Pluto Line AstroCartography – Welcome to the Underworld…
When researching Pluto line astrocartography, you’ll likely find a good few horror stories and accounts that tell you to steer well clear of living on your Pluto line (or even travelling to a Pluto line) at all costs. The truth however (and as usual with astrocartography line meanings) is far more complicated. Let’s get Plutonic and dive in to the depths to explore what they can mean…
In this guide I’ll cover what the Pluto lines represent in Astro-Cartography and locational astrology, what some of its hallmarks are, as well as sharing some of my own personal experiences from Pluto places and stories from clients.
What is a Pluto Line – AstroCartography?
The meaning of all astrocartography lines is that they represent the energy of the planet that they correspond to, as well as the angle in your chart (more on how to interpret that below). So a Pluto line is an opportunity to work with the planet Pluto and his astrological symbolism – when you travel to, live on or connect with a Pluto place in your astrocartography, you will get to experience the Pluto medicine.
How Pluto will manifest for you in your astrocartography depends on how he is placed within your birth chart (for help on interpreting and working with this, you can book a reading with me to explore your astrocartography and how it connects to your natal chart).
Pluto (Hades in the Greek Pantheon of Gods) is Lord of the Underworld. His name is enough to summon up a sense of foreboding in many ways – and perhaps with just cause. After all, few who entered the underworld in mythology ever returned to the world of the living.
And yet Hades (Pluto) himself is not confined to his subterranean kingdom. He is well known to use his cloak of invisibility to travel freely through the world of the living – and so, Pluto affects us all. We cannot escape him.
Astrologically, we all have Pluto in our charts somewhere. As the modern ruler of Scorpio, Pluto lords over the death mysteries. That can be the literal, final death that sees the body depart from this world, or the death of our ego, the death of old parts of ourselves, the death of old ways of being. He also rules over sex, intimacy, taxes and other peoples money and power.
As someone who is personally currently in the middle of a 5 year intense set of Pluto transits to my natal chart, I have come to accept Pluto and the incredible power that his transits bring.
Stories from Pluto Lines (AstroCartography)
Given the immediate reaction of horror that Pluto lines bring once people know about them (since the first association with Pluto is death), a surprising number of my individual reading clients have found that they are living on or feeling drawn to their Pluto lines.
I had one client who had been living on her Pluto IC line, and when she found this out during our session together, her response to me was “oh wow, I literally call this place my shadow city. It has been so hard here, constant shadow work for the last 10 years”. She was done. She’d done the work that Pluto had relentlessly asked of her in confronting her inner wounds to transform them and was ready to move away from the Pluto line.
Another client was going through a transit to her natal chart with Pluto squaring her nodes (north node and south node, which represent our soul’s journey in this lifetime). When we looked at where she was living, we found incredibly that she was living in the exact spot where she had Pluto and Node lines crossing overhead (this is called a parans in astrocartography). Her soul had literally brought her across the world to the very place she could integrate this transit, and she was being asked to face her very deepest fees and stand up for herself, thereby reclaiming her power over the initiations that were coming up in the realms of relationships and finances.
Yet another client was living on her Pluto AS line but was not feeling particularly phased by it, but was bothered by people telling her how challenging that was. When we looked at her natal chart together alongside the astrocartography, we found that Pluto was conjunct her ascendant in her natal chart, and by moving a few hundred miles to the west of where she was born, she was in a place where Pluto was exactly on her ascendant. This explained why she wasn’t afraid of the Pluto energies – her soul had signed up to work with this energy as part of her work here in this lifetime and truly embody her power.
Personally, I have not been directly to a Pluto line – the places they are in have never called me – but I have been to several Pluto places. In parts of India, where I spend much of my time, I have spend periods in Pluto/Moon crossing places – each which have brought up deeply emotionally challenging situations in which I had to face my fears and dig deep to reclaim my inner strength.
The Essence of Pluto – Death, Sex & Taxes
A well known Astrocartography case study by the father of Astrocartography, Jim Lewis, is John F Kennedy, whose Pluto MC line runs right through Dallas – the place where he was assassinated.
However, this does not mean that we all face our literal death if we go to a Pluto line. In John F Kennedy’s chart, his Pluto was un-aspected, meaning this energy was not well integrated in his chart, and making such places more challenging. When he was killed, JFK was also in an exact nodal opposition transit (a re-alignment process of our soul’s path & evolution).
