Outside, Inside: Sun square Pluto

This past weekend, the Sun made a conjunction to Uranus in Aries, right on the heels of the Aries Point New Moon. This has come with some high-tension news, much of it racial in nature — such as the situation involving Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager killed by a neighborhood watch captain who has claimed self-defense. In New York City, politicians are finally raising their voices about the “stop and frisk” practices of the NYPD.

Selected points for Sun square Pluto. Pluto is the red glyph at the top of the chart, making a 90 degree angle to the yellow circle (the Sun), which is almost five whole degrees further into Aries than Uranus (the blue glyph). Mercury is the green figure with horns in Pisces. Venus in Taurus is also square Nessus (the aqua-colored glyph) in Aquarius -- you can tell by the 25 next to them, as well as next to retrograde Mercury, which is sextile Venus.

President Obama personalized a political issue, telling the world: “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Of course for the many people who face this kind of bullshit every day, this is already a deeply personal, and unnecessary, incursion by political forces that seem to be having some serious boundary issues lately.

The result has been a lot of external drama, and not just in the news. With Uranus in Aries, it’s necessary to consider carefully what we do with this thing we call a ‘self’. As the astrology this week develops, it shifts gradually from a statement to a question — Aries Sun is approaching a square to Pluto in Capricorn, exact on Thursday. This is the Sun encountering the other side of the Uranus-Pluto square, the slow-moving aspect that’s defining our era of history.

We will get something like this each time the Sun changes seasons (and even signs): first it will aspect Uranus, which is a highly expressive, mental energy, and then it will approach Pluto, which is a deeper shade of experience, deeper both in sensations and its quality of inquiry.

When we say Pluto, we mean Pluto in Capricorn, an experience that is influencing everyone, and which spans from 2008 into 2024. It’s a long transit. Not everyone feels it every day, but when the Sun (or another accessible planet) makes an aspect to Pluto, we start to notice the energy. Remember that this deep, penetrating planet is still fairly early in Capricorn, meaning that it picks up on the themes of the Aries Point — personal material being made into a political issue; political battles being made personal.

In Capricorn, Pluto wants us to address the deepest subject matter of where ‘systems’ — family, church, government, this elusive thing we call society — pack all their values into us, and we end up with them as baggage that we then have to sort through. Many things we think of as being distinctly personal property are really collective property. Pluto in Capricorn is insisting that we sort out the difference.

Meanwhile, Mercury entered Pisces in retrograde motion. This is an intuitive, creative Mercury placement, and Mercury seems to be on an inquiry of its own. Pisces, like Capricorn, is collective energy — but it’s more of a collective soul than an institution or something with a definable structure. You may not know where your ideas are coming from, though you might want to bear in mind that the whole concept of ‘intuitive’ is at the heart of a false controversy; some people would argue that there is no such thing. To someone who regards only empirical information as being meaningful, what we know ‘intuitively’ we obviously read or heard somewhere, but forgot where. Then we think it’s original.

Anyone who actually works with their intuition knows that it leads to a deeper level of wisdom than the one possessed by the mental mind. There is a deeper sensibility, more connected to the rest of existence. The problem with intuition is that we don’t trust it — or we are made to doubt it, when pressured by rationality or people who insist that’s all there is to consciousness. Mercury in Pisces is a reminder to listen to your subtle voices, your dreams and your hunches. Remember that intuition is almost never fearful. It’s more concerned with solutions and creative developments than it is about warning us, though the warnings tend to be subtle and it can take training to learn to listen to them.

One other aspect is worth watching this week — Venus square centaur planet Nessus. This is a question of power, in particular, the power of sex and sexuality. It is possible in our particular society (and many others) to manifest sex purely on the basis of the power it gives us over others, and we can see this happening every day. Part of why it’s so tempting to use that power is that there seems to be little other influence that we have. In one way it’s understandable, yet in another way, getting off on the power we hold over others, or abusing it in some way, raises serious ethical (and karmic) questions.

Often this is driven by a kind of survivalism, illustrated by Venus conjunct the centaur planet Asbolus at the same time. Yes, there are situations where ‘you gotta do what you gotta do’, but before you invoke any version of do or die, or do it my way or no way at all, you might want to check in and see what your soul has to say about that. With Mercury swimming around in Pisces, that will be easier than usual.

3 thoughts on “Outside, Inside: Sun square Pluto”

  1. “Many things we think of as being distinctly personal property are really collective property. Pluto in Capricorn is insisting that we sort out the difference.”

    Absolutely – and some of these things are not “property” at all.

    I must say I’m quite enjoying Pluto in Capricorn – high time for a major overhaul!

  2. I agree that for the people who have to put up with this BS every day (the shooting of an unarmed black man) it is unnecessary, but for the World, and specifically the citizens of the U.S., perhaps it is necessary, due to the timing and the ambient mood of dissatisfaction. God and the Universe work in mysterious ways and perhaps – who knows – maybe it was Trayvon’s unremembered agreement to be the sacrificial lamb in this lifetime. Either way, the effect on the populace has been devastating. We can’t blame the mainstream media for this one as they were slow on the uptake. But it was Mercury on the Aries point, or maybe when he was conjunct Vesta two times within 5 days, or even when he stationed, that the world-at-large began to pay attention to this story. The deed was done when the Sun and Mercury were still in Pisces, but Vesta had just moved into the sign of Aries and was still on the Aries Point.

    Demetra George in her book Asteroid Goddesses says about Vesta in Aries, “There exist strong independence needs of not being possessed or dominated by another. Alienation occurs if one becomes excessively self-centered in the vortex of one’s own activities, so that there is no space left for the participation of others.” Vesta can indicate the “fanatic-zealot”. She represents the principle of safety and security including the protection of fenced in neighborhoods. Mr. Zimmerman could have been under the influence of a strong Vesta aspect at the time he dogged the young Trayvon to his death.

    Perhaps when Mercury returns to the Aries Point on April 16th, after Mars stations direct on Friday April 13th, and Pluto stations retrograde on April 10th, we will have a better grasp of why this tragedy had to happen. How we handle it as a nation will depend on impirical information we know and intuition we trust and the wisdom to be able to balance the two. Now we are talking about the work of Neptune and Chiron opposite Mars and the squares to all 3 by the Moon’s nodes of destiny.
    be

  3. pluto has been my bed-fellow for some time… and will continue to be…

    i have never considered my chart super-plutonian… not did i give much sway to mercury. apparently my sense of astrology had been skewed.

    upside down.

Leave a Comment