Pluto

Rob Tillett offers a brief outline of the astrological meaning of the planet Pluto, a generational force of obstruction, transformation and regeneration located at the outer limits of our solar system.

Pluto, the lord of the underworld, symbolises the forces of deep transformation in our lives. A slow-moving outer planet discovered in 1930, Pluto's influence is in general most clearly noticeable as it distinguishes one generation from the next.

In our personal lives, Pluto's significance is found in its house position and the aspects it makes to other planets in the chart. The psychological process is one of being faced with obstruction, struggling to overcome it and being transformed in the process, leading to a regeneration of the area affected by house, aspect and sign. Pluto rules intense energy, signifying the areas in which we consciously or subconsciously seek to exercise power or control. Linked to our karmic responsibility, Pluto also indicates those areas where we need to gain the deepest level of understanding.

Transits of Pluto, especially to the Lights can last for three years or more and are exceedingly potent, signifying massive, long-term changes in life. Many modern astrologers consider Pluto the planetary ruler of Scorpio, but that is controversial and disputed. The traditional ruler of Scorpio is Mars. My own view is that Pluto may be considered a co-ruler of Scorpio, but definitely a secondary influence to Mars with regard to the Scorpion.

Located in the heart of the Kuiper belt and until recently the outermost known planet in our system, Pluto completes his journey through all twelve signs in around 248 years. Pluto has now been shown to be effectively a double planet, for the diameter of its "moon", Charon (discovered 1978), is greater than half Pluto's diameter; by comparison, our own Moon has slightly more than one quarter of the Earth's diameter. Interestingly, in June 2006 the Hubble telescope seems to have distinguished two more tiny moons, entitled Nix (mother of Charon) and Hydra (a many-headed, poisonous monster dispatched by Hercules). Pluto may also have rings, like Saturn, though on a much smaller scale. [This information was first released by NASA at the 2005 New Moon in Scorpio, just after Jupiter entered Scorpio, giving ammunition to those who hold that Pluto has a Scorpio orientation.]

The period Pluto spends in each sign can vary from twelve years to thirty-two years, due to the eccentricity of his orbit. Pluto, marker of generations, entered Capricorn on January 26th, 2008, after spending some thirteen years in Sagittarius. A retrograde phase began on April 2nd, and on June 14th, Pluto revisited Sagittarius to tidy up matters from the past that had not yet been resolved. This phase lasted until November 28, 2008, when Pluto returned to Capricorn for a long stay before moving to Aquarius in January 2024.

Read about Pluto in Capricorn.

Just a Dwarf Planet...
As Pluto prepared to turn direct in the last week of August 2006, after months of retrograde motion conjunct the Galactic Centre, considerable controversy was provoked by the decision in Prague by the International Astronomical Union to downgrade Pluto to the status of a "dwarf planet".

The latest from the IAU is that Pluto is no longer classed as a Dwarf Planet. On June 11th, 2008, they authored a press release announcing that Pluto is in fact a Plutoid, meaning that it is a celestial body whose shape is controlled by its own gravity, located beyond Neptune, small enough that it has "not cleared the neighborhood around its own orbit". Here is the IAU definition of Plutoid and here is their article on Pluto.

The decision to downgrade Pluto, even if it survives the controversy, is substantially irrelevant to astrology, as the astrological effects of Pluto have been explored in depth since its discovery in 1930. Although some traditional astrologers (including most of the Indian Vedic astrological community) do not consider Pluto in their astrological interpretations, our own research and that of other modern astrologers demonstrates that astrologers and their clients ignore him at their peril. See my article: Is Pluto A Planet? on this website.

|