#art and artist; creation and creator; author and audience; all being part of one huge ouroboros

[dreampearls]

oughhhhh

[despondent-beauty]

Interesting. I need to think about what this means beyond the scope of just this post. Like, in regards to the dialogue on what "good representation" is, whether it's necessary, what differentiates it from "bad representation," if bad representation is tautologically harmful (as in the sets for bad rep and harmful rep are just the same set), etc.

Haven't reviewed my thoughts on the matter yet.

Also need to consider ideas like "Does it matter what the average imbecile thinks of a piece of media, or does it matter what the media 'really means,' and who is allowed to determine that meaning if not the masses themselves" as well as "Should the message of a piece of media always be accessible to the layman, or is it okay if they don't get it... or even think it's the opposite of what it really is" (imagining that we can say that the message of A Media "truly" is anything).

Idk, complex questions.

Like, if someone writes "Nazi Fun Time" as a scathing, satirical critique against Nazis, but the Nazis use the book as a rallying message because they just don't *get* it, is that bad? Is that wrong? Does that mean it should have never been written?

Just questions that this post stirs within me.

My own personal intuition/feeling is that art should be made authentically, and the message that is contained within art will always be subjective and decided according to individuals, even if the author intended one specific thing. (Authors can have weak interpretations of their own work. Look at JKR's portrayal of slavery or Wizard > Muggle hierarchy, which she pays lip service to as 'bad' but then demonstrates otherwise through the actual story itself.)

Does this mean that an artist's negative impact on society as the result of their art being interpreted in an unintended way -- either due to the oversimplification of its complexity in the resultant cultural discussion or due to the author themselves simply writing something they didn't realize they were writing (like forcing the LGBTQ+ characters to sacrifice themselves because they have no worth to the story otherwise, but not realizing that that's what you did with the piece) -- isn't their responsibility?

Said in another way, if the creator of some content never meant for that content to spark civil unrest, does that still make them responsible in part for riots that their creations inspire?

What even is "responsibility?"

We studied something called "proximate cause" in my law class. I actually think the concept is extremely relevant here. It's hugely contextual, after all. There's no clear-cut answer to any of this.

But yeah. Warrants more thought before I really arrive at a strong conclusion.

(This governs instances where representation causes people to dislike LGBTQ+ people in this specific case, even if the representation was *intended* to be good-natured. It's not a question of "how do we avoid that," it's a question of "well, fuck, it happened. People misunderstood that the character changes to be better over time because they were a shitty person who happened to be gay. Now they think that I was saying gay people are shitty and I'm just backtracking now."

Of course, this includes instances where the creator actually does a good job of portraying X character as being a real-life person *who happens to be* Y identity/heritage/etc., but the majority audience is too stupid to understand that "character with Y quality doing a bad thing doesn't mean that Y quality = bad."

I don't know. I'm rambling right now because I really need to think about this more. It's extremely nuanced.

I know I fall on the side of the creator's self-expression, but I temper that with an acknowledgement that the best of intentions can lead to the worst of portrayals, and some bad portrayals are a matter of writing quality, and some bad portrayals are due to internalized (or unconscious) biases, and these are not equivalent situations, and, also, artists need to be open to feedback about character development and what the "theme" of the piece they're creating is to the people who actually engage with the piece.

Like, there's something to be said about the average reading comprehension being less than what we expect of 8th-grade children.

Does the creator have a responsibility to "dumb their work down" for that average literacy?

(I honestly don't think they do -- people are going to believe whatever they believe, and your art is really arbitrarily chosen to support or attack whatever they want. Same reason why I'm anti-religion. People just use ancient religious texts to support what they already believed, but they pretend it's the book and the holy figures telling them that they should believe it. But it's really just their own beliefs.)

Actually, I guess that answers the question.

I do also think that creators need to acknowledge when they're shit at communicating the actual idea they want to communicate. Like... I have been following a friend's acquaintance's story about neko boys for like a year. Ostensibly, they're not slaves. However, they're sold and kept as pets. What? (Also a scene where a father has sex with his son's neko, and the son finds them in bed and the scene basically goes

"Agh! I am so mad! This is wrong."

"Oh, sorry. He consented."

"Okay. Anyway..."

And it's like wtf???

And there's a scene where an orphanage owner who is STATED IN SCRIPT NOTES TO BE LOVING AND SWEET forces a neko to go through withdrawal and taunts him with drugs. Clearly, the author has no fucking idea what they're writing.

I think that's just... obviously terrible writing.

And I'm going to argue with that author that their writing is shit and needs to be rewritten because it seems like they have no idea what slavery is, what abuse of power is, what "nice" is, and they're trying to communicate that certain problematic things are actually good because they don't even realize that they're problematic. It's the JKR situation all over again.

But I'm also going to argue that it's just their story, and it's really not their responsibility how I or anyone else uses that story to support or reject a set of beliefs?

Fuck, I'm so tired. I'll think about this more later. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

"For mature audiences" not as in "legally allowed to see a boob" but "can see a fictional character do a bad thing and not immediately go on a crusade against the author"

[icypantherwrites]

How do you get people to interact with your work? Especially on something that you spent hours slaving over and not a single person has interacted with it (except for the exception of my friends, who I'm very thankful for)? It's very disheartening. You know, I used to be kind of against the fact of 'interact with artists/writers/etc because it inspires them' because I thought 'why not just do it anyways, who cares if you get interacted with? You don't need to beg for comments' but now I totally understand what that means. I still want to write, I'm starting to love it honestly, but I wrote almost 2,000 words (which is a lot for me) and it took hours and no one seems to like it. I'm not sure how to feel about that yet. Did I post it at the wrong time, or do people just not care?

Ah, you have found the largest difference between "writing" and "posting." Writing, as you noted, is something you love to do, as do I. It's a fantastic feeling to get ideas down on a page, to pull together ideas, to write that line that just speaks to you. Writing is glorious and I'm glad you've found the beauty of it ♥

Posting, however, is very different and just like how they say everyone should work retail once in their life to understand it and learn some patience and empathy for those workers, I honestly I think everyone should have to spend hours creating something -- whether it's a story or a piece of artwork or a music video or even an in-depth analysis -- to post online and then get to experience that awful feeling of barely anyone (or even no one) engaging with it.

You write for you. You post for others. And that is a huge difference. People, even yourself as you noted, don't feel that they should have to engage with a creation. The person creating it should just enjoy the process and not care if no one stops by to say if they enjoyed it, what it made them feel, that they appreciate you sharing your time and talent and craft. But as you learned, we do care. And so we ask ourselves, why bother posting if there's no one there to appreciate it? You may as well just keep a personal folder of your works like a dragon and their hoard and never share it with anyone. I posted this quote a bit ago and I'm gonna paraphrase here, but if you have an audience of 1,000 people but no one engages it may as well be an audience of zero because you don't know those people are there. You don't know you have fans. You don't know people are looking forward to what you create. You have no idea they exist and it's a terrible, awful feeling.

It's why I so strongly advocate for reader engagement, in making that author, artist, creator feel appreciated. They spent their time to create something and they had the urge to share it, to connect to others. That's what being human is: connecting with others. And in this case it's connecting with others through art and a shared love of something (fandom) and wanting to get back just a little bit of what you put out. Because when a creator does get that engagement they crave it's amazing. Wonderful. Inspiring. It makes them want to create more (or maybe just post more often, cough, me) because they have an audience saying that they're here and that they appreciate you and it makes you want to continue to share your works rather than hoard them because you have now connected with someone.

And so now that you know firsthand how important that engagement is, be a part of the solution. Engage with stories and artworks and edits and whatever may have you that you enjoy. Tell that creator thank you. Quote back a favorite section or pull out a specific detail because that tells that creator you don't just care about quantity but about quality, that you see them and their efforts. I've made a post previously about some ideas to try to encourage engagement if you were interested and maybe a couple will give you some ideas to try to help with engagement on your stories. I can't say I use all of these things anymore myself, but sometimes all you need is a launching pad and some ideas. To your question about the time to post, I struggle very much with the timing as I've done polls and seen every day and hour suggestion there is so it's very difficult to say when to post, but I know for myself I do prefer posting earlier in the day.

I hope things improve for you and good luck with both your writing journey and your future engagement :)

[whoson1st]

Are you in the official King Falls server at all? Just trying to get an idea of what's going on and who knows what's going on

Hoooooo BOISE.

