The Different Types of Transformation
In astrology the planets all hold different qualities, giving homes to the big stuff we regularly face. I’m a Sun Pluto, which means when I was born my Sun and Pluto were exactly conjunct. And what that means is my life is strongly colored by the main aspect of Pluto– transformation.
It’s pretty cool to live in a Plutarian way, it’s a life that looks different and breaks the status quo all the time. You might say, pick up your relatively cosmopolitan existence at age 29 and move to rural Wyoming to start completely over. Or explore the entire coast of California over multiple Winters, just you and your Subaru. Quit your cushy job at one of the best ad agencies to go freelance, and then topsy turvy that again to do over 500 hours of Yoga training at the same time (these are all things I did, by the way).
But the darker aspect of being a Plutarian soul is that transformation doesn’t always come gently, in fact a lot of the time it comes hard.
When I first got to Wyoming I wrote a song that included the lyric “to breathe this air feels like nothing could go wrong”. But in reality I’ve experienced heartbreak, loneliness, a solo pandemic experience, and a slew of what I call “impossible Wyoming girl problems” (mostly wild animal or severe weather related, LOL). When I decided to really move on from Chicago and empty my storage unit, I hurt myself moving a piece of furniture. It was such a deep injury I’m still working to understand and come to terms with it 5 years later.
The Panther card in The Wild Unknown Spirit Animal deck also comes to mind– the Panther is here to provide “annihilation of the unnecessary”. Of course we long to be free of what no longer serves us, and we want to come into our highest vibration of being. But Pluto just hears our goal and doesn’t really care about the journey along the way. In my case I wanted to come into my depth, I wanted to discover my strength, I wanted to channel my own lived experience into healing for others. I’d say I’ve accomplished that to an extent, it was just messier and more reckless than I would ever have chosen for myself.
Sometimes I try to protect people from Plutarian energy and moments. Asking them, do you really want to blow up your old life in that way? In Chicago I lived in the sweetest little historic building, red brick with symmetrical front steps and crown molding and window boxes. When I left for Wyoming I drew a picture in my journal of that building exploding from the inside. I feel an impulse to caution against how much transformation can really hurt. But I have a book about Pluto called “The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul”. That is something we are all entitled to, even if it’s messy and reckless and hurts like hell. If that’s where you are right now, I see you and hope to be a resource.
But then comes the dawning of awareness that transformation can occur in other ways too.
I do believe in all the aforementioned themes and know that this was a necessary and important chapter for me. But also I’ve begun to realize I was asking for this warrior woman level transformation. My therapist used to observe that it seemed I kept choosing the hardest possible things for myself. I wish I knew exactly why I do this– is it feeling as though I have something to prove? Or the concept that I don’t deserve an easeful life “like everybody else”? All I can say for sure is that there comes a certain indelible identity with being fierce, and its hard to set that down. It can feel almost uncomfortable to drop the label of “wounded” and adopt one as foreign as “healed” or “happy”. A friend just introduced me to the term “de-manifestation”– perhaps I’m in the process of learning how not to attract these warrior woman rights of passage anymore. To be worthy and complete as I currently am, not as I’d be if I completed some other epic quest or challenge. I collect crystals too– I just love them and they always lend physical embodiment to my emotions and intentions. For years I’ve been collecting crystals for healing past trauma, as if telling the universe I wanted more time in those trenches. Its only recently that I’ve started collecting crystals for happiness, as if I get to be in that place now.
I am grateful for both types of transformation, I am forever a Pluto adjacent gal and the depths do appeal to me in many ways. But I see now the appeal of easeful, gentle transformation too. And maybe both forms exist to balance one another out. Like a Yoga sequence offering a Sun salutation flow with warrior poses, but not without a restorative savasana.
Be glad for all the versions of you, take pride in your strength and your softness just the same. Real transformation is letting it all be true at once.
“The nature of our minds is not suffering. There is a possibility of complete transformation to get complete happiness. Our minds are pure, completely free of everything negative. It doesn’t make any sense to remain in this state of suffering.” - Khadro Kunga Bhuma
(A quote recently shared by my Buddhism community in Jackson, WY)