It was like the Council of Nicaea, but for astronomers.
After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is – and isn’t – a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.
What will the astrologers do? Pluto for the last sixty years or so has been regarded as a marker of generations. (For instance, I would be in the “Pluto in Leo” generation.) Now it is a “dwarf planet,” like Ceres. Not quite the same thing.
In my vast esoteric library (north turret, third floor), I find Jeff Green’s Pluto: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul. There is going to be some fast thinking in the astrological community, I suspect, but also an opportunity for re-definition and for being the first to say what Pluto “really” signifies.
Update: Salon interviews an astrologer about that very question. (Hat tip: Wild Hunt)