Discussion for Natal aspect interpretations - Outer Planets

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

The Resource topic is here (part of Natal aspect interpretations - Outer Planets thread):
https://solunars.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=177

The current thread is for comments & discussion.

I just did a significanbt top-to-bottom reinvestigation and rewrite of the Saturn-Uranus natal aspect.

Well-developed autonomy, firmly defended; self-willed (acting out). Resists persuasion: navigates life and makes decisions on own terms (cantankerous obstinacy but not necessarily confrontational about it). Hard to pigeon-hole, thinks and acts outside of stereotypes. Need to "find their own word" and give it voice. Much of their life is about "holding it together" (some succeed, some don't).

All the Jupiter aspects (to Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) were recently updated as well. (The Interpretation Template for download has also been updated to include these.)

[Jim Eshelman]

It isn't often, 50 years in, that I have an entirely new, "never thought that before" realization about the fundamental meaning of something basic, like a given aspect; but I had such a realization over the last few days while starting to work on natal Saturn-Neptune aspects. (Caveat: Since I'm at the beginning of the Saturn-Neptune process, I may end up expressing this entirely differently before I'm through, especially if there is some deeper root idea that ties this into the other main themes of this natal aspect.)

As I ran my eyes down the list of people I personally know and have known with close hard Saturn-Neptune aspects, I noticed that the vast majority were marked, in a significant, pronounced way, by the some form of removal (geographic or situational) - what I'm currently (lightly) summarizing as one or another form of asylum or refuge - seeking asylum, fleeing toward asylum, seeking refuge, creating sanctuary, or (in a small but distinct percentage) ending up in an asylum.

I searched through synonyms of these and related words and found a cluster of ideas floating around the sort of ideas I first developed (as a Tropical astrologer half a century ago) around the 12th house - the idea of removal or hiding in every sense from being private to being institutionalized, yet with more of a refugee / seeking refuge sense. Even the Kid Gloves womb idea serves us well here, because in many examples the asylum, refuge, sanctuary, haven seems very much like a protective womb in the sense of a personal "reality bubble" in which someone can live more comfortably, usually more peacefully.

A small (but distinct) percentage of Saturn-Neptune covers those of deep psychological disturbance or that require hospitalization for physical or mental illness, plus those (including some significant mass murderers) that need to be locked up and "institutionalized." But perfectly healthy people with this aspect close typically go through something similar, e.g., withdrawing from the world, going into hiding or exile, removal, expatriation, etc.

A few personal examples (no particular order, just how I come to their charts in my files):

• A friend (once a performing musician and effective office worker for a large corporation) who gradually wound down into high-functioning schizoid sickness, picked homelessnes, then serially lived in friends' garages and his car. (In fact, several other high-functioning people that I know have significant labeled mental illness that they effectively combat, live full, raw, functioning lives that nonetheless require a place or space of sanctuary in their live).
• Several people who "emigrated' from large, coastal cities to obscure, small places where they could become mostly lost and obscure from their prior lives.
• Various people who were deeply embedded in social or interest groups and then withdrew and "disappeared" so far as the group was concerned (even though they didn't really disappear).
• A teacher who retired away from the cities to a private spot two hours away to build a gardened home, a definite reality bubble in which to spend her last decades (and who had vivid past life memories of, and identification with, a notably exiled ancient British queen).
• A woman who lived her whole life in urban Southern California deeply connected with several professional and interest communities who, while on work travel in Missouri, had a horrible, disfiguring accident that nearly killed her and, after long hospitalization and recovery, met a fabulous man, settled back in Missouri in an obscure place and (among other things) started a porn business.
• Another friend from similar roots who, while very high functioning, always had deep demons and angel-devil battles in her psyche and, after some back-and-forth travel around the country, eventually settled happily with a husband in a heavily wooded home deep in northern woods.

Lots of examples in and around those types.

Among the famous (other than the mass murderers) we have many who stayed hidden and private like Harper Lee, who created and needed sanctuary like Betty Ford, who were elite, private, and removed like Hugh Hefner, who were literal ex-pats and exiles like Julian Assange (and Snowden has a 0°01' sextile!), a whole stream of popes (including the two most recent) and an extra saint or two who committed to a life of sanctuary and refuge.

