Final Notes About the Final Uranus Pluto Square

A group of therapists came together in Europe to participate in a ten-day workshop.

As was the custom, at the start of the gathering, the attendees gathered together in a circle to take make introductions and share a little about their practice and history.

About halfway into the process, a woman explained how she’d worked for years in a mental institution counseling dozens of patients each day. And then, after a pause, her face became grim. She continued:

One day while she was eating her lunch one of her clients committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the institute. The patient fell right past the therapist as she was eating her salad.

The woman’s breathing became rushed, she was crying and right on the verge of losing control.

But the leader of the workshop sensed that something was ‘off’ about the woman’s state; there was something not quite genuine about her demeanor. She was working herself into an agitated condition to alert her colleagues about the intensity she’d experienced throughout her career and how that intensity made her special.

At the end of her story she looked to the leader of the group for acknowledgment. And then everyone else in the circle turned and looked to the leader too. A concerned silence hovered in the air.

And then, after a pause, the leader shrugged his shoulders and announced:

“Okay. New rule. No jumping from the roof during lunch.”

The woman and all of the other participants in the circle burst into laughter.

You Didn’t Jump. So You’re Still Here!

I like this story as an allegory for looking back and reviewing the past seven years that accompanied the just-finished square between Uranus and Pluto; two of astrology’s most misunderstood and misinterpreted planets.

If you haven’t jumped off of a bridge yet, well, congratulations, you’ve passed a series of initiations that you were destined to encounter (should you consider your soul an agent of consciousness that traverses from life to life).

Your presence continues within the pulse of life. You’re still here and entwined with — and required to participate in — the incessant woof and warp of living.

This circle story also shows how we might expand beyond our pipsqueak sense of self, with its attendant stories and dramas that color and define us. The story also shows how the ordinary can shift to the extraordinary by involving humor as a transcendent ingredient. Life is tough, it sucks sometimes and then we laugh (or cry) and then we carry on.

I’ve written a lot about the alignment between Uranus and Pluto on this site, and discussed in detail some of the socio-cultural fallout with my colleague Jessica Murray. But now, as the final square clicks in and out of exactitude, I’m going to share some personal anecdotes, observations and insights with you.

Some Backstory First

Modern astrologers write from a Jungian perspective about the trio of planets that reside beyond Saturn (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). Because those planets orbit the Sun at a glacial pace it’s easy to associate them with ‘collective’ time — cultural trends and geopolitical movements; or even the rise and fall of civilizations — when you consider Pluto’s 248-year orbit around the Sun.

But let’s not forget that cultures and civilizations are aggregates of individuals. Folks like you and me. And, should you be open to an atypical perspective, the outer planets also mark moments in life that deconstruct your conventional sense of self.

If you are committed to upholding the values and standards you inherited from your family, church or the various authority figures that influenced your life, well, it’s likely that your ability to find resonance with the outer planets hasn’t developed.

Many people do not ‘register’ the outer planets in a personal sense, in much the same way most people do not practice Zen or involve their lives with depth psychology or spiritual practices that unravel the dominance of the ego and its allegiance to the instincts. This isn’t a judgment, just an astrological statement of fact.

The dominate theme of my work with clients during the past seven years has involved the personal particulars of accommodating the acceleration of consciousness that’s symbolized by the Uranus Pluto square. An unrelenting pressure that feels (to those aforementioned instincts) like a battle to the death.

Here are some notes, observations and insights I’ve gleaned by tracking my own experience and that of my clients. Make what you will of this. Nothing is etched in stone.
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