While signing up for an upcoming astrology conference, during one time slot I had to make the tough choice on which Neptune lecture I wanted to attend. I didn’t want it to interfere with the lecture on the upcoming Pluto and Saturn conjunction or the lecture about the upcoming Jupiter and Saturn conjunction which in the past has corresponded to dire political events.

Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto – some of my favorite planets! If you read this blog, you know I’m an outer-planet-kinda writer (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are the outer planets). With Pluto in Capricorn tearing apart the world as we know it, how can an astrologer focus on anything else?

As I made my tough Saturn choices about which Saturn lectures to attend, it occurred to me that there were few lectures on our two fastest moving “planets” in the horoscope – Mercury and the moon.

With all of the earth and societal changes occurring, I can’t keep my eyes off of Pluto-in-Capricorn which appears to be taking us through an evolutionary cycle involving how we structure our life on planet earth.

Yet my daily life is more and more about the moon and Mercury. My daily life is a constantly-changing swirl of communications, changes, texts and emails all demanding a response in the fast-departing, elusive moment called “now.”

We seem to be living in a schism of macro concerns such as global warming and faltering economies while daily life is more and more about the details of daily life via texts, emails and social media.

Do we become bipolar by default?

Personal to transpersonal

Observing life on earth, I’m not sure humans were meant to be anything but personal. Living our lives in family and societal units, we seem geared toward a hard-working but also more relaxed life of connection with the earth and with others.

Until the discovery of Uranus in 1781, astrologers knew of planets from the moon (considered a planet in astrology) to Saturn. The moon (response), Mercury (communication), Venus (pleasure) and Mars (action) are personal planets that move quickly and represent the actions and events of daily life.

Jupiter and Saturn, farther out, speak of our social environment. Jupiter is the school and church while Saturn is the law and government.

See, a simple life.

Until 1781.

In 1781, Uranus was “discovered.” Of course it had been there doing its work, but we didn’t know it. Uranus rules enlightenment as it was discovered during the period of the same name.

Enlightenment is good, no?

From a spiritual perspective, it sounds quite nice. But what’s important to remember is that when you seek enlightenment, by reflection you acknowledge being in the dark.

Saturn as the edge of the solar system also represented the boundaries of our lives. You live and then you die and, based on your beliefs, go to another place for eternity.

Uranus shakes that up suggesting that while alive there are other perceptual states that exist and life may not be as simple as it appears. More knowledge leads to more questions.

In 1830, Neptune was then discovered. Neptune rules spirituality and the inspiration of the times. As Neptune likes the altered state of relaxation and escape, it also rules drugs that produce this state as well as photography and cinema. And fog.

Then in 1930, Pluto was discovered. This is the era of nuclear exploration with nuclear fission discovered in 1938. Now the personal human beings had the ability to create transpersonal effects on the entire globe.

Pluto represents evolution and was in the sign of Cancer when discovered. Cancer is family and clan which changed dramatically since Pluto’s discovery. Prior to its discovery, Pluto was in Gemini which evolved communication. While radio seems Neolithic now, it allowed masses of people to hear the same message at the same time for the first time in history.

Pluto is now 180 degrees from where it was discovered in the sign of Capricorn ruling career and reputation. Since the discovery of Pluto, government has replaced family in many places as the definer of life and roles.

Transpersonal to personal

As I grew up in the late 1970s and 1980s, concerns about nuclear war were paramount (since this was also during the Cold War). Somewhere in the 1990s, our concern ebbed.

Why are we no longer concerned about nuclear war?

Somewhere transpersonal subsided and the personal returned, also in the form of communication. Technology connected us to the entire globe, but in a personal way.

With the proliferation of the smart phone, we are able today, if we choose, to stay in a communication network based solely our our personal interests. The transpersonal can be filtered out and the personal channeled in, mostly by those wanting to do business with us.

We seem to be wavering between personal and transpersonal.

And back to transpersonal

The transpersonal has reappeared, this time as climate change. I’m old enough to know that climate change was a concern since my early days on the planet. Now that there are extreme weather patterns (which seem to be predicted in advance, but I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I swear), the personal takes notice of the transpersonal.

So what does a person do in the face of the transpersonal?

Possibly our modern lives of constant, busy distraction is the response to a world in which we are increasingly spectators of larger, corporate interests of which we can’t control. We work for those corporations so it’s personal; but what they do is transpersonal and we can’t affect any change in behavior.

As any human being, we must also adapt to our environment. Unless I live in one of the major cities in the US that has public transportation, I must have a car regardless of its environmental impact.

It’s an interesting time to be alive with a unique challenge to live a personal life that has transpersonal ramifications. Macro concerns compete with micro distraction for our attention. It’s easy to see why we we are drawn toward the micro.

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