*** This blogpost might trigger some of you, so read only if you are interested in heavy Pluto-based subjects or feel free to skip to the II Part where I discuss body work. I share a lot of my personal experiences, so as you read, please keep in mind I am a human being deciding to be vulnerable in her writing and not a robot. As a lifepath 3, I feel the reponsibility to write about this since it might heal some of you out there and might make you feel less alone – that is my hope ***
Part I – Persephone dynamics
The North Node in Gemini just crossed the boundary of my 8th house, so this post was meant to be. A lot of unconscious energy is resurfacing at the moment in my life, asking to be interpreted and integrated. So as I am resting from providing healing services to others, I was very drawn to a particular book, and that is Donna Cunningham’s sobering and deeply meaningful book ‘Healing Pluto Problems’. After spending a week-long reading it, I ended up seeing my own Pluto placement in a slightly different light. I have a strong Pluto in my natal chart – it is in Scorpio (so exalted, since Pluto rules the sign of Scorpio), it is retrograde (so concentrated and inwardly addressed), it is at an early degree (the 9th) and it is opposite my Mars, the planet that rules action, willpower and sex.
Living with Donna’s words in my mind this past week, made issues from the past spring back into my life almost like a rush of blood to the head. I thought I had some things resolved, but the current Saturn transit over my Immun Coeli (the root of our natal charts, that place of deep emotions and ancestral baggage), brings up some really deep aspects, colouring my present awareness in a completely new light. My Pluto and Mars are placed in the fixed and passionate energies of the Scorpio-Taurus axis. Having Pluto in Scorpio doesn’t make me special – this is a marker of all members of my generation born between 6th November 1983 and 11th November 1995.
However, having my own Mars in Taurus (usually considered a detriment placement of Mars) does highlight matters regarding femininity and masculinity and how I integrate these forces into my own sense of self. I was born under the influence of this opposition, and it certainly dominates other aspects in my chart since my Pluto is so (shudder) visible! (being in the 1st house). This energy brings up strong Pluto-Venus/Persephone issues as ‘the goddess of love is dragged into the underworld of Hades’, and the need to purge and balance ego aspects is expressed in a very obvious image of a Wounded Anima. Donna’s book helped me digg deeper into my complicated and emotionally draining relationship which I share with my father ( a Solar Plutonic himself, with a bright Leo Ascendant hidding a lot of explosive and domineering ways of relating due to his Venus conjunct Pluto in Virgo placements, and which are opposite my Pisces Sun). My father is a selfish man (and if he were to read these words, he would strongly contend any criticism coming his way) and I fought all my love for his love, to be seen, heard, loved and appreciated. This didn’t happen. Even after I published a book about fathers and love and dedicated it to my family. I find my personal Pluto story resonating heavily with this beautiful tarot reading:
But let’s talk a bit more about Mister Pluto and how he plays out when he stations for a lifetime in your first house. Keep in mind this is my personal perspective, and it is the wisdom I could extract from this painful position in my life, so far. As I mentioned, my Pluto is at a powerful degree of completion (the 9th degree). It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that the way in which I have to cleanse my karma in this lifetime is primarily through my body. The first house represents the body and everything that makes it whole – movement, energy, health, expression. It is about the material body, the physicality of your reincarnated soul, but also about your own psychological perception of your body (seomtimes these can be harmonized, and other times these can clash and create inner conflicts).
To top it up, I also have another astrological marker of doom-and-gloom, a Moon conjunct Saturn and Uranus. I wrote about this placement in the very first post on this blog. What these combined astrological influences mean, is that growing up did not feel ‘sweet, cuddly and Disney-like’ to me. To contextualise, I was born during Romania’s bloody transition from communism to capitalism, in a climate were resources such as warm water, electricity and having enough food to eat were depleted. There was anger, frustration, hunger, and a general, oppressive air of secrecy in the society and family group into which I was born. I couldn’t even drink my mother’s milk due to the fact that latching to my mother’s breast was not successfully completed. I was also born with a cold (perhaps due to improper nourishment or the side-effects of the Cernobal radiation from 1986).