I haven't yet found a single word or phrase for all of this, but the winding themes are pretty clear and consistent. Thought I'd spill my thoughts while they were fresh.

[Jim Eshelman]

Tonight I finished a (roughly) two year project of revisiting every single aspect - not including those between the three outermost planets - an comparing them to statistics, lists of famous people, and (especially) lists of people I personally know, including cross-checking my own notes and observations against major trusted authors to vet others' observations.

I'm not saying the results are perfect, but the results are dramatically better than what I did in 1976. Who knows, I might actually review the earliest ones in the list (the luminary aspects etc.) again - I've done them the longest ago - but (other than new ideas popping up on their own) one might think this is the last time I do a top-to-bottom rewrite.

I now tackle the three natal aspects Uranus-Neptune, Uranus-Pluto, and Neptune-Pluto. One might argue that this isn't necessary, but I otherwise have a choice between sticking with what I wrote in 1976 or deleting my existing interpretations entirely. While these are "generational" (if you take a narrow time-slice for a "generation"), I'm toying with the idea - which had Charles' Carter's full endorsement, at least as far as Uranus-Neptune aspects go - that these are equally important in the chart as any other aspect. In any case, I'm going to try to examine them with an eye to what they mean for an ordinary person (since most of the literature only discusses what they mean to extraordinary people). I feel a little like my fellow Virgo-Aquarian, the great Edward Lyndoe, who never saw a natal aspect he wasn't willing to interpret . In theory, a Uranus-Neptune aspect (for example) is as operative as (say) a Moon-Mars aspect, it's just less distinctive of a person in comparison to those born around the same time (the same couple of years) with whom they are growing up.

This is admittedly tough. I think it's worth doing and, in any case, it can't be any worse than what I did 40+ years ago.

[Jim Eshelman]

As I organize my notes and my head-space for re-examining natal Uranus-Pluto aspects, I find myself thinking more than usual about the secondary effects of aspects.

I introduced this idea in my natal astrology class a few months ago (not particularly under that name) but as my favorite example of knowledge & observation of people in general is the best advanced astrology book you can find once you have the basics in place. The basic point is: From some factor in the horoscope, we know facts A and B about a person, and from another factor we know fact C. OK, just take those three things you know about a person, put the chart aside, and ask yourself: If A, B, and C are true of someone, what else do we know to be true? (Not from astrology. Just from understanding human psychology and the way life works.) And what do we know about a person with A, B, and C true if we place them in different formative environments and life situations?

Simple example: Someone's chart describes them as liking a leisurely life and interested in philosophy. Putting aside the rest of the horoscope for a moment, what else does that tell us is probably true about the person - just from knowing those two facts? And how would we see it differently if he or she were born in a wealthy family vs. a poor family? In a different part of the world? If the person were a man or a woman?

Suppose the chart shows us that a person is extremely forceful, aggressive, blunt with anger... what else does this tell us? How would it change if the person were born wealthy vs. poor? If it were a man or a woman? If it were a man or woman if we put this in the 1950s or 1860s or 2010s? If it were a Black man in the South vs. a white man on Wall Street?

From our experience of life and understanding of basic psychology, we know way more about someone, just from knowing a few basic facts about them, than all the astrology books in the world could tell us.

So... when I was writing about natal Uranus-Neptune aspects (with a focus on ordinary people, not extraordinary or exceptional people), one of the things I noticed was that their lives showed colliding realities impacting them in different ways, one of which was social revision spiraling around them. There isn't any need to elaborate all the ways this can work out because it will be different with each person in each context. I noticed that, especially when young (I noticed this especially with the Uranus-Neptune conjunction kids from the '90s), there is a strong sense of "nobody knows what my life is like," which seemed to come from the sense that rules for their life (how to navigate it) hadn't been discovered yet, couldn't be handed down from a prior generation - that would have been like using a 1970s map book for navigating a big city in the 21st century.

So, again, without needing astrology to take it further, the question to ask ourselves is: If you passionately feel that nobody knows what your life is like, nobody has been able to give you guidance or any sense of the landscape, a sense that life and reality are much more inscrutable or weird than anyone wants to admit... what else can we be pretty sure is true about you?

