11 Feb 2010

Pluto and the art of reinventing yourself

I spotted this this graffiti on a boarded up entrance in the city of York. The building on the other side of the enclosure looked like an empty warehouse. It was dilapidated, awaiting attention, demolition, destruction, reinvention, regeneration. If and when someone starts using it again it could take on a different form and have a different use. If you look at the bottom left hand corner you'll see there are already suggestions in graffiti of a hotel, and flats.

I photographed these words as they reminded me of how we, when we're undergoing a lot of change and feel the need to reinvent ourselves, or change direction and do something new, are getting a big nudge from Pluto. Responding to the call of Pluto is not for the fainthearted because making changes often means giving things up, things which are a cosy and safe part of our existence, things through which we identify ourselves. This takes courage and demands we engage our will, through using the Sun, the planet associated with the mind, which we use to choose, decide and ultimately to create with.

The potential creativity of choosing to be something else was what drew my attention to these words. They provoked me to wonder what else I could be if I wasn't a professional astrologer, a writer, a teacher of astrological psychology and all the other things I am that I could list here.

Pluto is not always about tough, cataclysmic destruction. It can be about making conscious changes as and when we know the time is right, and more importantly, when we also feel the time is right and has come. So take away this thought-provoking piece of graffiti and ask yourself, "What else could I be?". Choose wisely, too - you may be starting on the next big step in your life.

3 comments:

Em said...

I think its such a healthy thing to push oneself further and think how we could make positive changes to each of our lives.

Barbara said...

Hi Joyce,

You know D and us, we are working with all our changes.So all this change talk is not scaring us- we are there !

Pluto is a very strong planet; I remember once a text comparing it to a Phoenix which rises from it's flames.

I believe that the stronomers no longer consider it a planet. But for the astrologers it still lives on I think !!

xx

P.S. I love the picture :)

Joyce Hopewell said...

Thank you both! Yes, Pluto does have its positive side(although it doesn't always feel this way). The Phoenix is an image strongly associated with Pluto - that rising again, renewed.

A small, unrepresentative group of astronomers demoted Pluto a couple of years ago, but all the astrologers I know still use it!