Programming Note: I will be on vacation for Thanksgiving so next week’s column, the December forecast, will be sent out a couple of days later, on Tuesday, November 30th. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!
Welcome to our first installment of a semi-regular series that will explore the Pluto generations of (most likely) everyone alive today. We will eventually cover half the zodiac, from the pre-World War II Pluto in Cancer generation (what’s up, Queen Elizabeth II? Are you okay??) to the Pluto in Capricorn babies being born this very minute.
(My apologies if there are any Pluto in Gemini 107+ year-olds who are offended by my omission of their generational cohort! I guess we’ll just have to wait until 2132 when Pluto enters the sign of the twins again. . .)
In this inaugural article let’s take a moment to explore what our favorite distant demoted planet is all about.
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Okay, let’s step into the darkness!
The Mythology of Pluto
“Hades’ throne was black and withered, matching the man that sat on it. His robes were black, horrendous screaming faces that reminded Reagan of the faces of Medusa’s stone statues in her garden. Except on his black robes the faces morphed into a different screaming face of the damned. Hades looked rather irritated that they managed to get into his kingdom like this, but he was still prepared for them nonetheless. The god tapped his pale index finger against the arm of his throne impatiently. His hair was black, greasy, and slicked back.”
— Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief
In his beloved middle-grade “Percy Jackson” series, Rick Riordan memorably portrays Hades (Pluto) as a continually annoyed CEO ruling over an underworld accessible from under the “DOA Recording Studio” in, of course, Los Angeles. It’s a portrayal that, while amusing and on point, glosses over some pretty heavy mythology.
(And if you aren’t familiar with Riordan’s books, ask any Gen Z or older Gen Alpha who Percy Jackson is and you’ll get an hour-long monologue on the intricacies of the books, which feature a regular kid, Percy, who discovers he’s a son of Poseidon).
In Greek mythology, Pluto welcomes departed souls into his realm, which he rules over with his queen, Persephone. Notoriously, Pluto abducted and raped Persephone, the daughter of Ceres (Demeter), and brought her down into Hades as his queen.
The sorrow and fury of Ceres, as she searched fruitlessly for her daughter, led to an endless winter, as the goddess of the harvest turned her back on the earth. Eventually, through the intercession of Jupiter (the brother of both Pluto and Ceres), Ceres was reunited with her daughter.
But, since Persephone had consumed food while in Hades — six pomegranate seeds, symbolic of sexual consummation1 and therefore cementing her marriage to Pluto — she had to split her time between the underworld and her mother’s earthly realm. Thus, Persephone spent six months of the year with Pluto, corresponding to the winter months, as Ceres mourned her daughter’s absence, and six months with her mother, when the earth rejoiced and became fruitful.
So, already we see the themes of death, violence, a descent into the underworld, and the struggle to revive life on earth entwined in the mythology of Pluto.
Pluto in Astrology
Officially known as a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of planetary bodies beyond Neptune’s orbit, Pluto the planet was discovered in 1930, at the dawn of the era that would bring about the development and use of the first atomic weapons.
By the time of Pluto’s discovery, astronomers had already identified two newly discovered “outer planets,” Uranus (in 1781) and Neptune (in 1846). These three “new” planetary bodies shook up the cosmology of astrology, which had been practiced for thousands of years prior by observing celestial movements that could be seen by the naked eye from Earth. Thus, the outer planets as a group represent that which is unseen and beyond human sight, the hidden realms of our universe.
Just as the earlier outer planets soon revealed their significations through world events, with Uranus correlating with revolutions and scientific breakthroughs and Neptune tied into an interest in spirituality and escapism, Pluto soon became synonymous with epochal transformation, the rise and fall of empires and great powers, and the terrible destruction that humanity can visit upon itself.
As scholar and astrologer Richard Tarnas writes in Cosmos and Psyche:
“Closely analogous to Freud’s concept of the primordial id, ‘the broiling cauldron of the instincts,’ and to Darwin’s understanding of an ever-evolving nature and the biological struggle for existence, the archetype associated with the planet Pluto is also linked to Nietzsche’s Dionysian principle and the will to power and to Schopenhauer’s blind striving universal will, with these embodying the powerful forces of nature and emerging from nature’s chthonic depths, within and without, the intense, fiery elemental underworld.”
