Sorrow prepares you for joy.
It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter.
It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.
It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
-Rumi
This beautiful writing from Rumi captures the essence of a major Pluto event that may occur in our lives. Pluto does often act with violence, eliminating and clearing out the old and decaying patterns so that they can be replaced with fresh new growth that will inspire and bring joy.
A great trust in the wisdom of Universal cycles is required to surrender to this elimination and ripping away of things we thought we hold dear, and this kind of trust only comes with time. But since we have no option under Pluto – we must surrender because there is no way to control the outcome – Pluto becomes the teacher and the bringer of that wisdom and our trust becomes deeper and more secure.
Far better things will take the place of whatever Pluto’s strong winds shake from your heart.
We have a friend who has been experiencing transiting pluto (1st house) opposing her natal sun in the 7th off and on for the last 13-14 months (which means uranus has been squaring her sun at times as well).
When it first hit her husband of 35 years died rather suddenly. She felt devastated, angry and betrayed. Our astrology group did all we could to support her while knowing full well from her chart that this was all about her gaining her independence, coming out from behind the shadow of her husband. Now she’s in a much better place and is beginning to see that her life is improving in many ways…and she’s definitely become independent and stronger for it.
Thanks for a great article…I emailed our group with a link to this post.
How would I be able to find out if this is affecting me? Where can I look at my chart?
KP, this is overly simplistic but you can go to astro.com and get your chart. If you have any planets, or the cusp of the 1st or 10th house, between 5 and 15 degrees of Aries, Libra, Cancer or Capricorn, then Pluto is affecting your chart.
Astrology is not something you can learn in a weekend. It’s like with medicine – you can look up your symptoms online but eventually you will need to see a doctor.
Thank you for one more wonderfully inspired message.
I am also experiencing a heck of a Pluto transit. It has transited my 12th house (of self-undoing) – the cusp of which essentially sits at the same place as my natal Saturn (5 degrees 30 Capricorn). I have really had a tough few years – also from the transiting Uranus squaring these positions, as well as connecting with my natal Venus at 8 degrees Aries. Have lost my job and have been unable to find another one, no matter how low I am willing to go on the salary front, my mother has died, my brother has died. In addition Saturn is sitting atop my natal Neptune in Scorpio which leads me to wonder what I am even in the fight for these days. Rough chart indeed. Looks to me like the waters don’t calm down for years.
I like the point of seeing Pluto as a teacher. I usually considered Saturn was the teacher, but Pluto also forces us to learn, in a shocking, relieving-at-the-end kind of way.
I like Rumi, and I hadn’t read this verse. It came to me at a perfect time. Pluto is square to my natal Venus (so that means Uranus opposes Venus), and I feel like I just undergone chemo in matters of the heart.