Update, July 27: It’s odd, but I forgot to mention that 72° between two natal planets yields the “quintile” aspect, or one/fifth of a circle. Here’s some info on this aspect, and its double, the bi-quntile, 144°. One quintile and two bi-quintiles equal 360°. I happen to have this triangle in my chart, linking Sun/Ascendant and Moon/Pluto. In short: “talent” galore, with huge opportunity to scuttle off-track. Yep.
That’s it, in a nutshell. 72 years = 72° But what does it mean? How can I draw an equivalency between a 72 year period in time, and a span of 72° inside a circle?
Here is that story.
I’ve been sunk into Pluto’s realm during these months since Saturn returned to Pluto’s sign Scorpio for a final three month (mid-June to mid-September) dip into the most karmic degree area of the zodiac, 28-29° Scorpio. We are in the middle of that process now. Lots of gunk coming up from the unconscious — both personal and collective — for anyone who cares to look — or rather, I should say, feel. For it’s feeling that’s important here. We are blindfolded down in the dark underworld of Pluto; we can’t use our eyes, we can only move into our bodies and their capacity to attune to the entire realm of dense matter and the innumerable cesspools it harbors — along with underground streams, gushers of all kinds whether oil or water or volcanic matter, mucus, shit, all the putrid stuff that’s no longer needed and must be eventually expelled.
And, it just so happened that during this three month period I decided to look at articles I had written for a magazine, Welcome to Planet Earth, during 1991-1993, over 20 years ago! — especially those that I labeled, then, “Personally Processing Pluto.’ These were the years when transit Pluto, moving one or two degrees a year since birth, came to the point where it was directly opposite my Taurus Moon. And the articles I wrote then were reports on my experiences/encounters with Pluto during that time. Since the Moon symbolizes childhood, memories, the subconscious; where one is vulnerable, old habits and reactive formations that one is most likely not fully aware of — I knew going into that period that primal Pluto would most likely painfully penetrate to the bottom of all sorts of icky stuff that I was, like everyone who wants to grow up and leave childhood things behind, still needing to keep stuffed and out of sight.
Now here’s where it gets interesting, at least for the purposes of this particular article. This one is not a Personally Processing Pluto article; instead, it is a meta-look at the fact that I was synchronistically brought to the place of refinding, reviewing, and retyping these articles now, during these months when Saturn backed up into Pluto’s sign. Well, well, I thought, that’s good enough for me. I’m attracted to the idea of republishing these articles now, since sharing them might help others who also need to go back in and scour the unconscious for what remains unprocessed and therefore unintegrated.
What I did not recognize until just two days ago was that this was the time when I would rediscover and be impulsed to revisit and share those old articles. Why? Because I am 72 years old now, and when I was born, the Moon was 72° away from Pluto! Now this may not mean much to anyone but another astrologer, so let me just add here that there is a method of prediction called “solar arc,” whereby you can calculate important periods/events by moving each planet from its birth point the same amount that the Sun moves in one year, namely one degree. Thus, for example, if you have two planets in sextile (60° separation) to one another natally, then, if that aspect is exact when you were born, during your 60th year the one behind will have caught up to the one ahead to form a solar arc conjunction. Anyone who has lots of sextiles in their natal chart will thus experience lots of solar arc conjunctions around and during their 60th year of life. For example, me: that’s when my husband Jeff died, initiating what was perhaps the most significant year of my entire life. I documented that 60th year via journal writing and published it a few years later as This Vast Being: A Voyage of Grief and Exaltation.
It’s actually quite easy to see these conjunctions and the years when they will occur by simply counting the degrees between any two planets. 
Here’s my chart: notice the Moon, in the 5th house, at 23°02 Taurus. Now pick out Pluto, in the 8th house at 6°54 Leo. Count from Mooon to Pluto: 7 degrees of Taurus left, all 30° of Gemini, all 30° of Cancer, 6° of Leo = 72°. Get it? I could have predicted beforehand that when I was 72 years old my solar arc Moon would conjunct Pluto. And, since this solar arc conjunction happens at an “advanced” age, then the kind of experience it would precipitate would most likely be more detached and reflective than actively experiential. Yep! I’m going through these old pieces again, these old dramatic experience again, these experiences that were triggered when transit Pluto opposed my Moon, and I am revisiting them now, timed for when another Pluto/Moon aspect occurred: the solar arc conjunction between them.
How’s that for fascinating? Just dwell on it for a moment: counting the number of degrees between two planets in a circle can be considered equivalent to the number of years in a life, and not only that, but precipitate experiences that resonate with the symbolic meaning of the planets involved!
So there’s “good reason” why I’m reposting these articles here (five so far, archived on the A.K. reader page). But that “reason” is not reasonable, not rational, not at all left brained or logical. No, it’s magic. It’s the magic of the universe that prompts things to happen when things “line up,” shall we say, and though we might be able to predict the timing, and even something of the nature of what might go on, we can’t ever predict the exact happenings, because not only is “free will” involved, but even more important, just how conscious we are, and have been all along, will determine the nature of the impact of the aspect, whether it will be experienced as “heavy” or “light,” whether we will be rocked on our foundation or lifted into the sky.
I think that what entrances me most of all in astrology is this way it shows how various scales and various domains are all interconnected, and often via very simple formulas, like this one: one solar arc degree = one year of life.
There is no way I can plumb this mystery. It remains mystery. Any analysis falls away into a space that opens whenever I attempt to pin down a particular point. Whoosh! The point opens! To reveal another infinite space, again with infinite points, each of which opens into another infinite space. There is no end to it. And no beginning either. We can kid ourselves into thinking that this life of ours is set in stone, via the energetic pattern revealed in the birth chart, but when we look close to, it dissolves into the vastness.