So, you know, lightweight stuff.
Pluto as a Generational Marker
As slow moving planetary bodies beyond the limits of humanity’s previous knowledge of the universe, the outer planets tend to represent collective experiences, rather than individual ones. Pluto, in particular, as the planetary body with the slowest ecliptic path, with an orbit of 248 years, seems to capture the personality and experiences of entire generations.
While Pluto’s transits through the zodiac don’t correlate exactly with the birth year ranges commonly given by demographers, they’re close enough. In fact, they may provide even more insightful generational groupings than the ones we recognize now, such as the Greatest Generation, Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, etc.
There are two ways that Pluto marks a generation born under a particular sign: in the events happening in the years surrounding their birth, and in the cultural and political events and changes that come about later one, when this cohort grows up and comes into their full power (often in a different Pluto period that is either supportive or unsupportive of their own).
In looking at generational cohorts in astrology, there are some things to keep in mind:
Pluto has a very erratic orbit and spends unequal time in different signs, ranging from 13-31 years. Thus, some Pluto cohorts are relatively small (looking at you, Pluto in Virgo and Libra Gen X cohorts), while others are larger, since they encompass more birth years (hello, Pluto in Leo Boomers and Pluto in Scorpio Millennials).
Transitions from one Pluto sign to another often happen over several years, with Pluto entering a new sign and then retrograding back into the previous sign, so there is some overlap. Because of this back and forth, not everyone born around the same time will share the same Pluto sign. If you were born around the beginning or end of a Pluto range (see below), it’s worthwhile to look up your birth chart to double check.
People born at the start or end of a Pluto generation who have older or younger siblings, friends, or partners often identify more with the Pluto generation that they run with, even if it’s not their own Pluto placement. However, Pluto transits through life, such as Pluto’s square to natal Pluto in the late 30s, are infrequent and intense enough to generally remind one of their actual Pluto cohort.
As childbearing patterns have shifted in recent decades, the generational relationships between parents and their children are changing. In earlier eras, when people tended to have children younger, children might have the same Pluto sign as their parents or the next sign. Adjacent signs are in aversion to one another, meaning that they don’t “see” one another.
This could have represented either a greater affinity (with parents and children with the same Pluto) or, conversely, a greater generational divide. Generations with adjacent Plutos in aversion to each other would have had a harder time understanding each other, as seems to have been common with the Pluto in Cancer Greatest Generation/Silent Generation and their Pluto in Leo Baby Boomer offspring.
In recent decades, however, more and more people have Pluto placements that form a sextile, square, or even a trine with their children’s Plutos, depending on when they were born in their own Pluto cohort and when they have children.
For example, the children of Pluto in Leo Baby Boomers, itself one of the larger cohorts, encompassing birth years from 1937-1958, theoretically could range from those with Pluto in Virgo (in aversion to Leo), Pluto in Libra (which forms an energizing sextile to Leo), Pluto in Scorpio (which forms a tense square aspect to Leo), to Pluto in Sagittarius (forming a harmonious trine to Leo). Thus, the tone of intergenerational relationships is colored by these Pluto interactions.
You can see these dynamics play out in action at your Thanksgiving table next week!
Pluto in the Natal Chart
In a natal chart Pluto’s significations are said to center on transformation, often through the kind of experiences that test us to our core, such as war, near-death experiences, loss, and events that change or mark us in some significant way.
The classic plutonian image is of the blacksmith, who plunges an iron into the fire and then hammers it into a sword. Something beautiful and useful (not to mention dangerous) has been made through transforming metal through fire and pressure.
Some branches of astrology put Pluto at the center of chart interpretation, an approach that I don’t follow. In fact, following a traditional approach, I put Pluto aside at first, along with Neptune and Uranus, in order to understand how the traditional seven planetary bodies interact in the birth chart.
For some people, Pluto isn’t tied into their planetary configurations very strongly and represents more of the experiences of their generation in the background of their life — whether of World Wars, the upheaval of the late 1960s, the Cold War and AIDS, 9/11 and global terrorism, or extreme inequality and the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, some people’s outer planets are tied quite strongly into their natal placements, and in these cases, I look very closely at how Pluto operates in their charts.
