Pluto Killed my Cat

Our pets can be some of the most cherished members in our household.  Animals have the ability to touch our souls in ways that are incomprehensible. People will sometimes go to ridiculous lengths to accommodate our furry friends. Many folks these days opt out of having children and take in what they like to call “fur babies.”  While I don’t take my love for cats to the extreme as others do, early in 2025 I lost a beloved member of my family – Pickle.

On January 14th, 2025 in Tucson Arizona at approximately 6:00 p.m. I was battling an illness at home that brought me to my knees.  Writhing in misery in bed, I heard a knock at my door.  I opened my front door to be met by my next door neighbor who delivered the unfortunate news that they saw a white cat laying in the middle of the road.  My heart sank, but I gathered my thoughts and grabbed my trash can and went to face the inevitable.  Making my way out to the road, I saw my precious feline laying alone on the cold hard pavement lifeless and motionless. Being quite ill, I stood over the tiny body and mourned and paid my respects as I stroked his head one last time.  Not being in the right state of mind, I unceremoniously took the  deceased body and threw it in the trash can, and then into the dumpster.

Growing up, I always had an awkward relationship with death.  It wasn’t the process of dying that I found confusing or unsettling, but rather the way people manage it.  Since a young age, I struggled to grasp the concepts that allow people to grieve and mourn the passing of loved ones.  Ceremonies such as funerals, celebrations of life, and wakes perplexed me.  I just struggled to grasp why someone would celebrate the death of someone you cared about. Throughout the years, I passed on several funerals that I should have attended.   This of course upset many of my family members that were still alive, but I couldn’t comprehend being around a bunch of people I didn’t care to see, just to stare at a dead body of someone that I actually cared about.  My mind just couldn’t justify the thousands of dollars that people spend just to have a cadaver rot in the soil, creating a feast for worms.  This alternative view on death was often rejected with vehemence, and friends and family often lashed out on me due to my rigid nonconformity.

 Throughout the years, I often told family members to just throw me out in the desert and let the buzzards and coyotes devour my remains when I die.  At least there would be some benefit to the natural order of our Earth, giving my useless body purpose for one last time.  My reasoning was that my soul would live on in some shape or form and my physical frame served its purpose as a vessel and a mode of transportation.  However, as I was laying in bed experiencing the worst sickness I have encountered in a long time, I was overridden with guilt. My mind couldn’t stop thinking of my beloved feline wasting away with trash, just to be taken to a landfill to rest in eternity in squalor.  As people often do, I was not only wallowing in the throes of illness, I was also asking the age old question… “Why did you have to die?”

Listening to the broad, and often unhelpful Astrologers on Youtube talk about how we were experiencing the most auspicious Full Moon of the year. Luna was supposedly laying in delight in its domicile of sweet and sensitive Cancer.  These Astrologers forecasted a peaceful, wondrous time where we would be full of joy and harmony.  Laying in bed sick and suffering from losing my cat, I had a difficult time swallowing that pill, so I launched my own investigation.  

One thing that I knew, I was in the midst of my ominous Pluto square Pluto Transit.  Pluto has quite the ecliptic orbit, so when people experience this tumultuous transit, the age can drastically vary.  As I mustered the energy to go to my laptop and generate a chart showing my current transits, I noticed something that I failed to previously realize. Pluto is currently transiting out of Capricorn into Aquarius, which is the cusp of my Nadir.  The Nadir, or the IC is the cusp of the 4th house.  This is the point in a chart that represents the private home life that you only share with loved ones.  Pluto is the archetype of death in Astrology, and on a personal note, it was slowly inching away deep into my 4th House of Home.  

Pluto and the Sun Transiting my Nadir

Something else that struck a chord was that my Sun was also transiting, forming a conjunction with my Nadir and already transiting Pluto.  In Astrology, there is no defining factor to predict death, but I would argue that this transit was quite damning.  The befuddling conjunction of the transiting Sun and Pluto, meeting my serene Nadir was met by an opposition to the so-called gentle Cancer Full Moon, a transiting Cancer Ascendant, as well as a retrograding Mars, which were all in conjunction to my native Lunar-like MC. Eventually, I had to return to the grind of my day job with a lingering illness and the fresh wound of the death of Pickle the Cat.

  It was safe to say that I wasn’t in the best of moods.  Not only did I have to return to my high-stress low-pay job sick and distraught, someone took the liberty of destroying my work station, which is something that I can be quite fickle about.  Emotions aren’t exactly my strong suit, so I lashed out externally which in result, ended up in a written reprimand.  I felt cheated, seeing that like many other workplaces there is an overabundance of nepotism and favoritism. Some people just walk around doing whatever pleases them, while I get written up without any verbal warning.  Seeing the transiting Full Moon and Mars conjunct my Midheaven, I saw that it was also squaring my natal Pluto and Ascendant as well, further pouring salt off my fresh open wound.

