This post is about Vampire Romance, or Romance with aliens or Immortal characters whose lifespans reach back into History, and ahead to long after their mortal lover is gone.
You'll see a connection to UFO's below, too. And to Linnea's discussion of the creation of a dynamic antagonist for a novel which I discussed last week.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/12/double-duty-putting-face-on-conflict-in.html http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/12/villain-defined.html The problem is that Villains have to be "larger than life" -- Heros can start small, as ordinary dudes (as Blake Snyder calls us in SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES!), but via the Hero's Journey the ordinary dude must become the Hero, overcoming internal obstacles as well as external. Villains on the other hand are the hero of their own story, but in most literary genres the villain has to start out larger than life and get ripped assunder.
That is a writing problem Gene Roddenberry ran into with Star Trek, when they went to make the first movie. "It isn't big enough" they kept telling him about his premise. He'd spent a lifetime writing for the small screen and wasn't thinking BIG. Eventually he hit on villains Big Enough to fill a large screen.
There is a way to do that, methodically, and precisely. There are any number of fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, diachronic linguistics, -- there's a huge world of knowledge to explore that will give a writer a method for generating Larger Than Life problems, people, and plights.
But here we're going to discuss how Pluto may be the ruling planet of Vampires (both the friendly kind and the villianous kind). As you get a feel for how Pluto keys events and personalities to be just like you and me, but LARGER THAN LIFE, you'll see how becoming aware of Pluto operating in Headline News can help you create villains who are larger than life.
So, I'm assuming Pluto "Rules" Vampires and other Immortals.
Pluto was recently demoted from the status of "planet" -- and people have been talking about calling it a "Plutoid." It doesn't matter what astronomy settles on -- astrology is not very closely related to astronomy. (Though I could make a strong case that they're identical if I had to.)
Here I've set myself an impossible task, to explain to people who think "Astrology" is the predictions you see in newspapers, just what use the Pluto symbolism is in fiction writing and reading.
I want to explain this well enough that a writer or reader who doesn't know anything about real astrology can recognize Pluto symbolism when writing or reading fiction.
So I'm going to try to use what you already know to show you something that may have escaped your notice but which will explain a lot you've been curious or frustrated about.
Like most of the planets, Pluto symbolizes change. But each planet seems to specialize in a different kind of change. The House where a planet is in your natal chart, and the House that the planet rules, will focus the axis of change for you in your personal life. That potential for change will be confronted as that particular planet circles the heavens, and you may either accept or reject the change thus signified.
As I currently perceive the world, each planet seems to key off a particular type of change. So let's examine how Pluto functions as it "transits" or circles the heavens.
Pluto changes are the sort you look back on and say "before this" and "after this" - they are dividing lines, or a period of life when events pounded you as Pluto transited a sensitive House in your Natal Chart -- or you pounded on the world and either bloodied yourself or made it yield.
Pluto is that deep well of strength you tap in pure survival mode, but it also puts your survival at risk.
FOR EXAMPLE, a Pluto transit might signify the death of a parent (not the kind of loss of a parent which changes nothing in your life, but the sort that pounds you into a new shape). Saturn also can symbolize loss and bereavement, but brings more responsibility than pure power as Pluto does.
FOR EXAMPLE, under a Pluto and Saturn bereavement, you become the executor of the estate - a task for which you are wholly unprepared, a task which really is way beyond you. You end up staying up all night, phone calling all day, staring bleary-eyed at legal forms, bank forms, and real estate sales. And from somewhere deep, deep inside comes the physical strength, the mental strength to obsess over tiny print, the ability to learn arcane fields like investing or antique car collecting. Whatever you must do (Saturn is must) you CAN (Pluto is can).
FOR ANOTHER EXAMPLE: another person and a similar Pluto transit might signify the onset of a major, life-threatening disease or disorder, but years before that, the person dropped out of High School and can barely read the ingredients on a soup can, nevermind figure out what's on WebMD. Yet, Pluto provides the mental strength (temporarily) to learn, judge, evaluate, obsess on (Obsession is a Pluto manifestation) all this medical stuff and make an informed choice of treatment or physician. And thus conquer the medical problem and survive (or not; Pluto does bring death sometimes.)
You begin to see why I think Pluto rules Vampires?
Pluto is the ruler of Scorpio, the Natural 8th House.
The 8th House is all about the resources of other people -- inheritance and legacies, Trust Funds, leaning on the expertise of others, using another's body for sexual pleasure, being held in thrall (obsession) by a lover. Pluto and the 8th House are about POWER, the power others have over you, and the power you have over others. Insofar as sex is about power, it fits the symbolism. Pluto is also about blackmail, secrets and the revealing of secrets.
The relationship between a blackmailer and the victim is Pluto ruled.
The "battle of the sexes" goes in the category of Pluto transactions. When conducted with back-biting, undermining, and character assassination, Pluto conflicts can be all about gaining power over the other. Passive-aggressive tricks can go in this category although they also have elements of Neptune. Co-dependency can have strong Pluto elements.
