posted June 19, 2005 02:05 PM            

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PLUTO IN THE TENTH HOUSE
THE TENTH HOUSE ARENA: Status; Career; Destiny; Leadership
THE TENTH HOUSE PITS: Hypocrisy; Failure; Mere Glitz; Tyranny

IN THE TRADITION...
...the tenth house is often named "The House of Honor." An astrologer of five hundred years ago might receive an inquiry, "Am I in good odor with the Duke of Burgundy?" That medieval astrologer would then rightly consult the condition of the client's tenth house and provide an answer: "Nay, he aims to behead ye, and your firstborn besides."
The specifics of the foregoing dialogue are marked indelibly with the spirit of a bygone culture, but let's translate it into modern terms. At a cocktail party, two people meet and begin the eternal process of sizing each other up. Here's one question almost guaranteed to appear: "By the way, what do you do for a living?" Read: what is your status? Translate back into the medieval lexicon: are you in good odor with the Duke? Translate again: where are you in the tribal hierarchy?
We humans are intensely social creatures. And society is always structured and hierarchical to some degree. From the "ruling elite" down to the "cool kids at school," we observe the tendency of our species to establish pecking orders. There is much that is emotionally and philosophically difficult about this reality, and my purpose here is not to condemn or defend it, merely to say that concern with status is part of the human picture and that astrology describes it through tenth house symbolism.
But astrology goes further. While status and reputation are inextricably bound to the tenth house, and "career" is one of the central ways in which we establish those valuations for ourselves, much more is at stake here. Doing something for the human community, publicly representing some principle or ideal, are also tenth house concerns. Navigated consciously, this house provides a sense of mission or destiny in one's life. Personally, I encode the tenth house as one's "Cosmic Job Description" - your “job" as the Great Spirit would define it. If the IRS agrees, so much the better. Then you've accomplished one of the great coups of conscious tenth house work: you've figured how to get paid for doing your spiritual work.
What if you were born with Pluto here?

