A full moon in Pisces snuggling up to Neptune is coming up in the wee hours of the morning. But my mind is on Pluto and how it shows up to remind us to play in the dirt, to dig deep, to plumb the depths of what can’t be seen. There are jewels there. Past the bugs and crawly things, we find sparkly bits that are we base the very measure of our money on. Pluto isn’t a planet anymore but it does not need to be one in order to remind and signify the places in our charts and in our lives that need to constantly be mined for what hidden treasure.

If you face fears that you find out weren’t so bad and go deep enough to find diamonds and rubies, it’s addicting. It’s a rabbit hole of discovery that pushes home that the journey is as important as the destination but also that to the victor goes the spoils. When you have something that combines the adrenaline rush of the crusade and the holy grail together, how can you not get obsessed with doing it again and again and again? Of course, the Pluto of mythology let his obsession lead him to abduct his wife. That is the bad side of the hunger that Pluto brings. When all sense of right and wrong flies out the window in the pursuit of our goal; we fight the knights that came with us along with the dragon we must face. Finding the place where we desire and are driven but still keep our cool wits about us should move us. It should not be blind, primal urging.

The best transformation lies in what we learn about ourselves along the journey that Pluto forces us to take. It lies in how we must redefine ourselves when we find a new piece of treasure to add to our bounty. In mythology, Pluto often holds the item that is needed for a hero to obtain for his glory or the object of his almost obsessive desire. He holds the riches of the soul and will not give them up just because we want them. He makes us work for it. Pluto forces us to get our hands dirty.

So that is the power of the non-planet. We are continuously tempted with ideas of what is hidden below the depths and we eventually are moved to go digging for them. We go ten feet, find some gold, and Pluto beckons us with the glint of something more just a few feet further. We scrape our knuckles and bloody our knees to reach it but we keep going, at least those of us who are heavily influenced by the cold and distant planet. We grow and morph with each bug that is quashed and each layer that we pull back in search of our treasure. We are reborn. We are powerful. We are transformed