pluto

PLUTO AND NEPTUNE : The Next Level to Our Becoming

PART 1

INTRODUCTION: The astrological chart is an amazingly accurate map of the psyche or soul, according to well-known astrologers like Tracy Marks, author of The Astrology of Self-Discovery, who is unlike many pop astrologers, she introduces us to the Principles of Depth Astrology, which operates on the symbolic level. Just the way I perceive astrology to be, by its metaphysical nature, it can only be presented in symbolic language.  Planets which are cosmic energies operate on two levels, one physical and the other metaphysical or beyond the physical and can only be perceived and understood through the symbols of the Laws of our Being, governing the lower and higher levels of consciousness or octaves.  The lower octave planets are the fastest to move and we are very familiar with them -- Mercury, Mars, Venus, transiting three days.  After Venus we get to the threshold planets --– Jupiter and Saturn moving slower than the pre-Saturnian planets two weeks for Jupiter more for Saturn – then we encounter the higher octaves, the slowest moving planets –Uranus, Neptune, Pluto which cover four to six months in a year or more , since they are charged ultimately with our slow inner psychological processes of death-and-rebirth, called soul evolution, man’s lengthy developmental growth in the Spirit realms of consciousness. 

Matter is conscious in the lower realm of the visible, tangible, name the five senses, and is invariably embedded in the vast ocean of Spirit.  Everything that is matter is immersed in the ocean of Spirit where it derives its life, directed by the Laws governing the universe/as Spirit enforce the laws governing the All.. Fact is, there is no Matter, there is only Energy and this is verifiable through Quantum Physics. Between heaven and earth there’s nothing but energy. Energy carries the law and the law regulates energy. Now you’ll ask what are the laws of our being ?    
    

 The higher octaves Uranus, Neptune, Pluto carry the higher Laws of our Being, and can point out a variety of possible goals or destinations, and the roads that can lead us to each destination, and the time we must rev the engines of our bodily vehicles, refuel ourselves when we are drained by adversity, resist the temptation of all the tourist traps just a few miles off the highways we are traveling, through an inner guidance of symbolic planetary language. The stars do not compel, but they impel us to choose, to convert our “fatedness” into an awakened, illuminated knowingness of the Laws of our being, the Plan of our divine destiny for life on earth.

 Here in the Forest of Stars, my online column, I utilize my transpersonal understanding of soul evolution as a means to help people contact their own inner guidance, facilitate their own processes of growth and astral integration, for though we are humbled by being only human, we are noble because we are made of star dust.
  

ASTROLOGY AND IMAGERY

From an unfinished manuscript of Your Planetary Archetypes by Tracy Marks, here’s an instruction on how to see symbolic images in studying astrology:  1) images for every planet in every sign and house; 2) techniques for creating planetary images; 3) examples demonstrating how two planetary   images integrating together, both positive and negative can help us discover the underlying meaning and potential of aspects in natal charts.

The Experience of Neptune 

The following excerpts are from an unpublished manuscript, A Passing of Cloud by Tracey Marks were written when her progressed Moon was in Pisces, in her third house, and when transiting Neptune was in her 12^th house, in positive trine to her heavily afflicted 4^th house, her natal Neptune is in the 10^th house of career, in opposition to her Moon in 4^th , square Uranus, sextile Pluto and semisextile Mars in her 12^th house.  “Unemployed, she says, experiencing months of leisure for the first time, I hold the reins of my life loosely in my hand and trot through the countryside.  I am not concerned with reaching a destination, only with  being where I am turning onto random paths here and there…just trusting my horse.  Perhaps when night approaches I will want to grasp the reins more closely and take control but now I was enjoying letting go…”

 Let’s see in later months what Tracy Marks has to say of her Neptune experience. “My difficulty in clearly defining my direction in life is not that it is yet unformed….” (Aside) That is the effect of formless Neptune. Many Pisceans ruled by Neptune in fact, experience a lack of direction at certain periods of their lives.  “...but rather that it is intangible, incapable of being translated from one symbol system to another. I cannot see it or feel it or verbalize it, and yet I know when I am following the right path and when, mistaken I have strayed from the trail.  If I attempt to put it into words, I shudder as if committing a sacrilege. The ungraspable is reduced to the level of the commonplace

(Aside) Neptune is a cosmic, formless invisible body that’s pure and holy, the God- essence. “The undecipherable, once deciphered, is destroyed. My conscious mind, like a bird clutching its prey, gains to control my understanding and clings to its own literal interpretation, diverting my unconscious mind from following its natural rhythm. The vagueness, the indeterminancy of the vision that follows is for me a key to its validity. The truly original, the truly meaningful, the truly essential in my experience cannot be categorized or defined. My real growth, I know is happening offstage.” 

