Power Check: March 31

(Photo: Sculpture, Ana Maria Pacheco, 'Dark Night of the Soul', 1999. London, National Gallery.)

Pluto, the planet of hidden things, underground and underworld activity, secrets, manipulation, sexual intensity, passion and purpose, and transformation is about to turn retrograde on March 31.

Are you powerful or powerless right now?

You're always powerful. it's just in how you choose to exercise your right to choose, your right to act, your right to not react, your right to turn away, your right to stand firm. Your right is your power and power is your right.

As the energy of Power goes retrograde it is inverted, moving back in on itself. We feel this as a questioning of our own power, bubbling away as a sort of intensity of frustration or else an intensity of excitement. one is liberating one is destroying.

Reclaiming our inner power is the mission we're all facing now. The Dark Underworld stands before us, not outside in the form of the next enemy (though it may) but most importantly inside our very psyche, in the form of fear - fear of losing power, fear of being annihilated not by someone else, but by our own dark sides - our angry, our passion, our repressed frustration, our inner and secretive crazy sides and the wild animal we all house in our souls.

Scorpio, as the sign ruled by Pluto, will be the sign feeling this shift - as they venture inside, further away from prying eyes, to work on releasing blocks inside, and realizing, remembering and restoring their natural and powerful lives as healers, alchemists and magicians - transforming their own darkness into Light.

Sagittarians (with Pluto in their sign now) will feel this as a need to go back over old ground and see if the monster is really down. Is it sleeping? The horror movie scenario could play out where there's one last fright, one last resurgence of an old shadow force coming back to life for one more attempt to hook itself into their lives, but knowing this, Sag can refuse to feed the fires of the past and to truly walk away. Darkness is an absence of light, and all they need do is turn it on.

How about the rest of the signs?

Keep an eye on the forecasts for next week. Each sign has a way of reacting to this new shift, but it's all a common theme - inner power expressed and enjoyed or else inner power left unrealized causing pain.

Whatever situation we find ourselves in, we have a choice to feel at the mercy of someone else (who is no doubt manipulating based on their own fear of being controlled) or we get to take a Higher Road. Any conflict you get into now is based on the attempt to exert authority so that we stay in control and safe.

Pluto doesn't like safety - safety traps up, confines us and eventually can define us. Pluto destroys things that we cling to to hide behind. Inside of us is a deep, deep well of primal power. Feel it. it's there. It wells up during the moments before an orgasm, it powers up as we know we're about to sneeze. When the mother lifts the car off her injured child, Pluto's force of cosmic power is behind it. Life and Death situations (or those we just FEEL to be) cause a welling up of Pluto power.

Pluto retrograde is here to help us sniff out the deepest parts of our souls. The things we haven't forgiven, the things we won't let go of. The parts of our pasts, and ourselves, that we cling to, to define who we are (by telling the same stories over and over again).

There IS no power abuse, only ourselves not trusting we're okay in each and every moment. Letting out pain is letting out power. Some will turn to Art, some will turn to Horror Movies, some will turn to violence and actual murder, some will destroy themselves in a final act of release (and unforgiving), some will go for therapy, some will fight old battles, some will decide enough is enough and blow up one area of their life, some will manifest illness in the body as a sign of the inner fight they are denying, some will have a showdown with their 'enemy' manifested finally in front of them in the form of a physical person, situation or issue.

All are valid, all are accepted and acceptable. Some are more joyous than others but all involve the act of DESTRUCTION. The seeds of change. Endings. "Death".

It's Choose Your Own Adventure Time.

Power is Power. It's neither "good" nor "bad" it's not "evil" or "angelic", it's an energy. As it pulls us inside, we get to witness just how powerful we forgot we are. Watch your dreams, watch your mind, your thoughts, watch your feelings.

As April begins and March ends, we face the dark side of our soul with an invitation to accept us as we are, all sides. Light and Dark combined.

You are an intense, sexy, powerful magician. What spells are you casting by the focus of your emotional energy??

Harry Potter, eat your heart out...

Love,
Neil

P.S Ana Maria Pacheco (see photo) is a painter, sculptor and printmaker who was born in Brazil in 1943 and has lived in England since 1973. Her work deals with issues of control and the exercise of power, drawing upon the tensions between the old world of Europe and the new world of her Brazilian birth.