I’ve been reading articles about the student protests against the Gaza genocide that have been happening in the United States in these few days, and I’ve seen people often refer to the students of “this generation”. As I’ve been researching the astrology of the various generations and have a book coming out on the topic later this year (2024), I wanted to discuss this growing protest in both generational and astrological terms.
Since I’m an American, and we like to label everything, I’ll be using the names that our sociologists here have given our generations over the years.
Here are the three generations primarily engaged for this topic:
- The “Greatest” Generation (born approximately 1914-1928) were born during World War I, and by the time World War II came around, they were soldiers and young officers for that war. Those who stayed in the military after that war became the senior officers in U.S. military engagements moving forward. However, many soldiers left the service and became small business owners and/or blue-collar (working class) workers. A that time, the cost of living in the U.S. was still very affordable, and most people of that generation could work simple jobs and/or own businesses and make enough if not more than enough to buy homes, cars, and other necessities of the time to easily support a family.
- The “Baby Boomers” (born 1942-1958) were the children of the Greatest Generation, and were just being born into the world later in World War II. They would reap many benefits from the collective abundance from the post-WWII economies and societies. Many of them had decided early on in their lives that they were not going to be blue-collar workers like their parents. Instead, they were going to be white -collar workers – supervisors and managers, working in offices and institutions of education and communication. They were going to change the world with their minds, not their hands… and many of then held true to that intention. The eldest members of this generation would become soldiers in the invasions and attacks on the Southeast Asian nations of Cambodia and Vietnam – at first willingly signing up; but later, most unwillingly drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces.
- Generation “Z” (born 1995-2011) are the grandchildren of the Boomers (and the children of Generation X, born 1968-1984). They were born into a world where computers were beginning to be the societal and social norm. They’ve never known a world without technology at their fingertips, and as result, they use tech to its fullest advantage. However, the cost of living has increased greatly, and many of these young people are facing a future where they won’t be able to afford what the generations before them had unless their families pass down their wealth. This is the generation that is now protesting at universities across the U.S. at this time, and interestingly enough, a number of the students at the protesting universities are of families that can somewhat if not fully afford the now-high costs of a college education for their children.
Now that we’ve been introduced to the three generations that are primarily involved in these protests, let’s look at what’s happening in the United States right now regarding these protests, and why it’s such a huge deal.
The MOST IMPORTANT THING to understand about this moment is that the American Boomers, are experiencing a crisis in confrontation… of themselves and their choices up to this point.
The Boomers, despite the majority of them having materially and/or financially comfortable upbringings, are a generation that largely held mild disdain for their working-class parents because they were determined to rise above working-class status. With the first half of their generation having a Uranus in Gemini placement, many early Boomers idealized the pursuit of the college degree. This is the generation that made it a point to attend colleges and universities as a means of ensuring their white-collar roles in the workforce, and with Neptune in Libra, they idealized their educations as a means of ensuring they’d be able to create the social and political narratives of their generation and future generations, and not only American citizens but global citizens as well. Before this generation, more people would simply start working or work their way up in a company; and a college education wasn’t as sought after. But the Boomers either made sure they got educations, and/or they made sure their children went to college/university. In fact, the Boomers are the generation that established the college degree as a near-standard in American society (and this intellectual determination is also present in people of this generation in other countries as well).
However, the U.S. still suffered from rampant racial (and legal!) segregation and misogyny in the U.S. in the 1950s and early 1960s, and post-WWII, in 1950-1954, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy created a firestorm of fear and suspicion around people being Russian/Chinese/Asian/Communist spies and trying to “bring down” the United States of America). This created an anti-communism and anti-socialism fervor in the U.S. Racism, misogyny, and “Red Scare” influences were societal norms for the Boomers as they came of age, whether they practiced these beliefs or not. These societal influences also led the U.S. to get militarily involved in geo-political conflicts in Asia that they probably wouldn’t have gotten into if it hadn’t been for the western determination to defeat communism with democracy and capitalism.
