Welcome to this edition of the Astrological Weather Report. In this report, I want to talk about the Pluto paradigm, which is the core teaching for Evolutionary Astrology as taught by Jeffrey Wolf Green.
We know the details of our lives. But do we know the whys? We might understand how the Sun and Moon in our natal charts express our personalities and how our Ascendant determines how we meet the world. But do we know why the circumstances of our lives have unfolded the way they have? Do we know why the people who helped us came into our lives when they did? Do we know who we are, why we are here, and what lessons we are working on in this lifetime? These are the profound answers revealed by Evolutionary Astrology. Tonight, we will wander and wonder through the Pluto paradigm, the core metaphysical component of Evolutionary Astrology. So, take a deep breath as we take a deep dive into how your natal chart reveals the nature of your journey of the soul through this lifetime.
Pluto
Let’s talk about planet Pluto. Yes, Pluto is a planet. For many astrologers, especially Evolutionary Astrologers like myself, the notion that Pluto is anything less than a full-fledged planetary member of our solar system borders on being laughable, if not sacrilege. In 2006, The International Astronomical Union redefined the definition of a planet for the first time since Galileo. Interestingly, Eris, arguably the most contentious planet in our solar system, was discovered simultaneously, upsetting both the worlds of astronomy and astrology. This synchronicity is neither an anomaly nor a coincidence to me. Eris has become my pet planet. I have been writing about her since 2015. It is a topic which I promise to return to on another evening. Tonight, I want to discuss Pluto as an astrologer, not an astronomer. Both professions look at the same sky but see a different heaven.
Just the name Pluto can instill fear and foreboding in our hearts. The King of the Underworld, Hades, Hell, the abode of the dead, the netherworld, and eternal damnation are just a few of his nicknames and the uncomfortable epithets describing the loneliest of the Greek Gods. All the other deities had temples erected to them, filled with faithful supplicants, with the exception of Roman Vesta, who was Hestia to the Greeks. Her shrine was the hearth in each home and at the center of every community that held the sacred fire. There were no temples were built to honor Hades. When the Greeks wanted to contact him, they pounded on the ground to get his attention. Loneliness was his eternal condition. He only came up from his subterranean home to snatch the maiden Persephone to have a conjugal partner. He did ask permission first, but from her brother, not her mother. We should forgive him for this masculine oversight. This is a little mythology as background to our story.
The Soul
According to Evolutionary Astrology, Pluto correlates directly to the Soul and the Natural Law of Evolution. According to many spiritual and metaphysical beliefs, the Soul is an immutable consciousness with a finite identity that persists from lifetime to lifetime. The Soul, the Higher Self, our guardian angel, however you frame this idea, is the source and an extension of who and what we are. It is the part of us that exists outside of Time and Space. We have all heard the expression, “We are spiritual beings having a human lifetime.” We are the incarnate experience of our Souls having that human experience. Each incarnation is an energetic projection of our Soul. The Soul manifests a human personality with subjective consciousness and unconsciousness in each lifetime. The purpose is to learn about itself.
Over many lifetimes, we play out all the roles in a karmic play as the living extensions of our non-incarnate self, as the Soul learns about itself through our incarnate experiences. With our families and the individuals close to us in this lifetime, we act out the drama as an ensemble cast. In each incarnation, we trade roles. We are the father, then the mother, the son, and then the daughter, the grandmother, then the grandfather, the sister, the brother, the aunt, the friend, the enemy, the Plutonian uncle who molested us, and the Persephone-like child who was molested.
“When you emerge into physical life, not only is your mind not a blank slate, but you are already equipped with a memory bank far surpassing any computer. You face your first day on the planet with skills and abilities already built in, though they may not be used, and they are not merely the result of heredity.”
