This Pluto on the IC!

As usual when reading a chart, I look first at the angles. They are the most powerful places. I trust the time of birth is exact and I say Whoa! This Pluto on the IC! Three degrees orb is tight. That’s a big Pluto.

Reading charts seems like a very complex business, but the job can be enormously simplified thanks to prioritisation. We could almost read this chart by reading only one thing: Pluto on the IC.

It feels like an abyss opening under a cradle, like the embrace of a crocodile’s jaw, a fascinating black hole.

Confronted with this power, consciousness can’t bear it. Half of it passes out, the other half splits and turns away, focuses on the light and quickly forgets! Forget what? Who knows what it was, once it has sunk into unconsciousness… There is a shadow, somewhere, that’s all.

This Pluto doesn’t seem to challenge the personal planets with hard squares or opposition, but Pluto is Pluto and the IC is emotional foundations.

Black Moon Lilith in Scorpio makes Pluto more intense.

Black Moon Lilith in the 4th house adds emphasis to the difficult energies associated with home and emotional foundations.

Pluto conjunct with the IC counts as a BIG Pluto in the 4th house, even from the 3rd house side.

We may also notice that Black Moon Lilith opposes Chiron, the wounded healer energy.

The interaction of these two rather painful ones won’t make things better. No need to split hairs.

Pluto being super important, and Mercury very emphasised in the chart of a Gemini, the tight Pluto-Mercury trine can be understood as an essential pillar in the architecture of this chart.

A trine is an easy flowing aspect, it won’t make Pluto easy but Mercury is likely to be somewhat nuclearly powered. What is the word for the extreme opposite of naive? If this person was a dog, they would sniff passengers boarding planes for the drug squad and detect the smallest amounts the trafficking guys would be hiding even under layers of fat within their own bellies.

On the other hand, trusting is not Pluto’s natural attitude. Have a little chat with this Mercury-Pluto combination and the outcome may be that they will quickly know more or less everything about you, but you won’t have a clue about them, and you may not even know that you don’t have a clue.

Trust issues.

Is it difficult to trust? It’s ok if you’re not willing to talk about it…

So with Pluto and Lilith there is something like an abyss where there should be emotional foundations, but maybe there is also a miraculous suspension bridge hanging over the void thanks to Pluto’s regenerative power, and let’s look somewhere else now.

The Sun, Venus and Mercury are in Gemini. What a contrast! Here comes the dancing trickster, the social butterfly, in the 11th house, a happy house resonating with the voices of friends, camarades, mates, companions, fellows, peers, we’re all in it together, all in it together, all in it together, sing with me!

Who is in charge of the mailing list, who shall print the agenda for the next meeting, who will take notes and write reports, who will keep things clear, clean and well organised thanks to the professional attitude of a Capricorn Moon in the 6th house seeking for security and contentment in the contemplation of a well done job in a well ordered world?

Interestingly, Saturn, ruler of this 6th house of work and daily routines takes us to the 3rd house of learning, communication and connecting with the close environment, as if being a Super Gemini wasn’t enough! And there is a trine being the Sun and Saturn. This Gemini may be more poised and grounded than average. But how do you get grounded with a black hole where there should be foundations? I bet you hold on to what you can, so far we have work and friends or community.

What happens when blending Capricorn and Gemini? The quick and the slow, are they antithetical or can they find a way to function together? The multitasking and the long-term goal energies, can they co-exist? The curious and the serious? The quick and the serious? The ever changing and the focused? The communicator and the professional? The one with little wings at the ankles and one who is working to pay the bills ?

I am starting to suspect that maybe this is the chart of a carrier pigeon.

Thinking of Gemini and Capricorn, one thing that comes to my mind is “disconnection”. Gemini is famous for its tendency to be like two or many people living in the same body. One of them could be a Capricorn!

In the Zodiac, Gemini and Capricorn are ‘inconjunct’, and in this chart, Venus in Gemini and the Moon in Capricorn are connected by an inconjunct aspect, which is a bit of an oxymoron, because inconjunct etymologically means unconnected. In ancient astrology, they considered only major aspects. The word “aspect” etymologically means looking, like in “spectacle”. Planets in inconjunct signs were understood as placed in each other blind spots.