Thus goes Uranus-Neptune. But now I'm looking at Uranus-Pluto.

Where Uranus-Neptune is "realities are colliding, rivers are shifting their routes, and we haven't figured out the new roads yet," Uranus-Pluto seems to be one step further: "All of a sudden, there are no rules at all, no precedents that matter (yet most people around me are trying to act like there are precedents). It's not that nobody has mapped them yet, it's that nobody has created them ever." If someone this experience of life, what else is true of them?

For a few years, I was a collaborator with "Sally Deane," who wrote the "Teen Action" column in American Astrology answering letters from teenagers. This was at a time when the Uranus-Pluto conjunction kids of the 1960s were in their early teens and that aspect was something we had to deal with in almost every letter, in lesser or greater ways. We didn't pin down a lot of detail - they were still too young and unformed - but there was the sense that they had been born and had their formative development in turbulent, rearranging times and this has an effect. There are consequences of living in unstable conditions, and larger consequences when the entire world is unstable and reforming, though these consequences vary with the person's context - their environment, the love present, and more. It was clear that a lot of the kids writing were not going anywhere particular in their life - they didn't have a sense of who they were or where they wanted to go, probably because they were still thinking inside old boxes.

Then, over a couple of decades, I got to watch a lot of people from that era grow up. Different developmental stages worked out differently but, in most cases, it took getting a way into their adulthood (at least post-Saturn Return) to get their feet under them and start walking somewhere. The strongest, most accomplished I know is someone with Sun exactly opposite Uranus and Pluto, the second most accomplished has Moon conjunct them - the people who have the aspect less connected are still feeling the aspect, they just aren't "in the driver's seat" with it.

Anyway, I'm rambling... I haven't yet done the work of reviewing and reconsidering how to interpret the aspect in general, but am mulling over what I think is a large question: If you have the sense that there is no precedent, that all rules are outdated rules and nobody gave you any useful guidance... what else is true about you?

[Jim Eshelman]

If you have the sense that there is no precedent, that all rules are outdated rules and nobody gave you any useful guidance... what else is true about you?

You may conceive a New Path and the rules, that have not existed before!

That is definitely one of the ways this can go. (But not the only one. More brainstorming on this?)

[Jim Eshelman]

Uranus-Pluto is done. Only Neptune-Pluto natal aspects to go.

This will be quite a challenge with a focus on ordinary people. A few trends are obvious in the famous, especially in the scientists and politicians, but I want this to speak to every chart where we find the aspect. I've not been happy with the Principle as articulated for Neptune-Pluto (too vague and abstracted from everyday), so I'm hoping I learn enough new to reframe the whole thing.

[Jim Eshelman]

I have a practical problem with Neptune-Pluto aspects, which is that I know nobody who has a close conjunction, opposition, or square. I'm looking at a few people I know (including both my parents) who have the semi-square from the late '20s and early '30s, but I already know this isn't quite the same. (But it's close.)

One theme that already has started to shake out is that Neptune-Pluto (at least, sometimes in some charts) gives the chance to view reality in a very different way. Very significant astronomers (including Newton and Kepler) who defined our understanding of the movements of all fundamental movements in the universe had this aspect close. s I wrote elsewhere on the site just now, I wanted to look at the charts of other people who outright altered our window on perception of reality and looked at Heisenberg's chart - to discover he has a partile mundane Neptune-Pluto conjunction just below Ascendant.

So I'm running with this idea and think it's probably a key to unlocking the other expressions of the aspect. Nonetheless... finding expressions of this "malleable view of reality" among ordinary, day-to-day people born in the late '20s and early '30s is quite a challenge. So far, I'm not sure even what to look for - what ordinary behaviors (that technically are this, but in life-expression come out quite differently) I should be looking for.

I'll keep at it. More when I shake it out. But if anyone has an idea about the above, please let me know. (I'm intentionally ignoring the 50-year Neptune-Pluto sextile at the moment, first because I want to lock this in with hard aspects first, and second because it then amounts to "everybody I know and their cousins" - though I do have some broad generalizations about that half century of births.)