Typical to a Plutonic’s life, the first thing I felt after my birth, was a shot of penicilin into my skull (they administer these to the baby’s brain because the cranial tissue at birth is not completely solidified and other parts of the body are not yet well-developped, so the serum travels faster into the bloodstream). Talk about a Plutonic reincarnation, From day one that tired motto ‘What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger’ became a felt-reality for me, and almost sealed me off energetically.
The first problem was that I had a lot of powerful creative energy to express with a Sagitarrius Moon and a lot of squares in my chart (Venus square Mars, Mercury trine Pluto, Moon square Mercury – squares represent the energetic urgency of things needing to manifest in reality, and also re-affirming the 90 degrees and the 999 completion pattern in my chart). Nonetheless, and true to every ‘Phoenix’ moment I have undergone since then – I survived. And in this cold, unwelcoming and controlling environment, I thrived and grew to be a smiling, bright and beaming little kid with a lot of energy to spend. As I grew up, I transformed from the initial ‘sickly and vulnerable baby’ to a ‘magnetic preschooler’. Being as well the first child in an extended family group, relatives flocked to see me, touch me and offer gifts to me. But what they offered always came with a condition, and their subconscious hidden agendas, uncompleted healing and pent-up desires, literally played out over my body (grabbing me, holding me, kissing me, and slapping me). I became the boon of contention and the playground of envious comments and actions in my family, and I was only 4 years old..
An additional fact which became ‘a problem’ was that I was born female in a strongly traditional society, rife with repression and religious superstition – this meant that my energy was considered too masculine and had to be constantly managed and restrained to fit into the traditional ‘obedient and sweet girl mould’. Frequent power struggles ensued with my family members regarding control over my clothes, brushing my hair, cleaning my body, how I spoke etc. I arm-wrestled my way into this lack of self-acceptance at the level of consciousness I had (which was primal at that stage in my life). So I started bitting, swearing and kicking (opposition to Mars) and was made to feel like I was arrogant and evil for defending my physical integrity. Inevitably, these behaviours had negative outcomes: I was punished and feared that mom and dad wouldn’t love me. And indeed, catching on to the fact that I responded with fear to any form of emotional detachment, my parents used ’emotional pull-outs’ to make me obey them. This learned pattern created when I was a toddler, continues to unconsciously sabotage my personal relationships to deeply painful outcomes for both parties. However, I am committed to working through it, and sharing this post is part of this difficult inner work.
It might make some of your think ‘she’s making excuses for herself’, but it is important to remind that Plutonic energy does play out in this way – it is extreme and intense and – up until a certain age when consciousness is developed – this energy has nothing to do with the bearer of the burdens, since he or she is simply the Mirror/ The Seat of Projections/The Black Sheep of the group. As a Plutonic you need to come to terms that you are karmically placed into some twisted, intimate, power dynamics because you are meant to purge and heal them. It is less to do with the person you are, and more to do with your energy you hold, and also it has everything to do with the unconscious dynamics between the group of people that the baby is born into. Unfortunately, my case is just one of many Plutonics, and it is my hope that in writing this, I can help some of you release some of those pent-up feelings, gradually and slowly to protect your first from harming yourself more than anything else. Just keep in mind that you matter, and you will find love and be loved for who you really are.
The ultimate damage that a Plutonic suffers, is when you introject all that external pain, and turn it onto yourself. This brings up self-harm, self-hatred, dogmatic intolerance, sado-masochism, sex and alcohold or drug addictions (depending on where your Plut is placed in your chart and whether Neptune or Saturn or Mars are influencing it). You literally begin a self-destruction process, instead of continuing to resist the hatred and push back with your emotional power. Self-love is the only way forward, but my god is it a struggle to remain loving and positive when you’ve experienced from a small age all the vitriol of human nature. That’s why I have compassion for Scorpio energy, because it’s intimately familiar and I know personally what can hide behind a charming and sexy facade.
