The Sun Conjoins Pluto: What if There is No Higher Purpose

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we're going to continue our exploration of the sun's conjunction with Pluto, which is happening this week in the late degrees of Capricorn. We started the week off by looking at the sun Pluto conjunction. And I really think that was a really good deep archetypal dive into the sun Pluto combination. And so, if you haven't watched the first one, I recommend going back and watching that one.

Today, we'll continue. And we're going to do kind of like a sun Pluto meditation. I've got ten radical, dark ideas that the sun Pluto may want you to consider or meditate on a sort of channeling this as an exercise for fun. And these are provocative ideas. And so I'm going to offer some qualifiers because I'm warning you right now you're going to hear some of these, and you're going to be like, huh, that rubs me the wrong way. And that's good in a sense because the sun Pluto is not an easy transit, and it brings up things that are often taboo or very difficult for us to look at or consider. So put on your I'm open to anything cap if you choose to listen to this one today. And we'll see where it goes.

All right. Well, before we get into it. As always, don't forget to like and subscribe. Share your comments and reflections, especially on this one. I'd love to hear where you go with this and what kinds of realizations or insights you have as we go along. You can find a transcript of any of my daily talks on my website, nightlight astrology.com. New classes have just started at nightlight. We have routes and spheres programs starting this week. So check those out on the website under the Courses page nightlight astrology.com Roots and Spheres, Readings and Passages start this month. So both of those are still open for enrollment if you want to join. And if you have any questions about those, you can email us info at nightlightastrology.com.

All right, let's take a look at the real-time clock before we get into our little exercise today, our Sun Pluto meditation. And let us take a look at where things are heading. So you can see here as the week begins January 16, the sun is coming into a conjunction with Pluto and late Capricorn. And we're going to continue on there; we have the conjunction around January 18. And then we have separation by 19th 20th. So by Friday of this week, you should start to see this transit fading. But this is the energy of the week, you could say, or this is the symbol of the week that we're working with.

So with that in mind, I want to talk a little bit about the sun and the death of the sun. And what that can mean from a philosophical standpoint, and how that can challenge us to consider ideas that are often downright offensive or threatening to our sense of what's real or true or good. And yet, in my experience, having especially just gone through a Pluto Sun opposition over a number of years, I've found that these are actually helpful life-giving meditations or ideas to consider. It's like when a transit comes through. It's not asking you to consider this idea, and this is the only truth ever. But it's though transits present us with archetypal thoughts and images and principles or philosophies. And it's not that one is more true than another.

In fact, one of the most beautiful things about our archetypal universe is that, apparently, all of these different philosophical points of view exist. They exist as images and as modes or trains of consciousness that we can ride on and experience life through. And they provide very different twists; it's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book; the philosophy you live by takes you down different paths, and as far as I can tell, the universe embeds within itself a variety of different truths which through which we can explore, and they may not all be viable, we may not like every some may be good for me, and one may be good for you and but as I'm seeing this in my clients lives, I realize you know, you can often tell what kind of philosophy a person is working with or considering or trying on based on the transits based on complexes in the natal chart and so forth.

Well, Pluto Sun is a very particular one, and it can be a dark and challenging one for a variety of reasons, consider the narrative of the sun, the heroic narrative of the sun. And it's interesting because I was formulating this talk, and as I was in the process of writing it, my wife, Ashley, actually shared a video with me. And I think it was Elizabeth Gilbert, who was talking about basically the exact same subject of this talk, and So I haven't watched the entire video, but I got like the gist of it, and it's exactly a sun, Pluto thing. So that was interesting that my wife was naturally, as the sun Pluto is coming through right now was naturally drawn to this post. And we were talking about Sun Pluto. And she was like, check this out. I wish I could find a link to it or something. But it was just like a fleeting thing I saw on Instagram.

