Sex, death, upheaval, and rebirth. Pluto guards the archetypal underworld and the fire of cathartic experience. It rules over the invisible reality beneath society’s surface. It is obsession, the taboo and that which is well kept secret. It is what we cast out, what we fear, and what we ultimately have to meet face to face. Pluto is where we find our ultimate power, through unearthing revelations that expose the substance of the soul.
A paradoxical entity, Pluto governs both the infernal and celestial. Its discovery as a planetary body coincided with the invention of the atomic bomb, marking humanity's access to forces capable of apocalyptic destruction. Thus, Pluto is associated with inconceivable power, and the transmutation of extremes, making big things small and small things big. It is the brute force that propels the unknowing from one plane to another, supplying confrontations and cataclysms that serve as initiations, forcing us to confront what we keep hidden. In recent history, Pluto was exiled from our solar system and labeled a dwarf planet. The only planetary body to be demoted. Perhaps this exclusion reflects our reluctance to acknowledge its shadowy contents.
The name Pluto comes from Ploutos, meaning "riches." These riches are internal, gained through exploring the psyche or resisting it til the brink of a psychotic break. The underworld, often equated with hell in Christian mythology, is but a pitstop to heaven on the Plutonian journey. The underworld is a cauldron of both death and rebirth, with our existence emerging from its dark, fertile humus. Conjuring up images of what lurks below, Pluto holds an Akashic recording of all that has lived and died. The underworld is the source of emeralds, rubies, diamonds, uranium, and oil. It is not the riches themselves but the messenger of future vegetation. Pluto facilitates the cosmic conversation that transforms gas into liquid, making the inanimate animated, mediating the molecular makeup of all that is permitted to sprout. It protrudes past our parents, through subliminal messages sent down ancestral lines. It melds through the pathways of mycelium, telepathically relaying secrets to the underbelly of the earth. It collects psychic residue in subterranean chambers, driving people together and then tearing them apart.
Pluto is known in Greek mythology as Hades, the possessive rapist-thief. But Hades was a relatively late formulation of an underworld lord. Before this, the gateway to the unconscious was guarded by female deities. The primordial center from which life emerged was once revered as the great womb, and all that lies beyond its fabric. This is a place we do not recall, for if we did, we would remember what was assigned to us at birth, and perhaps lose our courage to return back. For Pluto is the elemental force of fate, and the primal libido governing the course of nature.
Sex is Plutonian domain, as it is where we reconvene with the womb. In sex, we merge and meld with one another, permanently transformed by the encounter. In the reckless abandon of an orgasm, we forfeit our fluids, skin cells, and subatomic particles. Even if we remain blissfully unaware of this microscopic exchange, we are committing an invisible alchemy. We transgress the gates of a forbidden interior, enacting a mythic initiation. When we become enmeshed with another, it can fuck up our carefully constructed human plans, and even destroy what we’ve known as ourselves.
Through such penetrative relationships, we gain access the deepest chasms of psyche. If we are to confront the terror of being seen, we abdicate our agency. When faced with the potential of love, we are also faced with fatality. We enter a liminal space, where the boundaries between ourselves and another begin to blur. If we attempt to control this process, hidden forces take over. The psychic holes of our primordial wounds can keep us in a tidal lock of jealousy and obsession, enhancing the aspects of ourselves usually hidden. We meet our own underworld and the parts of ourselves that wish to control or possess another.
No, Pluto does not preside over the simplistic love and courtly etiquette depicted in romance novels or fairy tales. Pluto rules the love that takes hold of us, which carries us away from the hypnotic hold of the material realm. It is the love that speaks to us through synchronicities, the love with secret purposes, hell-bent on revelation. We are led by Pluto’s passion into power battles, manipulations, vendettas, and oppressions. Under this invisible influence, we experience the violence and darkness of nature, forces that unleash ancient patterns and spew out psychic waste. Pent-up energies spill out in a purgatorial discharge. Taken over by karmic compulsion, we witness ourselves move from the naivety of earth-dwelling Persephone into the archetype of Hades. Suddenly, we wish to entrap someone, own someone, and hold them hostage to our interior will.
These destabilizing visitations from Pluto emerge not just in love but in crisis, catastrophe, and upheaval. The underworld is everywhere, all the time, inherent in the beginning of every thought, feeling, inspiration, relationship, and sexual act. It is much more manageable for us to think of ourselves as fully realized beings, immune to dwarf planets and the unconscious realms within us. But Pluto has no interest in our preferences. It is a symbol of retributive fate, dictating the journey of the soul. It takes us to places where personal will no longer prevail.
We must embrace this innate plight into the perpetual night to face our shadows. Descending into our despair, we fall to our knees, loosen our grip, and let our monkey minds melt. Once we secede to the great unknown, we are purified in a fire of catharsis. We relinquish willpower and come to an eventual acceptance of a force more powerful than ourselves. Only then does Pluto resuscitate. Only then can Pluto hand us his power—the power of having endured hell, only to reemerge with latent strength. Then we are resurrected, burning brilliantly with the sweat of a new superpower. Our psychic resilience is our wealth. And somehow, we transmute it into story, substance, and of course, art.