At first, many young people were willing if not eager to go to fight in these wars. For the early Boomers there was some appeal in being soldiers and going to get their big win in a global war, and then using their G.I. Bill money to complete their college degrees to prove they were “greater” than their Greatest Gen parents on both fronts – militarily and professionally. The Boomers sought to secure their own great military legacy by “defeating the communists”. But instead, the early Boomer fighters quickly experienced the horrors of military combat, and some returned to not only share their stories, but to find themselves severely traumatized, unable to re-acclimate to normal society. Their accounts of war sparked outrage and resistance to the wars in southeast Asia, especially in Vietnam, and many college-age Americans began refusing to report for their military draft orders. Protests were abound at university campuses across the nation, not only asking the United States Government to end its war campaign in Vietnam, but as some students began to learn more about what was happening in Vietnam itself, they became pro-Communist idealogues – a shocking turn after over a decade of anti-communist and socialist rhetoric from the McCarthyism era!
Now let’s get to why that all matters.
This last Saturday, 20th April 2024, we experienced a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in the sign of Taurus (22°49’). This is an important astrological event. Why?
- The last Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus (25°38’) occurred 83 years ago on 7th May 1941. During that year, Nazi Germany ramped up its persecution of Jewish people and others in Poland and the Soviet Union with their first extermination camps. It was also the year which brought the United States fully into World War II through the Japanese bombing of the Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base in Hawai’i.
- 70 years ago, the tumultuous run of McCarthyism ended in 2nd December 1954, just under two months after the first pass of a a triple-pass Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in the sign of Cancer on 7th October 1954 (27°22’), and a month before the second (retrograde) pass on 6th January 1955 (26°04’).
- 54 years ago, in late April 1968, there was another triple-pass Jupiter-Uranus conjunction – this one in the sign of Libra (3°28’ to 0°40’) – almost 7.5 months after the Boomers started protesting in opposition to the Vietnam War, and guess where the first arrests happened? Yep. Columbia University.
- The current escalation in the 76-year conflict between Palestine and Israel began 7th October 2023, about 6.5 months before the 2024 Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus on 20th April 2024. The 2024 Columbia University protest started on Friday 19th April 2024, and has since spread to university campuses across the United States (and since the initial posting of this article, protests have now gone international).
Today, it’s remarkable how the younger generations are now doing their own protests which seem to combine both of the afore-mentioned historical periods – protesting in opposition to what they see as a genocide/ethnic cleansing campaign in Palestine (just like their great-grandparents fought against), and they are protesting against the United States’ investment in, support of, and possibly participation in that campaign (like their grandparents protested against)… and there’s a fascinating astrological reason for this!
Remember how the majority of today’s college students are members of Generation Z? Generation Z’s Uranus markers are the same as the Greatest Generation’s – Uranus in Aquarius and Uranus in Pisces – which means both generations have an inherent sense of humanity and want to be in collaboration with the whole of humanity to create something more amazing together than they could ever do alone.
However, Gen Z’s Neptune placement is the opposite of the Greatest Generation’s. Though both Neptune placements are represented through what I call “the Axis of Expression”, with Leo being the self-focused side and Aquarius being the collective-focused side of that axis, where the Greatests had Neptune in Leo and saw participating in something greater in themselves made themselves “great”, Gen Z has Neptune in Aquarius – they want to be part of something greater than themselves that makes humanity great.
Gen Z – like the Greatest Generation well before them – has an innate consciousness of the global community. However, unlike the Greatest Generation, Gen Z also understands that it’s not their glory alone- it’s for the glory of the human collective, not just themselves. There are also notable diversity and inclusivity elements that haven’t been present in the past, and the fact that the early Gen Zs (born 1995-2002/3) have this double Aquarian energy (Uranus and Neptune) built into its character makes it a force to be reckoned with in matters of human rights and humanitarian conscience – a conscience that will be critically necessary in regard to emerging technologies and how they may be used to humanity’s benefit or detriment.
And of course, the Zs have a great collective conscience and awareness of the collective impact of their protests on all of humanity because of the technological advances of their day. They’re able to share their knowledge and understanding of the world with other people around the world, as other people of the world share their knowledge and understanding with them. Technology has enabled the people of this generation to build a global information and education network that informs and educates them in regard to culture, class status, currency/economy, politics (domestic and global), and most important, in what is really happening in the world around them.
