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 Pluto opposes my sun from the seventh house: A case study
  or Fun, fun, fun ‘til my Daddy takes my ego away

For the past two years I have been plagued by a series of problems that range in severity from the mundane to the disastrous. I have Pluto in Sagittarius the seventh house opposing my sun in Gemini in the first.

When this phenomenon was still only on the horizon for me, I opened up my trusty copy of "Planets in Transit," by Robert Hand, and took stock of the impending opposition situation. He begins by saying: "This can be an extremely difficult period for relationships, both intimate and casual, because you are likely to get involved in power struggles with others." Hand goes on to say that either I will try to dominate others, or they will try to dominate me.

The next thing Hand warns of is that "this transit may trigger off a conflict with persons in authority over you, such as a boss, a government official or someone in a similar position... be very careful."

Since this sounded ominous, I looked to "The Gods of Change; Pain, Crisis and the Transits of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto," by Howard Sasportas, for some additional information. Of Pluto's transits of the sun he says:

If we have been out of touch with the sphere of life symbolized by the planet Pluto is aspecting by transit, we have a chance to reconnect to and develop that side of ourselves. In the case of the sun, this means further developing our power and authority. Pluto will bring about changes by choice (we decide to change), or by coercion (the outside decides it for us). In either situation, it is time to explore other levels or dimension of the principle represented by the planet Pluto is contacting. In the case of the Sun, instead of exercising our authority in an already existing career, we may need to find another outlet though which to define and express ourselves."

After having studied Astrology since I was eleven, starting with Linda Goodman's "Sun Signs," I don't know what I believe anymore. But here is a timeline of how Pluto has been working for (or on) me. You be the judge.

SEPT 1999
(Pluto conjunct ascendant approaching sun opposition— 4 degrees from exact)

I am enrolled in the American Film Institute Screenwriting program and freelancing regularly as an art director and copywriter at the WBTV network. I'm halfway through a screenplay and making enough money to live, hoping that the permanent job which was open at Warner Bros. TV will soon be mine. I fly to Massachusetts to see my best friend. The flight is delayed for three hours on the tarmac in Chicago. I miss my connection in NY and have to spend all night awake at La Guardia airport, watching my luggage and wondering how I can make American Airlines suffer. I get soaked when my plane finally lands in Rhode Island in the middle of a storm. The next day, I get the flu.

OCT 1999

Back in LA, I suffer with a constant low-grade fever which finally erupts into full blown influenza. I am so fiery at one point, that I become convinced I could die because there is no one to drive me to the emergency room. I finally get an ice pack and come to my senses.

NOV 1999
(Pluto approaching opposition — 3 degrees from exact)

I am beginning to see that the film business, as far as screenwriting goes, is not for me. My teachers, as one, have told me that my screenplay doesn’t work in a traditional way. If I don’t write in the style they think best, they can't help me. Warner Bros. hires someone else for the design job I wanted, and no longer calls me to do copy writing. I do get a call from an old friend at "Variety," who tells me she has a few months of freelance work for me, during the Academy Awards season beginning in January. We arrange to have lunch to talk about it. In the meantime, a woman from Washington DC I'd met months before, in whom I was interested, comes to town on business. We make a date for that evening. The date goes well and I spend the night. The next day, in anticipation of a weekend as her hostess, I clean my house, light a fragrant candle, and hurry to my meeting at "Variety." I am very tired, having slept little the night before. "Did I blow out that candle before I left?"

Three hours later I return to my house, which is now surrounded by fire engines, and watch as one of a group of gathered neighbors slowly approaches. He places me my just-asphyxiated, favorite cat in my arms. I am now certain I didn't blow out the candle.

I call my new gal pal, Carey, and tell her she will not be staying with me, since I burned my house down. Not an auspicious way to begin a relationship, I fear.
We spend the weekend in her hotel room in Century City. Surveying my options, I get ready to move into my landlady's attic. She is a good friend, offering to help in any way. I am amazed, since I just burned her guesthouse to a crisp. Farmer's insurance company representatives come the next day to say that it should only take two months to rebuild the cottage — then everything will be okay. It will
be finished by the end of January

Two days later I receive a letter from the State of New Mexico telling me I owe
them back taxes in the amount of $1,300. Of course I do.

