Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I’m your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I’m an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I’m going to give you your weekly horoscope and no bullshit, mystical advice for living your very best life.

My darlings, I mean, can you ever really have too much Pluto? Uh, we’re about to find out, aren’t we? So you’ve heard of the Saturn Return. You maybe have even heard of the Uranus opposition if you’ve listened to some of the older episodes, but have you heard of the Pluto Square? Now, the Pluto Square is a really important transit because it is a generational transit. It is a transit that everyone goes through around the same age. 

Because of the kind of variables of Pluto’s movement, it happens at different ages for different generations. But the earliest it can happen is in your late thirties. And it is a transit that is kind of a part of a cluster of transits, although it can be a bit separate from the other two that are associated with—do, do, do, do, do, doo—midlife crisis or the transition into midlife. 

So how old is middle-aged? It depends on average life expectancies, I guess, if we’re being literal, and you know I like to be literal. So I don’t know if 38 really could count as middle-age, but it’s about as young as you can be for this transit. This transit can happen anywhere from the late thirties to the early forties, and it is a meaningful transit that we all go through that confronts us with things we need to let go of. 

So let’s talk about it. Before I get into delineating what this transit’s about, I want to say—before you ask me how do you figure out when your transit is?—you need an ephemeris. So there’s a lot of ways you can figure out when you’re going through a particular transit. The best way is to learn astrology and then look at the dates.

So a transit to your birth chart, we’re going to work with a three degree orb. So let’s say you have Pluto at 15 degrees of Capricorn in your birth chart, which you probably don’t because that just happened. But anyways, let’s say you have Pluto at 15 degrees of Capricorn in your birth chart. When transiting Pluto came through and formed a square to your birth chart’s Pluto, aka your natal Pluto, let’s say it was coming from Libra—but a square could happen to the sign of Capricorn from either Libra or Aries—let’s say if it’s in Pluto in Libra, 15 degrees of Libra, and that’s when it would be exact. 

Now, different astrologers will sometimes say that a transit begins as soon as the two planets are in squaring signs—me, I’m not the one. When I’m looking at mundane issues, I use a different metric than when I’m looking at birth chart issues. When I’m looking at birth chart issues, I’m looking using that three-degree orb, and I invite you to do the same. But also, there’s a lot of ways of doing a thing, so do what works for you. 

Anyways, so you can learn how to read an ephemeris, and then you’ll know the exact dates that you’re going through a transit. In order to read an ephemeris, you need to learn how to read the glyphs in astrology of the planets and the signs. And, I mean, it’s not that hard, but it takes memorization and effort, and I invite you to devote yourself to it because it’s fun to learn new languages. That’s one way of doing it. 

Another way is consult an astrologer. Another way is to use a free or a paid online tool. If you’re using AI, or if you’re using an online tool, it is wise to cross-reference whatever it is that you find, so get a second opinion is basically what I’m saying. I mean, you should probably do that with an astrologer, or if you’re a budding astrologer/astrology student, you want to double check your work. But certainly, these things can be buggy—free online tools can be buggy, and astrology is a lot of math. So there’s a lot of words I just used to explain how to figure out when you’re going through your Pluto Square. 

If you identify with and resonate with what I’m about to describe, but you are meaningfully younger than 38, then it’s something else, kid. It’s something else. Okay, so the Pluto Square, what does it mean? As we talked about a couple of weeks ago on the Pluto episode, Pluto is related to cycles of healing and breaking down. It’s regeneration and it’s trauma, right. It’s all of it. 

So basically, what happens when the planet Pluto transiting through the sky IRL forms a 90 degree angle, aka a square to Pluto in your birth chart—which is the hard drive of who you are—is it triggers deep themes of healing and transformation. And it’s intense. And it’s meant to be intense. 

Pluto is your flight or fight mechanism, and so, when it forms a square to itself from itself, you inevitably become confronted with something that you find threatening or scary. And that doesn’t mean a bear chasing you or something tragic befalling you. It could be success. You may have spent your whole life sabotaging success, and then you actually achieve some measure of success in something, and you have to deal with it or lose it. It doesn’t have to be something bad in order for it to trigger your flight or fight mechanisms and your need for transformation and healing. 

When this transit occurs, we become confronted with our subconscious drives. So Pluto pulls from the bottom of the ocean. Pluto is the undertow of the ocean. And when we fight our own inner undertow, the same thing happens psychologically and emotionally that would happen if you were in the actual ocean—the undertow wins. There is no fighting your own undertow. There is only yielding to it in new and more progressive ways. So when the Pluto square to Pluto happens, it is a test of your adult skills for coping with your own subconscious. The reason why this occurs is so that you change, so that you grow. 

