#if you can appreciate a caterpillar liquefying itself into a cocoon so it can become a different insect with colorful wings

[yuureimajo]

someone: "I like Spring and Summer ... " me: "Cool, cool, most people do, yes." someone: "... but Autumn and Winter are awesome too!" me: "!! Hell yeah they are!" someone: "There's lots to appreciate in these seasons too." me: "So true, so true." someone: "People should learn to appreciate the beauty in bleak desolation!" me: "... Now wait a minute - I guess that's also true but -" someone: "Even though Autumn and Winter are nothing but death and emptiness, I still like them!" me: "Please ... please stop ..." someone: "#goth #witch" me: *agonized screams*

[ms-m-astrologer]

Pluto Part 1 - Who?

The intention we have made to explore Pluto transits during the mere nine days of my Thanksgiving holiday, is almost immediately laughable, and definitely daunting. The planet takes 248 years to orbit the Sun one time! If we look back over the 248 years preceding the 1940 birth of our chosen guinea pig, John Lennon, the real enormity (and futility?) of the task becomes apparent.

Subtracting 248 from 1940 gives us 1692. The most “important” thing which happened that year occurred in Colonial America, namely, the Salem Witch Trials. (I sometimes don’t believe they have ever stopped.) Mass hysteria, centered around young women! Somewhat of a theme in John’s life, correct? William III and Mary II reigned in England, and Louis XIV in France. The planet Uranus wouldn’t be “discovered” for another 89 years, Neptune’s “discovery” was 154 years off, and Pluto itself would remain hidden for another 238 years. (All those are close to the length of each planet’s orbit. Hmm.)

In classical music, there was no overarching “event” - nobody important was born, or died; nothing hugely influential or timeless was composed. J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel (the towering figures of the late Baroque era in music) both were seven year old boys. (Allow me a moment to savor the thought of them as 2nd graders, fighting on the playground at recess….)

The pre-eminent English composer of that time - and indeed, the only eminent English composer for the next 200-odd years - was Henry Purcell. In 1692 he had two premieres: The Fairy-Queen, a masque/semi-opera; and “Hail! Bright Cecilia,” a 13-movement work in honor of Catholicism’s patron saint of music. (YouTube links here and here - well worth a listen when you have a couple of hours..) Purcell himself died young, “at the height of his career” per the Wikipedia article. At age 35/36 he was even younger than John had been.

It’s overwhelming to contemplate how much “just” music evolved between 1692 and 1940, let alone everything else. Thinking of the wide world’s progress, or lack thereof, is even more terrifying. But it’s necessary so that we can (begin to) appreciate just how massive is Pluto’s meaning. This one Pluto orbit more than encompasses entirely the great era of Western art music. Heading into any classical music hall today, we’re not likely to hear any piece composed before or after that mini-aeon. From “Hail! Bright Cecilia” to Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez - or even “In the Mood” by the Glenn Miller Orchestra - whew. (And then throw in everything that’s gone on since basically the retreat of the glaciers during the last Ice Age, approximately 11,700 years ago - 248 years is just over two percent (2%) of that time.)

Pluto, then, is more of an immeasurable process rather than an active personality factor/mover/shaker. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day” as Shakespeare put it. Pluto is not really concerned with what happens from day to day in our measly lives. It doesn’t care if we get the job, or get laid. And I��m not personally convinced that one little lifetime can completely incorporate that process. Something much larger is afoot with Pluto.

The best thing I can compare the Pluto process to, is the life cycle of a butterfly, particularly the pupa stage. The chubby, cute caterpillar creates a chrysalis, aka a cocoon, which serves to protect and camouflage what’s happening inside (a la the Pluto/Scorpio “front”). And what happens inside is, basically, soup. The caterpillar’s body eats itself up from the inside out (Scorpio!), turning itself into (more or less) caterpillar soup. This soup then re-coalesces into an imago, the fully-developed and (usually) winged adult.

(Still think it’s “cute” to be a Plutonian?)

Astrologers have their own ways and words to illumine what transiting Pluto is all about. Bloch and George, in Astrology for Yourself, described a Pluto transit as “the opportunity to transform and regenerate an area of my life. In the process, existing structures may be destroyed.” That’s an adequate enough summary but doesn’t even hint at the magnitude of what happens.

In The Changing Sky, Steven Forrest (himself a Plutonian) wrote of “Pluto the Teacher” gifting us with “the ability to heal one’s soul, recovering the energy needed to find an altruistic mission in life, thereby filling one’s consciousness with a sense of ultimate purpose.” He also warned of “Pluto the Trickster” trapping us via “the temptation to allow rigidity, dogmatism, and power tripping to narrow our perspective, isolating our egos in a spirit of cynicism, despair, and nihilism. The compulsion to reenact whatever dramas have wounded us in the past.”

What I’m saying is that a Pluto transit is, in essence, a soup-making process. “Is it soup yet?” Maybe not - this could be the lifetime where (oh) three of your back left legs liquefy and dissolve, but there’s a whole bunch of caterpillar left. Evil cackle.

There’s one more factor to consider in Pluto transits - namely, the sign it occupies. Saying I have transiting Pluto entering my 3rd House is missing a crucial ingredient. Had this happened to me in 1977, when Pluto was in Libra - that would have made for a much, much different cocoon (tureen?) for the soup.

(Rant time: why do astrologers never write about the signs in transit? Why is it always “Cosmic Thingy transiting through your Nth House” and not “Cosmic Thingy in whatever sign transiting through your Nth House”? Allow me to answer my own question: because it’s too hard.)