I have been reading the Astrology of Fate by Liz Greene. It's probably a book that I have picked up and put back down over the last couple of years. The topic is weighty, and various reviewers of the book have commented that it was a must read for Plutonain people.

Natally Pluto is my least aspected planet, and doesn't aspect a luminary (Sun or Moon). I don't have personal planets in Scorpio or in the 8th house. Hence, I do not have what is considered to be a Plutonian chart in the general sense of the word.

I attract Pluto people on my life with Venus square Pluto, and according to psychological astrology the aspect of Venus-Pluto in my horoscope is one of my unconscious aspects.

Below is an interpretation of the Venus-Pluto aspect from my psychological report also written by Liz Greene: I am guessing this is part of my fate in all relationships and everything that has value in my life.

Things seem to happen to you in your personal life over which you appear to have no control, and which cause you deep unhappiness or frustration. Whether you have experienced loss or separation that has been forced upon you, or tend to become involved with men who are far more difficult and complicated than you expect, it is important that you understand the complex nature of your own needs in love; for you sometimes have an overly naive or simplistic view of relationship. 

Something in you craves an experience of depth and transformation through love which is not generally included in conventional definitions of the subject; and in spite of yourself you are fascinated by deep men who have had to struggle in life and who will challenge you and force you into exploring the hidden undercurrents that are at work beneath the surface of any partnership. In short, you need to become more aware of the unconscious dimension of love, which is the stuff of Russian novels and Greek tragedy, and is full of darker and more primitive emotions such as hatred, possession, envy and the desire to have power over the loved one. 

These more primitive facets of the human heart are not pathological; but they are certainly not part of the fairy-tale model of living happily ever after, nor part of any high-minded sociological vision which does not take the bestial dimension of human passions into account. You have great depth to your feelings, and your love is not always nice, kind, conventional or altruistic. If you cannot face and express some of these rich facets of yourself, you may unconsciously choose men who act them out for you - and who wind up causing you pain. Try to be more subtle and sophisticated both in your definitions of love and in the kind of relationships you create in your life. You will not find a model for the sort of partnership you need in a ladies' magazine or a political tract.

Reading the book the only thing I am stuck on is the idea about transgressing natural law. Astrologically Pluto is the planet related to fate, and astrologer Jeff Green has written his piece on Pluto and the Evolutionary Journey.

 Pluto carries some heavy weight in the astrological chart. In terms of fate I have always believed that we don't have full control of the direction of our lives, or, what happens to us. Nobody chooses some of the life experiences that have happened to them. Though I would be hesitant to say I am solely a passenger in life, either.

Of course fatalism is hard for many people to accept, and it assumes that we have no control over our lives. However, free-will is something equally hard for people to come to terms with, because the issue of self-responsibility is a hard pill to swallow.

Perhaps our attitude alone with determine whether, in facing difficult life experiences we will moan and curse  our fate or whether we will grown by learning lessons we need to in the face of what Liz Greene terms the "necessity" of Pluto.

It was Jung who famously pointed out:

The Psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual...does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.

From what I have read so far there seems to be a focus in the beginning of the book which is moving towards the need for meaningful events which provoke individual development, and that fate has an ‘absolute knowledge’ of what the individual needs and is going to need in their unfolding life.

I found the talk about ‘arrangements’ and how certain people are brought together, or an external situation happening at the right moment to be quite fascinating. Early in the introduction she does say that it is not her intention to convince anybody of fate, and she doesn’t know what to call it. She is prepared to call it fate, but says there are no answers to whether we are fated or free.

I think she is honest in saying that she has no idea whether we can change our fate, or if fate alters along the line. She doesn’t know whether some people are more fated than others, but through her work she believes that some people are on the literal level. It’s a fascinating read, and raises more and more questions about our fate.

I have the older version of the book with the new born baby on the front cover above an astrological chart, and the umbilical cord stretching out towards the universe, with a clock measuring the time of birth, and time itself, and there is a padlock opened with a key. It’s one of my favourite astrology book covers, and very symbolic of the chains of fate, destiny and free-will.

Fate means: It has been written. For something to be written with much immovability by an utterly unseen hand is a terrifying thought. It implies not only powerlessness, but the dark machinery of some vast impersonal wheel…..There is equal difficulty with the more mystical approach to fate, for by severing the unity of the body and spirit in order to seek refuge from the structures of fate, the individual creates an artificial disassociation from his own natural law, and may invoke from the outer world what he is avoiding in the inner. By Liz Greene – The Astrology of Fate