–Jane Roberts, the author who channeled a personality called Seth
“What has come before”
Pluto encapsulates “what has come before,” our karmic history, through our emotional memory. We do not remember our past lives intellectually. From lifetime to lifetime, we pick up where we left off. The emotional experiences of the first seven years of our lives, leading up to our first Saturn square, are reminders of “where we left off” in our evolutionary path.
Pluto correlates to the desires of the Soul that have led to the current lifetime and the desires that set its ongoing evolutionary needs in motion. Pluto correlates directly to karma, metamorphosis, DNA, and genetics. Pluto is the evolutionary engine that is constantly moving us forward. Evolutionary intention propels us forward even when it feels like we are standing still or moving backward.
Pluto is the base note. The outer planets set our personal inner planets’ content and nature. Saturn defines the structure and form of who we are by setting the shape and boundaries of our subjective consciousness. Even if Saturn does not aspect a natal planet, it sets its mode of operation by the nature of its sign, house, and any aspects to other planets. In the same way, Uranus correlates to our individuated unconscious. It formats our individuality and defines the self-actualization process of who we are becoming.
Neptune correlates to the collective unconscious. Neptune correlates to the groundswell of beliefs that underscores the zeitgeist in any period of history and formats each Pluto generation coming onto the planet. In other words, Pluto’s house and sign placement express the generational frequency each individual has come in on. Each generation comes in on the same bus. The individual identity patterns brought in from the past, the desires, beliefs, ideas, perceptions, and personal values are defined by the natal placement of Pluto and its aspects to other points in the chart.
For example, for those people born during the transit of Pluto in Cancer, family structure was formatted by gender. Men were “Marlboro Men,” and the women were “Betty Crocker”. The societal expectation was that men would go out in the world to work to support their families. Women stayed home, had babies, did the housework, and prepared meals.
The self-actualizing Pluto in Leo generation broke that mold. Men became secretaries and househusbands. Women went into the workforce. The Pluto in Virgo generation, nicknamed Generation X, came in with a cross to bear to heal the world. And so on, each new generation bearing the “birthmark” of the collective beliefs embedded in the times they were born.
“Security is sought through saturation with Earthly experience, learning through the five senses and direct emotional experience about gender, culture, ethnicity, religion, poverty, wealth, health, and illness.”
–Teilhard de Chardin, French priest and scientist
The core needs for the Soul and each of us in each lifetime is security. The Soul seeks security and spins off its incarnations to find its sense of security through self-awareness. Each personality that the Soul creates expresses the evolutionary necessities that the Soul seeks for security. We learn through direct emotional experience, through our emotional body, not intellectually or by mental constructs.
The Evolution of Consciousness
The water signs Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces comprise our emotional nature. The water signs are an archetypal triad that traces the growth of consciousness.
The Moon and Cancer, the sign it rules, correlate to security. The Moon is the emotional body. Our emotions are the body’s litmus test for security. The Moon responds or reacts through our emotional experiences in each moment. It is the most conscious part as the focal point of our awareness. Each personality the Soul manifests has an ego, which correlates to the Moon. The Moon is the focal point for our self-image. It is how we see ourselves. The Moon performs the function of a lens on a movie projector. Without the lens, there is no clear image.
As the ruler of Scorpio, Pluto correlates to our deepest needs for emotional security through an awareness of what lies below the surface in our subconscious. Spiritual bypass occurs when the Scorpio process is skipped over. We bury the parts of ourselves that we don’t like in the recesses of our subconscious. This is called Soul Loss in Shamanism. The awakening process requires that we go down into our underworld to recover what we buried there. Unless we do the inner work by going down into our underworld to recover what has been lost and hidden there, we cannot awaken. Hermes, Mercury to the Romans, was the only god who could enter and leave the underworld unharmed. We all have Mercury in our charts. We must use our cognitive skills to safely go down into our own underworld and restore the parts of ourselves that have been splintered off.
Pisces correlates to ultimate truth and unconditional love. It connects us to that which is greater than ourselves. It correlates to washing away all the false perceptions and agendas that maintain our separateness. It is the immersion into the ocean of All-That-Is and the culmination of an entire life cycle of self-awareness.
