Pluto is just a little cuss of a spheroid, and there's long been debate in both the astrological and astronomical communities about whether this petite fellow should really be called a planet. But since it was discovered in 1930, most astrologers have been adding Pluto to their framework for interpreting influences in a person's natal chart.

Pluto is associated with death, destruction, rebirth and renewal, plumbing the depths of the shadow and (hopefully) emerging unscathed. In your transiting chart (the map of where the planets are now contrasted with the natal chart, which is a map of where everything was at your birth) Pluto stirs up chaos, intrigue, and potential devastation. Wherever Pluto focuses his energy, drama follows like clockwork.

Just think of the metallic element plutonium and its qualities. It's radioactive and highly toxic to the human immune system because it buries itself into human bone marrow and basically kills you (if you're lucky.) It's used in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons and is nasty stuff indeed.

And yet, in a way, plutonium is just doing its thing. It never asked to be pulled out of uranium ore and manipulated, grafted onto human's technology.

In a similar way, astrologers have pretty much learned to view the planet Pluto as a potentially destructive planetary force that needs to be harnessed and channeled properly within the psyche. Too much Pluto zipping around in your chart and you go BOOM. Same with plutonium, which has to be handled under the most delicate of laboratory conditions.

Plutonian energies challenge us to process our shadow, face our fears, and probe the very depths of our personal psychology so we can come out the other side with demons and dark stuff fully purged.

But since astrology is also a fascinating holographic "map" of the collective psyche of humanity, I've been thinking of the broader "meaning" we might take away from Pluto being de-classified as an actual planet this week.

Think of what was going on when Pluto first came on the scene. The planet was discovered in 1930, right between world wars, as we were developing the most devastating and lethal technologies known to man.

Now, in 2006, he's no longer a planetary "player."

Does this mean we're purging some of the energies of Pluto - the darker, more self-destructive and suicidal/genocidal aspects of Pluto - from our collective psyche?

Does ousting Pluto from the cosmic landscape lessen its power as a harbinger of doom? Or maybe it even lessens the doom levels that we collectively need to process within the human psyche - the apocalyptic obsessions, the craving for religious warfare, and all that other gunk we're prone to stepping into.

I was just thinking about this idea this week. Since reality shifts are possible, and consciousness does seem to be changing here on our own planet, maybe we no longer need the deep, disturbing drama of Pluto as a reference point for our growth as a species anymore.

I'd like to believe that, anyway.

I can't help but look on this from this larger, cosmic perspective. And I think it's a very hopeful thing, in a broad, metaphorical sense.

Astrology is a very useful tool for understanding the hologram of this matrix we're living in. Planetary trends don't have to override our free will and self-determination - in fact, any astrologer who tells you the planets control your life should be bullwhipped on sight.

But the planets DO tend to reflect big, broad strokes of experience that we are collectively and individually moving through.

So I can't say I'm sad about seeing old grumpy granddaddy Pluto put off to the side, knocked off his throne of darkness, ousted from power as a planetary reference point.

Pluto energies aren't FUN and they aren't HAPPY and they aren't particularly empowered. Pluto energies carry more of a "You've incured negative karma;" or "Your ancestors screwed up;" or "The ET's messed with your DNA and there's basically no hope" feel.

No other planet in the astrological landscape has that tone.

I think it's high time for Pluto to retire, and for kinder, gentler evolutional energies to take his place.

 

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