Die Another Day- The Transits of Pluto

It's the calm in between storms in my houshold. My husband and I are in between major Pluto transits to our charts (the last lot were some 5 years ago) and the new set of aspects to our Cardinal Signs (opposition to my Cancer Sun, squares to my Libra Mars, mutual Libra Pluto and his Aries Moon Chiron and Mars) have a few years before they start pumelling.

On the other hand as Jupiter and Pluto conjunct each other and the galactic center in Sagittarius, gearing up to transit into Capricorn everyone seems to be feeling it and for me this comes across as Pluto Amplified.

(And speaking from a long experience of Pluto transits, the fact that it's officially no longer a planet has not affected its ability to sucker punch me one bit).

And as a taster of all this Pluto-ey goodness, (and no doubt a preview of coming attractions to the natal chart) Pluto and Jupiter are starting to make a loose out-of-sign square to the Libra Sun of mine and my husband's composite chart.

In the composite Sun is conjunct Pluto anyway (with the IC sandwiched in between)
and from the start, the relationship had a feeling of union through a shared experience of hardship and oppression ie. "this world has teeth and little mercy for you and me, so watch my back while I watch yours and we'll take the bastard on together."

There is no negotiating with any of our planets but this is especially true of the three collective planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). The forces they are symbols of are bigger than any single life, and the please and cries of the individual are as the beatings of a moth's wings in a hurricane.

Like the Tower card in the Tarot, Pluto is not interested in plea-bargaining. It cannot be swayed, or deterred, or locked out. Only accepted and rolled with, or fought tooth and nail against until it burns your house down.

Similarly, Plutonic experiences have little to do with justice. Earthquakes strike the innocent and wicked alike, and when burning ash is gearing up to fall onto your head, one of the least constructive things to do is ask "Why me?" (with or without the fist-shaking). Instead, I generally find it more productive to buckle down and get on with the business of breathing and surviving whatever is happening stage by stage.

And the transit to the composite has indeed coincided with irreversible changes to the relationship. December has been the month of Waiting For The Baby's Birth and Trying To Wrap Our Heads Around The Enormity Of Change That Will Mean, as well as the month of Fighting Shocking Assaults From Unseen Ennemies and Facing Up To The Threats To Our Home.

The stresses have been sudden and enormous, the Plutonic kinds of pressures that strip you down to your naked shivering core and challenge you to face up to what's truly real and fundamental to you. Pluto's transits are NEVER comfortable, but they can certainly be very exciting and if you play your cards right you are likely to emerge from its trials by fire singing "Je ne regrette rien".

And they're not all bad. December 2007 was the most challenging month so far for the relationship (previous record-holder, September 2006 when my mother in law died suddenly) but it's also been the most intimate. There are special kinds of bonds forged in the war against the world when your partner is the only one you can rely on and you realise how deeply (Pluto) love and trust go. When you finding yourselves turning to one another in your hour of need and see that both of you completely meant the whole "for richer, for poorer etc." thing.

Transits of Pluto last for years and they can be exhausting. They can also be intensely rewarding if you roll with them right. Pluto is an invitation to travel to the underground of the Self (or the relationship, or the family, or the collective), a primal force, a dare to see what you're made of and ultimately an invitation to truth.

Whereas the transits of Neptune mistify and cloud, transits of Pluto leave you in doubt about what's real and true what with the truth & reality constantly punching you in the eye.

The feeling of a Pluto transit ridden right is the euphoria of a hard test passed. The feeling of it ridden wrong is "Owwwwwwwwwwww, bloody hell this hurts". Either way though the long slow transits of this celestial body mean that frequent opportunities for re-testing present itself for better or for worse. And once you know they are inescapable it makes it so much easier to save your strength and face up to its invitations to dance or fight.