Poets, Mavericks & Prophets

A few nights ago, I had a cataclysmic dream. One of those that we remember as eerie intermissions in our regular dream cycles. Oracles and omens bubbling up from a collective and deeper well than is our individual own.

I was watching the river Danube* through my window. In waking life, my studio is very close to the river, but I cannot see it properly from where I am located. But, in the dream, I was in a building on the waterfront, watching the river through a tall French window. Suddenly, it began to rise, and formed a gigantic wave — one that resembles a tsunami wave. As I was observing it ascend, mesmerised, in terror — my first thought was to move away from the windows, before the wave hits my building. To shelter myself from broken glass. A split second later, I realised, that even if I moved away from the window, the wave will surely crush the building, and me, and everyone else in its path. It seemed that I had no choice, the wave was infinitely more stronger that me — an inevitability of nature — and nothing I would attempt to do in these last few minutes before it strikes would change its course. Not even an inch. I understood that I needed to surrender to it, and die. Or perhaps, miraculously, live, yet never without having undergone this experience.

It’s now only a few hours before the planet Pluto slides into the sign of Aquarius, this time proper, after its brief ingress in the spring of 2023 — and it will stay in the realms of the Water Bearer for twenty years (not withstanding a short backward flip into Capricorn, in the Fall). Although officially astronomically demoted to the rank of planetoid in 2006, the Lord of the Underworld — in the world of astrological symbolism, and indeed in its own orbital momentum, did not lose its earth-shattering, destiny-altering might.

In terms of its impact in individual charts, one always looks at events that seemed to be fated, the tectonic shifts, the relentless charge of forces unseen, yet felt profoundly, down to our very bones. Then, reaching much deeper — all up to the cellular level. It marks encounters that seemed unavoidable, unalterable circumstances, which had altered our lives beyond recognition. The forces of unravelling history, an onslaught mightier than anything any martial powers can conjure.

There are ways to defeat skilled warfare — the red-hot ferocity of Mars and the stone-cold societal oppression of Saturn, but not one creature on Earth had been able to withstand an eruption of a volcano — except by fleeing its reach, if warned on time.

And if one cannot flee, it seems that one must surrender. Fully and willingly allow to be overtaken by the nature of an immense force, one which we cannot measure, as we do not know its depths. Then, have the faith of a thousand saints that one can indeed survive the catastrophe. Because that is what Pluto also symbolises — the drive towards bare survival, and on a genetic level. It aims to protect not the flesh but the code, itself.

There is one beautiful aspect, a silver lining, in allowing the storm to overtake us: in turn, we may well become the storm.

The shift in the collective that Pluto brings, astrologically, always points towards all that lurks in the shadows — repressed, rejected, festering and fearful, but imbued with a fury of an element, an essence that demands to be seen, accepted and (re)born. Not so much an archetypal image, rather the archetype itself, undifferentiated and unformed. The force behind the patterning, not the pattern.

The pattern it takes depends on the landscape it encounters

Bursting open the sign of Aquarius to reveal its particular dark bounty, the focus of Pluto’s unflinching acid stare will inevitably be aimed at the terrors that hide beneath the sophistication of the Water Bearer. Underneath the veneer of humanism, it will be amplifying a dogmatic drive towards societal justice — cranking up all manner of over-reaches, corrupting both science and technology, the two areas which the sign is so fond of — from global surveillance to transhumanist limits of our biology. Artificial Intelligence, of course, is shaping up to be the most glaring example of the pending shift. AI could well be the precursor to a new type of being, a birth of species. The consequences of this cannot be predicted, and that gives way to a special type of paranoia. Pluto will take all these fears and magnify them, because that is what Pluto does, it either amplifies or annihilates, until every one of us allows the tidal wave of change to pass through, and transform our beings at their very core — or we become crushed by the inevitability of history.

Nothing about Pluto is gentle, nothing about is light-hearted, or even particularly human. It is a force of nature, but not our own, human nature. Rather, the power of a cosmic mystery, unravelling. And, as much as there are no ways to deny it its potency, there are few ways to avoid it. Even if we flee, sooner of later, the tidal wave reaches our shores. By that time, the damage done is immense, through time and effort we spent in our futile attempts of escaping confrontation.

Because, you see, most of all — Pluto symbolises raw power. In our own natal charts and, certainly, in mundane charts.

Always hidden, always present, always evolving. The true power that makes the world run, rather than the bright majesty of the Sun. Everything might revolve around our central Star, one that gives us life, but the last planet in its system knows the secrets of what lies beyond. In our own solar evolution, it looks towards the darkness of the Cosmos — as the furthest element, and gauges its intentions, translating the language of the stellar unknown into our DNA. Pluto is that power which can transmute our code.

Finally, as the Lord of the Underworld, Pluto represents our relationship to our own mortality. It is not of a Saturnian hue, where we contemplate on the passing of time, and the inevitability of decay. More than that, much more frightening, and at the same time infinitely more hopeful, it symbolises the perishing of the soul and spirit, as well as its Phoenix-like eternal return. It is the elegy of a dying star, just before it bursts into a million new beginnings.

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EPILOGUE

It is not easy to write about the heart of darkness that is Pluto and not refer to this power within one’s own self. I will point you further to an author from which I have learnt a great deal on the astrological symbolism of the planet — Jeffery Wolf Green. In my own chart, Pluto is the most aspected planet, and I have always credited its influence in the way I strangely become fully alive only in the most dangerous of circumstances. It helped me survive in situations almost against all odds. As I’ve lived with the predicament of its constant presence, I have, in time, learnt how to become the storm. There is no way one can teach this to another. It is a lived experience. But, what I can say, is that one can survive Plutonian times, and become stronger for it — in fact, one can thrive. If we allow this force to forever alter who we are, while remaining true to our purpose. As this is the way of evolution.

Author: ©Milana Vujkov

*My own hometown of Novi Sad was established on 1 February 1748, so it is, for the purposes of mundane astrology, an Aquarius.

Disclaimer — These notes follow a personal journey, and are offered as philosophical & creative inspiration. Although I am a psychologist by education, the material within them is not therapy or substitute for therapy. My astrological texts are a sum of knowledge of a great many teachers, old and new, a lineage of wisdom I was lucky to have received and am lucky to pass on, in my own philosophical (re)interpretation.