Jupiter Meets Pluto At The End Of Sagittarius

I don’t know one person who isn’t feeling that something is coming to an end in their lives at the moment. There’s a finality about events, or a sense that the end is nigh somewhere, somehow. It’s Pluto that radiates the finality feeling, that sense of things never being quite the same again sometime very soon. Pluto just ‘is’ that feeling at the best of times, but it ‘is’ even more so at the moment because Pluto’s going through an ending all of its own, coming to the end of its stay in Sagittarius, where it has been since 1995. And it ‘is’ even more so again because Jupiter, the planet that rules the sign of Sagittarius and which has been travelling through Sagittarius for the past year, is now also wrapping up its stay there, finishing off the journey by passing across the degree where Pluto now sits. Jupiter is known for it’s optimistic, uplifting vibe, but is also known for expanding what it touches, making more of what it touches, which means the feeling that ‘is’ Pluto is feeling a whole lot bigger at the moment.

Sagittarius is the sign of personal perspective on the world. It’s the outlook or standpoint individual to each of us, based on where our journey through life has brought us at any particular point, and Pluto has been affecting our standpoint on life since 1995 (take a look back to then, and remember how differently you viewed life. See how much your outlook on life has been transformed by events that had the Pluto stamp all over them since that time). Sagittarius says it depends where you stand as to how you see the world, and Pluto says it depends at what stage you are in the Pluto process as to how you view what’s going on, because look back to ’95 and you can clearly see with hindsight how at times new life eventually unfolded out of a forboding sense of finality. What felt like the end was actually a rebirth, because from the Pluto perspective beginnings are born from endings all the time. Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, without question there's a sense of finality about the caterpillar experience, but life doesn’t stop when the caterpillar perspective ends.

But knowing that and allowing the experience of big change are two very different things; before change happens the doubts creep in, that there might be nothing more to come, nothing more beyond what we know now and are currently aware of, and that’s a harsh kind of thinking to see through and beyond. Sometimes people hold back, consciously or unconsciously circling with fear around the doorway, hating the hamster wheel effect their life then produces, just because they can’t find a way to believe there could possibly be more to come. Or that there could be better to come. Or quite often with Pluto, there’s a feeling of being dragged kicking and screaming into new territory (no one said rebirth was easy). So this is where faith comes in, something very much associated with planet Jupiter and so also with Sagittarius (also with Pisces, the other sign that Jupiter rules).

Faith is something that people too often use selectively, especially when it comes to applying it to their own dreams, but if there was ever a time that faith is going to be at the forefront it’s when Jupiter meets Pluto in the sign of Sagittarius. And I’m not talking religious faith, though that is one expression; it’s faith in your own future self. I believe our future shapes itself according to the outlook we hold today, so there’s no need to consult a clairvoyant for your fate, you just sit right here and now and listen to the kind of thoughts that drift through your mind about yourself on a regular basis. How those thoughts feel when you think them indicates your own view about where you believe you are headed, and we always end up going with what we really believe in.

But fate is as flexible as your perspective of it, and Jupiter/Pluto together at the end of Sagittarius can be a formidable force for deep, far-reaching, long-lasting change in outlook because Pluto always seeks to complete its own process. A phoenix always rises from the ashes, but how many of us can say we have gladly moved towards an ending, transition or transformation without any doubt about what might be ahead? Well, Jupiter energy just loves to have faith in our future self and so can work wonders on any Pluto trust issue. It loves to express optimism about what is to come and loves to feel the joy of that life energy in motion (it’s the journey not the destination!). Jupiter knows it’s natural to feel the deep Pluto current of change as a potent and therefore daunting prospect, but also knows there’s more to life than being a caterpillar, as any butterfly will tell you.

You can read more about Jupiter/Pluto cycles in Kathryn Cassidy's newsletter this month. She goes into detail on the key dates involved and has great info on the potential for transformation that this time holds (sign up at her website here or drop her an email). I love her explanation of the cycle of life as a spiral rather than a circle, and of how "Jupiter and Pluto coming together in Sagittarius can speak of a moment pregnant with possibility for a huge spiritual transition, or a leap in consciousness". So if you are done with the hamster wheel of endless circling doubt and disbelief, now's a great time to let go and take a leap of faith in yourself with Jupiter/Pluto.

All these planets in Scorpio...

The Sun is now in Scorpio, season of mists and Freudian slips, inappropriate obsessive crushes and raging paranoia. And starting today we have a rare of line-up of 5 planets in Scorpio. Along with the Sun, there’s Mars, Venus and Jupiter; and Mercury, which also adds significance by turning retrograde on 28th October.

Maybe it’s all these planets in Scorpio that gave me the urge to dust off my 1910 edition of Wuthering Heights (bought from a bookshop in Bronte country), wrap myself up in my favourite faux fur throw and nestle down for the chilly autumn evenings, dreaming dreams of dark-eyed vagabonds with a gypsy soul and fierce unbridled ardour, chasing love amongst the bleak and ruthless, wild and windy moorland.

If you want to get a feel for the best and worst that Scorpio has to offer, Wuthering Heights is a great place to start. It’s Scorpionic through and through. The strong loyalty/betrayal/revenge theme, the unshakable passion that defies death do us part vows, and the messy, messy manipulative control dramas; it’s no surprise to find Emily Bronte had her ascendant in this sign, as well as south node of the Moon.

So in praise of Venus conjunct Mars, etc, in Scorpio, here are a couple of quotes from the most terrifying of twosomes, Cathy and Heathcliff...


This is Cathy, caught between Heathcliff’s rock and hard place:

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it... My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."


And this is Heathcliff's hymn of the uber-obsessed:

"And I pray one prayer - I repeat it till my tongue stiffens - Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you - haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!... I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

This is the thing with Scorpio. When it’s important, it's life and death, all or nothing. No middle ground. No grey areas. It's an all encompassing, utterly absorbing, and inescapable power that Scorpio deals in, and touching on this kind of energy can drive people to do strange things. They can turn unrecognisable even to themselves. Even the quiet ones, who of course by Scorpio standards are the worst.

But don’t forget that Scorpio, like all other signs of the zodiac, is ultimately positive, purposeful and well designed as a medium to experience the best that the mystery of life has to offer. It’s through Scorpio that we come to know Love by first meeting what Love is not. It’s up to us how much we allow ourselves to be impacted by that knowledge, and how much we are willing to let go of what Love is not.
One of the most powerful symbols associated with this sign is the phoenix rising from the ashes. It's transformation, it's rebirth and renewal. And in Wuthering Heights it happens through Cathy's daughter and her relationship with Hareton.



There'll be more to come no doubt on this Scorpio theme over the coming weeks, check out what my fellow astrology bloggers have to say on all this too, especially Kathryn Cassidy at Collaborate With Fate, who has a couple of great articles dealing in detail with this upcoming Scorpio alignment here and here.