Pluto Transits: Houses
Pluto Transits: Through the Natal chart houses
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Pluto Transiting the Houses of the Horoscope
Techniques for Preparing for the Future and Understanding the Past
Overview:
Pluto takes approximately 248 years to come full circle. This means that it only transit some (never all) houses of our chart in our lifetime. Because Pluto doesn’t travel signs evenly and because houses are not even in most house systems, it’s impossible to say how many houses it will transit in our lifetime without seeing a particular chart.
This slow-moving planet’s transits are long-lasting, lasting many, many years, and each transit takes its time to unfold.
How Pluto affects our lives depends very much on whether we resist its influences or we try to work with the planet of rebirth and destiny.
Whatever part of our lives and of our psyches that Pluto touches is an area that Pluto compels us to explore more deeply. Superficiality is not acceptable for Pluto. Pluto transits insist that we get in touch with our core purpose and our deep sense of power. New levels of intimacy, not only with others but also with ourselves, are discovered and uncovered.
Transiting Pluto brings intensity and focus to our lives. Pluto breaks through illusions, in search of the utter truth. These are not Saturn truths where we see things for what they are in a mundane or material sense. Pluto probes much deeper, shining light on our darkness. Transiting Pluto offers us the chance to evolve and to rebirth. Pluto acts to strip away what is unnecessary or superficial in our lives.
Pluto wants deep experience, of the transformational kind. Things that are not working for us, whether they are thought processes or lifestyles, undergo a transformation. Pluto transits bring about rebirths of sorts in the areas of life affected. Pluto transits are about letting go of things that are holding us back from deep and meaningful experiences.
Fear—sometimes intense fear—can reveal itself at the beginning of a challenging Pluto transit. We confront our “dark” side—those parts of us that are raw, primal, and instinctive. Resisting this process can cause us to externalize or project these parts of ourselves. If we do this, Pluto’s energy has to go somewhere, so we end up meeting Pluto in our lives in the guise of events and people. If we are attracting jealous, manipulative, and controlling people or situations, we can ask ourselves why this is happening. Is there something in ourselves that is provoking this kind of behavior or circumstance?
Although transiting Pluto is often associated with separation and deaths, it is important to note that Pluto’s action is to revolutionize parts of ourselves, and events that take place at this time can just as easily be new relationships, births, and new beginnings in general. For example, a person who had decided they would never marry and have children developed a relationship under a heavy Pluto transit that changed their conviction completely. By transit’s end, they recognized that their conviction to not “settle down” was actually based on her own fear that she would never find a deep and meaningful relationship. So, Pluto can bring on changes that go in the direction of attachment or separation, but they are always about rebirth or renovation.
Note: Pluto transits houses so long that they read very much like Pluto in the houses natally–they become part of our personalities.
Pluto Transits to the Houses
Pluto Transits the First House
This transit acts to reshape your self-image. The changes inside of you are magnificent, and they spill out of you through different mannerisms, a new look, and a brand new way of presenting yourself to others. This is a time when you are reclaiming your personal power. “Life is what you make it”–you live and breathe this concept now. The things or even people that have held you back from being who you really are may be left behind during this transit. Superficial attitudes or manners of self-expression no longer do it for you!
You will need to resist the urge to control the events of your life, how you come across, and your manner during this important cycle. You are learning about your inner motivations, and sometimes this can be an uncomfortable process because you are getting in touch with the darker elements of your psyche at the same time. However, during this very long-term transit, you are ultimately learning that you cannot control the events of your life and you cannot control others and how they feel about you, but you can learn self-control. You are tapping into your inner power, and how you handle it will make all the difference in the quality of your experiences now.
This is a period of self-transformation and self-empowerment, and, because Pluto is very slow-moving, the process is a lengthy one. There’s a “new you” emerging, and it’s an empowering change as you greet the world differently. This transit is most acute near the beginning or when Pluto aligns with the Ascendant. You’re radiating intensity, and others’ first impressions of you tend to be strong. You can be very protective of your privacy, yet you generate much intrigue and interest with your strong presence. You might struggle with fears of being overpowered, rejected, or minimized, yet few are able to guess that you could be anything less than confident. Your first instinct in new situations is gutsy and determined, defensive and intense. Strive to avoid getting your back up or viewing life as a battleground.
