breaking bAD uranus pluto
“I am the one who knocks!”

In Part One (“Uranus And Pluto: Astrology In The Age Of Grumpy Cat“) we had a look at the one astrological transit that has defined the era we are currently in: the Uranus-Pluto Square of 2012-2015. As we saw, it’s had a pretty big influence on the shape of society and the course of modern history. But what happens when those very large and seemingly impersonal forces play out in the domain of individual lives?

When we face extraordinary circumstances, we sometimes have to make extraordinary choices. No current fictional character symbolizes those forces and (for some of us) those choices better than Walter White, the chemistry teacher turned drug lord of “Breaking Bad.”

When we first met Walt, he was the embodiment of “mild-mannered”: an underpaid high school chemistry teacher who had been unexpectedly diagnosed with lung cancer. Facing huge medical bills and the prospect of leaving a wife, a son, and a baby on the way to fend for themselves (and in the finest tradition of the American Self-Made Man) he managed to overcome this through brains and gumption and hard work via the mechanism of free-market capitalism. Specifically: he used his knowledge of chemistry to brew the purest crystal meth anyone had seen, with its own distinct blue color (capitalism loves a marketing hook!) and made enough money to pay for his chemotherapy.

Some people got killed along the way… bad people who were probably asking for it, we assured ourselves. Walt was still our hero, even with blood on his hands and a new-found appetite for more than enough money to just cover the bills. He was still essentially “doing the right thing.” And just when things got out of hand… they got more out of hand.

But Walt couldn’t get enough of his newfound sense of power. He changed, oh so believably, from little guy to Alpha Dog to drug lord to international menace, all the while using his love of his family as moral justification. Hey, a father’s gotta watch out for his kids… even if it means becoming a monster, right?

Uranus represents genius, rebellion, and the Promethean urge. Walter White embodies those qualities well: a scientist (science is ruled by Uranus) who broke the rules, fueled by a sense of righteous justification. Pluto is the potential death threat of a doctor’s diagnosis and the gun to your head when a deal goes wrong. Just as those two planets are at odds in the sky now, so too is much of society… as are many of our personal lives.

What decisions are you making for yourself in these times? And: are you really so sure you’re doing the right thing?

***

We as fans of the show await the final episode this Sunday, cruising the Internet for clues and speculation and reports and spoilers… what does the final episode title, “Felina,” mean, anyway (hint: it’s from a Marty Robbins song)? We just can’t get enough.

Apparently, even in troubled times, addiction is good business. We can only hope the withdrawal pains aren’t too bad after this Sunday.

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By the way, even though Walter White is a fictional character, he does have a “date of birth”: September 7, 1959. That would make him a Virgo with a Mercury-Venus-Pluto conjunction and Moon in Scorpio. The events depicted during the entire run of “Breaking Bad” would have taken place as transiting Neptune opposed that Mercury-Venus-Pluto conjunction of his, and would have been trine his natal Neptune: a man with a profoundly sharp mind and deeply idealistic love for his family sees those drives amplified to the point of dangerous obsession as he attempts to become something far greater than himself.  Meanwhile,transiting Pluto would have been amplifying that natal conjunction with a supportive trine. Trines can be a wonderful growth experience… but not all directions one grows in are always so “good.”

Walter White’s nom du crime is “Heisenberg,” taken from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Walter White’s flaw, ironically, is that he was too certain of himself.

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