Another Early 40's Life Transition: Uranus Opposition Pluto

If you're in your early 40's right now (born late 1965 through 1968), one of the things on your planetary agenda is the opposition of Uranus to natal Pluto. Pluto has an irregular orbit, so how old a person is when Uranus opposes Pluto varies somewhat from generation to generation. I had mine when I was 45. The current generation is having Uranus opposition Pluto at around the same time it is experiencing Uranus opposition Uranus (because the two planets were close together in the sign of Virgo in the mid to late 60's). These people are experiencing a unique combination of the exhilarating and the scary, but everyone goes through Uranus opposition Pluto. Here's a brief description of this life transition. If you have your chart handy, you might want to look at the time in your life when Uranus opposed your natal Pluto (you can find a Swiss ephemeris at astro.com).

So I'm not going to lie. Uranus opposition Pluto can be scary, and it is usually quite stressful. I actually thought I was going to physically die during mine. It turned that not only was I nowhere near physically dying but that I was embarking on a whole new life. I count Uranus opposition Pluto as one of the best things that ever happened to me. That's the short headline on Uranus opposition Pluto: feels like the end but actually it's the beginning.

Not everyone has a hugely dramatic or visible experience during Uranus opposition Pluto. For some, the time periods when the opposition is exact or close to exact are quite short. Usually in these cases the opposition plays out in a milder form, although it can still be helpful in getting a fresh start in some area of your life. The opposition typically plays out over a period of about 18 months, although it is not usually felt at peak intensity for much of that time.

If you want to know what a Uranus/Pluto opposition looks like from the outside, here are a few examples from the lives of our public political figures. Bill Clinton went through his Uranus/Pluto opposition during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment trial. It had been preceded by oppositions to his Saturn and Mercury, which is probably why lying was such a visible issue during his opposition. At its heart, though, the Uranus/Pluto opposition is about compulsion--about rooting out old compulsions, beliefs and behaviors. In Clinton's case, compulsive sexual behaviors were apparently a longstanding issue in his life.

Hillary Clinton went through her Uranus/Pluto opposition just after the impeachment trial. It coincided with an opposition to her natal Mars. Mrs. Clinton obviously had to deal with intense anger, but she also had to confront betrayal and some core beliefs about loyalty and attachment, the perils of public life, and of course, her marriage. Astrologically, it was when the scandal technically ended in an acquittal of her husband that Mrs. Clinton had to dig deep and decide what to do.

That opposition left scars on both of them, it appears to me. President Clinton will never get past the Monica Lewinsky jokes, I don't think. And Mrs. Clinton will probably always have her husband's infidelity attached to her public persona.

But...neither of them died. They didn't even get divorced. Clinton was not run out of office on a rail. And they have both arguably been more successful in some ways since the opposition than they were before it. (Although Uranus square Uranus has not been kind to President Clinton and his reputation as of late, as it has been strongly encouraging him to shoot off his mouth with statements from left field, and he has been vigorously responding to Uranian urgings with some very unfortunate comments.) What really happened in the end for both of them was they embarked upon new chapters in their lives, and the new chapters have not been worse, and in some ways have been better.

Barack Obama, meanwhile, shot to national prominence during his Uranus/Pluto opposition. It was taking place at the same time he gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. That was the beginning of his national political career. This may have been quite stressful (I would find making a first national speech in front of millions of people on TV pretty stressful), but the opposition is obviously not necessarily a bad thing for a person's life.

In fact, through observation I've come to the conclusion that Uranus in opposition to Pluto can take the task of giving a person a new lease on life quite seriously. It is as though this opposition can take the lid off of one's aspirations and allow one to reach for things that previously would have seemed off-limits. It doesn't have to have this effect, but it certainly can.

I've seen clients and friends go through the Uranus/Pluto opposition with many different kinds of effects. I saw one woman go through a life-threatening battle with cancer. Scary. But not only was she cancer-free after a year, six months later she had divorced her husband. This may not seem like a good thing, but she had been desperately unhappy in that marriage for years. After she divorced, she moved back to her place of birth and certain long-deferred dreams started coming true.

I could tell you that the harder you resist the Uranus/Pluto opposition, the more difficult it will be for you. Uranus does not reward clinging, and you will need to let go of your old life to swing into your new one. And it may be true that the harder you fight the changes, the worse the process will be. But that formulation makes it seem as though people who have a rough time during Uranus/Pluto are doing something wrong, and I'm not quite comfortable with that idea.

It may be that sometimes those who fight harder get more out of the transit. Sometimes people seem to breeze through the opposition with comparative ease because they've recently already gone through other difficult transits. They've already done the bulk of the difficult work and maybe more importantly learned how to do it. Or maybe these transits are like menopause and pregnancy; there's no real explanation for why some people have an easier time with them than others.

But just as a difficult pregnancy does not mean that one loves a child any less, a difficult Uranus/Pluto opposition does not make the rewards any less sweet. So, if you are in your early 40s now, congratulations. You are on your way to something that could be truly beautiful for you.