Pluto's Meaning in Astrology

Backlit Pluto and Charon, illustration
MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty Images

Pluto is the great revealer, but often there's a dark night before the rebirth. Pluto brings to mind purging, exorcising, and releasing buried power or core truths. It's the planet of creative destruction, and transits can feel like extended ordeals. 

Look for the Zodiac sign and house position of Pluto at the time of your birth. Look for the Pluto symbol on any birth chart.

Pluto's Dark Ordeals

In the birth chart, Pluto shows the area of life where you'll personally face the intense powers of creation and destruction. It's the doorway through which volatile compressed pockets of self, spirit and primal energy lies hidden, which are released either by our own efforts or by provocation from the outside world.

Pluto's energy will not be suppressed but its power is often feared. This can put you in a showdown between your greatest fears of being destroyed, and the pursuit of the deepest longing in your heart. The Ego holds to its defenses, but Pluto tries to urge you to let go, and surrender to become a new person.

Pluto rules Scorpio with its province being death and rebirth. There's a Sufi saying, "Die many times before you die," and Pluto's lessons hold out the promise of emerging from the flames of a new person. When chaotic events shake us at the foundations, it could be Pluto provoking change at the fundamental level. We might not think we exist without the ground beneath us, our sense of who we are, but if we're brave, we come to discover there is life after this kind of ego-death.

Pluto also governs power itself, including struggles between people and countries for domination, and of course, personal power. It shows up when perfectly capable people end up under the thumb of someone else's control. Facing down the control and manipulation of others, especially parents, can make us weak in the knees. But once we do this, we are changed forever.

You can either be at the mercy of Pluto's provocation to change, or you can take matters into your own hands. It can be humbling to look soberly at the area of life in which you feel powerless, worked over, dissed by the Universe -- but by doing this, you can try to understand and alter your own reactions. You still might be brought to your knees, but while there you'll rest assured that Pluto's dark and punishing face is that of a tough, but loving teacher, leading you toward a more authentic experience of yourself.

Pluto as Generational Planet

Pluto generations show how an age group finds its power to deeply change society. An entire generation will share the same sign, and this gives shades of meaning to the mark they make on the world. 

Astronomers demoted Pluto in 2006, and it's now considered a "dwarf planet," but astrologers still reckon it to be a powerful force on a collective and individual level. It is positioned at the outer edge of the Solar System and was discovered in 1930 after the invention of the telescope. Of all the major bodies, Pluto is the smallest and furthest away from the Sun.

Creation and Destruction

During its long journey through a constellation, the essence of that sign becomes a kind of wrecking ball, reviver or revealer. When Pluto was transiting Sagittarius (1995 to 2008), a fire sign, other fire sign planets were activated.

There was a burning away of falsehoods, so that truth could rise and set us free. And indeed, we saw in that time the extraordinary rise of the truth seeker who shined a light on darkness. 

Sagittarius is the clear-sighted visionary, and the one that shakes off heavy emotionality or dense physical concerns to evolve in a speedy way. Intuitive leaps can be made on a collective level that is life-affirming for all of humanity.

Pluto Transits

Transiting Pluto brings changes whether you're ready or not, and you emerge a completely new person.

Pluto may be making aspects to other planets in the birth chart, as well. But even without affected planets, transiting Pluto will provoke upheaval and regeneration in the house it passes through in your birth chart.

Since 2008, Pluto has been in Capricorn, the sign of established traditions, hierarchies of power and the ancient Earth. 

Pluto in the Houses

The House position of Pluto is key to understanding which area of life will enact the most dramatic transformation. It's often the area that you grasp for with the most longing, but where the attainment of your ideal vision ends up being difficult or impossible.

The birth chart often points to a lifelong meditation on some issue, and no planet dogs us like Pluto does. Its potent medicine burns away what is not necessary through both our own initiated changes and changes from external circumstances. We often have to undergo an agonizing letting go process and build faith in life itself, for miracles to occur.