Mercury is Squaring Pluto — Horoscopes for All 12 Signs

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology [https://nightlightastrology.com/].

Today we're going to take a look at Mercury squaring Pluto from Scorpio to Aquarius, and we're going to do horoscopes for all 12 signs. In today's horoscopes, I'm going to be focusing on the two houses that are activated through the square in your natal chart.

I recommend listening to this for your rising sign. You can always listen for your sun sign, but the rising sign horoscope will correspond with the whole sign house version of your birth chart, which will give you an accurate sense of where the transit is actually traveling in your birth chart. That's the Hellenistic ancient astrological chart view. Anyhow, so that's what I typically recommend on the channel anyway. That's our agenda for today.

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So all of that's also on the website, under the readings page. Okay, well enough announcements. Let's move on to the real time clock. Remind ourselves of what the heck is going on. Here we are Tuesday, October 7. And wouldn't you know it, we have Mercury squaring Pluto. That square perfects if you're listening to this in the morning; it perfects the morning of October 7.

It was definitely in effect yesterday, and we did some coverage on the channel of the square yesterday, along with the full moon in Aries, a nice deep dive into the connection between that full moon and the square today. So go back and listen to that if you haven't yet. Today we're going to do horoscopes.

Mercury square to Pluto from an archetypal standpoint is again something I covered yesterday. So if you want more of a breakdown of how the two planets combine, go check that out. What I'm going to do today is a breakdown of your horoscopes for rising sign, and again, you could listen to this for your sun sign as well.

Now the specific approach that I've taken, I want to say something about that so you understand it. This past year, I taught a master class on what are called the purusharthas, which are the four major philosophical domains of human life, the kinds of things that human beings spend most of their time doing or interested in.

We're broken into four areas of life, and those four areas of life were mapped onto the houses. There were three houses devoted to each of the areas of life. There's Dharma, there's Artha, Kama and Moksha. Broadly speaking, dharma has to do with that sense of duty and what is real and true. So the first house the Ascendant is called Dharma, for example, because it has to do with who you are and what the truth of your own nature and character is.

That journey of self discovery where we say, who am I? What is the truth of who I am? That belongs to the domain of dharma, which is why, when we study astrology, when we study spiritual, philosophical traditions, we're also studying Dharma, in a sense, because we're studying what is real or true about reality itself.

So that's dharma. Artha has to do with the maintenance of human life in the material world, paying your bills, developing skills and abilities, making money, maybe developing some sense of power or influence in the world, hopefully in a constructive and positive way. Right? So Artha is about the material side of things.

Kama has to do with pleasure. How satisfying are my relationships? Do I feel essentially or sexually satisfied? Do I have a meaningful sense of social or existential fulfillment? Like just, do I feel happy, and how do I define and pursue happiness, emotionally, psychologically? And then Moksha has to do with the liberation of attachments from the world altogether.

But Moksha is like enlightenment and liberating ourselves from entanglements that suck the soul. Moksha really is, in some ways, the final purpose of all the purusharthas, insofar as we are seeking some form of spiritual enlightenment. Now, you don't have to believe any of that necessarily, but those are the purusharthas, and it becomes really interesting to look at horoscopes through the lens of the purusharthas and how they converse with one another through something like a square, in this case, a square between Mercury and Pluto.

So what I've done is I have outlined some brief ways of thinking about the connection between Mercury and Pluto through two houses that have two different purushartha natures. I think that you'll find this interesting, and for me, it becomes a way of getting, once again, creative with horoscopes.

So let's get into it. We're going to start with Aries, work our way around the wheel, and I'm going to tell you about the purusharthas for the Mercury Pluto pairing and how they show up. So for Aries, you're going to have Mercury in your eighth and Pluto in your 11th. This eighth house is a Moksha house, and the 11th house is a Kama house.

So we think of freedom from complicated or unhealthy entanglements or attachments or anything or anyone that becomes a resource that facilitates our spiritual or psychological liberation from anything that's unhealthy. And then in the 11th house, we think about that broader arena socially of fulfillment and happiness.

And so when these two areas get together, the Moksha of the eighth and the Kama of the 11th, we're often thinking about the kinds of entanglements that we have that are conducive to the kinds of social or emotional entanglements we have that we think are somehow necessary for our happiness, socially or professionally, but where there could be a real tax, a real penalty, karmically, for continuing to try to find happiness through different kinds of social bonds and entanglements that are maybe not necessarily the healthiest.

So broadly speaking, when eight and 11 get together in a square like this, we're often thinking about social fulfillment and happiness versus karmic entanglements. And ideally, the best kind of happiness comes from the healthiest kinds of connections to other people. So explorations of those topics will be normal right now for Aries during this little square.

