What does Pluto mean in astrology? Your guide to the petite power planet
Come on down to the underworld, folks — we’re talking about Pluto.Named for the maiden-snatching, shadow-dwelling god of the underworld, the small but mighty planet Pluto is associated with destruction, subversion, depth, intensity, primal urges, the taboo, the criminal, the subterranean, subconscious forces, and the dark and dangerous heart that beats below the veneer of civilization and the crust of the Earth itself.
Sunny stuff, it ain’t.Petite but potent, Pluto was discovered in 1930.
As the final planet in our solar system, Pluto is rightly linked to endings and downfall.As a master of ceremonies for death, Pluto teaches us that destruction is the wheel grease of creation.Apropos of this, Pluto is the planetary ruler of the fixed waters of Scorpio, a sign associated with transformational trauma, shadow work, mind control, power struggles and other people’s resources.As the planet farthest from the sun, Pluto’s orbit is an arduously long one, with the planet changing signs once every 12 to 30 years.
Because of that, Pluto is considered an outer planet whose signature through the zodiac signs applies to the ideals and energies of an entire generation.The discovery of Pluto coincided with the planet’s move through the maternal sign of Cancer and, with it, the birth of nuclear power, fascism and prohibition — all forces that express a kind of civic “care” that is ultimately a dark form of control.
Prohibition specifically initiated a new kind of criminal archetype and an illicit underworld that continues to color our country, feeding into and upon our illicit needs.This era also gave rise to psychology, and specifically psychoanalysis, as a means to access the subconscious.
Thematically, Pluto is akin to the Hindu deity Kali, the mother goddess of nature and destruction, and this crossover is never more apparent than in the sign of Cancer.In terms of Pluto as a generational signature, and as the brilliant astrologer David Odyssey observe...