Marjorie Orr

Author: Marjorie. Date: 01 Jul 2010

More questions on Jennifer Capriati's Pluto.
I have seen people with Sun Pluto in their charts with seemingly insubstantial fathers. But ineffectual doesn't mean the fathers aren't subtly controlling and these patterns are set very early on. Weak people can be more possessive, controlling and envious than strong ones. There is nothing more controlling than a victim or a martyr since they use guilt as their weapons. And the unavailable father is sometimes also playing the Pluto trick of not being fully involved in relationship which leaves the child thoroughly stuck.
Pluto goes both ways - as dominant and submissive. So a submissive Pluto father will still live out the Pluto energy unconsciously even if he is seemingly laid back and not engaged.
It also depends to some degree where the power in the family lies. Nathalie Wood had a Mars Pluto Sun in the 10th and it was her mother who was the ruthless driving force and control freak.
We don't tend to think about psychological energy being a parcel which can be picked up by one family member - but it is. Also it's important to see a marriage partner as a reflection of the other's alter ego - the bit of you which is unknown and unconscious. It's not obvious in a marriage where one is weak and one is strong; or where one appears saintly and the other the opposite. But at the end of the day there's less difference than you'd imagine between them otherwise they wouldn't have got married. And in families with blurred boundaries the child may have difficulty distinguishing between who is father and who is mother.
Usually with Pluto you can trace it back a generation or two. So with a bullying grandfather the next generation down, in reaction, may opt for a seemingly soft, pliable mate. But the energy is still there which one partner will act out more visibly and the other will act out unconsciously.
I've also seen Sun Pluto individuals having fathers who died early - which is another manifestation, I suppose, of forces beyond the child's control.
Similarly with a Sun Pluto child they can live out the Pluto energy more obviously especially when the father won't or, because of his background, can't. So the child becomes the controlling one. But at the end of the day that is still carrying on the paternal pattern rather than the child developing as itself.

Not sure if this is very clear. Take another example. In an abusive childhood - which isn't necessarily the case with Sun Pluto - children can either grow up as victims or they can collude with the aggressor to become aggressive themselves. But both of these are reactions to the early damage. What needs to happen in later life is that the individual heals enough, and splits way sufficiently from the parental pattern to see there is a third way - which is becoming themselves. At that point they can live out their Pluto or whichever energies constructively not just continue with the knee jerk reaction to the strings which were pulled early on.

Gwyneth Paltrow has a Mars Pluto Sun conjunction which is mellowed slightly by having it all square Jupiter. Her brother also has a Sun Pluto conjunction, midway between a Saturn trine Neptune. Their father was a Sun trine Pluto plus Saturn Mars in Gemini so I'd imagine was quite a force to be reckoned with.

Doing celebrity charts as a way of demonstrating has its downside since they are exceptional cases. I've seen Sun Mars Pluto with people who led seemingly ordinary lives where the energy was not lived out - though the ones I know have always felt very stuck. Mars Pluto is an enormously strong energy to carry and really does need a positive outlet either in crisis work or some relatively high risk area for it to flourish.

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