Pluto will be more active in your natal chart if:
Pluto is in the same sign (and whole sign house) as your sun, moon, or Ascendant. Being co-present in the same sign and house blends Pluto’s significations with those of the luminaries (sun and moon), which are fundamental to the identity, emotions, and body. If Pluto is anywhere in the first house, it will color the self, identify, and public persona.
Pluto forms a traditional aspect (conjunction, sextile, square, trine, or opposition) within 3 degrees of any personal planet (sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars). Sextiles and trines are generally felt less strongly as they are easier aspects, while conjunctions, squares, and oppositions can be more challenging or intense.
Pluto forms a traditional aspect within 3 degrees of the Ascendant, Midheaven, IC, or Descendant, or the North or South Node. These are sensitive chart points that act as symbolic trip wires, energizing (or weakening, in the case of the South Node) a planet that comes close.
Pluto tends to intensify, embolden, and empower any planets or chart points it comes into contact with in a birth chart. There can be great power and drive, a merciless focus that can propel one to great accomplishments or feats. However, Pluto has a potent and easily accessible dark side that can darken, pathologize, or corrupt another planet. There can be a sense of taking something too far or going to extremes.
For example, Pluto conjunct the moon suggests an emotional intensity that could be used to connect powerfully with others, or, conversely, might veer into obsessiveness and extreme moods. Mars square Pluto can be indicative of great martial power and energy, or possibly a tendency towards ruthlessness or violence.
Someone with a Pluto that is very tied into their chart as a whole will often be connected in some way to their generation, as an embodiment of that cohort, or some type of voice in the story of that group.
As we will see in this series, Pluto can show where each generation focuses its energies and where we may tap into great power or, conversely, where we take things too far, where our gifts turn into liabilities or dangers.
Achilles’ heels and shadow sides of entire generations are revealed through Pluto’s harsh light. But, as with everything in astrology, knowledge is power. Understanding how Pluto manifests in our generational cohorts, and in our lives, can help to harness its tremendous power for transformation, or at least prepare us for its effects in our lives.
In this series, which I will publish monthly, we will look at the following cohorts:
Pluto in Cancer (1914-1939)
Pluto in Leo (1937-1958)
Pluto in Virgo (1956-1972)
Pluto in Libra (1971-1984)
Pluto in Scorpio (1983-1995)
Pluto in Sagittarius (1995-2008)
Pluto in Capricorn (2008-2024)
Next month we will look at our first generational cohort, Pluto in Cancer. For many of us, these are our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents. Many in this cohort have already passed on and the remaining ones are quite old.
In the meantime, get to know your own Pluto placement. What sign and house is it in? Is it in the same sign as any other planets? Does it form a traditional aspect within 3 degrees of any other planets, especially the personal ones? What do the significations of these elements, when strung together, tell you about your Pluto?
To perfectly illustrate Pluto in action in a birth chart, may I present: Björk. The Icelandic singer (who is, amazingly and perhaps unsurprisingly, a triple Scorpio) has an incredibly busy Pluto in Virgo, which is closely conjunct the Midheaven and Uranus in her eleventh house of groups, communities, and fans. Pluto forms a close sextile with her Ascendant and Neptune in Scorpio, and sign-based sextiles to her sun and moon.
Then, we have an exact square of Pluto to her Mercury, in Sagittarius in the second house, and a trine within three degrees to her Venus in Capricorn, which is not far away from her Mars in Capricorn, in the third house. Pluto is also opposite her Saturn and Chiron in Pisces (Chiron by an exact degree) in the creative fifth house, and forms sign-based squares to her Jupiter and North Node in Gemini in the eighth house.
So, Pluto is tied into all of her planets and chart points by sign and intensely, by degree, to several. Obviously, if you have heard even a little of her music, you can appreciate the intense and transformative qualities that Pluto brings her.
I guess it makes sense that she wrote a song called Pluto: (anyone think this video is a better representation of The Matrix than The Matrix?)
Demetra George & Douglas Bloch, “Asteroid Goddesses: The Mythology, Psychology, and Astrology of the Re-emerging Feminine” (Ibis Press, 2003), pg. 43