By Cristina Otero

  
         Pluto sits on 12 Capricorn through all of August. The Chandra symbol for this degree is "A beautiful erotic fat woman eating chocolates," and has to do with making a fool of yourself by going too far. Even though Pluto was demoted by astronomers from its planet status, astrologers still see Pluto as the Shadow, that part of each of us beyond our control, the primordial karmic stew bubbling below the conscious persona that we usually identify with and project into society.

            This degree is adjacent to the Destiny Point of my birth chart, the Dragon's Head, or North Node of the Moon. Each of us has a Destiny Point that indicates where we are trying to get to, and, as my astrology teacher told me twenty-seven years ago on the day we met, my destiny is to be a fool. "You're not a self-contained individual so much as a walking Collective, Incorporated. Like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, your highly visible pratfalls illustrate the archetypal journey of the fool."

    

By Bella Volen

       

What Ellias Lonsdale was trying to get through to me that day was that I tend to get myself into messy situations that the higher part of me would avoid if I had a more sedate and predictable destiny. But with that beautiful erotic fat woman luring me on through every pratfall, it's necessary for me to play the fool in order to gain wisdom. By trapping myself in messy situations I put the kind of pressure on me that forces me to dig deeper into my inner resources to have to find the way out. It's not the most prudent or direct way to work out a destiny, but it seems to be the main underlying theme of my life that occurs whether I want it to or not. At least it worked that way through most of my life, though, here on the edge of turning 60 it appears to be starting to give way to an easier way to work things out.

            This theme of the Cosmic Fool runs strong for all of us this summer with Pluto sitting on 12 Capricorn. It refers to that part of human beings that trips itself up in a way that at first seems pointless but later turns out to have some lesson attached. It reminds me of William Blake's statement that a fool who persists in his folly becomes wise. In other words, if you're only half-committed to your folly you won't gain its lesson, but if you go all the way into some crazy idea of yours, it might pay off in the end, and will at least have some valuable lesson attached, that you wouldn't grasp by backing off.

            Because this is a Capricorn degree it has a long-time pay off rather than instant gratification. Just about everything to do with Capricorn takes time to pay off, which means that this summer, if you find yourself tempted to go down some unexpected new path, that could potentially ambush or embarrass you - it's probably the right way to go, but you may not realize the fuller truth of the matter til later.