Pluto Sextile Chiron: Openings to Turn an Old Hurt Into Strength

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When Pluto is sextile Chiron, the two are about 60° apart at birth, anywhere from 54° to 66° (sextiles take a 6° orb). Pluto stands for depth, power, crisis and renewal; Chiron, in modern astrology, for a lasting tender spot that can slowly become a source of insight. A sextile is usually read as an opportunity: a link that tends to help when it is used, rather than one that forces itself on the person.

The sextile forms in five stretches between 1920 and 2060, and each is shared by a large group of births. What makes it personal is the house placement, when the birth time is known, and any personal planet linked to either end.

Common readings

Resources found in difficulty. Astrologers often describe a knack for drawing something useful out of hard experiences once there is some distance from them.

Quiet courage about the sore spot. A frequent reading is a willingness to look at the old hurt when the chance comes, without needing a crisis to force it.

Help in practical forms. Some readings link the sextile with work that supports people through loss or change: listening, research, care or advocacy.

Effort still required. Because a sextile is mild, the chance can be missed; the opening tends to show up when the person acts on it.

Like every reading on Astrologist.com, these are possibilities, and the full chart decides how they play out.

Five stretches, opening and closing

The sample of 51,501 daily Greenwich noon charts from 1920 to 2060 has 4,491 dates with Pluto sextile Chiron, 8.72%. Only 3.5% of them are out of sign. In the table, "Chiron ahead" means Chiron is about 60° further on in zodiac order, as in the sextiles that open the cycle after a conjunction; "Pluto ahead" marks the closing sextiles that come before the next one. The calculator draws the same line either way.

Each date span runs from the first to the last in-orb date and can contain several separate windows; "dates in orb" adds them together. The 2010 to 2018 span, for instance, is made of five windows, the longest from 23 February 2011 to 26 May 2015 (1,554 dates).

Chiron's speed sets the length

After the 1941 conjunction the opening sextile was exact on 18 October 1945, about four years later. After the 1999 conjunction it took until 12 May 2012, about twelve and a half years. The difference is Chiron's orbit: in 1945 it was moving about 17° a year, close to its fastest, and in 2012 about 4° a year, in the slow part of its orbit and only about twice Pluto's 2°. The slow approach is also why the 2010 to 2018 stretch holds five exact passes and 2,135 dates, while the quick one of 1945 and 1946 holds a single pass and 202 dates.

The R markers lean together

Chiron was retrograde on 58.0% of sextile dates with Pluto retrograde, against 25.5% with Pluto direct. Both were retrograde on 23.4% of sextile dates, neither on 44.4%, Pluto alone on 17.0% and Chiron alone on 15.2%. Across all dates in the range Chiron is retrograde on 39.5% and Pluto on 43.8%, so if the two markers were unrelated they would appear together on about 17% of dates; on this angle they do so more often.

1931 and 1932: Cancer and Taurus under the Uranus-Pluto square

The first stretch overlapped the Uranus-Pluto square of those years: Uranus in Aries squared Pluto on 1,214 of the 1,343 sextile dates. Exact sextiles at London noon:

• 15 May 1931: Pluto 19°03' Cancer, Chiron 19°02' Taurus (0.01°). Jupiter at 17°09' Cancer was conjunct Pluto (1.90°) and sextile Chiron (1.89°), Uranus at 17°28' Aries squared Pluto (1.59°), and Saturn at 23°09' Capricorn, retrograde, opposed Pluto and trined Chiron (both about 4.1°).
• 24 October 1931: Pluto 22°10' Cancer and Chiron 22°11' Taurus, both retrograde (0.02°), with Mars at 25°40' Scorpio trine Pluto and opposite Chiron (about 3.5°).
• 19 March 1932: Pluto 20°00' Cancer, retrograde, and Chiron 19°58' Taurus (0.02°), with Mars at 18°25' Pisces trine Pluto (1.57°) and sextile Chiron (1.55°).

Cancer is ruled by the Moon and Taurus by Venus. Pluto in Cancer describes this generation, and Chiron in Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn the Chiron side.

