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Pluto Tips

You think you’re dying. You feel as if someone punched you in the gut. You can’t eat. Your sleep is restless. You can barely stand to be in your own skin. Your outlook on life is blacker than a coal mine at midnight. You question the motives of yourself, your family, your friends, the weatherman, your minister, the dog next door. You aren’t sure anymore who are your friends and who are your enemies. You don’t trust anyone, least of all yourself. Things are going from bleak to bleaker.

No, you haven’t lost it. What you’re dealing with is our potent little friend in the sky, Pluto. Pluto is the engine behind the plutonic process, one of the most difficult astrological processes with which to deal. If you have a prominent natal Pluto or planets in Scorpio (co-ruled by Pluto) or in the eighth house (Scorpio’s house), you more than likely know this process well. Even if you don’t, everyone deals with this process in one way or another. It could be planets passing through Scorpio or your eighth house, or it could be transiting Pluto making a sensitive aspect to the natal chart.

Regardless of how the process is activated, Pluto forces us to get real. It asks us to examine the true core reality of everything and everyone in our lives - most importantly of ourselves.

Throughout most of 2006, Jupiter travelled through Scorpio (co-ruled by Pluto). This meant absolutely everyone on the planet had to deal with this process in one way or another during the past year. Jupiter expands all that it touches, so all things plutonic were dug up, highlighted and made larger than life. We had to get real in a big way. Jupiter headed out of Scorpio and moved into Sagittarius November 23, 2006, but don‘t be so quick to breathe a sigh of relief! Pluto itself is currently in Sagittarius, and Jupiter is moving closer to a meeting (conjunction) between the two throughout 2007. So plutonic themes are still there. We’re just moving from the deep inner focus of Scorpio towards putting what we’ve learned into practise in our outer lives. The next step is to integrate what we learned about ourselves in Scorpio, transforming our personal philosophies and belief systems and taking on direct experiences in the big, bad world (Sagittarius territory). Exciting stuff!

As always, Pluto will be demanding answers to these questions: Are there areas of life where you’ve been fooling yourself? Are you living in denial in any way? Are you repressing your true feelings about something or someone? Is there anything you haven’t dealt with that is circling back to haunt you? Are you holding on to something or someone that is holding you back?

Pluto holds a mirror up to these very issues, forcing us to take an honest look in the mirror. No mood lighting here. Only harsh fluorescents accentuating every flaw, every aspect of ourselves that we would prefer to hide. Pluto knows us. It knows how we sabotage ourselves. It knows the behaviour patterns that screw us over time and time again. And Pluto wants better for us. It demands better of us. Pluto’s motto is “evolve or die,” and the stakes really can be just that high. Pluto forces us to deal with reality, in all its starkness, and to eliminate anything (and anyone) that is no longer serving to further our evolution. Pluto knows the magnetic pull of karmically entrapping relationship dynamics. It sees the pattern of us entering into these scenarios, draining ourselves, and getting burned in the end. Pluto teaches us, sometimes the hard way, to sniff out these nefarious situations before they even happen. It asks us to examine why we are attracted to such scenarios. Pluto wants to help us save time in our lives, to leap past these time-sucking karmic situations and move forward. And to help us do this, Pluto strips to the core. Like a snake, we are forced to shed old skins.

Pluto asks you to give up things, relationships, behaviours, habits, ways of living that you might have thought would be with you for life. Think again. Pluto knows what’s good for us. It knows what’s necessary. It will overturn every rotting log, exposing the creepy crawlies to the harsh light of examination and truth. It will upend every hiding place, rip away every rug hiding dirt and grime. Every non-essential will be put on the chopping block. It will force you to be brutally honest about your motives, your weak spots, the ways you give away your power. It will show you the way you abuse your power, the way you use it to control others. It will get to the nitty gritty, forcing you to be brutally honest. Pluto knows the only way to progress is to live in emotional integrity right down to our cores. Pluto wants us to live on the cutting edge of our own evolution, transforming into all that we can be and living the lives we are meant to live. Anything keeping us from that needs to be acknowledged and released. As Dr. Phil says (I can‘t believe I‘m quoting Dr. Phil!), we can’t change what we don’t acknowledge. Pluto makes sure that we acknowledge every last uncomfortable bit of it, give it up, and transform into something better.