Anyway, she presented it really nicely. And so we're going to present it this way, which is identical in astrology, there is a cultural narrative, we'll call it a sun narrative. And it's a philosophy, and it's a valid one; it's not wrong. I'm not trying to sit here; I'm just trying to issue some qualifiers so people don't freak out too hardcore. But it's not wrong or bad, any of what I'm about to say about the sun. But these things are deeply challenged by Pluto when the two come together when Pluto comes together with the sun.

So the sun would be the idea that you are born with a special purpose, lessons to learn, a special destiny to discover a gift, and a special unique path, a calling, right? And it's heroic to pursue that. And then generally speaking, and this is the point Elizabeth Gilbert made that I really liked, was that then you're supposed to like monetize it, or do really well or master it or become famous or successful for it. And then use that success to bolster the success of other people and build other people up and become saintly, and then develop a legacy that lives on for generations and all of this.

And this is a narrative that we all buy into. And we measure our lives by when people come to talk with me for a reading, and I don't blame them. I'm not trying to like belittle this point of view. I'm just saying it's very common. People will come in, and they'll say I just want to know what my birth chart says about my life purpose. Why am I here? What's my special calling? What am I supposed to be doing? That kind of thing. That's a sun narrative.

It's not the only way you can talk about the sun, but it's probably the most general truth. You know, archetypal is speaking that we work with as astrologers when you're talking about sun, you're talking about things like that special, unique select sense of calling, and, and purpose and so on. So when Pluto and the sun get together, things get, you could say it's like you're gonna go, you're gonna go into like an emptiness meditation.

I'm going to propose now 10 Pluto Sun meditation points. And I just want you to, like, if you can, if you don't want to do this, you don't have to, but close your eyes, get in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and take these ideas in very, very deeply, even if you discard them later. And even if they're not quite right for you. They're not ideas that are here to threaten or destroy other ideas. They are ideas to sit with and let work on us. And I'll tell you why as we go along, but it's kind of an exercise. So if you don't want to close your eyes, that's fine. But I recommend just kind of taking it in deeply and openly.

Okay, number one, the death of the sun. These are things that Pluto asks us to consider when Pluto comes and darkens the light of the sun. Number one, you have no higher purpose. That doesn't mean that life can't be interesting. It doesn't mean that life can't be beautiful or fun or joyful. But consider the idea that there is no single higher purpose that you are here to discover or fulfill. Life alone is enough.

Number two, life broadly speaking, universally speaking, and reality itself has no higher purpose. There's nothing it's here to accomplish. There's nothing it has to do. There's nothing it has to learn. Life itself and reality itself on the big level, just like the personal level, is enough. Enough on its own.

Number three, you have no major lessons to learn, no big things to accomplish when it comes to spiritual or moral growth. You don't have to become better. There is no becoming better. Consider that that is fiction. There are no major lessons to learn and no big things to accomplish. Life, just life, is enough.

Number four, you are not special. And I look at my kids, of course; I think you're so special. And I live life daily with a sense that I'm special or that things are special or that, like I said, my kids are special. But Pluto Sun asks us to consider you're not special, which does not mean that you suck, or that you're bad, or that you're terrible. Or that you're something the opposite of special, maybe like some kind of extreme opposite, like, there's something wrong with you. It just means to consider that you're not special. You're not a special case. Just being you is enough; you don't need to be special.

Your painful past doesn't make you into something special. It doesn't level you up spiritually; the trauma that you've faced and processed which has probably been very real. For a lot of people listening to this doesn't make you into something special. It just means that you're common because pain is common. We are common; pain is common. Our pain doesn't make us into something special. We are not something special. We're just alive. And that's enough.

Number six, you will likely die having lived an average and unremarkable life compared to everyone else. You will have lived, you will have done things you will have loved, you will have lost, and you will have had some spectacular moments and some very painful ones. And it will be, in that sense, unremarkable and common. That life is enough.

