Pluto in Libra in Quarantine: Detached Attachment
Thanks for all of the love for my last post on Pholus and making space for ancestral pain. I got a lot of feedback from my friends and peers, those of us who are in the Pluto in Libra generation and my conversations over the past week have influenced what follows below.
I still have my intention to write about attachment wounds and the role of centaur asteroids in healing this type of trauma. But before that, it feels right to offer a reflection on Pluto in Libra for this week’s full moon in Libra.
There are lots of keywords we could use to describe Libra themes: beauty, harmony, equality, warmth, creativity, and sociability.
Libra is also all about relationship and what relationship teaches us: the balance between giving and taking. For those who have the Ascendant, Sun, or Moon (especially the Moon!) in Libra, relationships, boundaries, and individuation are major life challenges.
For those with significant Libra placements in their charts, dysfunction in relationships looks like: losing yourself for the sake of another person; codependence; being in a relationship with a narcissist or someone with borderline personality disorder; or being the helper, the fixer, and the martyr. These are all boundary issues.
But there’s also a small generation of individuals who were born with Pluto in Libra whose lives have been dominated by these themes.
The Pluto In Libra Generation
Since the late Twentieth Century, astrologers have defined generations based on the transit of Pluto through the signs.
Modern astrology, known as Evolutionary Astrology, is governed by the premise that Pluto represents soul-level lessons that we are learning through our experiences as humans. And that we incarnate in order to learn these lessons or “evolve” back towards a state of unification with the divine.
(Note: there has been a strong negative reaction to this idea by those in the Millennial generation a.k.a Pluto in Scorpio, who have embraced traditional forms of astrology drawn from the ancient tradition, before Pluto was discovered.)
In any case, Pluto is named for the Greek god of the underworld Hades, who was the unseen one, the lord of the dead, and the one who controlled power and resources that came from underground.
My take on Pluto is that this planet represents our most intimate and painful lessons, the ones that lead us to transformation.
Pluto in Libra is half of Generation X; the other half has Pluto in Virgo. Pluto entered Libra from October 5 1971 to April 17, 1972 and then from July 30, 1972 to November 5, 1983, and then finally from May 18, 1984 to August 28, 1984. Full disclosure: I am a member of the Pluto in Libra generation and I have a lot to say about this topic.
Pluto in Libra Labels
One way to get to know a generation is through its labels, or means of self-identification. Here are 4 labels of the Pluto in Libra generation:
Latchkey kids: we had to parent ourselves and our siblings while our parents were at work.
Slackers: we “shirked responsibility” as adults because too much responsibility was put on us as children.
Sell-outs: we sold out in order to support ourselves.
Attachment parents: we tried to give our kids the kind of secure attachment we lacked.
These self-identifications are all about relationships: our relationship to our absent parents. Our relationship to their expectations. Whether we would or would not sacrifice our authenticity for society’s expectations. And whether we would raise our children to be fully “attached” to us, rather than the detached relationship we had with our parents.
Getting Our Due
The internet is full of humor pieces, tweets, memes, and articles about Generation X as the “overlooked” and ignored generation. These pieces are usually accompanied by sarcastic comments about how everyone ignores Generation X because we were so good at taking care of ourselves, blending in, and letting the Boomers and Millennials hog the spotlight.
But yet somehow, we all feel that one day we will be vindicated by these same Boomers and Millennials who ignored us. That eventually social conditions will get bad enough as they vie for cultural supremacy and suddenly they’ll remember that we’re here, too.
My favorite recent headline read, IT TOOK A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, BUT GENERATION X IS FINALLY GETTING LOVE, with the subhead “Sorry Boomers and Too Bad Millennials— Only One Generation Stands Out as Social Distancing Pros.”
I mean really, now we’ll get the attention we’re craving because THERE’S A WORLDWIDE PLAGUE?! And that we’ll be praised for our ability to withdraw, thrive on disconnection, and entertain ourselves while everyone else is freaking out and dying?!
That’s a trauma response if I ever heard one.
The whole point and the problem for us Pluto in Libras is that we are used to accepting that we are not going to get the love, safety, and intimacy we need in relationships. That’s why we’re social distancing pros. Social distancing is an emotional defense mechanism (though a useful one in a pandemic).
The Message of the Full Moon in Libra
This full moon is all about releasing the absolute overwhelm and heaviness of our grief and isolation. We might not be able to change our necessary social isolation but we can find support in releasing our sadness about it.
Some of us need a moment of alone time, some of us need to call a friend, some of us need to find resources that can help us, some of us need to scream into the air, or work on our creative projects for hours at a time.
And to recognize that this moment might be bringing up a lot of old pain about how much alone time and mis-attuned parenting we had as children.
At this full moon we can’t ignore the pull towards what we need and don’t want anymore in relationship. Libra demands that we be in healthy relationship with others to feel secure. And the opposite sign of Libra—Aries— is all about taking what we need.
While the Pluto in Libra generation may be the MVPs of codependence and self-sacrifice, now is the time to express what we need so that we can continue to get what we want in the future: authentic love and intimacy.
And perhaps acknowledgment from our peers about how tough being a latchkey kid made us.
