Gen-X as a Uranus/Pluto Metaphor…

Thomas Paine was quoted as saying, “People are more like their generation than they are like their family.” He would say that being an Aquarian. Astrologers have often undermined the importance of the outer planets in astrology but I have found them to be amazingly important in the psychology, physiology and general fate of those born under the influences of generational planets. I’ve even seen physical traits that seem to defy logic among generations. There is a certain look to those with Pluto in Leo, Neptune in Libra (the Boomers) and to those who came before them. And certainly every subsequent generation. It’s not just the way they dress, it’s the way they carry themselves and even their features seem often to reflect a subtle hint of the outer planets influence.

In the 1960s just the transiting conjunction of Uranus and Pluto was enough to cause the sexual revolution, war and the vehement anti-war movement, civil unrest and the health food movement (the transit planets were both in Virgo) and also the decline in wages leading to the death of the American dream. It  also coincided with a huge drop in the population (due to the advent of the pill and other things). Those who are commonly referred to Gen-X’ers are the smallest in number around the world.

My definition of Gen-X is astrological and goes from about 1956/57 until 1969/1970. These people have in common Neptune in Scorpio (thus the obsession with the occult, often unusual sexual proclivities and all things hidden, secret or occult) and Pluto in Virgo which brings with it a desire to be of service, interest in health, healthy living, alternative medicine, natural foods, and unfortunately also brought us lower wages on the whole, and perpetual financial problems. Many of us have had to change careers many times over (Virgo is a mutable sign ruled by Mercury) which has made it imperative to change in order to survive.

The super ultra extra generation X-ers are those born with Uranus in Virgo conjunct Pluto in Virgo. That configuration started around 1962 and ended around 1968. These people are rebellious by nature, challenging, bright and often visionary. Kurt Cobain was born 2 weeks after me the same year, we shared a grand water trine, Uranus and Pluto conjunction in Virgo making a kite off of it. He however was not as lucky as I. He had far too many planets in water. My husband reminded me that I once looked at his chart and said it looked like he was an elemental. And indeed the poor guy had no fire (like me) but was deluged by water. He had twice the water I do and no air to distance himself from his emotions. Anyone who had that chart would eventually kill themselves, he was just too sensitive and too emotional. Life was pain for him. Many of the most innovative musical artists (popular in the 1990s) had this configuration as this configuration often shakes up things. And for sure this group shook the music industry to its core, it still hasn’t recovered but that’s another story… if only they would have embraced the Pluto energy, the change and the Uranian innovation they would have figured out what Itunes did and they would be flourishing like never before but instead they resisted, trying to be conservative and killed what people loved about the art and destroyed their own business in the process by resisting new technology. Often people with Uranus/Pluto conjunct will enter into a situation right before it’s about to implode or explode and become a catalyst for this change. And of course the more the person resonates the energy of that configuration the greater their effect is on those around them.

Obama is on the outskirts of the Gen-X’er generation. He doesn’t have the radical idealism embodied by those born between 1962 and 1969. He has the practical idealism of Pluto in Virgo. He believes he can work things out rationally. However he fails to see that while one would hope the world capable of rational thought and measured intelligence, as George Bush showed us, this is not always in the genes or the generation. Pluto in Leo people (who make up the vast majority of politicians) are very emotional almost vitriolic and/or zealot-like about their ideology, of course until it changes and then they intensely defend their new world view with the same passion often using their old life as an example of why their new life is so right on. I could name a thousand celebrity examples of this, but the first one that pops to mind is “Dr.” Laura Schelssinger (she’s not actually psychologist as many assume she actually has a degree in physiology which would make her qualified to be a coach, PE professor/teacher or give her good background to be a physical therapist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Schlessinger .) All that aside, she rails on about the evils of divorce, oh yeah, she’s is a divorcee’, about the evils of adulterous affairs, that too she is supposedly guilty of and a host of other things which she vehemently chastises her callers for admitting without ever showing her own vulnerability. This quality in various forms can be seen in the Pluto in Leo generation often to good effect. They can throw themselves into things and truly effect change like nobodies business because they believe so strongly in their ideas and the Leo pride and arrogance allows them to do so without question. However the Achilles heel (for those who live in the shadow side like Dr. Laura) is intense, disgusting and ridiculous hypocrisy like George W. spending his life as the poster boy for cocaine and the party lifestyle and then doing a 180 a few years before he decides he wants to get into politics. Very convenient for him to have found God.