DEC 1999
(Pluto approaching opposition — 1 degrees from exact)

The attic is not really working for me. I need a place to hang the few clothes I have and to be able to stand erect. Plus, Sharon, my landlady, generous though she is, is a small person with a big personality. 850-sq. ft. is not enough room for the both of us. I go away to meet Carey for a rendezvous, and decide, upon returning, that I should move in with my parents. My friend Robyn is glad to hear I'm moving. She thinks Sharon is too bossy. "You'd better get out of there," she orders, "I mean it." Moving in with my parents turns out to be a disaster from the first day. I am too old to put up with their disapproval of everything I do, and vice versa. I am miserable most of each day. I suspect they are too.

But I am given a reprieve. Old friends, the Manocchias, whom I have known since I was two years old, invite me to live with them in the Valley until my house is rebuilt. I spend New Year's eve at my parents' house, thinking that the world blowing up for the millennium would save me a lot of work. Two days later, I take my four boxes of possessions and move to Burbank.

JAN 2000
(Pluto opposition — exact)

Living with John and Mary Manocchia is nice. I have my own room and bathroom
in an unused part of the house. They treat me like a daughter, but not their daughter. I start working three days per week at "Variety" and I buy a cell phone.

It turns out that the digital signal is intermittent in the part of LA where I work, and dead in Burbank where I'm living. My, now-girlfriend in DC calls every day, but I have to drive two miles from the house to return her calls. I don't bother to call anyone else, since it is too much work. The insurance company is stalling on payment and the reconstruction is only now beginning. Now I think it should be done by the end of March.

One night, after having dinner with Sharon, I begin to feel ill. I rush home to go to the bathroom, and my body starts to expel its contents from either end. I am up all night, sicker than I've been in years. By morning I am still feeling terrible. Mary, a LVN, is concerned, but I tell her whatever it is just needs to run its course. I am supposed to fly to DC in three days. The next night I ask Mary to take me to the emergency room at 3:00 a.m. After waiting two hours, I finally get a Compazine IV to cease the nonstop cramping in my stomach and colon and am rehydrated. The doctor prescribes antibiotics and anti-nausea pills. I wonder how
I will swallow them.

The illness lasts for seven days, during which I am only feeling marginally better each day. I cancel my trip. I lose 10 lbs. (I don't recommend this diet for everyone.) I return to work.

Two weeks later I get a call from a LA county nurse asking me about my e.coli. I don't know what she's talking about. She explains that the cultures they took at the emergency room turned out to be e.coli. She asks what I ate — particularly foods of a bovine nature — during the three days preceding the onset of symptoms. I know it was not the prime rib from John Manocchia's Masonic banquet. That would have killed eighty senior citizens, and I am the only one who got ill. It must have been the hotdog.

FEB 2000
(Pluto opposition — exact)

I bite into a cracker and one of my molars crumbles, plus my bonding is looking pretty shabby. I begin months of expensive and painful dental work. Also, I go to a dermatologist to find out why the odd blemishes on my skin have not cleared up in over a year. She tells me it is adult acne, and gives me some Retin-A.

I finally travel to DC to get a look at Carey's life. My plane is delayed for eight hours. I am getting used to airport food. Once I arrive, I am unsurprised to see that Carey's life looks far better than mine. It also looks like the construction back home won't be done until the end of April. I spend my off-time looking for new furniture, which I can't afford, hanging out with Mary or Robyn, and going to see bad movies. (Ashley Judd, anyone?)

MAR 2000
(Pluto opposition — exact)

The Superior Court of Los Angeles insists that I serve on a jury. After trying to get out of my duty for two months, I go, serve on a trial and end up as the head juror convicting a guy who stole luggage from an Office Depot in Glendale. I hope they throw away the key.

