Saturday & Sundry Thoughts on PLUTO in TRANSIT

I shall blame this post on the fact that transiting Pluto is currently sitting smack dab on my natal Mercury in Capricorn. I knew, from previous experience when transiting Pluto sat on my natal Venus in Sagittarius some 15 or so years ago, that I'd be experiencing something out of the ordinary, and transformative. Back then I was, eventually, catapulted from the UK to the USA - how transformative was that!?

As passing readers might recall from recent posts, yes, something out of the ordinary has happened - again with Pluto again conjunct a personal planet. A diagnosis of breast cancer. Thankfully the discovery was early, via mammogram, and dealt with by a quick surgery procedure (lumpectomy). There had been no spread to lymph nodes and margins. That experience was plenty scary and, to a point, transformative too! These words from astrologer Jan Spiller's brief piece on Pluto hits home:

The goal of PLUTO : to experience total self-mastery and fearlessness in any situation. This can only happen when you accept the process of passing through your personal terror for the sake of Right Action.

From a piece at Kepler College website:

In modern parlance it is common for people to look at important changes – relationship or marital status, professional change or moving, even starting a yoga class on Tuesday nights, as “transformative.” However, these changes seem more part of normal life and normal adult development and they usually occur within other defined structures; they are therefore more like “first order change” – there is alteration but the organism or individual, maintains its continuity. This is not the kind of change to consider when we describe astrology’s Pluto.

The word “transformation” is defined as a change in form, shape, or appearance. Its Greek equivalent is “metamorphosis” and, we know from Ovid’s famous poem of the same name, metamorphosis not always an improvement. Positive transformation is rare in our lives.

Most transformations or metamorphoses are kindled from life-shattering events: Near Death Experiences, visitations from angels or aliens, warfare, imprisonment or becoming a victim of a violent crime, natural disasters, grave economic collapse, life-threatening illness or disability, or when one loses loved ones and home, like when the tidal wave and nuclear disaster happened in Japan or when Hurricane Katrina hit..... Here we encounter life’s essential fragility, sometimes the impinging presence of evil, including that which is within us. These are involuntary changes that are more like “fate”.

From an excellent piece Doing Pluto by astrologer Eric Francis, of Planet Waves

Mythology and astronomy cast Pluto as the lord of Hell, but astrology tells another story. No astrologer, it is safe to say, underestimates Pluto or takes him for granted, or none does so for long. Largely thanks to the work of Jeffrey Green and his spiritual mentor, Yogananda, we recognize Pluto as the evolutionary engine in the astrological chart. While society may twist and crumble, and while emperors may rise in power, on the inner level, Pluto is the ultimate influence we cannot deny. Anyone who has consciously gone through a Pluto transit have seen and this at work: Pluto is the uncompromising force for change, the catalyst for growth, and the slowly moving point of no return. Once Pluto has been through our lives, and it does not happen often, nothing is quite the same.

Scrolling down further:

Unforgettable Fires

When Pluto makes contact with degrees where it or other planets were when we were born, we get a phase of direct experience, called a transit. It is simple to pick these times out of the ephemeris and the most hardened skeptic would agree that something was up. At such times, we have always reached a limit.

The limitation Pluto imposes has less to do with adhering to outer structure, expectations, or following a programmed sense of inner responsibility (like Saturn), but rather imposing the necessity to follow one's evolutionary path. This is to say, under Pluto's guidance, we are compelled to respond to the necessities of our soul's journey. To do this, we are presented with circumstances that teach us we indeed have a soul, and that it actually has a mission. However you may feel, these ideas turn out to be beyond the grasp of most people, who simply wonder why they are in pain and don't get what we now call the lesson. For this reason, we can get a sense of why the world so often feels like it is devoid of soul energy, of the expression of meaningful inner truth. And we can see why so many people require incredibly painful experiences in order to grow or wake up.

Speaking of waking up, Pluto deals with the subject of sex on the hormonal, orgasmic and control-based levels, the ones we usually prefer to ignore, or to ignore the power of. These issues will come up as real-life circumstances; we get to choose how we handle them.

There's plenty of advice around the net on "surviving Pluto transits". While these are well-meaning, and no doubt can prove helpful to some readers, I avoided them. The first time I even considered searching for pieces on the topic was in preparing this post. I was aware of the Pluto transit to a personal planet of mine, that was all I needed to know. I find other peoples' experiences and other astrologers' ideas on coping to be less helpful than just doing what comes naturally to me, myself and I - hoping that'll be enough!

I am not going to obsess about the remaining time Pluto will be around my chart, nor will I think too far ahead to the time Pluto will visit natal Sun. It's quite likely, anyway, that by then, there will have been the call: "Come in Twilight - your time is up!"

Astrology is a fascinating and useful tool, but at times like this it feels more comfortable, to me, to put my chart on the top shelf, out of my direct line of daily vision.