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Author Topic:   Pluto-Moon Aspects -- Natal, Transiting/Progressed
Azalaksh
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Posts: 982
From: New Brighton, MN, USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted January 28, 2006 09:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Azalaksh     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
From Steven Forrest's "The Book of Pluto":
quote:
PLUTO AND THE MOON
Night-queen, dream-bringer, the changing Moon enchants our archaic eyes. The Sun feeds our bodies, quickening the seeds in the earth and vitalizing the green leaves that feed us. But what does the Moon nourish? And how does it taste when we spice the brew with Plutonian storms?

THE MOON ITSELF
Since we've all been confused by more or less the same civilization, I can define the Moon for you simply and briefly: it symbolizes the "feminine" aspects of human consciousness.
This, at least, is the way the Moon is typically presented. But what do we mean by the word "feminine?" Easy, just ask Betty Crocker: "Feminine" means emotional, nurturing, nonlinear, creative, moody, and tending toward befuddlement in the face of mechanical objects — the same old traditional stereotyping that truly modern women (and men!) have been battling since long before Beatles roamed the earth.
Sometimes, especially among Jungian thinkers, this old notion is dressed up in more sophisticated garb. The notion is that everyone, regardless of gender, possesses both "feminine" and "masculine" aspects. This approach sounds pretty compelling and egalitarian until we read the fine print. What exactly do we mean by the "feminine" aspects of the psyche? Back to square one: emotional, nurturing, and bewildered by linear reasoning. I cannot help but think that we do ourselves no favor by perpetuating these gender prejudices.
There is in the human psyche a very real syndrome of interrelated, "transrational" qualities. That is a psychological fact. But in my opinion it is past time we stopped poisoning and confusing ourselves by calling them "feminine," and began calling them by their true name: lunar traits. Otherwise, often despite the best of intentions, we cement the old assumptions about gender more firmly in place. Every man has a Moon; he is capable of tenderness, imagination — and being moody, "bitchy," and bewildered. Every woman has a Sun; she is capable of confident self-assertion, making clear decisions under pressure, leadership — and insensitive egocentricity.
To be human is to access both the solar and lunar aspects of our common humanity, and to experience their eternal cross-pollination.

PLUTO-MOON ASPECTS IN THE NATAL CHART
Here's a kitten, just ten weeks old. She's full of playful ferocity, terrorizing a ball of yarn and ready to rule the universe. Pick her up. She purrs and nuzzles your face. How do you feel? What's buzzing inside you? Unless you hate cats, it's your Moon.
Something inside us all knows how to nurture, how to express a particularly tender aspect of that too-big word Love, an aspect which emphasizes an urge that is caring, compassionate, soothing, protective, indulgent, forgiving, and patient. That energy expresses itself outwardly, toward the kitten, or toward a friend who is hurting. But it also expresses inwardly whenever we give ourselves a break. You feel it when you let yourself sleep late, or when you call in sick to the office. Whenever you buy yourself a present, or forgive yourself, or indulge yourself, you're following a Moon path.
Anyone who is in a healthy place with his or her Moon will tend to lead a healthy, balanced life. He or she will also likely practice kindness toward others, and thus attract love back into his or her own life. In a nutshell, we are looking at the secret of happiness. That may sound sort of pat, but with the Moon we are looking at the fundamental support for love, comfort, health, and joy in our lives.
When the Moon is dysfunctional, we observe a pair of pitfalls. The first lies in never nurturing ourselves. Maybe you have a sore throat, perhaps a hint of fever ...and with a sick Moon, you kick yourself out of bed and go to work anyway. Naturally, if we treat ourselves that way, we are likely to apply the same standards to others, thereby isolating ourselves since we are so hard to love, so ungrateful when we receive it, and so tight about returning it.
The second lunar pitfall lies in an overindulgent, whining, weak mentality, as lunar energy runs amuck in the psyche. Here we have hypochondria, eternal psychotherapy, a "victim's" mind-set. Characteristically, these energies tend to thrive on weakening other people as well. A friend says she's having a bad day... and we begin to speak of her "depression," encouraging her to consider initiating a course of Prozac. The intentions may appear well-meaning here, but healthy people are instinctively disconcerted by them and inclined to flee. Soon all that's left in our world are the hypochondriacs, psychotherapy junkies, and professional victims.
We learn much about the Moon through its natal sign and house placement and any planetary aspects it might make. But when Pluto is connected to the Moon in the natal chart of a healthy person, we recognize that:
1) The individual's emotional nature is Plutonian. That is, he or she is potentially capable of extraordinary psychological self-scrutiny, not to mention scrutiny of others.
2) The individual's sense of well-being and happiness depend radically upon having outlets for that kind of intense, penetrating dialogue or experience.
3) The person's joy and vivacity are enhanced by encounters with anything verging into the territory of the taboo: deep psychology, but also occult investigations, explorations of death, or crime, or "low-life" subcultures — and anything that pertains to facing squarely the twin Plutonian philosophical problems: that of Evil and that of Catastrophe.
Such a person will instinctively seek out these kinds of experiences, and thereby nurture himself. He or she will also radiate a very particular kind of welcoming message into the world, specifically beckoning anyone who is passing through a Plutonian period.
What if a Moon-Pluto person is working at a less than optimal level? Here we observe a chronic "bad mood." There is typically a fundamental belief that "I am the victim of injustice, ill-luck, prejudice, history or poor parenting." There may even be some justification for such belief, but the point is that in sick Pluto-Moon interactions it becomes a lifestyle. Unconsciously, such an individual seeks to support his or her status as a victim by engineering more disasters to illustrate the point. There is a pronounced tendency here toward forming pathological associations with other dysfunctional types, giving them too much, losing any sense of boundaries or limits, and thereby setting oneself up for further betrayal.

