In a previous post, I told the story of a woman whose life was turned upside down when Pluto transited over her natal IC. In another post, I recounted how transiting Pluto on the natal IC of a woman coincided with the birth of her first child, which led to a drastic change in her home and family life.
I have discovered by experience (my own life included) that moving Pluto hitting the natal IC leads to a deep questioning of one’s life: what is happening to me, why am I all alone, why do I feel like I am dying? Coming out of this period feels like you have been granted a new lease on life. This does not necessarily mean an outward restructuring of the life, like chucking your career or relocating long-term to a foreign culture where you don’t speak the language, but it does lead to a deeper understanding that we are always at the mercy of larger forces that can dramatically remake our life.
These larger forces act with equal impunity on everyone, whether ordinary or famous. In mid‐2004, Steve Jobs announced that he had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his pancreas. Quoting Wikipedia: “The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very grim. Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. After initially resisting the idea of conventional medical intervention and embarking on a special diet to thwart the disease, on July 31, 2004, Jobs underwent surgery that successfully removed the tumor; he did not apparently require nor receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.” At this time, transiting Pluto was closing in on his IC to within a couple of degrees of exact contact:
As in the previous post of transiting Pluto on the IC, here again there is surgery in the picture, and an adjustment of the diet echoing the weight loss issue in the previous case. This repetitive theme raises an interesting question: does moving Pluto coming to the IC tend to bring with it physiological/bodily changes, both in the external form, and in the internal hormonal/chemical balance?
A Pluto transit to a natal chart angle need not necessarily bring a setback in life. Take the example of the well‐known author and spiritualist Deepak Chopra, whose natal chart appears below:
Notice that the MC is at 21 Sag 55. In the year 2004, transiting Pluto made several hits to the natal MC, as can be seen in the monthly ephemeris for that year (positions of planets as of the 1st of the month at midnight UT) :
The first pass was in February, then again in May-June (going retrograde), and then back in December (going direct).
Something profound was bound to happen! His career, which was already flourishing greatly, broadened its reach even further. In 2004, he was recruited to co‐write a script for a proposed movie on the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. This was a major career departure for him, branching out into the movies. This was also the year in which his book, “The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life,” was published. This is one of the best and well‐regarded books he has written, with many new insights into life and spirituality.
Chopra’s career has continually examined life and death as two sides of the same coin, with obvious Pluto significations due to the in‐depth exploration of this duality. Note that in his natal chart, Mercury and Mars are conjunct in Scorpio, and this conjunction is square Pluto: his super-charged energy (Mars) to communicate (Mercury) is challenged to integrate Plutonian themes. Pluto’s transit over the MC came about at exactly the time in his life when he was reinforcing and amplifying the theme of life/death duality through career-defining works.