Pan's Labyrinth Revisited - Plutonian Goat and The End of Innocence

It's true that Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (or El Laberinto del Fauno) has now been out for a bit (released on my beloved one's 26th birthday - October 11, 2006), but it suddenly struck me how well the central mythical creature - Pan (or 'the faun' if you're sticking to the Spanish) - hinted at the Pluto in Capricorn ingress later this month.

Goatish Pan (Capricorn), in this film, is a creature of darkest (Pluto) fantasy, and while he reveals himself to the young heroine, Ofelia, from the depths of a crumbling well in a bid to help her 'reclaim' her kingdom as a fairy queen, he bars her access (Saturn - ruler of Capricorn) until she has successfully passed three arduous tests.

Named for the drowned, mad-driven lover of Hamlet, I associated Ofelia with the sacrificing, emotional, mystical element of water. While Pan, to me, was a creature of deepest, darkest earth.

Having come out of the highly confusing, chaotic frustration of the recent Saturn-Neptune opposition, it was interesting to think of this dynamic mirrored in the movie. Pan and his call for Ofelia to return to her kingdom as its rightful queen (the past, monarchs, Capricorn, Saturn) both challenged the depths of Ofelia's imagination and fantasy (Neptune) and demanded sacrifices (Neptune) of her in the brutal 'real' world of general Francisco Franco's fascist Spain.

But more overtly, Pan's mission for Ofelia - to reclaim her kingdom through ordeals, facing even death - seems to me to have been a remarkable metaphor for our imminent plunge into a Capricornian Underworld. Not to mention that the struggle between Franco-allied soldiers (Saturn) and Spanish rebels (Uranus) also could be deemed a prescient representation of the upcoming opposition between these two planets.

But why am I talking about a film that is a less-than-a-recent release (and, therefore, out of sight, out of mind)? Well, it just happened to come up in an intense conversation with a cousin of mine this afternoon, a conversation chiefly concerned with the impending paradigm shift in civilisation, the collapse of our current economic model for living and the dire threat posed to humanity's survival by global warming, earth changes and over-population.

The world of Pan's Labyrinth, like the one we, the audience, are living in, is a dangerous place. The threat of death and annihilation is all around. The environment is harsh and unwelcoming. The authorities and powers that be (Capricorn) brutally suppress (Pluto) democracy, civil rights and self-expression.

But even though the crises and horrors mount in the film, Ofelia eventually triumphs - albeit paying a heavy price.

So, it remains for us to confront our collective fears of extinction (in the film's instance, Ofelia's voluntary journey to the Underworld), resist attempts by the powers that be to strip of us of our freedoms and accept the possibility of a sacred, new world that is both terrifying and magnificent.

In this way, we can work with the Plutonian and Capricornian energies to willingly die to our old way of life, and emerge (become resurrected) into the new.