“Where Love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.” Carl Jung

In thinking about Jung’s assertion, I naturally looked for an answer via astrology. The most prominent Power player is, of course, Pluto, and Love is indisputably Venus–but as we know, there is plenty of overlap between Love and Power, many shades, and I had to wonder: are they really shadows of each other, or is there a Zen, third way of understanding?

If we take Jung’s assertion as representing absolutes of Love and Power, it is indeed true: when consciousness is consumed by Power, there is no room for Love, as all will be seen through a lens that measures situational Power, and all decisions will be made with Power consequences in mind; and the same is true for Love, if Love is the focus of consciousness, then Power is of no concern–we can only respond with Love, which doesn’t recognize power at all. (If we classify things differently, though, we may find ourselves asking if Love isn’t its own kind of power–but I digress). Of necessity, a viewpoint that is one of pure Love, or pure Power, is almost impossible to muster, much less maintain; not only are we humans in bodies that make demands and with feelings that intrude on nearly every thought, we would have to be Archetypes, almost two-dimensional in our existence, in order to call forth such a one-pointed perceptual lens and apply it to our everyday life for any length of time at all. We can and often do bring forward transcendent moments when an unadulterated concept alone is applied to what stands before us–but these are only moments, soon complicated by conflicting forces both internal and external.

 We would be unsuccessful in holding a single measure in our thoughts simply because we naturally think holistically; we perceive thoughts as holographic, in so far as we tend to think something, believe it’s the results of many interconnected bits, and review it for the many facets of our existence it impacts and springs from–and this is done mostly unconsciously, accounting for our reactions to things that are too swift to have come from considering the material.  We often label this unconscious prompting, or divine inspiration, or instinct (it’s not–instinct is inborn, unvarying among members of the species–though some are more attuned to it than others–and sometimes responded to in spite of what we think or feel), but it’s much more an amalgam of beliefs, assumptions, learned behaviors, and ‘positions’ we have consciously taken–and as such is likely both more complex than any single label might imply, and more than a little contradictory.

It would be smart for us to apply that dimensionality to our thinking, though, because without it our actions and decisions would be ruthlessly automatic, as well as, to a large extent, unresponsive to reality–and we certainly don’t want that! Still, the idea that Love and Power are mutually exclusive is something I see as unfortunate; it’s one of those beliefs that stymies growth and prevents that evolution in thought that eventually comes to allow the individual to hold two or more contradictory ideas at once–to entertain them, though not necessarily to accept them as equal, an important distinction.

Let’s accept that pure Love is at one end of a spectrum, and that its opposite, pure Power, is found at the other. As astrologers and seekers, this might lead us to look for ways to find where we as individuals might fall on that spectrum, to determine what the balance is between the two qualities in our own psyche–for if they are found on a single continuum, then all of us will find ourselves in relation to Love and Power, giving one ‘x’ amount of psychic ‘space’, and the other ‘y’ amount, along that same continuum, as well.

This is all sounding a little too much like geometry class–sorry, didn’t mean to cause flashbacks! Let’s consider, though, that Love and Power could be extremes of the same energy. If each is the shadow of the other, there’s one thing we also know from Jung: “The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.” In other words, if we accept our shadow, we make not just ourselves, but the world, a better place–because we don’t mistake our own darkness as belonging to someone else. So, our task may be to find just how we are dealing with Love and Power, how we are balancing and characterizing these, and to learn to accept them both as mere reflections, each of the other–for there’s no chance to be whole if we deny either end of the spectrum, if we characterize either as shadow.

Let’s move to the familiar symbols of the horoscope, in this case Venus and Pluto. Now, here’s the thing: these two will be connected. Some of you may be shouting, ‘No!’ and some of you may be saying, ‘No way’ and rolling your eyes, and some of you may be weeping (likely those with direct contact between the two). Remember how I remarked earlier that with a different viewpoint, we could say that Love is a power of its own? That’s one way to think of it. There is also the idea that, when Power is used in kindness, sacrifice, and without thought of gain, it is Love. And there are other versions of this, the point being that, though we can see them as opposites on extreme ends of a continuum, we can also see them as completely encompassing each other; as being, in effect, one and the same.

