We live in a day and age in which scientific explanations and rational consciousness has whittled the mystery, power, and raw intensity of many experiences down to a flaccid approximation of their former vitality and potency. However, some experiences will always retain their power and intensity regardless of cultural context. The viewing of a sunset is one such experience whose allure and draw is timeless and has been able to escape the confines of reductionism and scientism. Photographers, lovers, dreamers, and closeted mystics seek out favorite beaches and mountaintops to watch the power of a sunset. We might try to give a rational explanation as to why so many of us feel compelled to watch the sunset—reconnection, rejuvenation, replenishment—but the actual experiential quality is irreducible to words, and its justification is ineffable.

There are souls who live with the intensity and power of the sunset a little closer to their hearts than others. As the course of current everyday living is analogous to the Sun at its zenith—with the unquestioned, steady cadence of the demands of day-to-day life—those with the power of the sunset interwoven in their psyche live with their own personal demands and desire for intensity, transformation, and depth while mediating societal convention. These "sunset souls" often have the archetype of Pluto accentuated in their birthchart.

However precise the experiential quality of the sunset is at capturing the essence of Pluto, it fails to adequately express all dimensions of this complex and prescient archetype. Although the mystery, power, and profundity of Pluto is preserved through the image of the sunset, this metaphor does not address the inherent paradoxes, potential problems, and deeply primal and bio-evolutionary process that Pluto symbolizes and governs.