With this Pluto placement in the first, I can remember feeling within my bones ever since I was small, a crippling fear – The Grim Reaper, or the Black Hooded Man was always my companion. Fear was actually the defining emotion of my years of growing up. I actually enjoy getting older mostly because to me, this is a slow process of emerging from darkness and powerlesness into a solar independence, into nourishing awareness and powerful inner growth. However, I continue to be dominated by my body and the way I look since it is unavoidable that this energy plays out in my life – people stare and have stared at me since I was born. And unfortantely, the only man’s whose loving attention I craved, is not able to see me from his heart. This meant I that there is a pattern in my life of falling for emotionally unavailable men, because this is the Divine Masculine image I introjected from a young age (a man who is charming but selfish, who is caught up in codependent dynamics with another woman, my mom and cannot give himself fully to me, to understand me and value me).
Inevitably, I had problems with men I was intimate with, because of this effect but also due to jealousy (my own and the one my presence created around me). I noticed that with Pluto in the first (coated over by my Libra Ascendant), only by entering a room and the mood is somehow set. People either ignore me completely (in my hiding days) or are drawn to me like moths to a flame (in my power days). Some people have always felt the compulsion to touch me, even if they don’t know me. Some find it almost uncontralable that they are pulled towards my body and then they end up resenting it. There is a power play here between people being magnetically drawn to my body and also not being able to control what they want to do to my body (mostly stemming from their own unhealed wounds).
Repeated episodes of random violence, hurt, bruises, scars and inappropirate groping, touching and pointing fingers at me happened to my throughout life. This type of relational dynamics sends me thinking of Marina Abramovic’s intense and boundary-pushing art. Marina is a Sagittarius Sun, so she has the faith and the bravery to pull these performance pieces. In performance piece she puts her naked and still body to any onlooker to do whatever they please to her; she is creating vulnerability and thereby bringing out to the surface the collective Shadow of human nature and how it treats vulnerability. I am also reminded of this Madonna song (another Pluto in the first house bae) :
Pain was omnipresent in my life with this Pluto placement, and I was constantly challenged to overcome it and thrive through it. From frequent medical injections, to controlling physical treatments, to uncomfortable clothing and study benches at school, to feet full of blisters due to awful shoes all the way to frequent assaults in public places. But other energies in my chart such as my Pisces Sun helped me react philosophically to physical pain, and even muster up forgiveness. In the end, it was the introjected emotional pain which proved to be the most damaging, or what Eckhardt Tolle calls ‘the pain body’. As a baby my body was used as ‘a protective shield’ sometimes while other times it was a doctor’s playground, because I was made to believe I was sick early on from mysterious diseases. This ‘disease’ was simply the way in which the world reacted to my Plutonic body, and it was part of the karmic debt that I had to pay forward in this lifetime and work through (Saturn in my second astrological house – normally this is considered the house of money and self-sufficient finances, but since it is ruled by Taurus, it is as well about how the body theme of the first house, sustains itself)
For those of you who share this aspect and might resonate, it’s important to understand that heavy karma plays out with this aspect, and this karma is sexual and masculine if it forms a tight aspects to your Mars. In my case, sexual aspects where always linked to how people related to me. For example, I received emotional detachment and physical punishments from women and a lot of unwanted physical attention from men throughout my life (who most of the time could not help having a physiological ‘heating up’ reaction when they were near me). Plutonic energy is the combustible heat of the atom bomb, so imagine how this feels when your body and the first impression you make on people is that similar to a nuclear diffusion.
It makes you end up fearing people and retreating within yourself, thereby becoming a sealed off, hermetically locked-in Plutonic – you take the pain the world frequently regurgitated upon you and you retreat from society to either: a) self-destruct and self-harm by replaying the hurt which has now infiltrated the Plutonic’s mind or b) rest, heal and Phoenix-ize by pouring massive amounts of love into that hurt and forgiving. It’s your lesson in this lifetime to self-heal and self-love and then when you reach a powerful inner completion and integration, to share this journey with others. I see each beautiful Phoenix moment, when the Scorpio negativity and seclusion is purged and it is transmuted into the idealistic strength of the Eagle, as this card in tarot, the Ace of Cups – the overflowing cup, the holy waters of Spirit:
For Plutonics, love and wealth are inside jobs. You will encounter people who love intensity and mystery and who cannot help but fall in love with you, and people who still need to overcome their shadow and who cannot help but hate you, since their very presence reminds these people of the work they need to do on themselves. Plutonics remind us that nothing is just granted to you, it is earned. This is why Capricorns and Scorpios make such good companions, because these are two of the astrological signs that undergo the most hardships in life and must overcome them, in order to somehow thrive.
