Have you felt like some aspect of your life has been simmering beneath the surface lately, as if something within you has been waiting for its moment? That’s because we’ve been moving through a retrograde season, when several of the outer planets appeared to move backward in the sky (see The Retrograde Planets of 2025: A Collective Turning Point Toward Freedom). But today, Pluto goes direct in Aquarius, and we should feel a shift!
When planets go retrograde, they invite us to turn inward, to pause and look beneath the surface, so we usually focus on the retrograde periods. The outer planets, however, are in retrograde motion almost half of the year, and their energy is amplified when they change direction. Each time one of these cosmic forces turns direct, it marks a turning point in the collective psyche.
With Uranus stationed in early September, we experienced unexpected disruptions and sudden insights. Earlier, when Neptune changed direction in July 2025, we witnessed a wave of humanitarian crises and collective developments. Now, it’s Pluto’s turn to stir the depths and storm the inner waters of transformation. Through this shift, what has been breeding underground starts to move outward. What was once hidden or internalized begins to express itself in form or in action.
Pluto rules the underworld—the realms of death, transformation, power, and rebirth. It reveals what we prefer not to look at: our fears, illusions, and mortality. During its retrograde period (from May 4 to October 13, 2025), Pluto drew us inward to shed light onto what we’ve buried or avoided. Now that it is direct in Aquarius again, all that inner work will begin to translate into outer change, both individually and collectively.
Embracing Pluto’s Transformative Energy
Pluto doesn’t have a good reputation. It instills fear, for it symbolizes death, loss, destruction, and endings. Since mythical Pluto was the ruler of the underworld, a synonym for plutonian is “infernal,” to convey the type of sorrow and despair only found in hell, if hell were a place, of course, rather than a mental concept.
But another way of looking at this is that death is really just a transformation—the change without which no life is possible, since everything in the universe results from the modification of something else: a seed has to break down to become a flower or a fruit, and that flower or fruit also has to die to yield a new seed. The world dies every night when we fall asleep, and it’s reborn when we wake up in the morning; without this pause from the ego-mind, we’d probably go insane.
Life itself is change, so experiencing loss, as painful as it may be, is how we gradually diminish our attachment to impermanent things and embrace our divine essence. Endings are really beginnings of something new, pain helps us mature and accept our mortality, and destruction can also set the foundation for something better.
In this sense, Pluto embodies our power to create, destroy, transmute, and transcend our mental entrapments. The planet itself lost its position as the ninth planet of our solar system whens scientists demoted it by classifying it as a “dwarf planet,” but Pluto continued orbiting the Sun as usual, which is a clear expression of the energy this archetype embodies. No matter how hard things get, we hold the power to shift our perception and move forward, creating new possibilities of experience.
Embracing this energy means aligning with its transformational current rather than resisting it. It’s about facing what we fear and what we tend to avoid. The parts of ourselves we hide, the emotions we suppress, and the endings we resist are doorways to our rebirth. When we uncover and explore them, we reclaim the energy they hold. We stop scattering our power and begin living from it. We discover inner resources and solutions for the things we’ve been trying to avoid because they made us uncomfortable or scared.
Doing the Work Pluto Requires
When we have clarity and options, we can think ahead, and life becomes less threatening and overwhelming. The anxiety of everyday survival recedes to the light of discrimination, so we may have the space to discover our real purpose and to live more authentically, in alignment with our unique (and infinite) potential. And that’s the true, core Pluto motivation.
Doing Pluto work might look like:
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Speaking your truth by listening to and trusting yourself; speaking your truth even if it’s uncomfortable to you or someone else; and speaking truth to power whenever it’s needed to effect karmic balance.
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Releasing what must die, whether it’s an old identity, a relationship, or a belief that no longer fits or that holds you back.
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Uncovering your dark aspects, no matter how scary they may seem, with the light of awareness rather than rejecting, numbing, or intellectualizing them. You are the Light; everything else is the ego-mind projecting a human dreamworld.
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Reclaiming your power by choosing love rather than fear and freedom rather than guilt. You don’t owe anything to anyone, and nobody owes you anything either, because nothing belongs to anyone; it’s all Divine Consciousness unfolding on its own.
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See life as an ongoing transformation in your daily life and in your habits, choices, and relationships.
As Pluto moves through Aquarius, these themes will expand beyond the personal. Aquarius rules the collective mind, technology, and community. Pluto here exposes the shadow of control, conformity, and disconnection while inviting all of us to rebuild from truth to create systems and technologies that honor authenticity and freedom rather than dominance or fear (see The Power of Pluto in Aquarius and Other Important Changes Ahead).
To honor this moment, take time to reflect on what truth has been waiting to emerge in you. Ask yourself: What am I afraid to face, and what would happen if I stopped running from it? What is ready to die so something new can emerge? Mark the shift with a simple ritual: writing down what you’re ready to release, burning it, and then affirming your intention to embody your transformation and open up to new possibilities.
Pluto reminds us that real transformation requires depth and clarity. So contact me today to receive the guidance needed to conquer your fears, and to allow what no longer serves you to fall away so you can emerge stronger, clearer, and more whole than before as you gain emotional and spiritual freedom!
P.S. If you’re not ready to work with me as your spiritual mentor to delve deeply within, you can learn about the workings of the ego-mind to transform your perception and experience by implementing the Swan Method I share in You Are Your Healer: The Ultimate Guide to Heal Your Past, Transform Your Life & Awaken to Your True Self!
© 2025 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.