So, long story short, yes. Yes I’m in the discord, yes I know what’s going on, and it’s all really, really stupid. I think that there were mistakes made on a lot of fronts, but I also think that the end result is, in a lot of ways, a long time coming.

I haven’t been responding to things I’ve seen on social media for the most part, and wasn’t REALLY keen to respond to this, but there’s also a lot of misinformation happening due to hurt feelings. There’s plenty of abridged accounts of what’s going on, and I’m pretty sure you know that. I’m taking this question on good faith that it’s genuinely asking and not setting me up to get torn down but...honestly, either way, I don’t care. I’m not on tumblr much these days anyway so it doesn’t really matter, and internet drama is just….it’s always dumb. But there’s a lot of “evidence” being put forth that is out of context or in bad faith, and the people who are being the loudest are a whole lot of the problem, so I’ll put in my account and opinions.

Anyway, I’m putting everything under a cut because it’s...a lot.

So first off, full disclosure, I used to be a mod on the discord. I left the team at the beginning of the year of my own volition because I’m an adult with a job and a life and things to take care of that aren’t that and needed a break. I’m still friends with all the current mods, and talk to them regularly, as well as being on good terms with the cast and creators. Just in case you’re dead set on hating any of them, you should know that. I try to keep a pretty good perspective, and I’m a little more removed than I was a few months ago, but I won’t say I’m totally free of bias either. If that’s what you’re into, just go ahead and skip this.

This all started with a piece of fan art, which honestly should be a clue as to how petty this all is. The fanart included The Dirt in a BDSM outfit as part of a larger work, and it was posted in the fanart section of the discord. It was bordering on NSFW, and the artist maybe should have asked the mods and/or put it behind a spoiler tag--which is probably as far as the mods would have gone had they been consulted, because it was 1) part of a larger thing and 2) canon compliant (it’s Jacob Williams, what do you want?). Neither of those things happened, people complained, the art was taken down. Then Kyle Brown, one of the writers, retweeted the copy that had been uploaded to twitter on his personal account--his account, not KFAM official--and someone complained that it made them uncomfortable and was not safe for work. Another cast member, Trent Shumway, replied that twitter isn’t a safe for work site, which it’s not. Which then led to both Kyle and Trent being socially crucified for not taking more care in what their followers see on their personal accounts on an open social media platform that is not dedicated to any single person or work.

It was already stupid. Really, really stupid. Especially since this is not a SFW podcast. It never has been. Everyone remember the third episode with Archie’s pomchies? And I know that certain aspects of that make people uncomfortable but if you are choosing to listen to the show regardless of that, it’s on you. An artist isn’t going to repaint something because you’re not a fan of green. And the SFW rule on the server has always been “within the guidelines of the show”.

So then, someone made this post that has since been deleted but I’m including mostly because if other people want to go ahead and pull receipts, I’m also going to.

Before I go ANY further with this, I want to say this: this person has been a problem for a LONG TIME. Months, at least, since before I left the mod team, and is honestly part of the reason being a mod became so difficult for me. They have displayed a pattern of abuse of the mods, the creators, and other members of the community on both twitter and tumblr, and have made people on the discord server uncomfortable enough that they either don’t participate or have left completely. This one person. And they have a bully squad behind them. And it sucks. But in the end, it was always decided that we couldn’t police what people did on their individual accounts or single someone out who hadn’t technically broken guidelines in the server, despite numerous complaints, because the mods and creators want to make everyone feel that they’re included. This decision was made...numerous times. After multiple incidents. For months.

I had my own issues with this decision, but that’s neither here nor there, and doesn’t really matter anymore. Because that post was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Kyle, misunderstanding the term, took it as a threat. Not hard to do, given the already heightened emotions, the tags, and this person’s history. So the person was immediately banned. The fact is, even without misunderstanding, that’s a really shitty post. That’s hating one a writer and a cast member and still wanting to pretend they have nothing to do with the THING THEY CREATE because this person doesn’t like what they said on twitter.

Following that, one of their friends--who had also been a longstanding problem--attempted to start a knockdown dragout in the general chat with one of the mods over this, and was upset when the mod in question first said they’d be happy to talk on DM but not on the server, and then ignored them when they repeatedly tried to carry on the argument.

Then they lit a candle in the channel the banned person had pitched a fit in order to form, as if the person was dead and not just a jerk. And then they made this post:

They also got banned, because OBVIOUSLY. Again, misunderstanding or not, that’s a horrible way to deal with it. You can’t possibly expect to call someone an illiterate fuckwad and still want to be included in spaces they created, much less EXPECT to be. 

And then several other people who were attempting the same nonsense publicly. And then invites were taken away when the mods got word that there was a possible plan in the works to spam the server. And there’s a weird campaign to EXPOSE THE CREATORS FOR THE ASSHOLES THEY ARE.

And that’s...about where things are at now. A lot of people are upset and hurt across the board. And it sucks.

Here’s the thing. Mistakes were made. Kyle misunderstood Death of the Author, and has a tendency toward knee-jerk, unedited reactions. The mods should have been more on top of the problem and not let it fester. There were ways that this could have been mitigated and done better. There always are.

But this was always going to happen in some fashion.

Podcasts and podcast communities are not new anymore, folks. But it still seems like people have a hard time grasping their actual level of involvement in the creation because of how active some creators are. You’re free to say whatever you want, but you are not free from consequence. And you’re not exempt from being wrong. This isn’t just a matter of the creators of KFAM--or any work, to be honest--not being able to take criticism, this is a matter of people thinking that their criticism is 100% correct 100% of the time, and the entitled attitude that comes with that. KFAM isn’t perfect, I have my own criticisms of it, because I have criticisms about basically everything under the sun, so it’s not just blind following. But it is trust in the creators and the people around them to find the best way to tell their story, to the see their problems and strive for better. And we’ve literally seen that happen in KFAM, in changes made to Walt, in Emily’s storyline, in Lily’s...everything. In the addition of “guys, gals, and non-binary pals”. They’re trying. They’re not perfect, but they’re not deaf. They’re also not obligated or beholden to everything their audience says regarding their story.

The whole argument that they can’t take criticism is undercut when it’s being made by people who think that everything they say should be taken as gospel, and treat every instance where someone disagrees with them as a personal attack. The scope of hypocrisy here is just...breathtaking.

Also, when not withstanding some nonsense attacks, they’re all genuinely kind and friendly. I already admitted some bias here, but seriously, they go out of their way to check on people and respond to people and lift people up. It’s total horse dookie to act like they don’t care about their fans.

And as for the discord--god, just get a life. The mods there work SO HARD to make everyone feel included, to encourage participation, the create a positive environment for people to talk about the things they love and make friends. They have meetings and spreadsheets and calendars and work together as a team and with Kyle to keep the place working smoothly even though there’s FIVE of them running a HUGE server. The person who was initially banned was forever complaining about the discord and how the mods ran it, even while some suggestions they had were implemented. But that discord has like 1500 people in it, gang, it’s not about what one person wants all the time. And that person has their own server anyway so just go be unhappy there and leave everyone else alone. It’s what you were doing anyway.

TL;DR: There was a lot of manufactured outrage over something incredibly dumb, and some misunderstandings, and resulted in actions that had been looming for a long time and just finally popped off. Kyle and the mods aren’t perfect, but they aren’t the villains. The people who were banned have a history of negativity and bullying that led to the decision to remove them.

If anyone takes anything from this, please let it be that it’s a GODDAMN PODCAST. If it makes you angry, if you don’t like it, go watch a movie. Eat a snack. Knit a sweater. Take a nap. Listen to a new music album. Literally anything. There’s so many things to do in this life that aren’t LOOKING for things to be upset about.

Remember the golden rule, and don’t be a dick.

[circe-poetica]

Pluto and the Creative Arts by Anthea Head

“Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.”

from O Beautiful End by Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet and mystic. Tagore had Pluto on the Sun/Mercury midpoint in Taurus.

The arts have the power to raise the spirit of their audience, they move us, transform us, excite our passions and our feelings. They make us laugh or weep, lift us to great heights or fill us with compassion. They provide a vehicle through which we can gaze upon both the best and the worst in human nature and in some mysterious way they make us more than we are.

Pluto is the planet of transformation and of regeneration. Where there is transformation through suffering, loss or psychological breakdown, the efficacy of the therapeutic use of the arts is now recognised. Therapists and those who work in mental health increasingly use painting, music and drama as effective therapies for deep-rooted trauma which cannot be expressed in any rational or verbal way. As for regeneration, stories, colours and sounds have the power to touch something deep, reminding us of our true purpose or opening our hearts to the commonality of human experience. They have been an essential part of civilisation since the earliest of times.