[Jim Eshelman]

I'm changing tactics on Neptune-Pluto... at least for the moment... and noticed it was a good example of the principle of secondary phenomena that I wrote about earlier.

If the key idea of malleability of how we view reality is valid - and BTW, as a parallel, I just added Martin Heidegger to the notes, whose basic contributions to philosophy are as Neptune + Pluto as one can get, I think - then a consequence of this tone of the psyche is uncertainty (there's Heisenberg front and center!) about the nature of the world.

And the last group of people to live through a hard-aspect natal Neptune-Pluto, those born in the late '20s and early '30s, were the people who lived through the greatest uncertainty of the last century: the Great Depression. This marked their psyches, and those of the generations following them, significantly.

I'm still not sure how this translates... how it passes a standard natal interpretation for ordinary people... but I'm inching my way there.

[Jim Eshelman]

They were born in the Great Depression, and then became conscious of things as much of the world was already in World War II and America was just entering it. They came of age in the aftermath of WW II (concurrent with Korea), when new worldviews were being propagated, especially the Allied nations' presentation of what the world looked like in the aftermath of WW II plus the Cold War realities of Communism vs. the West in general. It was common for that generation to buy strongly into that vision of (for example) American exceptionalism and hegemony - so here we see the Neptune-Pluto tendency of Weltanschauung assertion.

The net affect, I'm beginning to think, isn't flexibility of reality at all but a fairly rigid reality - as a consequence of profound uncertainty that was answered by the delivery (by the victorious governments) of a New World Order paradigm replacement.

Or (as I've been saying)... something like that.

[Jim Eshelman]

I want to say part of the above differently, with more explanation about a shift in my thinking in the last couple of weeks. I think I haven't explained this anywhere.

Historically, I have sided with the view that outer planet aspects can't be that important in personal astrology. It was common for Fagan to emphasize this (generally only interpreting natal aspects out to Mars-Pluto), for Bradley to bypass outer planet aspects unless they were excruciatingly close (e.g., Sir Richard Burton's 0°02' Uranus-Neptune), plus it was a practical, reasonable approach that aspects which last for weeks, months, or years can't distinguish us from the people we grow up around, from whom we first learn our distinctions about ourselves.

As recently as two or three days ago, my posted interpretations for Uranus-Neptune, Uranus-Pluto, and Neptune-Pluto aspects contained a bright red warning (copied from the aspects section of The NEW Instant Astrologer) saying that these were not individually important unless they were on angles or aspecting personal planets.

Over the last week or so, I began to question this - quite a big "given" in my practical approach to astrology - and finally, around Friday, I realized the big thing I'd been missing.

By saying that Uranus-Pluto aspects (for example) are only important when angular (etc.) is to say I'm not interpreting Uranus-Pluto at all: I'm only interpreting Uranus angular plus Pluto angular. These are quite different things: They actually often won't give entirely the same results as the Uranus-Pluto conjunction itself. In fact, a friend who has a partile opposition of Sun to a partile Uranus-Pluto conjunction (all wrapped up within about half a degree) is one of my very worst examples of the Uranus-Pluto aspect itself. With Sun exactly opposite Uranus-Pluto, we have three interpretive elements: (1) Sun opposite Uranus, (2) Sun opposite Pluto, and (3) Uranus conjunct Pluto.

Seeing that he was the least representative of the group of Uranus-Pluto conjunction people I personally know was a real eye-opener (or, rather, confirmed very solidly where my mind had been trending for a few days). Here's one specific example of why it is so different: A basic characteristic of Uranus-Pluto aspects is that they are on terrain with no maps, often seeming directionless in youth (needing their Saturn return to get their transmission in gear). However, one of the characteristics of strong Sun-Uranus aspects (because of the solar element added) is that they quickly discover someplace quite definite to go. They "go their own way," unapologetically following their own path , which means they have a definite path (at any given moment) that they are following.