APRIL 2000
(Pluto opposition — exact)

My contract job at "Variety" is over, so I take a freelance job from my pal, Robyn, who is having a nervous breakdown. She is in a terrible relationship and her business is stressful. She hires me to take up some of the slack. Unfortunately, she is an inconsiderate employer. She gives me no notice on jobs, and though she knows I am broke, she never pays me until it is convenient for her. I have still not been paid for a job I began in November of last year. Yet, I am desperate, so I take the work, knowing I will eventually get some money. But I pray for the day when I don't have to do this anymore.

Robyn uses up our time together alternately bitching about her boyfriend, who is an incontinent, unemployed drug-addict, and bullying me into thinking that both Carey and Sharon are controlling bitches from whom I need to get away. After listening to her contolling, bitchy diatribe, I am not sure from whom I need to get away more urgently.

I spend all my free time varnishing the unfinished furniture — the only kind I could afford — which I have purchased. My hands are beginning to look like those of a charwoman. In a more positive light, Jesus was a carpenter.

MAY 2000
(Pluto opposition — exact)

The cottage is finally done, four months after it had originally been promised. Apparently, this is great in terms of "construction time," which is fanciful, like "Indian time." When Sharon planned the new cottage she decided to remove the service porch and expand the kitchen. This would have been great, if it didn't mean that the communal washer and dryer — which she and her daughter use every weekend — now ended up in my kitchen. I can't complain too much. Sharon not only let me move back in after I destroyed her property, but she has helped me and been my loyal friend in countless other ways. I will live with it.

I take one more trip to DC. On the way home the plane can't make its landing in Dallas because of a storm, so we stop for the night in Jackson, Mississippi. I get home a day late.

The week after I move back in I get a call from "Variety". I am offered a job as art director of a new magazine they are planning, "E-Variety," which is about entertainment on the Internet. I have wanted to get one of those high-paying Internet jobs for some time. With no experience on the web, this seems like a good in-between position from which to begin.

JUNE 2000
(Pluto opposition retrogrades — moves 1 degree from exact)

I turn 40 and Carey flies out to come with me to Hawaii to celebrate my birthday. I will return to begin my new job — maybe I'm not a loser, after all. This is the first corporate employer I've had, so it takes months before I learn to navigate the power structure. Finally, to my dismay, I begin to grok those Dilbert cartoons. It turns out that there is a Creative Director above me in the hierarchy. I have to defer to him on every creative decision. Good thing I have gotten used to being at the mercy of others. I don't care that the work is idiotic and the magazine more so. I only care that I am making enough to pay a significant amount toward my credit card debt each month. I am in debt for the first time in my life, because of the purchases I made since the fire. I love my paycheck and 401k. I don't fight the bureaucracy much. Plus, I am able to employ my artist friends at ridiculously high rates of pay. I make sure they are paid within 30 days.

JULY 2000
(Pluto opposition retrogrades — moves 2 degrees from exact)

I go to DC for Carey's birthday. The plane arrives on time. It is nice to have paid holidays. We have a wonderful time together. I am serene for a couple of days. I come back home to a letter from the IRS. They think I owe them $1,200 from my 1998 taxes. I hire an accountant. The dental work continues.

AUG 2000

I get my first physical in over a decade and make an appointment to see a new dermatologist since my skin is not clearing up. Carey comes to town for the Democratic Convention. I spend my time shuttling between her various hotels, my job and home. I never do get into the convention since the Democrats don't want any regular people attending.

SEPT 2000

More dental work. I finally go to the new skin guy. Within ten minutes, he tells me that he thinks I have a disease called discoid lupus. He takes a biopsy from my face, and I leave wondering what this means. It turns out that I do, indeed, have lupus. I will have to use cortisone creams and stay out of the sun for the rest of my life. I guess that convertible wasn't such a good idea after all.

OCT 2000

Carey is on the road with the presidential campaign. She keeps pushing me about when we will live in the same town together. She is applying for a job transfer to Los Angeles. I'm not so sure this is a good idea, for many reasons. I am not in good financial shape, and mostly, I am not sure that our relationship can weather our differences in lifestyle and goals. Robyn invites me to see the dress rehearsal of "The Lion King." At intermission she informs me we are leaving because she has to meet someone else that night to go out and get drunk. I still don't know how the play ends.