Pluto Transits the Second House
This extremely long-term transit brings gradual but deep changes to your income and value system. This is an excellent period for discovering latent talents. You may have to face control issues and possessiveness, and learn how to better manage these things. Expectations transform. Intensity and passion are craved now, and mediocre will no longer do!
Your instincts are powerful regarding building your resources. You might find it hard to let go of things, attaching much sentimental value to your possessions or holding on to them because you fear poverty — or because you fear a feeling of helplessness and wanting. You can feel a powerful need for control over your money and possessions or driven to make money. Your sense of ownership is heightened. You may experience some form of loss and learn lessons of change–that strength, worth, value, and wealth come from within. You’re also learning to spot a good deal or objects of value instinctively. Your advice on these matters can be invaluable to others.
Pluto Transits the Third House
This extremely long-term transit brings gradual but deep changes in your mindset. This is a time for deep thinking, exposing truths, research, and investigation. You might question a lot of things, including knowledge and information you’ve learned in the past. You might begin an intensive line of study during this period. You may have disdain for superficial or fluffy conversation, preferring deeper subject matter.
Personal interests, studies, classmates, siblings, neighbors, and short trips can hold intense experiences or lessons at times during this period, or they impact your decisions and thought processes more intensely. Learning to communicate in ways that help rather than hinder (or sabotage) you is a big deal–and quite transformative– during the years of this transit.
Expectations transform. Intensity and passion are craved when it comes to your personal projects, interests, learning, and communications, and mediocre will no longer do in these areas! It’s a time to pursue the dreams, ideals, and ideas you have put on the back burner. You can be inspired to take creative risks, as well as personal ones, with your newfound confidence. However, it may be that it takes time for you to feel fully comfortable with expressing yourself. Pluto can stimulate some paranoia, privacy, and secretiveness. You rarely accept what you hear or read as the truth. You tend to learn through observation rather than by asking questions. In fact, you can be quite resistant to learning directly from others, preferring to be self-taught. You might fear the loss of self through self-expression, and thus you might choose your words carefully as to avoid letting others know too much about you.
Pluto Transits the Fourth House
This extremely long-term transit brings gradual but deep changes in your home or family life and your psyche. Your needs for nurture transform and evolve. This influence gradually brings changes to the basic domestic structure. Your connections to family members can evolve on a fundamental level, especially in terms of responsibilities, support, or roles.
There can be a retreat into yourself during this cycle as you explore, on a very deep level, your roots, childhood conditioning, and feelings of personal security. If you have been feeling somewhat of a victim in your family relationships, for example, then this will be a time when you feel it more acutely and feel the need to do something about it. Buried resentments come to the fore and demand to be handled. Avoid focusing on regrets or dead-end situations, as the tendency to obsess over things that can’t or shouldn’t be changed runs very high. By the time this transit ends, however, you are more equipped than ever to go after exactly what it is that you want in life. Superficial areas of your life will be removed or transformed, and you are freer to express your authentic self.
Watch for holding onto something with tight fists, such as the way you want to run your household. Whatever it is, Pluto is telling you that it’s time to let go of some of your power. Jealousy or possessiveness stems from your own feeling of vulnerability and an overpowering need to make your life as stable and secure as you can. Unfortunately, the stronger you hold on, the weaker it becomes. If others find you a little too self-absorbed, they’re probably right, but if they are patient with you, they’ll one day see you emerge a brand new, largely more confident person
Pluto Transits the Fifth House
This extremely long-term transit brings gradual but profound changes in attitudes towards love affairs, creativity, hobbies, recreation, children, self-expression, leisure time, and entertainment. You might feel that your affections and interests are turned inside out or upside down – that on some levels, you are no longer the same person as a result. Expectations transform and evolve. Intensity and passion are craved now, and mediocre will no longer do in these areas of life.
It’s important to watch for needing to have the upper hand–to need to “know all”–with people you love, especially lovers or your children, during this lengthy transit. During this period, you’re truly learning to control your own creativity so that you can do something special with it.
