Is It More Difficult To Integrate Your Shadow In A Repressed Society?

Dear Elsa,

You speak a great deal about integrating your shadow. There is a level of awareness and learning that strong Pluto types need to grasp if they want the “bad type of Pluto” stuff from continuing to happen. Basically the shadow has to be accounted for on some level.

I begin to wonder if it is more difficult to integrate your Pluto stuff if you are in a more repressed society? Does culture impact the type or amount of Pluto that is expressed and then also integrated?

Two examples: the Scandinavian societies/cultures seem to (broad generalizations here) be fairly private about sex, death etc. They are ‘repressed’ and Pluto types are not often welcome in their communities. Do they require Pluto types to become Pluto lite? Then Japan is also repressed and that seems to come out in their preference for sexualizing children. (see much of modern animaie)

Is that a cultural issue with Pluto? Is it more difficult for a Pluto person to integrate and come to terms with their Pluto if they live in one of these types of cultures?

A Reader

Absolutely not. Pluto types could care less what is happening on the surface. They are concerned with what lies beneath and in many ways the less conscious people are the better. It’s loads of fun navigating in that kind of atmosphere. You pass each other and tip your hat. Sometimes snort at the people at the party above as you look up their dresses and see who is wearing underwear and who is advertising. 😉

Culture does not trump Pluto, it’s the other way around. Also, there is no such thing as “Pluto Lite”. “Pluto You’re Kidding Yourself”, maybe.

Anyone else?

14 thoughts on “Is It More Difficult To Integrate Your Shadow In A Repressed Society?”

  1. If anything, repressing any kind of Plutonic energy/matter/subject would lead to… bad results. Just look at Catholic priests…

    Apologies to any Catholics here 😉

  2. My first comment was trashed… I was saying: Society has nothing on Pluto. Despite the moderating influence of civilisation, religion, etc., Pluto is going to come through. The problem with painting a veneer over anything is that it doesn’t go away – it just becomes out-of-the-way and problematic. You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge.

  3. I have to think living in a repressed society would make it harder to intergrate, as Rob says about the priests, if things on your level are not culturally validated, it is not like you give them up, but intergration could be difficult.

  4. Pluto lite is like bottling a small bomb. We all have culture, and I’m here to tell you when I lived my life as an “adapted version” of myself the Willy really went out of my Wonka and the bomb just kept getting bigger. I have come around again to the places where that young adapted woman lost her Willy, and with the sun coming up on a birthday it’s fun here with my snorkel, gogles, or is that goggles.

  5. I’m gonna have to come back and read this one tomorrow …. it’s just whooshing right over the top of my head right now. All of it. Might never get it.

  6. Mokihana – AMEN!!! I’m here to tell you repressing Pluto will make Pluto kick your ass.

    I have Pluto conj Uranus in my first house. It wasn’t until Elsa told me what that means lo those many years ago that I understood why people are either drawn to me or repelled by me immediately.

    In my city life, I was simply who I was. While I’ve always felt “outside” everyone else, I was good with it because in a city, there are lots of oddballs. Then I got moved to super duper rural world and was such a misfit! Hence, the birth of Apple Pie Mom, and layers of masks that I’m still peeling off.

    Repressing that energy did grave damage to my psyche, not to mention the pain inflicted on those I love while I was writhing within it. I thought I would die if I didn’t make fundamental, complete changes to my life and environment I was living in.

    So I did. People I love dearly were/are hurt and angry, and that pains me, but I no longer feel like I’m going to die from living in a cage that was far too small for me. When Apple Pie Mom blew…well, I’m still finding chunks of apple on the ceiling.

    This is ME, dammit. This is WHO I AM, and this is what I need to be that person. It is what it is. Those who really love me are still with me or working their way back to me. Those who only loved the facade will not.

    It is the direct consequences of my own choices and actions, and I’m learning to live with it.

  7. Pluto=power. The most amazing thing Elsa said during my consultation was that I was afraid of my own power. Amazing because I knew in my soul it was true. Amazing because I have spent a lifetime feeling afraid – of Pluto, for godsakes. See, it’s all over my natal chart…so denying it is like cutting off a part of yourself. I cried a lot after that consultation, but they weren’t all tears of grief. More like tears of recognition, seeing myself, shadow and all, for the first time, and beginning to make peace.

  8. Pluto is always lurking below the surface.
    I really don’t know anything about the Scandinavians, but I know that in Japanese culture suicide among the elderly is a very large problem.
    The Scandanvian created the alphabet known as the Runes and are also known for the history of the Vikings. All of these sound pretty Plutonian to me…But I suppose these are things that are beneath the surface and perhaps part of the repressed portion of society because there is a fascade that Scandanavians are happy jolly and Japanese are very traditional. The pluto is there you just have to look for it…Yes Pluto is power but it is very difficult to control. Saturn would give that structure, Think of the energy in a piece of coal or a cup of oil.

    1. BTB elderly suicide in Japan was considered honorable when they were no longer useful, a burden. There was a movie made of this. Can’t remember how late this practiced survived but it was the 40’s or 50’s. Not that long ago for a cultural legacy to fade.

  9. Sorry did not finish my thought.
    The piece of coal or cup of oil. Its there, you know its there maybe its not talked about but occasionaly someone takes a match or drops a spark on it and poof. Saturn always represents a government and using a pluto power would be the police hiring an undercover agent or the FBI.
    In your own neighborhood it might be the quiet drug dealer down the street you tolerate because they always mow there lawn and landscape there yard. So it (pluto) fits into society someway..

  10. What ???, Scandinavians repressed when it comes to sex?Hahaha.,I’m norwegian and can 100% say that whatever Scandinavia here refered to ,has to be on diffrent planet.,Sweden ,Norway,Denmark , we may have many faults,but we don’t have a sexual repressed sosiaty, this is where pc about sex comes to die:) , and we are one of the most progressive when it comes to gay rights ect, abortion , birthcontrol..,
    Sorry might be off topic, but had to say something ;p

  11. I love this answer. It’s what I was thinking when I read the question. I would consider myself a plutonian individual. I don’t pay too much heed to societies rules except to make my life more harmonious on a day to day basis. There’s less struggle than people think in embodying pluto. It’s more uncomfortable for others to be around me than it is for me to exist as me. I exile myself a lot because I actually prefer it.

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