NOV 2000
(Pluto opposition approaches — moves 1 degree from exact)

While Carey is in Florida, working her second straight week of "election night," I am thinking that, though she gave up her apartment and quit her job, we should not be planning to live together. Maybe not be together at all. I call her and tell her I can't live with her. But, instead of calling it quits, we patch things up. Our relationship seems better than before, but now she is homeless and suddenly her company doesn't know what's happening with her job. The guilt is crushing.

DEC 2000
(Pluto opposition — exact)

The week before I go to New Orleans to meet Carey, her family and friends, I get the worst haircut and color job I've had in years (from someone who has given me a half-dozen attractive cuts in the past). The lupus is looking marginally better, I hope. My plane is five hours late, so I only have time to drop off my bags at the hotel before ending up at her mother's best friend Jane's, annual Christmas party, at her mansion in the Garden District. I try to act more gracious than terrified when I meet her parents and every family friend she's known since childhood. Even though they are all dressed casually, I note the differences between sweaters that cost $30 and those that were $300.

Robyn — who has finally kicked-out her boyfriend, and stridently suggests that everyone else breakup, too — and I, make holiday dinner plans. Though I mention a moderately priced Mexican place. When I show up she insists we go out for expensive sushi. When the bill comes it surprises even her. "I didn't pay the last time," she shrugs. I end up paying the larger share to leave her some cash for the valet. She hands the guy a ten, he give her change back for a twenty, and before I know it she has torn out of the lot, literally burning rubber as she leaves. I tell her that the minimum wage-earning valets need the money and she should give it back. She drives home. Merry Christmas, Amigo.

JAN 2001
(Pluto opposition moves past — 1 degree from exact)

"E-Variety" is not doing well. Seems that the Internet bubble is bursting. I had been relieved that I was working in publishing and not at a dot-com. But without the advertising revenue from those dot-coms, we are not going to survive. No one will be straightforward with me about this, so I spend weeks trying to decipher the clues in averted eyes to discover whether or not I will have a job much longer.

FEB 2001
(Pluto opposition moves past — 2 degrees from exact)

The other shoe drops. The magazine is going under. I am laid-off. Carey moves here a week later. I contact Robyn for her birthday. Robyn sends me an e-mail message telling me we are "not on the same plane." No one ever uses this phrase with the inference that you are on a higher plane than they are.

MAR 2001
(Pluto opposition moves past — 3 degrees from exact)

Carey and I are living in my one-bedroom cottage. It is small. I have no privacy. I have no money. I cannot afford to move. We fight every other day. I think it
is mostly my problem.

APRIL 2001
(Pluto opposition retrograde approach — 3 degrees from exact)

My father asks me to accompany my mother to Hawaii for two weeks. He wants some time to himself, and thinks she will enjoy a trip. She is ill, and has a hard time seeing properly, so she can't go by herself. I regret saying "yes" by the second day. Carey joins us for five days, and the situation is even more strained than before. My mother and I barely talk. She doesn't want to leave the condo
most of the time. I try to find ways to have fun, with or without her, but none are working. Mostly I feel guilty and angry that I can't make my Mom enjoy herself.
I worry that my lupus is getting too much exposure to the sun. By the last few
days I wonder if the lighting fixture in the bedroom would support the weight of a hangman's noose — for me.

MAY 2001
(Pluto opposition retrograde approach — 2 degrees from exact)

After Hawaii I begin to call mental health clinics, worried I am about to snap. Instead, I am offered some freelance work at WBTV. They have called me in to do production work. Over the course of two years I have worked my way down from art director to production artist. But, I have been homeless, unemployed, broke and been forced into a relentless examination of the wrinkles on my face and soul for years now. I have no ego left, so I take the money.