So hopefully that makes sense to kind of like set you up to understand how I've broken these down. Let's keep going for Taurus. We're talking about Mercury in the seventh house and Pluto in the 10th. Now, the seventh house is another Kama house, and the 10th house is an Artha house.

So the seventh house, we're talking about Kama happiness, as in interpersonal happiness, marriage, sex, relationships, and the sense of fulfillment or happiness that's derived from meaningful relationships with other human beings. I mean one of the most popular areas of astrological inquiry, right? Who will I marry? How will I do in relationships? Will I meet someone? Will I be happy? Are we a good match?

The 10th house, an Artha house, has to do with material prosperity, power, reputation, development of skills and abilities, development of things like notoriety or mastery over certain skills or abilities. The path of your career and how it provides, sustains and supports some level of material happiness or material gain or resources.

And so when these two areas come into a square with one another, the conversation is between interpersonal happiness, fulfillment, depth and satisfaction around emotional connections with other living beings, and the need to continue developing power, strength, reputation, ability, success, professionally. So questions about material advancement, professional advancement, public and let's call it vocational advancement versus a real emphasis on the need for pleasure and positive forms of connection and fulfillment interpersonally.

So you can see how those things are clashing right now for Tauruses, and that becomes a nice, like philosophical way of thinking about the square. All right, let's move on to Gemini, where Mercury is going to be in your sixth house, and Pluto is going to be in your ninth house. So this is in the sixth house, an Artha house, a work of the world kind of house, a material house that has to do with hustling, grinding, daily work, daily sacrifice, daily duties and obligations, and the grind that can really wear on you.

Because the sixth house is really the kind of, you've heard me say it before on the channel, the chop wood, carry water house. I'm probably not the first person who said that, either, but the ninth house is a Dharma house, and so we're thinking about questions of what is true, what is real, the pursuit of philosophical or spiritual wisdom, teachers, gurus, religious and spiritual traditions, universities, the pursuit of truth and higher understanding.

So when these two come together, we're talking, for example, about the daily work or daily apprenticing, or the kind of daily grind and how it meets or matches with a higher philosophical or spiritual vision of life. In other words, my daily work should ideally be in service to some higher belief set that I have.

Or am I working? Often the sixth and the ninth, like an apprentice developing skills, abilities, studying. When the sixth and the ninth get together, there's sometimes that feeling of like I'm studying for an exam, or I'm grinding away trying to learn new skills and abilities through teachers and programs.

Even studying astrology is very sixth and ninth house. Remember my Saturn Return was taking place when I was really like rapidly taking all the classes I could starting my career as an astrologer. There's a lot of 6/9 house transits going on. So the daily grind of learning and developing skills that could become marketable, but right now might be quite a bit of labor and work and effort.

So the conversation is between the worldly grind and the hard work, sacrifices and effort that go into that world versus the world of the pursuit of higher truth and wisdom. And so those two things are coming into conversation as the realm of Artha, material concerns and Dharma, the concern with higher truth, are kind of communicating with one another.

All right, let's go on to Cancer, where we bring Mercury in Scorpio into the fifth house and Pluto into the eighth. Now we're talking about a Dharma house in the fifth house, and that Moksha house again with the eighth. So when we think about these two houses, the fifth house, we're thinking about what is the truth of my own nature as it exists in playful, creative romantic relationships with other beings.

For example, we have children in pregnancy here as a natural expression of my creative essence. But we also have things like art and creative fulfillment in a more broad way. The Dharma of the Fifth house is the one's creative dharma. How does the truth of one's nature speak and express itself creatively in the world and with other beings?

So it's kind of like creative authenticity in the fifth house, whereas the eighth house, again, has to do with entanglements that we have karmically with other people, the give and take of those relationships, the debts and obligations that we have to other people and they have to us. And so we're talking about creative authenticity and karmic entanglements: joy, and the joy that's derived from your own creative nature, and the kinds of things that may hinder or prevent that creative nature from showing itself, because of obligations that we might have, or entanglements that we have to other people.

Where someone might be a suppressive personality, or we may feel like we have to hold ourselves back because there's a certain amount of ourselves that we feel obligated to give to other people, time, energy, etc. So ideally, the two houses get together to facilitate greater creative freedom and less unhealthy attachments or entanglements that prevent a sense of creative authenticity or flow.

Okay, let's go forward now to Leo rising, where Mercury comes into your fourth house, and Pluto's in your seventh. This is a Moksha house in the fourth and the Kama house, again in the seventh. So what we're looking at here in the fourth house, the Moksha really has to do with that private space. You can think of it like your bedroom, going to sleep at night, coming home from the office to your living environment, where ideally there is rest and release from the world.

The home space, the roots, the interior, private world of the fourth; it's almost like the resting state. And sometimes this place was literally called the resting place. So that resting place of the fourth is in conversation with Pluto in the seventh house, which is a Kama house, which has to do with pleasure and a sense of happiness that's derived from our interpersonal connections with other living beings.