Chiron Transiting the Sixth house Towards the Decendant

Something else that some other Astrologers might overlook, my Chiron, which of course is noted as a wound that is in need of healing; is transiting through my Sixth House.  The Sixth House is not only associated with skills and services to our fellow humans, but traditionally it is akin to pets as well.  With Chiron slowly creeping towards my Descendant, it is making a square to transiting Sun and Pluto, as well as to Mars and the Cancerian Full Moon.  Not to mention that Jupiter was transiting my natal Chiron in Gemini in the Eighth House, which could revisit themes of death that would hit me hard.  The Sixth House also distinguishes health and well being. Since Chiron has been transiting my Sixth House , I have had a slew of health problems. The illness I was facing at the time was just something else that was stacked on my plate.

The death of my cat Pickle not only affected me negatively, it took a heavy toll on my son as well.  As aforementioned, Pluto was transiting my Nadir, which in turn squared my natal Pluto which natively conjoins my Ascendant. Unfortunately, my son has massive behavioral issues, and this has been an added challenge for me to manage the many balls I juggle.  The Astrological Nadir shows life with those you love most, and are close to.  With Pluto transiting the cusp of the Forth House during the notorious Pluto square Pluto. Having a child act out violently isn’t out of the question.  About 6 months prior, we gave away the family dog.  You see, I'm not much of a dog person, and quite frankly, the animal was a nuisance and a burden.  The only reason I got a dog was to appease my son.  While it was quite age typical, my son had hardly anything to do with the dog, and complained when having to feed or care for the canine.  

In hindsight, I should have put my foot down before acquiring the canine, but I wanted to do the fatherly thing and make my son happy.  At first, he was fine giving away the pup, but after a few weeks –reality set in.  It took some time for the dog’s absence to sink into my son’s still developing mind. After about two weeks, chaos started to ensue.  My son grieved hard and became quite destructive, leaving a path of broken and torn items in the wake.  At school, he would become insoluble, and lacked the necessary skills to cope and express his anguish.  After months of time passing, the aggression slowly subsided, only to be reawakened with the death of our dearest friend. 

Again, there was a two week calm before the storm.  Then after the reality of death hit – it hit hard.  All the turbulence and violence rose to the surface again, leaving a path of demolition.  Things seemed hopeful, as a new combination of medication and months of therapy seemed to finally start to pay off.  Once again, my son regressed and the stress became unbearable. The only option was to be patient and to assist my son walking through all the turmoil.  Despite how tumultuous my son’s reaction to death might be, it is interesting how we all react differently to death.  My mother died before my son reached one year of age, so he didn’t know my mother well – which might unfortunately have been a good thing.  My son has this preoccupation with death, and in a fearful way.  He has these terrible dreams where I die, I kill him, I kill the entire family, or we are killed.  Pluto on the ascendant seems to be a generational occurrence for my family. Not only does my son have Pluto Rising, my nieces do as well. If I knew the birth times of my other family members that are all dead and gone, I’m sure most of them had this intense aspect lingering in their charts, haunting them throughout their lives as well. 

As life progresses, it can often feel unfair.  However, I try to keep an open mind and see that all that happens serves a higher purpose.  As I mentioned, I was writhing in agony due to an illness, but I had uncontrollable anxiety and guilt thinking of my begone pussycat rotting in the dumpster.  I mustered all the strength that I had, went to Wal-mart and purchased a spade-edged shovel.  On a chilly January night, I plucked my feline friend from his hostile grave and gave him a proper burial as I powered through the sweat my feverish body was pouring out. Living in a barren desert that has not seen rain for months, I had to slowly break away at the hardened soil to properly lay Pickle to rest.  I left a barrier of river rocks as a means to deter predators from exhuming my fallen comrades grave.  Though I was exhausted and weak from being sick, I felt a sigh of relief. 

The higher lesson for me here was that I learned a very human lesson from a simple cat. Prior to this event, what happened to anybody after death seemed quite irrelevant.  I didn’t see the point of creating a spectacle out of such a necessary, yet taboo subject.  It brought me, and my son comfort to know that we can go visit our little furball whenever we need.  Looking back,  I could now see how callous I looked in the eyes of others as I avoided funerals, wakes, and celebrations of life in the past.  It’s a shame that it took 40 years and the death of a cat rather than a loved one to understand these basic human merits, but grief is a powerful, individual process for us all to learn and explore.

Do you have an experience with death that is as poignant as mine? What was your Pluto square Pluto like? How about death in general? What are your thoughts on the subject that we all deep down want to avoid, but it will meet us all eventually? Let me know in the comments below! Thanks for taking the time to read this!

R.I.P. Pickle