This entirely masks the Uranus-Pluto in him. He's Uranus-Pluto example who suddenly was given a map. As a teen he was already into music which led to a career in record producing. He was deeply involved in very serious occultism early and this marked his entire life. He's a fabulous example of Sun-Uranus and Sun-Pluto, though these mask some of the most recognizable traits of Uranus-Pluto aspect in practice. He still has the aspect and its basic traits - he feels unbound by precedent or authority, is willing to ignore or challenge them, is open to new ways and wider horizons - he just has the rest of it mixed in with two other very strong factors.

The biggest shift in my view of these outer planet aspects is summarized as: Every natal aspect is a personal aspect. (It should go on a T-shirt.) Uranus conjunct Pluto in your birth chart is as personal an aspect as Mercury conjunct Mars (or whatever).

As I study these, therefore, I'm quite specifically NOT giving preference to people who have the aspect angular or tied to luminaries or personal planets. I'm not excluding them, I'm just not focusing on them. In fact, I'm being careful not to look at the actual full horoscopes of the people my computer search produces, wanting to only know that they have the aspect I'm examining.

An example of the bias of my prior approach: My TNIA interpretation for Uranus-Pluto aspects was basically that they were singled out from those of their generation to make a singular contribution. Notice that this can't be true if everyone in their generation has the Uranus-Pluto aspect! In other words, it was not an interpretation of a Uranus-Pluto aspect, but of a Uranus-Pluto aspect angular or aspecting luminaries! (It's still an accurate interpretation for those people.)

This is a fairly radical shift in my thinking on natal aspects, and it may take a while (and dozens or hundreds of charts) for the implications to fully shake out.

A note on procedure: I'm drawing all conclusions initially based on people with conjunctions, oppositions, and squares within 3°. I've found this i the "cleranest" approach to a pure, visible expression of the aspect. As I add it to the Interpretation Template, I then also look at people with semi-squares and sesqui-squares within 2° to see how I should edit it. (In most cases, it just means trim it down and drop some nuance.) I then look at people with it trine-sextile within 3° to see how I should edit a paragraph for that, and generally find that there is some distortion or shift, mostly from ut being "watered down" or obscure - I can still see the original nature in these, but would not have been able to accurately discern the aspect's meaning from them.

[Avshalom Binyamin]

I just read the thread on Neptune-Pluto aspects. Fascinating.

I've been mulling over a recent post by Jim about Neptune, especially the idea of Neptune representing selective attention to reality.

I thought about the symbols of Cancer and the Mother Sea (La Mer[e]), of protective carapaces, and filtering the wine-dark ocean for air and food.

The filtering of reality to provide a romanticized, idealized, comforting story.

Yet contained in that skill is the awareness that reality is vast enough to be able to be filtered, and knowledge of the maleability means this skill can also be tuned to practice compassion, which accounts for the reputation for physic receptivity.

I've ignored my pluto-neptune sextile, since it's generational, but now I'm wondering if I should meditate more on pluto's influence on my most angular planet.

As an ordinary person, I wonder if that manifests in the starkness of my visions while experimenting with psychedelics, or my enjoyment of the macabre and morbid, or what.

[SteveS]

Av wrote:

I've ignored my pluto-neptune sextile, since it's generational, but now I'm wondering if I should meditate more on pluto's influence on my most angular planet.

I understand Av, I was always taught/understood with these 'generational' outer planet aspects they had to be tied into our lights or angles to individualize the aspect; otherwise look for em to manifest in broad generational collective stuff.

[Jim Eshelman]

Av wrote:

I've ignored my pluto-neptune sextile, since it's generational, but now I'm wondering if I should meditate more on pluto's influence on my most angular planet.

I understand Av, I was always taught/understood with these 'generational' outer planet aspects they had to be tied into our lights or angles to individualize the aspect; otherwise look for em to manifest in broad generational collective stuff.

What finally sunk in this week is: That alters them.

I gave the example elsewhere of my friend with a partile Sun opposite Uranus-Pluto. He's the WORST example of a Uranus-Pluto natal planet I have because he also has Sun opposite Uranus and Sun opposite Pluto, and these change things quite a lot. (For example, the typical Uranus-Pluto conjunction person's first 25-30 years of life is defined by figuratively living on terrain where there is no map, no sense of where to go or how to get there, no sense of precedent to give guidance. However, a Sun-Uranus aspect - adding Sun's influence - usually has a very distinct sense of where they are going.)