Through lifelong patterns of emotional experiences, Pluto generates the circumstances, relationships, and experiences that move us along our evolutionary path. The need for security is the compelling force that maintains familiar behavior from the past. It can become an obsession if the desire is strong enough. The caterpillar looks at the butterfly and says, ‘You will never get me up in one of those things!” Greater resistance will manifest cataclysmic evolution. Non-resistance will produce slow, gradual development. The strength of the resistance to change determines the magnitude of the generated karmic event. If the resistance to evolutionary impulses is too strong, Pluto pulls the rug out from under us, activating change. Often, it takes more than one intense emotional incident for change to occur. It emulates the experience of “Can you hear me now?”
“Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”
–The Kybalion
This is a restatement of the law of physics, which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; what we perceive as polar opposites are, in actuality, a singularity. One cannot exist without the other. Creation is constructed on the Law of Polarity: day and night, Yin and Yang, man and woman, dark and light, hot and cold, firm and yielding. Everything manifest has polarity.
This is also true for Pluto. The natal position of Pluto’s opposite sign and house is known as the Pluto Polarity Point. The placement of Pluto by house, sign, and aspects in the natal chart defines the evolutionary desire brought in from the past. The Pluto Polarity Point points to the evolutionary desire and the Soul’s intended direction for future personal development in the current lifetime. The personality is not conscious of past influences or future intentions. The lessons occur on their own through evolutionary necessity.
The Wave and the Ocean
“The wave is the same as the ocean, though it is not the whole ocean. So, each wave of creation is a part of the eternal Ocean of Spirit. The Ocean can exist without the waves, but the waves cannot exist without the Ocean.”
—Paramahansa Yogananda
A core concept of Evolutionary Astrology is the dynamic of dual desires correlating to the wave separating from the ocean. The wave’s crest correlates to the Moon, our immediate connection to the world around us. Our desires center around what makes us feel secure. Pluto correlates to the body of the wave, empowering our outward thrust to experience our individuality. Neptune correlates to the ocean, the source of all that is. As the wave arches from the sea, it feels separate and sees itself only as the wave. Over time, the wave arches back into the great body of water from which it came and recognizes that it is not just the wave but also the sea.
This analogy describes there are two coexisting desires within the Soul. The first desire is to separate from the Soul, like the wave that believes it is separate from the ocean. The second desire is to return to the Source of its creation, just as the wave must eventually recognize that it is merely an extension of the sea. The interaction between these two opposing forces, to separate and to return, generates each lifetime’s personal experiences and circumstances. Desire is the engine that drives this duality. Mars, the lower octave of Pluto, is the leading edge of our evolution. Mars determines what we need and the choices we must make according to our needs for security. Actions lead to reactions. This is what we call karma. We reap what we sow. It is neither punishment nor retribution, simply the “unfinished business” carried over into this lifetime.
Evolution is based on the progressive elimination of all of the separating desires. As these separating desires diminish, the desire to return to the Source increases and becomes more dominant in our consciousness. Desire determines the choices that we think we need. Each desire drives us toward a certain goal. In each case, we are not done with it until we are done. Like water, we must fill every space we pass through before moving on.
Over many lifetimes, we gradually exhaust the agenda of separating desires. Our consciousness and our place on the evolutionary path determine the nature of our karmic necessities. Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact.
When we look at a natal chart, how do we determine how the planetary archetypes are expressed? Does a Pisces Moon imply someone who is a drug addict or an alcoholic, or are they someone with compassion and understanding for everyone they meet with an open heart? We are all on the same path but at different mile markers. These evolutionary conditions are essential because it is how the archetypes in a natal chart work. Our evolutionary condition will determine the lessons and karmic necessities we will encounter.
Evolutionary States
Jeff Green described four conditions of the Soul called Evolutionary States. Along this pathway, our choices reflect our current mile marker.