Venus-Pluto: A Candy Apple, or a Poison One?

We could mull on the possibilities for hours, but we have laundry to do and eyebrows to wax and adventures to begin, so we’ll look at what kind of relationships these two can have in the natal chart, and what those might mean. Of course, a conjunction offers the essence of our thesis, that these can be the same thing–and the individual with this conjunction may not easily differentiate the two energies. Love can make this person feel powerful, and situations of power can make this person feel loved. If the Venus shadow predominates, we may have the individual who is always working to hold the power in any relationship; he or she may see every interaction as a power test. This is not necessarily negative–they may just try to work out the power dynamic, rather than try to dominate–but imposing this on a relationship can be wearing, and possibly threatening to the other party.

All situations involving the sense of Love may, for this person, conjure situations of (or maybe just the need to define) power in the interaction, and so muster the specter of destruction via vulnerability. If the interaction is compelling enough, we may call it addiction–which naturally brings forward the destructive core of Pluto, as well as the shadow of Love–both arise, entwined, both dark. This contact can also signify someone who is on a perpetual journey into the Underworld, and this is almost certainly through the individual’s own mind and psyche. With the conjunction, one carries one’s own darkness close to the heart, and this makes for someone of exquisite understanding of pain, shame, and the transforming nature of Love, but it can also make for someone who creates their greatest pain themselves. Venus-Pluto together in the natal chart suggests that the individual is either author of her or his own sojourn into the Soul depths, with resultant transformation of pain into understanding and compassion, and a re-birth that brings the individual, tempered by Plutonian experiences, to a new evolutionary state, or it suggests that this person inflicts his or her worst wounds (even if they appear to come from without), as he or she cannot distinguish Love from rage, or kindness from destruction. Here, the individual themselves either creates the celebration of Life from hard-won knowledge (the Candy Apple) or prepares and serves themselves the fruit of their undoing (the Poison one).

Our animalistic, survival instincts have trained us to pick the threat out of the landscape–and if everything is fine, we may not trust that perception

With sextiles and trines we have what I describe as an ‘easy’ relationship between the two energies–but what does that really mean? Too often we are tempted to read these aspects as invariably positive, but in reality, the aspects suggest only that whatever each energy expresses meshes well with the expression of the other. That can mean that easy aspects connote expressions that are only surface-deep, a mix of the two most characteristic expressions of that energy for that individual. If that happens to be less-than-ideal, the person with an easy relationship between energies may find these to be some of her or his biggest obstacles, a trap it’s oh-so-easy to stumble into.

For instance, Pluto in Virgo receiving a trine from Venus in Taurus may find that tastes are refined and a true appreciation of material comforts is a strong part of consciousness, as is the meaning behind such material life elements–and yet the individual may easily destroy his or her enjoyment of things through relentless Self-criticism or penny-pinching (the ‘accounting’ aspect of Virgo). Every time the person indulges the senses, prepares a meal, or curls up in a cozy cabin on a stormy night, she or he ruins the experience by worrying (another Virgo specialty) or being critical; she spills a glass of wine and wonders how much it will cost to clean the bearskin rug, he enjoys the warm cabin but every time the heat comes on he calculates how soon he may have to get the fuel tank filled and why didn’t he convert the heating to gas? and the evening is spoiled, just a little. Very often energies in easy aspect will ‘take turns’: one will express positively, and the other will jump in with negative input, in what amounts to a balancing act, and this may be because we are uneasy when things flow (what seems to be) too smoothly. We may fear ‘running on all cylinders’, simply because our animalistic, survival instincts have trained us to pick the threat out of the landscape–and if everything is fine, we may not trust that perception.

These same aspects can, of course, manifest positively, such as when Venus-Pluto trine suggests a deep knowledge of how transforming Love can be, knows how important aesthetics are to enjoyment and perception, recycles what’s discarded into objects of beauty, or makes scads of money–this latter is inherent in any aspect between Venus and Pluto, as an indicator of this potential at some point in the life. The trine or sextile can also show someone who finds it easy to exercise power via the influence one has over those who love them, or can easily change the life, or destroy the Self, over Love (or, sometimes, just over their idea of what Love should be). The Venus-Pluto easy aspect person can offer the bright, shiny candy apple of Love and Transformation to others, can enjoy it herself, or may pass out poisoned fruit, knowingly or not, through distorted ideas of Love or Power.

