Neptune-Pluto

Overview: Neptune-Pluto in tense alignments combines the dreamy qualities of spirituality, imagination, and idealism of Neptune with the deep instinctual drives and hidden powers of Pluto.

because of the slow movement of these two planets and the resultant rarity of instances in which they are aligned in tension, examples of their combination are not easily illustrated by examples from the twentieth century.

Below are examples of well-known individuals born with this combination in their natal charts (an astrological birth chart is a symbolic map of the sky at the moment of birth). Observing how this combination appears in their lives can help us recognize it in our own. The more consciously we engage with these astrological alignments—or “aspects”—the more their underlying tensions can be integrated, allowing their strengths to emerge.

Please note: the expression of this archetypal tension, as seen in the lives and work of the people below, may reflect varying levels of integration.

• The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, born with this combination in his birth chart, demonstrates the tension between spirit and nature in the following line from his famous poem Memoriam A.H.H.:

  Are God and Nature then at strife,
     That Nature lends such evil dreams?

• American playwright Eugene O’Neill, born with this combination in his birth chart, demonstrates the tension between these two archetypes in his play The Iceman Cometh. The play follows a cast of characters who dwell in a basement bar and are addicted to alcohol. The subterranean locale of the play reflects Pluto’s association with the underworld. The addiction to alcohol reflects Neptune’s association with states of intoxication and dissolution. Additionally the play reflects a journey to the underworld (Pluto) of our tendency to project into the future a fantasy (Neptune) that is unreal.