In last month’s Skywatch we looked at an intriguing transit scenario: What happens when a personal planet mixes it up with a transpersonal planet?
Two of August’s transits were warm-ups for September’s. One was with Uranus (interruptions of normal function) and one with Neptune 
(confusion of normal function). This month’s is with Pluto (breakdown of normal function).
On Sept 9th, Mercury will make a square to Pluto, the most demanding planet in the pantheon. Intensifying the transit even further is the fact that Pluto is gearing up for a station.1
Mercury represents our everyday mental process: what Rob Hand has called “automatic thinking. When it collides with Pluto, an unexceptional function collides with an exceptional one. There is a momentary breakdown of the apparatus of logic.2
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Since the first of September, Mercury has been floating just above the surface of 
life, in the graceful sign of Libra. Sensitive to social niceties and accommodating gestures, Mercury has been busy oiling the wheels of polite interaction. It’s been a good transit for writing thank-you notes and de-escalating conflict through tact.
But Pluto wants nothing to do with making nice.
Pluto despises superficiality. Its whole purpose is to send us deep into the hidden workings of whatever is afoot.
David and Goliath
We have a nose for secrets when Pluto is strong (peaking around the station on the 22nd). During its square with Mercury (9/8-10), communications begin to buzz with the power of the unstated.
We may be talking to someone in a perfectly ordinary way, when suddenly we become aware of drives we call unconscious for lack of a better word. Mercury in Libra prefers a smooth rapport, but Pluto is interested only in subtext.
We may be having a perfectly pleasant conversation (Mercury) with a peer (Libra) on one level, while on another level it’s David up against Goliath (Pluto).
Forewarned is Forearmed
As always when a transpersonal planet is triggered by a personal one, our best bet is to get hip to it beforehand. The goal is to accept the transit’s complexity in all its paradox.
In this case, it’s about keeping an ear tuned for a certain intensity that may slip into our communications. Forewarned, we’re much more likely to notice this happening. We don’t have to do or say anything about it, necessarily; just to know, for ourselves, that what’s important will be happening between the lines.
It may be that the content being communicated is Plutonian: that is, somebody’s saying something about a makeover or a life-&-death decision. Or it may be that the subject matter is pedestrian but, on a vibrational level a far juicier drama is playing out.
To be aware of the unseen layers of these interactions is to access their creative potential.
Notes
1 For a week or so before and after pivoting retrograde or direct, a planet seems to be barely moving. It’s just creeping along its orbit, focusing sustained attention on whatever degrees of the zodiac it’s covering. This slowing-down is an optical illusion, of course, as is the whole business of retrograde motion or apparent backwards movement.
In geocentric astrology (as opposed to heliocentric, or Sun-centered), relative planetary speeds are considered from Earth’s point of view. When Pluto appears to slow down in the sky and then seems to stop momentarily in its trajectory, the effect is to single out and emphasize that particular piece of our birth chart. The apparent pause gives us a pregnant moment in which to digest its meaning.
2 If supported by other aspects, the breakdown may be more than momentary, and/or lead to a breakthrough.