I am a modern astrologer, I do consider so called minor aspects like the quintile or the semi-sextile (technically the two are ‘inconjunct' in the traditional sense of the word).

I don’t think there is a total disconnection, because, to borrow a principle of neuroscience, ‘what fires together links together’. Planets are activated by transits. When a planet passes through Aries, Libra, Virgo or Pisces, it simultaneously sends a harmonious major aspect and a tense one, one to Gemini and the other to Capricorn.

If we consider only major aspects, each sign is connected with eight signs of the zodiac. So half of the activations of inconjunct planets happen simultaneously.

For instance, when a planet transits over 12-13 degrees Aries, it squares the natal Moon in Capricorn and sextiles the natal Venus in Gemini.

The result is a simultaneous activation in a bitter-sweet fashion.

Venus and the Moon are the feminine planets, they want bonds. Sometimes they bond in their own way in their own time, but at times they realise they can’t be happy together.

Venus in Gemini in the 11th house is likely to love having loads of friends, and possibly flirt in a light hearted way, and the Moon in Capricorn in the sixth would rather have a daily timetable with only one stable and reliable one. Try to compromise when you’re living in the same body and get regularly activated at the same time!

Talking about disconnection, in this chart, among the five personal planets, aspects are very rare. There is only one major aspect: a wide trine between the Moon and Mars (it doesn’t appear on the chart above because of the settings). Other than that, there is the quintile between Venus and the Moon, and that’s all!

The Moon herself is not very connected with the whole. Other than the inconjunct aspect with Venus, a trine with Chiron and a semi-square with Uranus the disruptor, all of it problematic, nothing.

The Moon shares with the 4th house the meaning of emotional foundations and origins, and we’ve already talked about Pluto, the disintegrator. Of course, Pluto is also the energy of regeneration, of rebirth after initiatic death, let’s not forget the silver lining.

All this makes me think of an old tale: Donkey Skin. After the death of her mother, a princess had to flee her house because her father, the King, wanted to marry her. To survive she found a job as a servant, she worked hard like a Cap Moon in the 6th… There will be a happy end indeed, but in the meantime, we can imagine a happy-go-lucky-anyway girl, smiling to everyone, talking with the birds, Disney like (even if the original tale is from the Grim Brothers), sharing with her many friends her hopes and wishes.

Friends, hopes and wishes are traditional interpretations of the 11th house. It’s also a house where we find help, protection and support. And it’s the house of groups and communities. Are friends and communities suitable alternatives to the 4th house?

Note for astrology students:

I don’t know if my interpretations are correct, but for now I better not care. I could wonder anxiously: my interpretations are consistent with the chart, but is it exactly that? Maybe I’m forgetting other possible interpretations, maybe I haven’t taken important things into account….?

Such thoughts are just paralysing. We won’t get far walking on eggshells. Better weaving some interpretation and keeping the question marks hanging.

How do you think Sherlock Holmes was thinking, when confronted with difficult cases with only a few clues that didn’t seem to make sense? I bet he was telling many possible stories to himself, discarding only what he was sure was wrong and keeping the rest like drafts on his mental desk…

In other words, better brainstorm than brain freeze!

Understanding a chart is not all deduction and logic. It’s rather induction, intuition and poetry. We can’t get rid of the irrational, but we can ask the irrational for help. We can ask guidance to our subconscious mind, or to God, or to our spirit guides. We can throw our question in the air and trust we’ll be able to hear the answers. It’s divination.

Now, we could wonder.

What is this Mars conjunct Chiron doing in the 10th house? It would not be a good idea to wonder that. Reading a chart is prioritising, and there are much more important indicators to look at before this Mars.

Look around!

The evolutionary path, as shown by the nodes, is always so telling, and here, the South Node is in Aquarius, ruled by Uranus in modern astrology, and the North Node is in Leo, ruled by the Sun. What’s striking in this context is the Sun-Uranus opposition which amplifies the opposition of the nodes. Moreover, Uranus is conjunct the cusp of the 5th house, naturally associated with Leo in modern astro, and the Sun is in the 11th house naturally associated with Aquarius.