As a 1st house Plutonic, in my twenties I received in equal amounts glorious declarations of love and marriage proposals, as much as I received demeaning words and random criticism. It was confusing. Resentment for how I look travelled hand-in-hand with an adoration for how I looked. There wasn’t an in-between 🙂 And this taught me to rely only my own vision of myself – I set my own self-worth bar (I wanted to be financially stable, creative and curvy yet glowing with health). I desgined myself goals for myself to achieve and channel that Plutonic energy into competing only with myself. As I achieved each task I set, my confidence grew from the inside out and not the other way around.
With this placement I experienced everything from men touching themselves next to me as I was travelling in the subway, to assslaps from onlookers when I was walking the corridors of institutional buildings, to men literally stopping by in the street and literally running back to talk to me in various countries in the world, not just at home (“You look familiar!”, “Do you have a boyfriend”, “I just want to buy you drink” etc. – and I’m sharing here only the ‘polite’ things that were communicated to me in these spontaneous exchanges). Some might read these words and think ‘Wow, lucky girl, wish that would happen to me!’ but consider the fear. For a girl growing up with these things constantly happening to her on her way to school, the market, a friend’s house, and then later on for work conferences in foregin cities, these moments felt mortifying. At any time, from any place, as I was walking in public, minding my own business, danger could spring up. I could be demeaned, assaulted, raped, kidnapped and killed. It took following my intuition to survive and assess the pressure and intensity of social situations and their potential for escalating.
So for a very long time, I learned to hide my femininity because it was dangerous to reveal it. I also learned to feel intense emotions but hide these, since emotional spontaneity represented danger – you can imagine how not revealing my emotions, impacted my capacity to establish heart-based intimacy. In addition, as a teenager, I wore clothes that hid my body, almost monk-like skirts and heavy materials – also because the constate fright I felt, made my body very cold which in turned reinforced the idea I was sick with something and I needed medical attention – so the being-poked-and-gropped-medical-examining cycle continued, under the controling and watchful gaze of my mother who thought she was doing the right thing to protect me. For a very long time, I negated my body, I moved in the world with a submissive posture, carrying the hurt visibly in my tissues. In turn my submissive demeanous attracted the attention of people with twisted power complexed. Here I want to take a breather. Breathing in and out helps with the outpouring of memories, it cleanses them of the hurt and helps me extract the lessons.
Happilly, I learned a lot about myself as time passed. I learned to constantly question what was happening to me. I never took things as granted or at face value. As I travelled and worked at become financially independent, I also understood my body’s power to create pleasure, to withstand a lot of physical pain and yet not let it crush my spirit. No matter how demeaning and critical and painful the outward reality was, within me I knew who I was and how I felt, I knew the mountain of strength residing within, I felt the deep warmth and energy that I kept locked in, for fear that others couldn’t handle it. I learned as well that self-harm is not the way to put my life back on track and that toxic self-soothing (mostly through consuming alcohol, another common pattern of handling emotions in my family), was also not a great way to deal with feeling powerless. Mostly because, the muscular atrophy, the dehydrated skin, the irritability of prolonged alcohol intake, are just not worth it, since this behaviour keeps a Plutonic in a place of powerlessness.