Jeff calls the first evolutionary state Dimly Evolved. It correlates to a lifetime of limited consciousness that results from different karmic causes, needing to complete a certain “remedial” evolutionary lesson.
Jeff describes it as “Either Souls evolving into human consciousness from other life forms such as animals and plants. Or Souls that are ‘de-evolving’ backward into this condition due to ‘karmic’ causes.”
As we emerge from the animal kingdom, the evolutionary condition we first work through is called the Consensus State. In consensus, the desire is to be like everyone else. There is safety in the herd. In the animal kingdom, we learned that being part of the herd ensures survival. The gazelle that separates the herd is the one the lioness will take home as dinner for her cubs. We want to dress like others, talk like others, think like others, and be like others. We want what others have. We want to learn how to play the game and get ahead. It is herd mentality. Sameness and uniformity are the safety net.
Progressively, the Soul exhausts one separating desire after another, relationships, sexuality, material possessions, physical beauty, wealth, power, status, family, career…the list goes on. As each desire is fulfilled, a temporary sense of satisfaction is achieved, but an even greater one is necessary to feel satisfied.
Consensus State
In the Consensus state, there is acceptance of what religious leaders say without questioning it. If their priest says that Astrology or Tarot is Satan worship, they believe it rather than experience or learn about it to make up their own mind.
Eventually, over numerous lifetimes and challenging karmic events, the Soul sees that none of the achievements and rewards of the material world, no treasure, no success or acquisition, is as fulfilling or satisfying as expected. They achieve everything that can be achieved materially but still feel insecure. There is now much more that they can lose. The possessions and material rewards have lost their luster, and there is no longer a lust for the chase to acquire them. The old ways of finding fulfillment fade away. A new realization arises: “There must be something more.”
Individuated State
As this shift occurs, the Soul begins what Carl Jung called the individuation process. We move into what Jeff calls the Individuated State. As consciousness increases, the emerging persona begins to recognize that they are like everyone else but not like everyone else. They have certain abilities, creativity, talents, and skills that are uniquely their own. Their priorities, values, and choices begin to reflect the need to understand who they are apart from everyone else. This new perception alters their perspective of the outer world. They also begin to recognize that they have a vibrant inner world. They pursue other directions of exploring the world around them. They become interested in the natural world around them as hikers, campers, and gardeners. They seek out other like-minded souls and groups exploring alternative lifestyles and beliefs. They might have a tarot reading or take an astrology class at night. They might begin to read metaphysical and spiritual books and articles. Some relationships will fall away, but new ones will form. However, for a period of time, they put on their nine-to-five wardrobe during the day and continue to show up around the water cooler at work.
This stage can be very challenging because a great effort is required to break away from group thinking and be able to express their own beliefs. The need for security still holds them back. Over time, karmic necessity will continue to create pressures to release the resistance to the new influences, creating crises that compel the individual to change and adapt to the new impulses they are experiencing. For instance, their old boss, with whom they had a great rapport, might retire, and there is a personality conflict with the new one, creating significant changes in their job. Or some other dramatic life revision that compels change.
At some point, a rebellion against consensus authority can develop. Insecurity can begin to disallow social participation for fear of being drawn back in. There is pushback and a need for complete withdrawal from consensus reality and self-exile from society. They fear being drawn back into the fold and losing the progress made with their newfound freedom.
As they develop their newly realized self, a shift occurs in their self-understanding, opening up a new sense of self-awareness and personal freedom. They realize that participation in society can be possible again. There is no need to fear losing their hard-won individuality. The ability to share their newfound creativity and personal resources emerges. They recognize that they can make the shift and actualize the financial and emotional support they need to grow themselves by sharing their individuality with others.
