Pluto

Pluto, with its bizarre, irregular orbit, is the last of the discovered planets in this Solar System which the basic metaphorical language of astrology contains. Occasionally it is the outermost of the known planets, although during part of its journey around the Sun it moves inside the orbit of Neptune.

There is even some debate about whether it qualifies as a bona fide planet. I say it is the final one of the known planets ... because there are two others which have been mathematically proven to exist – one inside the orbit of Mercury and one beyond the boundary of Pluto. So we know they’re there. But they haven’t officially been sighted yet.

Named for the mythological god of the afterlife, the realm of the dead, the King of the Underworld, Pluto is the astrological metaphor which symbolizes an individual’s most fundamentally creative self. Phrased that way, it sounds very charming and exciting. In reality, it almost never is. True to the home territory of its symbolic namesake, the environment in which Pluto energy exists and does its work can be pure Hell. Often, there just is no other way to describe it.

The inner self represented by Pluto is, in my experience, the most dimensional and complex of these interior citizens. In that way, it is, indeed, one of the most interesting, but also the most difficult and uncomfortable one to handle. Not even grim, humorless, ultra-disciplined Saturn in a real bad mood can match the sheer horror of the circumstances and experiences in which Pluto energy regularly traffics.

So far, what I've written makes it sound like Pluto doesn’t have a lot of redeeming qualities. It does. Sincerely, it does. And in the text of this piece I will try to explain both sides of this polarity with fair attention to the whole spectrum of what it contains.

Pluto energy is a very important part of your character that is almost totally dedicated to crisis management and essential generation – quite literally producing new forms, including life itself, out of basic elements, raw materials, and often recycled components. Its work is done in the name of self-improvement in very real, yet very abstract, ways.

It contains the circular process of creation from chaos through production to stability into breakdown and destruction back into chaos ... where the cycle begins again, eternally. When it is operating, however, it does not always feel to you like self-improvement or creativity or anything else so innocent and fine. It often feels like a total disaster – and it doesn’t help that very frequently you are able to see how you have contributed your share of vitally important work to what is unfolding in your life.

Yes, indeed, this particular energy is where you have your finger in the pie of crisis creation as well as direction and control. When the dust settles, the results are almost always judged worth it. But the new circumstances usually involve such total change, destruction and rebuilding that it’s hard to feel anything but mighty uncomfortable while this process of renovation is underway.

Pluto energy is literally revolutionary in its scope. It brings regeneration, rebirth and renewal ... through the archetypal process of death and resurrection. Death and disintegration are necessary parts of life and all created results; without them, there is no rebirth or improvement.

Even the concept of rebirth carries the connotation of new beginnings, total changes, the process of taking what exists and building something better in its place ... so that the old form in its old form, no longer is. Pluto energy deals with the use of power in its raw, elemental form.

Karmic astrologers consider Pluto to be a significant karmic indicator, representing among other things what you may need to lose and rebuild -- and thus learn to value or express or deal with better (as shown by difficult or challenging aspects between Pluto and other planetary placements) ... and what you have chosen to help improve as an ongoing contribution of yourself -- to advance the quality of life and make progress in this incarnation (as shown by constructive, beneficial aspects between Pluto and other planetary placements.)

It represents:

	Your involvement with revolutionary issues and circumstances
	Your capacity for regeneration, rebirth, renewal, and rebuilding
	Your most far-reaching and root-source creative power
	Your use of sexual expression as a creative force
	Your ability to deal with life and death matters
	Your involvement with upheaval and total change
	Your involvement with destruction on a massive scale, and then rebuilding
	Your ability to help others make the most of their individual talents and resources
	Your capacity to effect total transformation
	Your involvement with demolition in order to erect an improved structure
	Your involvement with explosive issues and energies
	Your capacity to be ruthless and destructive – or victimized by this in someone else
	Your ability to deal with complete disaster
	Your ability to start over from scratch
	Your ability to take what exists and improve it in far-reaching and permanent ways
	Your capacity and potential to rebuild what’s important after any major crisis
	Your capacity and potential for exerting irresistible power
	Your capacity for vast, sweeping personal change and self-improvement
	Your involvement with willful violence
	Your capacity for extreme, depraved, passionate behavior
	Your ability to become indestructible
	Your connection between personal karma and mass karma
	Your involvement with social change, chaos and restructuring
	Your involvement with occult interests, mysteries, investigations, secret knowledge, research

When it is well supported and expressing positively, Pluto energy is appropriately but irresistibly powerful, passionate, strong, courageous, transformational, and regenerative. But again, even under the best of circumstances, it may not be at all comfortable for the person having to cope with it.

When it is uncomfortable and stressed, Pluto energy is overbearing, dictatorial, destructive, willful, severe, cold, cunning, cruel, temperamental, and vulgar. At its worst, it is ruthless, violent, obsessive, murderous, jealous, calculating, corrupt, depraved, secretive, and vindictive.