Well, enough ragging on the negative sides of that generation. There are a lot of people, the vast majority of the population that fall under this configuration, and for sure there are many great people and many who have used the bravery and sureness of Pluto in Leo to do amazing things. It’s just those few wankers who ruin it. But of course there are always wankers in every generation.

The Generation Y’ers are still coming into their own. Unfortunately, the Neptune in Sagittarius and Pluto in Libra combination is a hard one for personal (marriage type) relationships. Neptune in Sag wants to explore, go crazy, party, see the world, drink and generally over indulge and Pluto (which as I’ve stated is powerful transformative energy) wants to destroy, and the sign it’s in, Libra makes the aim partnerships, marriage, legal matters, injustice. On the good side of this, this generation has many strong activists for social change, those who are committed to changing the laws to make life equal for all (both Sag and Libra have legal implications.) On the negative side there is the Paris Hilton’s of this generation, who exemplifies the shadow side of this group of people.

The dark side of Gen-X is the extreme desire to be individual and the almost pathological need to be considered unique so much so that one is hard pressed to get someone in that generation to admit being part of a generation, which of course is absurd. I think many out grew this as they got older and reluctantly, and with much resentment, realized they were actually part of a group that could be “marketed to.” Other problems that I’ve seen among my peers are a feeling of hopelessness + powerlessness = apathy which is partially due to so much Virgo in Gen-X charts. Virgos have a tendency to feel small and of little value. We are the first generation to grow up mostly in single parent households (due to 50% divorce rates among our parents generation), having to adapt to radical changes in the roles of women and men. And the first generation to do worse than our parents generation did. We have often felt like outcasts and freaks, partially due to the inner turmoil between our conservative nature (we can be weirdly prudish and old-fashioned the Uranus/Pluto in Virgo) in opposition to the desire to wreak havoc (hence the Punk rock or Alternative music revolution embraced and continued by Pluto in Virgo). We want to shake things up and alternatively go forward at the same time, actually the music, literature and aesthetics of Steampunk pretty much sum up the conflicting weirdness of Gen-X people.

I focus a lot on Gen-X because not many astrologers have since we are a minor group, and difficult to understand from the outside in. We are the invisible children of the Me generation, the shadowed group that never really got a foothold as the Boomers extended their time in the work place, the group of kids left to raise themselves, fend for themselves in the face of declining jobs (since 1967) and many of us came into the career market as the first George Bush recession hit in the early 90s. Believe me I don’t think we have it the worst. We were and are a hallmark generation, the first truly modern generation bridging the gap between an America that protected its citizens from greedy corporations and stood on the side of labor, and equality and the wealthy pluto/corporatocracy we have now. We were just the first generation of people to go backwards – the beginning of the empire’s unraveling, back toward the standards of people who we were taught as children only existed in developing nations. By this I mean a health care system ranked 37th in the world below many developing nations. We are one step closer to indentured servitude and slavery each year as jobs continue to go overseas where labor is virtually free and we learn to live on the sort of money that seemed impossible 20 years ago to the Pluto in Leo generation. I know many people in their late 30s to mid 40s who are living off of about $600 a month in impossible places like the Bay Area. They live in abject poverty and can only pray they don’t get sick since they can’t afford care and apply to every job remotely related to anything they’ve done to no avail.

Let’s face it this is not a recession. It’s a depression. According to the most recent statistics 1 in 5 people is unemployed. That is 20% of the population, it was 25% during the Great Depression. Health care reform is not only imperative (and a moral obligation)  but so is throwing lobbyists out of Washington and actually  holding corporations to the same laws that we as human beings have to abide by.

Best wishes and happy holidays,

Denise

Generations, Our Collective Karma and Personality

OK, hope you all didn’t think I was being too hard on the old Pluto in Leo boomers. They have given the world a lot but because of their massive size, and scale have also monopolized the resources, the tenor of the collective psyche, and have been at the steering wheel of power for the past 40 some odd years. Let’s just give everyone my definition of the Pluto in Leo, Me’ers or Boomers, because it doesn’t correspond exactly to the arbitrary lines drawn by anthropologists, sociologists and mathematician’s.  

