Neptune and Pluto in Aspect
This is the slowest pair in astrology. Their cycle runs roughly five hundred years, which means almost everybody alive today shares the same angle between them, and an aspect shared by everyone alive cannot distinguish anybody.
The technical picture
- Neptune
- outer
- Pluto
- outer
- Angles possible
- Conjunction 0 degrees, Sextile 60 degrees, Square 90 degrees, Trine 120 degrees, Opposition 180 degrees
The core tension
Neptune takes about a hundred and sixty-five years to circle the chart and Pluto between two hundred and forty-eight, and the two have been in a wide sextile for most of the twentieth century and into this one. Practically everyone reading this has it. That is worth stating plainly rather than dressing up, because an aspect held in common by billions of people describes an age and not a person. Any interpretation that tells you this contact makes you unusual is describing something you share with your neighbours, your enemies, and everyone in the queue behind you. What it does describe, at a level worth taking seriously, is a long historical period in which the dissolving of old certainties and the deep transformation of structures have been running together.
Sextile (60 degrees, a sixth of the circle)
This is the aspect nearly everyone alive is carrying, held for over a century. At the collective level it has been read as a long, workable cooperation between the dissolving of old forms and the pressure to rebuild from underneath, which is a fair description of the last hundred years if you take a long enough view. For an individual it says nothing distinguishing, and the honest thing to do with it is note it and move on. Where these two matter in a personal chart is through their house placements and their contacts to faster planets, both of which are actually yours.
Conjunction (0 degrees, same degree)
The last conjunction of these two occurred in the 1890s and the next is several centuries away, so this belongs to a cohort now almost entirely gone. It is included for completeness and not for personal reading. Historically it has been associated with the end of one long era and the beginning of another, and the generation born under it lived through changes of a magnitude that suggests the association is not unreasonable.
Square (90 degrees, a quarter of the circle)
No living person has this. The cycle is long enough that the square between them has not occurred within any current lifespan, and it is listed here only so the page is complete. Anyone offering a reading of a natal Neptune square Pluto is describing something that no chart currently in existence contains.
Trine (120 degrees, a third of the circle)
As with the square, this does not occur in any living chart. It is included for completeness. The practical point for a reader is that Neptune and Pluto move so slowly together that the range of possible angles within a human lifespan is very narrow, which is why nearly everyone shares one.
Opposition (180 degrees, half the circle)
Also outside any living chart. The completeness of this list matters less than the point it illustrates: an aspect between two bodies this slow is a statement about history and not about a person, and a chart reading that treats it otherwise has lost track of what it is looking at.
Working with it
Note it and move on. That is not advice you will find on many astrology pages, and it is the correct handling. If you want to know what Neptune and Pluto are doing in your chart specifically, look at which houses they occupy, since those are determined by your birth time and differ between people born on the same day. Look also at whether either one aspects a personal planet. That is where these two become yours instead of your century's.
Questions to sit with
- Which houses do Neptune and Pluto occupy in your chart?
- Does either one contact a personal planet?
- What has your lifetime treated as permanent that turned out not to be?
Related
More Neptune
- Sun and Neptune
- Moon and Neptune
- Mercury and Neptune
- Venus and Neptune
- Mars and Neptune
- Jupiter and Neptune
- Saturn and Neptune
- Uranus and Neptune
More Pluto
- Sun and Pluto
- Moon and Pluto
- Mercury and Pluto
- Venus and Pluto
- Mars and Pluto
- Jupiter and Pluto
- Saturn and Pluto
- Uranus and Pluto
Start here
See whether Neptune and Pluto aspect each other in your chart.
Educational and reflective. This describes tendencies, not predictions, and is not medical, legal, financial, or psychological advice.
Drafted from an expert brief, reviewed by a practising astrologer with 30 years of experience, and grounded in computed chart data.