Natal Wheel › Guides › Aspects › Pluto and Lilith
Pluto and Lilith · power that answers to nobody
Pluto in aspect to Lilith
Pluto concerns control and survival; Lilith concerns what refuses to be controlled. Their contact is the most intense version of the theme in a chart: someone with real force who cannot be managed, and who has usually been on the wrong end of someone else's force early enough to have learned it thoroughly. Nothing about the arrangement is casual. People sense it before anything has been said, and react to it more strongly than the person's actual conduct warrants. Much of what such a person is accused of is a reaction to their presence rather than to anything they did.
What each body brings
| Pluto | power, depth, regeneration |
|---|---|
| Lilith | the untamed and the refused |
The soft aspects (trine or sextile)
With a trine or a sextile the power is held rather than wielded. The person is unintimidated, discreet and formidable in a crisis, and does not need to demonstrate any of it. That restraint is what makes them trusted with things other people are not told, and they are aware of the value of it. Demonstration would cost them the advantage, and they know it.
The hard aspects (square or opposition)
Square or opposition, dominance and defiance escalate together. Relationships turn into contests over who can least afford to yield, and the answer is usually neither. What ends it is a decision to leave a contest unwon, which this configuration experiences as a defeat and which is in fact the only available exit. The exit is available at any point and is taken, in practice, late.
The conjunction
Conjunct, the refusal is absolute. It makes people who cannot be bought or frightened, which is admirable, and who can spend a life proving it to opponents who stopped caring long ago. The proving is the waste; the incorruptibility is real and would stand perfectly well without it. What is worth protecting is the incorruptibility; what is worth dropping is the audience for it.
Reading it in a chart
The orb settles how strongly this shows: a contact within a degree is a defining feature of a chart, one at the edge of the orb is a colouring. The signs the two planets occupy change the manner, the houses change the arena, and a third planet touching either of them can change the reading entirely.