In dealing with this Neptunian heightened sensitivity, escapism, and dependency, we are likely to discover, as we flow with the current of higher consciousness Neptune, that our feelings are flowing freely, especially our tears. 

Neptune heightens our sensitivity and under its influence, we Filipinos as OFWs, become more compassionate but also more vulnerable. In the scheme of things the Phil. chart offers us a highly intense Pluto next to the Sun conjunct Neptune that comes as a 911 angel of rescue, catapulted suddenly by Uranus conjunct Saturn in Sagittarius, sign of foreign countries in 12^th house of formidable karmic returns to Moon in Aries, 4^th house of soul rootedness, shooting up our lunar Arien “I am tough,” and divine “I am.” Neptune dissolves our boundaries, releasing the pain we may have carried within us, through the Neptunian long ‘‘night of the soul ” It now awakens to our capacity to love others who are in dismal distress and deeply in need of our malasakit (see translation), the word is not easily decipherable in the English dictionary and may have to be used by Webster in its lack for this particular compassionately patient sensitivity expressed by Filipinos overseas, working as nurses, nannies of children, care-givers, doctors or herbal alternative healers, etc.      .                       

Basic astral knowledge  becomes most beneficial when we commit ourselves to actively taking charge of our lives and learning to contact, accept and integrate all the parts of ourselves which both help and hinder our own processes of internal growth and galactic alignment. But it is up to us to call forth the courage, the will, the love for ourselves and the dedication to our highest potential and potential of others, if we are to make our self-discovery a starry but grounded reality,   

As Filipinos we are surprised to encounter Pluto, right off prominently occupying the Philippine chart of June 12, conjoined to our Sun, focal point of astrochart, the essence of self, individual power, and next to the Sun, is Neptune! This configuration of Neptune- Sun - Pluto alignment points us to where we ought to go – to discover our starry (Neptune) but grounded (Pluto) reality with the Sun (individuality) in our June 12  national birthchart.  If it were for example -- Venus –Sun- Jupiter conjunct, we would be excited, clap our hands in exaltation because it connotes a super rich country! Jupiter is the greater luck planet, Venus is the lesser luck. This one alignment with the natal Sun is found in July 4^th independence day chart of the US. That is easy to understand. But if you compare the US independence chart with our Philippine independence chart the solar configuration becomes Pluto conjunct Sun and Neptune!! We greet it with awesome silence.  No clapping of hands, Brows knitted in lack of comprehension. What?  Pluto and Neptune? Why not Venus and Mars?  That would have been more romantic ! Heheh.  What are these higher cosmic energies doing in relation to our lives? It’s hard to understand Pluto compared to Mars, harder yet Neptune compared to Venus or Jupiter.   

In the symbolic language of astrology, what do they stand for? Astrologically, Pluto is the higher octave of Mars. Mars as we know it is action, the physical movement of aggression, which becomes exploded action in Pluto, the warrior in us when we are confronted with life’s challenges, the enemies of our freedom. Pluto is more subtle, in the sense that it is not more overt than Mars, but it’s harder to understand in terms of the material gains it offers if what we know of it is as a compulsive, criminal inclination energizing government officials in robbing us blind of our  resources and sometimes they may be fraudulently machine-elected leaders of the land. 

 Pluto is the release of great energies that symbolize the obsessive power of the soul to enrich self in utter disregard of those who would suffer from grief of poverty as it derives from “fatedness” or ignorance. This is experienced as a lack of awareness of one’s power, particularly that power of government officials to govern.  Do they have the awareness of their duty as humans to transform their self-vested interests into more self–denying interests so that through service, they can exponentially insure the welfare of the greater good, their bosses?  We are nothing if we are not a soul that is aware of being entrapped in the darkness of evil, and need to be redeemed through the Light of spirit. Because the Plutonian energy is the cosmic symbol of transformation, it embodies the psychological process of death and rebirth we experience in our struggles for survival. We die a thousand deaths while living through trials and difficulties, in the soul’s wish to be reborn or to rise to the next higher level of becoming.
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Neptune is the higher octave of Venus, cosmic symbol of love, beauty, money, meaning we shift to a higher gear or embody a higher octave of consciousness when we become richer in our experience of love, beauty, and money, that is if we know how to share with our brothers/sisters what spiritual nourishment we get through the subtle Neptune energy of gentleness, empathy, forgiveness, and compassion when we are born with a well aspected Neptune in the birthchart. Would not these virtues attract good fortune in tne most material sense?  

