Last night I started watching the Netflix drama series It’s A Sin that centers around a group of homosexual men and their female friend living in London around the beginning of the first known occurances of the AIDS empidemic, initially called a gay cancer.. The years covered in the 5 episode series span roughly 1983 to 1987. In these years Pluto had begun its approximately 13 year transit through the sign of sex and death Scorpio that it rules (its transit spanned 1983 to 1995).
In my own life those were dark years of descending into addiction and I was often visiting gay clubs and bars and Pluto squared 7 significant placements in my own chart in Aquarius as it also transited over my natal Neptune in Scorpio as it did for all of us born (1958 to 1965)
I did some research then and found an article on the subject that luckily appears on a Word Press sight – Capricorn Research. I was fascinated by the story and chart of the first identified gay male patient to have AIDS and bit flummoxed to read he had had apparently around 2,500 sexual partners. I will not judge but I do wonder what was driving that and he actually was well aware he was a carrier for the disease and went on to knowingly infect a lot of people.
The astrologer explores not only his chart but the chart of the first famous personality to die from AIDs, Rock Hudson.
Its chilling in the series to see young men dying in isolation due to the fear surrounding the disease in the early days but natural to understand.. It does not make easy viewing but I learned a lot from the series and am fascinated to see how Pluto at this time lifted the lid on what were very very taboo subjects..
In relation to some roots of this I think of Pluto in Scorpio during the 1980s also opposing its placement in Taurus the opposing sign related to Venus and and love and relationships during the Victorian era when there was so much hidden sexual child abuse as well as repression of women’s sexuality and the divine feminine and of course homosexuality was considered a crime in those years. We are still seeing the complex outfall of that around sexual abuse in the Catholic Church which also outlawed homosexuality.
If astrology teaches us anything it is of the absurdity and futility of making right and wrong judgements about things. Things happen because they are required to by the Universe at the time. Everything in the Universe is part of God’s plan and our small minded attempts to pick and choose behaviours that fit with our own, merely add to the level of suffering in the world.
Emerging From The Dark Night 