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Saturday, July 7, 2012

Pluto: Changing Times Stir the Societal Pot




 Dwarf Planet Pluto as photographed by the Hubble Telescope
photo credit: NASA-JPL



Back when I got out of high school here in the US, American society was all about affirmative action. Under the guise of ‘fairness,’ the rules of that particular day had colleges admitting students of non-white ethnicity with lower grade scores before higher-scoring Caucasian students – many of whom found they couldn’t get into college at all.

That was 1971. Pluto was heading towards the end of its run through Virgo and the students in question were born under Pluto in Leo.

Pluto in Virgo fixates on “the method” with the drive being to achieve the our chosen goal. At the same time, there’s a great undercurrent of morality when it comes to Virgo – especially when we consider Pisces as the polarity sign to Virgo. That signs ‘succeed’ in their given task only when they satisfy the prime directive is why Virgo has such strong and earthy  underpinnings. In Virgo, the thing has to not only function, it has to be right. It has to be moral. When Virgo entities such as doctors, soldiers, civil servants act in an immoral manner we’re particularly offended. There is a sacred (Pisces) quality to everything Virgoan, which is probably why Virgo drives so many to be so exacting and perfectionistic – they see getting the thing right as necessary to the whole of life. Maybe even to the functionality of the universe.

(Their universe? Yes, absolutely.)

For the Pluto in Leo generation which was then trying to get into college, their native Pluto polarity is Aquarius. 

The enormous creativity and inventiveness of this generation has been both carried into the world creating (Aquarian) success and been daunted by societal (Aquarian) challenges to their ability to achieve the very sort of internal acceptance (as a personal realization) that humans are driven to strive for.






There’s a cost for being too individual. Aquarius is the sign where we must first be and become our Self and then find the place in the world where that Self fits in and is accepted and indeed rewarded for being who they are.

Pluto in Leo is something of an obsessive ‘me-myself-my creations’ sort of vibe. It’s funny but probably not a joke that the Pluto in Leo tribe has come to be known as the ‘Baby Boomers’ because Leo is the sign of children, and the Pluto in Leo generation has made having and raising children into a virtual (Aquarian) profession.

As Pluto moved on into Libra the polarity became Aries. This is ‘Gen X’ – a time tribe famous for taking the cult of celebrity and branding to a whole new level. None of this would be likely without the Pluto vibe creating a relationship between Libra (the other, the effect on others) and Aries (the Self) which amounts to ‘other-as-self.’

(And yes, a zillion paparazzi owe Gen X a whole lot of gratitude.)

During the latter part of the Pluto in Libra years, the Pluto in Virgo (Yuppie) tribe hit college. Considering the Libra focus on the other and that the idea of picking one’s personal profession when Pluto is (generally) in the sign after that you were born in…it’s not surprising that many Pluto in Virgo natives went into the ‘helping (and) process-oriented professions’ (medicine, legal, finance). And given Pluto in Libra’s natural ‘advisory’ quality – especially as Pluto in Libra gave way to Pluto in Scorpio during the 1980s it’s not surprising that we was the ‘business of business,’ the ‘business of law,’ and ‘medicine as a business’ make huge leaps and bounds.

Pluto in Scorpio (with Scorpio’s opposition being Taurus) would naturally foster a ‘merger’ sense. It’s sort of the ‘together, we are stronger’ sort of thing. At the same time, Pluto in Scorpio would naturally test not just self worth but the sense of boundaries to a far greater extent than had been seen in several hundred years. (Pluto takes 248 years to make one orbit of the Sun.)
Scorpio being Scorpio and Pluto being Pluto, it’s not unnatural that this is a time when people whose self worth was lacking felt an incredible, emotionally-driven desire to be seen as “equally worthwhile” in whatever fashion.

Its not to be shocked that these years of Pluto in Scorpio saw the rise of consumer debt. These years saw the Gen X crowd becoming adults and wanting to ‘be like’ those they saw as good or admirable or popular…even if they had to finance their way into it.

Fundamentalism of the religious type hit during Pluto in Sagittarius, a time which also saw a tsunami hit the legal system, bogging it down and boggling the public mind. That mind – represented by the opposing sign of Gemini – was asked to decide what is working and what isn’t working. Not surprisingly, a few things were crystal clear to all, a few things were crystal clear to some and a lot of people went to the Pluto in Sagittarius (Gemini polarity) maximal by trying to (en)force their opinions on others.

There is a good side of Pluto in Sagittarius – the upswing of the internet, the access to the marketplace given to the masses. Of course some didn’t know what they were talking about, and that would be the Sagittarian/Gemini polarity. Shams and falsehoods would be a hallmark of this time and not just online. The object here would be to find a way to consider how we think and to improve ways of making choices, but that’s probably yet to come.

Mostly, that is.

This Pluto in Sagittarius generation (which begins in 1996) is now heading towards and into adulthood with Pluto in Capricorn. It’s this which got me to thinking about this whole Pluto Issue, as the dotted line from where I was when I wanted to go to college…(no, I didn’t get to go – I was one of those Caucasian students whose high grades got them waylaid)…to today seems rather clear and almost startling.



(Orbital diagram generated by the JPL Small Body Database)



The story on today’s news was one of many about how entitled undocumented foreigners are (or aren’t) to go to US colleges and universities.

I’m not arguing the yea or nay here – I’m only thinking about the fact that Pluto is now in Capricorn (the sign about ‘status,’ about governance and about consequences national, political, and commerce-oriented)…and how Capricorn is in opposition to Cancer, the sign of one’s homeland and a national population.

Pluto in Capricorn has a natural tendency – as we already see – to ‘split’ the top from the bottom, the few from the masses, if you will. Ultimately, Pluto in Capricorn will be more than that; it will show us that structures must be solid and that the tide turns on those who skim cream off society’s top.

Some ten-plus years from now, Pluto will move into Aquarius. At that point the challenge will likely be about getting people to be truly creative and not just innovative.

Yes, there’s a difference. Creative in this sense is ‘whole cloth creation’ where innovation is an improvement on the system already in place. For those who care, this will like as not be when societies around the world get around to realizing that they really do have to deal with infrastructure man-made and natural. Until then, (under Pluto in Capricorn) there’s likely going to be a lot of finger-pointing at the top and a lot of ‘just get out of my way while I do my OWN thing’ going on at the bottom.

Those who are ‘movers and shakers’ in world society always seem to be focused on Pluto in its current sign. Everybody else (and those folks, when they’re not on the clock) seems to be living to fulfill their natal Pluto drives through the challenges and opportunities described by the sign that Pluto was in during that oh-so-important late-teen, early 20s formative time.

There is no good or bad here, only awareness.

And thereby ends this Plutonic tale!


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