When we look at this from a spiritual standpoint, it’s the perfect age—somewhere between those late thirties and early forties—it’s the perfect stage of life to really be forced to look at your survival mechanisms, to make sure they match the information that you have based on your lived experience and to support you in letting go of outworn, outdated, ineffectual, or limiting beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. And inside of all of that, it can often mean losing relationships or jobs. 

The Pluto square to Pluto can have really intense and spectacular effects in your life. Because it is a time where if you’ve been holding onto things, especially if you’ve been doing it rigidly, then this gets to be a really difficult time. This transit wants for us to deal with our rigidity and our relationship to power. 

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One super star on the political scene is Stacey Abrams. I know you’ve heard of her, but let me just tell you about her organization Fair Fight, whose mission it is to advocate for free and fair elections by fighting voter suppression and promoting fair elections in Georgia, as well as around the country. You can donate and find out more about how to get involved over at fairfight.com. 

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Depending on the house placement of your natal Pluto, but also wherever transiting Pluto is hitting your chart, and then additionally—although I think this is the least important of the things—the signs involved, those things will give you a lot of information about the themes that are going to emerge, or the themes that are going to get triggered around your Pluto Square. 

Now, if you have in your birth chart Pluto forming a bunch of lovely trines, and it’s just like a happy little Pluto living it’s happy little Pluto life, then this transit could either go in two directions. It could not be that serious for you. It could be like a confrontation and midlife crisis, but not the worst thing that ever happened to a person, or you could be so ill equipped to deal with shame and power struggles and whatever healing themes are needed that it might really upend you. And there’s no way really of knowing in advance. 

The only way to prepare for this, the only way to know in advance to any extent what’s going to happen is by living to the best of your ability in a way that is centered around transformation and healing. In other words, seeking to get to the root of the matter instead of wasting your energy and time on the surface of the matter. 

Pluto is disinterested in the surface of things. Pluto wants us to go deep, penetratively deep, right. And if we have really complicated ways, as most of us do, of distracting ourselves from the truth—so we focus on the headache, and we focus on the headache, and we focus on the headache, when really what’s happening is we’re de-hydrated. If you only focus on the headache and never on drinking more water, then you’re never going to fix the problem, right. First, we must identify what the root of the problem is, and then—then we can heal. Then we can bring transformation or progress to that problem. 

So it’s really important that we’re able to identify what’s actually happening. And that means not in overindulging our narratives, which, when it comes to Pluto, tend to be really well worn. An example of this may be in your childhood, everyone told you that you were an angry person, and everyone told you you were an angry—you’re an angry little child, and then you grow up and you’re like, “I’m going to be placid. I am not the person they said I was. I’m going to be a calm, cool, and collected person.” Cool. You did it. Cool. And then your Pluto Return comes, and it’s like, okay, but wait a minute, underneath it all you’re still angry. So what is it that’s true about you? How can you accept the parts of you that are angry? How can you accept the parts of you that have worked hard on how you express and experience your anger, and how can you commit to continue to grow and integrate anger in your life, right? 

These themes are not about being a good person or a bad person. You don’t need to be scared of what’s yet to come. Instead, what you want to do is strive to be present. Because as you are present, then you can do the work that you actually need to do to make your life better in the future—if in fact, the Pluto Return is still in your future. 

Now, if it’s in your past, this is a really great thing for you to look at because it is important information about what work still needs to be done. Whatever themes emerge during our Pluto Square, are themes that we need to work on in our own relationship to ourselves and to our own survival. And I don’t mean our material survival—although the Pluto square to Pluto can certainly kind of engage issues related to material survival, but it’s more about how you psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually hold your feelings and your experience of survival. 

When we go through difficult Pluto transits, this one absolutely included, we have to let go of something—sometimes many things. And if we hold onto them, if we are rigid, if we struggle and we protect them, then this transit gets real dramatic, real quick. I’ve also seen this transit just show up dramatic for no good reason—just like pulls the rug from underneath you in some meaningful way. And when that happens, it sucks, but there’s a bigger picture to it, and that bigger picture is trying to get you to find ways of choosing to stay with yourself. 

So you know I’m always talking about not abandoning yourself, Pluto—Pluto is the great abandoner of the zodiac. Abandonment issues are found under the influence of Pluto. When you lose something you’re highly identified with or someone you’re highly identified with, the first instinct that most humans have is to then abandon ourselves. And we can abandon ourselves in so many ways. We are a versatile animal, are we not? 

The key is to notice when you start to abandon yourself, to start tracking the different ways that you do abandon yourself and to try to make the choice to not do it, in whatever small ways—even if it’s only for 15 seconds. You want to start practicing using the muscles, so the muscle gets stronger. 

You don’t want to expect or demand perfection from yourself, and Pluto can be a real dick—I mean like really, a total fucking dick. So you want to make sure when you are in the Pluto square to Pluto, or really any Pluto transit, that you are not being ruthless and cruel to yourself, that you are not being punishing to yourself or trying to manipulate or punish others. Because whatever happens during a Pluto transit comes back at you like a boomerang, and you don’t know if it’s going to come back quick or if it’s going to come back slow, but you can trust that it’s going to come back at you—that’s Pluto’s way. 

