Karen Marie Shelton’s Notes From the Garage: Pluto

I have more than 500 boxes sitting in my garage, and some of them haven’t been opened since 2013.

I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to find inside them.

That gets considerably more interesting when you know I’ve been studying astrology since I was 15. Those boxes contain pieces of a lifetime: books, research papers, forgotten lectures, old courses, and notebooks filled with decades of observations, calculations, predictions, questions, and discoveries.

Some will undoubtedly contain junk. Others may contain treasures I’ve completely forgotten.

So I’ve made myself a deal. One box a day.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated thousands of astrology books and papers, lectures on cassette tapes and video, old course materials, research, and reams of notebooks filled with my own observations, calculations, questions, predictions, and notes to myself about an enormous array of astrological subjects.

Then life happened.

Since 2013, I have moved my office and moved in and out of four houses. The boxes came with me. They were packed, sealed, moved, stacked, moved again, and eventually landed in my garage.

Some have been sealed for more than a decade. Now, finally, they are settled onto wire racks.

After more than a decade of hauling my past from one house to another, I finally decided it was time to find out what I’d been carrying around with me.

And I have made myself a deal. One box a day.

Open one box. See what I find.

See what I find. There are still more than 500 boxes waiting for me, which means this little adventure could take a while.

Some boxes will undoubtedly contain things that make me wonder why on earth I saved them.

But others may contain treasures. An old astrology lecture I haven’t heard in decades. A witchcraft book I had forgotten I owned. So I’ve decided to take you into the garage with me.

As I uncover these old astrology notes, I’ll share some of them here. Some discoveries may turn into full articles. Others may become short notes or observations worth thinking about again.

And the first notes I pulled out are about Pluto. Which, as I thought about it, seems almost too perfect.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union famously reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet.

I don’t particularly care. They can call Pluto a planet, a dwarf planet, or a frozen ball of trouble circling around the outer reaches of our solar system.

Astrologically, Pluto has been one of the most powerful influences in my own chart.

I have Libra rising, which makes Venus the ruler of my chart. My natal Venus is in my 11th house, applying within approximately two degrees to a conjunction with natal Pluto.

That means my lovely Venus-ruled Libra Ascendant comes with a considerable dose of Pluto underneath it.

I sometimes think of myself as a Russell Stover milk-chocolate-covered caramel. There’s a nice, light chocolate coating on the outside.

Then you bite into it. And discover a much deeper, chewier center than you were expecting. That’s me. I’ve also always related to the description of Libra as an iron fist in a velvet glove.

People can know me for years and then suddenly learn something about me that never occurred to them.

I can be extremely chatty. But here’s something Pluto understands very well:

Talking is not the same thing as revealing.

My strong Scorpio and Pluto influence makes me an excellent secret keeper.

I may happily talk with you for hours and still never tell you what is really going on inside my head.

Pluto understands secrets. Pluto understands what is buried. And Pluto understands what can be happening while nobody else notices.

Which brings me to what I found in my garage notes.

If there is one thing you should know about Pluto, it’s that Pluto is in absolutely no hurry.

Mercury races around the Sun in approximately 88 days. Saturn takes about 29.5 years. Pluto? Approximately 248 Earth years.

Pluto travels around the Sun in a long, elliptical orbit, and its distance from the Sun changes dramatically along the way, ranging from roughly 30 to 49.3 astronomical units (AU). One astronomical unit is the average distance between Earth and the Sun, which means that even at its closest, Pluto is about 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. At its most distant, it is nearly 50 times farther away.

Pluto operates on an entirely different clock.

Because Pluto moves so slowly, its major contacts with our natal outer planets can unfold over enormous stretches of time. Major Pluto-to-Pluto aspects can mark profound generational milestones rather than the relatively brief experiences we associate with faster-moving planets.

But it wasn’t Pluto’s 248-year journey around the Sun that caught my attention when I reopened these old notes.

It was something Raymond Merriman taught about the way Pluto behaves in applying and separating aspects.

Something I had completely forgotten.

If you’re relatively new to astrology, you need to understand two terms before we go any further:

An aspect is applying when two planets are moving toward the exact mathematical aspect between them.

They are getting closer to exactitude.

Once the exact aspect occurs and the faster-moving planet begins moving away from the slower-moving planet, the aspect becomes separating.

The general astrological principle is simple:

Applying is gaining strength.

Separating is losing strength.

In other words, we normally consider an aspect to be building in strength as it approaches exactitude and diminishing in strength once the planets begin moving apart.

Simple enough.

Except Pluto apparently didn’t get the memo.

Raymond Merriman, often referred to as the father of financial astrology, discussed this in one of his Merriman Market Training Academy (MMTA) classes.

Merriman described Pluto as “an incubation aspect.”

When I rediscovered those words in my notes, they stopped me.

An incubation aspect.

Merriman explained:

“The condition that becomes the challenge under Pluto is taking place as it’s applying. But it often times doesn’t surface to the point where you have to take action until Pluto is separating from that aspect.”

Think about what that means.

Something can already be happening before you know it is happening.

Pluto may already be working beneath the surface. You simply can’t see it yet.

Merriman used a physical illness such as cancer as an example to explain what he meant by incubation.