Hades/Pluto was the god of the underworld. The earliest known examples of art of any kind were discovered in caves and tombs. Archaeological finds show that dance, theatre, music, literature, poetry, painting and sculpture have their origins in ritual. Evidence suggests that the arts were an intrinsic part of symbolic and spiritual life of the community; midwife to the human-cosmic relationship. From the very earliest known examples, dating back some 40,000 years or more, skilled workers have created musical instruments, effigies and images whose purposes we can only surmise as being of a transpersonal nature. The time, skills and investment needed to produce these marvellous objects and paintings suggest that they were considered essential to the well-being of the community, this at a time when simple survival itself required huge efforts of energy and courage. The artist, the creator of form, colour or sound would have been regarded with respect. He/she was something of a shaman, maintaining the psychic health of the community. Creative expression was then, and remains always, essential to civilisation.

A tiny planet (and yes, I still call it a planet), Pluto is a little smaller than our Moon, yet symbolically it is a powerful point of focus, a mediator between ourselves as human beings and the overwhelming and impersonal vastness of the Universe, the Divine Cosmos. It is dangerous ground to draw parallels between the physical attributes of the planets and astrological symbolism. Nonetheless, as Pluto inhabits the farthest edges of our solar system, ‘facing’ outwards to dark and mysterious regions, so also does its astrological parallel draw us inward to those hidden places within the soul. Just as there is no absolute scientific theory of the nature of the Universe, so also are the realms of Pluto (within the human psyche) anathema to reason or materiality. Mythologically, Pluto is god of the underworld, of elimination and regeneration. Psychologically, it signifies passion, obsession, the instinct for survival (or lack of it) and those raw, gut feelings that put us in touch with our true values.

Pluto exposes us directly to transpersonal forces which may overwhelm us personally, but which nonetheless connect us inextricably with all humanity and the human condition. It illumines the darkest side of our natures while simultaneously offering the possibility of transcending base desires and rising on the wings of the Phoenix to the highest good. Pluto represents not only the darkness of human nature but the potential for the greatest healing once the confines of self-centredness have been broken. Pluto’s nature is to transform; and transformation is a creative act: it is the creation of a new state of being out of the ashes of the past.

Creative work produced under the influence of Pluto is powerful, unforgettable and deeply moving and speaks directly to the core of ourselves.

Pluto has dominion over all creation myths in which light, order and a meaningful existence come forth from conditions of darkness and chaos. Most of our contemporary blockbuster films and the novels on bestseller lists evoke the hero's journey to the underworld and his/her subsequent redemption and gaining of wisdom. Popular culture succeeds not just because of the beautiful people it portrays (the glamour of Neptune) but also because it holds out the promise that we too might be transformed into something greater than we are.

That no matter how difficult our circumstances are, there remains the possibility of redemption.

The theme of transformation is epitomised in the Greek myth of Persephone. Her abduction to the underworld domain of Hades (Pluto) speaks of the transition from innocence to experience, symbolised by the change of name from Kore to Persephone. The story of her conditional release from Hades is said to have initiated the pattern of the seasons. As she descended for one-third of each year to the underworld, winter came to Earth, bringing cold and sadness. After her sojourn, her return to the meadowlands above ground brought spring and the coming of joy. An element of this story is concerned with the creation of the cycles of the seasons: the new growth that bursts into life with the spring and the autumnal dying back of the plants as the life force once more returns below ground. As Earth has its seasons, so do our own lives. Our own rites of passage and initiations into adulthood, maturity and wisdom are transformative times of life. Often painful and involving great depths of emotion, these are the recurring themes in drama and literature.

Writers: Greene, Salinger, Golding

The creative arts have always had a role to play at such times. Who does not remember some music or novel which accompanied a major transition in their lives and made sense in a way nothing else could? For me, J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock both had a profound influence when I was a teenager. Unable to externalise my feelings at the time, these authors confirmed the validity of my emotional life. Salinger, born on 1 January 1919, had the Sun in opposition to Pluto; Greene, born on 2 October 1904, had an exact square between Mercury and Pluto. These Pluto aspects signify a quality within their own lives which enabled them to touch the depths of the loneliness and confusion of adolescence. As a result, they were able to write stories which became touchstones for several generations of young people.  

The work an artist produces under Pluto’s influence cannot be cosmetic or superficial; it will touch on something essential and is an active, dynamic response to life. For them, the necessity to create is a compelling force and, at its most overwhelming, this creative energy represents the awakening of the divine fire of life, kundalini.  

These primal forces with which Pluto is associated can manifest on any level of human experience. Its lowest expression is an animalistic energy, devoid of reason, pure instinctual power. In literature this irrational and shocking impulse within human nature is powerfully portrayed in William Golding's Lord of the Flies – a story of shipwrecked children. Left to their own devices in the absence of adults and seeking to find a means of survival and order, these hitherto well-behaved schoolboys become increasingly terrified and feral, dividing into tribes and reverting to violent and cruel power struggles. Golding’s Sun in Virgo was squared by Pluto in Gemini suggesting that he was aware on some level of the potential for order being overturned by chaos and darkness. The Scorpio South Node and Jupiter in Scorpio in a t-square with Saturn and the Moon also point to an understanding of the psychology of the breakdown of relationships and the painful consequences.

In the story, the children gradually become alienated from civilised behaviour and their primitive, tribal instincts take over. The relinquishment of self-control and personal responsibility, and their abandonment to the powerfully irrational forces of barbarity, is signalled when one boy, Jack, decorates his face with red and white clay and charcoal.

He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger. …Beside the mere, his sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them. He began to dance, and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling.1

This face paint is strongly symbolic of primal energy. The mask gives them permission to take on new, more fearsome identities and forms a barrier between their inner childish vulnerability and the ruthless warriors they are play-acting as being. Play-acting or truth, it is a matter for analysis.

Golding (birth time unknown) himself seems to have been a gentle man, a poet and a teacher of music and English. During WWII he saw active service with the Royal Navy, involved in D-Day and in the sinking of the Bismarck. The writing of Lord of the Flies, and other novels, provided the outlet for his Virgo Sun/Gemini Pluto square. It was written as tr. Pluto was semi-square Sun, and solar arc Pluto was semi-square natal Mercury (and possibly conjunct natal Moon). This story is a disturbing evocation of what lies beneath the veneer of civility. The boys survived shipwreck and drowning, but with no moral compass or adult support, they find themselves overwhelmed by plutonic forces. The novel has made a huge impact and is a standard text on school and university courses.

Masks invoke spirits

To return, briefly, to the subject of masks, our face is what we show to the world. In the Greek myth, when Hades/Pluto roamed above ground, he wore a mask of invisibility. People with Pluto on or near the Ascendant often shy away from revealing too much of themselves. Our face reflects our feelings, our compassion; and through lines of ageing, it says something of our experience of life and our humanity. To paint the face or wear a mask, de-humanises; it sets the actions apart from the personality, suggests a transpersonal force taking over and abnegates personal responsibility. This was the theme of the film, The Mask (1994), in which the lurid green mask has a compelling life force of its own, fixing itself on the face of the unwitting hero (a shy and awkward man played by Jim Carrey) who is transformed into a mad daredevil, a foolhardy and romantic figure. (Carrey has natal Sun in Capricorn with Scorpio rising; radical Pluto is conjunct draco Sun.)

In primitive societies, the mask (which often included a covering for the body) took on the vital energy of an ancestor or bush spirit and concentrated the power upon itself. Masks were considered so powerfully magical that someone was employed to follow the masked figure to collect any pieces of fallen garment in order that these not be used by others for magical purposes. In tribal societies, only a select few dignitaries would be permitted to wear masks. Even when not in use, they were regarded with great respect and locked away and kept in secrecy. The Etruscans and Romans, who used wax masks of faces for the purpose of ancestor worship and family cults, were also known to have kept them in special shrines in their houses.

Masks not only invoke spirits through imitation but at the same time protect the wearer from the direct force of Pluto's influence; they de-personalise the energy, focusing it on the purpose desired. In many cultures, the ritual wearing of masks signifies the laying aside of reason and enables the wearer to access the universal cosmic forces of creation. Music and masked dance may accompany ceremonies at turning points of the year, propitiating the spirits for the purpose of good harvest, good health and victory over adversaries.  

Artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani (all with strong Scorpio/Pluto contacts in their charts) were inspired by the African mask. Through use of pure and vibrant lines, they produced memorable and intensely beautiful drawings and sculptures. Artists working under the influence of Pluto often use line sparingly, making pure and strong statements. Pluto pares away the inessentials, in art as well as in life. Picasso's well-known sculpture of the head of a bull (1942) was a simple but effective mask formed from one bicycle seat (the face) topped by a pair of handlebars (the horns). Pluto as god of resourcefulness and recycling!

And what of the artists themselves? To pursue a creative life often demands much personal hardship; it can be a lonely and difficult path, of continual striving for expression of the inexpressible. It is a well-known phenomenon that many creative people tend to suffer from mental health problems, notably manic depression. Considering the vital role artists and craftsmen had in early societies and the forces they were manipulating through their skills, it is no wonder that today, endowed with this creative and imaginative gift, the artist may carry something of this ancient experience within him/her and it is a heavy burden. For such people a ‘normal’ life is difficult; the road they travel can indeed be lonely and one of obsession – if there is an affliction to a sensitive point in the chart from Pluto.

However, when the Pluto/Scorpio energy is strongly marked in the lives of artists their work has frequently left a meaningful legacy which has resonated through the years to give us symbols, metaphors or images to describe the heights and abysses of experience. Their work is powerful, memorable and often iconic. Their work is fierce, painfully truthful and a cri de coeur for love and compassion.  

The psychologist Carl Jung described the artist as being filled with “the divine gift of Creative Fire” for which they must pay dearly. According to him, the desire for expression is often of such urgent need that unless he can bring his consciousness fully into the light (we are reminded of Persephone escaping from Hades) he may otherwise suffer from great distress.

Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with freewill who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realise its purpose through him.  …He is a collective man – one who carries and shapes the unconscious psychic life of Mankind.2

Astrologically, one may expect such an artist to have an aspect between Pluto and the Sun, Moon or Mercury, or Pluto ruling the 3rd house. Scorpio on the cusp of the 3rd house often corresponds to a Virgo Ascendant with Gemini on the Midheaven. Virgo (the craftsman) and Gemini (the communicator) are essential tools for the writer/artist. I have been surprised by how many examples I have come across (in some cases Scorpio is intercepted in the 3rd house, depending on the house system). To name just a few: Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls), Albert Camus (The Plague), Oscar Wilde (De Profundis), John Cage (4’33”), Mozart (Piano Sonata No. 8 in A Minor), Igor Stravinsky (Rite of Spring), Olivier Messiaen (Quartet for the End of Time), Amedeo Modigliani (numerous paintings and sculptures inspired by masks). The combination of Virgo rising/Gemini MC/Scorpio 3rd house does not (of itself) make one an artist but will enable those who are creative souls to work in a particular way.

The influence of Pluto in the charts of all these souls deeply affected the path of their lives yet also endowed them with the ability to tap into something within the human psyche, evident in their paintings, music or writing but also inevitably reflected by some personal suffering or vulnerability in their private lives. Nonetheless, this sensitivity, this ability to be open to the voice of the unconscious, is vital. Jung believed that all creative work arises from the depths of the unconscious, the conscious ego being “swept along on a subterranean current”.3

For writers, Pluto’s influence can be signified by deep psychological insight, clarity of vision and directness of expression. The philosopher Nietzsche (Sun in Libra in close opposition to Pluto, with Pluto on the Moon/Venus midpoint; possibly Scorpio rising) recorded his own experience of this. Speaking of his Thus Spoke Zarathustra he wrote:

If one had the slightest residue of superstition left in one, one would hardly be able to set aside the idea that one is merely the mouthpiece, merely the medium of overwhelming forces.4

Another author, George Eliot (author of The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch) (Scorpio rising, Scorpio Sun trine Pluto/Saturn conjunction in Pisces, 5th house) wrote that she “felt her own personality to be merely the instrument through which this spirit was acting”.5

Why is it that some works of art, literature or music strike a resounding chord with us?  Jung believed that art must touch on some fundamental truth of human experience. In his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul he describes the poet as someone who assimilates the deepest feelings engendered at moments of destiny and who can, through his skill, “raise it from the commonplace to a level of poetic expression”.6

For such a person the need to allow the creative spirit to find outward expression is a necessity. Often, they cannot live by the accepted standards of society; their choices make little sense to others. That which is buried deep within the soul must come out into the light of consciousness in a creative manner. It is Neptune which elevates the imagination to visionary levels. Pluto, however, is the passion and obsession of the artist which demands a voice, and which sees clearly into the depths of the pool of the human psyche. Such artists express universal truths which have a message not only for their contemporaries but for future generations.  

An example of just such an overwhelming outpouring of feeling is expressed by Dylan Thomas in his poem Do Not Go Gentle into That Goodnight:

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day Rage, rage against the dying of the light… 7

The poet's passion is indicated astrologically by Scorpio Sun trine Pluto/Saturn conjunction in Cancer and a Mercury/Mars conjunction in Scorpio. T.S. Eliot, author of The Waste Land, also had a close trine from Pluto (conjunction Neptune and in the 8th) to his Libran Sun.

There is no doubt that the influence of all three outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) may raise the consciousness of an individual above and beyond the purely personal. The creative soul under the influence of Uranus will be in some way rebellious and non-conformist but also humanitarian and often intellectual (Anton Chekhov, Boris Pasternak). The influence of Neptune is transcendental, visionary and subtle (Neptune/Venus aspects are a signature for music). Where there is a raw compulsion, the direct expression of emotion pervading the work the influence of Pluto is undeniable. Pluto is not a theorist or a philosopher: he reflects the human condition, without condemnation (except notably, of hypocrisy). The darkest conditions of Man's soul can be portrayed with the greatest empathy and understanding. The penetrating insight into human nature of which Pluto is capable shocks us because we can so easily identify with the breadth of human emotions displayed.

Painters: Picasso, Matisse, Goya, Hogarth

This is evident in the early work of Pablo Picasso (Sun and Mercury in Scorpio, Mercury opposition Pluto). As a young man seeking to study art, he found himself in Paris. With little money, he frequented the poorest areas of the city. And the paintings of his now famous Blue Period were inspired by the lives of the prostitutes and down-and-outs he came to know well. These works have a poignant honesty about them and radiate a profound compassion for humanity without resorting to sentimentality. They invoke a sense of the suffering passion of Mankind and the images hover between despair and redemption.

Picasso was a skilled craftsman and his work challenges with its power and vigour. Born at the time of a Jupiter/Pluto conjunction in Taurus (the Bull) opposing his natal Mercury, Picasso's bold and daring images frequently focus on his fascination with bullfighting and with the figure of the Minotaur. The powerful sexuality of the god-like figure of the male/Minotaur was a theme to which he returned throughout his life in his brilliant, semi-pornographic drawings. One wonders what sort of man he would have been had he not had this outlet for his imagination!  

Picasso produced one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings of our era. The huge, monochrome Guernica (1937), created when his progressed Sun was exactly (to the minute) quincunx natal Pluto, was his immediate response to the terrible bombing by General Franco's forces of the Basque capital on a market day. It is an image depicting the horror of war and its effect on innocent victims. Chaos and fear fill the picture as mothers scream for their children and people die. A huge, raging bull towers over the image symbolising the forces of brutality and darkness while a screaming horse cries out in terror. Images seem strongly to relate to Picasso's chart; the Scorpio Sun in the 4th house of homeland, the Jupiter/Pluto conjunction in Taurus (the bull) in the 10th, Moon in Sagittarius (the horse) in the 5th quincunx a 10th-house Saturn in Taurus. Guernica was recognised as such a powerful image that, for political reasons, it was kept in America until after the death of Franco, at which time it was returned to Spain. It remains to this day a seminal work and in the UK has been chosen as one of the ubiquitous Masterpieces of the Millennium.8 A tapestry copy hangs in the United Nations building in New York. Significantly, a blue cloth covered the tapestry when Colin Powell stood in front of it to announce war with Iraq, so that the brutal images of war and suffering were hidden from view.

