Creative Connections & Client Communications

Pluto Antidotal
–What can we do with Plutonic pressures?–

(Please see the current “Analytical Techniques” essay about natal Pluto in the Houses: it will help with appreciation of this essay.)

When Pluto was first discovered, entering our astrological Lexicon (1930), it was given an archetypal reference for power, for empowerment. With some inspiration I think, some thirty years later as I entered astrology, I differed: my observations and deep appreciation for psychodynamic developmental pressures led me to focus Pluto as “perspective”, as the “challenge to be”.

I have long established Pluto in my work this way: under this symbolism, we work to determine/to establish through developmental challenges just who we are, just how far we can go with potentials. What will be the rewards from effort? -Indeed this can relate to the concept of personal empowerment, but with Pluto being discovered in the adolescence of the Psychological Age, if you will, I believe the message for us is to distill how all the efforts, all the hard work, the struggles in our life define developmental rewards. We are who we become.

And within this frame, what do we say to our clients working with Plutonic developmental challenges?

Pluto in hard aspect with the Sun [“Hard Aspect”: mainly conjunction, square, quindecile, opposition; six-degree orb, except for the quindecile, 3 degrees recommended; with experience, the semisquare and sesquiquadrate can be added with the tighter orb as well.]

Initially, astrologers thought this aspect would announce enormous personal power. But it doesn’t. The potential may be there, and that is exactly what the message is about: meeting the challenge to get out from under, to rise up [remember the Phoenix], eventually to be a force.

In its sociological framework that presses for sameness and equality, social development does not like the rate-buster, the individual stand-out. All kinds of suppression take place to keep people “in their place”. This way of the people is the focus of the suppression within our development, the suppression signaled by Pluto in hard aspect with the life-energy, ego-symbol Sun.

My phrase for this is “In the early years especially, I think we see here a blanket over your hand grenade!” –Suppression is at work; some 99.999% of all people with this hard aspect know exactly what this means, throughout all western countries especially. There’s a challenge to emerge. There’s a struggle to overcome, and it is through that struggle that one can build strength. Sometimes it’s a lifelong battle.

Prince Charles knows. Pat Nixon. Greta Garbo. Truman Capote. Marlon Brando. Princess Anne of England. Robert Schuman. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The therapeutic direction is to work with the client to acknowledge the suppression, to identify its source, the defensive behaviors that were born from it, and how this routine fares into adulthood; then the habitual defenses may not be any longer necessary(!). Removing defenses frees up fresh energies (behaviors).

Pluto in hard aspect with the Moon.

A new dimension enters here: personal perspective is modified, adjusted through an important maternal influence; perhaps it’s an intrusive effect; perhaps a doting suffocation. The point is that one has difficulty meeting developmental challenges by going through the maternal filter, the maternal navigation.

Parental interaction is lop-sided, out of balance.

The therapeutic direction here is -always first- to recognize the pressure, to evaluate it in terms of the behaviors it has stimulated over time, and to determine how one can become free and clear of the (protective, biasing) influence.

Henry Ford. J. Edgar Hoover. Katherine Hepburn.

Pluto in hard aspect with Saturn

Hard work. There’s no way to say it better: personal perspective is focused through incessant self-application, fulfilling ambition; it’s the ‘nose to the grindstone’ aspect. Indeed, the fear of loss or downfall will be a respected stimulus, and building up the fortified castle will win the war.

What’s the client doing developmentally? Is it whole or half-hearted? What is the motivation within the developmental plan? –This is the state of mind that accompanies the togetherness of these two giant symbols, perspective and ambition, dimension and hard work. All too often, the astrologer must work against the client’s pervasive doom-and-gloom expectations.

Joan Baez. Uri Geller. Christian Barnard. Frederic Chopin. Moshe Dyan. Alfred Hitchcock. Mary Queen of Scots. Walt Whitman. Lee Harvey Oswald. Whoopi Goldberg. Franz Kafka. Henry Kissinger.

Pluto in hard aspect with Uranus

My image for this archetype is “Jesus in the Temple, overthrowing the tables!” This is undeniable in Arcs and transits. And when this aspect is present natally, the potential is carved into our development in terms of rebellion, upsetting the apple cart, disrupting the status quo to establish personal position as advantageously as possible. -We take in experience to change it. [Notice how so many people born with Uranus-Pluto together in Virgo face a challenge of proper metabolic management of nutritional intake; i.e., taking in food and having its assimilation and energy conversion become altered, become problematic.]

We must note that the occurrence of this aspect between these slow-moving planets is less frequent than an aspect with the Sun or Moon. Those who do have the heavy tension between these two symbols Pluto and Uranus belong to a sub-group in the population; that sub-group identifies itself with fomenting change in society. At a personal, individual level, your client will manifest these needs to one degree or another.

The helpful therapeutic direction here is to recognize the stimulus and to inspect and evaluate the efficiency of its deployment. Is there disruption or rewarding development through change? How can your client isolate inventiveness from temperament and reinforce the efficient thrust for change? Seek proper, constructive conversion of experience.

Charlemagne. Edgar Cayce. Oliver Cromwell. Mary Baker Eddy. Charles Manson. Ross Perot. Charleton Heston.