In most cases, Neptune is not positively aspected in our charts, implying a generation of souls that still need to be regenerated.  This is a knowledge that’s hard to digest mentally if we are still asleep or choose to sleep in utter detachment from the reality of the Creators’s Plan for our life.  That’s basically framing the principles of our philosophy of life.
  

  The lower octaves we are quite familiar with – Mercury, Venus, Mars with a smacking knowledge of Jupiter bringing luck and Saturn bringing limitations to curb excesses in enjoying one’s earned luck or blessings. They serve as the threshold to introduce us to the higher octaves – Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Many birthcharts do not usually carry the higher octaves close to the Sun or Moon, the Lights, unless they are charged with challenges in the scale of world evolution, but let’s face the daunting task of Pluto, and Neptune conjunct Sun, if we feel by instinct that we can sense we know what it is to be Plutonian and Neptunian in our soul, then we would decipher the undecipherable, grasp the ungrasphable, define the undefinable in us as a collective race of people. Are we the legendary highly evolved Lemurians of ancient lore ? 

Let’s begin understanding Neptune first by discovering a number of different realms or related states of consciousness which Neptune represents. Neptune overwhelms our awareness of ourselves, it is an elusive, subtle planet of transformation which dissolves attitudes and behavior patterns of the past as it transits in our charts. It serves to awaken our compassion, receptivity, creativity, spirituality, idealism, eventually touching all facets of our personality and all realms of our lives, particularly personal love with its confusing but also illuminating energies, but we reserve this topic for another time, if need be.

 We must first find out for ourselves if we know how to swim through the cosmic waters of Neptune.  We might remember that we have forgotten that we know, since Neptune rules Pisces, the 12th sign of the Zodiac, and Pisces happens to govern the 4^th house of Philippine chart which stands for the foundations of our soul, the non-physical aspect of our being that is housed in a body for the higher purpose of returning to our forgotten, if not lost, divinity. 

In simple language, we are born already spiritually aware of the existence of spirit in us,   Filipinos, probably would understand Pluto and Neptune energies a bit more than other peoples in the world. For one thing, we probably know how to be virtuous, our country will probably be the last one in the world to pass a bill into law allowing divorce to disrupt the sacred sacrament of matrimony or to recognize by law gay marriages when we live (try as we may) empowered on a daily basis by Plutonian law to cultivate virtues such as morals, manners, trust, compassion, character, courage, integrity, loyalty, chastity, which are the components of the evolving human being, the fruits of the Spirit. Neptune is well aspected in one’s chart if it is positively connected with other cosmic bodies such as Moon, Sun, or Mercury or to the Ascendant and Midheaven. 

 In the case of our June 12 national chart an ill aspected Neptune-Sun-Pluto tandem shows how tough it is to cultivate virtues if we are individuals entrusted with the country’s  public coffers of taxpayers’ monies.intended by law to be used wisely to uplift the masses from ignorance of their own poverty consciousness.

 A poorly aspected Neptune in one’s nativity would most likely make us weep of heartbreaks, frustrations, and disappointments, making us sink in sorrow after having experienced the initial delusions of grandeur of marriage with glowing promises of a good life or promises of a good governance not kept by elected government officials, as well as in or business relations. The opposite kind would be just as overwhelming by experiencing its joy, possibly making one soar to the heavens of Neptunian cosmic realms. having been detached from negativities such as anger, hate, jealousy, envy, deception or lies as rendered or  provoked by others involved in our various dealings. When the demons of the unconscious threaten to overwhelm us internally and externally, our rational minds become impotent. Solar consciousness loses its power in the face of darkness. Healing can then come only from lunar consciousness -- the deep creativity and fertility of surrender to instinct and feeling, to intuition and imagination (Neptune)  and to the ground of our mother (Moon) who bore us and the ground or rootedness of our being which feed us (Sun) . 


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