Henri Matisse, Picasso's friend, had a gentler aspect, a trine, between Pluto on the Midheaven and a Capricorn Sun in the 5th house. Matisse’s cool Capricorn Sun was less vehement than Picasso’s Scorpio, but he was just as focused and dedicated to a clarity of expression. Born twelve years apart, they both had Jupiter/Pluto conjunctions in Taurus. For Matisse this conjunction manifests through the exuberance of his colours, the sheer abundant sensuality of his patterns and his religious faith. He created vibrant images from simple lines and clear colours. Picasso fought the image of God (Jupiter), Matisse praised it. Restricted by illness towards the end of his life, Matisse worked in reduced circumstances simply with coloured paper (the resourcefulness of Pluto), creating his famous, huge, beautiful collages. His drawings became sparse, pure and deeply expressive. Pluto desires to get to the root of the matter – whether it be the root of emotion or the pure essence of light and colour.

The work of an earlier Spanish artist, Francisco de Goya, born on 30 March 1746 (time unknown), is also notable for the power of its imagery. His Sun/Mercury conjunction in Aries is sesquiquadrate Pluto in Scorpio, giving a potent Mars/Pluto mix with Saturn in Libra opposing Sun/Mercury, and semi-square Pluto. As we saw with Picasso, Pluto afflictions in the charts of creative people can be expressed in deeply disturbing works. Goya was no exception. His work is full of plutonic imagery. The masked carnival dancers in his Los Caprichosetchings are both demonic and satirical, and his portraits of the Spanish royal family are filled with deep psychological insight (which apparently his sponsors failed to see because the paintings were heralded as masterpieces of royal portraiture but are devastatingly incisive in their portrayal).

As with Picasso, Goya was compelled to reflect the human condition as he perceived it, notably through his series of etchings Disasters of War which present a profound anti-war sentiment and are deeply discomforting to look at. Another well-known image, the etching entitled Reason Asleep, shows a sleeping man slumped at a table while around his head fly bats and other frightful creatures of the dark: it is a striking evocation of the dark side of Pluto. As progressed Sun came to exact quincunx natal Pluto, Goya painted Saturn Devouring his Son. A shocking image executed when Goya was aged 73 and made to hang on the wall in his home. Like many artists working under this influence, he was skilled in etching, creating powerful black and white images through the manipulation of light and dark.

Goya and Picasso are just two examples of painters whose work graphically depicts the powerful influence of Pluto. Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani, with beneficent Pluto aspects, were also masters of line and expression, able to catch the dynamics of form using the minimum of strokes but their work is less tormented, more transcendent. Piet Mondrian, who reduced the Manhattan road plan to a series of beautifully abstracted and colourful grids, was born with very close aspects between the luminaries and Pluto (sextile Sun in Pisces, square Moon in Aquarius).

Examples of other painters who employed their skills to make social criticism include the French artist Honoré Daumier, born with a New Moon conjunct Pluto in Pisces in the 8th house, whose work exhibits the clear, transparent morality of a great satirist. The English painter, William Hogarth, born 10 November 1697 (time unknown), with Sun in Scorpio and a Mercury/Jupiter conjunction in Scorpio square to Pluto, is also notable for his humorous but biting depictions of English society. Of his etchings, A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode are his most renowned. Pluto no doubt would also figure prominently in the charts of contemporary political satirists and cartoonists.

Having studied the charts of many writers, composers and artists and using an orb of 2 degrees to Sun, Moon or Mercury, there seems to be a remarkable predominance of close Pluto aspects in the charts of writers and these far exceed those in the other two categories.

Pluto’s insight: Thackeray, Zola, Hugo, Miller

Why is this? Pluto (and planets in Scorpio) seeks to expose what lies behind things, to get to the root of things. It can be wonderfully helpful for research, seeking hidden motives or undiscovered facts. Researchers with a strong Pluto will go back to source material, to original documents and not be content with second-hand opinion. Most importantly for dramatists and novelists, there is the ability to create suspense and stir emotion. Of course, Pluto’s influence bestows the ability to draw compelling psychological portraits of people.

It is not unusual to hear a novelist speak of their characters as though they were real people.  However, for some, this seems to be a phenomenon akin to mediumship; the characters they create seem to take on their own life force. The English writer William Thackeray (born in 1811), with Mercury in Cancer in an exact trine to Pluto, wrote: “I have been surprised at the observations made by some of my characters. It seems as if an occult power was moving the pen. The personage does or says something, and I ask, how the dickens did he come to think of that?”.9 Thackeray was, of course, the creator of that wonderfully scorpionic anti-heroine, Becky Sharpe in Vanity Fair.  

The 19th century French writer Emile Zola was publicly criticised for the immorality of his novels.  In his defence he claimed that he could not be held responsible for the morality of his characters!

Zola’s novels explore the underworld of human life and emotion. Born on a New Moon in Aries, with a tight stellium of five planets (Sun, Moon, Pluto, Mars and Mercury all within eight degrees) in Aries in the 4th house, he was passionate about his subject and both obsessive and fastidious in his research. His huge series of twenty novels about life under the Second Empire in France deals with the darkest and most fateful aspects of human nature. His thesis, that Man is a victim of his heredity, is explored through the lives of several generations of the same family. His stories deal with fate, power, sexuality and the will to survive. The thirteenth novel,Germinal, begun on his 44th birthday with the precessed solar return Ascendant conjunct the natal Mars/Pluto conjunction, and tr. Pluto semi-square his Sun: it is the story of a mining village in Flanders. The action takes place underground – truly in the realm of Hades. The final showdown, full of Pluto symbolism, takes place in the bowels of the earth in a black-dark mine which is rapidly being swamped with flood water. This is where the hero faces his dark rival.  

Germinal is a powerful novel revealing the terrible conditions men and women lived under. Since childhood, Zola had had a terror of being underground and was plagued by recurring dreams of being buried alive. Nonetheless, in the course of his research, he went to the mines in Flanders and wrote that he felt he had crossed the “Stygian divide to live briefly among the damned”.10 The tiny glimmer of light at the end of the novel, the sign of redemption, has to be searched for but it is there in the form of a handshake. A barely visible sign of the hero's progress.

Another 19th century French writer, Victor Hugo, had Scorpio rising in his chart with a stellium (Venus/Pluto/Sun within four degrees) in Pisces in the 4th house. Hugo, of course, was the author of Les Miserables, a vast novel subsequently made into a film and, surprisingly, a hit musical nicknamed ‘Les Mis’. In his foreword to the book, Hugo wrote a passionate condemnation of the social policies of his day which allows “the child to atrophy in darkness” and “create a human hell within civilisation and complicates with human fatality a destiny that is divine”11. In his horoscope, Uranus (disposited by Venus) is exactly quincunx Pluto and both planets closely aspect the Ascendant. Hugo was politically active and humanitarian; and his skills as a writer and storyteller (Mercury in Pisces in the 5th) brought the suffering of the poor to the attention of the world and continues to do so. Like Zola, he was exiled for political reasons for a while.

American playwright Arthur Miller, born with Pluto in Cancer trine a Mercury/Venus conjunction in Scorpio, is also remembered for his empathetic portrayal of human beings who come face-to- face with the forces of destiny. His plays are a vehicle for a profound reflection on the nature of the individual pitched against transpersonal forces. They rail against powerlessness and promote the dignity of the human spirit. Miller wrote Death of a Salesman and The Crucible and his work continues to stir up strong emotion, inspiring us through his sense of justice and compassion.  

Other writers whose charts show a significant plutonic influence include Maya Angelou, Lewis Carroll, Arthur Conan Doyle, Herman Hesse, Henry James, D.H. Lawrence, Lewis Sinclair, Jules Verne, W. B. Yeats and others. Obviously, this is only the very briefest of surveys and there is much more interesting research to be done for a thorough insight into Pluto’s workings. Nonetheless, the works of all these writers encompass an aspect of the Pluto energy, some through mystery and myth, others through wonderful character portraits. The significance of such books, written with the profound understanding of life which Pluto unveils for us, is that they have the power to change our perception of life.

Pluto’s influence never ceases to put us at the core of human existence. It rips away the veneer of status, etiquette, material comfort to expose the underlying motives and presents us with what is left. It is only then that there can be a realisation of what is truly essential to life – love.  

Pluto, comedy and taboo: Monty Python

Fortunately, amidst the shambles of life and the horrors that could render it unbearable, we have the capacity for humour. As the comedian Eric Idle has astutely commented, humour offers a healthy response to ghastly problems: “If comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord to our licensed jesters”.12 Here is Pluto manifesting through black humour.

