The Gold Beneath the Darkness
A few years ago, I was attending an experiential astrology class on Pluto. Someone was sharing a deeply personal transformation he was undergoing in response to a recurring, frightening, painful trigger.
As I listened, something unexpected happened: A taboo of my own surfaced. Something I had kept buried, something that would ordinarily have brought a rush of shame and an immediate impulse to push it back down.
But this time, instead of shame, I felt exhilarated. Effervescent. Enlivened. Like a bottle of champagne bursting open!
In my mind’s eye, I saw the floor of a dark cave pivot sideways, revealing a brilliant golden light streaming upward. Something in me knew I was ready to welcome this part of myself back into the whole. And that this was only the beginning. I spent the rest of the day bubbling over with energy.
Pluto, Lord of Riches
On Thursday, October 15, at 10:40 PM ET, Pluto stations direct at 3°04′ Aquarius, ending a retrograde that began in May.
In astrology, Pluto is associated with death, transformation, power, the unconscious, and everything we would rather keep hidden.
But Pluto is also the Lord of Riches.
Beneath the earth lie gold, diamonds, and precious minerals. And in the symbolic underworld of Pluto, we may find treasures of another kind: parts of ourselves we’ve buried, capacities we’ve disowned, and the vitality we’ve spent years holding back.
Think about the energy it takes to keep something hidden.
Perhaps you’ve spent years believing you were too much: too intense, too sensitive, too ambitious, too chatty, too demanding. Or perhaps there’s something you desire that you’ve never quite allowed yourself to acknowledge.
We learn to hide these things. Sometimes survival depends on it. But what happens when the danger has passed, and we continue to guard the cave?
What Else Have We Buried?
Carl Jung recognized that the shadow contains valuable qualities: instincts, insights, and creative impulses that have never been allowed into the light.
What if, in trying to protect ourselves from pain, we’ve also cut ourselves off from pleasure?
That day in the Pluto class, I didn’t become someone different. I recognized something that had always been part of me. The energy that had gone into keeping it hidden was suddenly available for living. That’s the gold I’m talking about.
The Turning Point
Retrograde was digging season. Maybe you found something uncomfortable. Maybe a little gold. Maybe you’re still circling the spot.
Now Pluto turns direct, and the invitation shifts from excavation to integration. What do you do with what you found?
Here are some questions to sit with:
- What part of myself have I judged so harshly that I've kept it hidden, even from myself?
- How much of my life force am I squandering trying not to be who I am?
We have only so much time, so much energy, so much life. How much of it do we want to spend hiding?
The Soul's Journey
That gold I discovered, that effervescence and aliveness I felt, has a name: Eros.
The Greeks told it as a love story. Psyche, whose name means soul, loses Eros. To win him back, she must complete tasks set by Aphrodite, and the last one sends her into the Underworld.
Psyche goes.
Soul, descending into Pluto’s realm, to find its way back to Eros.
Imagine what might we discover if we dared to make that journey ourselves.
That's what we'll explore in Eros & Psyche, a small-group experiential workshop using the ancient myth to investigate our own experiences of love, desire, and the parts of ourselves we've lost or hidden.
If you'd like to join us, reply “Eros & Psyche” and you'll be the first to know when it's ready.
Until then, hold this: What waits down there isn’t only the wound. And it isn’t something you have to become worthy of.
It’s been under your feet all along.
With love,
Meghna
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Find Your Own Riches!
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