Pluto, Neptune and overcoming challenges

I've been looking at my whole family's charts and in reading up on this, I have a few questions about the nature of Pluto, Neptune and 12th house. Bear with me.

Does a strong Pluto, Neptune and/or 12th house influence cause a person to attract negative people who will take advantage of, treat negatively, act strangely or exact revenge?

Do we attract certain negative people because somewhere in our chart we have to overcome the challenges? I read that a bad Moon/Pluto aspect will cause women to be jealous of you! But the article didn't explain WHY. WHY and how would a bad Moon/Pluto aspect in a person attract jealous people? It's stuff like that I'm curious about. How do Moon/Pluto people act that would attract low-level people?


I'm sorry if this is hard to understand.

The 6th house is more likely to be the house where bad things happen TO you - illness, injury, people who try to destroy you (honourable opponents and open enemies - like the country at war with you - are 7th house). 6 is nasty in that regard. It's the things you have no control over.

12 is more self-undoing, addictions, hospitals, asylums, prisons - but it's also secret enemies, the people out to get you that you don't know about.

That being said, the 6/12 axis needs to be judged - if you have a planet on the cusp of the 12th, it will usually be stronger as a 12th house planet, but you may well see echoes of it in the 6th, and vice-versa.

Unless the Moon/Pluto is within maybe 2 degrees, I'd disregard it. If it is in a really tight orb, then violence is a possibility, as well as some of the nastier affects usually ascribed to Saturn. I'd look to Saturn before I'd look to Pluto though - that may be your culprit.

Hi Cactus.

Your post raises a number of issues. The first is challenges in the chart. I used to subscribe to the view that challenges were expressed through squares and oppositions (and some conjunctions) but the more that I've thought about it the more I realise that other aspects are challenges to.

Just because you have, say Jupiter in Pisces trine to Venus in Libra doesn't mean that there isn't a challenge. Things might come to you easily but the challenge is to act when the need arises, otherwise sitting back and waiting for things to fall into your lap may be a bad strategy. Everything, in other words, can symbolise a challenge.

On your particular question, I think the challenge of Pluto is to ignore it when you're doing Astrology. Only take notice if it is extremely close in aspect (less than 1 degree). Much the same holds for Neptune. it's 'fogginess' is more a symptom of clouded judgement by making use of it, rather than good analysis by ignoring it. Unless it is in extremely close aspect.

Remember that these planets are (if you are going to use them) generational. They move very slowly. Thus if you have Pluto in Leo in the twelfth (like me) then so does everyone else born over a 20 year period, who has Leo (or early Virgo) rising. That's an awful lot of people with the same profile. You can shorten it a bit for Neptune but only by a relatively small amount.

The twelfth house also has nothing to do with negative people, unless you define negative people as your hidden enemies, or unless they are adversely affecting your horses and cattle, or unless they drive you to join a monastery or a convent, or unless they put you into hospital.

Of course you might be your own 'negative person' because the twelfth is also the house of self undoing.

Most of the factors, such as treating you negative, taking revenge are the actions of open enemies who are seventh house.

If you are going to look for family traits, look for repeated patterns for Saturn inwards, especially Mars inwards. Such patterns are unlikely to be explicable through normal planetary cycles and would suggest that your family attunes to particular rhythms of the planets.

The trouble with Astrological interpretations is that a link between two planets (say Saturn opposed to the Moon) may mean different things in different contexts. It's the signatures that you need to look at and then make some judgment about whether it is manifesting in a particular context.

Thus Saturn opposed to the Moon could be interpreted as something related to people in your life, Father and Mother, say. So that might indicate arguments and tensions between parents. On the other hand it could mean that there is some tension between your own nurturing and emotional expression and a desire for order and structure.

House placements will give you some ideas on where in your life such tensions are most likely to manifest. If the above aspect were a 4th 10th opposition then it might well be tensions between parents, or between work and home. A 1st 7th opposition might say something about your relationship with your partner.

Also the natal chart is not the be all and end all. If you had specific instances in mind, you might look at return charts (both solar and lunar) and progressions. This would give you some idea of timing and perhaps a clearer link back to your natal chart.

Now phrases such as the 'woman in your life' require clear contextualisation. Is it the current woman in your life? Suppose that at the moment you don't have a woman in your life - what then? Does it mean that this is something that will affect your relations with all women, no matter what their own temperaments? Quite clearly taking this too literally is dangerous.

So you would need to ask yourself whether this is a general character issue or whether, taking return charts and progressions into consideration this is something specific to 'now' but not necessarily a global feature in your life.

I know lots of Astrologers who will look at their charts, return charts, transits, etc constantly and become slaves to them. The best approach is to ignore them, UNLESS there is a specific issue that you wish to investigate.

You know your own character, and a serious consideration of your natal chart may add shades of light to this but thereafter look to Astrology when you have specific issues in mind, or wish to review what happened during a particular period.

Don't be ruled by it, use it to help make your own decisions. That's what it was originally developed for - helping to make a decision when confronted with choices.

Minderwiz, thanks for the reply. I tend to contemplate many things and I was extending my interest to a specific definition of a Moon and Pluto aspect from a text book.

I started to become curious as to how certain planetary aspects can affect people in such a way that they can predict what types of people will be in our lives. As for any women in my life right now, none of my friends fit the bill of jealous or strange. I think we all have people who are perhaps strange or possibly ill-intentioned at some point in our lives.

In learning about natal astrology, I find it fascinating and that raises so many questions for me, especially when I read about relationships (even my husband is getting into it a bit.) Unfortunately I tend to read about the negative sides to certain planets, signs and aspects and then quick look at my family's charts to see if - god forbid - we have any of those going on!

Then I get over it as life goes on. But my curiosity and research to follow (Gemini!) doesn't allow me to stop. I'd be greatly interested in going further with astrology - if I could stick with it - or anything, for that matter!

Hi Cactus

Hope your interest continues. Remember that to read a chart it's not just aspects. Planets, Houses and Signs come first. The planet indicates the type of energy (or person in specific instances) the Sign indicates how well the planet can express its energy and the House indicates where in your life this will manifest.

Aspects will modify and condition the expression, depending on the orb you allow and whether the planet is applying or separating. Thus I would place no weight al all on a 2 degree separating aspect of Moon from Pluto, I might place some weight on a 2 degree applying aspect of the Moon (because it moves so fast) but even more on a 1 degree applying aspect.

Traditionally, students began to learn Astrology through doing Horary charts, which enable the Astrologer to answer question set by a querent, similar to Tarot. This makes you concentrate on the nature of planets, houses signs and aspects but in a much more limited and structured way. The modern obsession with ONLY natal makes learning much more complex because there are so many factors to consider and all planets, signs and aspects have to be considered.

Minderwiz speaks true - you can knock out the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) entirely in a chart and still read it perfectly well. I think of them the same way as fixed stars, and give them a little more orb than he does, but I can do without them.

One of the problems with modern astrology is that it seems to focus on the three outer planets, which are very slow-moving (with Pluto in Leo having gone on from about 1939 - 1959), and ignore the personal planets, which mostly create the action. It also tends to ignore houses in your chart that haven't got a planet in them, which is really irritating. Those houses are still fully readable, and chances are the planet that rules the house cusp and the shape it's in astrologically will tell you a whole lot about the affairs of that house.