So the question here becomes, are my relationships something that has easy access to the most deep, resting, nourishing, private, liberating spaces, or are my relationships something that the price is too high? It's killing my peace, you know, it's killing my ability to relax and feel safe and at ease and comfortable.

Questions about relationships and home and family, questions about peace in the interior, deep, private side of our lives, versus the kinds of people that we are in relationships with. And so there's questions about peace, privacy, stability, ease, material and emotional security and happiness in relationships that are coming into question or that are coming into a kind of tension with one another.

And I think another question that could be asked right now is, how is family karma playing a role within relationships? Those are all fourth to seventh house questions. That's for Leos. So we'll move ahead to Virgo next, where Mercury is in your third and Pluto is in your sixth. So with this one, we're really thinking about the third house is a Kama house that has to do with pleasure and bliss and happiness, and we're thinking about the sixth house as an Artha house.

Well, this is interesting because the two houses, when they work together, the third house as a Kama house needs a little explaining. First of all, when we think about Kama, we're thinking about personal, emotional, psychological fulfillment and happiness. But this house is very independent and very personal and subjective, which means that the happiness here is really derived from your own following, acknowledging, honoring, developing your own psychological, emotional, intellectual impulses.

So for example, you know your ability to regulate honor, work with your words, thoughts and feelings come through this house, your ability to take the impulses of things that you desire and follow them, and through practice and work and learning, develop skills because you want those skills, because you desire them, and it will make you happy if you develop them.

That's the kind of thing that comes through this Kama House. It's so much about personal fulfillment, psychologically, emotionally, through things that we have to learn or develop or learning how to express our words and feelings and things like that. The sixth house, again, an Artha house, has to do with the daily work and grind of the world.

And so in these two houses, you can see a potential conflict between the need to feel free and flowing emotionally psychologically in communication. And the feeling, on the other hand, that life is full of conflict and work and a grind that is kind of entrapping, or feels like a kind of enslavement. And so the feeling of not being free, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, because you're tied up in duties and burdens and obligations and work, and a feeling of servitude or something like that can be a strong possibility for this combination.

On the other hand, whatever you're working on developing right now as skills and abilities that require work and effort, and also an honoring or acknowledging of your own makeup, psychologically and mentally. And you say, This is who I am, and this is what I'm going to work on and refine and develop a skill and ability to communicate or express a particular subject that you're going to learn and master.

So there's a lot here that can be supportive of learning and developing raw emotional, psychological material into practical or tangible skills. All right, well, let's move on now, and we'll put Libra on the ascendant, and now we get the second and fifth house dynamic, with Mercury in the second and Pluto in the fifth.

So the second house, an Artha house, has to do with material resources, support and the most basic level, it's paying the bills, putting a roof over your head, clothing on your back, you know, all of that stuff, food on the table, etc. But it also extends from there to material assets that are supposed to be giving a greater degree of happiness or a feeling of security.

So and this also, this house has to do with anything we develop or cultivate that can lend itself toward greater material security and enjoyment. So skill development can be in this house as well, especially when Mercury is there. And the fifth house Dharma has to do with the creative authenticity that we were talking about just a little bit ago.

So when these two houses come into contact with one another, there's questions about how to develop material assets, skills, resources, security, even wealth, while not straying too far from your creative essence or being somehow able to channel authentic creative dimensions of who you are into the kinds of skills, abilities, things that you do to earn a living, or ways that you utilize your resources.

So there's a conversation between creative essence and material wealth or security for Libras right now. All right, let's move forward to Scorpios. Now we get that first house, fourth house, dynamic with Mercury in the first and Pluto in the fourth, a Dharma house in the first. What is my essential, authentic nature as a person, as an individual? The fourth house Moksha: Where do I find that sense of rest, ease, release from the world, in the private sphere of my own psyche, or the private sphere of my own home?

Where do I find liberation from worldly things? Rest, peace, ease, release. So conversations between personal authenticity, personal nature, personal character, what makes me most authentically myself and what exists in that private sphere of life, and how is it connected to my authentic self? The first house is sometimes falsely called a house of Persona, or a house of your social persona, or something like that.

That's false. That's not actually a thing. The first house is who you are. However, all of us have different levels or layers of who we are, and the fourth house is often a bit more private, and there's a fewer people that usually have access to that kind of fourth house part of us. It's just naturally more private.

It's a little bit more secretive, it's a little bit more inner, it's a little less spoken or externalized. That doesn't mean it's more authentic, it's just a different aspect of who we are. So questions between the first and the fourth will often be about a level at which we're more seen, and there's more of a social interface to who we are.

But the question of authenticity is still very important. It's not false, it's not a fake personality, and some need for the inner or more private dimension of our life to be in touch with the social interface part of our character. So those two spaces, the first and the fourth are in dialog right now for Scorpios.

