Almagest

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Venus opposite Pluto

Venus opposite Pluto, within one nativity or between two charts in synastry

What the tradition reads

Within a single chart Venus opposition Pluto is read, together with the square, as manipulation entering where wanting used to be plain: Cafe Astrology's natal reading warns that "in an attempt to control the outcome of a love relationship, you can turn to manipulative games," feelings running "intense, and even extreme, when it comes to love." The tradition names difficulty letting go as this contact's particular burden, "especially if Venus is in a fixed sign," and its usual counsel is the same as for the conjunction: to recognize the pattern "as your own material and not project it onto your partner." Between two charts, one person's Venus opposition another's Pluto is read, together with the square, through "the expression 'a fine line between love and hate,'" a primal attraction that sources say can bring power struggles, jealousy, and volatile emotion, and that can leave both partners unable to stay simply platonic if the connection ever ends.

The story

An opposition sets two bodies at the diametrical distance from each other, six signs or one hundred eighty degrees apart; Ptolemy's chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs names it, together with the square, discordant, since it joins signs of a differing nature and gender. In the later tellings of Persephone's abduction that Ovid and Claudian shape, Wikipedia's page for Pluto records, it is specifically "the role of Venus and Cupid in manipulating Pluto with love and desire" that sets the story moving, Venus reaching into the lord of the underworld and making him want. Set at the chart's widest distance rather than fused, the tradition reads that same reach as no longer simply given but contested, want and possession now facing each other across the gap the myth's own act of manipulation first opened.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Venus:Pluto:opposition.