THE NATAL CONJUNCTION
When Pluto lies conjunct the Moon in the natal chart —within say seven degrees — then the fusion of Plutonian energy with the heart or soul is complete. Much of what we've covered in the preceding paragraphs would apply without major modification.
Emphasis must be placed upon the profound need inherent in this conjunction for meaningful, authentic emotional communion with others. One expression of this dimension of Pluto-Moon energy arises when we consider the social strictures around the simple notion of eye contact. We are taught from an early age to make eye contact — but not too much! The Pluto-Moon person hungers for the kind of naked flow that can exist between two deep psyches when eye meets eye and open attention locks and holds. With or without conversation, that kind of merging is a core need here... and one that can be met only through cultivating trust with other Plutonian types.
We should also note the very direct impact of Pluto upon the nurturing function in such an individual. He or she might make a very fine parent, friend-in-a-time-of-need, or even pet owner. Potentially, these abilities exist to a refined degree, with the added bonus of the capacity to supplement simple caring with penetrating, even unsettling, insight. But these positive qualities can be effectively stymied by any unprocessed wounds in one's own "inner child." In the dark scenario, a note of coldness, even cruelty, toward the young, the sick or the defenseless can enter the picture.

THE HARD NATAL ASPECTS
Squares and oppositions between the natal Moon and the natal Pluto signify growth-inducing, perhaps potentially hardening or embittering, experiences within a person's life. As is eternally the case, he or she is then free to respond in constructive ways or self-limiting ones.
Many times, we observe some dark or catastrophic factors becoming relevant to the life at an early age. Perhaps there was violence or psychological torment in the family home. Maybe poverty left its sad mark, or it may be that serious physical or mental illness struck a family member.
In deep astrological counsel or investigations, hard aspects between Pluto and Moon may point to the usefulness of investigating the actual circumstances of childbirth itself or of the intrauterine experience, which may have been traumatic and left a mark of fear or darkness in the deep, nonverbal layers of the psyche.
Pluto-Moon people, with their characteristic fascination for anything "deep," are often intrigued by past-life regression techniques, and these too may prove productive of liberating insights.
Traditionally, mother is seen as the primary nurturer of the very young child — and thus mother is often placed at the head of the list of suspects when we observe Moon-Pluto damage in the psyche. This may well be perfectly accurate, but we should be cautious and spread our net more widely as well. Fathers, at least theoretically, bring their own kind of nurturing to children ...and may fail to provide it, or worse. The son who never heard a word of validating praise from his dad, who never had "secret" talks with him about "the way women are," bears a Moon-Pluto wound. The daughter whose father never acknowledged her beauty, which is to say never blessed and honored her sexuality, carries a similar mark.
We can go further. The "nuclear family" itself is something of a walking catastrophe. Throughout history, it has been acknowledged that children need intimate contact with many adults — “aunts" and "uncles," whether or not it is really blood kinship that binds them.
Simply missing any of these kinds of nurturing, nourishing experiences can leave a scar that is reflected in hard Moon-Pluto contacts. And we must, of course, add that such aspects also figure commonly in situations where these kinds of mentoring contacts were not merely missing, but perverted.