You’re coming in touch with creative impulses and ambitions you never knew you had, and you can invest much energy and passion into the creative arts, romance, or child-rearing. You take a lot of pride in — and invest much of your ego into — whatever it is you produce or create during this transit. Romance for you needs to be intense, passionate, and deeply intimate–nothing superficial or light. If you are not “owning” this attitude, then you may be meeting Pluto energies through your lovers, and thus attracting intense, controlling, or passionate romantic partners. A deep-seated fear of loss or betrayal can be behind any jealous, obsessive, or controlling behavior in fifth house areas, including romantic involvements, child-rearing, and creative endeavors. Your attitude towards play, entertainment, and recreation is also intense — rarely lighthearted. While you may yearn to throw your soul into your creative endeavors, fear might prevent you from doing so completely, until you learn to overcome this fear.
Pluto Transits the Sixth House
This transit brings gradual but profound changes to your daily routines and habits. You should certainly watch for straining yourself by working too hard when Pluto itself is strained or under pressure in this house. During the course of this very long-term transit, you are learning about new ways of approaching health matters, particularly by uncovering root or core issues. Your work and habits are also evolving in important ways. This is a good period for ridding yourself of bad habits or routines, but be careful that you don’t replace one bad habit with another. Expectations transform. Intensity and passion are craved now, and mediocre will no longer do it for you with your work, health, and habits.
You might be private or insular when it comes to your job, and you might also feel overly attached to what you do even to the point of paranoia. Fear of criticism can run high when it comes to your work output. Directing your own work or working for yourself may be the best route for you to take, as you can easily resent others controlling your schedule and the work that you do. You may become very interested in areas of health and self-improvement, as well as explorations of the mind-body connection, and you instinctively seek alternative therapies for healing.
Pluto Transits the Seventh House
Pluto’s lengthy transit of your seventh house suggests that you’re likely to be facing the deeper, and possibly darker, elements of your own personality through your close interactions with another. There can be power struggles and the facing of fears before eventual healing. Major changes in the structure of your close personal relationships, and in your attitude towards them, are in store.
Power struggles in close personal relationships can be a theme in your life now, and this can play out in different ways. You might simultaneously fear and desire complete absorption in a close one-to-one relationship. You might find yourself both drawn to and resistant to close partnerships, fearing loss of control over your own life. You can be drawn to people who are intense, jealous, possessive, or obsessive, or possibly who you feel are powerful. On the other hand, your own resistance can bring out control issues in a partner, who fears the loss of you or your betrayal. In fact, you might bring out the “worst” in others by your relationship behavior — you tend to be the catalyst for others to discover their more primal instincts and fears. You might feel trapped in a complicated relationship, or have a hard time finding the deep connection that you crave. Aim to discover your own power through your relationships, although this isn’t the easiest or most comfortable process. Strive to come to terms with your own intense and deep-seated fear of losing someone you love and fear of betrayal. This might also be a time when your life is transformed through a new partnership, whether romantic, platonic, or business-based.
You’re learning a lot about yourself, including your deeper desires and fears, through your relationships at this time in your life. There can be drama in your relationships along the way as you confront emotions or parts of yourself you may not have known.
Pluto Transits the Eighth House
This very long-term transit has the effect of gradually deepening your interest in the hidden, mysterious, or taboo side of life, as well as your own deeper nature, primal urges, and desire for control. Attitudes towards dependencies on others, finances, and intimacy transform. Events occurring now have the effect of completely altering your perspective on these things. Issues surrounding shared resources, debts, support, taxes, death, or birth can stir up powerful feelings and new perspectives. There can be financial changes that alter your life considerably for better or for worse (through loans, debts, grants, etc.), and they’re likely to relate to a partner’s money, combined resources, or support systems.
This can also be a time of intense work, passion projects, research, and investigation. You have a deeper fascination with things that are hidden, taboo, or “dark,” and this can lead to unusual events. Sexual relationships can be very intense and perhaps complicated during this transit. You are both fascinated with and fearful of deep intimacy, and you might crave unusually deep, passionate, and intense experiences with others. This can be a time of power struggles with money for some. Themes of control are possible.
