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by C.M. Hafeman ©2005-08
Pluto, the outermost official member of the solar system was discovered in 1930,
the same year that Bother and Becker discovered the neutron. The planet is two-thirds
the size of Earth's moon and has an orbital period of 248 years. The orbit is highly elliptical
and tilted about 17° relative to the plane of the ecliptic, more than any other planet.1
Between 1977 and 1999 its eccentric orbit took it within that of Neptune, from about midway
through the sign of Libra, through the first third of Sagittarius. Therefore, its phase of orbit
closest to the Earth coincided with its 12-year sojourn in Scorpio, sign of its rulership.
By mass and diameter, Pluto and its companion Moon Charon are not even considered a planet any more;
its status has been reduced to planetoid but this demotion by a handfull of astronomers has corresponded
with a social imperative that seeks to essentially trivialize death, as we move ever closer to an
environmental reckoning and nucs in the hands of maniacs. Haven't we been subjected to
increasing doses of gratitous violence and hopelessness through the media: are you numb enough yet?
Astrologically the impact of Pluto's field of resonance on human affairs when in heavy aspect to
another planet cannot be missed. As with the other outer planets, it was first believed that
Pluto's tracks were reflected mainly in large-scale events of destiny involving the masses.
To that end, it represents transformation and resurrection at the highest level, degradation
and annihilation at the lowest. Both mob mentality and a social evolutionary path to greatness lie in
Pluto's domain.
Of course, the most interesting people are those who are personally touched by Pluto's placement
in their natal chart. Many planetary aspects made to natal Pluto, many natal planets in Scorpio
or the 8th house of sex, death and joint financial affairs, or Pluto in hard aspect to the Moon's
Nodes indicates you too will have intimate dealings with the dark lord of the underworld. What does
this mean? Your innocence probably left early in life; the likelihood of having experienced abuse
at the hands of others, or displaying a penchant for abusing others is greatly increased. Frequently
there is a fascination with the exercise of power, either having it to weld over others or being
involved in some permutation of how others do or do not exercise power over you. You are more likely
to be the one spotted across the room at the cocktail party or the prayer meeting, quietly radiating
intensity and brooding charisma. One thing is for sure, at one or more points in the course of life
you will be confronted with a situation way larger than you, over which you have no control, that
will change you forever with or without your permission.
The phrase "being led to the burning field" applies to a visit from Pluto. There can be loss
or gain of great power and prestige in career; or perhaps one or more powerful persons will appear,
who get in close to make or break you, maybe take chunks your very soul. The energy can take
the form of a health issue-your own or somebody else's for whom you are responsible-wich alters your
sense of freedom and autonomy forever. Perhaps the visit is experienced as the progressive dismantling
of one's own emotional or spiritual structures, the loss of every neat definition, category and ritual
a person has developed in order to make sense of their reality and conduct the business of existence.
Or one might suddenly exhibit
compulsive, obsessive or addictive behavior they cannot seem to control. Bizarre compensating behaviors
and sexual dysfunctions that issue forth from a compromised, suppressed unconscious mind can also be
animated with Pluto's breath. A loss of innocence or expectation is always involved, as in the Greek myth
when Persephone was abducted and led down to mate with the Dark One. Therefore a Pluto experience is a rite
of passage; in all cases that which was held most precious must be given away, so that a new personal
expression laden with the fruits of wisdom can be generated. Said another way, the innocent
and naive are initiated into the rites of maturity and reproduction; those who wish to evolve further
undergo a death of the ego and regeneration into new identity, sometimes violently.
Esoterically, Pluto is the higher octave of Mars therefore embodies an occult significance. Pluto
governs death, afterlife and rebirth; it moves through the elimination system, the sex organs and
the astral cord. It rules forces we cannot see, witchcraft, black magic and levitation. Atomic
fission, reptiles, bats, vampires, and the digit zero are denizens of its domain. The question always
poised is, will you take your temptations to purification in the heights or wallow in them down low?
If the low road is chosen, lifetimes can be required to crawl out from under the rock again,
simply because one keeps trying to retain a level of power they no longer are qualified to possess.
People who just cannot stop trying to exercise sexual or mental power over others, often have some kind
of indication for past-life or ancestral involvement with occult activity in their horoscope chart.
Examples could include Scorpio ruling the eighth house with the South Node of past lives located within,
Mars squaring Pluto; or Scorpionic Venus-Pluto-Moon combinations, perhaps involving the South Node
and the eleventh house of community and groups, or lots of Scorpio planets in the second house of self-value
(or self-indulgence) opposing the occult eighth house.
