The Slow Burn of the Night Goat

Retrospectres of a 16-year transformation of Self

“It's a big dark world now,

It's a big dark Hell.” 

-Melvins, “Night Goat”

My entire adult life thus far has been running parallel with a deep, dark shadow that mirrored all of my movements. This force has moved steadily through and behind the pillars that made up my worldview, my assumptions, the very foundations of my psyche.

Nebulous like a formless ghost wind in the night, but with the spiritual gravity of a black hole, this force has perhaps been at the roots of the biggest changes I have experienced. However, it was only so transformational because of its nature: Corrupted. Endless.

What is this void silhouette, dancing menacingly behind the curtain and practicing its warped alchemy?

PLUTO.

Lord of the Underworld, the Duke of Death, and Ambassador of Sex, Transformation and Corruption.

Since 2008 when I was 17, Pluto has been traversing the region of the sky that in western astrology corresponds to what is known on my natal chart as my "1st House", the home of the Sea-Goat.....the sign of Capricorn.

Without getting too heavy into the technical, this is the area of one's chart that relates to the person's self-awareness, how they assimilate experiences, and how they relate to the outside world, amongst other similar features.

In the time since then I have watched my stable worldview be completely shattered, and with the aid of psychedelic experiences I have also shoveled any remaining assumptions into the furnace, and what I call "Human World" or "The Human Campfire" was at points entirely left behind.

Although spiritually I have been forged into a type of more tempered psychic steel perhaps, I don't recommend pursuing the path I was on to anyone.... The world went from making sense and providing some background spiritual comfort, to a bleak void of terrifying uncertainty.

Nihilism sinks its teeth into your soul, and not the theoretical, edgy type of Nihilism...

The Soul-devouring, "lock-your-gun-up-and-give-your-friend-the-key" type.

I have walked the Rim of the Abyss, and I can tell you there are no living true Nihilists, because you can't comprehend meaninglessness in full totality and continue to exist on this plane.

Another Plutonian lesson, hard learned.

Many of my Persephonic travels were initiated by two separate illnesses in 2011 and 2022 that both brought me physically to the brink of death, Saturn walking hand in hand with Pluto in a field through the flowers from Hell both times.

I remember a nightmare I was having while seriously ill in 2022, and hearing a twisted out-of-tune orchestra playing the most evil sounding music, and the most pure feeling of true Evil approaching. This vile orchestra appearing in dreams, I have found, is not an uncommon experience with others dealing with illness and Underworld entities.

So, is there light at the end of this subterranean train ride through the Abyss?

I think so.

I have come to understand that Pluto is the energy of Anti-Cosmos, and any sense of feeling at home in the world is destroyed by this wave of negative space.

This makes mundane human comforts and simple human contact a treasured experience, not flippantly dismissed.

You are left with just your Will and Wits.....and like the old saying goes, " If you're walking through Hell, KEEP WALKING."

The embers of my previous self and life have long ago become ash as the Plutonian "Night-Goat" slowly burned it's way through every fiber of societal conditioning and programming over the last 16 years, and those ashes await the hand of Nextepehua in Mictlan.

I find myself with much more gratitude, openness, and genuine care for others.

Being reduced to a quivering mass of insanity will do that to you,

if and when you make it back to the Campfire.

Sleep Tight.

The Underworld Awaits Us All.