The Sun trine Pluto
the Sun trine Pluto, within one nativity or between two charts in synastry
What the tradition reads
Within a single chart the Sun trine Pluto is read as the more dynamic of the two harmonious contacts this pairing can make, letting a person incorporate Pluto's own transformative qualities into their personality without a fight. Natives are described as passionate, ambitious and often perfectionistic, demanding a great deal from themselves while still expecting only reasonable effort and honesty from others; they embrace growth willingly, spot pretense quickly, and tend, across a life, to rid themselves of self-delusion rather than settle into it, holding a deep belief in their own power to survive change and to come out of any real difficulty stronger than before. Between two charts, one person's Sun trine another's Pluto is read as belonging to the pairing's easier register: sources describe the fascination and intensity typical of every Sun-Pluto contact showing up here with less drama, the underlying depth of connection expressed more smoothly than the square or opposition would allow.
The story
A trine is a hundred and twenty degrees, a third of the circle; Ptolemy's chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs calls it, together with the sextile, harmonious, since the signs it joins are of the same kind, all masculine or all feminine, and sets the two against the square and opposition's discord. Pluto's myth is Hades, lord of the dead, one of three brothers who divided the cosmos after their father's fall, ruling the underworld while sky and sea went to his brothers; the Eleusinian Mysteries gave the same god a second, gentler name, Plouton, wealth-giver, a dignified and faithful ruler whose realm held riches as well as shadow. A Sun trine to a planet this deep draws on the wealth in that second name freely, transformation offered as a gift the self does not have to be dragged toward.
Written from
- Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Book I, Chapter XVI (Ashmand translation, Project Gutenberg ebook 70850, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70850/70850-h/70850-h.htm)
- Wikipedia, Aspect (astrology)
- Wikipedia, Pluto (mythology)
- Wikipedia, Pluto
- Cafe Astrology, When the Sun trines Pluto
- Cafe Astrology, Sun - Pluto Aspects in the Natal Chart
- Cafe Astrology, Synastry: Sun - Pluto Aspects
Corpus key aspect:Sun:Pluto:trine.