Spiritualized State
Consciousness does not increase arithmetically. It increases geometrically. As awareness increases, the soul’s second, very singular desire begins to emerge: the desire to return to the Source. They begin to realize that they are the wave and the ocean simultaneously. An awareness opens that there are two kinds of law: man-made law that supports arbitrary, subjective, consensus-oriented rules and regulations based on self-interest. And there is Natural Law, the foundation of life. Natural Law is the fundamental framework that permeates all of reality. There are no straight lines in nature. Everything in the Universe develops according to its inherent design. Natural Law is the basis of the teachings like the Ten Commandments, the Upanishads, and the Hermetic Principles. It teaches love, compassion, altruism, life after death, wisdom, and truth. They begin to understand what the saints and masters who walked here before us have achieved and have manifested higher levels of consciousness than the ordinary person.
Consciousness takes on the nature of the container it enters into. The minerals hold energetic frequencies that are each unique in their qualities and properties. The plants eat the minerals. The plants know that they are here to support us. All of the pharmaceuticals we need are derived from plants. The animals eat the plants. The animals know that they are here to help us with our work and as our companions.
When we begin to live according to Natural Law, we merge into what Jeff calls the Spiritualized State. Spiritualized does not mean religion. The major world religions all belong to the Consensus state. In general, they are proselytizing, patriarchal, and misogynistic. Spiritualized implies embodying Natural Law as the basic code of ethics of life. It accepts that everyone deserves respect regardless of their gender and gender choice, race, color, or creed. Essentially, it expresses that “there is only One of us on the planet.” What affects you affects me. This is Spaceship Earth, and we are all headed in the same direction. The Earth is “us”. It is the recognition of that all the masters and teachers who walked on the planet before us left the same message. That God is Love. Universal Truth and Unconditional Love are the magnetic attraction that connects all of life. It is the recognition that everything in nature is conscious.
As astrologers, when a new client comes for a reading, we must first ask some questions to determine where this person is on the spectrum of evolutionary conditions. Generally, their work in the world reveals what mile marker they are at. It is also important to know about their early childhood relationships with their parents and siblings. These early life experiences determine their psychological approach to adult life.
Planetary Nodes
Lunar and planetary nodes are important markers in a natal chart. Any node is the intersection of the planetary or lunar orbit and Earth’s orbit around the Sun. No physical body is in space, but it emanates a vibrant frequency. The Moon’s nodes are the most well-known. The Lunar South Node holds the composite of our most recent Moons, our emotional patterning from the past. The Moon is how we see ourselves. The lunar south node is our most familiar “self,” who we “are,” and how we react by default. It is where we go emotionally automatically, by nature.
The lunar north node is the direction that our Soul intends for us to pursue. It is a pathway fertilized with karmic potentials. These potentials, however, must be consciously engaged with to be activated. There is more than one potential future. It is our natal moon in this lifetime that is the decision point. Mars, the lower octave of Pluto, is the leading edge of our evolution. In the present moment, our choices, driven by Mars, can re-imagine, find a new positive understanding of the past, and not repeat the same emotional patterning. This is the shift that opens the way to a different future.
Each of the planets in our natal charts has north and south nodes. Jeff Green stated that each planetary nodal pathway is the evolutionary bridge from the past to the future, anchored in the present lifetime planetary archetype. Like the lunar nodes, the planetary south nodes correlate to the past life dynamics created by the Soul that has led to the current life. The natal planetary position brings the past forward. The north node of the planet correlates to the Soul’s ongoing evolutionary journey.
Pluto Polarity Point
The Pluto Polarity Point is the bottom-line evolutionary intent for the Soul in each life. This primary cause activates the other planets’ north nodes to actualize according to that primary evolutionary intention. The natal planet integrates the past and the future in each moment of life.
