What happens to us after death is a tale that only our dying can tell, although this discouraging truism hardly prevents the living from imaging the hereafter.
Judith Fletcher1
I confess, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with Pluto lately. Long demoted from its status as a planet by science, astrology still considers this Kuiper belt baby to be significant to the rhythms of our lives on this blue marble. In fact, this Scorpio-ruling dwarf planet doesn’t mess around…
Pluto in astrology
Pluto placements in our birth charts indicate points of deep pain or trauma, while transits associated with this planet often usher in destabilisation, loss and cataclysmic change. These periods are decisively challenging, but they’re also a part of being alive.
Learning about Pluto has helped me appreciate that life is meant to be messy. Each of us faces events that rip us apart. While we can’t control everything, we can affect how we respond. Astrology, when used with wisdom and care, can be a tool to help us understand and make peace with this.
To Hell and back
Western pop culture is full of stories where heroes enter darker realms and battle to return. These often draw on well known myths about the underworld in obvious and subtle ways, continuing the tradition of using the the land of the dead as an arena to explore our challenges in life.
Literary critic Judith Fletcher writes about the prevalence of these stories in contemporary fiction – from Coraline which echoes the Persephone myth (I can’t unsee this now), to stories of refugees and forced migration that metaphorically draw on the many layers hell.
Non-Places and the in-between
According to cultural critic Marc Augé2, Non-Places are liminal spaces that exist in the crevices of capitalism where time stands still and we’re nothing more than “one of the crowd”. We’re talking waiting rooms, airports, motorways...3
Limbo is real, people, and we navigate it everyday.
Bits and bobs
Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me with feedback and reflections! I absolutely adore hearing from you so write to me anytime at lovetaradesigns@gmail.com.
Fletcher Judith (2019). Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture : The Backward Gaze. First ed. Oxford UK: Oxford University Press.
Augé, Marc (1995). Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Verso Books.
A little caveat here: any given space can be a non-place for one person while holding significance for another. A visitor’s experience at a grocery store for instance does not echo that of an employee who works there everyday.