STARFIRE

September 2006

September 2006
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THEY KILLED MY PLANET!

Well, maybe the scientists didn’t kill Pluto last month, but they certainly made it look small and foolish.

The newscasts, which you’ve all surely heard, said Pluto was no longer a planet. That’s not precisely what the scientists said. The scientists reclassified it as a dwarf planet, a term no broadcaster seemed willing to repeat in these days of politically correct language.

Astrologers are actually pretty blase about labels. We call Ceres an asteroid even though the scientists say Ceres is also a dwarf planet. We do pay attention to the astronomers. But you have to add myth and meaning to facts and knowledge to get the whole picture.

How many planets do we really need? We got along for centuries, for millenniums in fact, with only seven planets. And two of those seven, the Sun and Moon, aren’t technically planets either.

Having 10 planets is convenient when you’re equating astrological signs and planets to the 22 tarot archetypes or the 22 paths on the Kabbalah Tree of Life. But we’ve only used all 10 planets there for a few decades. Pluto, for example, is usually attributed to Daath, the hidden or invisible sephiroth that marks the veil through which the human can’t pass and return.

We’ve always known Pluto was a small planet–but one that packed a punch. There’s something cosmically human about this debate, as if we really believed in this age of nuclear power and terrorism that size equals power. And as we discuss the dwarfing of Pluto, other headlines draw our attention to the potential of nuclear power in Iran.

Astrology makes human meaning out of the symbols of the scientists.

Pluto, for example, was originally linked to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom who sprung full-blown from the head of Zeus, her father. Minerva reminds us of the teachings of the Kabbalah: Understanding is a quality of the masculine or conscious mind (the scientists, if you will) but Wisdom is a quality of the feminine or subconscious mind.

Pluto was discovered just as the world was heating up for World War II. And of course that was the war ended by atomic power, also ruled by Pluto. The world has been plagued by religious wars (which only the budget experts and politicians still classify as battles against terrorism) while Pluto was moving through Sagittarius, the sign of philosophy and religion.

Pluto often seems to mark transformation and change. Sometimes it is as insightful as Einstein, but more often as fearsome as Hurricane Katrina deluging more than four-fifths of New Orleans with polluted water.

Pluto, of course, is the natural ruler of pollution, from floods or oil spills or nuclear explosions. Pluto rules oil. And lasers. All symbols of pervasive transformation, of events that change us forever.

Like Minerva, Pluto forces us to look at old issues in a new way. Pluto breaks our paradigms. After the Holocaust, mankind began to accept responsibility for our inhumanity.

Our human ability to cause devastation was unthinkable before the first atomic bomb. More Americans read about the Koran and Islam since 9/11 than ever before.

So what are the astrologers going to do about Pluto now it’s not a planet? Nothing. At least nothing immediate.

If you look at the chart posted with this column, you’ll see the Moon and Pluto at the far right, in what’s known as the seventh house. If we removed Pluto, we’d have the Moon alone in Sagittarius in the seventh. The seventh represents partners, the public, and open enemies. Without Pluto, we’d notice that religion and philosophy dominated those relationships, and that the Moon’s contribution was emotional tension. But we wouldn’t know that the tension was about atomic power and terrorism. We’d be lacking important understandings and meaning.

The astrology lists are, of course, full of chatter, most of it interesting and informative. New questions are being asked, not only about Pluto but about the nature of the other dwarf planets–and whether Ceres should be given more attention, too.

The headlines continue to show us the effects of Pluto, so we’re not likely to quit thinking about it as a major player. Little planet, right. But it’s hard to ignore a planet that rules death, birth, reincarnation, oil, nuclear energy and terrorism.

The most interesting part of the story is the other objects in the solar system that are in the same zone as Pluto and are also classified as dwarf planets. Ceres, for example, is the asteroid astrologers link to harvesting what you’ve planted.

Until the astronomers started discussing Pluto’s status, I’d never heard of most of the other objects that are now connected to Pluto in my mind. Perhaps the seemingly inevitable destructive power of Pluto is actually a combination of factors we’re just beginning to understand.

Great scientists–and I have no reason to doubt that the Pluto decisions were made by the best of our astronomers–are infinitely curious. They’re curious about facts and we’re curious about meanings. Astronomy and astrologer were once a single profession. Now they’re separate–but ours relies on theirs.

Each time the astronomers have discovered new planets, we’ve found paradigm shifts in the human experience. Democracies were born with Uranus. Neptune brought new insights into dreams and hypnosis and creativity–along with a passel of addictions. Pluto brought global transformation and change and made it impossible for nations to survive as isolated entities.

The multitude of new objects we’ll all have to study and understand may have keys for solutions to human problems, at least symbolically. The scientists are opening our minds, letting in new questions and ideas.

So for awhile, at least, the astrologers will have more planets than the astronomers. And people without curiosity will make fun of us for it. That’s okay. It’s nothing.

What’s truly exciting is the possibility for new ideas, a multitude of new meanings and understandings. It could even bring in the Aquarian Age. You just never know what will happen next when you fool around with Pluto.

Mary O’Gara, Ph.D.