angstoic.com Astrologer, Ang Stoic
The descent to hell through the gates of Avernus is easy, as Virgil tells us in the Aeneid. The way down is smooth, effortless, as if we are being pulled under, unwittingly entranced by an invisible, all-consuming force into the underworld, into the darkest recesses of our psyche. But to turn back, to retrace our steps and ascend once more into the upper world—that’s gonna be the real test. This is the work. This is the task.
We’ve been here before, in March of 2023, then again in June, and once more in January 2024. Each time Pluto approached the 29th degree of Capricorn, each time we were asked to descend into that abyss, it felt like something was stirring. But now, as Pluto retrograde slowly stations at this critical degree, there’s a finality to this journey, a gravity that wasn’t present before. The descent is no longer just a symbolic gesture. The urgency for deep, thorough transfigurement is total. Pluto, the ruler of the underworld, does not deal in half-measures. He requires nothing less than the complete dismantling of the structures that have defined us.
The ultimate test of Pluto transits, especially when it stations at such a significant degree, is not the descent itself but the ability to maintain integrity in the face of fateful circumstances—circumstances that symbolise the disembowelment, the slow dismembering, death, and eventual renewal of something essential within us. Pluto demands that we excoriate all that is superficial, that we descend into the most isolated crevices of our soul, alone, where we must confront what has been buried for so long. It is in this isolated place of purgatory that we are asked to find a deeper sense of integrity, value, and security. This will be our fee to barter ourselves out of this. We cannot rely on external validation or on the safety nets we’ve carefully constructed. Pluto strips those away, leaving us exposed to our deepest fears and unresolved traumas…
The power of this Pluto station lies in its distinctive nature. There is no rehearsal for this moment, no practice round for facing Pluto. Each transit is unique, even if there are thematic echoes ricochetting off the walls of Hades from past encounters. Pluto may have crossed this degree before, but each pass—especially now as it stations—feels like a fresh initiation into the catabolic fires of Capricorn’s last gasp. This 29th degree, the anaretic degree, is the apotheosis, the climactic end of a long cycle of mastery over matter, its control, and ambition to have it all. It is a degree of karmic closure, where all that has been built under Capricorn’s influence must either evolve or be dismantled.
For the next six weeks, as Pluto retrogrades back through this degree, the descent goes deeper than simply a matter of re-examining old structures; in this most intense soul-level excavation, Pluto will require that we descend willingly, wittingly, face those shadowy aspects of our lives—those things we thought we had already confronted. But unlike the previous transits, this one is excruciatingly more demanding—it wants it all. Pluto will not allow us to move forward until we have fully integrated the lessons of Capricorn: our lust for control, dominion, authority, and status. It dredges forward the most ghastly, most grotesquely ugly sides of ambition and forces us to give it up. What remains must now be either completely achieved or we must quit.
By October, as Pluto stations at the 29th degree of Capricorn, we are faced with a perilous dilemma: to surrender ourselves to the dark forces that have governed us—the ironclad grip of the patriarchy, the rigid hierarchies that have shaped our ambitions and defined our worth—or to relinquish all we’ve achieved under its rule, casting aside the hard-fought-and-won structures of power for a chance at liberation. The descent into Pluto’s underworld is a judgment day upon our shadows and insidious designs. This is a formidable reckoning that asks if we got what we desired by pimping our souls out to the systems that have dominated us. Here, once more—one final time—we are entreated to surrender what remains of our precious soul to the dark machinery of a crumbling empire, a system that promises order but demands compliance, submission. It tempts us to preserve what we’ve achieved under its reign, to hold tight to the illusion of security, even as the ground beneath us crumbles.
Yet Pluto, in his uncompromising wisdom, offers us a stark alternative: relinquish everything we’ve built under these outdated forces. Surrender all we’ve achieved within this dying paradigm, not for the comfort of the known, but for the radical freedom that comes when we strip ourselves of its chains. As Pluto turns back toward Aquarius, due to return in mid-November, we are placed under this final test. To cling to the familiar would be to condemn ourselves to the same patterns of exploitation and oppression. But to let go—to willingly acknowledge the disintegration of what has been—opens the door to a new lease on life, a future not yet defined but filled with possibility.
In these six weeks, we either sell our soul to the decrepit remnants of a collapsing order, or we release it, untethered, into the unknown. This is the true toil of alchemy that Pluto demands—the price of transformation. In any case, we will never be the same. Seems like the choice we must make will reverberate long after Pluto finally enters Aquarius for real.
