Pluto represents the principle of transformation and the power of the primordial instinctual forces of nature. It takes 248 years to transit the whole zodiac and spends between 11 and 32 years in each sign due to its highly elliptical orbit. That means you won’t experience Pluto transiting every house in your chart because he’ll only get about halfway around, depending on how long you live and which sign he started in.

Pluto forms a regular pattern of transits to his own natal placement but the ages vary between the generations. You will never experience a Pluto return but if you live long enough you might have a half-return, although this depends on when you were born and doesn’t apply to those with Pluto in Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn or Aquarius. More on this here.

Pluto represents how you use your instinctual nature and will to evolve on a deep unconscious level through a process of death and rebirth. He encourages you to transform yourself by overcoming emotional complexes and compulsive patterns of behaviour to increase your inner resources and power. It’s associated with the mysteries of life, the occult, secrecy and depth psychology, as well as the collective shadow and mass movements.

Transits don’t show specifically what will manifest but they do show how the energy is released. Pluto releases energy slowly and intensely and works at the deepest levels to purify and breakdown old forms in order to create new life. It brings regeneration and renewal through destruction, decay and fertilisation.

Pluto moves incredibly slowly so his transits often last a long time. He also moves at a very deep level and this can make you feel extremely uncomfortable, forcing you to face your worst fears and primal emotions. You may experience this as a process of death in the area of your chart that Pluto is transiting, as well as with any natal planets that receive an aspect.

Ready or not, Pluto confronts you with the necessity for regeneration and the evolution of your soul. His transits usually begin with some kind of death or loss, or the realisation that something has become corrupted, rotten or is falling apart, or simply doesn’t work anymore. As Stephen Arroyo says, Pluto:

“brings to the surface and transforms, often ending an old form of life or expression completely.”

Pluto brings things to the surface of your awareness or experience so they can be purged and eliminated. That means a situation may get worse before it gets better. But by clearing away the old you make space for something new to be born – the seed of a new life.

After the death and emptying phases of a Pluto transit there’s often a period of waiting before the rebirth arrives. This liminal experience can feel worse than the death. Everything that you previously took for granted is gone and now there’s nothing to take its place.

You may be tempted to try to force the rebirth but this often makes things worse and your attempts to move on could blow up in your face. So it’s best to be patient and not try to get ahead of yourself. You need to allow time for the newly formed sprout to take root and grow and your little sprout will need nurturing and care.

This all takes place in the dark and you can’t always see what’s going on. The rebirth may start long before you become consciously aware of it. But over time, you slowly start to feel better and more empowered and rejuvenated as you come back to life.

The most intense period of change may happen when Pluto is closest to your natal placements or when he first enters one of your houses. The start of the transit may be the most intense and can bring sudden changes that are as shocking as Uranus transits. One part of your life is set on fire and reduced to ashes.

Suddenly you’re in a different world, like Persephone being dragged into the underworld. The ground disappears from under your feet and you’re in darkness. It can feel like an assault even if nothing directly happens to you. Extreme feelings come out of nowhere, including rage, fear, anxiety, depression, paranoia, panic, and existential dread.

You may experience physical and psychological symptoms that reflect the emotional changes that are happening. External events in your life may also mirror your feelings and memories that are resurfacing and you could lose track of what’s real and what isn’t. Your life can easily become as confused and nebulous as a Neptune transit.

Your emotional response to events may also be out of proportion to what’s actually happening and you could become obsessed with something that takes over your awareness. Extreme reactions like this may be a sign that you’re reliving an old wound or projecting something that needs to be transformed and let go of.

Pluto often destroys old patterns of feeling, thinking and acting by making things worse or more extreme. This increases your awareness of your unconscious complexes and emotional wounds so that you can change them. But this isn’t an easy process and most people tend to resist change when it’s this intense.

However, resisting change during a Pluto transit will increase the inner pressure and could create a kind of challenge or confrontation that forces you to change – to let go and die to your old life. It might not be immediately obvious what you need to release and there may be a tendency to let go of the wrong things. You might try to change an external situation when the real issue is internal, for example.

It can be tricky to track down the true source of the problem but Pluto encourages you to release anything that no longer serves your growth. This can include self-destructive and negative compulsions that you need to stop doing, as well as situations and patterns of behaviour that aren’t necessarily bad but you’ve simply outgrown. In Astrology, Karma and Transformation, Stephen Arroyo says that Pluto:

“symbolises the power to release the more enduring from the transitory”

This could mean the physical death of the body releasing you into the life of the soul but it’s usually less literal than that. Pluto helps you to release old ego attachments (karma) so you can move from being ego-centred to soul-centred. This is why Pluto represents the evolution of the soul, as we explored in the Evolutionary Astrology series here.

Ultimately, Pluto transits are about getting back in touch with your essential being – your soul – and clearing away anything that gets in the way of its genuine expression so you can live a more authentic life. This sounds great but the process can be extremely painful. Arroyo says it can feel like a kind of exorcism or surgery where whatever is inessential is removed or transformed – usually without anaesthetic!

Anything that doesn’t reflect your true nature is cut out, purged or killed off. These things either fall away of their own accord, perhaps because you lose interest in them naturally, or they’re taken, broken or destroyed until you don’t want them anymore. You can continue to drag the corpse of your old life around with you but it will exhaust you over time and wear you down until you surrender and let it go. As Laurence Hillman says:

“Bullshit doesn’t survive a Pluto transit.”

You find out very quickly how real your faith is when confronted by inevitable change that you can’t negotiate your way around. But knowing there’s a deeper process or purpose at work can help to put your experience into a wider context and stop you from taking it too personally. This is true for all transits, not just Pluto, but especially the transpersonal planets.

The death and destruction side of Pluto transits makes them scary and there can be a lot of anxiety and fear before anything even happens. When you see a big Pluto transit coming you may tend to panic and start imagining all the horrible things that could happen. But expecting the worst isn’t a good way to approach anything.

The changes you experience could be subtle or dramatic and will depend on the context of your life and what your soul needs. So the best way to deal with Pluto is to remain open to change and have faith in the process that you’re going through. The deepest part of your being – the Self or soul – knows what you need and will guide you if you listen.

Remember that Pluto releases old energy so that it can be transformed and put to use creating something new – a new form of power. That means you can also discover inner resources, talents and gifts that you can develop as you grow in wisdom, strength and self-mastery.

It’s best to look at Pluto transits as an opportunity to reform yourself in the area affected. You may experience emotional pain and grief and it might be horrible for a little while. But most of the time Pluto transits aren’t that bad. They only hit you hard in the places where you’re most unconscious. So use these times to learn and become more self-aware.

Be willing to face whatever comes up from the depths so you can reintegrate it and let go of what you no longer need. This isn’t easy but the more stubborn you are, the harder it will be. It may also take many years until after the transit has passed before you fully understand how you have changed.

So don’t resist Pluto. Embrace change and burn through your karma. Regenerate and reform yourself to become stronger and more powerful. You might have to go through some shit to get there but the dawn always comes. The sun always rises.

Over the next few weeks we’ll explore Pluto transits in the houses and to the natal planets…

More on Pluto:

• Planet Myths: the Story Behind Pluto
• Keywords for Pluto
• Pluto in Aquarius posts

Images: Seashore; Mountain

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