Let’s take –hopefully– a sophisticated look at Pluto by House, not to memorize any excitingly apt specific, but to appreciate the feel, the reasoning of the positions, supporting rich analytical awareness. [Much of this overview is drawn from Synthesis & Counseling in Astrologybeginning on page 191.]

I have long presented the planetary archetype of Pluto as “perspective.” It symbolizes our personal efforts to establish, maintain, and defend personal perspective within life development. Wherever in the wheel of Houses within the horoscope Pluto is found, it is reasonable that the person will necessarily have to work hard to establish, maintain, and defend personal resources.

For example, Pluto within the Ascendant suggests the need, the drive to establish strong awareness of the self. Any anxiety energies about status and identity will be focused to establish personal perspective firmly and project it strongly. One dominantly needs to accumulate, maintain, and defend personality resources. The person is undoubtedly keenly aware of personal position within relationships, and the exchange of resources with others is vitally important to define who one is. -From a tug of war to a rich partnership.

With Pluto positioned natally in the 2nd House, the accentuation of personal perspective is obviously in terms of money/love, in terms of material worth and psychodynamic awareness of self-worth. Stress from the environment is assimilated mainly in these terms. Behavioral resources are pressed to accumulate, maintain, and defend the symbols and substance of material or emotional security. The press for or anxiety about development lives within the motivating question, “How valuable am I?”

In the 3rd House, Pluto suggests that personal perspective is tied up with information exchange, with building self-awareness through the matching of personal opinions and information with others’ opinions and information. “Where do I stand?” is the question, and the answer to it clarifies status/identity as the resources here spill over into the 4th House, the next angle. The spectrum is from acquiescence and conformity to courage and progressiveness.

In the 4th: personal perspective is tied to early home environment concerns; under pressure, there may be a “chip on one’s shoulder,” and defense patterns started early in life are routinized and perpetuated; they become behavioral habits.

In the 5th, there is a keen personal focus within the arena of the emotions, within the many dimensions of giving love. A complex spectrum of insecurities about giving of the self can be brought to the foreground of development and extend all the way to over compensatory excess.

In the 6th, Pluto relates personal perspective to cooperation dynamics, usually in work-service situations. During cooperative ventures, personal opinions are tested and measured within interpersonal relationships, and the identity is further defined.

The natal position of Pluto always relates to the House it rules as well as to the House in which it is located. The Pluto-in-Cancer generation will usually have a trine relationship with the House with Scorpio on the cusp: Pluto in the Ascendant, for example, will have the strong projection of self-awareness enormously reinforced in terms of the dynamics of giving love, giving of the self, [projecting personal perspective speculatively for gain, through the probable trine with Scorpio on the 5th.] If Scorpio is on the 4th instead, the Ascendant-Pluto would need to assimilate early home resources and development into its support structure for strongest personal projection.

With Pluto in Leo, the relationship to the Scorpio House will usually be a square: there will be a developmental tension brought strongly into the House where Pluto is natally, in terms of where Scorpio is located. With Pluto in Virgo, the House relationship with the Scorpio House will usually be a sextile, suggesting a supportive link between these House experiences and resources.

With natal Pluto in the 7th House,personal perspective relies upon societal projection and its reflection of us. Relationships become the arena for clarifying personal perspective. Tremendous public enthusiasm and public projection are possible, or pervasive difficulties complicate making productive relationships. –Pluto in the 7th in Leo will most often be in square House relationship with Scorpio on the Midheaven, adding strong developmental tension to establishing identity with society through job positions, through the career.

Pluto in the 8th links personal perspective with a deep preoccupation with the values of others. The question is, “How valuable am I in relation to others?” Sexual competitiveness must always be assessed. –The introspective demands of Pluto in the 8th uncannily often lead to the study of the occult, of astrology, the unconscious, and, under pressure, to the growth available through psychotherapy.

Pluto natally in the 9th will often focus on “knowing all the answers.” The individual can feel alone against the world, protecting the self through high-minded information and opinion.

Pluto in the 10th needs accomplishment and reward recognition for the clarification of personal identity. There’s little doubt about this; often the question of status is established through self-proclamation! Uri Geller is a good example.

In the 11th , Pluto suggests that personal perspective is usually dependent upon approval, love received, and the support of friendship. There can be a naiveté about these concerns and reliance upon job income to establish perspective of one’s value to others.

Pluto in the 12th establishes personal perspective within the area of accumulated experience, sensitively and privately assessed and organized. Under pressure in development, the personal position can get lost in the overlays of societal expectations and the controls society puts out to maintain order. There can be a resigned, defensive attitude: “The world just doesn’t understand me!”

The natal Pluto position gives a “feel” to the horoscope at first glance.

Prince Charles [November 14, 1948 at 9:14 PM in London] for example has his natal Pluto in the 1st House: generally (circumstantially) in the background of his own life-development, he needs to establish strong self-awareness, establish who he is and defend that position. In other words, he needs to be his “own man” -and it’s probably a struggle. There will probably be a tension with 5th House affairs -the giving of love-since Pluto rules the 5th. Additionally, Pluto is in mutual reception and square with the Sun on the cusp of the 5th(!). There is much suppression upon his identity (Sun rules Ascendant). -Charles goes with the flow on the one hand to make the best of the situation, but suffers from it terribly on the other.

***For further, highly illuminating Pluto insights please see the copious writings on this subject by expert astrologer Donna Cunningham at Skywriter.wordpress.com.