The Revolutionary Roots of The Pluto-in-Scorpio Generation
Millennials, Pluto, & The Mid-Life Crisis No One Asked For
Welcome & Welcome Back, Witches!
Hold on to your butts, because it’s a big damn week here at the Practical Magic Newsletter.
We’ll start with the biggie: I’m delighted to unveil my SUPER TOP SECRET ASTROLOGY PROJECT: Witches Get Stuff Done — my newest coaching offering — is officially open to book for the month of April!
Astrology meets coaching in this 1:1 session, designed to help you work with your birth chart and the upcoming astrology — like the eclipses and looming Mercury retrograde — in real, concrete ways. It’s practical magic tailored to your life, and I’m so, so excited to share it with you all. Learn more below:
Speaking of Practical Magic, I’m also pumped to get back to a post I’ve had in the hopper for a few weeks: Pluto in Aquarius is squaring millennials’ natal Pluto. That’s right, a whole generation gets to share this transit, and believe me when I say it’s got some real history to it.
And don’t worry if you’re Gen X (Pluto in Libra) or Gen Z (Pluto in Sagittarius). I haven’t forgotten you and I promise we’ll get to you all in the coming weeks.
What am I waiting for? Let’s get to it!
The Pluto in Scorpio Generation
As we’ve discussed before, Pluto is a slow-ass planet, taking as long as 20 years to move through just one sign. For most millennials that sign was Scorpio, which Pluto moved through, give or take a retrograde, from 1983 to 1995. However, aside from that one Lorde lyric I’m obsessed with, I’ve not seen this “generational placement” explored all that much.
It’s certainly not a placement I’ve thought about all that much until recently. And every time I look for a deeper explanation, all I find are descriptions that are as lofty as they are generic.
Inspires profound transformations in the collective unconsciousness
Brings drastic changes in power relations
Drives worldwide change
Beautiful. Inspiring. But also… what the hell does that mean? I can’t speak for my fellow millennials, but I don’t feel like I’m inspiring any profound transformations in the collective unconscious — unless all that avocado toast is making more of an impact than we thought?
But Pluto is bigger than one person’s experience. It’s about the whole generation. And when I think about these themes in relation to the moments and movements that have defined our lives, the meaning of Pluto in Scorpio comes into a new focus. Increased union and protest activity. The surge in social organizing. Headline movements like BLM and Me Too. Health and wellness movements that acknowledge and combat fatphobia. Putting pronouns in our profiles.
To be clear, these aren’t traits of all millennials and it’s not even that millennials are driving forces for all these movements — many were founded by Gen Xers and even Boomers, including BLM and Me Too. But these are trends and topics that are popularized through millennial adoption. That Pluto in Scorpio energy is attracted to exploring and breaking these taboos, giving momentum to movements that may have previously stalled out.
Pluto Squared: Aquarius & Scorpio
That brings us to now: Pluto has moved into Aquarius. And that means for millennials, Pluto will be square to our natal Pluto placements in Scorpio:
On the one hand, transiting Pluto squaring natal Pluto is a very typical transit. For most folks it will coincide with the typical mid-life crisis.
For millennials though, this typical transit is happening in some very unique signs: Scorpio and Aquarius. On top of all the taboo-confronting energy mentioned above, we’re now going to add Aquarian idealism, future thinking, and general rebelliousness into the mix.
Pluto’s Revolutionary Redux
Pluto may be a slow-moving planet, but it’s been around the sun before. One of our best tools for understanding transits’ energies is to look at how they’ve manifest in the past. And that got me real curious:
Who were the last Pluto-in-Scorpio generation, and what happened in their Pluto square Aquarius years?
It turns out the last generation with this placement set a pretty high bar on the collective transformation front.
That’s right: the last Pluto-in-Scorpio Generation included (but is by no means limited to) Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Hancock, and most of the Sons of Liberty.
And wouldn’t you know it, Pluto moved into Aquarius in 1777 in the middle of the American Revolution, and stayed there until 1798, i.e. through most of the French Revolution and all of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
That worldwide change babble is starting to make a lot more sense.
A Word of Caution to This Take
This is not to fear-monger or to say any kind of war is pre-ordained in the stars. This transit has echoes in history, but the beautiful thing about astrology is that it’s like a river, it’s never exactly the same twice.
No, my takeaway is that Pluto’s time in Aquarius is going push millennials to put their money where their mouths are. To take more direct action on the values they hold dear, especially the ones that break with “how things have been.” And that action is going to a deep and lasting impact on how things are done going forward.
So the invitation of this transit is to take a good hard look at gaps between our values and our actions, and ask ourselves honestly: what would it take to close those gaps?
Don’t worry, though. It’s a 20-year transit. You have plenty of time.
And That’s All She Wrote!
She, of course, being me. I hope you enjoyed the read — I had a lot of fun writing it for you!
Reply to this email or leave a comment to let me know what you thought and how these energies are showing up in your life. I love to hear your stories, plus every interaction really helps the newsletter’s visibility. 💜💜💜
See you all next Tuesday for more planetary fun and who knows what else!
Great read and looking forward to your thoughts on Pluto in Libra too!