SEED OF WEALTH: PLUTO IN AQUARIUS
Pluto entered Aquarius this last week for the first time since 1778.
Relative to other planets in our solar system, Pluto moves at an undemanding pace. It’s not that Pluto is unwilling. But Pluto is cthonic, a god said to live in the deep underbelly of the earth.
Here, in the place where seeds are stored, there is a revolutionary wisdom to time that diverts from more normative constructs we have of cadence.
This wisdom is like an energetic pulse, threaded along the veil between the ultimate open and close.
Saturn is the visible limit of the solar system. That is, Saturn is the furthest traditional planet that we can see with the naked eye. Saturn in astrology, represents time because it literally embodies the limit of the celestial spheres that revolve around our Sun. Each planet gifts us with markers of significant moments within cycles.
The god Pluto in myth is one of Saturn’s children. The planet Pluto in reality, exists beyond the boundaries of time as we know it. Moving outside of Saturn’s ever-present limit, the planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto contain a wealth of transpersonal mystery. As the furthest planet from the Sun, Pluto is perhaps the most mysterious of them all.
Let’s go back in time to examine some myths surrounding Pluto.
Pluto, or Ploutōn, was the ruler of the ancient Greek underworld. Husband to the goddess Persephone, or Kore, Pluto represents a more constructive aspect of Hades, which over time, evolved into a term for the underworld itself. It’s important to note that in the sociopolitical context of ancient Greece, the gods and the things they represented were nearly one and the same. Thus “Pluto” and “Hades” in terminology refer to the god, the place and the themes implied by their invocation.
Ploutōn is often conflated with Ploûtos, the Greek God of Wealth, often depicted next to Ëirene, one of the goddesses of the seasons, more specifically of Spring and Peace. So often are they conflated, that Pluto in astrology has come to literally and metaphorically represent profound wealth. More specifically, Pluto represents concentration of wealth and power and the ways these resources are wielded in service to both oppression and liberation.
There is a mysterious wisdom to the crossroads of myths. To the thresholds. To the places where overlaps become stuck and then sculpted into wild conglomerations.
When Saturn was king of the gods he was revered not only as time, decay and dissolution, but also as agriculture, generation, expansion and renewal. Saturn was also cthonic, bound to the earth, a god that walked amongst mortals and, through his keen and loving eye, addressed the needs of those he witnessed.
It is no surprise then, that Pluto, Saturn’s son and god of the underworld, also cthonic, came to be associated with wealth, connected to Spring and to Peace.
Today our cultural connotations of Pluto have evolved and been reduced to themes of destruction, decay, transformation, power, pressure and intensity (usually not the good kind). But Pluto’s mythos reflects something more encouraging if we are willing to engage wholly with what is offered.
This process requires, however, that we confront the contagion of death-phobia which permeates our culture. That we wander beyond the limiting paradigm of death as adversary. And that we make an effort to experience our personal underworld journeys as opportunities to create something unconstrainedly different.
Pluto, as the actual (though invisible) limit to the known solar-system, is an all-encompassing entity. Pluto is an invocation to the mystery of life and the inevitability of death.
Pluto is a surrender with or without a choice.
And Pluto is, in turn, a bringer of a kind of regeneration that is both kin and cellularly distinctly different, than its predecessor.
In the most common myths of Pluto, we know him to be a kidnapper, a violent abuser, an all-encompassing liar, and a perpetuator of patriarchy. Pluto represents all of these things and also other things. As the story goes, Pluto (or Hades) stole innocent flower-picking Persephone, held her hostage in the underworld, and tricked her into the bondage of underworld journeying.
Actually if we go back far enough, Persephone (also known as Kore) first descended into the underworld of her own accord, with a desire to nurture and care for the dead while her mother Demeter kept watch over and created the living. Interestingly, Persephone was also revered as goddess of grain and spring.
Later, Pluto was introduced as one of three brothers who split the universe into three parts and were each sovereigns over their given domains - Zeus - the sky, Poseidon - the sea and Pluto - the underworld.
In the earlier introduction of Pluto, he and Kore (think “maiden” but also core of the earth - woman and earth were amalgamized in language and mythos) were loving and faithful partners, receiving souls in the afterlife. In later versions, Pluto takes Persephone by force from Demeter, with permission from Zeus. We might presume that this version of the story emerges around the same time as the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy. Stories of other gods and goddesses, such as Athena, change in this period as well, reflecting the rising powers of the time.
The beautiful thing about planets named for certain gods is that they tend to contain multitudes; full spectrums of themes related to the gods for which they are named.
In the Odyssey, Ploûtos, god of wealth, is the son of Demeter and Iasion, a result of a ritual consummation. The likeness of Ploûtos and Ploutōn, their shared mother/mother-in-law cannot be overlooked. For this reason, we must see Pluto as a planet whose themes encompass death, force, and violence as well as wealth, regeneration, and the ensuing peace which is often the result of being well-resourced.