THE SOFT NATAL ASPECTS
Faced with Plutonian realities, all of us get scared. It would be naive to say it any other way. So many people, for example, glibly profess to have no fear of death. Most, I suspect, are sincere; some may even be telling the truth. The majority, I speculate, will find their assurance and ease less pronounced the moment the doctor pronounces the fatal sentence or those oncoming headlights line up with the hood ornament.
Much that is truly frightening in life we must face alone. But not all of it. Sometimes help is available. It may not ultimately bail us out, but it can provide comfort, a steadying hand, wisdom. Trines and sextiles between the natal Moon and natal Pluto suggest the existence of that kind of nurturing assistance when we need it. Teachers and comforters are at hand; guides appear when we are lost — provided we are brave enough to admit that we are lost!
I emphasize the existence of earthy, human support during our Plutonian ordeals. But I must add that other, more etheric kinds of support are also suggested by this class of aspect: inner guides, angels, ancestral spirits, the Holy Spirit... serve yourself here from the basic cafeteria of words we monkeys use to speak authoritatively about what we understand so little.
Always, with trines and sextiles, there is a question: will we maintain sufficient self-awareness to use the opportunities these "good" aspects represent? The answer never lies in the birth chart. It lies in that far more uncertain realm we call Will and Freedom.

PLUTO-MOON EVENTS
When Pluto and the Moon interact through transits or progressions, the energy they represent is edgy and uncomfortable. The reason is very simple: the two bodies simply don't like each other very much. Pluto is hard, relentless, and demanding. Even brutal. The Moon, on the other hand, is the center of all our emotional sensitivity and vulnerability. So: the nerve-endings meet the dentist's drill, and it's not necessarily a happy rendezvous.
Which is not to say that it cannot lead to positive, life-enhancing outcomes. Even to ecstatic outcomes.
The key concept in Moon-Pluto events, at least at first, is moodiness. Material is surfacing from the substrata of the psyche... Plutonian material, which is to say, material that we have had reason to suppress or repress. It comes at us through the Moon, which means that we feel it before we think it — hence, the "moodiness" associated with these events. We are registering in our Moon/Mood some unsettling information that will change our course through life.
The information we are receiving can potentially enhance our happiness, since happiness is the nurturing Moon's domain — but many times the means to that end is that the data tells us what is making us unhappy.
Sometimes learning the source of our unhappiness is a very jarring experience.
If you are pretending to be happy in your job, your friendships, relationships, religion, whatever, a Pluto-Moon event will try to reveal that fact to you. This notion of "pretending to be happy" may seem odd and pointless, but many times we humans are willing to pay a terrible price simply to avoid rocking the boat. Should such a circumstance apply, when the Moon-Pluto contact occurs, an unnamed mood of discontent will arise. If you commit yourself to honesty and follow that mood where it leads you, you will learn what you need to know in order to restore a self-nurturing quality to your life. If you don't make that commitment and follow through on it, then you'll simply experience a rotten mood that peaks as long as the progression or transit lasts ...and then endures indefinitely as a dull, numb feeling — a "resolution to be dead," as a therapist friend of mine phrases it.

THE MOVING CONJUNCTION
The "Biggies" here can coincide with the radical altering of a person's fundamental instincts, values, and nature. By the "Biggies," I mean the sort of Moon-Pluto events that last a year or more: transiting or solar-arc Pluto conjuncting the natal Moon, or the solar-arc Moon aligning with natal Pluto. In these cases, the preceding ideas apply without alteration.
The passage of the secondary progressed Moon over the natal Pluto is a briefer event — generally comprising about six months of active engagement — and is correspondingly somewhat less central to one's psychological development. Here, the basic notion, is that one's course through life collides with whatever wounds we've been avoiding. To proceed on course, we must integrate the material. Where is the collision to take place? Check the house position of natal Pluto, as we described it earlier in the book.
Every month, the transiting Moon makes a conjunction with Pluto. It lasts a few hours and it doesn't amount to much. Any frustrations, angers, or grudges we've been harboring just below the range of our psychic radar will tend to surface then, or be acted out. If the conjunction comes at night, one's dreams are often quite revealing, especially if larger Plutonian themes are developing simultaneously in one's life — but write them down quickly, or the unconscious mind will suck them back to oblivion before the coffee begins to drip.
Each year, a Full Moon will occur once, maybe twice, in the same sign as your natal Pluto. Every several years, there will be a true conjunction of the Full Moon with natal Pluto. These are particularly auspicious moments, especially the latter, for any kind of deep psychic investigation, from the psychotherapeutic "workshop" to ritual magic or religious ceremony, and on to include the vision quest, vigil or ordeal.

