When Pluto Sets up Shop.
Death will face you down and demand your attention.
Part l
Pluto, you might know, is the planet that signifies death and transformation. When it lands on your natal sun (in my case, Capricorn) you can expect a shakedown, a very real collision course that will demand you deal with death on all levels; the death of your false self, your fear of death, near death experiences, you name it, death in all its aspects.
This is what happened for me, a little over fifteen years ago, just one year before I entered a romantic love parternship with my close friend and respected colleague of over twenty years.
For almost the entire span of our parternship thus far we have both faced into a historical terror of dying a violent death. O joy of joys! A romance centered in transformation. That would be alright, wouldn’t it? What could go wrong? It was a very real contract we shared, to face into, and move through, whatever our dreams brought to our attention.
Pluto, by the way, is also the planet most related to trauma.
Trauma as in the experience of violence. Of death. In this life, through ancestral or inter-generational traumatic experience or even, in a past life.
For me that showed up in:
the collective betrayal by a disaffected faction of our co created intentional community rooted in a vision of honesty (isn’t it ironic?) and personal dream guidance.
the turning, by my family of origin, against me.
necessary exile as preservation in the face of the community turning.
a brush with cancer, anal cancer, fully treatable with chemo-radiation.
Cancer amidst the shared trauma of the coronavirus pandemic.
So what is trauma anyway? If no help came to your aid, that could lead to trauma. If a terrible event or series of events happened and there was no support, zero, and you were left to suffer abuse, neglect, violence or persecution, without anyone standing up for you, or intervening on your behalf, that could leave you in a state of frozen fear. There’s many who write with brilliance about trauma and the brain, including pioneers, Bessel Van der Kolk and Peter Levine. And then there’s Resmaa Menakem, the psychotherapist who specializes in the effects of trauma on the human body and even more specifically in the relationship between trauma, white body supremacy and racism in the United States.
When Pluto comes calling in your natal sun sign, it will force a confrontation with whatever is lurking in your past. You may be a super star at coping and keeping this existential wound under wraps. You may have found, in my case, a loving partner in work and love, a friendly small town in Vermont, a circle of warmth amidst neighbors and an extended blended family co existing with respect (supposedly) for the benefit of all. You may have a house shared with beloved (you thought) community members, filled with music and art and children and dogs. You may have felt wrapped in love and security the way the decades old woody stems of the bittersweet vine enclosed the front porch all summer long, while fireflies (still) danced on the lawn across the street. You may have felt utterly at home in the coffee line at the neighborhood cafe, eight minutes walk from your front door, over a small steel pedestrian bridge, where you neighbor, Larry, reliably grinned at you from his perch on the bench.
All of this might have felt entirely real and cosy and intimate. The life you’d spent twenty years creating, The sense of community you’d always longed for. The fulfillment of a longing to belong.
All of which was moving along well until Pluto, the force of dying and transformation, landed, unceremoniously in my natal sun sign of Capricorn. Oh, and a little about that sign. It’s all well and jolly when life is barrelling along and you’re in sync with society’s forms and expectations, which, it seemed, I was. Capricorn is about structure. I liked that feeling of building my life, renovating a house, creating family—biological and chosen, developing a business, a model of Dreamwork, a system of teaching and sharing the form of the Dreamwork. I liked all of that. It felt good and satisfying. And safe. Secure.
When Pluto comes calling, it’s time to reckon with death. Did I mention that, death?
It felt like a colossal death when a small band of rebels decided to upend the intentional community. I lost my status as a ‘good” girl. I wasn’t popular or beloved, Overnight I felt unsafe in my small town. And when a group pronounces judgement there’s no room for a difference of opinion. Nobody wants to know when the mob mentality sets in. No one wants to hear your side of the story. Echoes of Salem wafted through our house.
Along with my partner, I had to let Pluto work its magic. I had to let my old and comfy attachment to people die. Or rather, it had died and I had to come to terms with there the part of me that needed other people in an unhealthy, co dependent way, more than I needed the true source of love and support within me. Rather than defend kicking and screaming against Pluto’s unflinching challenge, I needed to accept the lesson, let the attachment dissolve, go on Pluto’s straight and narrow path, and descend into tunnels of pain and loss, all of which I’d been able to avoid by being in my cosy community circle. So simple in retrospect. The structures I’d so carefully built came tumbling down. Pluto smirked from the edges of night. I was forced to relinquish the concept of control. I had a pool of grief and loss awaiting me ahead.
But Pluto is not malevolent, just a force that demands attention. For us. For my evolution, on every level, as a person, a teacher, a mother, a partner, a daughter, a sister. Pluto split my personality wide open and into its maw, I fell. To become a truer version of my self, stronger, more centered in an inner consciousness of love and support. Pluto’s fierce curriculum forced me to step into my own shoes, to own my own voice, out of my familiar supportive role. I hated the lesson plan. I resisted its rigorous insistence. I liked my porch, the fireflies, family dinners of risotto and prosecco and St Germain. I enjoyed waving to my friend across the street. It all felt so sweet.
Until it ended.
There is much more to say about the ways I came up against my terror around death and dying. But, for now, it’s time to drive up the mountain on Friday night, eat some Japanese food, sip warm sake and toast Pluto for its volcanic power in shattering my safe and cosy life.
