With his recent sixth victory at the Tour de France, Armstrong has solidified his reputation as one of the greatest cyclists and American athletes of all-time. Not only has Armstrong cemented his legendary status with the last Tour win, but also many argue that he has now become the most dominant athlete in all of sports—a lofty appraisal but not without merit. Although cycling may lack the finesse needed in other sports, the grueling nature of cycling demands a level of competitive spirit that is unrivaled in all of athletics.

What gives Armstrong this undying spirit to compete and win? Is there something in Armstrong's birth chart that would point to his remarkable dominance of his sport? Although it is certainly bad practice to reduce one's personality and contributions to one factor in the birth chart, there is one configuration that stands out in Armstrong's chart: a conjunction between Pluto and the Sun.

When two planets form a conjunction in the birth chart, their archetypal expression synthesizes in a whole greater than the sum of their parts. In Armstrong's case, the Sun—the center of one's identity and one's ego—is fused with the archetype of Pluto. Thus, Armstrong's identity is merged with the possibilities and expressions attributed to the astrological Pluto. As Pluto is one of the most complex astrological symbols, no one person can demonstrate all facets of the archetype, however, Armstrong's life and achievements demonstrate many of the mythic themes associated with Sun-Pluto aspects. Before looking specifically at Armstong and how the Plutonic archetype manifests in his life, it is important to provide a context with which to understand the astrological symbol.

Pluto: The Historical Context

In order to understand the symbolism surrounding Pluto, it is important to understand currents of Western thought in the nineteenth century. The French thinker, Paul Ricoeur, observed that some of the most prominent thinkers of the nineteenth century were involved in a project of deconstructing the social structures of their day—a project he called the “hermeneutics, or school, of suspicion.” The masters of this apparent school of suspicion were Freud and Nietzsche. From Ricoeur’s perspective, Freud and Nietzsche shared a similarity in that both were distrustful about the society they lived in and the messages society imparted. For Nietzsche and Freud, these messages of society—these explicit or implicit codes of conduct, morality, and how to think—reeked of superficiality and falsity. Rather, Nietzsche and Freud both believed that their society’s messages and rules masked some core, hard truths about the human condition.

In their own unique way, Freud and Nietzsche suggested quite powerfully that nineteenth century society was covering up the more potent, intense, and primal aspects of the human condition. For these two thinkers, stripping civil and polite discourse was necessary to look at what really was going on deep in the recesses of our being. Freud suggested that sex and aggression were dominating forces in our individual and collective lives and that stuff such as religion was merely a way of escaping the misery and core intensity of the human condition. Nietzsche argued that the Victorian morality of his day was merely a nice and polite way to justify weakness and a program to validate those unfit for the harsh and cruel demands of life.

Reductionistic to be sure, Nietzsche’s and Freud’s positions did, however, point out some necessary correctives for their society. Essentially, both the philosopher and psychologist were saying, “Look, the way that society is structured currently is taking us away from the primal roots and depths of our being. Are these roots messy? Yes! Are these roots scary? Horrifying! Are these roots overpoweringly intense? My god, yes! But it is better to be existentially true to these roots than to play a game and pretend that they are not there.” With Pluto prominent in their birth charts, it stands to reason that both thinkers were not only attracted to Plutonian themes, but they were more than willing to cut the head off of the conventions of their day so as to show everyone how much society was missing the primal intensity of life.

Pluto in the birth chart

To gain a better appreciation for Pluto and how it manifests in expression, it is important to understand how it interacts with other symbolism in the birth chart. Unquestionably, aspects to Pluto in the chart submerge the other planet into Pluto’s terrain—the primal, the intense, the “hell of life,” the dark, the powerful, the creative and the mysterious.

To begin, let us look at the chart of American animator and film director, Terry Gilliam. With his Sun and Mars in major aspect to Pluto, Gilliam has never strayed too far from Pluto’s expression. However, perhaps the quintessential image of Pluto in his work can be seen from his days as animator with Monty Python’s Flying Circus. A recurrent animation for the television series starts with average people milling about in a cartoon land, and then, bam! A giant foot from the sky lands on the scene and obliterates the entire town. We might say that Gilliam was projecting a large part of his psyche into his animation. Here we have Pluto in all of its ruthless, unapologetic glory—a tremendous force that simply destroys things without warning or remorse. This is often the side of Pluto that is most discussed in astrology because one of our greatest fears is that of the horror of transformation and death—and certainly this is one of the most profound dimensions of the Plutonic topography.

To continue with Pluto as seen in the imaginal, let us now turn to an entire generation and not just one individual. The surrealist artists—from Andre Breton to Max Ernst, from Rene Magritte to Salvador Dali—were all born under the long and rare conjunction of Pluto and Neptune that dominated the late nineteenth century. As these artists matured, they formed the surrealist movement in the early twentieth century. As Neptune rules the imaginal, Pluto intensified, engorged, and saturated the associations of Neptune. For this generation of artists, Pluto allowed all the dark, chaotic, taboo, and desirous material of the unconscious to be released through fantasy, dreams, and images. Wild, vivid, and often erotic and grotesque, Pluto’s conjunction to Neptune allowed fantasy to reach peaks and vales that it has never before (or after) reached. Although the surrealist paintings speak for themselves, through the surrealists, we can observe how Pluto informs other astrological symbols.