Numbers seven, you didn't choose your life and life situation with special angels in a heavenly planning room. Imagine for a moment that it doesn't matter how and why the circumstances of your life came about karma, past lives, past actions, special blueprints with, you know, spirit guides. Pluto Sun says just let go of all of that. Let it be a mystery. Or, at the very least, let go of feeling like you need to have control, or you need to have some kind of certain knowledge about why things have turned out the way that they have or why you were born into the body or situations or circumstances that you were you're not going to figure it out, you can't know you won't know. Consider this; just consider it. Take it in like you're breathing in an idea that can work on you, not an idea that has to cancel out every other idea.

Eight, you're not supposed to and most likely will not stand out or be masterful in your career. There will probably be many, many people who can do things as well as you can or better. And the point of your life is not to become super famous or masterful. And you probably won't even if you try. That's okay. Consider that.

Your career path will likely not involve things that you absolutely love. Things that you never get sick of, things that will make you feel every day as though you are fulfilled. Probably not. Just consider that having a job making a living going through these things is painfully dull and repetitive. For most people, even people who have jobs that maybe they like more, there will still be that element there.

And number 10, You'll be forgotten when you die. The likelihood is that within not too long after you die, maybe 100 years at most. No one will even know who you were. No one will care. They won't have some kind of animosity towards you, either. But you won't be remembered. And there won't be probably a sense of your legacy living on or people really caring about who you are, what you did, or what you thought or what you messed up on or what you didn't.

These are death of the son kinds of propositions. Now, for me taking them in, I know I'm reading them here. So I don't mean to seem like an antagonist toward you if you're listening to this and having a hard time with these ideas, because trust me when I say that these ideas are hard for me too, I'm writing them down as a reflection of what I think Sun Pluto transits can do for us.

When we talk about the death of the ego, it's a fancy term to throw around. And often, people will think that you shouldn't have an ego and ego is bad. I've never been of the opinion that that's correct; it's totally fine to have a sense of self; it's totally fine to need an inner sense of sanctity, dignity, goodness, uniqueness, and specialness.

So sometimes, what I've noticed is that when Pluto Sun ideas come up, they can be very polarizing. It can be like, well, either I'm unique, utterly with a sense of purpose, or nothing has meaning, and there is no purpose. And that's why I worked us through these propositions, you have no higher purpose, and life and reality has no higher purpose.

Can we even imagine a universe within which two things can be true at the same time, two kinds of truths can exist as experiential lenses that are both of equal value to the soul, that at times the soul's most valuable mantra will be, there does not need to be a higher purpose, there does not need to be major lessons to learn or big things to accomplish. I don't need to be special. My pain doesn't need to make me into something special. Pain is common. My life can be averaged and unremarkable. And I can die that way. Without anybody remembering me, my career will not involve mastery or great feats or accomplishments. I will not stand out. I will not have accomplished anything spiritually or morally of great, tremendous, you know, value.

Can those things be true? While at the same time, there also being a track we run on where we do have purpose and calling that we discover and rediscover a new where there is; there are seasons in which we can see the handprint of divinity on our lives and a sense of purpose. There are times which we understand that we are remarkable and special.

See, I think that one of the things that astrology has given me is the value of understanding philosophy itself. As imagistic and archetypal. These philosophies are actually like experiential lenses. And for an eternal, immortal soul traveling through a universe, it seems to me that what's important is that we understand the value of different kinds of experiences had through different lenses. And I think that the Sun lens because it's so dominant in our culture, and in this day and age anyway, it becomes really easy to polarize and split with these propositions, right? So we can't ever just have a few days where we laugh at the notion that I need to be out discovering my higher purpose all the time.

It's like sometimes you just need to stack up some basic facts to relieve yourself from the burden that that place is on you, the basic fact being that you know, your sleep a quarter of your life, you spend, you know, X amount of hours in the bathroom, you're going to spend a huge amount of time suffering, you're going to do a lot of things that are totally mundane and boring.

