Pluto is the Roman name for the Greek god Hades. Hades was the god of the underworld and death. To make things confusing, the entire underworld itself is also called Hades and is split into two sections for those who were naughty and those who were nice. The naughty section was also called Hades (bringing the total of things named Hades to three) and the nice section was called the Elysian Fields. For all the bad press Hades gets, he wasn’t a bad guy, he only ruled the underworld because when he drew straws with his brothers (Zeus and Poseidon) to see what part of the world they got to rule, he had the luck of drawing the shortest straw. Of all the gods, he actually had a peaceful, happy marriage with Persephone, though it got off to a rough start and his mother-in-law wasn’t happy with him. But since Hades (Pluto) ruled the underworld, the planet Pluto is associated with all things hidden – both good and bad. Pluto’s energy is subtle but extraordinarily powerful. It works in hidden ways and forces us to look at what is hidden beneath the surface of our relationships and ourselves. Its energies are associated with death, kidnapping, deceiving, power struggles, power-hunger and greed, crime, coercion and intensity. Pluto is concerned with waste – identifying and destroying it. It encourages us to look at what we are and what we are not and make adjustments accordingly. The energy of Pluto tends to get stronger and cause further problems for us if we show weakness, self-pity, sneakiness or the refusal to confront problems. Pluto takes 248 years to traverse the zodiac and so is thought to represent more than just a generation, but whole movements in the mental and spiritual evolution of humanity. Pluto is related to Scorpio and the eighth house. It also is considered to be the higher incarnation of the planet Mars – hence the heightened levels of aggression.

Pluto is the “modern” ruler of Scorpio, and many of its concepts and key words are synonymous with those used for Scorpio itself. Pluto represents the “peak, or pit experience,” a deep psychological experience that includes a kind of “dying,” after which we are never again the same. Pluto transits bum our bridges behind us; we can never go back to who and what we were before, and most would not want to. Those foolish enough to try end up really dying, or at best, like Lot’s wife, ossifying, turning into “pillars of salt, ” lifeless physical forms.

Pluto strips away everything to expose the pure, precious jewel which lies at the core of the soul. If you want to know what it is like, just ask anyone who has planets in Scorpio what he went through during the years from 1984 to 1996!

They’ll tell you what they’ve had to let go, all that was ripped away by a cruel tide! Most only now, with Pluto firmly established in Sagittarius (1996), realize just how precious a gift they possess in the place of all that other stuff. The new life into which they have been reborn is becoming apparent.

The experience of Pluto’s transit of Sun, Moon or angular house can seem like dying and reincarnating in the same body. You remember the person you used to be and that person seems a stranger, so naïve, so superficial. What was before only knowledge is now wisdom, and surface sympathy has deepened into compassion.

Pluto forces us to give up our innocence. In that way it is like rape. The myth of Hades and Persephone is Pluto’s story. Persephone is kidnapped by Hades/Pluto, dragged down into the underworld and raped or seduced. She must have liked it, for she became Pluto’s wife, Queen of the Underworld. She lost her virginity, her innocence, but in the process became empowered and powerful. After all, Pluto is the king of wealth, as in the word “plutocracy,” rule by the wealthy.

Once we can see with Plutonian X-ray vision, we come to own our power. Others can sense it. People who have natal Pluto configured with the Sun, Moon or in an angular house are often seen by others people, those who feel powerless, as either angels or devils. No one ever quite trusts a Plutonian. He or she just knows too much, see through us, ferrets out our cherished secrets and then chuckles knowingly at the ridiculousness of them.

Pluto lays us bare to the very soul. That can be very purifying, totally healing and devastating. It brings emotional crisis, taking away all the dead wood in our lives which blocks our future growth. It feels like radical, psychic surgery, often followed by the blackest of depressions, and a sense of isolation so deep that no one and nothing can reach us to pull us out. But health and wholeness does return! We burst one day into the expansive joy that is symbolized by Sagittarius and its ruler, Jupiter. Pluto is power of every kind, from raw brutality to redeeming grace. It spans the distance from the dungeons of hell to the high vaults of heaven.

About the author:

Eleanor Buckwalter has studied, practiced and taught astrology in Los Altos, CA for more than twenty-five years, including three years with the late Richard Idemon, a psychological astrologer. Her primary astrological focus of interest is parent-child relationships and family dynamics.

Pluto: Powerful Transformations!

Pluto’s goal is to purge out what is no longer useful and necessary in your life. Its method is often taught using the “trial by fire” process. Therefore, its lessons often feel harsh.

Pluto acts a lot like a gatekeeper to your dreams. It requires two firm commitments from you:

• You must dig deep into your hurt, understand the lesson (how you’re stronger and better for it), and then move past the wounds of your past.
• You must pierce the veil of any deceptions in your life (whether it is a self-deception or not) and then make a bare bones assessment of what you really want in your life. Then you must take decisive action in the direction of what’s really meaningful in your life.

Pluto demands that you rip out all the things in your life that do not truly serve your highest purpose. If you faithfully walk a path of integrity that is required, you will grow stronger and fiercer in your spirit. You will experience a confident surge of power in your bones and you will be able to just “feel” that you are on the right track.

A Healthy Response: Transformation

You live your life completely on your own terms. You have faced down the dragons in your life and you’re confident that you can do it again if need be. Despite the scars that mark you from those experiences, you think of them as the battle scars of a hard-won wisdom. The inner fire that burns in your gut is a green light from the universe that you are living a passionate and wondrous existence.

You have learned to stand firmly in your own power. Your transformation has shocked everyone in your life, even yourself. They remember all too well the version of you that never took risks and always made sure that there was a safety net in place. Now, however, they marvel at you and wonder “what’s gotten into you” while they secretly wish they had the nerve to live their life as fearlessly as you do.

You have made the choice to forgive those who have wronged you. You have let go of those old wounds, learned the lesson within, and now eagerly look forward in your life. You know in your heart that the way you live your life, whether it’s the good healing work that you do or just the integrity in which you life your life, is serving the world in some significant way.

An Unhealthy Response: Seeking Revenge

Your life has been incredibly hard and unfair. Thinking back on what you’ve endured just makes you bitterly resent every damn minute of it. You feel that there’s no way you could ever forgive them for all the needless pain they’ve caused you. As a result, you obsessively look back at how you’ve been wronged and wonder why your luck is so rotten.

The dreams in your life are still there waiting for you, but you see the road littered with far too many obstacles. You no longer have the faith in yourself nor the courage to even try to make it past them.

Over and over again people prove to you that they can’t be trusted. You honestly wonder if there are dark clouds overhead that just follow you around. You feel such sorrow and pain inside. You feel that all the bad that you’ve experienced is a just reason for hating yourself and wish that you’d never even been born.

Strategy

The best strategy for utilizing this energy is to locate Pluto by its Astrology House and Zodiac Sign. It is there that you will find your deepest hurt and sorrows.

It is also that you will find your greatest healing. You must choose between living in the past and harboring thoughts of revenge OR to simply rise above all the pain and make it a firm commitment toward transforming yourself into the person you’ve dreamed of becoming.

Last updated on January 12, 2018 at 3:33 am. Word Count: 1591