YOUR HIGH DESTINY
Truth hurts: the reality of that notion is hard to escape. Certainly, we human beings are fond of rationalization and denial. But there's another observation to sit next to the first one: avoiding the truth hurts even worse. That pair of ideas summarizes much of what we need to understand about Pluto in general.
Truth-avoidance is a popular sport not only on the level of individual psychology. Communities and nations practice it blithely as well. In cynical moments I sometimes think our electoral process boils down to a talent contest in that regard. We might say the same for what often happens in churches.
Lies catch up with us sooner or later, whether we're individuals or countries. And then we go down in flames reading inspirational literature, or we deal bravely with what is actually real. For a community or a nation to follow the higher road, it requires leadership. It requires a courageous man or woman to speak out clearly about popular lies and their costs — and to define a better way. Such a person may or may not be "charismatic;" he or she may or may not radiate self-confidence and authority. The message matters more than the messenger at such times. And the community that person addresses may be a town or a nation, or more commonly a segment of the population. Basically, the tenth house terrain begins where your personal relationships end, and extends from there out toward the horizons of the global village: it may or may not, in other words, involve what we commonly call "fame." But it always involves touching the lives of people whom we do not really know on a personal level.
And for you, your high destiny involves touching that larger community in a Plutonian way: representing some fierce truth, and fighting the trench wars for its communal realization.
YOUR DISTORTING WOUND
Since you were small, you have felt (correctly!) that you were born "to do something big and important." Pluto, at its best, is concerned only with those activities which are capable of imparting a palpable sense of meaning and purpose to life, and which fill us with fiery intensity. Anything less is boring and empty. It is this pattern of motive and ideal that shapes your healthiest perspective on career.
How well-supported was ambition at that scale when you were small? Your wound lies in this region. As always, life's dark side can touch us a multitude of ways, and not everyone with the same configuration will have the same story — or at least the symmetry will not always be immediately apparent. Let's consider some wounding scenarios.
Maybe one or both of your parents suffered deadening kinds of work, and could not imagine any alternatives. Their attitudes conveyed to you, unconsciously or overtly, an image of the "Big World" as a jungle in which mere survival was the best for which one could hope. A variation: maybe parents or other significant role models in your youth were truly limited in their ability to find rewarding, spirit-charging careers due to social prejudice, political dislocations, or economic troubles. Still, the same attitude of limitation and impossibility would be transmitted to you.
Perhaps you were born female in a culture displaying a distinct shortage of imagination regarding "a woman's place." Built into that reality is an unconscious, systematic disempowering of a girl-child's self-confidence regarding career. After a generation of feminist activism, these are familiar thoughts, but they still sometimes wield considerable potency in shaping women's images of their place in the big world.
Perhaps you were born male in a culture displaying a distinct shortage of imagination regarding "a man's place." This is discussed less than the feminists' perspective, but it's every bit as powerful — and limiting — a force. The pressure on men blindly to achieve conventional status is enormous. We are taught to experience pride or shame in proportion to our accrual of power and/or money. To what extent could such concerns have robbed you of space for the fuller expression of individuality and creativity in terms of your work?
Underlying all these wounding scenarios is a dark Plutonian image of the Community as an inhospitable place, resistant to the expression of anything truly exciting or individual, and affording at best a struggle to remain alive.
Let's carry our analysis of the Wound a step further. Kids in general don't know much about the realities of the world. When we ask children what they want to be when they grow up, we take their answers with a grain of salt. What child would say, "An insurance salesman?" (But the real world has more than a few contented insurance salespeople, I suspect). While there are sometimes fascinating exceptions, a pretty good rule of thumb is that a child's answer will at best provide a kind of veiled metaphor — the little boy, for example, who will become an aeronautical engineer may say "Astronaut!" His nose is pointing in the right direction, and his soul guides him by offering grandiose exaggerations of the life he will actually create. It's a delicate mechanism, even a sacred one.
With your Plutonian tenth house, you truly do have a high destiny... and in youth the unconscious mind would tend produce exaggerated metaphors of even that. Thus: "When I grow up I will be a famous movie star." Or even: "When I grow up I will save the world."
Loving adults may have felt that they needed to "help" you adjust to the real world by "grounding" you. Unwittingly they sabotaged the grand mechanism by which your deep Self was preparing foundations in your imagination for the realization of what you were actually born to do. What is at stake here is simple to say: for the realization of certain adult destinies, a degree of ungrounded grandiosity in youth is a psychological prerequisite.
YOUR NAVIGATIONAL ERROR
Would you stroll across a sunlit meadow for a million dollars? Not to put thoughts in your head, but I feel a high degree of confidence in my ability to predict your answer.
What if the meadow contained nine deadly buried land mines? Now your answer enters more distinctly into the realm of individuality. My guess is that some of you would abruptly change your minds about the stroll, while others would start balancing the joyful prospect of the cash against the probabilities of more cataclysmic eventualities.
Let's add a third condition: there is a hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex pursuing you. Across the meadow lies your only escape. Suddenly taking your chances with those land mines has more appeal.
Before we add a fourth condition, let's sit with the image for a moment. There you are, nervously light-footing it across the sunny grass, torn between scrutiny of each footfall and jittery over-the-shoulder considerations of our Jurassic friend. Are you appreciating the sheer beauty of the meadow? Are you mentally designing the dream-home you might build there with the million bucks? (Do you even remember the million bucks?) Probably not. Under that kind of pressure, more aesthetic, creative interests recede into the background.
Our fourth condition: the dinosaur is a fake, one of Spielberg's clever illusions. There are no buried land mines; it was a lie. Your behavior in the meadow makes sense, but only on the basis of the information you believe. If we stopped you and said, "You know, when you get that money, I'm seeing a Frank Lloyd Wright design up there on that rise —" you'd look at us as though we were utterly mad. You would be perfectly convinced that you were behaving in the only possible way, given the threatening realities.
The illusory realities.
Your Navigational Error lies in imagining too many land mines and hungry dinosaurs. You could fear the world too much, and thereby rob yourself — and the community — of the fruits of your destiny. For the community, those fruits mean some kind of healing, leadership, or inspiration. And for you, they mean Plutonian heat, intensity, and vision in your life.
The human world is inherently dangerous and negative in many ways; what you might leave out of the equations is the full realization of your own power to cope with those obstacles. And that distorts your sense of the scope of your possibilities here. If you succumb, you may find yourself in a career or social position you find shamefully out-of-kilter with your own values. The bleaker Plutonian possibility here lies in still finding yourself wielding the social power we associate with this planet, but swept along in a current of events that leave you working for the "bad guys," perhaps in a glitzy role. If you are brave enough to admit that to yourself, you feel cynicism, shame, and helplessness. If you're not brave enough to admit it, you'll become a tyrant in that role as you unconsciously attempt to justify your own poor choice with the sheer volume of your voice.