Eric Idle (Pluto rising in Leo trine an Aries Sun on the Midheaven) was one of the ‘Pythons’, the group of five writers/performers who devised the extraordinary Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It was a British ground-breaking TV series described by Eve Jackson in Transit in November 1983 as a “wonderful vehicle for a Pluto looking for expression, revelling as it does in such taboo areas as sex, violence, death and the generally disgusting”.13 It is no surprise that Pluto is emphasised in all the Pythons’ charts.

The most renowned Python was John Cleese, with his Scorpio Sun and Mercury in the 3rd house. The Sun is exactly square Pluto while Mercury squares Mars. Cleese has confessed to a personal problem with suppressed rage. The roles he has written for himself, notably Basil Fawlty in the British television series Fawlty Towers, have given him a means of exorcising his anger in the healthiest of ways. He not only provides himself with some sort of emotional release but also gives his audience the chance to laugh at the ludicrous and embarrassing situations which arise through his repressed fury. For Cleese, the influence of Pluto is also apparent in his desire for self- understanding. He has a deep interest in psychotherapy and has undergone therapy for many years. He co-wrote (with his therapist Robyn Skinner) Families and How to Survive Them.14

As for music, examples of composers with significant Pluto aspects are less common than writers or painters. Puccini had Pluto in the 7th house, which is interesting when one considers the heroines of his operas: Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Turandot. Olivier Messiaen, who wrote the Quartet for the End of Time while incarcerated in a German POW camp, had Sun opposed to Pluto and a Venus/Mars conjunction in Scorpio in the 3rd. Mick Jagger has a stellium in Leo conjunct IC which includes Sun, Jupiter, Pluto and Mercury – which makes sense both in his private and professional lives! John Cage, the American composer who wrote a piece of music entitled Silence 4’33”,had a conjunction between the Moon and Pluto in Gemini square a Venus/Mars conjunction.

Mozart and Schubert…

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, perhaps the most famous composer of all, had a very close Moon/Pluto conjunction in Sagittarius in the 4th house. This had tremendous significance during his early years as a child prodigy when, under the direction of his father, he was escorted throughout Europe to perform in front of kings and courtiers. He forfeited his childhood to music. He had a great sense of humour (which bordered on the obscene: possibly he had Tourette’s syndrome, although this is unconfirmed). He also admitted to having a preoccupation with death. His friend, Da Ponte, wrote that: “Mozart's real existence remained hidden like a precious stone buried in the bowels of the earth”.15 Mozart was a member of the Masons, and while much of his work was written on commission as entertainment, his operas Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute have definite occult subtexts.

In his early twenties Mozart visited Paris, escorted by his mother, to make money. Life was hard. Because of their poverty, his mother died (Moon/Pluto in 4th). The A Minor Piano Sonata was written in 1778 and a deep sorrow invades the work. There is a profundity about it which is not present in other pieces and it has an underlying pattern which one reviewer equated with the recurring rhythms of the cycle of birth and death.

Interestingly, as Pluto transited Mozart's natal Sun in Aquarius, he married and changed his first name to Adam. Adam, the first born in the Bible, of course had no biological father; he was created directly by God. Mozart sought to liberate himself from his past, to be “reborn” – a wonderful signature for a Pluto transit of the Sun.

The Austrian composer Franz Schubert, well known for his song cycles inspired by the poems of Goethe, was born with Mercury/Pluto conjunct in Aquarius in the 9th house close to the Midheaven. The conjunction is within orb of the Sun/Moon midpoint. He was a lonely, rather melancholic man who detested the superficiality of Viennese society yet depended on commissions to earn his living. With a complex personality he could at times be a simple, honest and straightforward man while at others he seemed to be plunged into darkness, driven to excess by mood swings. He could not write during the summer months, but each autumn felt compelled to return to composing, perhaps prompted by the Sun in Scorpio (transiting his 5th and 6th houses) at this time of year. There are two pieces, a piano sonata entitled The Wanderer Fantasy and the song cycle The Winter Journey which stand out as evocations of the Mercury/Pluto conjunction in the 9th house.

I first heard The Wonderer Fantasy about forty years ago. I was only just married, and we unexpectedly found ourselves in London in rather dire circumstances, sleeping on a friend’s floor and jobless. The friend had a piano. My husband, a pianist with strong Pluto aspects by transit and progression to his natal chart at the time, taught himself the first movement of this work and its thunderous notes became an intrinsic part of our lives during those months. It was composed by Schubert as progressed Mars was sextile natal Pluto, and tr. Pluto was semi-sextile its natal position; and it stands as a musical outpouring of the disturbed moods and aggressiveness which he was prey to. It is a virtuoso piece, wildly energetic and full of turbulent rhythms, devastatingly difficult to perform. The psychologist Anthony Storr has described as “manic defence” a tendency to respond to depression with a fierce and ambitious outpouring of energy.16 Schubert could never master the piece himself and furiously abandoned his only public performance with the words, “Let the devil play the stuff”.17 The Wanderer Fantasy, with its explosive passion, is a very clear example of the necessity of the creative process in the soul struggling against a dire inner distress.    

Five years later, in 1827, with progressed Sun quincunx natal Mercury/Pluto, Schubert wrote his song cycle entitled Winterreise (Winter Journey) as a means of expressing his own sense of isolation. Its lyrics are the poems of Wilhelm Müller which are rooted in despair: the traveller journeys through a frozen wilderness, shunning other people and taking hidden paths. His journey leads him to a graveyard. He seeks refuge in an inn but is turned away and later has a vision of three suns in the sky. He hears a hurdy-gurdy man playing in a village but “no one wants to hear him, no one looks at him and the dogs snarl about the old man”.18 It is enormously sad. Schubert's final illness dates from this time. He died in November 1828 suffering from both typhoid fever and syphilis.

Oscar Wilde and De Profundis

To conclude, there is one document in literature which cannot go unmentioned in any study of Pluto and the arts. It stands as an astounding testament to the power and significance of a Pluto transit and in my opinion should be on the reading list of all advanced students of astrology. This is De Profundis by Oscar Wilde, written in response to his imprisonment for homosexual practices.

Wilde is best known as an author and playwright. His witty and astutely observed plays, such as The Importance of Being Ernest and An Ideal Husband, are incisive commentaries on Victorian society. He is said to be the most quoted playwright after Shakespeare. With his Virgo rising and Sun in Libra, he had Mercury in Scorpio in the 3rd house. Pluto in Taurus in the 8th is on the Sun/Mercury midpoint.

Wilde was a refined and cultured man, an aesthete who took pleasure in beauty and sensuality and who mixed in the most fashionable society of his day. Bisexual, he flaunted his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas at a time when homosexuality was a criminal offence. In 1895 he was put on trial and, with tr. Pluto within one degree of his Midheaven on 25 May, he was sentenced to two years’ hard labour: this meant the treadmill, literally powered by men. They trod endlessly, their bare feet turning the massive wheel. It is hard to imagine how someone with Wilde’s background could physically survive the rigours of prison life.

De Profundis was written in prison and is a deep reflection on his life. He had lost everything: his reputation, his wife and sons, his home, all his worldly goods and most of his friends. He was effectively plunged into an abyss of despair. The theme concerns sorrow and loss and reveals the values that he discovered to be at the core of existence. “Suffering”, he wrote “is one very long moment...the very Sun and Moon seem taken from us”. He talks of his shame and guilt: “I had disgraced my (family) name eternally. I had made it a low byword among low people. I had dragged it through the very mire”.  He speaks of a realisation: “Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. Someday people will realise what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do”.19 As he comes to understand the true meaning of forgiveness, he discovers what he calls a “Vita Nuova” (a new life) which would have been impossible before his imprisonment. In this essay he explores the meaning and the gifts of suffering. It is an extraordinary chronicle of the redemptive qualities of Pluto.

Pluto afflictions in a chart can signify distress arising from profound trauma which results in a silent conspiracy engendering guilt, loss of power or fear of victimisation. The arts stand alone in providing a non-intellectual medium through which one can access these otherwise inexpressible emotions. The growing acceptance of art, music and drama therapy as wonderfully effective tools for healing deep-rooted problems are examples of the way in which the creative arts can be used to unblock deeply rooted problems. When Pluto is activated by transit or progression, such feelings long buried in the unconscious may come out into the light. It is at such times that the healing power of the arts can provide a vital channel for the expression of these irrational and overwhelming forces. Many healers also work with the vibrations of colour and sound to rebalance the energies within their patients, disciplines that we are only just beginning to really understand.