Like Gilliam and the surrealists, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes—the progenitor of Nietzsche and Freud—was potentially guilty of taking one powerful aspect of his psyche and projecting it out onto the world-at-large. Hobbes, born with the Sun at the Pluto-Mercury midpoint, was thoroughly in touch with the primal and base sides of human nature. Hobbes essentially saw human life as one vast struggle for power. Inherently, as Hobbes saw things, humans are predestined to be selfish and desirous creatures that are in relentless pursuit of bettering their condition—by whatever means possible. Like Freud and Nietzsche after him, Hobbes was quite suspicious of any type of societal state that pretended to be ideal or tried to get away from the primal facts of human life. However, Hobbes did believe that some form of social contract was necessary in order to keep man from being allowed freely to be bestial and run amok. He called his vision of governance the “Leviathan,” a sea monster that ruled by absolute force (a thoroughly Plutonic image). In order to keep man from completely annihilating each other, the best possible situation was to completely obey the dictates of an autocratic state. Hobbes’s philosophy can rightfully be accused of being thoroughly pessimistic, cynical, and malicious. However, as the philosopher was born with a Sun-Pluto conjunction, it follows that his life gestalt, or sum of total life experiences, would be thoroughly informed by the Plutonic archetype.

Pluto and Lance Armstrong:

Armstrong makes a wonderful case study for astrology because not only does he exemplify his Pluto-Sun conjunction, but also because he represents the many positive potentials of this often maligned archetype. The driving force of Pluto—often relentless—is thoroughly running through Armstrong’s life and accomplishments. It would be literally impossible for Armstrong to have accomplished what he has without a strong identification (or rather fusion of his identity) with the Plutonic archetype. However, in many ways, Armstrong places all of that incredible extreme intensity into constructive outlets.

Without proper channels, the Plutonic energy would indeed submerge the world into a vicious, horrible game of ruthless, cutthroat survival—a land of blood, violence, grotesqueries, and death. Obviously, that wouldn’t be pleasant for any party involved—not even the survivors. However, without the Plutonic energy, life wouldn’t truly evolve. There would not exist the power and might to overcome the past. There would be not driving desire or passion to outdo one’s own accomplishments or one’s competitors. Armstrong seems to have channeled all that powerful intensity of the Pluto archetype into a rather amazing triumph of the human spirit.

The Myth of the Superman:
Man is Something That Shall Be Overcome

Many comparisons have been made in the press of Armstrong to Superman recently. Pictures of the superhero will be juxtaposed next to Lance, or cartoons will be drawn with Armstrong dawning a red cape. Superman represents powers and abilities beyond normal human capacity, and certainly Armstrong demonstrates such prowess. Pluto can be affiliated with superhuman capacity in the sense that it symbolizes all attempts to overcome, overpower, and go beyond one's limitations through force. Pluto is expressive of the evolutionary power of nature to transform itself into more able and more capable forms—survival of the fittest. The often-misunderstood concept of the ubermensch, as espoused by Nietzsche, is the great philosophical homage to the will to power and the necessity of overcoming one’s self.

Death-Rebirth: That Which Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger

Pluto is said to rule over all forms of transformation, from relatively benign metamorphoses to destructive acts that wipe out old forms so that new forms may emerge in their place. Those with Sun in aspect to Pluto may be more aware of the possibility of death, annihilation, and threat, and thus, there is often a greater sense of intensity that pulses through their lived experience. In the case of Armstong, the threat of annihilation was a very real possibility as he faced cancer at a very young age. Armstrong faced death and transformed. After his bout with cancer, Armstrong re-emerged stronger and more competitive than before, leading to his six consecutive victories at the Tour.

Obsession: Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion

Pluto's expression is accurately captured in words like "utterly", "completely", and "extremely." Its energy is likened to an unyielding force that drives with tremendous intensity. Thus, Pluto's archetype is a great match to allow for obsession, or to submit one's energy completely toward something. There is no possibility for Armstrong to have accomplished what he did without devoting his time and energy completely to his cycling.

Endurance: No Pain no Gain

Although to some "no pain no gain" may be a motto that speaks to us from time to time, for those with Sun-Pluto aspects, this saying resonates to the core. The energies of transformation are often painful but change cannot readily be accomplished without tremendous exertion and force. Thus, Pluto is aligned with the ability to push further, work harder, and to allow for a considerable dose of painfully difficult transformation. The Tour de France has been likened to running twenty marathons in twenty days. No sporting event is as grueling and as intense. As Armstrong has mentioned in his autobiography, "Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it's absolutely cleansing. . . . The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain. . . . Once, someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. 'Pleasure?' I said. 'I don't understand the question.' I didn't do it for pleasure. I did it for pain."(1)

Birth times cited for article:

Lance Armstrong:

September 18, 1971
Plano, Texas

Frederick Nietzsche:

October 15, 1844
10:00 AM
Rocken, Germany

Sigmund Freud:

May 6, 1856
6:30 PM
Freiburg, Germany

Terry Gilliam:

November 20th, 1940
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Thomas Hobbes:

April 5, 1588 0S
Malmesbury, England

(1) From It’s not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins, Berkeley Publishing Group: 2001