THE HEALING METHOD
You're a kid learning to ride a bike. You're still dependent on your training wheels. One day, dad or mom says it's time to get rid of those crutches. Off they come, whether you like it or not. You're positioned on the bike and asked if you're ready. Nervously you nod. You're given a little push; if you start pedaling, you'll probably be fine. If caution freezes you, down you crash.
That's a piece of life; sometimes there are strides people must take fully or not at all. The proverb, "no one crosses a chasm in two steps," summarizes it. Healing a tenth house Pluto is like that. Half measures will not succeed.
Imagine you've just died. You stand before God, who is saying, "By the way, what did you do for a living?" What is the answer you'd like to give? And don't try to be too "good" — honesty counts for a lot more in this exercise than a virtuous posture. (Remember: if it doesn't get you hot, it's not Pluto!)
Chances are, your answer will have two components. One of them will reflect a big dollop of your own creative individuality and fundamental beliefs. The other, which may be less apparent at first glance, is that in following your own dream you will incidentally provide some real service for the world, even if it's "only" by serving as an example of someone who had the valor and pluck to follow a dream and make it real.
Once you've seen that vision, your Healing Method lies in taking the plunge and setting it into motion. Again, half measures are futile. Here we find the person who leaves a safe but dull career in mid-life to pursue a degree in anthropology, or who joins the Peace Corps, or who starts a business building environmentally sensitive homes. Maybe it's the woman who leaves the corporation to start a private practice as an investment counselor. Or a writer. Or an astrologer. Perhaps it's the young person entering a university who opts to major in something "impractical" simply because he or she feels that's the right spiritual course.
Always, the strictures with Pluto in the tenth house are that no one will do it for you, that you must seize your own destiny, and that while a fearful view of the world can interact in a crippling fashion with wounded self-confidence, no one needs to remain stuck there. Fear itself is the obstacle.
THE ENERGIZING VISION
You were born to be a force in this world, and to stand for something which excites you. Follow the fire in yourself and you'll find the shape of that destiny. And since it is literally a destiny we're talking about, you need to believe that more is at work here than your own will or desire. You are the trigger, but the universe itself favors the expression of your Plutonian mission. Once you start believing in it, trusting it, and moving with it, synchronistic "coincidences" begin to unfold, charging your path with power, connections, and what we're taught to call "luck."
What is the nature of that destiny? Traditionally, one often lists a series of professions connected with each planet or sign as it interacts with the tenth house. There is real value in that approach, and we'll investigate it in a moment. But the modern view of astrology is less deterministic, more centered on motivational or psychospiritual factors. And what is really at stake here is your capacity for intense — and intensely meaningful — engagement with life. Any profession that fits that bill can be a healthy, legitimate expression of tenth house Plutonian energy.
Still, with this configuration, often one is drawn into classically "Plutonian" kinds of work: anything involving direct contact with life's more serious side. Deep psychotherapeutic work. Medicine. Disaster-related professions. Sometimes the work involves crossing a line of social taboo: sexual therapies, gay-related work, funeral direction or hospice jobs. Or something which excites deep passions: environmental crusades, political concerns, the wilder faces of art or performance. Pluto has a taste for mystery-solving and deep investigation. Thus: research in all its forms, police work, private detection. And it is often present where real power is wielded — thus the association of Pluto-in-the-tenth with, among other things, the control of big money.
The list is long, and the best purpose it might serve would only be to prime the pump of your own creative, visionary imagination. Whatever your course, know that you were not born to make everyone happy with you. Truth-sayers never do. And know that much in the unfolding story of the human family is riding on you; you were born with a mighty responsibility — the responsibility to make a difference in this world.

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posted June 19, 2005 07:32 PM            

I read through this once, but I'll be printing it out to read a few more times. There's a lot of information here and I really want to absorb it.

posted June 19, 2005 09:03 PM            

You're welcome! Nope -- mine's in the 12th.....

Did the hair stand up on the back of your neck?!?

I've got Pluto in all the houses scanned, just need to copy them in here should anyone ask.....

posted June 20, 2005 04:35 AM              

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Nope -- mine's in the 12th...

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Mine too, and I think there were some other people in this forum too. Have to say I really like it there. Particularly right now when I'm cutting through some really emotional crap, heightened by the tPluto square nMoon/nPluto. It all goes under the headline "You are much stronger than you think and life is about to prove it."

posted June 20, 2005 01:21 PM            

I'll put up Pluto in XII when I get home tonite.....

posted June 20, 2005 03:32 PM              

Having grown up in a chauvanistic family is a tough one on a young girl's mind...and it has taken many,many years to break out of the 'constraints' of ideas/realities that were placed on me. Finally-I am getting back to my true path...and in the process, not pleasing these family members who implore me to correct my thinking!! Ha,ha...

Go 10th House Pluto...Watch Me World!!

posted June 20, 2005 04:53 PM            

Yes, it was an almost eerie experience reading this. Especially since I have been more preoccupied with my future/ career than ever before. This couldn't have come at a better time. I still want to give it a lot more thought. I'm sure I'll be getting back with you later on this.

Thanks again... this was all new information for me!

posted June 20, 2005 08:45 PM            

Yes, this chapter applies to your natal Pluto position, but I bet you all can find nuggets of useful info in it that applies to natal, transiting and synastry aspects too.....