He explained that an illness might be developing while the Pluto aspect was applying without the person even knowing it was there. It might not be discovered until much later, perhaps a year or two later, when Pluto was already separating from the aspect.

As he put it:

“It’s already been there hiding from view.”

And:

“It may not be visible but it’s happening. And when it’s separating is when it becomes known that you have to take action.”

I want to be very clear about something here.

Merriman was using illness as an example to illustrate the astrological concept of incubation. A Pluto transit does not diagnose cancer or any other illness. Astrology should never replace appropriate medical screening, diagnosis, or treatment.

The important astrological idea is this:

The process may begin before the evidence appears.

And once I started thinking about Pluto that way, a lot of things clicked into place.

Pluto operates as an incubation energy.

While faster-moving planets can correspond with events that appear and unfold relatively quickly, Pluto forces a much slower, deeper, and frequently hidden process of change.

Pluto builds pressure. Pluto digs and it works underneath the surface.

During the applying phase, something may already be changing, deteriorating, strengthening, transforming, or preparing to emerge.

Then the aspect becomes exact. But Pluto may not be finished.

We may spend considerable time afterward digesting the deeper meaning of whatever has happened.

And the separating phase may actually be when we finally recognize what Pluto has been doing.

Something previously hidden becomes visible. Information surfaces. A truth is revealed.

A situation reaches the point where it can no longer be ignored. And suddenly we have to do something about it. That is very different from the usual way we think about applying and separating aspects.

Normally:

Applying = gaining strength.

Separating = decreasing strength.

But with Pluto, the story may be more complicated. The applying phase may be when the process is incubating. The separating phase may be when we finally discover what has been incubating.

And that changes the questions I want to ask when looking at a Pluto transit.

Instead of concentrating only on:

When does Pluto become exact?

Perhaps we should also ask:

What has been incubating while Pluto was applying?

And then, as Pluto begins separating:

What is finally being revealed?

Those are very Plutonian questions.

Maybe these particular notes caught my attention because Pluto isn’t simply an interesting astrological subject for me.

Pluto is personal.

Remember my natal Venus?

Venus is applying to a conjunction with natal Pluto in my 11th house, separated by only about two degrees.

And because Libra is rising in my chart, Venus rules my Ascendant.

Put the ruler of the Ascendant in a tight applying conjunction with Pluto, and you get something rather different from the stereotypical image of lovely, agreeable, diplomatic, peace-seeking Libra.

People with particularly strong Pluto signatures in their natal charts are sometimes described as Plutonians or Pluto types. And I’m definitely a Pluto type.

Which brings us back to my Russell Stover milk-chocolate-covered caramel.

Venus is the milk chocolate and Pluto is the chewy center.

Pluto is known in modern astrology as the planet of destruction and rebirth, but I think transformation gets us closer to the heart of what Pluto really represents.

Pluto is about what happens when something can no longer remain as it was. It digs beneath appearances, questions existing structures, and uncovers what has been buried. It has an uncanny way of exposing the things people might prefer to leave hidden.

But Pluto doesn’t simply tear things down for the sake of destruction. It breaks apart structures that have reached the end of their usefulness and then forces us to confront a much harder question: What should replace them?

People with strong Pluto influences don’t necessarily find it easy to simply accept the world as it is. I certainly don’t. I question it. I challenge it. And in whatever small ways are available to me, I try to help rebuild the pieces I believe need rebuilding.

Maybe that’s the iron fist inside my Libra velvet glove. Or maybe that’s simply Pluto.

Pluto doesn’t ask us to rearrange the furniture. It wants to know why we own the house in the first place. Then it wants to know what’s underneath the house.

And if somebody buried something under there 50 years ago, Pluto is perfectly willing to show up with a backhoe while everyone else stands around wondering what happened to the living room.

That’s Pluto. It never lets me down.

After rereading these old notes, something occurred to me.

Of all the astrological subjects I could have pulled from one of those boxes for the very first installment of Karen Marie’s Notes From the Garage, I found Pluto.

Pluto. The planet associated with what is buried, what is secret, and what is happening beneath the surface. The planet Raymond Merriman described as an incubation energy.

And where did I find these notes?

Buried inside a box that had been sealed away for years.

I couldn’t see them. I wasn’t thinking about them. I had completely forgotten they were there. But they were there all along, hidden from view and waiting quietly beneath the surface.

Incubating, you might say. And then I opened the box. Pluto came back to the surface. Well of course it did.

I can’t stop wondering what else is waiting for me in that mountain of boxes. What have I completely forgotten? What will send me down a new rabbit hole? And what will make me wonder why on earth I saved it in the first place?

There’s only one way to find out. I’m going to keep opening them, one box at a time. And whenever I uncover something interesting, strange, useful, surprising, or simply too good not to share, I’ll bring it here to Karen Marie’s Notes From the Garage.

And if you’re an astrology person, I have a question for you. Where is Pluto in your natal chart, and what does it touch?

But I have an even more Plutonian question.

What has Pluto dug up in your life that you never saw coming?

Tell me in the comments. Because if opening the very first box taught me anything, it’s that you never really know what has been sitting there, buried and forgotten, waiting for you to find it.

I have a feeling we’re going to have some very interesting conversations in this garage.