Pluto Station Direct - Return from the Underworld 2010

The planet Pluto changes direction today and begins to move forward again after seemingly moving backwards since April 6, 2010.  There were a couple of significant events in my world that week that reminded me how fragile life is and that we must face death as part of our celebration of life. There were two murders in my quiet Polish neighbourhood and for several days, the street was scattered with police cars. On the world stage, President Lech Kaczynski and many of the Poland ruling elite were killed in a plane crash on their way to Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish officers by Soviet forces. A country and a people went into another collective mourning with the loss of its leadership. 

Planets when they are retrograde don't actually physically stop and start moving backwards. It is our perspective from the Earth viewing planets as they move around the Sun.  We just think that planets move backwards and from our vantage point they do.

Human beings need to make sense of our world.  Jung wrote that we have a "spiritual instinct" - a hardwired inclination to create meaning, and places ourselves within the cosmos.  Astrology and the planets provide a fertile ground to project ourselves and then to come to know ourselves again from a different perspective. An astrological reading can help to make sense of where we are on our individuation journey.  

The key in understanding retrograde planets is "re".  It comes originally from medival latin and means again and anew. It is a time to re-flect. 

Pluto is the planet of transformation and its retrograde periods can be particularly intense and troublesome. Pluto's return from the underworld brings with it hidden aspects of our personality and our garbage. Our lesson is to learn to let go of aspects of our lives that no longer serve our individuation project.  If we resist this process, then the lesson will be that much harder to integrate. 

With any retrograde planet especially an outer planet, there are key dates on the journey. These dates provide benchmarks or markers along the path for checking in with life and see what is happening around a particular situation.

Check in with your life around these dates and journal what was going on for you at that time. 

• December 17, 2009 - the Journey began with Pluto arriving at the same place where it is today.
• April 6 2010 - Pluto turns retrograde and the process of reflection begins
  
• June 25 2010 - the turning point of the journey 
• September 14, 2010 - Pluto turns direct and whatever has been hidden emerges to be integrated into our lives 
• September 24, 2010 -Manifestation of whatever the cycle has been about.

 
Christina Becker is a Jungian Analyst, Alchemical Astrologer and Consultant with a private practice in Toronto, Ontario Canada. She is graduate of the C.G. Institute Zurich. Her practice purpose is to empower individuals, couples, teams and organizations on their path of transformation. Her website is www.cjbecker.com

The Wallet

Last week, I was in Montreal for the tri-annual congress of Jungian Analysts. 700 of the world's analysts converged in Canada for the first time in IAAP history.   On the first full day, I lost my wallet or it was stolen - I am not sure.  The wallet had vanished - completely disappeared.  It was all rather discombobulating. Mercury, the trickster god who also rules commerce, and communication, was retrograde i.e. going backwards. The Retrograde Station was the previous Friday.   However, the essentials were replaced within a couple of days and so there wasn't a great deal of inconvenience while I was in Montreal.

The location of the loss and the circumstances of my life at the moment suggested to me that this loss should be taken a bit more symbolically.  The whole experience had a dream like quality and if the experience was a dream how would I interpret it.  The unconscious seems to have been speaking to me in a quite dramatic way. The wallet that had gone missing was purchased in Florida in December 2008 when I was there with an ex-partner. It was the last reminder of a painful relationship. It was heavy and full of receipts that needed to be organized, filed or thrown out.  Over the last weeks, I have been determined to get my life and environment more organized. When my life becomes too busy, it is one of the first things that goes. And yet the disorganization and the outer chaos actually contributes to being ill at ease rather than providing a remedy for the busyness.

Symbolically, the wallet reflects how we look after our resources. I saw that the way I took care of my wallet was a mirror to the way I took care of my inner resources. The wallet is a container of our identity and our relationship to the resources in our life.

I could have looked at this as a great tragedy. However, I  recognized that the loss was also an huge opportunity. The trickster/thief forced my hand to look at how I handle my internal and outer resources.  The decision facing the "recreation" of my wallet will all its identity papers, drivers licences, health card,and credit cards is how do I do it.  Do I revert to my old way of being of being disorganized or do I recreate it with intention and consciousness that is in alignment with how I want to take care of myself. This process is ongoing.

"What's in your wallet?"

Addendum
September 13, 2010  - This has turned out to be a Mercury story.  Mercury went direct on September 12 at 7:08 pm. My wallet lost in Montreal on Monday, August 23 - 2 days after Mercury went retrograde - was mailed by Canada Post on September 3, 2010 - the date of Mercury's conjunction with the Sun - and landed in my mailbox today September 13, 2010.  The universe moves in mysterious ways and fortunately, we sometimes are graced with a glimpse this through astrology. I will sort through the things that I need to keep and throw the wallet out.

Christina Becker is a Jungian Analyst, Alchemical Astrologer and Consultant with a private practice in Toronto, Ontario Canada. She is graduate of the C.G. Institute Zurich. Her practice purpose is to empower individuals, couples, teams and organizations on their path of transformation. Her website is www.cjbecker.com