Barbara Hand Clow | June 21 2012

[This is an update of an article by Barbara Hand Clow published in Welcome to Planet Earth (1991) titled, “Will the Pluto in Leo Generation Heal Itself?” During 2012-15, we will be living through seven squares between Uranus and Pluto, which will radically change our lives. When this article first came out twenty years ago, it flew all over the place and had a big impact because it spoke to people about their family relations. So, in light of the upcoming squares, this article is updated to our present times. Next comes an article on how to best utilize the power of the first square between Pluto and Uranus on June 24, 2012. Get ready!]

The seven squares between Uranus and Pluto—2012 through 2015—will create a revolution in global industrial, financial, and social structures. We know this because when the square was first drawing close during 2011, the ideals of the 1960s countercultural revolution surfaced within Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and the European financial crisis. Uranus rules radical structural changes, while Pluto destroys anything in the way of change. When they work together as a team as they are now, watch out! This is especially true with erratic and shocking Uranus in its most forceful sign—Aries—while ruthless Pluto is in it most determined sign—Capricorn. During the counter-cultural revolution, Uranus and Pluto in Virgo—the sign of healing, orderly living, and ecology—set the themes for transformation all the way up through 2104: During the 1960s for example, people rose up and demanded an end to corporate control and war, and soon these seven squares will provide fuel to push this agenda along.

When two planets square each other after a major conjunction, the issues that surfaced during the conjunction return and push for resolution. With Pluto in Capricorn, we will witness a cleanout of financial, corporate, and societal structures. Many of us have not forgotten the wild and crazy 1960s, when youth movements demanded economic fairness, an end to war, and creative freedom for all people. This pressure for a more humane world has simmered just beneath the surface for more than forty years, and it came to a boil again in 2011—“power to the people” is the same as “power for the 99%”.

This article looks into how the 2012-15 squares will impact the Pluto generations that played major roles during the 1960s—those with natal Pluto in Cancer through Virgo born 1912-1972. It ends with the Cancer through Virgo transits of Chiron from 1988 through 1995, because the centaur generated a healing of these three generations. (1) Back in the 1960 during the Uranus/Pluto conjunctions in Virgo, the Pluto-in-Leo generation—born from 1937 to 1958—challenged the control of their Pluto-in-Cancer parents—born from 1912 to 1939. (Overlaps between generations are due to Pluto’s retrograde motion.) This younger generation’s refusal to support the status quo resulted in heart-breaking divisions in many families that may rip open again in 2012-15. Then because of this division, the Pluto-in-Virgo children and grandchildren—born 1956 to 1972—currently struggle with having enough resources. Let’s consider how these generations may respond to these upcoming squares.

Because of Pluto’s long stay in each sign, the sign that Pluto occupies expresses the deepest desires of each generation. These well up within people and eventually become the themes of collective movements, for example, the infamous “Make Love, not War” slogan of the 1960s. These plutonic desires become specific evolutionary urges that transform worlds, very much like extinctions that create space for new species. Pluto resides in our solar plexus (gut) where we hold the complexes of present and past experience. Like a volcano, when there is too much hidden material in our gut, Pluto compresses it and then explodes the contents in a wild eruption. Pluto is our emotional brain that holds the records of our karmic processes; we remember our deepest feelings by storing them plutonically. Pluto is also a compassionate and wise master, a teacher who allows us to learn the most about ourselves by forcing us to notice our behavior when our gut erupts. Just feel that area of your body when you get really mad at someone.

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