Pluto went retrograde on April 10th. Because Pluto moves so slowly, when it is stationing to change directions, it stays in the same degree of the zodiac for weeks to months at a time, creating a powerful force field of Plutonian energy in one spot. If activating one’s natal chart, Pluto stationing can feel as though a hole is being burned through the part of oneself that Pluto is touching. Pluto is the planet that most correlates with depth psychology and integrating the shadow, because Pluto aspects or transits are known to bring to light things that we would rather keep hidden, even from ourselves. Read more...
Pluto, aka Hades, rules the underworld. As in the Greek myth when he abducted Persephone down into the underworld, Pluto transits may feel as though one is being carried off unwillingly to an area of darkness and forced to face a difficulty, while feeling powerless to overcome it. The experience often involves a letting go process of some sort — letting go of control, letting go of what is comfortable and familiar, letting go of a superficial reality — for the purpose of admitting in a deeper inner truth and going beyond old limitations.
“Pluto’s transits are ordinarily concerned with the death and destruction of the old, this destruction being necessary in order to make room for the new… Pluto, by transit, therefore symbolizes the power to release the more enduring from the transitory, whether it be the soul from the body at death or the individual self from the old shell of personality and ego. Transiting Pluto brings to the surface hidden or subliminal conditions in order that this energy can be released from the old shell and transformed into a new source of consciously-usable power.” ~Stephen Arroyo
