Pluto: Death, Reality and Acceptance

tumblr_m98kongEkd1qazk2qo1_500In Pluto’s dominion, we feel the cold, icy breath of fate and can only seem to say our final goodbyes as old parts of us die and new ones are born. Pluto is the planet of rebirth, and while it is a fresh start, it never fully takes away the sting of death, we realise this as we desperately await for anything to emerge. Mystery, the unknown, and the struggle between feelings of power and powerlessness permeate Pluto’s domain. It’s a manifestation of both the need for mastery and the terror of being powerless, and it can take on savage characteristics. Pluto is a place of chaos and anguish, much like our own personal apocalypse, meaning great to utter devastation, damage, and doom, and death is the only place where Pluto’s endless winter maintains supreme court. Cataclysmic events have the potential to reveal hidden truths, hence the origin of the word apocalypse; they are also frequently the Universe’s way of emphasising the significance about certain matters. Death, more than any other experience, teaches us to prioritise what is most important to us and to appreciate every moment of our lives. Pluto rules over the realms of life and death; the planet teaches us to seize every moment of life and to let go of our control when the time is right.

What if we all carried little timers that counted down the days of our lives? Maybe the timer’s a bit dramatic. Just the date would do. It be tattooed on our foreheads like the expiration date on a milk bottle. It might be a good thing. We’d stop wasting our lives worrying about things that never happen, or collecting things that we certainly can’t take with us. We’d probably treat people better. We certainly wouldn’t be screaming at someone who had a day left. Maybe people would finally stop living like they’re immortal. Maybe we would finally learn how to live…I’ve wondered if, perhaps, at some deep, subconscious level, we really do know our time. I’ve heard stories of people spontaneously buying wills just days before an unseen calamity takes their lives. A Step of Faith, Richard Paul Evans.

Pluto rules over the difficult but necessary life lesson of acceptance, the acknowledgement that sometimes there is nothing we can do to improve a situation and that embracing this is also a part of life. This is a harsh and unwelcome truth that must be faced by everyone. Everyone will eventually lose a loved one to death, and the prospect is terrifying and leaves us feeling helpless. As a result, many of us avoid developing close relationships for fear of being hurt, and many of us avoid falling in love for fear of being abandoned. Death is the only thing that can be counted on in this world, and it is also the most heartbreaking goodbye of any human being.

As individuals, we are all battling for something. Pluto is an evolutionary enigma, a never-ending mystery, and a treasure trove of mysteries, just like love, desire, and the human spirit. The best way to describe Pluto was how Winston put it: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” The world is immensely intricate, and one can never predict when the wheel of fortune will turn. Our lives, our individual destinies, and all the other particulars are kept secret. The unknown destination after death is one of life’s great mysteries, and the Pluto journey may be both exhilarating and terrifying.

This is a story about loving and losing and still having hope and accepting the world as it is:

Gilgamesh’s adventure begins after his friend died, he was so scared of death that he embarked on a journey looking for the secret to immortality. He ventures past the Scorpion-man guardian of the densely dark tunnel under a mountain, and he endures a twenty-four hour journey of darkness into dazzling light. He crosses the waters of death, assisting the ferryman in the process…He learns how eternal life was once granted to his forefather Uta-napishti for having built a great boat and surviving the world flood. Gilgamesh, too, is rewarded for having conquered the watery depths diving to obtain the rejuvenating plant, the plant of ‘Heartbeat’, whose name is OldManGrownYoung. Tragically, on his homeward journey while he stops to bathe in a convenient pool, a serpent steals this source of eternal life. The snake sloughs its skin in a dramatic symbolic expression of renewed life, but Gilgamesh weeps, having lost the hope of such life himself. Returning to the city of Uruk he can only point out to his boatman the great wall of his city, walls he had himself rebuilt and walls that now, would have to be his only memorial. A Brief History of Death, Douglas Davies

Pluto represents an individual’s quest for deeper meaning and higher spiritual experiences, and it is in this realm that one finds the true treasures of life. Pluto’s eyes are excruciatingly introspective; they shed a light into the depths of one’s existence, where the true essence discovers its inner jewels and the endless complexity of life are laid bare. The person gains a more in-depth perception, preparing both body and spirit for the next phase of development; having dug so deeply, they are able to ascend to hitherto unreachable heights and liberate more of their latent potential.