It is critical to understand that the wealth for which Pluto is known today is descended from a time when people were in deep reverence to the wealth of the earth. Ploûtos, pre-conflation with Ploutōn, was named for the mineral wealth found underground in ancient Greece.
In this vein, Pluto and Persephone are first and foremost vegetation gods. They represent the connection to a bountiful harvest from the moment of conception, which actually precedes planting. Compost literally provides nutrients to growing vegetation. Pluto and Persephone signify the natural cycle of death, decomposition, regeneration and rebirth.
As Pluto’s story evolved to violent abductor, Pluto today is often reduced to represent the kind of wealth that only comes with power-over, forced distillation, and coerced extraction. And while this expression of Pluto can and does exist, it is the result of Pluto multiplied and projected over time into and through multiple socio-political eras.
Pluto, in astrology, represents a depth and genre of power that feels mysterious because it is alienated from our culture. Because we are not taught healthy relationships to power. Because we have little context for the intensity of divine connection that Pluto ensconces.
Because of this, Pluto also represents the ways that power is twisted and misapplied, becoming more extractive than regenerative. Because Pluto is a god of concentration.
In many a myth, Pluto is a side-character, and a holder of a quest-object. For example, in the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Orpheus descends into the underworld on a quest to retrieve his love. Pluto and Persephone grant that he may return with her to the mortal realm under one condition: as they make their way out of the underworld, Orpheus is not to look back at Eurydice even once. They begin to ascend and weave their way out of the underworld. They arrive at the entrance and without thinking, Orpheus turns to offer Eurydice his hand as a support. Too late, Orpheus watches his love disappear into the abyss.
Pluto is a god that represents the height of unfaltering focus in specific pursuits. Orpheus is given extremely clear instructions: do not succumb to the compulsion to behold his love until they have reached the surface of the earth. At the last second, Orpheus’s focus falters. And yet, after this failed quest, Orpheus goes on to become one of the most revered carriers of story and creators of song in all of ancient Greece. Out of loss, something unimaginably beautiful is birthed.
Pluto is this process of applied concentration, incredible resources and eventually, the provenance of something beyond what we could have intentionally conceived. Because Pluto represents the union of intuition, creation, force and earth. More than that, Pluto offers us a space beyond time to conceive. Pluto’s workings are mysterious and magical and always involve some level of surrender, some effort to evade compulsion, and some embrace of the chance occasioned by loss.
What happens in Pluto transits are therefore not predictable, but there are clear instructions for a bountiful harvest.
Revere wealth, but have discernment. Reserve your admiration for that which actually resources you and your loved ones. Sing over the seeds that you are sure you want to grow.
Some kinds of wealth lead to a sensation of infinite scarcity and boundless yearning. Others lead to perennial regeneration. Hone your focus on the latter.
Understand that there is a natural balance. Accept that you cannot always see the threads of its working.
Extremes will always implode. We can guide an eruption with focused effort, or redirect it intuitively with surrender. Surrender is a risk that comes with unknown rewards.
Embrace loss. The emptiness produced by loss is fertile soil for creativity.
The limit is a matter of perception. Wealth is relative. Extreme bounty either requires extreme sustained involvement or leads to lofty costs.
Power is potential energy. Kinesis is the relinquishment of power. Hold onto your power. Choose your movements wisely.
That is quite a lot of information on Pluto. There is much more to say about this planet’s transit in Aquarius, and much that still must be uncovered.
For now I will leave you with these ideas on which to meditate.
Pluto and the ruler of Aquarius, Saturn, are both cthonic (residing/relating to the underworld). The myth of Aquarius brings a beautiful mortal (Ganymedes) into the heavens to become a royal wine-bearer. This story is about both Ganymedes’ ascension and his grieving father Tros who is left behind.
Pluto in Aquarius (playing on the father and son themes) can thus be about wealth that is inherited and wealth that is rejected. It can be about that which is passed down but also that which is diverted.
Pluto in Aquarius can be about bridging the heavens and underworld. Or bringing underworld to the heavens. We might see a divine renewal in death-rites. Or a change in the way we as a society deal with death.
The myth of Aquarius is a myth of exception. We might expect to witness the ways power emerges because someone or something created an exception to a rule. We might also see paradigm shifts, protests and pressure on the “powers-that-be” and changes to the rules which ensue. Many of these themes will feel like a continuation of Pluto’s transit in Capricorn. As Saturn rules both Capricorn and Aquarius, we can expect similar dishes with different flavors.
Aquarius is in service to the divine. Pluto in Aquarius represents the complete overhaul of systems to serve new gods. While this is a lengthy transit (Pluto will enter Pisces in 2043), my recommendation at this onset is to think about the kinds of higher and lower powers you’d like to serve. What does that relationship look like? Is it a collaboration or an abduction? To what (or whom) would you choose to surrender (conceptually and literally)?
If you’d like to talk about where Pluto’s transit falls in your natal chart, my books are open for April. You can schedule a consultation here.