Pluto’s nodes take 24,000 years to complete a single orbit. They spend roughly 2000 years in a single sign. Everyone on the planet now has Pluto’s nodes in the same sign but in different houses. They may or may not be in aspect to natal planets. It doesn’t matter. In Evolutionary Astrology, the planet, the sign, and the house are the same archetype. Think of it as a dramatic play. The planet is the actor. The sign is the costume that the actor is wearing. The house is the stage upon which the play is taking place. The archetype of the house placement of Pluto’s nodes is the format of their karmic frequency according to the 12-letter astrological alphabet that sequences the archetypes from Aries through Pisces.
Similar in concept to the lunar nodes, the south node of Pluto correlates to the past. The north node correlates to the future. At the fulcrum of that transverse polarity is the current Pluto placement.
The south node of Pluto in a natal chart describes the evolutionary patterns from the past and the karmic lessons the Soul was working on. Currently, for all of us, the base note of Pluto’s dynamics is expressed through the Cancer-Capricorn polarity. Cancer is ruled by the Moon, correlating to our emotional nature and the emotional experiences we attract relative to the position of our natal Moon. Past experiences have been formatted by the need for emotional security and embedded in ancestral patterning.
“Via the South Node of Pluto in Capricorn, we are revisiting the time of the patriarchal takeover to metamorphose, eliminate, and dissolve the artificial structures, dynamics, beliefs, memories, conditionings, and behavioral patterns of the past.”
–Linda Jonson, who was one of Jeffrey’s students and editor of most of his books
First sighted in 1930, around the time of the discovery of atomic energy, Pluto correlates to the exercise of power. The dynamics of Pluto work in three ways. We self-empower ourselves and stand in our power; someone takes our power, or we willingly give our power away. Often, it is some combination of all three.
Pluto’s Nodes
This current Pluto nodal transit teaches us how to use our power wisely to make the world more secure. It generates all the crises and issues around gender, matriarchy, misogyny, racism, and economic disparity.
Pluto’s north node is currently transiting the sign of Cancer. Transiting Pluto and Pluto’s South Node is currently conjunct US Pluto in Capricorn. Transiting Pluto was conjunct the south node of Pluto roughly from 2018 to 2021. These were the years of COVID and the presidency of Donald Trump. This major event is “out of scope” for tonight’s talk. This is a topic for another event. I want to mention it in passing.
Cancer and Capricorn, the axis formed by the current nodes of Pluto, are the cardinal archetypes that anchor one of the primary fulcrums of the zodiac. It signals a major energetic shift in galactic time. The Hopi believe that we have suffered three previous world cataclysms. Fire, a comet, an asteroid strike, or several volcanic eruptions destroyed the First World. A great Ice Age destroyed the Second World. As recorded by many cultures around the globe, a tremendous deluge destroyed the Third World. This extinction-level event is well known to us. It reverberates through Western religion as the Noah’s Flood. Just as Noah was instructed on how to survive and ensure the future of life on the planet, we are also being instructed through this evolutionary shift in our own time.
The work of authors like Graham Hancock and the late Native American Jamie Sams has unearthed indisputable evidence that the Earth has a history that we are just beginning to understand. Ancient mythology and modern archeology reveal that the “faithful” were saved and went underground at the time of each planetary cataclysm. Climate change is clear evidence of a shift in the Earth itself.
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
–Richard Bach
Hopi Prophesy
The Hopis say that this time the Fifth World will emerge as the Fourth World is going away. The “news” is in Akashic field. Astrology, Tarot, I Ching, Kabbalah, psychedelic experiences, and meditation are ways to access these de-reified levels of awareness. The constructs of our thought processes are still rooted in millennial beliefs. Currently we are being flooded with information on every level of awareness. The challenges to our health and well-being, which are the inevitable result of long-term resistance to change, are the karmic necessities needed to move our planetary culture forward. One way or another, we will evolve, individually and collectively. It is up to us to decide whether we go gracefully or kicking and screaming. The choice is ours.
There will be 2 more reports in this series as I examine the nature of Pluto through the houses. The dates and time will be announced on Facebook and through my email blog.
Be safe, mindful, be patient.
Namaste.