Under the influence of the Pluto square to Pluto, I believe it was Robert Hand who wrote something about how power struggles that occur during this transit are either meant to facilitate and expedite change or to hold you back from change. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s pretty much what I believe he wrote. And I absolutely cosign on that concept. 

The reality is Pluto square to Pluto means that we’re going through a power struggle, and there’s no guidebook for it. There’s no simple or easy or one size fits all answer for it. It’s about recognizing what is truly driving you so that you can know what’s worth fighting for and what you just want to fight about. 

Because they can feel really similar on the surface, but when you dig deeper, one has really shallow roots, and the other one has deep, old tree roots. And you want to make sure that if you’re going to defend something, if you’re going to fight over something, if you’re going to be engaged in major loss or struggle, that it’s for something. Because none of those things are—I mean, they don’t feel good, but they’re not bad things. They’re only bad things if there’s not a higher purpose, right. 

And there’s a couple last things for me to name about the Pluto square to Pluto that I think are really important. I have seen that this transit can trigger issues around sex and sexuality. And on a really surface level, it can be because there’s this sense of getting older, and you got to get some while the getting’s good. A lot of times this transit can just be like the nail in the coffin of a relationship that hasn’t been working for a long time. 

The Pluto square to Pluto is a time where you’re meant to confront shame. And to see am I ashamed of this because it is bad, and I need to disavow it from my nature or my life, or do I have issues with shame because I live in the world, and I have a body, and the world’s jacked up and really weird towards bodies? Do I need to heal this shame in such a way that I can really invest in doing this thing that I’ve held myself back from? 

Like I was saying about the power struggles, it’s not a given which one is going to be the case for you. But it is important to really investigate your relationship to your own body, to sexuality, and the judgements you may or may not have towards yourself and others around that. 

This is an important time to keep on practicing safer sex. And I mention that because Pluto is relentless, and it can be self-destructive without realizing it. So it’s really important that you maintain healthy boundaries if you’re doing something in order to have fun or to be life affirming. It’s not life affirming if it costs you your wellness and health. Sorry, it’s just not. 

Now the other thing, which is different but similar—this is not a great time for drug use, and especially for drug use that is meant to be a facilitator of healing or magic. The energies of Pluto are way too dramatic to control. They are just way too dramatic. Pluto is not meant to be controlled and contained. It’s not like that. This is a wild horse that cannot be broken, nor should you try to. 

So this is not a great time to try to call forth energies that you don’t actually have ways of protecting yourself from. So that’s the general rule of thumb under this transit. If you’re going through a Pluto square or opposition to the Moon, I would say a similar thing. It’s just not a great time to start opening doors if you don’t know how to protect yourself from what’s on the other side of them. 

This is also not meant to be a time where we pull in mentors. So I’m not saying don’t seek mentors or turn your mentors away—not at all. But seeking wise guidance and mentorship from elders, that’s more of a Saturn move. It’s something I would encourage you to do during your Saturn Return or any kind of Saturn transit. 

During the Pluto square to Pluto—which is, again, such an important transit in the context of growing up and becoming an adult—it’s when we’re meant to do work with ourselves. It’s when we’re meant to really own our issues and our shit, and Pluto only brings up things that are sticky and messy. It brings up shame and resentment and pettiness and the potential and the energy with which to heal those things, but they have to come up in order to be released. 

So if we pull in new mentors or guides, they’re often going to be people we end up having power struggles with as they tend to represent architypes of either parental trauma or other kinds of people who’ve come through our lives and triggered us, sometimes caused us harm. 

They key with this transit is to know that the things that are painful and difficult, the struggles you’re noticing inside of yourself and in your life—they want your attention, and they need your attention, and they’re only coming up because you have something to learn. 

The Pluto square to Pluto prepares you for what comes next—the Uranus opposition and the Neptune square to Neptune. These are the two major transits associated with the midlife crisis. I’m doing air quotes when I say midlife crisis, just FYI. And I will say the Uranus opposition is much like a Saturn Return in how pivotal it is, but on a less external level, so is the Pluto square to Pluto. This particular transit has so much to do with your relationship to yourself as you age, and there’s really, at core, no relationship that’s more important. Because the relationship you hold to yourself is at the foundation for how you show up for others and how you receive the gifts of others as well as the bullshit. 

Now, my loves, I hope this little Hot Take on the Pluto square to Pluto was a little something to wet your whistle on astrology and that you do more research. And as always, I invite you to send me your questions over at ghostofapodcast.com. 

Join me over at Patreon where we talk about astrology and Tarot and such and thus. And also, if you get value from this podcast, if you like it, or if you love it, you can write me a five star review over on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to this damn show.