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Pluto: Its Meaning and Significance in Astrology

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCT chapter.

Astrology enthusiasts will know that our date, time, and place of birth determines much more than just our primary zodiac sign, or sun sign. Everyone has a zodiac sign ruled by each one of the planets and while not technically a planet itself, Pluto is still a part of that list. In fact, the significance of your sign in Pluto is often overlooked even though it holds some of the most powerful information about one’s generation and place in adulthood.

Our birth charts consist of our sun, moon and rising signs as the primary signs which determine our personalities. After that come the planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars in order all the way to Pluto, only excluding Earth. And each sign placement in each of the planets is determined by the positioning of the planets at the exact time of your birth. Meaning that the closer each planet is to the sun, in this case your sun sign, the more personal that planet’s ruling becomes because the chances of Mercury being in the same position in the same day is much lower than a planet which is further away. Therefore, Pluto isn’t considered to be as significant when one first discovers their birth chart because the predictions and explanations surrounding it tend to consider your generation rather than you as an individual.

However Pluto is known as the “great revealer” in that it shows the area in your life where you will personally face the most intense powers of “creation and destruction” according to liveabout.com. Pluto is also the planet which governs transformation and power itself, tying it to the struggles between and inside people as well as the need for domination and war. It’s ties to power and war is not as blatant as the planet Mars, because of Pluto’s tendency to stay in the shadows and only reveal itself when the time is right. Because this planet or dwarf rather governs both collective and individual power it has allowed astrologists to predict the struggles of generations and reveal what our challenges and opportunities will be as we transition into adulthood.

According to an interpretation by Robert Hand in his novel Youth Project, the generation born between 1995 and 2008 will be an “iconoclastic” group meaning that we will be more likely to reject old religious, spiritual, and cultural values for new ones and relook traditions. We will also be one of the few generations which will be able to adjust to these changes comfortably. Therefore, Pluto’s power of transformation is very apparent within our generation as we have made and witnessed many changes within our society in terms of less tolerance for any forms of bigotry. Pluto is a dwarf that plays a bigger role than most people would realize and reveals predictions that while not personal, encompasses our peers and gives us something that we can relate to which brings us together regardless of our zodiac sign placements before it.

Jasmine is a third year student at the University of Cape Town, majoring in English and film studies. Writing and reading are her two greatest passions, next to geeking out about the newest Netflix series and listening to chill lo-fi beats.