This essay is intended, partly, to demonstrate the significance of the arts in our lives, as an essential component of a psychically healthy society. My intention has also been to show that the works artists create under the influence of Pluto may not only reflect the imbalances, injustices or brutality that exist in the world but shine a light on the possibilities within humanity to demonstrate love and compassion, and thus play a healing role in our lives. They can act as abiding reference points, for example, politically (Guernica), socially (Les Miserables), emotionally (Madame Butterfly). For me, those works produced under Pluto are immediately recognisable.  They are also eternal images and ones that can be related to decades, or centuries, after their creation.

From our viewpoint in the 21st century, art is very far removed from its original magical purpose.  With the secularisation of life, few meaningful rituals remain to honour the crises experienced when we are touched by the transformative powers of Pluto. Once a midwife to the great initiations of life, the artist today should still have a central role in the community.

Notes and References: Author’s note: This essay considers the role of Pluto in the charts of artists, writers and composers. Pluto aspects alone do not signify that a person will be an artist. This text is based on a talk given at the White Eagle School of Astrology Annual Conference November 1999. All data has been taken from Astro-Databank or Solar Fire.  Where birth time is unknown, birth dates have been gleaned from the internet. 1.  William Golding, Lord of the Flies, London & Boston: Faber & Faber, 1958, p. 69. 2.  C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, p. 195. 3.  Ibid, p. 197. 4.  Anthony Storr, Solitude, London: HarperCollins 1997, p. 199 quoting Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo, translated by R. J. Hollingdate (Harmondsworth, 1979), p. 48. 5. Anthony Storr, Solitude, London: HarperCollins 1997, p. 198, quoting George Eliot’s Life as Related in her Letters and Journals, Edinburgh & London, 1885, pp. 421-5.   6.  C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, p.179. 7.  W. Davies & R. Maud (ed), Dylan Thomas, Collected Poems 1934-1953, London: J.M. Dent & Son Ltd., 1988. 8.  A. S. Huffington, Picasso: Creator & Destroyer, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1988. 9.  Anthony Storr, Solitude, London: HarperCollins 1997, p. 198 quoting W. M. Thackeray in Some Roundabout Papers. See also The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray with Biographical Introductions by his daughter, Anne Ritchie; (London 1903), XII, pp 374-5. 10.  F. Brown, Zola: A Life, London: Macmillan 1996, p. 119. 11.  Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, London: Penguin Books 1982, p. 17. 12.  Eve Jackson ‘Monty Python, Pluto and the Fool’, Transit,issue No 43, November 1983. Astrological Association. p. 13. 13.  Ibid. 14.  R. Skynner & J. Cleese, Families and How to Survive Them, London: Mandarin 1993. 15.  M. Solomon, Mozart: A Life, London: Hutchinson 1995, p. 93. 16.  E.N. McKay, Franz Schubert, A Biography, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, p.148, quoting Anthony Storr’s The Dynamics of Creation, London 1976 p. 112. 17.  E.N. McKay, Franz Schubert, A Biography, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, p.148, quoting O E Deutsch, Schubert: Memoirs by his Friends, trans. R Ley and J. Nowell, London 1958. 18.  S. S. Prawer (editor and translator), The Penguin Book of Lieder, London: Penguin 1964, p. 61. 19.  Dr T. Gaynor (ed.), The Works of Oscar Wilde, London: Senate 1997, pp. 748-798.

Published by: The Astrological Journal, Jul/Aug 2019

Author: Anthea Head, Dipl. WESA, has been involved with astrology since the 1980s, gaining her diploma from the White Eagle School. As one of their astrologers, she went on to teach their advanced course and became a long-standing member of the School Council. Her main interest is in the profound energies symbolised by astrology and what they may mean within an individual’s life. She lives with her family in north Oxfordshire where she teaches and consults. She may be contacted at: antheahead@phonecoop.coop.

© Anthea Head 1999/2019

[tolkien-fandom-history]

Interview with Jenny Dolfen

Much thanks to acclaimed artist Jenny Dolfen for doing this Tolkien-fandom-history interview!

Jenny is a German artist and illustrator. Her art is well known and much admired in the Tolkien fandom. She won the inaugural Tolkien Society award in the category "best artwork" in 2014, for her watercolour “Eärendil the Mariner" and is nominated for that award again this year for her artwork "The Hunt."

Jenny also published a book of her art in 2016. “Songs of Sorrow and Hope” contains sketches and full color artwork dating from 2003-2013. The book includes many of her Tolkien inspired works as well as works inspired by fantasy, mythology and Jenny’s own work “The Rhyddion Chronicles.” It is available in her Etsy store.

Jenny's art can be found on her web page https://goldseven.wordpress.com/galleries/tolkien/ as well as her Etsy page https://www.etsy.com/shop/JennyDolfen and her Patreon site https://www.patreon.com/jennydolfen

She does YouTube tutorials as well--it's fascinating to watch her creations come to life in the videos. https://m.youtube.com/user/GoldSeven/videos

Jenny can also be found here on tumblr @goldseven

(Interview by @maedhrosrussandol)

TFH: When did you originally become involved in Tolkien fandom?

Jenny: I’ve been a Tolkien fan for most of my life (my mother introduced me to the Hobbit when I was six), but I didn’t know there were any other Tolkien fans until I discovered the Internet in the early 2000s.

TFH: What was your initial experience with the online fandom? Did the advent of the LOTR movies have an effect on you?

Jenny: I have treated and still treat the books and the movies as two very different things. The movies interest me as much as any movie I enjoy; the books are a major part of my life. I encountered the Silmarillion fandom around 2003, and above all, was amazed by the fact that there were people who had read it (I had only met one in my life).

TFH: How do you feel the Tolkien fandom has changed since you initially became involved in it?

Jenny: I don’t feel it has changed much. If I had known it before the films, it might be different, but I still see the major groups there that existed in the early 2000s – film fans, book fans (which minor crossovers), fanfic writers, and scholars.

TFH: In the mid-2000s, it often seemed that there were two groups of people creating fan art. There were the artists sanctioned by the Tolkien Estate--Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith--who were mostly men, and then there were the so-called "fan artists," who were mostly women. The latter group were also often professional artists and were much more widely embraced by the fanfic community (for example, you and Kasiopea seemed much more instrumental in determining how Silmfic writers saw the characters than Nasmith, and your name is probably more readily recognized by Silm fans today than Nasmith's). Did you perceive this as well? If so, do you have any thoughts on why the Estate and fanworks creators might have had so little overlap in their visions of Middle-earth and its characters?

Jenny: I have actually talked to Ted Nasmith (whom I met at Return of the Ring 2012, a perfectly wonderful bloke!) about this very thing. Ted told me about his illustrated Silmarillion, in which the Estate had been very clear on a policy that follows what we know from the “Big Three” (John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith): a lot of location, a bit of characters, and absolutely no monsters!

In a panel at Return of the Ring, which I attended together with Ted, Anke Eissmann, and Ruth Lacon, the same question was asked, and it does seem to fall along gender lines. Typically, characters are more often and more prominently portrayed by women, and many viewing habits seem to follow a similar gender divide on the audience’s side. It makes sense, then, that the Tolkien Estate, under the firm influence of Christopher Tolkien, would favour the a more setting-oriented approach that depicted the scope and poetry of his father’s work, while other artists explored the characters in a more intimate and obscure way.

TFH: I'm interested in your experience with both the artistic and writing sides of the Tolkien fandom. Were there differences in the respective fandoms when you first became involved and in the response to your works in the two mediums?

Jenny: I have always kept a slight distance to much of the fanfic side. There are several fanfics I have enjoyed, but even in some of the ones I did, slash was never far away, and it just makes me uncomfortable. (The fact that it’s mostly gay sex is secondary, incidentally. I simply feel that sex in the exploration of those characters is as irrelevant as exploring their, say, bathroom habits. I may be pretty alone in this as a female recipient of Tolkien’s work, but his characters strike me as rather asexual on the whole.)

On the art side, I find that the response from and interaction with the fandom has been overwhelmingly positive from all sides. I have formed long-lasting friendships with other artists and fans.

TFH: There has been tremendous expansion of artistic interpretations of Tolkien’s work in recent years--through Tumblr, DeviantArt, weibo--how do you continue to reach your audience and interact with those who have an interest in your art?

Jenny: I consider myself very lucky, in that I have stayed in contact with a large and wonderful group of people over all these years. I had the good fortune of being recognized quite early on, and while there has been some fluctuation, an amazingly strong core of my audience has stayed with me.