The fundamental humanitarian ethos that’s an intrinsic part of Generation Z’s character presents a few challenges for the people currently in the positions of power who are largely Boomers (with a few Silent Gen – born 1928-1942, more Crisis Gen – born 1956-1970 and Gen X – born 1968-1984, and some Millennials – born 1984-1996 members sprinkled in):
- The Boomers forgot what it was like to be like these students. They forgot the impact of peaceful protest en masse. They’re quickly being reacquainted with the process. Maybe too quickly.
- The Boomers are trying to create a public narrative with mid-late 20th Century communication tactics, and they cannot understand how to reach the Zs effectively. This deeply frustrates if not angers the Boomers who take great pride in being able to use their intellectual superiority to craft the public narrative (remember their college-educated, white-collar professional self-identities).
- Since they can’t gain control of the narrative or information, administrative leaders are now regressing to the same tactics to quell the protests that were (unsuccessfully) used against them when they protested 54 years ago – tactics which create horrible optics to the general public because people are now questioning if their own legal and human rights may be endangered.
- And now U.S. leadership – largely Boomer-driven – is considering monitoring, censoring, or shutting down some of the global lines of information, education, and communication in order to gain back their narrative control.
Generation Z reminds the Boomers of their parents, and rightfully so. Their grandchildren have the same Uranus markers as their parents, so they’re likely to hear and feel some familiar themes.
Yet Gen Z also reminds the Boomers of their own fight for a different world – a fight in which they both succeeded in and failed. The 1968-1969 Boomer protests did succeed in creating popular disapproval for the war in Vietnam, eventually leading to its end. However, the Boomers didn’t end the political war machine. In fact, the Boomers have amplified it in the years since Vietnam. It seems the Zs are determined to end not only genocide and ethnic cleansing, but to bring an end to wars globally by divesting from the companies which fund, design, and/or build wars’ machinations, which is a deeply confronting prospect for the Boomers who now sincerely wonder (and some now worry) what their own generational legacy will be for the world.
Meanwhile, with Uranus as the ruler of Aquarius, it’s not surprising that with the global events happening at the time the 2024 Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus went exact, these young people decided to take action.
It’s also not surprising that all of this evolutionary energy is emerging and strengthening with Pluto currently at 2° Aquarius, directly correlating with early Gen Z’s Aquarian Uranus and Neptune placements. Bringing the energy of transformation to the fore (see the 2024 Scorpio Full Moon article for more on this), Pluto in Aquarius gives these students power and momentum in transforming not only how the world sees mass communications and the roles of the internet and social media in our lives, our communities, and our world; but also in transforming how people can form community beyond borders and oceans, and across political ideologies, religious beliefs, racial biases, and societal class/caste status.
Generation Z, at its core level, lives by their inherent knowing that humanity transcends ego, and that we’re all in this together, so we must all work together to make the world a better place for ALL of us. We are responsible for each other. The Greatest Generation understood this, but they didn’t understand that when we win as a collective, we all win. Thanks to technology and the power of community inherent in their astrological blueprints, Gen Z is taking that world community awareness to its next level, transforming and uniting the world as result.
Though it appears that history is repeating, Generation Z is determined that it won’t repeat again. Unlike their Boomer predecessors who only wanted the war to end for their own sake, Gen Z wants the destruction to end for the sake of themselves and all of humanity throughout the entire world.
I hope this essay was informative and insightful for you. I’ve been working on a book about the human generations as defined by astrology for a while now, and I look forward to getting this book out into the world later this year (2024). Stay tuned…
Thanks for reading and sharing Signs and Numbers. Until next post…
~ Love and Blessings,
Grace
P.S. – For the other astrologers out there, yes, there are quite a few astrological transits for the protests that I didn’t dive into in extensive detail because I wanted the focus of this article to be on the generational inter-dynamics. However, if you’re interested in diving deeper into the protests themselves and what may be ahead in that regard, I’d recommend looking at the United States’ Sibly chart in correlation/synastry with the charts for the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction from 20th April 2024, the 2024 Aries New Moon Total Solar Eclipse from 8th April, and the 2024 Scorpio Full Moon.
