From an Astrologer’s Notebook: The Pluto Station

 

The Morning by Philipp Otto Runge (1808, oil on canvas)

This morning started out like any other morning: I opened my eyes, stared at the clock and (reluctantly) figured it was time to get out of bed.

Nothing amazing there, I’m sure. We all have that moment almost every day.

I went by the computer to turn that on, I made coffee, I brushed my teeth, I made the bed…and with that first blessed cup of coffee in hand, I went to the computer (now all nicely warmed up and waiting for me), I checked my email.

Out poured hostility. No, not about me personally...but certainly me in the sense that I have my own opinions.

There is something about having your own opinions which offends some people, y’know? And there’s something even more annoying (to them, evidently) if you aren’t swayed by their impassioned arguments.

Such was the case this morning.

Then I remembered: today is Pluto’s date-of-station. And then it occurred to me that yes, the Moon is in Taurus, in opposition to Saturn in Scorpio (by sign, at at some points by degree). And Scorpio is Pluto’s home sign, right?

Evidently some of us will use this couple of days of ‘Plutonic’ opposition of Taurus-to-Scorpio to understand. Some of us will feel this opposition as the setting off of emotions which may or may not have anything to do with the matter at hand.

The thing that strikes me as the most important in all of this is how some people are reacting to this energetic by ‘demanding’ that people take sides. Or that you come onto their side. Or that you love what they love and hate what they hate.

What happened to just getting along? Why is it so terrible that some people like what you don’t like? Or that they don’t agree with you about something?

We all want our world to get along. Maybe we should start by getting working to get along with others – which in the final analysis is all about getting along with ourselves. The Moon in Taurus effect wants ‘satisfaction’ but does that satisfaction have to involve everyone thinking the way you do? If so, why?

The inability to allow differences of opinion is a primal Taurus quality. We often think of it as Scorpio, since Scorpio is the sign under which the precept of ‘control’ falls. But very often (not always, but often) that need or desire to ‘control’ comes from our lack of satisfaction if we don’t have control. Or our insecurity. Or or lack of satisfaction with that Self which we think should be able to ‘win’ every argument or discussion, lest we be ‘wrong.’

Saturn’s passage through Scorpio is (among other things) a two-and-a-half year cosmic college class which will bring us lessons on control or the lack of it. Those who don’t want control will be required to deal with their own ‘stuff’ and those who feel uncomfortable without control will meet up with testing (and perhaps testy) situations which challenge the ability to recognize that we don’t control others, only ourselves.

And of course there’s the famous corollary to that: we don’t get very far when we beat someone over the head while yelling ‘Love me, g-d it, love me!’

The Moon will exit Taurus by mid-weekend. Pluto will have begun its retrograde and from now until mid-September we will be figuring out where we need to change ourselves in order to live effectively in this world. Some of that is day-to-day stuff.

But it all comes from somewhere, right? And what’s more basic than our comfort and confidence with ourselves?

As I wrote to a client yesterday in an email:
  
‘…only the truly strong can afford to show their vulnerabilities. Why? Because only a truly strong and confident person would know they can live through whatever happens if they do show their humanity, their kindness, their ability to make a mistake and the fact that they don’t know everything and aren’t in “in charge” mode all the time….People who need to back others down all the time are not looked at by many as strong…the calm and the easy, implacable presence which comes from just knowing your stuff and DON’T have to prove anything (not to anyone) is the true sign of power.’

We were talking about business. But the same concepts apply in everyday life. And the flip side of this is that those who really are strong not only can show their vulnerabilities, but have them.

We cannot look at someone else as having all the answers or all the problems. We’re here to support each other as we go through life succeeding in some things and tripping and falling into gopher holes of our mentality and makeup at other times.

We’re here to learn to laugh together. We’re here to get along with ourselves and to learn to get along with others, however different we are.

Pluto power struggles occur often enough – and entirely often at Pluto stations. We think they’re about other people when more often than not, the energies they raise are truly about us. I hope my friends who are having a hostile morning get past whatever ill feeling is bothering them. We think differently, we like different things, we follow different paths through this life. I’m not telling them to do things my way and I’m baffled that they seem so intent on getting me to do things their way.

I’m going to work on trying to see it as a sign that they like me. But honestly? I think ‘like’ should come with a kindly frosting. When people think like each other or love each other, using that as an excuse to treat someone else as your personal punching bag because you think they won’t ‘leave’ isn’t about them – it’s about some dark (and Scorpionic) energy inside you.

I wish them well. I wish me well. I wish us all well!

May we all soon come to reside in a sunnier place in our thinking souls. And if you haven't yet read about the Pluto station, where this post ends, that post begins.

Inlakech. 
.
.
.