Pluto Station Retrograde and the Night Sea Journey

Pluto, the planet of death, rebirth and transformation, turns retrograde at 10:34 pm Eastern Daylight Time on April 6, 2010.  It has been direct, i.e. moving forward since September 11, 2009.  Since then, we have been integrating into our psyches what Pluto raised from the depths during its last retrograde from April 4 to September 11th.

In the Greek myth, Hades, Zeus's oldest brother, is the god of the underworld, the land of the dead.  It is place described in various texts as a gloomy chasm where no mortal may enter and the gods avoid. In a later manifestation, Hades also became the lord of the treasures. His imagery associated with the helmet of invisibility and also the cornucopia of plenty.  In fairy tales and other mythology, the treasure hard to attain is symbolic of the consciousness and transformation that results from descending into the recesses of our own unconscious.

Pluto is the planet furthest away from the earth and the one that has the most profound effect on our lives.  Its station often brings crisis. Situations suddenly erupt like volcanoes forcing us to deal with them. And thus the station signals the turning inward to address underlying unconscious dynamics that fuelled the outer situation. Yet at this time, we are only vaguely aware that something is out of sync in our lives.

During the retrograde, Pluto digs up all that is false in our life - adaptations we construct to be in the world and developed to fit in, to be successful, to be liked, or to look good in the eyes of friends and colleagues. We begin to find that things in our lives that use to worked don't. It can often be an intensely emotional time. The feelings and emotions long since buried flow to the surface like lava. The transformation is inevitable and directed by a energy much larger than our ego notions of our life. The ultimate purpose of the transit is to reveal the healing truth of the soul and to systematically stripe all that is doesn't serve the deeper aspects of our personality, our authenticity and individuation. 

Key dates to reflect on as we embark on the process letting go.

• December 24, 2009 - the journey began with the conjunction with the Sun initiating all that the cycle is about ;
• June 25, 2010 - the journey hits a turning point or culmination of a process that started in December and the underlying issue being addressed psychologically begins to emerge with greater clarity. 
• September 14, 2010 - Pluto turns direct and whatever has been hidden emerges to be integrated into our lives

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

The Psychological Relevance of Good Friday

Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytical psychology was one of the first psychologists to explore the Christian myth as psychological experience. The themes around Good Friday and the cruxification are particularly relevant to the individuation process, that is, the life long journey towards psychological wholeness and to live the Self's experiement in life.

In the Christian Myth, Good Friday marks Jesus's cruxification and the beginning of the three days of waiting for the ressurection on Easter Sunday. The symbols of the cross and the waiting 3 days are found in many other myths and fairy tales. The central theme of which reflect the psychological experience of the death of something in order that something else can rise.  Three days is symbolic of the night sea journey with its themes of descent and return. In these journeys, a part of the ego's energy retreats from daily life for inner exploration to find the truth of the soul. 

For Carl Jung and Jungian Analyst, Edward Edinger, the cruxificiation and the cross are the psychological experience of that moment when the divine and the ego are locked in a tension of the opposites. Both are on the cross. Both must sacrifice something for transformation to occur.  The Self / the Divine must come down from heaven and become conscious in the individual as life energy.  The ego must sacrifice the inflated notion that it is the master of its own house and serve the larger call of individuation.  The drama of the cruxification is symbolically a fundemental experience of the individuation process.

This process is described by Edward Edinger in Ego and Archetype  " This state is a transition period. It is the limbo of despair following the death of an old life orientation and preceding the birth of a new one. Jesus' ressurection symbolizes the birth of a more comprehensive personality which can result from the conscious acceptance of the cruxification ordeal" p 150.


Christina Becker is a Jungian Analyst, Professional 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