Wherever you have Pluto in your chart is a place where you are willing and able to probe beneath the surface of existence and see clearly what other people have a hard time looking at and admitting to be true. Pluto rules that part of the psyche that is passionate about shedding light on hidden realities that are taboo or even forbidden. And we live in a culture that has an uber positivity attitude so bringing attention to situations, systems or relationships that are painful, shameful or difficult is a huge cultural taboo.

But Pluto is not interested in the nice, shiny, comfortable surface or anything performative. What it wants is the truth. And some truths are harder to handle than others.

Grief. Loss. Illness. Betrayal. Abuse. Criminal behaviour. Tragedies. Defeats. Deception. Death. Aging. Disasters. All of these all too human experiences and more are part of Plutos territory.

When these types of actualities show up in our lives we get the cultural message loud and clear. Don’t speak about this. Don’t acknowledge this. Pretend that this doesn’t exist. But when you have Pluto strongly emphasized  in your chart you can’t help but be an enthusiastic witness to all kinds of disturbing things that most folks shy away from, but that are SO obvious to you. And what’s even more challenging is that other people without that Plutonian awareness are perfectly comfortable pretending like these distressing, disturbing, scary things don’t even exist.

For example, I just heard recently about yet another spiritual community that is being rocked to the core because the male leader of that community has been secretly sexually abusing his students for years. And this betrayal of trust is only now coming to the surface and being acknowledged in a more public way.

Which means someone had to muster the courage to speak about the abuse and bring it out of the shadows and into the light of day. And someone else had the courage to really hear the truth about the abuse and believe that it was true.

Sexual abuse is one of those things that falls squarely into Pluto territory because it’s always something that is deliberately hidden and Plutos job is to bring dark and shameful secrets to light.

And because someone was willing to speak the truth about the abuse, the abuser was outed in his community and stripped of his power to continue hurting people. Which made the community safer for everyone.

This is Plutos superpower. It’s the recognition that being willing to face the scary thing and then to name it and be honest about it gives the scary thing less power. Not more.

Because the fear and the hope is that if we deny somethings existence and pretend it’s not really an issue then of COURSE it will go POOF and magically disappear. And we won’t have to worry about it ever again. Which has never been the truth about anything EVER. But that hopeful fantasy still exists in many people’s minds. If we don’t get the disturbing physical symptom checked out or simply avoid talking about the tensions we are feeling in our relationship or refuse to acknowledge the changes we see in the climate then we will magically keep ourselves in a bubble of safety.

There’s also the fear that if we name the scary thing and admit it’s a thing it will actually make it worse. One of my students is dealing with a cancer diagnosis and at various times images about the cancer have come up in her paintings. And she always resists painting those images initially because she’s convinced that doing that will make the cancer cells grow faster. When really all her psyche wants her to do is to feel the feelings she has about the cancer so that she can be more connected to her life force energy. Which, if anything, can actually help with the healing process.

Pluto is always inviting us to explore our relationship to the issues of power and powerlessness. Because one of the things that happens when we are confronted with things like betrayal or loss or is that we can get overwhelmed. Frozen. With a great desire to shrink and disappear. To stop feeling and go into a state of denial. To refuse to look at the reality of the situation we find ourselves in.

And what denial and shrinking and refusal to look engenders in us is the experience of feeling powerless. But this is where Pluto comes in as a healing force. Because Pluto says… yes… this tragedy, this calamity, this breach of trust is truly terrible. No doubt. And deeply distressing and shattering.

But Plutos message is that there is something inside of you that is capable of meeting this experience … no matter how bad it may be… from a place of raw emotional power. It’s telling you that you are not as impotent as you think you are. If you are willing to face the truth of whatever you are being confronted with and not only name it but FEEL it, you access depths of your being that you might not know even existed.

And Plutos purpose is to guide you through this process of being nakedly honest about your situation, thus transmuting your pain and overwhelm into a profound and fierce wisdom that unfailingly leads you into a connection with your core essential self. Which is ultimately a place of unshakeable spiritual power.

So if you’re ready for that inner Plutonian journey, come and join us for the Paint Your Stars workshop in October!!!!

For more info and to register click on the image below.