The Boomer (Me’er/Pluto in Leo) generation started back in 1942, although the transitional generation between the Boomers and the “greatest generation ever,” started around 1938 when Pluto began to enter Leo, however Neptune didn’t go into Libra until 1942, hence the official start date of the Boomers. This generation continued until the fall of 1957, again however, there were people born with Pluto in Virgo and Neptune in Scorpio off and on during 1956 and 1957 as these planets retrograded back and forth. So some people born during this period fit neatly into the Gen-X group personality and some into the Boomer personality. 

I want to go backwards a bit and talk about the “greatest generation ever,” those born when Neptune was in Virgo and Pluto was in Cancer. These folks went through the Great Depression, WWI, WWII and many of them lost their lives serving the greater good — Neptune=Loss and Virgo=Service to others. It is no surprise among this generation we saw frugality, a great love of home, family and country and a dedication to work, service and sacrifice. This generation truly had these gifts built into their charts. This collectively (of course not everyone will fit this because we are all individuals as well and other things in people’s charts can and do over ride things) was a generation willing to sacrifice everything for their children, and family, in the hopes their kids would have a better life. 

When WWII ended, and the start of the Boomer generation began, the fruits of all the sacrifice, and hard work that “the greatest generation” tilled ripened. The Boomers grew up in an era of unprecedented wealth and giant middle-class. Only one person in a family had to work (dad) and that person could work at a gas station as an attendant, save his money and buy a home, and actually support his family. I know this because this is the story of my husband’s father.

It became an unconscious, and expected right to attain the American Dream; home owning, good paying jobs whether they were the “blue collar” factory sort, or the professions that required years of college. Boomers grew up in an era where all things were possible, and had no way to relate to their parents paranoia about the other shoe dropping economically, or the memory of miners murdered for starting unions so they could be paid fairly and treated like human beings. 

By the time Boomers came into power really in the 1980s, although they steered the mass consciousness well before that especially culturally in the 60s and 70s, they had all but forgotten the lessons of their parents generation. An unfortunate paranoia about Russia, communism and being frightened to death with thoughts of nuclear obliteration, this group embraced capitalism with a reactive almost religious zeal that spoke of their dark fear of anything “pinko” related. Thus the embrace of Reagan’s war on unions, social programs and those laws protecting us from another depression — regulations! Slowly as this generation held the mantel (and again not all are on this side of the fence, but enough to say it is the majority) of power they allowed the mentally ill to spill onto the streets in overwhelming numbers in the 80s during the Reagan years and unwound all those handy regulations. 

I remember going into downtown Los Angeles in the mid 1980s, and being horrified to see literally tens of thousands of people living in boxes like the old Hovervilles of the 1930s. The great majority of these people were the mentally ill. And then later as Reagan continued with his theme of , “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,” (now there’s a big assumption, some people are too poor to have bootstraps to pull on) the streets became flooded with families turned out because welfare programs were slashed to nothing, and again I remember walking around the cold foggy streets of San Francisco in the late 1980s and seeing whole families with their tiny children, begging for food, money or anything a stranger like myself could provide. This was the 80s I remember. And Ronald Reagan was a bastard who started this whole mess. We can trace all of our problems back to his selling of “trickle down economics,” and anti-regulation of the stock market, banking institutions (remember the fall of the S & L’s and the Bush brother who went to jail for stealing money from old people?) and the destruction of the social net FDR had built? And making it difficult to get a student loan? Thanks Reagan and your line of bastard children weaned at the teat of the no-hold-bar capitalistic cool-aid.

All this revisionist history about Reagan and Nixon (who was a crook and started what Reagan really cemented, Reagan just sold it to everyone as if it were home made fudge backed by grandpa Ronnie) is a disgrace to the reality of our current situation, and dangerous to our future understanding of how to avert the crisis we are now in, and will be again, if we are not honest about the roots of our problem. We  need a bit of cultural psychotherapy that I’m happy to provide, a reality check. It’s vital we are brutally honest with ourselves about our past and our present, look at what happens when the 4th estate (journalists) fail to be critical and look at facts: we end up in a prolonged war in 2 countries where we don’t even know how many innocent civilians have died. And thousands of our young people have given their lives for what turned out to be a lie. It is a disgusting and vile war crime, truly treason on the part of the Bush administration. Throwing away the lives of so many, and shredding the Genova Convention laws all the world agreed to, for their personal agenda.

