Once a month in its orbit, the Moon conjoins Pluto. Cartoons depicting a small, innocent child naively walking through a dark, foreboding Underworld capture this meeting of the Moon and Pluto.

To understand this phenomenon better, we can look at those born with Pluto-Moon aspects in their natal charts, for these are the individuals that must contend with this landscape as a life motif, not a once-a-month crossing over of the River Styx.

With major Moon-Pluto aspects, sex, death, pain, power, and transformation are wrapped up in one nicely coiled package. Unlike other Pluto aspects in the natal chart, Pluto-Moon aspects suggest that the individual possesses a sort of deep-seeded Plutonian vibe: a dark eros, a cautiously guarded and private inner life, an extreme ambivalence to intimacy and vulnerability, but also very powerful instincts and feelings.

Often the Pluto-Moon bearer has to travel through emotional hell and back-through painful family ties, through karmic and self-destructive relationships, and through lessons concerning emotional honesty-in order to get the gold and wealth often affiliated with Pluto.

Although certainly not an easy terrain, the roadmap of the Pluto-Moon journey can grant extreme power. As the Moon is the symbol that is least peripheral in the personality, Pluto-Moon individuals are often given the invitation to be powerful, a power that resonates from the core outwards, and not through totems, powerful associations, or society.

The following individuals exemplify the Pluto-Moon crucible, emotional warts and all. Perhaps the quality and presence these individuals exude give us the greatest understanding of how the Pluto-Moon complex functions in the individual life.

Angelina Jolie:

Perhaps more than any other star in the Hollywood firmament, Jolie completely embodies the Plutonian, almost to a distorted, if not unintegrated, degree.

Born with a Pluto-Mars conjunction opposite the Moon, Jolie’s relationships, preferences, and mystique exemplify the Pluto-Moon territory. Jolie’s relationship with her father, actor John Voight, has been tense and strained since her rise to fame.

Often Pluto-Moon bearers hold unprocessed resentment and harbor deep, secretive feelings toward members of their family of origin. Also, Jolie’s fascination with the darkside and death has reached epic, archetypal proportions: her favorite color is black; her favorite book is “Vlad the Impaler;” she wanted to be a funeral director growing up; her favorite animals are lizards and snakes.

In an incident that was quite difficult for mainstream press, Jolie painted her first husband’s name in her own blood on her back for her wedding. Most notably and telling, Jolie has the latin phrase “Quod me nutrit me destruit” tattooed on her stomach, translated as “What nourishes me also destroys me“-an unbelievable synchronicity with her natal Pluto-Moon aspect.

Linda Blair:

Born with a Pluto Moon sextile aspect, Blair’s turn as Regan in The Exorcist changed the face of horror films forever. Created and released as Blair received a once-in-a-lifetime Pluto square Moon transit, The Exorcist weds the Pluto-Moon theme of innocence and childhood with possession and darkness.

In an ironic twist, Blair was to give up acting when she received a callback for The Exorcist. The movie (and the Pluto-Moon transit) was life changing. An experience that Blair has never fully been able to leave behind, The Exorcist completely and utterly changed Blair’s life trajectory.

Typecast as a scream queen in a number of roles, Blair has always been haunted by the legacy of what many consider the greatest horror film of all-time. However, her devotion and work with animal rights is probably one the greatest signs of integrating the difficult energies of the Pluto-Moon complex.

Roman Polanski:

Born with a tight Pluto-Moon conjunction square Mars, Polanski’s life and films are indicative of why Pluto has earned the reputation of being an archetype that is often difficult to discuss in conventional circles. Both in his personal life and in his films, Polanski has been challenged to deal with the more horrific, graphic sides of relationship.

Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby ranks a close second to The Exorcist in terms of a successful horror film that has linked the darkside with childhood and the feminine. Unfortunately, however, Polanski’s biography has been more difficult than any of the horrors faced by his fictionalized characters.

Jim Morrison:

The self-proclaimed “Lizard King” was the gatekeeper to the Dionysian rites of ecstasy for an entire generation. Morrison’s use of primal imagery, his erotic presence and intensity, and his fatal temptation with self-destructive behavior fit the archetypal expression of one born with Pluto square to the Moon.

With Morrison, one sees the Pluto-Moon dynamic of one who is innately very powerful, almost shamanic, and yet awkwardly shy, vulnerable, private, if not wounded. However, from these places, Morrison produced some truly outstanding poetry and lyrics.

Last updated on June 8, 2015 at 11:36 pm. Word Count: 779