A square between Love and Power (aka Venus and Pluto) is one of the most written-about, and misunderstood, of aspects. Traditional views tell us this individual will suffer for their unloving attitude–but I think that’s a wee bit harsh and short-sighted. What we see with the square is a conflict for this person between what they see as Love and what they see as Power–and one thing’s consistent, the concepts this individual holds must change in order to settle the conflict and gain both qualities in the life. Squares can play out initially in a way similar to the opposition: the individual chooses one side to embody, and casts someone or some situation in the life to represent the other–and then the struggle ensues, as the individual attempts to wrest the ‘missing’ quality from the designated other–and fails miserably (“I love you–empower me!” or “Respond to my demand–love me!”) It’s in the experience of failing to get what they need that this person comes to understand that by loving to gain power, or using power to gain love, they cannot be fulfilled, and it’s then that the alchemy begins.

When assessing any square, but particularly the Venus-Pluto square, we should keep in mind that this represents conditions the individual believes to be true. If we think of it that way, we find that his Venus-Pluto errors simply need to be unlearned; the Power within Love, and the Love that guides Power, are the treasure (Venus) to be unearthed (Pluto) by this individual.  Compassion may be the perfect Venus-Pluto conceptual blend for the square: this person may have been force-fed the idea that she will not be loved (or lovable) if she is a powerful person, in charge of her own life. She may have been told that loving people don’t care about power–and so be cleverly disenfranchised from an early life scenario. She could have been told (and by ‘told’ I mean a message delivered, likely non-verbally, through significant others, typically the adults, in the early years) that Love involves rage, anger, jealousy, requires expensive tribute, is nothing but a power play, is destructive, or that one must immolate oneself on its altar in order to be worthy–all, of course, untrue. With the square, the individual was probably given a poison apple early on, and will continue to partake of it until some conflict makes the absurdity of poisoning oneself patently obvious.

As we’ve touched on previously, an opposition between Venus and Pluto typically first presents as the individual identifying with one side, and projecting the other; this can mean that, because this aspect lacks the outright conflict potential that the square has, the individual could never be under sufficient pressure to recognize a need for integration–they could go their whole lives living one side, projecting the other. In that case, we would see someone who sees themselves as totally loving and generous, and who rejects the idea that he or she may carry darkness or a desire for power, who may have encounter after encounter with angry, destructive, sneaky, dishonest people, or have relationships with those who are abusive or who are excessively centered in power and its payoffs (or, less likely, the individual may see themselves as ‘bad’, or as a transformative and powerful Being who cannot relate to Love and human relationships). The person as well as many who surround her or him often sing the lament, “I’m/she’s/he’s so nice, why do such bad things happen to me/her/him?” The answer is, to wake you up–to spur you to claim all facets of yourself–to make you see that you do carry a Plutonian darkness, and that by living in Venus, you are only half alive–but few will recognize the appropriateness of this answer.

Most people with the opposition do eventually realize that there’s something missing within the consciousness, often when they are confronted with positive and attractive examples of others who are living that opposing, not-identified-with power. A boy who believes he’s ‘bad’ is taken in by a loving family–and suddenly he begins to see that Love is accessible to him, too, that relationships are something he can create–and that he has misinterpreted his ‘badness’, when it may really be misguided or misdirected, but perfectly acceptable, energies. A man who believes himself to be loving and harmless may wonder why he can’t attract a mate, and it’s only in seeing the honest exchanges of energy (which include fighting and resentments) between others in obviously good and loving relationships that he comes to realize that expecting perfect harmony all the time is killing his chances at Love. In the case of the opposition, the individual may see life as all candy apples and unicorns (figuratively speaking) and reject any hint of darker things, or the individual may sees themselves as the poison apple, fearing that their mere presence harms others–and in both cases, life will deliver opportunities to accept the opposite energy and incorporate it into the world view and the psyche–and until this happens, the individual is likely to lead a lopsided, confusing, and unfulfilled existence, where they yearn for something, without realizing the thing they require is the very thing they reject. Once recognition of the need for incorporation occurs, things usually move steadily toward an integration that ultimately may mimic a conjunction in its melding of the two energies.