JUNE 2001
(Pluto opposition retrograde approach — 1 degree from exact)

My birthday is tense. My life is tenser. I am unemployed with no prospects, and I am middle-aged and not getting younger. Maybe I am a loser after all. As crazy as it seems, Carey and I begin searching for houses to buy. Frighteningly, each subsequent week we go looking, the same kinds of properties are listed for $10,000 more than the week before.

Robyn calls for my birthday. We make a date, but I cancel because I can't face the confrontation I will have to instigate. She tells me that all her friends are disappearing from her life — one even accused her of being a racist! She then sends me a forwarded anti-Semitic e-mail joke. My lover is Jewish.

JULY 2001

Carey and I go to Santa Fe to attend her 10-year college reunion. We stop at the Grand Canyon and find the best diner on Route 66. Though there are som
moments I wouldn't want to repeat, we end up having a great time. I come home to find a letter from the IRS informing me that they want to audit me for 1999. They want proof that I had a fire and can justify the losses. My accountant and I are on a nickname basis by now. Carey's car is stolen from in front of the house.

AUG 2001
(Pluto opposition exact)

I am at the end of my rope. My unemployment insurance is about to run out. I have sent out hundreds of resumes and only gotten four responses. My relationship is stressful. We alternate between fighting, looking for real estate together and car shopping. Dealing with Realtors and car salesman every weekend would make any couple argue. When she finally does buy a car, it breaks down the first day, and 48 hours of terror ensue as we deal with Audi of America. I have reached my breaking point.

SEPT 2001
(Pluto opposition exact)

The World Trade Center is blown up. I begin to get along with Carey better than ever before. Maybe it has taken the strain off of me to know that, with the economic collapse that will now ensue because of the terrorism, I'm not the only one out of work. Maybe I just realize that I love Carey and that my life has been better as a result of being with her. I have known this for some time, but the feeling has grown. I am nicer. She is nicer in response. I am more loving. She is more loving, and so on. I go to my audit and the IRS agent is very sympathetic, particularly when I show her the pictures from the fire and talk about my dead cat.

OCT 2001 (and beyond)

I examine my chart and find that I have another year of Pluto aspects.

This has been "an extremely difficult period for relationships, both intimate and casual, because you are likely to get involved in power struggles with others."

For two years I have been in one position of subservience or another. Within those relationships, from parents and friends, to employers, to the IRS, I have experienced "conflict with persons in authority over you, such as a boss, a government official or someone in a similar position."

"Pluto will bring about changes by choice (we decide to change), or by coercion (the outside decides it for us)." I didn't decide to burn down my house. I didn't decide to contract e.coli. Although, my friend Charlotte, a Huna practitioner, would tell me everything that happened was something I brought about myself. Perhaps she is right.

Maybe I haven’t gotten any of the jobs I’ve applied for because I didn’t really want them. "It is time to explore other levels or dimension of the principle represented by the planet Pluto is contacting. In the case of the Sun, instead of exercising our authority in an already existing career, we may need to find another outlet though which to define and express ourselves."

It hasn’t been all bad. I got to live with the Manocchia’s, who turned out to be groovier people than I had ever known, and treated me with more generosity and kindness than almost anyone has before. I got to have a lot of time off to rest, think and learn some new skills. I got to travel and meet new people. I’ve eaten more gourmet food during the past two years than the previous 39. I’ve learned the joys of pedicures. I have a girlfriend who loves me. I have friends who have helped me. Things are better in general.

Let's face it, during the course of a life, most people have to deal with the IRS, lose a pet, get called for jury duty, have problems with friends and family, lose jobs, get ill and even lose things like their homes in floods, earthquakes, storms or fires. Most of them don't have to do it all in a two year period. But I figure I've gotten a lot of trouble out of the way in a short time. (I can't even begin to address the things that the people in my life have gone through with and because of my disasters. They will have to write their own columns.) I'm not sure what Pluto has in store for me next, but I'm after writing this I am finished with complaining (as long as I don't get one of those anthrax letters.) I'm ready for the fun part now.

DR. ZODIAC ARCHIVE CURRENT -2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

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