The 1892 Conjunction
The Uranus shift into Gemini ties into an even bigger, more consequential celestial event. Let’s dig into this. In 1892, a conjunction of great significance took place in our solar system. A conjunction occurs when two planets appear to conjoin, from our perspective on Earth. This particular conjunction, between Neptune and Pluto at 7°40’ Gemini, is regarded by many astrologers as one of the defining markers in humanity’s evolutionary story. Because Neptune and Pluto meet only once every five centuries, their union is considered both rare and far-reaching in its implications. Astrologers often refer to the chart of this conjunction as the Chart of Mankind, seeing in it a symbolic indication of the direction in which human civilization, and perhaps life itself, is evolving. To help us process what this conjunction means, we will explain each component to help give an understanding of what their coming together means. So, we will first talk about Neptune, Pluto, and the sign of Gemini, each standing on its own. The two planets - Neptune and Pluto are two of the slowest-moving planets in our solar system. Pluto’s orbit takes nearly 250 years, while Neptune orbits the ecliptic once every 165 years, approximately. For both to meet in the sky once every 500 years means that the slower of the two planets, Neptune, would make nearly 2 revolutions before it meets up with Pluto again. The conjunction is so rare that certain significant contacts with the degree of conjunction can trigger the chart in a way that impacts humankind and life on Earth. As we speak, Neptune is currently in the waning phase of its first revolution since the start of the synodic cycle with Pluto in 1892. It will record its first complete cycle when it arrives at 7° Gemini in 2056, 30 years from now. But Neptune’s current approach to the seed point, forming an aspect that presents a window of opportunity, is an auspicious time, especially when taken together with other planetary movements, such as Uranus’ approach to the 7° of the Chart of Mankind
Cycles Within Cycles
No planetary cycle operates in isolation. Each unfolds within a web of larger and smaller cycles, creating layers of meaning that interact across time. While a complete exploration of every contributing cycle lies beyond the scope of this discussion, we will briefly note those whose influence is especially relevant to the period being examined.
What is Neptune?
Let’s begin with a brief overview of the planet Neptune. Neptune is perhaps the most elusive of the planets because it governs phenomena that are difficult to grasp directly. As ruler of Pisces and natural ruler of the 12th house, it presides over oceans, dreams, spirituality, imagination and creativity, and the vast realm of collective feeling that exists beneath conscious awareness. Neptune is associated with fluids, including bodily fluids, chemical processes, sleep states, and altered states of consciousness. Mind-altering drugs such as LSD, pharmaceuticals like Tramadol, Methamphetamine, locally known as mkpuru mmiri in the Southeast of Nigeria, industrial chemicals used as inhalants, etc., all come under the rulership of Neptune. Symbolically, Neptune dissolves boundaries. It blurs distinctions between self and other, fact and perception, reality and aspiration, and many times, this is what drug users seek in their use of illicit drugs.
But Neptune’s symbolism extends from mysticism, drugs and narcotics to artistic inspiration and oil. Oil lies hidden beneath the earth, often discovered indirectly rather than seen directly, making it one of Neptune’s most literal expressions. Drug abuse reflects the planet’s shadow side: the desire to escape pain, dissolve boundaries, or enter altered states without the discipline required for genuine transcendence.
Politically, Neptune operates through narratives, ideology, aspiration, and perception. Unlike Saturn, which governs through laws, or Pluto, which governs through power, Neptune shapes events through belief. Its influence can inspire collective vision and compassion, but it can also produce confusion, propaganda, unrealistic expectations, and a lack of clarity regarding motives and outcomes.
One of Neptune’s most visible, recent historical expressions occurred during the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn in 1989. Because Capricorn is the domain of governments, institutions, and established systems, when Neptune met Saturn, what seemed established and permanent began to dissolve. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet bloc demonstrated Neptune’s capacity to erode structures, boundaries, and certainties that had defined an era.
For Nigeria, Neptune’s symbolism is particularly important for us to understand because it governs the sign at the highest point of our national chart, which means it is very prominent, influencing our national realities, global affairs and reputation. Unknown to many of us Nigerians, the nation is swimming in Neptunian themes. The country’s history has been profoundly shaped by oil, one of Neptune’s most literal symbols; political ideology, geopolitical significance and petroleum wealth. At the same time, we see Neptune’s more difficult expressions at play: opacity, dependency, corruption, leakage of resources, escapism and drug abuse especially among the youths, unclear political ideologies and national vision and recurring uncertainty about how national wealth should be managed. The promise of abundance has often existed alongside questions about accountability and long-term sustainability.
One of the fascinating things about Neptune is that it rarely asks whether something is true or false. Instead, it asks what people are willing to believe. At its highest expression, Neptune inspires faith, compassion, imagination and creativity, and spiritual insight. Nigerians, after all, are said to be one of the most religious peoples on planet Earth. At its lowest, it produces confusion, addiction, deception, and collective delusion. Understanding the Neptunian energies will go a long way in strengthening the war against substance abuse in the nation.
The Neptunian principle is one of permeability and reach; the unseen hand that influences motives, beliefs, aspirations, and perception. It is the oceans, oil, chemicals, dreams, ideologies, religions, media narratives, and collective moods, and the unconscious that shapes our behavior, our self-undoing, patterns that repeat unawares. It is the domain of imagination and creativity, vision, purpose, hope, compassion, and so much more.
What is Pluto?