You know that the remarkable stuff is often few and far between, so what do we do? Do we just paint over rust? Do you know what I mean? Like so, how do we give value to this other space in our life that our life, the Dark Sun, the valley of the forgotten, the unremarkable rather than the masterful, you know, if we can't enter into this almost like Zen meditation, we just empty all of that heroic crap out right? Then it's weird how those very ideas that we think are so life-giving and we're so utterly defensive about them, they can't do their work on us; they can't have any meaning or bearing unless we have some existential connection to these other ideas.

And one of the okay, so if I just had to reflect on my own sun Pluto experience, like, you guys know that one of the big conclusions, like one of the grand finale moments for me of that entire Sun Pluto process was leaving a religious community. One of the reasons I had to do so was because no matter how hard I tried to adopt a set of doctrines and philosophies and teachings about the nature of truth, the purpose of life, the soul that all of it, there always was growing within it, a shadow, and the shadow was all of these kinds of things. And what I realized is that it's not that one was right and one was wrong. So because if I did that, then I would be like, well, there's no meaning screw religion, screw having a spiritual path or any kinds of spiritual beliefs, navigate helping me navigate my life, then I would have swung into the other end. And you know, I don't know, gotten nihilistic or something.

One of the reasons that I left the religious community was because I realized that the way in which I was having an experience of religious life was not; it didn't have enough room for these kinds of things, which are a part of me, and I value them. It took me a while to realize, no, I love you, that voice in me that sometimes it's like, Look, man, you have no higher purpose. There's not some daemon named Raphael sitting down with you with an etch a sketch, like fucking figuring your whole life out and planning your parents and, you know, giving you a set of crystals to go work with. It's like, you know, sometimes other days. I feel like, I know, I probably sound like a crazy person. But other days, there is I have a set of crystals. And you know, Gabrielle gave them to me, and, you know, and so, but why can't they both be psychic experiences? Why can't they?

I think what I'm trying to say is that we need room in our psyche for a lot of different material. We have We are multifaceted, multi-dimensional beings who have a wide variety of experiential lenses at our disposal. And I'm starting to understand that for me, living a rich psychic life means I've got to have room for this one; you are not special; I've got to have room for you will be forgotten when you die. You know, the sun's gonna burn out someday. And you know, if we saved the planet or not, it'll probably be completely irrelevant.

We are like a fart in the wind. And that kind of like those things. To me, that's a part of my psychic, the way I see and experience things. And for most people, it is for most people; if you're being honest, you will have a Pluto, a Plutonian space in your psyche that says, hey, look, you didn't choose your life situation in some special remarkable way. You don't need to know why and how everything is happening. You don't have to be here hurtling some kind of North Node lesson. There's not a big higher purpose to discover in your birth chart. Consider that Astrology can be used for something other than that particular, like the hero's journey narrative.

Most of us have to live in contact with this sort of Plutonian dimension, the hero's smashing dimension. Not that you have to hang out there all the time, but there are going to be days where the hero archetype is the dominant one. It's the one it's the thread you're following. It's the lens through which you choose the next steps in your journey. And that's okay.

But if you don't have room for these kinds of things in time, they will bang on the door, and then they will kick the door in, and they will come out A into your life in ways that feel much more violating. And the reason they do that is not that they are out there trying to get you. It's because they are a part of you that you're we are repressing, and you know what is suppressed or repressed tends to grow stronger until we have some encounter with it that seeks to allow it space and room to breathe. So, none of these things have to cancel out the solar things. But solar things cannot and should not cancel out these things either.

So consider this for today. Consider this as a sun Pluto meditation. Okay, I think that's all I have to say. I think that's good for today. I'm like; I need to go take a walk. So I hope that you guys find this to be useful, a useful way of continuing to deepen your relationship with Pluto and the sun. And let me know your thoughts and what was challenging for you about hearing some of those things or what you liked about it. I'd love to hear from you guys. Alright, that's all I've got for today. We will see you again tomorrow for our series on the Tao Te Ching for astrologers. Take it easy, everyone. Bye.