Remember, everyone always has all the planets and signs somewhere. Every situation has them all, even if only waiting in the wings to make an appearance. But each event sequence usually has a power source, a driver, a planet that exemplifies the symbolism underneath the event. We're looking now at Pluto, the 8th House, and Scorpio in Alien Romance.
The 8th House and sexuality also illuminate another element in Romance, that physical sex is about the relationship between your resources and that of the Other. Every graphic sex scene is about how one moves and the other feels, and one feels and the other moves, and a feeling that prompts a movement. A well written sex scene is about how the two communicate about power, life, getting what you want, giving what the other wants. Dominant position says something. All that is Pluto symbolism. Neptune is imagining it; Pluto is doing it.
The 8th House is the tango, moving and responding to the movements of others. It works in sexuality, but the pattern repeats when it's about money, sharing a bathroom, or shopping chores.
Pluto was discovered about the time Uranium was discovered which ties the symbolism together. The potential in Pluto is the same as in the atomic explosion. Pluto is explosive, but the deep, powerful explosion that erupts from way down beneath the surface, the energy contained in the atom -- or in the smallest indivisible unit of the psyche.
Pluto is about the HIDDEN. (the affairs of "others" are not yours; thus they are hidden)
Pluto is about the secrets that are kept from you -- and that you keep. But not just ordinary secrets like a surprise party -- these are the secrets we call CONSPIRACY. Thus the government coverup of Aliens From Outer Space, i.e. UFO's, is a Pluto ruled issue and process.
Pluto rules embezzlement.
That's much in the news with the "exposure" (Pluto exposes secrets) of a confidence racket on Wall Street, a Ponzi scheme.
The following is from a Yahoo Reuters News item
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081212/business_us_financial.html?.v=9 Retail sales, fraud case worsen auto bailout flop
Friday December 12, 11:27 am ET
By Daniel Trotta and Mike Peacock
"Bernard Madoff, a quiet force on Wall Street for decades, was arrested and charged on Thursday. The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market also ran a hedge fund that U.S. prosecutors said racked up $50 billion of fraudulent losses."
Note that: "Quiet Force" -- that's Pluto to a T. (I've seen discussion that his Fund was not technically a "Hedge Fund" though.)
This quiet person who kept out of the headlines, kept his business very private, used his impeccable record of privacy to take charge of other people's resources, is experiencing the effects of PLUTO here. (I don't know the man's natal chart - I'm just looking at the dramatic events, and the type of events from his point of view and I see Pluto written all over it.) He was managing other people's money (8th House) and has been explosively revealed to the public, and had his dirty secrets exposed -- and all that is so very Pluto.
Recently, we also had the incident of the Governor of Illinois's phone calls having been recorded by the authorities (secret wiretap - very Pluto) resulting in charges being brought that he was trying to sell Barak Obama's Senate seat for personal gain. Both the type of transaction (clandestine or ultra-private understandings and agreements about deployment public resources in your custody, 8th House resources) and the revealing of that confidential business, reek of Pluto.
For the last couple of years, transiting Pluto has been going across 0 Degrees of Capricorn, and it has another year or so to go. Pluto started on 0 Deg Capricorn at the end of January 2008, and made station retrograde at 1 degree of Capricorn at the beginning of April -- that is all last winter Pluto was pouring change energy into 0 Deg Capricorn and coming to the opposition to the USA Venus.
Any Natal chart with 0 Deg of Capricorn sensitized will very likely (not always) be responding now to Pluto's powerful, subconscious, subterranean urge to CHANGE.
Pluto went direct in early September at 28 Deg Sagittarius, and re-entered 0 Deg Capricorn the end of November (it was close enough to call it 0 Deg on Election Day). It'll finish 0 Degrees again the 4th week in Dec. 2008, then it goes on to 3 Degrees of Capricorn, and back again to make station in the middle of the 0th Degree of Capricorn in September 2009.
Thus for 2009, Pluto will be activating the USA Natal Venus, and we should see wealth, jobs, health care, and relationships under Pluto's hammer of change.
I'll give you a week to digest all that, and then we'll take more about Vampires and Pluto and Change.
Astrology Just For Writers Part 5 - High Drama Pluto and Vampires
Pluto transits take a long time. (See the relevance to Vampires? Reincarnation love affairs? Yes, Pluto is said to occupy the spot in your natal chart that your Sun occupied in your previous life.)
Pluto has an elliptical orbit (another reason they decided it's not a planet but a "capture" from some other solar system. Ah, Alien Romance!)
For the last decades of the 20th Century Pluto was moving pretty fast (relative to its usual), but now Pluto has begun to move more slowly as it rounds its elliptical path.
In Astrology the principle is that the slower the transit, the more profound and lasting the change -- the more prominent the change in the history books.
All planets bring change on transit, it's just the character that's different -- and many Astrologers argue that all the planets signify the same thing, change, just the speed differs and thus the magnitude of the change. Pluto's magnitude is the biggest, though it's such a tiny body.
Pluto is now, and once again, the slowest moving planet (from Earth's perspective). 248 years to go all the way around the Sun. So every 248 years, Pluto gets back to the spot it was when you were born.
See what I mean about Vampires being ruled by Pluto?