Aquarius and Uranus represent here the energy that is familiar, innate, the default settings of the personality. Leo and the Sun represent what the person aspires to. It’s a story of a new dawn, of a new sun who dares to say something like:

“Hey, I am who I am, I am me, enjoy my light and my warmth, or get on with it! I don’t want to be like you think I should be anymore! I want to be like life makes me!”

Of course it’s difficult, when the habit is to behave like Uranus/Aquarius, according to ideas, in the head, relying on the social group to exist as a member.

It must help to have Leo Rising on this path though. People with this Ascendant are often noticed. They stick out from the crowd. With an Aquarius South Node, it may be uncomfortable.

“Hey, why are they all looking at me? I would prefer to be invisible but I can’t hide! Well, better get used to it and hold the light now it’s on me.”

This is still happening in the 11th house, Uranus is playing rebel-weirdo in the 5th of self-expression, the Sun wants to play authentic self among others in the 11th.

Now, it’s time to notice that Uranus also rules over the 7th house of the other, and Leo over the 1st house of Self. The nodes are also suggesting an evolution from being in a relationship to being oneself.

“Hey partner, I can see you! I was like you in my previous life, and even when I was so young that I didn’t know better! But now, I am like the Sun, we can be together but I won’t compromise about who I am to keep the peace!”

All this was more important than looking at Mars, and now we can think that Mars is the Sun’s ally, his job is to fight to assert what the Sun wants to express… and it’s near Chiron, wounded, having to heal.

Mars and Chiron are in Taurus. Pluto is in Libra. They are both playing in Venus’ garden. Taurus is the sign of the flesh, bulls are rarely ethereals. Earth is the element of the body. Other than Mars and Chiron, in the Earth element there is the Moon, tucked in the 6th, one of the difficult houses, with this semi-square with Uranus, a very mental energy that doesn’t like the reality of the flesh too much…

We may wonder… It may be easy to be loved and surrounded by many friends, but how is it to be oneself and engage in more intimate interactions? But of course, we won’t expect an answer if we’re asking the question. Privacy is privacy.

With a dominant Pluto, there is room for a host of anxieties, and Gemini may prefer to surf the waves than dive into the sea.

Connection, disconnection, reconnection… It could also evoke the story of Isis and Osiris, the latter being cut into many pieces and reassembled by the former. Collecting scattered bits and pieces… was Isis a Gemini?

The Saturn Sun trine must be of great help. Saturn brings endurance and determination in the long run. A Capricorn Moon is a determined one, and I guess its concern for down to earth reality, getting up in the morning, going to work to pay the rent like the princess who became a servant of the tale, helps keeping oneself in one piece.

Donkey Skin will let her skills speak for herself… Of course she will get noticed.

Another very important aspect in this chart is the Mercury-Neptune opposition.

In this chart, Mercury is the final dispositor of everything. It’s quite remarkable, we can start from any placement, for instance Uranus in Scorpio is ruled by Pluto and Mars, both are ruled by Venus and Venus is ruled by Mercury. The Ascendant is Leo, ruled by the Sun, ruled by Mercury.

Mercury has an essential role and that’s how we can only notice the tight Mercury-Neptune opposition. There may be fog. There may be a huge Pisces like sensitivity contrasting with the sharpness of the Gemini mind. There may be dreams and movies, imagination…

There are two kinds of every sign. There are Gemini that are more intellectual, and Gemini more emotional. Both types are curious, quick to change, moving at high speed, and this second type may also be moved at high speed, whilst still quick to change, multi dreaming between two phases of multitasking, laughing, crying, melting and wondering who on earth they might be, but that’s precisely what they are supposed to create.

And now, it’s time for me to be humble. Have I been a good diviner, with the help of the Great Spirit and the support of the chart? I don’t know. It’s never granted. But that’s not what matters most. What matters is that these symbols have often proved to be the best catalysts for having real conversations about what’s essential, if only with oneself, and sometimes with others.

A Gemini is likely to agree, when we can speak about it, we can live with it.

Jean-Marc Pierson

Astrologer, Writer, Storyteller

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