The Latest Uranus-Pluto Triggers

9.13.11


By this point, you should be starting to grow accustomed to hearing about the square between Uranus and Pluto.

If you're not but you aspire to be astrologically informed, you'd better begin wrapping your head around it. This Uranus-Pluto square—exact seven times between 2012 and 2015, but definitely in effect now—is, without a doubt, the big astrological news of the decade. Challenging angles between these two fierce power-players always bring periods of unsettling revolutionary change. But haven't your common-sense observations already told you that's what's going on?

Though Uranus and Pluto are the major slow-moving archetypal planet-forces at play, their transformational energies get triggered each time another planet moves into hard aspect with them. In other words, though the overall Uranus-Pluto upheaval spans several years, certain moments hold a more immediate, heightened sense of circumstantial pressure to radically reform, or suffer further chaos or deterioration. Major metamorphoses occur over an expanse of time… in fits and bursts of sudden progressive movement, interspersed between intervals of acknowledging and integrating that latest audacious thing we've done.

Uranus and Pluto form their seven exact squares roughly between 8 and 16 degrees of Aries and Capricorn, respectively… which means that whenever another body travels through this region of any cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn), it falls into a fevered faceoff with this pungent duo, and invites another opportunity to take the uncomfortably different approach, as an evolutionary step away from outdated habitual notions of 'how things should be'.

Over the coming couple weeks, the Sun, Mercury and Venus will all move through the first degrees of Libra, setting them up to both oppose Uranus and square Pluto before September is complete.

Venus hits this hot-zone first and potentially with the most strength, since she will be confidently in a sign she rules. Venus opposes Uranus on Sat Sep 17, then squares Pluto the next day (Sun Sep 18). To add further emphasis, Pluto will be simultaneously stationing out of his retrograde and back to direct motion (on Fri Sep 16), coloring the entire weekend ahead with intensified conditions, particularly when it comes to our relationships or other situations in which negotiation and/or compromise is called for.

Venus in Libra is the classic diplomat, charming and graceful with her people skills, smoothly facilitating understandings and agreements that yield her what she desires. She elicits good favor, and looks good doing it. With her Pluto square (the more potent aspect, due to Pluto's standing still), Venus seduces us into transgressing long-held inhibitions, persuading us to go deeper in our encounters so we may experience another level of interrelating. Venus-Pluto squares have certainly been known to generate enhanced passion, as we expose ourselves to what we previously considered forbidden. They also, of course, can threaten to incite relational friction, if what might bring us further 'into bed' (ahem) in a given situation clashes with a personal boundary we've decidedly refused to cross. Even in such cases, there resides promise for a breakthrough—if we're willing to investigate the underlying reasons (and perhaps the residual pain from past scarring events behind) why we're so adamantly resistant, for better awareness of what drives us.

And when we throw in Venus's opposition to Uranus, we must also consider how to include our need for personal freedom into any togetherness scenario, lest we feel the balance has swung too far toward the compromised approach and subsumed our individuality. Best-case responses would create space for everybody to do his/her own thing, while still respecting the mutual accommodations upon which relationships are based. Yet, rebellious actings-out, to prove nobody calls our own shots but us, aren't out of the question.

This Venus-Uranus-Pluto combination, then, creates a potentially volatile weekend when it comes to discerning how much to compromise and how much to assert independence, how boldly to enter into psychologically rich territory or how strongly to defend against exposed vulnerabilities. Conscious evolutionary efforts could yield powerful rewards; reactionary denials and refusals invite similarly striking consequences.

These themes continue later in the month, once both the Sun and Mercury reach this same sector of Libra, to form the T-square with Uranus and Pluto (Sep 25-28). What is the proper role of calm, cool consideration in our attitudes and communications, in light of perceived threats to either our radical autonomy (Uranus) or the sanctity of deeply-ingrained 'sacred cows' (Pluto)? Superficial peaces face the possibility of disruption—but whether they're transformed into a real settlement, once all inconvenient truths are finally on the table, or a total breakdown depends on the existing nature of what's being subjected to these pressures.

The couple weeks ahead, however, present just one installment of revolutionary potential among many still to come… another episode in this longer story of how we'll each personally thrive or falter, create dazzlingly innovative alternatives or clutch ever more desperately to a sinking sink, during this epoch of undeniable transformation. Stay tuned: Next time another planet or two passes through those decisive cardinal-sign degrees, we'll see more action along these parallel themes.