I was content for 40-50 years to ignore these but, having walked through all 45 planet combinations I can't be content with that anymore. While these aspects don't distinguish a person from those born immediately around them, every natal aspect is a personal aspect in terms of character, etc.

Steve, your Saturn-Pluto conjunction is one great example of this. In general (obviously not exactly the same in every case), I can say about people with that aspect: "Runs their own show," resists outside control. Even as an employee, wants autonomy. Lone wolf: solitary path comes naturally, partnership requires choice & effort. Survivors: Great strength, self-reliance, & persistence in the face of hardship (possibly stubborn, or entrenched, but pays the necessary price). Conscientious. Tough as nails. By taking everything on themselves, can feel they carry the world's weight.

[SteveS]

Yes, I will post more of my thoughts about this important topic later involving my life with my Natal Saturn-Pluto cnj, which until I learned enough astrology I didn't know how to stop the insanity of this aspect in my life. Never let it be said we don't have choices in the matters of our Natal Charts.

[SteveS]

Jim wrote:

Steve, your Saturn-Pluto conjunction is one great example of this. In general (obviously not exactly the same in every case), I can say about people with that aspect: "Runs their own show," resists outside control. Even as an employee, wants autonomy. Lone wolf: solitary path comes naturally, partnership requires choice & effort. Survivors: Great strength, self-reliance, & persistence in the face of hardship (possibly stubborn, or entrenched, but pays the necessary price). Conscientious. Tough as nails. By taking everything on themselves, can feel they carry the world's weight.

I was given ‘autonomy’ to ‘run the show’ of a commercial theater company by the voting majority of the stock holders as long as the $ kept pouring in which happened until I resigned knowing the $ would not keep pouring in from the theaters; which, I knew long before the stockholders knew. “Lone wolf” yes, big time in anything I do—I cherish the word ‘independent’ but this also comes from my Sun-Uranus 90 imo.

By taking everything on themselves, can feel they carry the world’s weight.

Indeed, I took 'everything on' I was an expert in the independent theater business and the stockholders/president knew I was the expert. I was Superman back in those days! I think this aspect was coined by some astrologer as the ‘The Atlas Shrugged Aspect.’ A carrier of a Saturn-Pluto aspect will feel a very burdensome weight when anything in any part of their life is not going well. Where I felt the greatest ‘burden’ of this aspect was being placed in the middle of my parents pertaining to a long drawn-out bloody divorce between my parents and trying to keep my alcoholic father from destroying himself. Also ran into a tremendous amount of religious bigotry (note: this aspect in 9th house of religion) when a gold-digging fundamentalist bible toting woman married the president of the company which employed me who was on the rebound from a divorce and she set her sights on replacing my company’s position through pillow talk with the president. I eventually let her have my position through resignation when I knew the company had seen its final breath of economic viability, but came back later to the company and picked-up the pieces through bankruptcy court which later paid good $ to me by the sale of my theater to a big commercial theater company---then retired from the commercial game with all the bull shit games people play. Saturn-Pluto is very heavy and I still walk around with a stoop in my shoulders.

How is this Saturn-Pluto personalized in my Natal? Maybe with Saturn being close to the Zenith or because in mundo Saturn-Pluto is exactly cnj. Or maybe because Moon-Saturn is in potential paran. All I know is yes, Saturn-Pluto has played a huge personalized burdensome ‘weight’ in my life. When I discovered astrology, I then realized how this Saturn-Pluto was playing its cosmic game on me—particularity with my alcoholic father. I had a choice—keep trying to nurse my alcoholic father back to his sanity or leave him and not look back—I left him and he died an alcoholic—I did my best but I was not going to let him carry me to his alcoholic death which happened 17 years later.

[Jim Eshelman]

Great review, Thanks. I don't think it needs anything else to personalize it. I think simply the fact that you have this aspect, just like having any other aspect, makes it personal.