Ok, enough of my asides, back to generational astrology. Let’s skip forward to Generation Z, the young people who are coming of age during this crisis. This generation officially (according to me) started in January of 1984 when Pluto was in Scorpio and Neptune went into Capricorn. There would also have been some cuspy Generation Z’ers in 1983. These kids were the ones who went nuts for Harry Potter, and grew up exposed to the tiny cultural mantel Generation X held during the 1990s mostly in the way of comedy and music.

They have many similar traits to Generation X. An intense interest in the occult, even more so then Generation X because for them their exposure to this will be and/or has been more trans-formative and in Gen-X’s case it was either confused, fantasy based or remained in the psychic realm. Pluto is also naturally placed in Scorpio making this generation a powerful group of souls who came here to help transform the earth, and the collective consciousness.

There was also a rare configuration of planets during their generation (which was also the case with X’ers and the Uranus/Pluto in Virgo combo which the world hadn’t seen in over 10,000 years, not an aspect most souls could handle which is why there aren’t many X’ers) by March of 1988 Uranus went into Capricorn conjuncting Neptune. This is about when we saw the last banking mess as Capricorn rules the financial sector and Neptune confusion, scams and delusion. This was when the S & L crisis was getting going, not yet public, but when this scam was more then likely hatched.

Anyway, those born during this period, who would now be almost drinking age as of 09, will be very much like Gen-X’ers who came to adulthood during the recession of the early 90s, when people with master’s degrees in psychology were working as Baristas. Unfortunately, this group of people will probably see their high priced educations put on the back burner for any old job they can get. This group will be instrumental in solving the financial crisis, we will see them re-invent business as we have known it. They are a serious bunch, highly ambitious and again a very rare group of souls who choose to come here and sacrifice a lot to help out the greater good and mankind. On the whole they will bring the same kind of innovation to business that Gen-X’ers have brought to health care with their emphasis on alternative healing, health food, yoga, nutrition and organic food (all Virgo obsessions that have brought a lot to the table in the healing professions.)

On the negative side those born with Pluto in Scorpio are also the generation that was prone to intense violence. There was a tremendous rise in school shootings among their generation. Pluto ruling death and naturally placed in Scorpio its no wonder. They were also very over sexualized early on, with stories about them having oral sex in school on buses and having sex parties. This is all that sexual energy in its highly powerful place of Scorpio. The fact that Bill Clinton’s sex life as the number one story of the day while they were growing up didn’t help much. Most of these kids when polled back in the 90s said that oral sex wasn’t sex. I wonder where they heard that from? Also with so much heavy Capricorn in their charts they as a group were placed under tremendous pressure to achieve, and were raised with stuff being given for good grades, often bought instead of nurtured. All of this is in their stars.

Now the generation just after the Z’er’s when Pluto went into Sag, are much different.I’ll get into the why’s of this as I continue on with this generation…

Generations Continued… (And kind of answering some readers)

I will get to the financial questions this weekend. I never looked at an exact date for the actual total bottom out of the market just gave a general time frame from the end of December until about the 20th of January because this is when Pluto goes over the Dow’s ascendant. Except for the exact start was December 21, 2008. To me the main message was to get out back in the fall before the first drop hit which was why I started the blog.

But unfortunately I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the free fall, and I will look at other factors that could set off another big scary plunge coming up in January.  

As I said before Pluto going over the ascendant of the Dow was going to bring to light some serious scandals, criminal activity going on behind the scenes, and a loss of faith in the market itself because of ethics issues. Maidoff (ironic name) is the biggest, but I doubt he will be the only one to be exposed, and fall.

We are in a time of reckoning. A very karmic time, for those who have been greedy and materialistic they will learn major lessons now. Remember that old quote from the bible, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” We are seeing the beginning of the powerful’s fall and a new respect for those old time values, things you can’t buy like politeness, kindness, caring, empathy and good old thriftiness. It’s about time greed became the disgusting word it always has been.

Enough about that! Let’s talk about generational astrology and the first Gen-X president (barely gen-x but still) President Elect Obama. We will go from the mantel of the “Me” generation to that Uranus/Pluto conjunction (in Obama’s case it’s very loose, and his Uranus is in Leo, so he’s not full tilt, but kind of transitional) in Virgo.

