In my last post, How to Handle Pluto Trauma, Kri had a fascinating comment:
“…My friend told me an anecdote about a man with his hand stuck in a door. Another man came up and said I can help you get your hand unstuck. The guy said it isn’t stuck, I’m holding an apple I want but it’s too big to get through the door. The guy said drop the apple, you don’t need it. That is a bad retelling, but I wonder what my apple is…”
And while the story is specific to trauma, I thought it was an excellent metaphor for a Pluto transit.
In my neck of the woods, that story is told about raccoons. Hunters of yore would set out a trap that consisted of a container with an opening just big enough for the raccoon’s hand to fit in, and there would be something shiny and enticing placed in the container. When the raccoon grabbed the object, it would find that it couldn’t pull its hand back out. Instead of simply letting go of the shiny object, it would stubbornly hold on to its prize, thereby ensuring it was a sitting duck when the hunters came back to check.
And isn’t that the perfect analogy? We have something in our lives, whether it be a job, a relationship, or simply an image or ideal, that we covet. We love it. We protect it. Just like the raccoon, we overestimate its value and absolutely refuse to give it up. But also like the raccoon, we fail to see that our shiny thing is just so much tin and plastic, and does not truly serve us.
But in the midst of our grasping, Pluto comes along. He, in the role of hunter, comes to us and says, “It’s that thing or you. You are coming with me by hook or by crook. You can either lose your shiny object, or you can lose your object and your hand. You choose.”
And what do most of us do? We grab on even tighter and refuse to move. And Pluto, true to his word, yanks us along, and off comes our hand as well.
But Pluto’s wisdom, like his power, is absolute. Our lives slowly improve, even without our shiny thing, even without our hand. And slowly we come to realize that our lives are better because of the loss. We wish we hadn’t fought so hard for so long. We wish we would have just given up our bauble and kept our hand.
When we work with Pluto, we learn to let go. And in letting go, we find our real treasure: knowing we are enough. We can survive all on our own, and we no longer have to cling to that which no longer serves. We are strong.
Have you tried to fight Pluto? How did you learn to let go?
Interesting explanation, Midera, and so spot on!
Pluto conjunct MC here. With Venus and Sun there also. (And Uranus not far away.)
I don’t have a career. Yet, every job I have had I have been promoted to management positions after drama from the female supervisor before me. And then I train the next one and she (and it’s always a ‘she’) is promoted after I have, with drama, left the job. And then that person goes on to an even higher position in the company.
I’m 48. It took me awhile to see the pattern, and I’m ok with it. They women who replaced me are ‘worthy’ of their positions, and I’m proud of them.
Again, thank you for the analogy!
I currently have my hand in another !@%&ing cookie jar. Pluto just opposes my Moon. It’s a delicate balance to maintain my selfhood and individuality to not get sucked into the drama. Someone’s getting a promotion!!
Thanks for posting about this. My friend’s anecdote was really deep and devastating. With a Mars Pluto transit in the 12th.. the thing that I have to let go of is hard to explain. Patterns of self sabotage and thoughts that hold me back. Hard to describe. He says I’m not really living. He says it’s my ideas about success. I need to tweak something to be efficient and do stuff. I have a Capricorn Mars ffs. But I’m failing and it’s complicated and I’m avoiding facing things
I don’t know that with a mars Pluto transit the answer is not doing anything. maybe letting go of all the old baggage I have about doing stuff.
Have I tried to fight Pluto? Ha. I was born with a stellium in Leo comprised of Pluto-Saturn-Mars. A lifetime of fight is what this old woman has had. A fight with my self, since this Leo stellium squares my Scorpio Sun stellium. To be alive at 70 plus years Pluto teaches me to be the fire flowing (that’s a cultural cross-over … Pluto = Pele, goddess of fire and earth-maker in my native culture). The life I live, far from my home culture is the ‘square’ of living (my Sun) in the public to learn letting go and being fully aflame.
The hand on the bright shiny thing analogy fits so well, too. So many shiny things in a world like this one. The caterpillar and butterfly is a kind of metaphor … a metamorphosis story I embrace; when I’m not being a fire dragon:)
Is it the looking if I stop looking can I have my hand to cartwheel and handspring into that beautiful new world,it could be so grand !! blindfold please,and the dreams is there some kind of brain-scrape ,mistro please ,turn that good stuff up!!!yes dancing we need to dance can we schedule a socially safe distance dance athon?
yes yes yes schedule a socially safe distance dance athon, Raerae … you go lots of us dragon butterflies would wildly dance the day and night through!
Yasss! I see a theme on the blog today
Looking back on my Pluto opp. Moon transit, yes I did fight and yes I did lose my hand. I wasn’t aware enough to see that I was fighting and now, with my 20/20 hindsight I can see it. I’m a fighter by nature, with Saturn and Mars conjunct, but Pluto overruled that.
I have this constellation.
Or, My Mars is in Capricorn, on the verge of the 12th house.
When Pluto came knocking, I had to let go of an ex after 8 years of relationship which I thought was my future.
Along came Pluto and BOY WAS I MAD! (MARS)
I was mad at myself, mad for ‘wasting’ my time with the wrong dude who so obviously was a dickhead with a twisted soul, believing self sabotaging patterns was the way to go, forgetting about my own needs etc. Pluto and Saturn had been squaring each other 2 years previously, and I had my Saturn return on my Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Libra, 9th house just before this happened.
It meant death to the relationship, death to my beliefs about who I was in that relationship. Death to my beliefs that to gain love I had to give up who I was. For 12 months I was so furiously that I lived in self chosen celibacy. I hated men but in reality I hated myself for letting him do what he had done towards me.
Then came the Pluto square natal 8H Moon in Libra. I lost the mom I used to know. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. And I lived with a living, breathing asshole in a new relationship far away from my hometown. My hate towards men had finally gotten the best of me…
Fast forward 5 years and during my Progressed Moon shifting from Cap to Aquarius this crossing my natal Ascendant, my ongoing conflict with my mom resulted in her cutting me off. As in ‘do not call me’ again.
As you say, Midara, you can either let go and accept the loss or keep trying to hold a sinking ship together.
In reality I found out I was good enough as I am.
My mother is described as ‘cold’ by other women in my life, and thus I see it as a gift after 12 months of therapy.
I am better off without the relationship. I am better now. I am a better ME.
Now to prepare for Pluto crossing Ascendant and squaring that blasted Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Libra.
I think it will be a test on me. I dare not dream about what – because Pluto ALWAYS find the one thing we are not prepared for.
So, I will rest my case and just pray I think.
Beautiful. Thanks
When we work with Pluto, we learn to let go. And in letting go, we find our real treasure: knowing we are enough.