Time to Retrieve Our Power

What: Pluto Retrograde in Aquarius

When: May 4 - Oct. 13, 2025

Who’s Impacted: EVERYONE (truly)

TL;DR: a six-month descent into the depths, Pluto’s backtrack is a personal & collective summons to rebel, rebuild, and reclaim power where the system’s been rigged.

First off, you’re no doubt going to read some capitalistic BS about Pluto Retrograde, which comps it to other planetary backpedals like Mercury Retrograde, Venus Retrograde and/or Mars Retrograde, and tells you that you should be afraid of it—but Pluto Retrograde isn’t anything like those reversals, nor is it something to fear. Mostly because Mercury, Venus, and Mars are inner planets, whereas Pluto is an outer planet and it is retrograde for about half the year. So, while Pluto Retrograde does prompt reflections and reversals, it doesn’t do so overnight.

What Pluto Retrograde will do for you, however, is pull focus. Like a navel-gazing emo kid, Pluto’s 2025 Retrograde draws attention to the Aquarius part of your chart, prompting a deep reflection of the slowly-over-time changes yet to be made in this area of your life. Like I wrote in my Note a few days ago, I don’t love referring to Pluto in Aquarius solely as a transit of transformation, because that seems a bit trite and ~basic~ (and I’m anything but basic). Is transformation one of the things Pluto rules? Absolutely. Does transformation look the same in each and every Pluto cycle? Hell nah.

Pluto Retrograde Meaning in Astrology

Pluto gets a bad rap. It’s maligned as a planet of destruction for destruction's sake, and many astrologers just flat-out hate the planet. Whatever. That’s their prerogative. I believe Pluto gets such negative press because working with the psychological energies that Pluto represents means facing the shadows. When we’re working consciously with Pluto, we’re looking at what’s uncomfortable and ugly, what’s shady and shitty about ourselves and about our world, what has been stolen from us and where/how we feel disempowered, manipulated or manipulative. Which most people would rather avoid.

Retrogrades are periods of reflection, reassessment, and realignment. When a planet stations retrograde, it pulls focus to the things we/you need to reassess and realign (and maybe even reacquaint yourself with). Pluto Retrograde pulls focus to themes of death, rebirth, power dynamics (abuses of power) and regeneration. Because Pluto destroys and rebuilds, decimating and eliminating so that phoenix-like, something new can rise from the ashes.

The underworld is calling—and it’s got your name on it. Work with me to decode your Pluto Rx story and take back the throne you forgot you were sitting on.

So, Pluto Retrograde is a slow but intense brooding period on what needs to be transformed, transmuted, and overhauled. During Pluto Retrograde, you are breaking something down, taking it apart to see what is/isn’t working, then looking at how to rebuild so that you can gain a new perspective. Usually that something is the shadows, the ugly / uncomfortable, the heavy, intense but ultimately highly potent dark.

Pluto Retrograde is a six-month period of slowing down and reflecting. However, because Pluto a) operates under cloak and dagger, and b) is an outer planet, we don’t notice the slowdown like we do with Mercury, Venus, or Mars retrogrades. Pluto is also a generational planet, so its retrograde reflections revolve more around large-scale societal issues. (Like, say, the ongoing tech takeover. The abuse of power. The slow eradication of democracy and the separation of powers.) That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t work with the retrograde, because you absolutely can and should; but the retrograde pulls our collective focus to collective issues, whilst prompting a composting from the inside out.

2025 Pluto Retrograde in Aquarius for Us & You

Even though in my horoscope I have tritely called Pluto in Aquarius a transformative transit, it’s actually more of an overhaul. Because in the fixed air sign—which is all about systems, patterns and innovation—Pluto is urging us to break down and reexamine the systems, technologies, and machineries that aren’t empowering the people so that we can change them. Still, change doesn’t happen overnight. Mostly because to change anything, we’ve got to become conscious of it. We’ve got to look the monster in the eye and dare to defy it.

So yes, Pluto is a dismantling. Yes, it will decimate and eliminate, but it will (hopefully) do so to modernize. As with any other astrological transit, we choose what is dismantled, what is decimated and eliminated, and ultimately what modernized version of us will rise from the ashes of it all. During Pluto Retrograde, our focus is pulled to those choices whether we like it or not. Because Pluto in Aquarius is insistent, it is relentless. When retrograde, Pluto in Aquarius pulls our focus to the building and breaking of power, as well as the strength in numbers. It’s a retrograde (and a transit) that challenges the hidden and demands it come to the surface.