Corrupted Pluto energy behaves as a law unto itself, whereby its ends justify any means. It will condone and employ the violent use and abuse of power. It is known for extreme and unreasonable behavior – including, frequently, criminal conduct. It is known for being fanatical, immoral, perverted, sexually abusive and abnormal, treacherous, unscrupulous, merciless, and unyielding. It will act according to its own desires and designs with no consideration for the wishes, rights or even fates of others.

Because of Pluto's extraordinarily elliptical orbit, the time it spends in each of the signs is variable -- with a tenure of 12 years in Scorpio at one end of the spectrum and more than 30 years in Taurus at the other. Pluto's position by sign tells the qualities a person will use in accomplishing the "destruction and rebuilding" work of Pluto as a member of his generation. -- with the social implications of this placement being notably more distinctive than its meaning in an ordinary chart.

A highly aspected or emphasized Pluto in an individual chart will always be an exception to the statement I just made, but Pluto by sign describes graphically the vast social issues that are being reworked and improved and how this is being accomplished. It can take a number of generations for historians to judge the final results of Pluto's work in a sign ... for clearly as the members of a generation carrying a particular signature reach maturity -- and come to political and social power -- their influence extends itself well beyond the years when Pluto actually resided in a given sign.

Pluto's transit through Cancer (1915 - 1940), for example, (traditionally associated with home, family, heritage, ancestry, and deep emotions) has heralded the destruction of the extended and nuclear family structures as we historically knew them.

It also seemed to dissolve a lot of deep patriotic allegiances to individual nations as the way a person shapes his self-identity and refocused attention on participation in humankind as a species rather than on specific nationalities.

It further has seemed to depict the downfall of royal dynasties and lineages into virtual obsolescence -- reducing once proud empires and monarchies into novelties, curiosities, and in some cases downright embarrassments to the nations that still host this form of government. Rarely now does a monarch hold real, unchallenged political power as was true in the past ... even when the trappings of monarchy remain.

The house in your Natal Chart containing Pluto is far more pertinent to your individual experiences with Pluto events and power ... and shows the area of life where you will deal with experiences of destruction and rebuilding, circumstances that seem to contain a peculiar fated quality, and the arrival of crises and emergencies which will change forever the person you are.

The house containing Pluto shows the area through which you transform yourself into a stronger, more resilient, even indestructible person. It shows where you will tear down existing structures into their essential elements and rebuild again, according to a better vision of what could be ... often utilizing the energy and resources of other people along with your own, in a combination whose work could not be completed if either side were left to manage the project by itself.

It shows how the forces of social change and progress, including those of mass destiny may affect you individually, how mass karma is linked to your personal karma. It also shows where you will make discoveries through research in the broad, abstract sense ... and uncover secrets and information which will also transform and refine you into a better version of the self that began this journey.

Aspects to Pluto can be extremely important in defining how a person will use Pluto's awesome energy in his personal life. And, as always, Pluto's position in a Natal Chart goes to support the work of the Scorpio house

	Where you experience profound upheavals involving elimination and renewal.
	Where you seek to maintain control -- and where this can be really an issue with you.
	Where you utilize the assets, resources, talents and "raw materials" of other people for mutual benefit.
	Where you have power over other people's resources -- and control what you do not individually own.
	Where you engage in power struggles for dominance and where the use of force and power are issues.
	Where your use of personal power can have revolutionary results -- or cause horrendous destruction.

The Pluto in Albert Einstein's chart at 25° Taurus is in his 11th House (of independent projects, professional results, and the ability to have far-reaching impact on the future.) It is beautifully sextile (opportunities to develop and use talents) his Sun at 24° Pisces in his 10th House of fame and profession which, in turn, rules his third house of knowledge and use of personal intellect. It is closely trine (active support and application for native talents) to Mars at 27° Capricorn in his 7th House of public affiliations ... which rules his intercepted Aries again in his 10th House of career.

Pluto itself rules the 5th House, the Scorpio house in Einstein's chart ... of creative results, dramatic self-promotion, the willingness to take risks, and the generation of children and brain-children.

Another prominent soul with Pluto-ruled Scorpio on his 5th House is Bill Gates, the gazillionaire mogul of Microsoft. His Pluto at 27° Leo has the sextile to Neptune (28° Libra) common to virtually everyone with Pluto in Leo -- thus reducing its personal impact. But more significantly he has Jupiter (expansion and increase) tightly conjunct Pluto also at 27° of Leo ruling his 6th House of work and placed ... where else (???), at the cusp of his 2nd house ... of money!!!

It will be interesting to see what happens when Uranus (transiting in the 8th House of death and community property) opposes this conjunction ... in a couple of years.

Age of Aquarius; Scorpio just be yourself!

Bulfinch's Mythology

Greek Mythology

The Planet Pluto

Hubble Space Telescope

   

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