Also questions about identity and family background, health and family background could be coming up for Scorpios as well. All right, for Sagittarians, we have Mercury is in the 12th house, and we have Pluto in the third. So the 12th house, a Moksha house, a place of liberation. The third house a Kama house.

This is interesting, because the third house, the Kama house, as a place where we honor and acknowledge psychological, mental, emotional impulses, and we allow them to shape the things we do and how we feel pleasure. It's just, in a way, the third house is like your ego. It's that subjective center, the sense of self that we have and its emotional, psychological, mental dimensions, and how they express themselves, how they lead us to develop certain kinds of abilities or interests and so forth.

That's how Vedic astrologers look at the third house. The 12th house, a Moksha house, that's about liberation from the ego. And so it becomes a very interesting dynamic where withdrawal into silence versus allowing the mind and emotions to be dominant could come up, or dissolution of the ego versus honoring and acknowledging its constant interests and self expression and movements mentally and emotionally.

Transcendence and release from the world, versus the ego's attachment to its own mental, subjective center. These are the kinds of tensions that come up between a Moksha house in the 12th and that Kama, mental, emotional Kama, quality of the third. This is why, by the way, in Hellenistic astrology, the third house is called the joy of the moon.

Okay, let's go on to Capricorn. And here we see Mercury in the 11th, and Pluto in the second. So here in the 11th, we are back in the Kama house of broadly speaking, social fulfillment, social the realization of some social level of happiness, some more societal, or social collective dimension of happiness that we all need or have some connection to, some more than others.

The second house is a material Artha house that has to do with material security, comfort, ease, resources, money, wealth, acquisitions, etc. So here we're really talking about the relation between social Kama and material Artha. So questions about social happiness, social belonging, social fulfillment, and things like material wealth, comfort, ease, resources and values are coming into dialog or even conflict right now.

So that's the way of looking at it for Capricorns. All right, for Aquarius rising, we have Mercury in the 10th and we have Pluto in the first. So now we're in the space of Artha again, in the 10th house and Dharma in the first. This is classic for Aquarians, the clash between work in the world, prestige, reputation, mastery, notoriety, success, ability to be persuasive or influential in the world with your skills and knowledge and vocation, your public facing self and your Dharma, your authentic, true selfhood.

And those two things in the first and the 10th are constantly in communication. For all of us, it's like, is what I'm doing in the world a reflection of my authentic nature? You know, it's that simple, and that that's really where the conversation is occurring for Aquarians. Finally, we have Pisces with Mercury in the ninth and Pluto in the 12th.

So the ninth is a Dharma house. The 12th a Moksha house. The ninth house of Dharma has to do with the question of like dharma. In the first, what is authentic to who I am, what is real about who I am? Fundamental. The ninth house asks that question to reality itself, or to God or the gods themselves, what is real? What is true in the broadest, universal sense.

That's why this place is the House of Wisdom and education and learning in the higher mind. The 12th house has to do with Moksha, or liberation from the world itself, enlightenment, loss of control, loss of ego, the dissolution of all things. And so we're thinking about a structured way of knowing versus the dissolution of all kinds of things that we try to hold on to.

I think quite frequently, when these two houses connect, that people go into states of Gnosis or mystical forms of knowing or union that transcend the intellectual forms of understanding that we often learn in more linear mindsets. Even if they're both necessary, the conversation between these two areas can be a little intense, because on the one hand, we want to know and understand something, then the other hand, the 12th has a way of undermining any kind of control or semblance of understanding, and there's this almost need to surrender.

So also, we could be talking about the sense of purpose and meaning that we need, versus some inability to understand something, or the way that, by coming into contact with the unconscious, with unconscious dimensions of our own lives, we come into greater awareness or understanding of truth. That's also a very ninth house, 12th house, kind of dynamic.

So that's the Dharma and the Moksha of those two houses speaking. All right. Well, I hope that this has been a good, useful exploration of your Mercury Pluto dynamic in your birth chart. Just throwing in a very interesting philosophical twist that can help us. You know, obviously we're kind of reminding ourselves of the house topics, but using a philosophical angle on them that I think can kind of get flip open the hood a little bit more, see the wiring and consider it in a new and interesting way.

So on that note, I will leave you with the informational video about the year one program comes next. Stick around. Check it out. Starts again November 8. Can't wait for a new group of students. This is easily the best thing I've created: the community, the sort of lineage of Nightlight, the way that the programs work, to bring you both technical, philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of the whole history of astrology, but also give you that intuitive, artful ability to work with people in a modern kind of counseling based setting.

That's the goal of all of our work, and it's really accessible for people who are hobby students, or people who really want to practice for others, or sort of something for everyone in the way that it's set up. So I hope to see some of you there soon. Be sure to also take advantage of that need based tuition if you need it.

Alright, that's it. Bye.