Pluto is a planet of immense concealed power. As such, it is the Great Initiator. Any realm requiring a style of initiation is the province of this planet:
Subcultures
Secret Societies
Organized Crime
Conspiracy
Aristocracy
The Police
The Occult
The Vatican
Etc.
Pluto was discovered just as the ideas of Freud were being used to influence public opinion under the auspices of his nephew Edward Bernays (See Adam Curtis The Century of the Self). The realm of the subconscious, the concealed or primal mind, also strongly signified by Pluto - in this instance utilized to distinguish the powerful elite from the general masses; the initiate from the uninitiated, the controller from the controlled.
Uranus, discovered during the period of the French and American Revolutions, is the planet of innovation and revolt. As Uranus represents innovations of a given time, one’s natal Uranus placement is not as critical as is the Zodiac Sign transited by Uranus when ones comes of age, exerting the rebellious compulsions of the teens and early twenties that help to fashion the cultural momentum of an era by participation.
PLUTO-LIBRA
Roughly, those born between 1971 and 1984 have Pluto in Libra. (Accounting for some crossover due to retrograde.)
This generation came of age while Uranus transited Capricorn and Aquarius consecutively, circa 1988-2003.
Capricorn is a Saturn-ruled sign. Saturn is a planet of structure, rejection, and formation. In Capricorn it emphasizes utility and austerity. Combat boots and flannels were de rigueur as Uranus had its transit through Capricorn.
Aquarius is also a Saturn-ruled sign, yet it also bears meanings convenient with those of Uranus. In this sign Saturn designates the rejection of existing systems for invention of either a solitary or altruistic purpose, signified by the Water Bearer in the stages of his journey of abandoning and nourishing the collective. The birth of the Internet is marked by the ingress of Uranus into Aquarius.
Moving forward, this generation can be designated as Pluto-Libra, retaining the significance of Uranus’ transits through Capricorn and Aquarius by implication.
PLUTO-SCORPIO
Those born, roughly, between 1983 – 1995 have natal Pluto in Scorpio.
This group came of age when Uranus was in Pisces; roughly 2003-2011.
And when Uranus was in Aries, 2010-2019.
This group can be designated Pluto-Scorpio, encompassing the implied Uranus Transits also.
The chief distinction between the two groups:
Pluto-Libra rejected the status quo and thrived in various subcultures.
Pluto-Scorpio sought absorption into existing systems through reform, but prioritizes an ideal of universal social integration over specialized subcultural enclaves.
PLUTO IN LIBRA
It may be stated concisely that Uranus passing through two consecutive Saturn-ruled signs between 1998-2003 sustained a youth culture with a pronounced loathing for mainstream virtues, relishing in Mark-of-Cain denominations such as punk, freak, and fag.
Pluto’s expression in Libra demands some further elaboration. Venus has her domicile in Libra; this Zodiac sign deals in diplomacy, social grace, love, camaraderie, lasting bonds of trust, maintaining balance amid multiplicity. Libra does not merely dwell in polarity, it abides amid complexes of multivalent equilibrium.
Those with Pluto in Libra, when inspired by Uranus to renounce normativity, found refuge in the secret societies of subculture. A rapid orbit afforded Venus frequent dissertations with Pluto during the latter’s thirteen year sojourn in her domicile. This enhanced the formation of social offshoots constructed upon the aesthetic and binding wages of Venus: music, art, fashion, taste. Such organizations were not novel at the time, but they flourished in both specialization and multiplicity. Initiates had to prove themselves through trials of the integrity of their knowledge and values. Poseurs were forbidden, outsiders were deemed ordinary or uninitiated. Yet powerful bonds of loyalty were forged among small communities.
URANUS IN PISCES: The Infantilization and Dissolution of Subculture
The transparency generated by a new Internet-based worldview upset the delicate balance of the final degrees of Libra while Uranus shifted into the utopian expanses of Sagittarius; a drama of metaphysical paroxysms and childlike wonder.
Here it indeed found its brand with a myriad of spiritual fads and exotic bohemian fantasies. But with its newfound innocence came a sharp decline in sophistication. College students shed their scene-oriented vestments that at once combined elegance and chaos. They now were clad in pajamas at music festivals for the nursery school airs of Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, Joanna Newsome – in effect, music that sounds as though it were made for children.
Films by Wes Anderson earned embarrassing prestige with their nauseating tableaux vivants of kid-lit. The non-threatening and the juvenile became the target for the coveted market of millennial hipsters. Examples of these proliferate, demonstrating advertisements for the treatment of prostate cancer with pastel cartoon penguins playing volleyball in winter scarves. Other such bizarre marketing motifs are still prevalent in advertising owing to the economic strength of this contingency.
URANUS IN ARIES: The *I* Generation
This license to indulge in one’s most stunted and pre-adolescent states formed the amniotic substance from which Uranus could burst forth into the inaugural sign of the Zodiac, Aries. Ruled by Mars – planet of aggression, desire, conflict, and war.
In Aries, Arthur draws his sword from the stone. The bow of Shiva is set before Rama. Primordial man learns he can crush skulls with his bone. Et in Arcadia ego – I am. One discovers one’s weapon, and ego, forging a path of the self against world.
During this era, with the abundance of encumbering pronouns it sets forth, the one always stubbornly italicized is “I.”
I am offended
I feel attacked
I may be disabled
I self-diagnose
I self-identify
I see myself reflected into myself through infinity
Me too
PLUTO IN SCORPIO
Uranus’ transit through Sagittarius left us with nothing to prove, we were born this way.
Through Aries, anyone who detracted our self-styled sovereignty was not our personal adversary to defeat, but an enemy of the global well-being who must be silenced.
The self is rewarded with value through commercialization. Honors are now self-conferred. With no need for initiation under such circumstances, Pluto is deprived of its cosmic role.
Scorpio, like Aries, is ruled by Mars and it too deals in secret initiations. Having two such potent generations attached to Mars-ruled signs thickened the atmosphere with the war planet’s implacable lust and aggression.
Scorpio deals in desire and conquest, the detection and transmutation of poisons, secrecy and renunciation. A new kind of initiation was decided by a screen-deep enlightenment as displayed on social media. And with this came covert mobs out to destroy one another in a philosophical discourse of righteousness, underneath which lurked hidden motives and bloodlust. Pluto was divested of the loyalty and secret handshakes it enjoyed in Libra. In Scorpio took delight in power dynamics and betrayal, games of thrones.
Social dynamics built on conquest rather than trust cannot engender thriving isolated subcultures. Infighting, aggression, and covert agendas paralyze the possibility of community building. The adversary is protracted to a diseased “society” from which the individual craves some form of toxic validation. In the desire to earn it, a plague of scorpions is poised to strike and punish any sign of misstep, either real or imagined. There is no camaraderie, there is only the I, confused and disoriented as it encounters the contours of an external reality it cannot comprehend.