My first thought when astronomers began the discussion of declassifying Pluto was “they don’t know who they’re dealing with.” Anyone who has been through a transit of Pluto across their natal planets and seen the devastation and transformation that Pluto inspires understands the awe in which astrologers hold this tiny planet.

Nancy Waterman subscribes to the view that Pluto has been dissed:

Various countries and cultures have frequently been given the rulership of one or another astrological sign when a nation demonstrates the sign’s particular characteristics. In many ways, the Arab culture has collectively demonstrated many of the attibutes of Scorpio: in its intensity and depth of emotion, its desire for revenge when affronted, and its wealth based on the hidden resource of oil which itself is derived from the death of previous life on earth. Moreover, terrorism, largely derived from extremists within the Islamic culture, may be seen as a manifestion of the most dangerous Scorpionic/Plutonian qualities: obsession, fanaticism, death and violence used to manipulate and transform, and psychological warfare of the most devious and vicious kind. And finally, nuclear power, in its capactiy to unleash the hidden power in the atom and create untold devastation, is also clearly a member of Pluto’s domain.

How ironic then, how unbelievable an example of brutal synchronicity, that while the world quakes at the potential of terrorist machinations and at the pending destabilization of a large swath of the Middle East, largely fueled by Plutonian issues relating to religious fanaticism, revenge, oil, and the grasp for nuclear weapons, the Bush administration refuses to even talk to many of the key players involved – Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and the global scientific community has collectively dismissed Pluto as a “dwarf.”

In a few days, Mars will be squaring Pluto, once again stimulating the more destructive energy of this newly “dwarfed” planet. In addition, beginning in December 2006 and continuing for a year, transiting Pluto will be conjunct the Galactic Center potentially fomenting a profound and possibly violent reallignment and transformation of global realities. As we watch the temperature rise in many of the world’s hot spots in the coming months leading to an as yet undefined transformation, we should remember this slightly modified old proverb: “Hell hath no fury like a planet scorned.”

Jeffrey Kishner agrees: “I also hope that lay people don’t think less of Pluto just because He has been demoted. He is, after all, representative of the most powerful, treansformational energy in the universe. If I were an astronomer, I certainly wouldn’t want to f*ck with Him!”

Rick Levine of Star IQ suggests “We have banished Pluto to where he naturally belongs: the netherworlds of unplanets. We had our chance to integrate him, but we chickened out. And of course, by suppressing his natural planetary expression, we have inadvertently given him additional power. That which we resist will persist even stronger.”

I can’t help but feel, though, that while astronomers may feel that they have demoted Pluto to “dwarf planet” status the fact that Ceres and Xena have been upgraded as partners to Pluto signifies a new way of integrating Pluto’s lessons of evolutionary personal growth rather than a limitation of Pluto. With the conjunction of Pluto to the Galactic Center there seems to be a new awareness springing up everywhere that we are on a collision course with planetary destruction that will require an enormous personal and political step forward in our evolutionary journey.