1945 and 1995: one pass each

On 18 October 1945 Pluto at 11°39' Leo and Chiron at 11°39' Libra were exact (0.01°). Jupiter at 11°32' Libra sat on Chiron (0.11°) and sextiled Pluto (0.12°); Jupiter was conjunct Chiron on every one of the 202 sextile dates of 1945 and 1946. Neptune at 6°51' Libra was conjunct Chiron too (4.79°).

On 25 August 1995 Pluto at 27°54' Scorpio and Chiron at 27°52' Virgo were 0.02° from an exact sextile, and Uranus at 27°13' Capricorn, retrograde, sextiled Pluto (0.68°) and trined Chiron (0.66°), closing a triangle of three easy aspects. Uranus sextiled Pluto on all 225 sextile dates of 1994 and 1995. Scorpio has Pluto as its modern ruler and Mars as its traditional ruler. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, and Mercury at 24°59' Virgo was conjunct Chiron that day (2.89°).

2010 to 2018: Capricorn and Pisces

This is the largest stretch, and every one of its 2,135 dates also has Uranus square Pluto: they make up 2,135 of the 2,999 Uranus-Pluto square dates from 2008 to 2019. Neptune, in late Aquarius or in Pisces, was conjunct Chiron on 1,173 of them, up to March 2014 (see Neptune conjunct Chiron). The five exact passes at London noon:

• 12 May 2012: Pluto 9°18' Capricorn, retrograde, and Chiron 9°18' Pisces (0.00°), with Mars at 8°00' Virgo opposite Chiron and trine Pluto (both 1.31°).
• 6 September 2012: both at 6°59', both retrograde (0.00°), with Uranus at 7°26' Aries, retrograde, square Pluto (0.45°).
• 4 April 2013: Pluto 11°34' Capricorn and Chiron 11°33' Pisces (0.01°), with Saturn at 9°56' Scorpio, retrograde, sextile Pluto and trine Chiron (about 1.6°).
• 28 October 2013: both at 9°21', Chiron retrograde (0.00°), with Uranus at 9°34' Aries, retrograde, square Pluto (0.22°) and Mars at 7°41' Virgo opposite Chiron (1.65°).
• 25 February 2014: Pluto 12°59' Capricorn and Chiron 12°58' Pisces (0.02°), with Jupiter at 10°34' Cancer, retrograde, opposite Pluto and trine Chiron (about 2.4°).

Capricorn is ruled by Saturn. Pisces has Neptune as its modern ruler and Jupiter as its traditional ruler. See Pluto in Capricorn and Uranus square Pluto.

2053, calculated ahead

The last stretch, with Pluto in Pisces and Chiron in Capricorn, is calculated with the same ephemeris. Its exact passes fall on 25 February, 14 May and 26 November 2053. On 14 May 2053 Saturn at 13°11' Pisces is conjunct Pluto at 14°19' Pisces (1.12°) and sextile Chiron at 14°20' Capricorn, retrograde (1.14°); Saturn is conjunct Pluto on 404 of the 586 dates of this stretch. On 26 November 2053 the South Node is conjunct Pluto (0.19°).

Checking your own chart

Sextiles are drawn on the free birth chart as dashed blue lines, so look for one running from ♇ to ⚷; an unbroken blue line would be a trine instead. The planet table should show 54° to 66° between them. Births before 1920 or after 2060 get no Chiron, and so no line either.

Without a birth time the chart uses local noon as its reference for both bodies, a calculation convenience rather than an assumption about the birth hour. Since the Pluto-Chiron separation shifts by 0.17° a day at most, the unknown hour could change the outcome on only about 0.3% of sextile dates (estimated from interpolation between the daily noon charts).

Read next

• Pluto conjunct Chiron, the 1941 and 1999 meetings that these sextiles lead up to or follow
• Pluto square Chiron, the tense quarter of the same cycle
• Saturn sextile Chiron, the quicker Saturn counterpart
• The aspects hub

Ask the Astrologist can help you look at how this sextile fits into a whole chart.