I once heard Pluto's placement in the natal horoscope referred to as "the place where a person most
wants to be in control, but where they will be the most controlled by others." Where one will most
desperately require conformation for their personal version of how God, society, nature or survival
works, is most precisely where one will not get what they pictured. Instead, the original structure and
intent must be burned completely away, purged of its egocentric designs, regenerated by total
submission to a power higher than one's own. Because we are human, the process usually has to
be achieved through intense challenges involving pain, suffering and loss.
Pluto power is very patient and likes to operate our of open view. It can
be operative for a very long time below radar before it manifests openly; when it does,
there is no place to hide. In the end those who avoid the depths when it is their time, are
brought down to them anyway, most usually through a series
of chronic and debilitating health problems leading to a long, drawn-out ugly sort of decline.
An alternative example could include someone inclined to pious activities who marries a handsome
preacher man, only to find later that he is infected with AIDS and has contracted the marriage
with her because he does not care to die alone. His wife, now
also infected with AIDS, is the one who must redeem a burden truly from hell. She must consider,
what was the value of maintaining her willfully naive innocence about authority in socially approved
institutions? What to do about the rage? Will she care for her husband while he goes through the
long, messy process of dieing? What about the church? Where is God in this equation?
What would be the purpose of such an experience? Perhaps one needs to fully experience the consequences
of civilized disconnection from their own emotional and physical bodies or atrophy of the instinctual
nature. If one believes in karma, then it can be a balancing of accounts from earlier lives, when the
soul was not so kind, sweet and meek. Perhaps we do not mean to be cruel or stupid, we have simply
been hypnotized by fear, greed or the physics created by our own ego, therefore are slow to learn
lessons that are overdue to be learned. The experience of acute disillusionment
and loss can be the only means left to acquire the undivided attention and discipline required
to carry through with change.
What about those people who act as agents for the Angel of Death, figureheads for the collective
shadow who are unleashed periodically to deliver annihilation on a massive scale? Think along the
lines of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Jim Jones or Saddam Hussein. Are they entities entirely
given over to cultivating their hatred and capacity for destruction over several lifetimes,
incarnating at times in history when social conditions suit the expression of their pact with Chaos?
I have observed that some people do seem to get away with murder, literally or figuratively, in the
course of a lifetime. I don't know what kind of contract they have with the Prince of Darkness.
All I know is that I was not granted that luxury; I was one of the ones who would be dead today, if
but for surrendering to first experiencing the rape and than sacrifice of my
own hopes and dreams, my illusions, the foundations of my faith and my own darkness.
What could possibly be the benefit of giving in to Pluto's call, following him below to the dark fires,
surrendering all that held most dear to the soul, even pieces of one's own heart?
That is how the prideful dross in us can be brought forth to the surface, to be purged and purified
in the light. Harmful products of one's own unprocessed rage, fear and desire can be liberated
at the cellular level of the body, transformed alchemically and released so their toxic presence
can no longer initiate disease. If one is patient, humble and rendered powerless, new balance between
heart and mind can be established and new growth nurtured in other areas of the psyche and life that
would otherwise be ignored or undervalued. Forfeited talents and skills can come back in altered form,
that much more highly refined for having passed through the tempering heat, to be expressed at a level
that can appeal to a whole segment of society, rather than a select few.
Direct, sensate contact with Divine Life, flowing in a never-ending, nurturing torrent through one's
own inner being; the proper valuation and deployment of one's own instincts, emotional body and higher
mind; the courage to proceed out into the jungle as a sacred warrior; these are but a few of the gifts Pluto
can bestow. Most of all, one is led to the realization at all levels of awareness and in every chakra
of the body, that they are not the source of their own creativity, health, wealth or any other gift
of life.
We are but a channel of expression, along with every other living thing on Earth, for an eternal current that breathes through
everything in manifested existence. One comes to understand intimately the necessity for yielding to
cycles of birth, preservation and decay. Death eventually comes as a friend, holding the everlasting promise of
resurrection. The evolving soul is thus impelled towards something far greater than the ego could ever
concoct or social conditioning could ever sustain. One gets used to shedding outgrown skins like the
snake does. Darkness and Light, the breathing in and breathing out, are thus comprehended as two
complimentary aspects of the One.
1http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/index.html
