Two or Three Thoughts on Libra + Transit Lab: Waxing Pluto Square
While Aries defines itself in terms of self, saying, “I am what I am because I am it,” Libra defines itself in terms of the other, saying, “I can tell what I am because I can tell what you are.”
This isn’t a terrible starting place, but it can’t be the only stop on the line. At some point, the Libran (whether it’s the Sun, Moon, Ascendant or some kind of planetary pileup there, or if there’s a very strong Venus/7th house signature) has to resort to understanding self first.
But the orientation to the other is a blind spot for Libra. The core aim of Libra, understanding it as a method, or a lens through which planets operate, is to create harmony and balance. Libra does not already understand how to do that. When people come in with heavy Venus/Libra/7th signatures in their charts, there’s an evolutionary intention to learn to relax, to slow down - to introduce moderation into their lives.
Last night I thought of the Pluto in Libra generation (1971-2 to 1984), specifically that they have the greatest soul wounding surrounding the aims and methods of Libra. There is a range of possibilities to each of the 12 energies of astrology, and yet people tend to focus more or less on specifics in their karmic journeys, as anyone’s conditioning necessarily limits the vast possible menu into a few subsections of it that can offer us appropriate playing fields on which to explore the core ideas of it.
The specific that came to me was in the prevalent Pluto in Libra fear of rejection, that can be based in a fear of abandonment. To be alone to these people is hard enough, but to be left by someone, a friend, lover or parent, is devastating.
What Libran Pluto people having this fear need to learn is that how people treat you has nothing to do with you.
Nothing.
It has everything to do with how they think of and feel about themselves.
This will make zero sense to most Pluto in Libra people who haven’t Plutoed themselves quite a lot somewhere along the way. And with Pluto entering Capricorn, the waxing Pluto squares for Libran Plutos are about to begin. Steven Forrest has said that this square is when the monsters that live under your bed come out and sit down with you at the dinner table. I have loved this image, and I find it very useful when working with clients.
When you’re sitting at the table with them, which is to say that what you hide is out in the open and needs to be faced directly and head-on, you see that they’re not as bad as you fear. That the fear of them is worse than their reality.
The next few years will see the older Libran Pluto people facing these monsters, and seeing how to navigate them. The basic message that Capricorn has to give Libra in its natural square is to stop looking around itself and to relationship for cues about how to be, and to get busy building stuctures to take care of the self. I expect that many people in this generation who haven’t learned to do so already will begin to take back what they put on other people (a Libran strategy to form relationships) and begin understanding the impact that kind of use of energy has on them and their lives (the Capricorn call to reality that feels like friction - the square - to Libra).
I’ll be writing on these and other themes about this business in the coming months. With my Pluto at 3 Libra, I’m one of those folks just beginning the square. And it natally squares my Jupiter at 6 Capricorn in the 3rd. How this has worked so far is that all the Pluto square stuff that wants to get thought ends up coming out in my writing and speaking.
Tom is available for spirit-guided karmic astrology consultations. Contact him via his website.
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January 18, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:44 am
[...] Two or Three Thoughts on Libra + Transit Lab: Waxing Pluto Square While Aries defines itself in terms of self, saying, “I am what I am because I am it,” Libra defines itself in terms of the other, saying, “I can tell what I am because I can tell what you are.” This isn’ta terrible starting place, … [...]