Pluto, discovered in 1930 is one of the outermost planets in our solar system. Its popularity was helped by the Disney dog character named Pluto the same year of the planet’s discovery. Though astronomers eventually downgraded it to a dwarf planet, its astrological meaning and relevance were not dwarfed in any way. Pluto is the planet of transformation, death and rebirth processes, power and power struggles, rise and fall of empires, conglomerates, monopolies, and concentrated wealth, big money and large-scale resources, upheaval and destabilization, deep, lasting change as opposed to surface reform, exposure of hidden realities, crises that force evolution, the underworld, both literal and symbolic, buried resources and extraction of buried treasure.
Pluto is associated with hidden power structures, secret societies, organized crime, intelligentsia, shadow governments, survival instincts, historical trauma, decay and decomposition, which also applies to swamps and sewers that depict corruption in places of governance, nuclear power and weapons of mass destruction, DNA, reproductive processes, evolutionary processes, generational and collective wounds and scars, etc. It often features prominently during revolutions, regime changes, societal upheavals and historical turning points.
The Plutonian principle is therefore based on the fact of life that anything that has reached the limits of its viability in its current shape or form must be reborn to greater usefulness, purpose and relevance. In nature, decomposition is not the opposite of life but part of it. Forests regenerate after fires. Dead matter becomes fertile soil. Expended cells die and give way to the formation of new ones. Life regenerates itself.
Pluto therefore appears where societies and cultures must confront realities that can no longer be ignored. In its movement, it will expose weak systems and structures, what is corrupt, what has outlived its usefulness, through catharses and significant discomfort. This is why Pluto is associated with power struggles, upheavals, and great uncertainty. Systems, structures, and civilizations don’t die quietly; hence what the bible calls birth pangs: the stress that occurs when the old is breaking down, and the new hasn’t fully formed.
We have been in the “early days” of significant Plutonian shifts since 2020.
In January 2020, Pluto conjoined with Saturn in the sign of Capricorn, the dimension of reality, structure, institutions, and authorities that govern. As the world was made to confront realities of weak institutions, concentration of power, and undependable assumptions about systems of global responsiveness in crises, our preconceived notions of civilization were brought under stress. COVID-19 spread globally in remarkable literal symbolism as borders closed, economies shut down, emergency powers expanded, and supply chains fractured. COVID-19 ought to be an unforgettable lesson to emerging economies, that self-sustaining systems are non-negotiable in ensuring sovereignty when the chips are down.
About the middle of 2020, Pluto made multiple conjunctions with Jupiter in Capricorn, known for its expansionist capabilities, and we saw unprecedented stimulus spending, explosive growth in Big Tech and digital life. This was when platforms like Zoom entered our lived realities. Pluto has spent years dismantling Capricornian structures, straining long-standing systems that prior to then felt sure and certain. The effect globally was political polarization, debt, institutional mistrust and crises of governance.
As the old world was going through destabilization, Pluto was igniting a new fire, albeit one that had been triggered by the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius in December 2020. Jupiter – Saturn conjunctions are fairly regular, occurring every 20 years. But what made the December 2020 conjunction a shift is the fact that it opened an era of conjunctions in Air signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) for the next 200 years, approximately, ending the nearly 200–year–old era of Earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn). We can say that the world as we know it, now going through birth pangs by Pluto’s 2008-2024 passage in Capricorn, was built through 200 years of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions in Earth signs. As Pluto settled down in Aquarius in 2024, global attention has begun to shift from institutions, hierarchy, authority, and what we can now refer to as “old world alliances” that served as reliable structures of past eras, to decentralization, networks, AI, innovation in diverse areas, digital communities, neural links, and leaps in technological advancement. It’s a whole new world coming alive. Pluto in Aquarius, historically, is known to challenge the elitist status quo (hence, revolutions), birth new social models, and is characterized by outliers and underdogs coming to the table. The clearest set of underdogs in our society today, in my mind, are among women and youth. Where has society said women cannot enter? You just wait and see how they quietly and peaceably come to those rooms and sit down. Youths say they are tired of being referred to as the leaders of tomorrow. Well, your tomorrow has finally arrived. The question now is, are you really ready? Have you prepared yourself?
Between 2022-2024, the USA, acknowledged to be the world’s leading country and a significant symbol of our current civilization, had its first Pluto return. What does a Pluto return mean? Because the orbit of Pluto takes about 248 years to complete, any entity, political, religious, etc., that survives long enough to experience the planet’s return to its original point at the time of its formation is said to have a Pluto return and a time of reckoning. This happens with other planets as well, with varying degrees of significance and impact in relation to the years of orbit and energy of the planet. Very few existing political entities can boast of a Pluto return today. And those who can, have undergone significant changes to their empire. Think Britain and France. The Holy See has lived through many Pluto returns even though the Vatican itself is less than a hundred years. America symbolizes the current world order and civilization. Her influence is far-reaching as the country exports culture and hardware; soft power and force of military might. Given America’s reach in global relevance, her Pluto Return will feel like the whole world had a Pluto Return. In 2024, President Donald J. Trump, an outlier (Aquarius) to the mainstream political elite in America, returns to office, instigating and catalyzing the transformation of the old world on a global scale. With America’s Pluto return came questions about America’s global role, challenges to post-World War 2 agreements (NATO),tariff and trade wars debt, exposure of corruption on a grand scale (Epstein files), social cohesion, political polarization, and debates over democratic institutions.
If you look around, it’s actually easy to see that the themes playing out in America are also very present with us here in Nigeria. The world is having a Pluto Return, and all nations are partaking in it to varying degrees.