Pluto Transits the Ninth House
This extremely long-term transit brings gradual but deep changes to your belief system. It can have the effect of gradually transforming your belief system and general outlook on life. Some of the beliefs that have carried you to date may now seem outdated or superficial, and events and circumstances in your life prompt you to adopt new perspectives, ideas, and visions or to alter those you’ve had in the past. Expectations transform. Intensity and passion are craved now, and mediocre will no longer do. You may meet people, go places, or learn new things that change your way of thinking during this interesting, mind-bending transit. It’s a strong time for studies and interests, publishing, promoting, and sharing your ideas with others.
Do watch for over-attachment to your opinions and for trying to convert others to your way of seeing things during this transit. It’s a time when you can reach many people with your ideas or guidance, however. Profound or life-changing experiences can emerge from your travels or studies. You’re gaining much in the form of maturity and wisdom during this lengthy transit, although you may also toughen up with your opinions and worldview.
Pluto Transits the Tenth House
This extremely long-term transit brings gradual but deep changes to your career or long-term goals. Ambition is rather intense during this phase! In fact, there can be times when it seems to take over your life. The need to find deep significance with regards to your social standing or professional life becomes apparent.
Some might attract negative attention from superiors or from others in your field who are jealous of, threatened by, or finding fault in the work you do. However, any trials and tests possibly stimulated now will push you onto the right path and challenge you to become stronger and more confident in your own abilities. On the other hand, this can be a powerful time of influence in your career. Some of you may be changing jobs or long-term professional goals. Some might continue along the same career path but alter their goals and duties since Pluto acts to reform and transform. Others might discover a deep inner need to grow and develop their existing careers or businesses, uncovering ambitions that they never knew they had!
Fears of underperforming can come to the fore under this influence, and it’s time to find ways to eradicate them. Expectations transform now. Intensity and passion are craved, and mediocre simply will not do! Try to guard against Pluto downfalls such as paranoia, extreme pressure, and controlling or manipulative behaviors. Find ways to detox and destress.
Pluto Transits the Eleventh House
Attitudes towards friends and group involvements transform during this very long-term transit. You can be taking your friendships and group connections more seriously now, and there can be some intense, possibly even manipulative energy at times, involved in your social life. Some may be dealing with betrayals that ultimately show you who your true friends are – and aren’t! This is also a time when your long-term dreams and hopes shift dramatically. While you may have been content with certain dreams before this transit, now you either want more or want something else entirely.
Your social life may go through rather drastic changes. You could make a powerful leader if it interests you, but you don’t take an association lightly. It’s easy for you to be quite moved by the plights of mankind, and you may feel compelled to make a difference. You refuse to be a follower.
You’re likely to be searching for greater meaning and purpose–you want to do something that truly makes an impact or a difference. You can experience a far greater attachment to your beliefs and ideals, and you might become especially devoted to a particular cause. People you meet during this cycle can introduce you to new ways of thinking and can even inspire profound changes in your outlook and long-term goals.
Pluto Transits the Twelfth House
This extremely long-term transit brings gradual but deep changes in your psyche and to how you deal with endings and matters of the past. There can be some intense focus on spiritual and psychological growth during this period. You are confronting deeply buried aspects of your psyche. You will be learning unusual things about the hidden side of your nature, and with this knowledge, you are also learning to control these things, although it’s not always an easy process. Things that you’ve buried, such as past events that you are ashamed of, emerge and require sensitive handling. Facing your ghosts with self-honesty is required of you now.
A perhaps hidden part of you may be seeking a challenge or to push your boundaries, and if not understood and managed, you may jump into troubles impulsively or be the victim of unconscious reactions that undermine you. You might have some unusual, peculiar, or serendipitous experiences in your life as a result of this. This position is sometimes associated with powerful or unexpected enemies. It can also indicate dark, intense dreams. You may keep very many things to yourself, which could eventually impact your health. Ask yourself if some of your secrets are truly necessary, as your first instinct may be to keep things to yourself when a more direct approach would be less complicated.
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Please note that Cafe Astrology is the personal site of Annie Heese, and interpretations are written by Annie unless otherwise noted as alternative interpretations.
References & suggested/recommended further reading:
How to Predict Your Future: Secrets of Eastern and Western Astrology by James Braha. This is an excellent resource for outer planet transits: Jupiter through Pluto.
Another excellent resource for learning about outer planet transits is through an astrology software program that also includes supplemental interpretations, such as Sirius 3.0.
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