janet Reno became quite the celebrity, thanks to the antics of Will Ferrell on “Saturday Night Live,” as well as her handling of Elian Gonzales’ case.  His adventure back to Cuba, in itself, was an example of Pluto in Sagittarius. 

As for injustices to little boys (and some little girls), let’s not even make mention of the Catholic Church, except to say, “Shame on you!  And how dare you use bankruptcy (Pluto) to free yourself from recompense to your survivors (Pluto)!”

If Mother Theresa had lived a little longer, what would she have said?  Her death, however, was another form of Pluto in Sagittarius, i.e., the loss of a heroic or saintly figure.

Similarly, the death of Princess Diana can be considered a form of Pluto in Sagittarius.  In fact, generally, Sagittarius represents the archetype of ‘hero,’ which explains the over-use of that word in these times.  From the victims and survivors of 9/11 to the NBC series, the word ‘hero’ is bandied about so much that it has lost its meaning.  Well, there it is again:  the loss of meaning.

Speaking of NBC, did anyone notice that just as Pluto was transiting out of Scorpio and into Sagittarius, Phil Donahoe retired from his pseudo-psychological TV show, and it was immediately replaced by Judge Judy and a slew of her imitators?

True, there’s still Oprah Winfrey’s psychobabble on television, but it’s peppered with her philosophical acts, spiritual outlook and her book club.  She was fast on the trigger, too, to get James Frey to admit the truth about his memoir, “A Hundred Little Pieces.”  And, wow, did she go into instant damage control mode recently when child abuse was discovered in her girls’ school in Africa!

By the way, memoir as a writing form has been greatly popularized while Pluto has been in Sagittarius, (another transformation in the publishing world), and memoir, itself, can be considered an altered version of the truth or a re-writing of history.  Anybody smell some Pluto?

As for the higher education side of Sagittarius, an actual title has been given to the effort of trying to get a kid into college these days.  It’s called “University Bulge” or “Echo Boomers.”  In other words, the Baby Boomer generation spawned so many children and grandchildren who want to get in to the “right” college that high school seniors have to apply to many more universities in order to be assured being accepted to at least one of the “right” ones.  And of course, we all know that to get a good job, you have to get a good education.  Pluto in Sagittarius single-handedly transformed places of wisdom into very expensive trade schools.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that parents, now, are thinking about their kids’ college acceptances and scholarships as soon as kindergarten, by aiming to get them on track from Day 1 of learning.  That’s interesting connection between Gemini and Sagittarius.

Another interesting connection between these opposing signs is Pluto in Gemini was the Era of Immigration in the United States.  Now that Pluto is in Sagittarius, we are struggling with the immigration issue, especially from our neighboring countries, i.e., Gemini.  Ironically, in New York state , Governor Spitzer’s made a major misstep in fighting for driver licenses (Gemini) for illegal immigrants (Sagittarius), and this was a significant sticking point for Hillary Clinton in a recent debate.

Just to fill out the picture of Pluto in the mutable signs, the current immigration law was signed into effect by President Johnson in the mid-60’s when Pluto was in mid-Virgo.

In the world of business, again, we see that Sagittarius-Aquarius connection in the megamergers, particularly those involving media companies for the purpose of expanding sales, i.e., AOL/Time-Warner, Disney/ABC, Viacom/CBS and NBC with everything.  It will be interesting to see if Pluto in Capricorn will have these giants topple or dismantle.

On a similar note, although there has always been power in advertising, Pluto in Sagittarius saw the magnification of this power in such events as the Superbowl, the gigantic amounts of money paid for advertising spots there, and that those commercials have become a part of the spectacle.

Advertising pulled its power in a different way recently by staging the firing of Don Imus, another scandal emphasizing so many Sagittarius buzzwords, also an interesting connection with Gemini.  And just when Mars went retrograde this month, he went back to work on the air.

Another example of Pluto in Sagittarius in the world business and international trade can be said in a word:  outsourcing.  Well, maybe with another word too:  China.

Pluto in Sagittarius has truly fulfilled the promise of the expression, “global village.”  Despite the very dramatic and dangerous differences that exist between cultures now, we can also see how much we have become One World.  (Last year’s powerful film, “Babel,” exemplifies this theme most effectively).

Perhaps the only way we will resolve our differences and behave as One World is if we have to face some opposition from other galaxies. In other words, maybe human beings, in order to unite, need a common enemy, and where else can that enemy come, but from outer space?  Given the advancements in the exploration of the universe that we have seen while Pluto has been in Sagittarius, this might not be too wild a thought.

Closer to home, meaning our astrology, how ironic that Pluto was dwarfed while in the sign of magnification! On the other hand, if Pluto through Sagittarius is going to transform the Universe as we had known it, then why not start with Himself?

We all know that dwarfing Pluto does not diminish His effect.  Instead, it just makes Him more of an imp, and therefore, harder to spot.  It’s not coincidental that the dwarfing took place in the same era of terrorism, specifically the rise of Osama bin Laden.  Similarly, the upgrading of Ceres from asteroid to dwarf planet represents the rise of the green movement, namely, Al Gore and “The Inconvenient Truth.”

In short order, the meaning of Pluto in Sagittarius has been so much about the death of meaning.  The world has been going for “more, bigger, better, faster,” for centuries, if not forever; but in recent years this dynamic has been at a feverish pitch and we have lost meaning in favor of data, traded in wisdom for information, switched truth for the flatness of words.  It’s no accident that this era ends with the publication of Al Gore’s “The Attack on Reason,” an account of Pluto on the Sagittarius-Gemini polarity.

Ironically, we live in a smaller world with a lifestyle made up of so many more superlatives.  There’s no negative slant intended in that comment.  After all, it’s not Pluto’s job to leave things better or worse, just different.  It’s our job, then, to make “the different” better.

Also, it’s not over until the fat lady sings, so let’s see what Pluto will allow to evolve on this last leg of this journey.  If you keep an eye on the headlines, you can see Plutonian stories are popping up faster than you can say, “Sagittarius,” and with hope, maybe Pluto will leave us with some relief from the terror that has diminished us.

P.S.  Speaking of the fat lady, since Sagittarius symbolizes the opera, go see how Peter Gelb is transforming the Met and bringing music to the masses for all of us to enjoy!

• • •

FYI, Pluto made His initial announcements in Sagittarius with great exactitude.  The first ingress was on January 17, 1995.  Within hours, the great earthquake occurred in Kobe, Japan.  A week later, Rose Kennedy died.

Stations are times when we can see the effects of the planets too.  The first station of Pluto in Sagittarius was on March 3, 1995, and shortly after then, there was a poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway system.

Pluto re-entered Scorpio on April 21, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The last station of Pluto in Scorpio was August 8, 1995, and Netscape went public on the stock market; this is often sighted by Wall Street traders as the official start of the tech stock boom.

Pluto entered Sagittarius to stay on November 10, 1995, and just prior to that on November 4th, Yitzak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, was assassinated, the first Million Man March took place in D.C. and the World Trade Organization went into effect.

So, mark your calendars and let’s see what Pluto brings as He enters in Capricorn on January 25, 2008, makes His first station there on April 2nd, re-enters Sagittarius on June 13th, makes His last station there on September 8th, and finally goes into Capricorn to stay on November 26, 2008.