Now you may be saying, “But I don’t have a direct aspect between Venus and Pluto–what about me? Does this apply?” Yes, it does apply to you–these energies will always, in some way, no matter how tenuous, touch. They can touch through sign placement: Venus in Scorpio or Aries (Mars as a ‘secondary’ ruler of Scorpio, like Pluto’s little brother) connects the Venusian concepts to the darkness. If you have Pluto in Libra, you are likely familiar with the darker side of relationships–and you accept it. Also applicable are aspects to a third body that both aspect but are outside the orb of a connection between Venus-Pluto. There’s also the way Venus in the sign of your Pluto, or aspecting Pluto’s ruler, or Pluto aspecting Venus’s ruler, or the rulers of each in aspect, can pull them together, or even the way these might be located in each other’s ‘natural’ Houses (Venus in the 1st or 8th, Pluto in the 2nd or 7th). There’s also potential for connection through being in the same element or modality. You may think these are a stretch, but they will give you a good idea of where you fall on the Venus-Pluto continuum, of the way you divvy up Love and Power.

Carl Jung, who provided the quote that set this whole discussion off, is a good example. Born 26 July 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland at about 7:30 PM, Jung has Venus in the 6th in Cancer, conjoined Mercury, and Pluto in the 4th in Taurus. Right away we see a connector, in spite of these two forming no direct aspect: Pluto is in Venus’s sign of Taurus. This hints that Venusian energies may be stronger in Carl’s psychic vocabulary, that they may tinge his Plutonian concepts. Venus is in wide square to Jupiter, exaggerating Love’s power and linking it to, among other things, the social order. It’s in Venus’ mutual reception with the Taurus Moon that we find the most potent contact. and considering some uncertainty to the birth time (and if we allow a reasonably large orb), the Moon could be conjoined Pluto–and this little tidbit binds the two, Love and Power, together almost as tightly as a conjunction might, through the mechanism of emotional interaction with and interpretation of the material world (Moon in Taurus).

Pluto has other aspects, though, and they add to the picture: Pluto is the arm of a T-square with a Saturn-Ceres opposition (reality and Nature ‘face off’, resolving the conflict only through working out the individual’s power position with both), is in rough sesquiquadrate the South Node in Libra (the past and past experiences as prompts to / roots of difficulties in relationship), and is the apex of a Finger of God with base of Jupiter in Libra and Mars in Sagittarius the individual depth of knowledge, when combined with an optimistic and socially acceptable attitude toward relationships, offers pure Power). Again, we see Venus’s influence on the Plutonian concept, through Libra and Taurus, and through the emotions (Taurus Moon. ‘sharing’ a vibe with Pluto, and possibly making the emotions the first line of access when reading matters of Power), including making Pluto the receiver for integration of concepts about the interrelationship of the individual with the social order (Jupiter in Libra) and the influence of relationships/ Love as it reminds of and draws on the past (Libra SN). Added bonus, Sedna, North Node, and Chiron are all in secondary sign of Aries, suggesting that these energies incline toward a Plutonian worldview through Self-assertion. That’s not to mention, if the birth time is correct, how the Black Moon Lilith point is closely conjoined the Midheaven–making it part of his role in the world to show us all how to realize and deal with those things ignored, denied, or otherwise buried.

It seems, then, that Dr. Jung may have been so intent on admonishing all of us on the need to recognize and accept the shadow simply because he was prone to favor Love, to see it as more compelling than Power–and probably to be ultra-aware of the dangers inherent in not recognizing ourselves in the darkness. “Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” Spoken with the confidence of a Leo Sun–and oh Carl, don’t we know it.

This article previously appeared in ECLIPSE, and has been modified and added to.