Since Methuselah, nobody "alive" ever experiences a Pluto Return.
We learn Astrology from "lore" not theory, and the theory is created from the lore. We study people, real people, who experience this or that transit against the background of a Natal Chart that has this or that characteristic, during this or that time of their life, and keep lots of notes. Then the experiences of lots of people are compiled into general principles. That's how "rulerships" are "assigned."
Pluto is new to our lexicon of planetary experiences, and thus people are still guessing what it is really about. Mars co-rules Scorpio with Pluto - and many of Pluto's characteristics are just bigger, deeper, longer wavelength attributes of Mars.
That means that war is Pluto related, while Mars is battle related. Mars is marital strife, but Pluto is divorce -- see what I mean?
Read up on Saturn Returns in Grant Lewi's ASTROLOGY FOR THE MILLIONS to see why the return of Pluto to the place at birth has to be significant in a Vampire's existence. (Saturn rules Capricorn)
A Pluto-Return has to be a totally shattering Event for a vampire or other immortal.
EXAMPLE: There's a branch of Astrology called "Mundane Astrology" and it deals with the Natal Charts and transits of whole nations and the world in general.
A lot that's been happening in the world since Pluto touched 0 Degrees of Capricorn can be understood in terms of Pluto symbolism.
There's always argument about exactly when a country is "born" -- and the USA has several accepted natal charts that astrologers study. I found that in one of the most famous charts, (July 4, 1776, 2:13 AM, Philadelphia PA) the USA's 8th House Cusp is at 0:38 of Capricorn).
2008 has been the year of the financial meltdown, starting with MORTGAGES (borrowing other people's money). Banks get the money they loan from depositors (government loans notwithstanding). Banks are an 8th House phenomenon.
248 years ago was 1760 - the USA hasn't had a Pluto return yet! By this chart, our Pluto is at 27 degrees of Capricorn, in our 9th House which is foreign affairs, foreign travel, foreign thinking, and justice, courts. Jupiter rules Sagittarius the Natural 9th House.
If this chart holds, this phase of Pluto induced change should be over for us by September 2009, but Pluto then moves on to oppose our Natal Venus, Jupiter and then Sun. Pluto finishes our 8th House and enters the 9th in Nov 2019. By then the character of the USA will be wholly changed.
Watch how Pluto affects long-lived organisms such as countries, and you will begin to see how it signifies the kind of life events a vampire would face. Periodically. Routinely. Ho-hum, yawn, I'm bored with existence. Who could be bored the first time you ever face a "change everything" Event -- a lose everything or win everything Event? But the 20th or 1,000th time?
Recently, the Thailand government was toppled by airport sit-ins that trapped thousands of tourists. The Greek government is being challenged after a police shooting at a rock throwing incident. The Mumbai terrorist attack has aroused India's wealthy class to challenge the current Indian government, but not the form of government.
Political Revolution is (often, not always) a Pluto driven event.
Being toppled from "power" can be a Pluto type event from the point of view of the one toppled, but the same kind of thing can be signified by a transit of Saturn.
Pluto will topple by revealing the hidden, by sex scandal, by embezzlement, or sometimes by someone else wanting the power for themselves, by assassination. Saturn often topples by failure, by running out of steam, by enemies succeeding, by losing the election, by a failure of discipline or authority, by getting your comeuppance, your just deserts. With Saturn, it's obviously your own fault; with Pluto it seems to be external to your self.
(I'm just leaving Neptune out of this. Astrology is nothing if not complicated.)
You see what I mean by "drama" - Pluto is very High Drama indeed.
Pluto driven lives and events are the very substance of movies even more than of novels. Robert Ludlum move over!
Noel Tyl (as I discussed in my post Astrology Just For Writers Part 1)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/07/astrology-just-for-writers.html shows how Pluto is one part of a pattern that shows up routinely in the natal charts of the extremely prominent -- thus Pluto is connected to both fame and infamy.
A Pluto driven life has these gigantic, larger than life, ups and downs -- from which the individual usually comes back. Pluto supplies both the crisis and the strength to survive it.
Pluto driven love can range from the sickest, most violent obsession (stalking, kidnap, etc) all the way to the longest lasting, most eternal, and most animal-passion driven bonding of hunger and need.
So astrologers face a quandary trying to analyze a Vampire's existence. Is his (or her) natal chart the moment they were born as a human? Or the moment they first drew breath as a vampire?
Does a vampire who has been immured for a few centuries, going dormant until dug up, get a new natal chart when they "waken" again?
Does memory have anything to do with how you respond to transits? Does a person who has a total memory wipe have a new natal chart when they start recording events again?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7777385.stm Is an item about the finding of what may be a human brain, more than 2,000 years old, shrunken and barely identifiable.
So it occurs to me to wonder what if that were the brain of a vampire?
And then it occurs to me to wonder how a fossilized (really infused with stone) vampire body might respond to being "brought to light" (that's what Pluto does, exhumes, brings to light, turns up, discovers, exposes).
There's this fossilized body in a museum -- a vampire, of course -- and the vampire's Pluto return takes hold. What happens next?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com 
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