No one liked that

I was talking to my cousin last week about having Uranus transiting her 10th house, which it is: professional unrest, wacky coworkers, possible career changes, and redefining of what you’re trying to achieve professionally. All of those things are possible when any of the slow moving planets (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto) rumble through your 10th house, though they each have different vibes to them. The thing is, I can’t counsel my cousin much based on personal experience because I was 5 years old when Uranus started transiting my 10th house. I have a lot to say, generally, but I like to cite personal experience, and playground antics are probably (?) not relevant to a professional setting. Usually Uranus in the 10th portends major career happenings, but my major event was kindergarten. In fairness, kindergarten was like being deposited on another planet: I learned all the important swear words on day 1, and it was a 180 from my normal environment, which was very quiet and sheltered.

Also, I was 3 years old when Neptune entered my 10th house. Normally that’s a time when your career dreams die and get replaced by other dreams, but, being pint sized and limited to roaming my back yard, my goals were pretty limited. (It's important to not that my immediate family was very religious, so Neptune through my 10th was religion-themed.) If you aren't aware of what was going on in the sky in the late 80s, there was a triple conjunction of Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn in Capricorn, which was a big deal back then. That took place in my 10th house.

You’d think that since those 10th house transits are over that they’d be irrelevant now, but they're not: transits don’t end as long as you’re alive (cue spooky music), because you’re going to encounter people *born at that time.* People are permanent transits.

My cousin was born when I was 5, actually. She’s a permanent reminder of Uranus transiting my 10th house (the fact that Uranus is transiting her 10th house now is just a fun coincidence for this story). As long as we don’t work together, my cousin’s Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn around my midheaven aren’t going to bother me much, but if we DID work together, it would bring up personal authority issues: both mine (because my 10th house is involved) and hers (because both her Saturn and the sign Capricorn are involved, both of which = authority).

I wasn't alive in 1950, but Pluto was opposite my sun that year, and having Pluto opposite your sun is being opposed by intense people (Pluto), which forces you to defend your ego (the sun). I happen to swim with two people born around then, and I set them off from time to time, because just by existing, I'm activating their Plutos. I don't need to do anything, and I usually am not doing anything, I'm just making small talk, waiting for the gym doors to be unlocked first thing in the morning.

When someone sets off your Pluto, you typically feel threatened by them. Usually not overtly: you feel uneasy and you can't really put your finger on it. If you know what's going on, that makes it easier, which is the whole point of this email. Anyway, most people react to feeling threatened by saying or doing something to take control of the situation. One of my pool friends gets on moral righteousness kicks, which I've learned to ignore to maintain my sanity, and the other one is always telling me who I am and pretending not to hear me when I say things she doesn't like. I've had to declare several topics verboten because her level of needling me about how she thought I *should* live my life got excessive. I get in these ego battles before the sun's even up, and if I didn't know I was activating Plutos and suffering the consequences, I'd be profoundly frustrated by now.

Everyone's got some hot spots that will be set off by people born in specific time periods, and you don't have to do anything except exist next to them for metaphorical fireworks to go off. Knowing your chart is half the battle, and the more you compare your chart with charts of other people, especially people who are freaked out by you or vice versa, the more you'll learn what's what.

(If you ever want to decode your interactions with someone, I’m happy to do a transit reading for you with the other person’s birth date as the transit—I don’t need their birth time to do that, just the date.)