So what helped? Aside from realizing my own inner strenght and that I can turn pain into pleasure and negative criticism into positivity, a deep connection to Spirit set me on the right track every time. Knowing that I can put my trust in something higher than other people. Also, exploring regeneration through natural elements: sunlight and walking barefoot on the grass, sports (especially yoga and swimming), reading (dear God! 🙂 is reading powerful for Plutonics to help them heal), learning to rest and take things slowly and methodically (eat the elephant step-by-step, not in a mouthful 🙂 In addition, a daily routine helped since I started working with the energy of Jupiter’s placement in my chart (in the 6th house). Working with and understanding your Jupiter will certainly empower you as a Plutonic, if you need help with staying positive. Also check where your Saturn is. Working with these additional planetary energies, I understood that in order to heal my body and accept its power I had to physically wake-up my muscle memory and heal it in my a daily routine. The polarity of Scorpio is the wellbeing loving and emotionally stable energy of Taurus, and indeed persevering at bodily work throughout the years, but especially during my Saturn Return (age 28-30) also systematically changed my poverty mindset into one of prosperity and abundance. I don’t work out to look good and develop protective muscles, but to heal and to remain positive.
Finally, it is also helped me understand that the brutal ways in which other people relate to vulnerability and feminine beauty do not have to be my own Becoming aware of yourself in all aspects and disentangling yourself for the unconscious power dynamics of your ‘loved ones’, is essential if you want to fulfill your Plutonic rebirth and improve your life. For example, if I loved my gracefulness, my natural subtle way of moving and my soft voice, I had to realize first that I have these qualities, and then to own them and stand in my power, since the opinions of others was always controlling and thereby unreliable. The moment I realised this, was the moment I could allow self-love and light to crack in and transform all the darkness I internalized into my psyche into healing warmth. I am now lucky enough to use my body, my face and presence to convey healing messages to my growing crew ❤ And only for this present fact, it was a trip worth enduring and I hope it justifies the length of this post 🙂 ***
Part II – The Garden of the Body
To heal my Plutonic problems you can look at your astrological counterpart, the Cosmis Bull, Taurus. Taurus represents fixed Earth energy, the stable foundation from which new seeds can grow. Sport connected me to my body and to the ground again. So for the past 4 years, I’ve been practicing yoga at least once a week (sometimes daily). My current work – reading tarot and interpreting astrological birthcharts to heal and inspire others – requires me to engage in this spiritually enhancing bodily work. So before any reading, I do yoga and take a shower to cleanse and allign.
I love Yoga with Adrienne, which was suggested to me by a Taurus friend #nocoincidences. Adrienne, with her Texan soft strength, was the one that really got me into loving this practice, even if I had tried classes before at a local Scottish gym. She peppers her videos with sayins that stay with me throughout the day ‘slow and controlled release’ or ‘be gentle with yourself’ or ‘make space and allow yourself to explore’. These small quotes are soul-patchers to my Pluto energy. After a workout in the privacy of my home, I sometimes cry, I feel relieved, I get angry, and I release fear from my muscles and through my sweat. No matter what emotional outpouring occurs, the mat and the ground support me – it is always there to fall back upon.
There is some sort of alchemical change happening during Yoga: my breathing, my muscles, my mind and my emotions resist fighting each other, and resolve to reconnect. It’s a beautiful thing and no matter how hard it actually is to get on the mat, I always feel happy and greateful at the end of each yoga session. I highly suggest trying yoga if you haven’t so far, and being gentle with yourself at the beginning – you will feel a bit like a mashed potato when you start off, but as you keep showing up on the mat and you keep trying, I promise you’ll learn so much about what you are made of and you will find that you can expand in ways you haven’t dreamt before. The key is the breath or prana, the seat of our life force. Yoga is especially good for your during those days when you really can’t be arsed, paradoxically that’s exacty when you need it the most.
In addition to yoga, I am also discovering in this period several alternative and therapeutical body works. The first one of them is called Rolfing, a method created by the biochemist Dr. Ida P. Rolf which entails realligning tissues and muscles in the body to treat clients from scoliosis and other bodily disorders that keep muscular pain trapped-in. This is not something I can practice on my own, so I look forward to expand my trust and seek professional body work help soon.
Another method that was brought to my consciousness is the Feldenkrais Method developped by Dr. Israeli Moshé , which to be honest I am still learning a lot about, so I won’t go into details now but I’m including this here in case you might feel drawn to explore this further. I’ve also heard that Pilates helps especially to elongate muscles, but since I haven’t tried it I’ll refrain from commenting on it. Of course, there are also botanical and plant-based remedies, again which work with another Taurean-ruled area of life, the senses. There are the Bach flower remedies and the California Flower Remedies, crystals and gemstones therapy, chakra tune-up and self-love reprogramming meditations , working with essential oils , burning incense and praying, or the classical ‘talking cure’ (my favourite therapeutical approach is Carl Rogers’ person-centered therapy). These are all sense-based, practical things you can use to heal your pain-body, and bring light into those emotional wounds.
