hey starstuff,

it’s official, i’m getting my ass kicked during this transit, primarily in the realm of unconditional love. i’m over half-way into it, thank the goddess, 14 months to be exact. ah yes, it’s the 14 month birth-day of my littlest one, and it’s been emotional over here. my entire world of family has been rocking pretty hard since the birth of my second. both of my kids have landed in my life with the striking resemblance of a natural disaster. or at least their entrances left a similar wake of one.

but you know, my 4th house, the house of home, is in taurus. and so are my two kids’. the vibes around here are decidedly… earthquakey, particularly since the big conjunction on april 20th, when jupiter was conjunct uranus. both of the kids have uranus there too, and each has a personal planet there (moon and venus). aaand, my ceres is there. let’s break it down.

uranus: sudden revolutionary psychic shifts.

moon: emotional and instinctual world, closely resembles relationship with the mama/primary caregiver

venus: all about love… how do you love? how do you receive love? what means love to you?

ceres: the mama asteroid. ceres = cereal, goddess of agriculture. how we nurture, how we receive nurturing.

4th house: the house of home, family, the role you play in your family of origin

taurus: consistency, dependable, slow and steady, sensual (of the senses), laid back

put it all together and what do we have? our home life is consistently and dependably always offering moments to shift ourselves, individually and together, as a family, with a whole lot of big and demonstrative emotions, a whole lotta love (whoa, so much love), and a strong and heavy dose of nurturance. everyone’s inner child is coming out to play (and fight), and everyone is getting parented (whether re-parented, or for the first time… at least in this go-around).

we’re all learning SO much about what it means to create a stable and healthy home life. i grew up in an abusive home, and my partner grew up in two very different homes, following a very contentious initial five years before his parents split up. why i didn’t realize how challenged i would feel to create a healthy and happy home, given our histories, amuses me.

i’d actually (temporarily) figured out how to be “me” really well before my partner, and our little family, came along. i was in a really great place when i met him. i loved myself, i loved my home, i loved my life and what i was doing with my energy and time. hence why it was the perfect time for him to walk through the door, and offer my first experience of this earthquake energy that bestows our familial foundation. when i retell the story of how we met, i always include the anecdote about how he walked in the bake shop i was working, and i literally felt the ground beneath me shake. the moment after he left the shop a few minutes later, my coworker called from the back “what was that?!” and i called back “more like, who was that?!” and we laughed and laughed.

so what the heck does this all have to do with my pluto square pluto transit? as with all big generational transits, the only way to really embody it, is to live through it. and never have i ever had a transit where the current transits happening in the sky within this personal transit timeframe has such massive impact on me. the transits up above are unfolding, and, like clockwork, i can attribute happenings in my life so clearly to the archetypes showing up. and through using these archetypes to make meaning out of the ongoings in my life, i feel even better aligned with my soul’s purpose. the path is far from clear, but behind me there’s the equivalence of the propulsion of a steam train shoving me in the direction i’m headed, and it’s impossible to switch tracks now.

pluto is unrelenting in its demands that you drop anything that isn’t serving your soul to evolve into its highest potential. it’s about losing it, sometimes losing it all. in my case, i was “lucky” to have a personal pluto transit happen about four years ago, where i started this process, so i’ve already been working on letting things die, and then welcoming the inevitable rebirth.

pluto is also about power struggles and control issues. if being a parent during the early childhood years isn’t anything but power struggles and control issues, i don’t know what is. and while yes, it’s hyperbole to say this, i’m absolutely serious, and that’s literally what my life has been the last 14 months (and then some). little kids wield so much power. and they really like to show you where you need to relinquish control. and like i said above, i really loved my solo, pre-partner, pre-children life. i had it all “figured out.” i knew myself. and then this wild little bunch of people came knocking on my door, moved in, and announced themselves as my family. to be honest, i’ve resisted it a lot. prior to this phase of life, family was not a safe word in my heart and head. and so i resisted. and then i got broken down, softened, chose love. and then i’d build my walls back up, and resist. and then i’d get knocked off my wall, and feel vulnerable and warm and safe again. and then i’d build my walls back up, and resist. and so on.

but you know what? this pluto transit is implementing the evolution in my being. this shift that i’ve wanted for so long. because my heart knew that it was better and safer to be soft and vulnerable and loving and loved. but it required me to give up on the fight, and to accept defeat.

and today, i am defeated. i have surrendered. the white flag’s a-flying.

the ironic thing, of course, is that i’ve lost the war on unconditional love. that’s the winner here. all along, i’ve been fighting against this magic elixir that creates happy and healthy families. it occurred to me this evening when i apologized to my kid for the millionth time for being unfairly grumpy with him. i felt this really old familiar experience of being sick of my shit, you know? this go-around in my being of having a hard moment, then giving myself a hard time for having a hard moment, and then promising to myself that i’m going to work hard so that i don’t have as many hard moments, and then having another hard moment and feeling frustrated, cuing the cycle to begin again.

but it dawned on me in that very moment, as i repaired with him and told him i loved him at least five times in a row, and held his precious little hand as he drifted off to sleep, feeling the solidity and dependability in my loving nurturing ways… it dawned on me that THIS is what unconditional love is, loving myself and my very humanness (aka “my shit”) so much that i nestle myself in the warm, loving arms of the “great mother” archetype that unconditionally loves all of me, her child, whether i’m coming from my vulnerable little heart, or i’m reacting from a place of hurt. and all of this, so that i may emulate my own inner “great mother” to offer to my children… and all of their shit.

gosh, please share something, anything, if this is resonating. it’s so difficult to iterate! but i’m sharing here because what is clear to me is that i’ve got to keep going deeper. i have pluto on my midheaven. midheaven = vocation. pluto = depth. so i’m continuing to plunge to the depths of pluto during this fascinating transit, as it relates to the work my soul was put on this planet to do in this life. and as my kid says when he jumps on his dad’s back… “i’m on for the ride!”

ps. instead of listening to awesome music for the duration of this writing, i’ve honestly just been listening to the white noise through the baby monitor and the dishwasher going this entire time.

so i’ll share that every spare minute these days i’m listening to the audiobook of “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. it’s honestly one of the most beautiful books i’ve ever heard, my mind and heart are both expanding with her kind and generous wisdom, and her voice is the audio equivalent of the scent of sweetgrass… gentle and tender. if you’re on spotify, it’s there. i can’t recommend enough. thanks to dear moe for suggesting i read it many moons ago.