This page covers 4 aspects to the South Node (SN) that I use when working on a chart holder’s karmic or multilife story: Conjunction, square, opposition (conjunction to the North Node–NN), and quincunx. While not always positive, sextiles and trines to Pluto don’t represent what will bring clients who need help with deep and serious Plutonian issues to you.
With Pluto, I generally use 8 degrees of orb for conjunctions, squares, and oppositions (3 degrees for a quincunx), but with the nodes I use 10 degrees for conjunctions, squares, and oppositions (and still 3 for the quincunx).
Pluto Conjunct the SN
Your many lifetimes are saturated with Plutonian energy, people, and experiences. You are familiar with both the best and worst of Pluto, and in all its various flavors. In some, this can lead to victim consciousness and paranoia, and in others a desire for power and influence. Those with this placement have been born into families saturated with the best and worst of Plutonian energy, though the particular souls in the family system might all tend toward positive or negative expressions together as they explore these dynamics in front of and bouncing off of each
other.
Secrets and lies, the shocking power of truth, grief, anger, resentment, rage, depressiveness, and a sense of powerlessness might seem like things that you simply cannot escape in life. The challenge with this placement begins with realizing that you already possess the strength to deal with the painful and difficult expressions of Pluto, and then for you to choose to meet head-on all of these issues and related emotions with the courage that can bring light and love to shadow parts of yourself. One of your main jobs in life is to sort through what is healthy about Plutonian energy and carry that forward, choosing to leave behind what disempowers you and others, and what triggers negative and defensive responses to Plutonian issues. When you own the best and most empowering approaches to and expressions of Pluto, you’ll no longer be subject to feeling it surrounding and hurting you–you’ll be owning and carrying it with you in confident, strong ways.
Pluto Square the SN
In many lives, you are needing to learn more about using Plutonian energy in healthy ways. You know–and have been modeled by your families of origin in many lives–let’s say 4 or 5 out of the 9 or 10 things a person would need to know in order to live with Pluto in healthy ways. You must be willing now to learn to make new choices in the face of Plutonian times, situations, and others, refusing to repeat past results
from relying on habits and assumptions you were born with.
You’ll need to evaluate how honest you are, how willing you are to face fears, shame, and regret in yourself. At times you’ll come up against something within you or in the world around you that you’re not sure you can face, and you’ll need to decide once and for all that you’re stronger than your fear, pain, guilt, shame, or self-doubt filling you in that moment. Over the course of your life, you’ll need to redefine what power is and leave behind what power is not, while at times finding this out through relationships, work dynamics, issues at home, or any other area of life that might bring to you have to face a difficult truth. Whatever your habits and assumptions about what power is and looks like, you need to learn to pause and then make new, not habitual choices that make sense in the moment in order to overcome the karma that honesty is too costly, power is always damaging, there are things that break a person she can never heal from, or whatever other disempowering belief about Pluto you may find out you’re carrying deep in your unconscious as it rises to the surface in times of crisis.
Pluto Opposite the SN/Conjunct the NN
With Pluto conjunct your NN, healthy versions and expressions of Plutonian energy have been missing from your families of origin in many lives. You have likely been exposed to all manner of negative examples of the uses of power, betrayal, dishonesty, abuse, and more. The souls in your family systems in many lifetimes agreed not to be able to show you and each other empowering ways of living with this intense energy of transformation. As a result, you may avoid approaching anything Plutonian, fearing that you can’t handle whatever it is. You might have seen someone transform into what seems a monster and do harm to self and other, as no one in your conditioning soul groups (families) have known how to handle facing and integrating shadow material.
Some with Pluto in this position are faced with a need to confront and integrate an incredibly difficult human emotion that may have plagued them and their families in many lifetimes. Anger, depression, destructive tendencies due to pain, grief, regret, shame, guilt, and self-hatred are candidates here. You are in need of overcoming your fears about what is inside you, and learn to accept all aspects of yourself. Bringing light to shadow is always a Plutonian undertaking that’s hard to do, and you’re challenged to overcome negative stereotypes about Pluto and embrace its positive qualities. You’re here to learn something new about becoming empowered in the face of extremely 
difficult emotions in yourself and others, and this will be something no one who raised you in many lifetimes could have taught you. This can feel a lonely path, but Pluto is already part of your psyche–it’s in your chart, after all! It’s just that you have to learn how to use it in new, different, self-accepting- and -loving ways.
Pluto Quincunx the SN
This aspect says that your families of origin in many lifetimes (and/or the people who raise and love you) and you are at times thrown off by Plutonian situations, groups, or situations. A quincunx evidences that the normal course of things has been knocked seriously out of whack by something surprising. In some, this leaves the effects of trauma. In others, it looks like they simply can’t get in a groove or on a track they intend and choose–and sometimes work very hard to create and further–because they carry the deep, multilife memories of being knocked off course by something larger than them, something inevitable, or a tragedy of some kind.
The Plutonian thing, group, or situation might be dark and violent, carrying the threat of destruction or death. In many lives, it’s not happening but you will half expect it to, leading you to not feel that you can ever really relax and get on with your life. In some lives, a natural disaster or overwhelming invading force might have caused a lot of harm to your stability or safety, and in other lives it could be a particular expected personal loss that you felt/believed you could never recover from (the house and sign of your natal Pluto will tell more of the story). To heal this now, you must clear out the residues of trauma and learn to feel safe in your body. You also must learn healthy expressions of Pluto, becoming willing to transform in the face of difficult human emotions and situations, recovering the willingness to believe that all things can be healed, even if they can or seem to threaten to overwhelm you at times.
Karmic Story Pages
Pluto
–Natal Pluto Houses
–Natal Pluto Signs
–Natal Pluto Aspects
Nodes of the Moon
SN Ruler by Sign