Last time, I shared my review of an excellent book by Mark Jones about Evolutionary Astrology called Healing the Soul. I found the book to be extremely helpful in understanding my Pluto placement and made loads of notes which I’ll share in this series (plus extra bits of explanation). We’ll cover the Evolutionary Axis itself, plus Uranus and a little on the different evolutionary conditions, but first, an overview…

Evolutionary Astrology uses Pluto as the lens or foundation through which to look at the whole chart. In this system, Pluto represents the evolutionary process on a collective and individual level. The sign placement shows the generational dynamic you were born into, while the house placement is more individual and shows how your conditioning has shaped your identity.

Your Pluto placement can show hidden gifts and riches, as well as unconscious security needs that create patterns of familiar behaviour that tend to be compulsive. It also shows the evolutionary intent of your soul and the lessons you’ll need to learn in this life in order to grow and evolve.

The problems start when your unconscious security needs conflict with the evolutionary desires of the soul. This conflict produces two different types of evolution: continual and cataclysmic, and the greater the resistance to change, the greater the cataclysm. Most of us resist to a certain extent and that’s what causes all the bother.

It can take a lot to force you out of these patterns, hence the challenging nature of Pluto transits. The more conscious you can become of the need to evolve, the more you can cooperate with the process and things will generally go smoother.

Resistance to change plays out through attraction and repulsion and the conflict between the ego and the soul. And this will manifest through the Pluto placement – or Pluto Complex – which also includes any natal aspects to Pluto.

In Pluto: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul, Jeff Green explains there are four ways that Pluto influences the evolution of your life, depending on the level of resistance:

1. The first way is to produce emotional shocks where something is forcefully removed from your life. This tends to happen when you’ve been resisting necessary change. It’s obviously cataclysmic and produces an evolutionary ‘leap’.
2. The second way is to create a situation where you form a relationship to something that you feel you need. This could be anything and in the process of pursuing it, you change and grow. This is progressive or non-cataclysmic change which involves no resistance.
3. The third way is to create a situation where you become aware of a blockage to growth, whether internal or external. You don’t necessarily know the source of the block so you have to go looking for it which may induce some kind of crisis. There can also be an eruption of subconscious material into your conscious awareness which is how you become aware of what the blockage is. You can then remove the block and change.
4. The fourth way is to create a situation where you become aware of a new talent that’s been dormant. The process of developing your potential talents creates growth in a progressive, non-cataclysmic way, but does require perseverance and willpower.

These four kinds of change can overlap and trigger each other so it can become quite complex. I experienced a mixture of types 2 and 3 when my progressed Sun moved to conjunct my natal Pluto when I was 20.

It started as a huge crisis when I became aware that I didn’t know who I was and fell into a void. An enormous amount of unconscious material came up and it took years to sort through it all. In the meantime, I began to learn about psychology and astrology, obsessively reading books and transforming my thinking about everything. This process continued long after the crisis was over and became my new way of being – continual progressive change that hits occasional pockets of resistance.

Unfortunately, some of the pockets turned out to be caverns that open into vast underground networks of uncharted territory. I could be down here a while – good job I brought my flashlight!

Once you stop resisting change, at least a little bit, you can become aware of your evolutionary intent. This is shown by the polarity point of your Pluto placement, i.e. the point opposite your natal Pluto. For example, if your Pluto is in Scorpio in the 3rd house, your evolutionary intent is shown by Taurus in the 9th house.

The entire Evolutionary Axis includes the Pluto Complex – Pluto sign and house, plus aspects, and polarity point – and the north and south nodes of the Moon, plus aspects, and rulers. As an example, here is my Evolutionary Axis:

• Pluto in Virgo in the 8th house
• Pluto conjunct Mercury in Virgo (8th), Pluto trine Saturn in Taurus (3rd), and Pluto sextile Neptune (9th)
• Pluto polarity point in Pisces in the 2nd house
• South Node in Virgo in the 7th house
• South Node ruled by Mercury in Virgo (8th)
• North Node in Pisces in the 1st house
• North Node ruled by Jupiter in Scorpio (8th) and Neptune in Scorpio (9th)
• Sun conjunct South Node in Virgo (7th), Mars in Leo conjunct South Node (7th), Jupiter trine North Node, and Neptune square the nodes

Mark Jones uses massive orbs for the hard angles to Pluto and the nodes of 12–15 degrees. In which case, we can add: Uranus in Libra conjunct Pluto (8th), and Saturn square the nodes. Here’s how that looks:

How do we make sense of all this? We start with the Pluto placement which reveals the pre-existing patterns of identity that you’re drawn to. Then we look at the south node which shows how your soul fulfilled those desires on a conscious level in the past. Then we look at the polarity point of Pluto and the north node to understand the future or evolutionary potential of the soul. You can look at the rulers of the nodes for more information on how the nodes manifest the soul’s desires.

Aspects to the nodes show that you’ve dealt with those issues before and may reveal gifts or talents that you’ve developed. Squares to the nodes show what’s called a ‘skipped step’ which you need to integrate in order to progress on your path of growth. We’ll look at this in more detail later.

Evolutionary Astrology uses archetypes and the natural zodiac when interpreting the various placements. So Aries and the 1st house are taken as equivalent in archetypal terms, and you can also add aspects to Mars. In the same way, Taurus and the 2nd house and aspects to Venus all draw on the same archetype, and so on.

To understand your Pluto placement you need to combine the archetypes of Pluto, the sign and the house. So for Pluto in Leo in the 3rd house, you would combine Pluto, Leo and Gemini, and for the polarity point you add Aquarius and Sagittarius.

Some would take issue with this and there may be slight variations between sign and house manifestations. For example, Pluto in Leo in the 9th house will manifest in a different way to Pluto in Sagittarius in the 5th house but they both use the same archetypes of Pluto, Leo and Sagittarius. This is something you would need to take into account when figuring out your placements.

In general, the sign placement of Pluto is seen as generational because it relates to a large number of people at the same time. The house placement of Pluto may be more significant because it’s more individual to you, especially once you include any aspects that Pluto makes to other natal planets.

In my case, the sign placement feels highly relevant because it’s the same as my Sun sign and south node, and Pluto is conjunct Mercury which rules Virgo. To understand my placement of Pluto in Virgo in the 8th house, I need to combine the archetypes of Pluto, Virgo and Scorpio. Pluto and Scorpio are functionally the same archetype which keeps things simple!

For the south node in Virgo in the 7th house, we need to add the archetype of Libra, and its ruler is Mercury which is also in Virgo and conjunct Pluto in the 8th, so we’re back where we started! This explains so much about my tendency to go spelunking in my own psyche and get into a crisis and then beat myself up about it. 😂

I can break the cycle by looking at the Pluto polarity point of Pisces in the 2nd house, which gives us the archetypes of Pisces and Taurus. And the north node in Pisces in the 1st house, which adds the archetype of Aries. We can add more complexity (as if we need it!) by including the rulers of the nodes as well.

To see how this works in practice, we’ll explore these placements in more detail in the coming posts. We start with Pluto in Virgo which is also relevant for anyone with Pluto in the 6th house or with Pluto in aspect to Mercury…

Read whole series here

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Images: Sunlit View; Valley