[sotonye]

The previous interpretation for Uranus-Pluto said essentially that a disruptive quality was conferred onto any planet they aspected at once, and I'm wondering if this is only true if the aspect is formed with luminaries? I don't have a hard aspect between the two but a partile sextile, and I'm wondering if they modify my Mercury in any novel way by modifying one another and, if they do do something, if the effect they produce is dissimilar to what they cause when aspecting the lights

[Jim Eshelman]

The previous interpretation for Uranus-Pluto said essentially that a disruptive quality was conferred onto any planet they aspected at once, and I'm wondering if this is only true if the aspect is formed with luminaries?

No, it would be true of anything. That's still a correct interpretation, BTW - just not an interpretation of the Uranus-Pluto aspect itself but, rather, of the combination's relationship to something else.

I don't have a hard aspect between the two but a partile sextile, and I'm wondering if they modify my Mercury in any novel way by modifying one another and, if they do do something, if the effect they produce is dissimilar to what they cause when aspecting the lights

Well, sure, because it affects the workings of your mind, the processes of your intellect, and your style of communication, all of which are "radicalized" in some way.

I would interpret Pluto opposite your Mercury as: Thinking is individual, unusual, outlier, perhaps branching to bizarre, little-explored topics. Investigative, seeks primal (seed) causes, thinks deeply about things. Mind may skirt the cliff-edge of normalcy (may slip off): acute enthusiasm, possible burnout. Extremely excitable, especially about inquiries and discoveries. Impatient (irritable in the face of obstacles; tolerates frustration poorly). Instinct for abstract mathematics (manifests in composers, chess players, physicists).

I would interpret Uranus trine your Mercury as: Independent thinker. Curious & investigative. Mind unfettered by formality solves problems & integrates data more intuitively. Rejects linearity; lacks rigor. Diverse interests, often unusual. Speech is engaging, usually has something interesting to say. Challenges convention or authority, speaks despite consequences. Gentle rebellious behavior. Socially odd.

As you can see, these have significant overlap.

[Jim Eshelman]

Regarding Steve's Saturn-Pluto conjunction, and his reflective query on what might personalize it to him, I wrote (on the way home, quick answer):

I don't think it needs anything else to personalize it. I think simply the fact that you have this aspect, just like having any other aspect, makes it personal.

I should add: The fact that I don't think it requires anything else doesn't mean it doesn't have something else. They aren't heavily aspected, but both sextile Mercury (with Mercury-Pluto very close).

There is another trick that I'm sure will interest you, Steve, since you're on a revival surge concerning midpoints: When the aspect isn't close enough for both planets to occupy the same midpoints, look at their midpoint for the answer. Your Saturn/Pluto is 22°08' Cancer. There aren't any other midpoints or planets at that spot until we drop to the 45° level, when we find... your Venus at 7°27' Virgo, 0°19' from that midpoint axis, plus your Moon/Mars at 7°36' Virgo.

So you get the pattern: Sa/Pl = Ve = Mo/Ma as an interpretation (modification, explanation) of your Saturn-Pluto conjunction.

That's not as good an example as one sometimes finds, so let's do another: What do we make of your somewhat wide Jupiter-Saturn square (5°40')? They are too wide to share any aspects. Their midpoint is 11°53' Virgo (i.e., they average 26°53' Rim), so they are interpreted by the following important contacts to the midpoint:

Sun/Mercury (11°30' Vir)
Venus/Neptune (11°44' Vir)
to which we can add the lesser contact to Mercury/Uranus (26°08' Cancer)

I'm betting that Su/Me, Su/Ur, and Ve/Ne describe how your wide Jupiter-Saturn has worked through your life.

[SteveS]

Jim wrote:

So you get the pattern: Sa/Pl = Ve = Mo/Ma as an interpretation (modification, explanation) of your Saturn-Pluto conjunction.

Excellent observation Jim. This picture of midpoints certainly help describe more details about the planetary symbolism associated with my life experiences with my Saturn-Pluto cnj, particularly with an acute focus with my father. I was trying to love (Venus) him as a father and in his own way he was trying to love me as a son, but his alcoholism kept getting in the way with emotional anger (Moon-Mars) expressed constantly, making the relationship impossible. Also defines my experience of Saturn-Pluto with the separation/divorce with my father and mother who were constantly arguing all the time. Thanks Jim.