As with any energy in astrocartography, how it will manifest for you depends on the placement of the planet in your natal chart.
What I have always seen to be true with Pluto energies is that they will challenge us to our core so that we can remember our power.
Pluto acts as the gatekeeper, the guardian who stands on the bridge and tells us “you shall not pass” until we have faced and integrated our demons.
What demons?
The demons can manifest as standing up for ourselves in a situation where we are not being well treated – in a relationship, in a job, within our family, financially, or more. The demons can manifest as being taken through a sexual awakening or initiations, or accessing the power of our sexual energy (as Pluto also rules over sex and intimacy), or the demons can involve facing the ultimate truth of life: That death is the one thing that all of us have to deal with in the end, and we may experience someone’s death.
Another very real way the Pluto demons can manifest is by realising that we really are not in control of any of it. It is just an illusion of the ego. With Pluto there is no choice but to surrender (and when we grip on instead of surrender, the initiations generally get worse).
Pluto lines ask us: Do you remember the power you have within you? Do you remember who you truly came here to be?
What is Pluto Line AstroCartography?
In Astro-Cartography, Pluto asks us to dig deep to let go of all that is no longer needed so that we can reclaim our inner power.
These are places of inner transformation and some kind of “death” – where we experience death in some form, or experience the death of parts of ourselves.
These are places we will likely look back on years later and remember as the most transformative and powerful years of our life – but that the time going through that process was far from easy.
As Liz Greene says, journeys with Pluto usually involve a long walk through the valley of tears.
If you are looking for transformation, growth, and to integrate a Pluto transit or work with your shadow, go on underworld shamanic journeys, or other types of intense healing, Pluto can be a supportive energy to work with.
If you feel strongly called to a Pluto line, it’s likely for a good reason: There is shadow and power that your soul wants to integrate here.
But I do not recommend lightly deciding to pack up your bags and live on a Pluto line. The initiations here are usually of the deepest kind. If a Pluto line is calling you, I recommend visiting first and experiencing the energy for yourself before you commit to living with it daily.
Whichever Pluto line you show up on, you are likely to find yourself confronting your deepest fears in one way or another.
There are 4 different variants of the Pluto line, which work with the angles of your natal chart:
- Pluto AS Line (Ascendant) – This is Pluto rising. Here, with Pluto on your (relocated) Ascendant, Pluto asks you to integrate your power into your identity and physical body. How do you need to make yourself stronger? How are you being called to truly own your power and deep wisdom and knowing? Health issues can crop up here (as the ascendant rules over the physical body), but you will be called into initiations that force you to dig deep to own your gritty truth and inner resolve around who you are and who you are being called to be. These lines may call for you to die to who you *think* you are so you can become who you were born to be.
- Pluto MC Line (Midheaven) – Pluto on the Midheaven asks you to integrate your power fully in your work and how you show up. It is time to let yourself be seen in public in your full power, so if you have been trying to take a back seat, that simply will not work here. You may be called to serve as an underworld guide for others, or to work with those who are stuck in the shadows or ‘underworld’ in some way. Watch out for power plays, obsessive working habits and being caught up in any delusions of your own power. You could also find yourself losing a job if it is not in alignment with your soul path. A Pluto MC scenario might be that co-workers try to undermine you or take advantage, so that you are forced to dig deep within and remember your power.
- Pluto DC Line (Descendant) – The Pluto Descendant line will initiate you and see you confronting your deepest fears in the realm of one on one relationships. This is primarily marriage and committed partnerships, but can also manifest in 121 business relationships and deep friendships. If you’ve been giving your power away to another, these lines will help you take it back, in no uncertain terms. These lines are also powerful places for practicing tantra or transformative sexuality and intimacy practices – Pluto always wants to merge and go deep. Watch out for romantic obsession, or like Persephone you may just find yourself as Queen of the Underworld with your dark King.
- Pluto IC Line (Immum Coeli) – Probably the most challenging Pluto astrocartography line is Pluto on the IC or fourth house cusp, as this relates to our home, roots, family and inner child and is one of the most deeply transformative places in our chart. Here you may well find yourself having to face deeply painful childhood wounds, family abuse, and situations where your inner power is deeply challenged. If you want to do deeply transformative shadow work around childhood wounds, these places will certainly help you do that, but hardly a peaceful place to live!
Read more about Astro-Cartography lines and how to read them:
