Facebook peeps have been asking, ‘where’ve you been?…haven’t seen you around lately.’ A picture’s worth a thousand words, isn’t it? A Pluto transit will do that. When Pluto comes around one’s birth chart, the uglies; wounding, repressed desire, rejected, shamed, grief, those infantile and enraged parts of self fixate on our being (and hold the key to our energy and full power) till it’s done. Try having a staring contest with an unflinching hardball Hades- a visit to the underworld is no public Facebook affair. To add a wicked poison to the love potion, I am Libra rising, I wear the mask of civility, courtesy & grace. Pluto is one uncivilized beast.

Yes, with Pluto transiting my natal Mars, Sun and Pluto t-square, the existential pot has been stirred.  It’s one thing to have difficult emotions, it’s another to allow the hot energies of anger-desire-rage to run through one’s awareness and tell their story without being consumed in the flames. When Pluto began transiting my Sixth House Mars, the valve was turned off. Mars, who had been happily slugging away at various projects and book stuff, creatively prolific, productive and happy -everything that had gained momentum in my life, just stopped. You can imagine how a Sixth House Mars enjoys having external outlets like goals & productivity, removed. Begin: the slow burn. Waiting for bits of repressed material to be known has been like waiting for a dead body to rise to the top of a lake; the bits of unconscious stuff all down there decaying, taking time to surface (a Pluto transit). Like death, Pluto always wins. It’s only a matter of time.

During one dive session, I uncovered Donna Cunningham’s excellent Pluto resource page, and came across an article on ancestral karma by Patricia Walsh, which, with other serendipitous encounters, helped me peel back another onion layer: the idea that our problems may not be our own. So. In the spirit of the ghosts and goblins, I conducted a sort of seance with my dead and undead ancestors and something emerged…a swamp thing… from the deeps.

What emerged was the archetype of the Artist, and she wasn’t in good shape at all. Half-dead, subsisting on breadcrumbs (natal Pluto in Libra in the Twelfth House opposed by Sixth House Mars), she is the dark side of being creatively ambitious, she is so hungry to create because she has been destroyed. Looking at the number of creatives in my family who, instead of expressing their drama on the page or canvas, acted out in rage, I am beginning to understand why I feel I’m a creative casualty & one unfinished work away from the hairy edge of death. My Artist’s arrival was like the bumper sticker, ‘The Goddess is coming…’ and boy, was she pissed.

What to do when the toxic poisons surface after being submerged for so long? Sometimes words and journaling work; the slow contained burn of meditation can work, too. My good friend, an avid meditator, told me that just the other night the mantra ‘I hate you. I hate you.’ replayed over and over in her head for seven hours. Surprised she felt okay afterwards, she had contained the rage because she is skilled in not identifying with her thoughts and emotions as ‘self’ (She also sent me this helpful link on the healing power of anger). Which brings up a good point.

Just because we feel bad things, like jealousy, rage, envy, doesn’t mean we are bad people. There’s an energetic cost to repressing our desires and anger, in not expressing. When we don’t… instead of being spirited, we grow dispirited; instead of living our truth, we end up crafting a life with no room for truth. The truth isn’t always pretty. Astrologer Duncan Nanney once said something I’ll never forget (my memory isn’t the best so I’m paraphrasing), during Saturn times do what you don’t want to do, but should. During Pluto times you should do those things you think you shouldn’t do. Those wants and desires won’t be ‘nice’ at all but must express. That’s where the page, canvas, camera or szafu help. And if you can’t figure out why you feel so neurotically driven, it may be bigger than you, in your karmic ancestral legacy (Pluto in Capricorn, Capricorn ruling the very bones, the calcification and karmic hardening of family legacies). Why not try asking a dead or undead relative about their unlived life, what they’re communicate through your mysterious ailments & symptoms, to you.

My newly revived Artist creates to get the poison out, and calling the shots decided to put the Aries Full Moon into pictures… on her terms. Aries is the original ‘I AM’, the primal want -to be recognized as a self-contained individual with her own desires, wants and needs- AND have those honored. Aries’ ruling planet, Mars, is currently transiting the sign of Scorpio (as is Venus, retrograde) and since Scorpio rules the depths, both are bringing up lost desires and longings from the deeps, including built-up anger and rage, and repressed parts of self which have been banished from the light of day. This isn’t easy to face. Whatever our truth, during this Aries Full Moon time, the truth isn’t pretty. It is fierce and honest. We what we want, and those wants may not be conventionally ‘nice’ at all – they may feel shameful, neurotic or humiliating (and that’s why having a strong container like art, therapy, conversation with Plutonian types…helps during Scorpio/Pluto times).

Still. My Pluto in Libra is convinced what I’m showing you here, in pictures & words, is too dark, complicated; this isn’t easy to share.  I hear my family legacy chime in, ‘keep it to yourself, no one needs to know.’ I’ve violated Pluto’s ‘rules’, letting the cat out of the bag. However, Pluto in an air sign needs to clear the air with edgy conversation, and in art.  I figure if I’m feeling this way, other people are. And if I can give myself permission at this Aries Full Moon, to bring those forbidden and unearthed parts of self to light, maybe you can, too.

To view my unauthorized uncut diary of anger,  Click here.