I often mention Pluto in my readings because I know how important and transformative a Pluto transit can be.

Pluto is fate. He comes in and can often change everything, he pulls us up at the roots, he pulls the rug away from underneath our feet, he’s the forest fire that clears away the dead wood so new green shoots can grow.

A Pluto transit is often a process of deep transformation, of death and rebirth.

Some of us will have had more experiences with Pluto than others. The dwarf planet moves slowly through the skies and can stay in a sign for many decades. Those with many placements in Sagittarius or Capricorn – or the two opposite signs, Gemini and Cancer – would have felt Pluto’s power since the mid 1990s.

The meaning of Pluto in astrology

Pluto was named after the Roman God of the Underworld and often a Pluto transit, which lasts on and off for around three years, can feel like a descent into his realm.

But, as we learn how to work with the energies of the transit and with what Pluto is trying to teach us, we start to climb back up, into the light.

Pluto is power and a Pluto transit can also bring power, fame and empowerment your way. Pluto can lift you up if you’re down, because at its core Pluto is transformation.

One example of this is Taylor Swift, who had Pluto on her Sun as she began working and performing in Nashville in 2004 and 2005. Pluto lifted her up and brought her onto a predestined path – and someone as successful as her will often channel and represent something in the time or in the collective. Since the early 2000s Pluto has crossed or opposed almost all of the important placements in her chart and brought her mega-fame and wealth.

As someone born in December in the 1980s Pluto has also crossed or opposed most of the placements in my birth chart. For me the process brought self-knowledge and a slowly unfolding process around how to use storytelling in a helpful and healing way.

Pluto transits can affect us in many different ways. By working with the planet these periods can be both empowering and bring healing.

1. Figure out how Pluto will affect your natal chart

Go to a website like astro.com and find the Extended Chart Selection. Type in your birth details and in the section called Chart Types choose Natal Chart and Transits.

Then look at your Birth Chart and locate your natal Pluto, the symbol looks a bit like the letter “P”.

Look up the sign and the house for your natal Pluto. This can tell you, among other things, a bit about the generational experiences that might play out through your life and in which area (house) those experiences might fall. I’ve written more about the generational nature of Pluto in a post about the Pluto square Pluto transit, which all of us will have in our mid-life.

Your natal Pluto can also give an idea of the flavour your Pluto transits might have. A Pluto in Scorpio in the second house might be confronted with themes around security, safety and finances. A Pluto in Libra in the 5th house might have experiences around relationships, love-affairs and infidelity – or channel that placement into becoming a successful artist.

The next step when looking at your chart is to find out where Pluto is now. Locate the “P” for Pluto amongst the green symbols circling around the birth chart. That’s where Pluto is in the skies at the moment.

Which house is he in? And is he aspecting any of the planets in your natal chart? Is he on top of a placement, or perhaps opposite one? Other aspects to look out for are squares, where Pluto sits at a 90 degree angle to a placement in your chart, or a trine where he is at a 120 degree angle. Squares can feel a bit abrasive, trines are often supportive and positive.

The conjunction (Pluto on top of a placement) or opposition (opposite a placement) are often the transits you will feel the most.

The easiest way to start figuring out the astrological story is to do some research around the house transiting Pluto (the green symbol) is in. And if you’re having an opposition, square or trine – look up that house too. Those houses will speak of the areas of your life Pluto will be working on.

Then look up the personal planet that is being aspected. That’s the part of you that will be asked to transform. Pluto on your natal Mercury could mean studying a new subject or your worldview changing somehow. Pluto on your Venus might mean that your relationships, how you love and how you’re loved, will go through a process of transformation. Pluto in your Ascendant might mean that the way you’re perceived in the world and the way you yourself present yourself to others will change.

Finally look up the signs involved in the story. Pluto is in Aquarius now, the eccentric and egalitarian water-bearer. Over the next twenty years people with placements in the fixed signs Aquarius, Leo, Scorpio and Taurus will be exposed to the power of Pluto.

2. Let go

Pluto often asks us to let go of something. And sometimes he takes something away from us. The earlier in the transit you can figure out what it is you’re supposed to let go of the easier the ride might be. The more you cling on to the past or to an old version of yourself the harder Pluto might make you work. So figure out what it is you’re supposed to evolve away from and let go.

When Pluto transited my Sun in my late teens I suddenly knew I had to walk away from a dysfunctional relationship that was causing both me and my first boyfriend pain. With Pluto there is sometimes this inner knowing that you don’t really have a choice anymore – I knew I was done with the relationship and there was no going back. A wall had been raised between what was becoming the past and my future.

When the transit was over I had left my boyfriend, my old circle of friends and my hometown. I had graduated high school and I moved to a big city several hours away to go to university. My life changed completely.

Shamanic healer and spiritual guide Tansy Alexandra, who has also had many significant Pluto experiences in her life, speaks of how Pluto teaches us to step more fully into who we are. Pluto’s transits achieve this by making us let go of old stories around who we thought we should be and what we thought we should do with our lives.

She puts it beautifully when she says Pluto has brought her: “an understanding of who I am, where I am, and in what existence/experience I am in, which makes what I thought I wanted appear as something of a diversion from what I truly needed and fundamentally wanted in this life”. 

That is the power of Pluto, he teaches us about what the fates want from us. And the earlier in the transit we can take a deep breath and let go of the old. To shake off our old skin and bravely step up to what is asked of us, the easier the transit will be.

And that’s where Pluto can show us his other side. He can empower us and lift us up.

3. Ask for help if you need it

Sometimes it isn’t possible to work through a Pluto transit on your own. Especially as what the planet asks of you is often a deep and profound transformation. I wish I would have known this when Pluto opposed my Moon. This was the most difficult Pluto transit for me – and from listening to my clients’ experiences I know that Pluto opposite Moon, more so than any other Pluto transits, can be very challenging.

The Moon is our inner emotional nature, it’s also a point of emotional safety. To have the planet of transformation, the Lord of the Underworld, opposite that tender spot in our chart can feel like a free fall.

For me it meant that all my coping mechanisms and places of safety were stripped away and I had to find new ways to feel safe.

Up until that point I had been a confident and extremely self-reliant person. I thought I could take on almost anything and for a long time I had told myself a story of not needing anyone – that relying on other people was somehow a weakness.

Then Pluto opposed my Moon and brought me many different experiences that took away that confidence and self-reliance.

I started having panic attacks. For a while I felt like I was walking with death beside me and what was asked of me was to learn how to live with the knowledge that everything can be taken away from you.

At the time, before I knew this was a Pluto transit, I described those three years as walking into a dark valley, walking through the darkness, and then climbing back up again – which is exactly what a Pluto transit can feel like.

With hindsight I know that it would have been helpful to seek out healers and helpers at this point in time. Pluto was in my 12th house of the subconscious and spirit opposing my Moon in the 6th house of health, service and worry. Energy work, bodywork and shamanic work – even prayer – would all have been extremely good tools to use had I known it at the time.

But I didn’t. Instead what that Pluto transit brought me was a budding knowledge that it’s OK to ask for help, that I can’t walk through life alone, that I am and need to be vulnerable.

We all fall down sometimes, that’s just how life is for most people. And we can’t always do it all on our own. We live in a society where we’re not supposed to show weakness or fear or vulnerability. That makes it so much harder to deal with some elements of a Pluto transit. These can be moments when we do fall down and accepting that is also part of the process, as is being able to ask for help and to let our loved ones know that we aren’t OK. And that’s often where the healing starts.

Photo by Elly Endeavours on Unsplash and the rest from the British Library on Flickr.