THE HARD MOVING ASPECTS
No one has ever been, or can ever expect to be, nurtured perfectly. Parents are only human. Communities are flawed. The Shadow makes itself felt sooner or later in every life. This is a truth, but a delicate one. On one hand, there is a temptation to say, "So quit your whining!" (But so easily that can degenerate into denial and avoidance...) On the other hand, there is the toxic-psychologist's exhortation that we reduce our lives to a resentful meditation upon our wounds. (And given life's richness and brevity, isn't that a foolish waste?)
Steering the middle passage between those two extremes is the art of gracefully navigating hard Moon-Pluto contacts. As is typically the case with this class of event, we are under pressure, both internal and external, to deal with those dimensions of the Self which have been wounded by poor nurturing, bad or absent mentoring, and tender betrayals. Dramas unfold; knowledge of the houses and signs involved will specify them. Anger often rises up virulently— and necessarily. Beneath the anger, if we are brave enough to look, is an awful, empty pain. And beneath the pain is a set of long-dimmed needs and desires, blunted years ago by frustration or worse, but still viable! We can recover them, and seize deeper levels of fulfillment from our present life than were available formerly when the wound was inflicted on us. And that is the point.

THE SOFT MOVING ASPECTS
As always, moving trines and sextiles bring wonderful possibilities — and the curse of sleepiness. The trick, under soft transits or progressions between the Moon and Pluto is to be alert to healing opportunities. Something inside you is bleeding, and everything you need to staunch the wound is at hand. Reach out and accept it!
Typically, unless other more compelling astrological events are occurring, these soft Moon-Pluto situations are not inherently coercive, as they might be under squares or oppositions. A mate may not be threatening to leave. Maybe your job is secure, your health is fine, and your tomatoes are red and juicy.
Still, inside you there is a dark place, a tired, bitter place. And outside you, near at hand, is an open-hearted friend ready to listen, or a skilled counselor you've just heard about, or a chance to develop some aspect of your creative life, your spiritual life, or your professional life that will promote, even indirectly, the re-invigoration of that burned-out, bummed-out nexus of defenses, psychohistory, and resignation. That healing opportunity is real. To say it's "easy" may or may not be true, but one point is sure: it is as easy as it will ever be.


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TINK
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posted January 28, 2006 09:21 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
wow

I have a pluto/moon square. Thanks.

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Aen
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posted January 29, 2006 12:03 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thank you!!!


Aen
Moon conj Pluto on the Asc.

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No hesitation. No regret. No looking back.

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poetsdream7
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From: St Petersburg, FL
Registered: Apr 2009

posted January 29, 2006 12:17 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for poetsdream7     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thank you again for sharing, Azalaksh!
I have Moon/Pluto conj and it has definitely been a challenge trying to rein that intense emotion! It gets easier as I get older...sometimes.

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Always Seeking...poetsdream7

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alanabelle86
Knowflake

Posts: 40
From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Registered: May 2009

posted January 29, 2006 01:51 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for alanabelle86     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I have rather tight Pluto/Moon square. It's off by half a degree.

Thanks for the info!!

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Devilfish
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posted January 29, 2006 02:39 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Zala thank you soooooooo much for posting all this pluto info. i needed to read this. right now i have transiting pluto conj. my north node , my asc., and my moon .at the same time this is in opposition to my natal saturn,square my natal sun, and approaching a square to my natal pluto. to make things really intense i am also experiencing transiting saturn opposition natal venus.
whew, i think those post were meant for me.
here is a star of "thanks i needed that" ........

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noobsaibot1983
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From:
Registered: Jun 2009

posted January 30, 2006 09:55 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for noobsaibot1983     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thank you very much for posting those. I have a natal pluto/saturn conjunction in opposition to my natal moon with neptune and the ascendant trining my moon and sextile the conjunction. The neptune is trine my ascendant as well. I actually posted all my chart info in the thread where I asked you to post the pluto info.

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