“The IAU further resolves: Pluto is a dwarf planet by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects.”                     

—Resolution 6A of the International Astronomical Union

 

The reclassification of Pluto has engendered heated debate in the astrological community. The range of astrologers’ opinions on Pluto’s new definition—as well as the meaning of Eris (UB313, Xena)—is vast.  Part of this is due to the Internet’s all-encompassing and instant sweep. Blogs and e-newsletters promote personal opinions faster than ever before. What would the astrological debate have been like if there had been an Internet in 1930 when Pluto was discovered? More people than ever before have some background knowledge about astrology, beyond just the Sun sign. Pluto’s reclassification was also big news in the mainstream media.

 

In much that has been written about Pluto in the astrological community, there is an undercurrent of intense emotion—a fitting response to anything concerning Pluto. One of the consensus opinions that comes across in virtually every astrological view of Pluto’s re-definition that I’ve read is that Pluto has shown itself to be a powerful point in any horoscope, natally and by transit, and that won’t change. Astrologically, Pluto has proven that it resonates powerfully in the individual psyche and in the world.

 

Eight years ago, I was researching an article I wrote for The Mountain Astrologer on a then-recently discovered Kuiper Belt object, the romantically named 1996 TL66. While doing this research, I discovered that Pluto was already being questioned as a planet by many astronomers. The power of telescopes in 1998 to peer into the Kuiper Belt was revealing Pluto to be one—albeit a larger one—of many scattered objects orbiting the Sun from beyond Neptune. The recent decision of the IAU to demote Pluto from planet to “dwarf planet” was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but one which had been building momentum for years.

 

Pluto’s redefinition is a direct result of powerful instruments which have enabled astronomers and astrophysicists to peer deep into space and see what used to be invisible. Whatever the outcome of the debate over Pluto's status as a planet, our solar system is not the same as it was once thought to be.

 

Although Pluto was discovered over 75 years ago, it really sprang into astrological prominence with the publication of Jeff Green’s Pluto: Evolutionary Journey of the Soul in 1985—a book which had a great personal impact on me as I began to study astrology. (You can read a very comprehensive history of astrological Pluto on Eric Francis’s website). Interestingly, the widespread use of Pluto in personal horoscopes accelerated when Pluto’s elliptical orbit brought it closer to earth than Neptune between 1979 and 1999. Now that Pluto’s orbit is stretching out beyond Neptune again, Pluto has been reclassified astronomically. I really believe that Pluto’s true power is just being revealed, connecting our solar system to the Kuiper Belt—the new frontier.

The Kuiper Belt was unknown until the early 1990’s, although its existence had been theorized. Astronomers’ subsequent study of the solar system has advanced some startling theories. For example, Neptune’s orbit was originally much smaller and it probably migrated outward in the early solar system, pushing the orbits of the Kuiper Belt as it moved.

One astronomer has used the language of crime scene investigation to explain how the Kuiper Belt can help us to understand the rest of the solar system: “Sometimes how the blood is splattered on the wall tells you more about what happened than the body… The Kuiper Belt is the blood splattering on the wall...If we’re going to understand what happened, it’s going to be by studying the Kuiper Belt.”

The fact that the Kuiper Belt is mostly “rocks in orbit” makes it easy to dismiss it as a small-time rock collection. Collectively, though, the Kuiper Belt is a powerful symbol. As an orbiting assortment of cosmic objects, it cannot be plotted on a horoscope—although some of its outstanding individual features such as new dwarf planet UB313 (Xena) can. However, at the outer limit of our solar system the Kuiper Belt and those planets which are associated with it resonate with symbolic importance. The Kuiper Belt, for example, is now believed to be the source of “short period” comets (like Halley’s Comet) which periodically slingshot through the inner solar system.

Pluto is the prototype (that is what the new IAU classification calls it) for our understanding of this new cosmic world, symbolically connecting the known planets (its orbit threading inside of Neptune) to the newly discovered outer reaches of the solar system—i.e., expanded consciousness. This understanding is, I believe, a key to Pluto’s true significance. Shouldn’t the god of the Underworld make that elliptical journey into seeming darkness, connecting not with darkness but with a beautiful hidden cosmos we are just beginning to glimpse? We have only scratched the surface of Pluto’s power.