Pluto retrograde intensifies the search for authenticity. Specific secrets, fears and taboo matters are targeted. This can manifest as focused challenges or extreme power plays (externally) that force you to confront what you’ve been avoiding.
The key themes with any retrograde are “internal” and “against the flow.” So this process of uncomfortable truth-seeking will occur within you, while also hi-lighting the contrast between your emerging awareness vs what’s acceptable with your group and social image. This process is forcing you to look beneath the facade and come to terms with your place in society via the “death” of what you thought was a genuine freedom. After this death comes rebirth and clarity about who your people are and how you can actually liberate yourself.
Aquarius is about rebellion but sometimes even this can be a facade. Pluto Rx will punch through that appearance, which is more about gaining followers than actually standing apart.
In the end, some very stubborn fears and blocks to authenticity will be purged, perhaps publicly. Resistance to specific types of progress/technology, or corruption within that progress/technology, will also be purged.
Note that this Rx is occurring at the same deg as the Mercury/Pluto square: the hard realization or discussion has triggered a profound reconsideration. Pluto stations direct on Oct 15th at 3 deg.
Speaking of taboo, Venus in Mercury-ruled Gemini opposing BML is the contrast between flirty/cute expressions of female energy vs controversial beliefs, ethics, laws and customs (related to women’s power and sexuality) that seem foreign to you. The sense of otherness amplifies BML’s “sacrilege” – her status as the perpetual outsider (due to her refusal to submit) directly challenges Venus in Gemini’s light messages, because Lilith refuses to keep it light.
This can be the reveal of a truth that forces you to question your choices (perhaps some religious choices?) while learning about a very different type of woman. Or, your own expression of female power opposes someone who appears to be open to anything new, but she undercuts you with gossip.
The contrast between the acceptable vs unacceptable woman will raise some interesting questions. Along with Pluto Rx, there’s an insistence on drilling into the discomfort that lies beneath a supposedly liberated situation.
Painting by Elin Danielson-Gambogi