TFH: In what other Tolkien-related events, gatherings or challenges do you participate? How is it interacting with fans at such events?

Jenny: I try to make it to the major local events – Tolkien Tag, organized by the Dutch and German Tolkien Societies – and I’ll be at the (British) Tolkien Society’s Tolkien 2019 event in Birmingham next year. Apart from that, my job as a teacher and my two young children mean I can’t travel much.

I hugely enjoy those events – to interact with other fans usually feels like a breakaway together with people I rarely meet in the “real world”.

TFH: What drew you to Professor Tolkien's work originally?

Jenny: I have loved mythology from a very young age, devouring classical, Germanic and medieval folk tales since primary school, so Tolkien fell squarely into those preferences, and continued to do so when I got older and became a student of literature rather than just a consumer of Fantasy books.

TFH: Which of his characters are your favorites? Why?

Jenny: It will come as absolutely no surprise that it’s Maedhros son of Feanor. He stuck in my head even when I first read the Silmarillion, standing out against that huge cast of often-confusing people. He’s like a Greek tragic hero, trying to do the right thing and striving to justify his means, and dragging everyone else into ruin with him. His fate is heartbreaking, and I love heartbreaking tales.

TFH: Why do you love Tolkien's universe? What inspires you?

Jenny: It’s always been mostly about the characters, but I find that, as I get older, other aspects of the legendarium speak to me more strongly than before. When I was a child, I used to skip the descriptions of landscape; today, I both read them closely, and find that I appreciate beauty in nature far more than I used to, which I then translate into my art (my older work, up until I was about twenty, usually featured characters standing around in a perfect white void).

TFH: To what extent do you think it is important for a fanfiction writer or fan artist to follow and respect the original author's work and concepts?

Jenny: First off, I think for a fan creator, there are, by definition, no such constraints. Preference is another matter entirely. Personally, I enjoy writings and works of art that, in my subjective view, feel close to what Tolkien might have meant, and thus strike a chord with me.

When we extend that question to any matter that is supposed to be a more general representation of the original work, I feel it’s essential to be faithful to a common theme and feel. If we take Peter Jackson’s movies, I do think that he managed it in many places in the Lord of the Rings; his Hobbit, from what I have seen of it (I haven’t watched the second and third films), felt weirdly like the output of an Instagram creator whose fanbase latches on to a very small part of his original body of work, and who then suddenly starts churning out more of the same, comical, self-referred spoofs which feel like a continuation to him and to his base but really leave most of the essence behind for everyone else.

TFH: Which was the most unexpected occasion, the most unusual platform where you have ever encountered one of your artworks?

Jenny: Thaaaaaaat would have been a Russian porn site. I get around, you know.

TFH: Which one of your drawings is most special to you and why?

There are a lot of drawings I’m very attached to. “In pain and regret” is probably far up the list, as are the more recent “The Hunt” and “And the Orcs fled before his face”. The one I’ll mention here has to be one where I, probably accidentally, nailed Maedhros’ face for the first time. I drew it in 1995, when I was twenty, and I remember that this was a piece that told me that I was still improving. As a young artist, you often think that one day, you’ll be a grown-up, and that’s that. At twenty, I had just moved away from home, and had subconsciously felt that I was now finished, feeling some regret at the belief that my art would no longer improve – and suddenly I realized how wrong I’d been. It was an eye-opener for me, artistically.

The artworks and book referenced in this interview are as follows

Jenny Dolfen's book "Songs of Sorrow and Hope" featuring the cover art of Maglor "The harp no longer sings":

"Earendil the Mariner":

The 1995 artwork referenced:

"And the orcs fled before his face":

"The Hunt":

"In pain and regret":

[illegiblewords]

Fan Fiction VS Original Fiction

I don’t know how long this post will go, but this is an old question and I think I can actually examine it better at this point in my life.

As a teen, I saw a lot of people treat fanfic as if it was something shameful. Like it was less worthy of respect and easier than original fiction. At the time, that made me feel very indignant in part because I’d read plenty of shitty original fiction works and plenty of gorgeously executed fanworks. After I got more into comics, where the name of the game was essentially corporate-approved fanfiction with a rotating roster of writers and artists, the policy against respectability seemed dumber and dumber. Same with anti-OC mandates. Every single character had been an OC at some point, why should one human being be inherently more capable of doing a good job than another? Because of who a corporation chose to hire? What about all the shit comics and comic OCs out there?

If it all just comes down to craft and how cohesive, how powerful the story is at the end of the day, then I just didn’t see why fans should be given less respect as a person than any professional simply because one is getting paid. You have to earn respect by doing good work, and unfortunately not all professional creators do good work. Corruption is a helluva thing.

Whether fanfiction or original fiction is easier depends very much on what you’re trying to do, in my opinion. Each mode of storytelling carries its own challenges. You need to be a chameleon in fanfiction, and sometimes you need to be an architect or a repairman. You can’t get away with characters reading randomly OOC without getting critique or at least losing some traffic. If OOC happens because you are using critical skill to address a flaw you recognized in canon that can be a gamble all on its own.

Original fiction you’re not being compared to canon, but you have to build everything up from scratch. You are going to be judged based on if your characters are credible, if your societies are credible, if the world as a whole is consistent and has tangible stakes. You need to research whatever you need to research, there’s no one else to guide you, everything depends on your own choices. There is freedom, but you are also subject to even heavier quality standards in some ways due to the multitude of technical elements you are now responsible for.

Each form can be judged harshly according to its own criteria. They are related for sure, but not perfectly identical. Even trying to argue which deserves more respect or which is harder seems completely irrelevant because 1) depends what you’re trying to do 2) its such a petty, superficial thing to judge works on. The question itself to me suggests the person asking doesn’t actually have a true understanding of how fiction operates.

IMO this is a point in history when we need fanwork more than ever, and we need it to be uncensored and experimental, enthusiastic and unapologetic. I think it needs to happen for every medium that exists. Historically it’s a huge venue for writers to challenge themselves and each other in terms of craft. Right now though, we are in a period where fan work is becoming increasingly scarce and increasingly policed. What is put out is often homogenous and lacking in ambition while believing itself to be edgy in uniform ways.

This isn’t true of everywhere of course. But it’s more than I’ve ever witnessed in the past.

The places I’ve seen doing the best at avoiding this trend have been games that require some degree of character creation and roleplay, because they’ve let people know IT’S OKAY TO MAKE AN OC, IT’S OKAY TO DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY AND MESS AROUND. WE’LL EVEN SET IN SOME STRUCTURE SO YOU CAN FEEL MORE CONFIDENT THAT YOU’RE NOT GOING COMPLETELY OFF THE RAILS. HAVE FUN!

Dungeons and Dragons accomplishes this. Frankly, a lot of Bioware games do this too. So do Bloodborne and Dark Souls. So do Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon’s Dogma.

I don’t think critique is what caused the fandom problem so much as authoritarianism. Entitled people who harass, insult, or accuse creators for making something not catered to THEIR individual taste. People who want to push anything not to their individual taste off the internet because they find it annoying, or frustrating, or even distasteful. This includes people who would flame and shame the shit out of Mary Sue authors. It also includes people who say stuff like...

“If you don’t make character X with Y quality you’re a coward!”

“So sick of seeing all these [insert superficial biological quality] characters smdh”

“If you portray X character with Y quality you are Z insult. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

It’s destructive. It terrifies people into silence and it’s killing fandom activity. Rather than generating more content in the vein of what entitled individuals want, it just makes less on the whole. The response never should have been to give creators who are making something for others to enjoy free of charge any kind of grief. Dissatisfied people should try making things themselves.

It might not always get attention. It might be hard, and it might not turn out exactly how you want. But if you are truly invested, if you pay attention to your technique and learn from both your own mistakes and the mistakes of others, if you practice regularly and do exercises to improve your weak points, you can get there. The targeted creators certainly had to do it.

Talent is, like respect, something you have to earn.

I don’t understand how anyone could have the GALL to demand another person do something for free that they aren’t ready to do themself.

Meanwhile, if you’re not sure how to start the creative process with an approach you haven’t seen before... just ask people! If you need research books or writing guides or art references or whatever, all the tools you need to succeed are there. Some is viewable for free on the internet. If you care to, you can have it.

But yeah, long story short the older I get the less important it is whether something is fan work or original work. A human being came up with it either way. Which one is the higher quality story in terms of technique matters to me, but for individual audience members I think as long as you aren’t trying to control another person you can let whatever version you want occupy space in your head.