Pluto is a deep, roiling, transformative, force that wells from the earth and through our bodies, moving us in ways we don’t understand--offering us our power back; a power at odds with our current world. In the process, Pluto--sometimes rudely--shows us our shadow.
Pluto, as the not-planet at the outer reaches of the solar-system is the gate-keeper of the Kuiper-belt, a vast cloud of smaller bodies and dwarf planets; a dense thicket beyond what the known. Scientists are just beginning to explore this mysterious zone, just like psychologists are only broaching the mysteries of the unconscious mind.
Pluto stands on the threshold betwixt what we know and what we don’t; between the conscious and unconscious. Pluto represents what has been repressed, and the processes whereby the repressed resurfaces. We repress the parts of ourselves we can’t find place for within our particular social and cultural context; parts we deem bad, ugly, nonadaptive, or unacceptable. Depending on the person and context, that may include aspects of sexuality, will, anger, grief, sadness, nonconformity, aggression, arrogance, greed, dishonesty, egotism, power, materialism, creativity, etc.
Paradoxically, in psychology-land, it’s our judgement of these traits that amplifies them. In the dark and disconnected from our other aspects, repressed drives grow contorted. These parts of us can’t meet their needs honestly (because we don’t acknowledge their existence), so they manipulate and act out in order to get what they need. That’s why Pluto can be associated with manipulation, control, violence, criminality--all indirect means of meeting needs.
If we face our own greed, for example, we can try to understand it. Maybe we discover that actually we want security. Because of childhood, say, we never felt safe... Perhaps through this process, we can forgive ourselves, and learn that there are other, more sustainable ways to find security. Like through fostering connection.
In psychological terms, Pluto corresponds to the shadow, or the Id. The ego, the conscious part of ourselves, rejects this part because it threatens our safety and acceptance in society and our self-image. But we then become split--not fully ourselves. We don’t have access to all our personal resources--our power--because we are denying parts of ourselves. And then those parts have to resort to indirect tactics in order to meet their needs.
What has been repressed will find expression one way or another. It may become neurosis, psychosomatic illness, or rupture forth when it can no longer be contained. But we can work to surface the repressed more intentionally through self-reflection, therapy, shadow work, and various healing practices.
Those without a psychological lens understand Pluto differently. For some, Pluto represents merely the underworld of obsessions, manipulation, criminality, sexual deviance, compulsion, and the drive to power. Indeed, that could be the end of the story. But psychological approaches engage directly with the underworld that we may evolve and transform. This means we have a choice: we could hunker down and wait out the storm, or we could do the work, and evolve.
Working with Pluto (with psychology) is tricky. I goes against common sense. It means moving toward the worst: into our wounds, our faults, our flaws, our fears, our traumas. Investigating our obsessions and compulsions, our hidden drives. Pluto’s secret is that acknowledging what is, is transformative. That we become more free, more empowered, more ourselves, when we allow all of ourselves. The descent into the shadow, and integration of it back into consciousness is not a simple process, nor is it free of risk. It’s the territory of psychologists and counsellors and healers. It’s the work described by Jung and other depth psychologists. In Hermeticism, it’s the Great Work; the completion of which means enlightenment.
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In Capricorn, Pluto speaks to the shadow of Patriarchy and all our inheritances. Pluto is blasting open our social unconscious, ripping the veil from the corruption and greed that are the foundation of our society. It reveals the shadow aspects of our systems and those in power. It has us taking another look at history, reflecting on how we got here. It purges the government, the state, the military, and all hierarchical systems. And it shows us how we, as individuals, play in to those corrupt systems, and are affected by them.
And so we see our fear, our greed, our desire for control. We see our oppression, our trauma, our disempowerment. We see the ways we are shaped by the ideology of a system that serves the elite and has manipulated and coerced us for a long time. And we see how we’ve been traumatized by it and also have inadvertently played into it.
Facing and examining the ways that our society, our structures, our systems, are sick is a form of collective shadow-work that is necessary if we wish the transition we are undertaking to be intentional and evolved. And indeed, we can see the extent to which we, as a society, have been doing just this sort of work, especially throughout Pluto’s transit through Capricorn since 2008.