And finally, I can’t believe I am typing these words, but I recently saw an important documentary about how walking barefoot on the earth (grass, sand, rocks etc.) is healing for the body. Yes, a truth that was self-evident to our village-dwelling ancestors had to be rediscovered by science in the 21st century 🙂 What strange times we are living…they do speak of the current re-awakening to how deeply we are connected to the Earth and how by harming it, we are only harming ourselves. We live in symbiosis with the Earth, we don’t own it.
This focus on the body and learning a lot about the earth’s healing effects on the body is alligned with the current transit of Uranus (the planet which governs knowledge, awareness and spontanoues illumination) through the sign of Taurus (the fixed Earth sign, governed by Venus). This planetary transit started on the 15th of May 2018 and lasts until 26th April 2026.
Uranus in Taurus is all about learning new ways in which we can live more harmoniously on Mama Earth, and to some extent it promotes a healing through the senses approach to any Plutonic problems. Taurus is the opposite sing on the astrological wheel, the sign of robust living, healthy and simple pleasures, amassing wealth and preserving resources. Taurus reminds us that it is equally important how we live and not just to live. Mindfulness (with the accompanying Alexander Technique) is a very Taurean practice, in that it helps heal the body of toxic emotional residue by reminding us to focus on the real, the material, the tangible in front of us. In this model, you can easily silence that tough inner critic, that blames you for the abuse you endured in your life, if you put your hand on the table in front of you and feel it’s material stability, it’s gravitationally-bound security, or if you unlearn a habitual pattern through using your senses. Another example is that you might have developped a protective resting position such as sleeping in a fetal position, because it makes you feel psychologically safe, but in time this position might lead to back pain and cifosis, so body work can help you shift your awareness and thereby your actions and movements (sleeping relaxed and on your back might become an option).
Bringing the discussion from psychology back to the Earth (and interestingly psychology’s most-known figure is ‘Papa Freud’ – as we used to call him during my undergrad studies – and who was a Taurus Sun conjunct Pluto), it’s useful to underline how everything on Earth, due to the law of gravity is pulled towards its volcanic core. Nothing spells Pluto energy like ‘magma’, and nothing is as rich and as fertile symbol of the Taurus energy like the soil: its matter, minerals, muck and the semi-precious elements that create it. I think this is the best way to describe the Scorpio-Taurus axis. The lava and the soil, the Earth’s material evidence and our Human emotional chaos, which both need each other, just like the current of water irrigates the earth and help it grow things. So is water supported on this planet by the gentle craddling of earth. Wow, too many metaphors, I’ll see myself out now :))
This post poured out of me 🙂 I think you can tell by its length. This usually happens when I feel a deep connection to Spirit, inspiring me to share. If you are a Plutonic, I send you a loving and warm embrace. If you just read this, because you are curious or in love with a Plutonic and wish to help them, I hope this brought some insight and clarity. To be clear, this is a story of rebirth, hope and light. Plutonic problems can be healed and overcome. The Scorpio can be transformed into the Eagle with your conscious intent and commitment to absorb light rather than resent its warmth. Once this healing occurs, a world of possibilities, deep emotional fulfillment and compassionate intimacy opens up. I’ll share more of this journey as I progress through it, but for now I send you my light. You are not alone.
With universal love,
Lexi ❤
spiritualsocial.wordpress.com 
Thank you for this wonderful post.It’s like this was written especially for me.It’s great to know i’m not alone.There is a whole generation that understands what I have gone through.Some of solutions for healing yourself like the bodywork were eye-opening.I personally Feldenkrais is one of my favs I like to practice! It’s just let me know that i’m on the right track with my work.Thanks for your sharing your own personal story.It gives me courage to do the same.
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