Gen-Xers can be annoyingly idealistic on the bad side, and on the good side they actually really do try to walk their talk, whatever their talk is. They are good for their word. Most grew up in fractured families and were ignored not just by the families, but by the culture at large which had a literal boner for everything sexual. One could not enter a store without seeing statues of naked people humping. It was a very child inappropriate time. A time when being a kid or having one was seen almost as a sad debilitating disease that slowed down not only a chance to get laid and wasted (although being a parent has never stopped people from partaking if they wanted to) but also your chance to explore yourself. You know that ever fascinating Me, that has so many things to express and do. 

I found it deeply ironic (that’s the very nice way of putting this) that during the Vietnam war, all war was horrible, when Me’ers were being drafted. Now, I agree war is bad. They were right. But the lame thing was war became good, when it meant cheaper gas in the old Ford 4 wheeler and it was (mostly poor kid) Gen-Xers going to Bagdad, suddenly war wasn’t such a horrible thing.

“We have to protect our interests.” I actually heard old hippies (who had been at one time anti-war) say things like that. It was a major 180. “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” and once they hit their 50s I heard arguments from this generation saying that it wasn’t until people were in their 50s and 60s that they were most productive.

Hey, that’s a coincidence, you’re in your 50s and 60s.

And I won’t say more about this because we all get it just from these few examples. I don’t want to whip them, there are many amazingly good people in this generation, and not all fall victim to these convenient 180s. And not everyone backtracked on their principles, but even those in this generation who are the good eggs agree with me that they, too, have been sorely disappointed by their fellow Me’ers in this regard. Some so disappointed that they have made the mistake of projecting this problem onto all of humanity instead of seeing it as a distinctly Pluto in Leo character trait. Not that they are the only people all of the time, but it is a generational marker. I actually had a history teacher in high school who was a Me’er and he said once, “You can’t change the world. We tried in the 60s and look what good it did. It didn’t make any difference.” 

When I pointed out to him that things took time to grow roots, and that a lot of things actually did change for the better because of the activism of the 60s, which we have to give props to the Pluto in Leo people for, they were a big part of this and this is their good side. They can be very generous and trusting. Problem was they kind of got their dreams crushed after the assassination of JFK and MLK and Bobby Kennedy and many of them gave up and went toward the negative side of the Leo tendency, which was pure un-adulterated ego gratification in the form of materialism, greed, self-absorption, an inability to sacrifice the self for the greater good, and using sexuality as an ego pick-me-up.

Ok, let’s get onto the Generation Y which has more in common with the Me’ers, just as Generation X has more in common with children born during the 1990s (I’m not sure they have a name yet so let’s call them Zers). Generation Y has Neptune in Sag, Pluto in Libra, Uranus in either Libra or Scorpio. This period went from about the fall of 1972 until around the fall of 1984. If you were born in 1971-fall 1972, you fall in between Generation X and Y and will have qualities of both. In some cases you maybe an Xer or a Yer depending on your date of birth as the planets retrograded back and forth for about a year.

Y’s were the kids who went to rave’s. They are very social, and with Neptune in Sag, a bit of a lost soul generation. As a group they spent most of their young adult years floating, the economy was good when they came of age, but they grew up in fractured homes. They often just wanted things to be peaceful and hated confrontation.

They also do not have the same obsession with integrity that Gen-X’ers do. They are more bendable and willing to go along with trends, fit in with their generation and are more social, less critical of others and more accepting.

They had a hippie like feel when they were younger and were more akin to the Pluto in Leo types in terms of accepting (and abiding) excess, and had multiple partners where as Gen-X’ers never dated, they have one boyfriend or girlfriend and then moved on to another. They chastised anyone who even tried the multiple boyfriends or girlfriends idea unlike Y’ers or Me’ers. Gen-Xer’s were and are sort of prudish about sexuality unless it falls into the Neptune in Scorpio side of their personality, and has elements of bondage, S & M or a dark thing about it. Even then one could argue the sexual repression built into the X’ers finds a release in the darker side of sexuality and fantasy. 

Next I’ll go more into Y’ers  and those born in the 80s, 90s and compare them to the other generations as well…

Best wishes to all.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Denise