This process is often far from comfortable. In fact, as was stated, it often feels like death. In reality, it is a death. It is the death of old selves, old behaviours, old relationships. Here are some tips on getting through it:

Understand the plutonic process as natural and helpful cycles of death/rebirth, elimination/regeneration that everyone goes through. They are transformative and alchemical (so something like a chain reaction that we don't control). They are cycles to work with, not fight against.
Thoroughly examine whatever Pluto is bringing up, no matter how dark or unsettling. Understand why Pluto is asking you to look at things like hidden motivations, unequal power dynamics, betrayals, wounds, pain, fears, darkness, how you are used, how you use other people, inauthentic behaviours and speech, entrapping karmic situations, negative relationship patterns, ways that you are not true to your core self, etc. Look at them, acknowledge them, and change what you don’t like so that you can be emotionally transformed.
Don’t get caught up in believing you are a horrible person while looking at the dark parts of yourself and the mistakes you’ve made in the past. You are being shown these things only so that you will acknowledge them and stop letting them subconsciously control and sabotage you. Everyone has a dark side. Everyone makes mistakes. Remember to maintain a level of detached perspective from the process. It is a process happening to and through you - it is not you.
Develop the polarity point (whatever is opposite your Pluto) and use it in the plutonic process for balance and perspective.
Devote the time necessary to fully participate in the process. Understand that this might mean taking a smaller role in the outside world while you do your inner work. Don’t compare yourself to others. If this process is taking hold, understand that it is the most important thing you could possibly do at this time.
Accept that you might have a decreased energy level as you devote enormous amounts of energy to fuelling the inner process. Conserve energy wherever you can. Streamline your life and strip away non-essentials. Don’t feel guilty for being honest about your energy level. If you don’t feel like doing something, don’t do it. Feel no guilt about it.
Be emotionally honest about every stage of the process and how it's affecting you. Live true to wherever you may be in that process in the current moment. Don’t try to put on a happy façade to please others. Be true to you and how you really feel.
Stay focussed on the now, the current moment. The tendency is to try to look ahead to when “it will be over,” but that actually delays the process. Almost everyone feels at some point that the process will never end, but it gets better as long as you continue doing your work.
Intense emotion is normal as Pluto stirs up all the old crap and gets rid of it. Any emotions that have been denied and repressed will be brought up for validation and release by this process. The emotions often won't have anything to do with what is going on in the mundane world at that time. For example, you're sitting at work, and a wave of intense emotion washes over you, unrelated to what's actually going on right in front of you. It might be impossible to explain to other people what is going on.
Sift through the difficult emotions the process stirs up. Give yourself time and permission to feel all emotions fully, no matter how dark or disturbing. Work through them step-by-step. There are no unacceptable emotions. All emotions, no matter how upsetting, are OK to feel. Contrary to popular belief, anger, rage and even hatred are OK to feel if they are an honest emotional response. What is not OK is to stuff these emotions inside or to sit in them any longer than is necessary. Follow them to the root, understand the situations that caused them to come up and then let them go as no longer necessary in your life.
Be honest about the wounds Pluto brings up. Don’t deny the painful experiences you have been through. Feel the pain, and then let it go. Love yourself through it. Understand why that situation came into your life. Learn the lesson. Love the inner strength you have that got you through that time. Understand that you are no longer there. You are now past that and much wiser and stronger.
Let go, and trust the process. Resistance will only make the process more uncomfortable and time-consuming. Trust the divinity of your own intuition to guide you through.
Be willing to go as deep as Pluto asks. Or deeper.
Respect yourself through the process. Take care of yourself. Love every part of you, especially the dark and wounded parts. Get enough rest. Accept where you are and what is going on as a reality. Do what it takes to make yourself feel safe and secure. This process often brings up security fears (Taurus/Scorpio polarity). Know that you are safe to do this work.
Understand that whatever Pluto is eliminating in your life/self is no longer necessary. Trying to hold onto it will be detrimental to you and your evolution. You can let go when Pluto asks, or Pluto can rip whatever it is you’re holding onto from your clutches while you wail and scream about how unfair it is. It’s easier to go the first route.
Love the versions of yourself that Pluto is bringing up for release. Release shame for past actions. Thank the younger versions of you for their courage and determination to get you where you are today. Forgive them/yourself for not being perfect and for making mistakes. Understand their behaviours and motivations. Feel their fear, and understand that they did the best they could at the time. Now, you can do even better from your current level of consciousness. (See Self-Forgiveness Meditation for Pluto)
Forgive yourself for any self-sabotaging behaviours. Forgive yourself for being led into difficult and dark situations in the past. Understand their roots and make a new commitment to yourself never to revisit those lessons.
Understand that Pluto releases emotional residue held in our bodies, so feeling achy and yucky in our bodies is a normal part of the elimination process. Feeling nauseated and not being able to eat when plutonic energy is at a high is common. Showering/bathing often, gentle stretching, meditation and getting lots of rest can help.
Other people might not understand what you‘re going through, but that really doesn't matter. What matters is that you understand your own process and accept and respect it regardless of other's opinions.