The People Outside the Lines – Part 18 – On the Generations
The lines between generations are – in the grand scale of time – quite neat. This works because a generation is at its core just a group of people. How people communicate and think about the world is the primary way of relating to and finding affinity with others. Because of this, the planet which most influences this topic over a long scale – Uranus – provides for clear dividing lines between generations of people. On the other hand Uranus has a habit of going retrograde, making it seemingly move backwards in the zodiac. Neptune and Pluto do the same and all three do it often enough to make it so that it is common for one to dip into a new sign and then back-out into the previous sign just a few months later. This creates blurry edges that necessitate more complex study of other planetary influences before one can draw the lines clearly. In most cases this is not overly complex but sometimes that blurry edge is more like a delta of two rivers that creates a short period of time wherein any given person might better fall on one side or another of the dividing generational line.
There are two main ways that this happens – one is when for a stretch of weeks, long after crossing the generational dividing line, we find Uranus or another planet making a retrograde move into the previous sign, imbuing those born under that combination with more intellectual similarity to the prior one. This is not always the case, because the other planetary influences can overwhelm that difference and create people who will mostly be like their peers and will be raised around other people who all share a common persuasion. There is also the question of which planet, and which sign, and on and on (refer to the Technical Definitions if you want to explore that more deeply). When this occurs in a fluid and meandering way it creates an outlier group who, while themselves made up of a scattering of these placements, some on each side of one sign or another, all of them together are more different than the generations on either side.
The second way a generational boundary can be subverted is via the individual, personal planetary placements. If for example the position of the Sun or Jupiter aspects a generational placement it can alter the influence of that planet in such a way as to significantly nullify a generational trait. More often these aspects act to magnify the generational placement, creating archetypal characters who embody the generational traits more clearly than in others. Less often we find that they are true individuals who manage to diverge from their peer cohort enough to defy the sort of generalizations we have been making in this series. Let us explore a few examples to better understand what this means.
In our present time there is one of these river delta-esque generational transitions and it occurs at the end of the Millennial generation. Though the “beginning” of the subsequent Gen Z is marked officially as January 12, 1996, in this case it is not so easy to draw a clear line. Around that date there are many entrances and exits of planets from signs and we find pools of people who mix-and-match “Gen Z” placements with “Millennial” placements beginning in early 1995 and this carries on through 1998.
Let’s look at someone born on January 25, 1995:
In this case we have a person who is ostensibly a Millennial, in that they have the characteristic Uranus/Neptune in Capricorn placement. They also have Pluto in Sagittarius, which is a characteristic placement for the following Gen Z cohort. Pluto entered Sagittarius on Jan 17, 1995 and remained in that sign through April 20th, 1995, when it retrograded back into the previous sign of Scorpio. This is not uncommon at the beginning of a generation but in this case we have an additional consideration – the co-presence of Jupiter in Sagittarius for the entirety of that period. This means that Jupiter is in conjunction to Pluto for those three months and we have to consider the combination of them when we judge the relative importance of this “outlier” placement. First note that Jupiter has the impact of affirming and expanding that which it aspects. Put simply, Jupiter will not only emphasize but also increase Pluto in this position. Further, Jupiter is in the sign of Sagittarius, a place of its rulership where it is able to act very effectively and is considered to be highly dignified. Taken together we must interpret this is a very significant increase in emphasis on the Pluto placement for the people born to these three months of early 1995. It tells us that they will be more values-oriented and that those values will be more similar to the ones exhibited by Gen Z. Is that enough to tip them fully into the next generation? Not necessarily, but in the case of those born between January 20th and February 18th of 1995 they will also have the Sun in the sign of Aquarius. The upcoming Gen Z cohort is heavily emphasizing Aquarius, with both Uranus and Neptune being present together in that sign for many years. Taken together the balance shifts this mini-cohort into Gen Z, despite the presence of the Uranus/Neptune in Capricorn. Something similar happens at the end of that same year:
Between November 22 and December 21, 1995 we find that Pluto has returned to Sagittarius, Jupiter remains in Sagittarius, and the Sun is also in Sagittarius. This very heavily emphasizes the Pluto placement and creates a second 1995 mini-cohort that is better understood to be “Gen Z” rather than Millennial. This back-and-forth movement of Pluto over a sign boundary is repeated by Uranus and Neptune over the next two years, and it’s not until November 28, 1998 when we “complete” the Gen Z generational shift. At that time, each planet is permanently in the positions we identify as “core” Gen Z. In the years between we can describe many of these people as “Zillennials,” in that they share key placements of each generation but without any particular emphasis that would tip them in one direction over the other.
In the two months of 1995 we looked at we can say that people born then are “Gen Z” even though many people born two years later are Zillennials, or could even be Millennial. It is only after November 28, 1998 when we can say that the line between these generations has been fully cleared and anyone born after that time is of Gen Z. For the previous years it is necessary to explore them more closely and individually. Further, the people of this transitional period will often have a greater emphasis on one portion of the generational trifecta than is typical of the larger generational cohort they are a part of. They may not be big “Gen Z thinkers” but they could be highly influential to Gen Z values or aesthetics.
Finally, let’s look at the impact of personal planets on these generational placements to see how that might further alter the character of someone born to a time. In this scenario each case would need to be evaluated individually but it is useful to know that some people are born on days when a combination of contradictory or mitigating placements changes their adherence to the patterns of their generational cohort. For example, consider someone born on September 29, 1994:
This person is clearly a Millennial, in that they have Pluto in Scorpio and both Uranus and Neptune in Capricorn. Those planets are not left to their own devices however and these aspects from faster-moving planets can cumulatively change the picture quite a bit. First, we see the Moon and Mars conjunct in Cancer, at about 27 degrees. This puts them in a trine aspect to Pluto while also opposing Neptune and Uranus. In addition we have Jupiter and Venus conjunct in Scorpio, and these sextile Neptune and Uranus. Finally we have the Sun in Libra, an air sign. What does it all mean?
There are many things to interpret in an individual chart and in the astrological system nothing is ever in total isolation, because each element is always combining with every other one to produce the formula. What we can say in brief about this chart is that this person is likely to be emotionally directed by their values in ways that enable them to overcome the somewhat difficult ways of thinking and aesthetics common to Millennials. They will act from their gut and lean on their values, and this will probably help them to avoid many of the pitfalls and errors common to people of their cohort. We can estimate that this would be very mitigating to the more flawed Millennial placements.
These kinds of personal alterations to the generational patterns are common and each must be taken on their own. It’s why people are not all the same even if they are somewhat similar. The task of studying the Generations is to focus on the ways in which they are similar to each other while being different from those born to other Generations. When we find that someone doesn’t fit within the “generalizations” perfectly it is invariably the placements in their personal chart which provides the context and source for that rather than a flaw in the larger observed pattern. We can’t say that these people are different, but maybe they are special.
In the next series, I will be exploring these individual characteristics in more depth and answer the question of just how individual we really are.
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