Yin Yang II

Mars in the natal chart tells what motivates us to live, and how we do battle.

The holder of the chart has Mars retrograde in Virgo. Being of service motivated his life, and he did battle with his teachings and his miracles. He did not put up a fight when he was arrested; he sought transformation by giving in.

Take me.

The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio, 1602

Venus is how we love and do relationship, and with Venus in Pisces, he forgave and loved-

Venus     Loves.

He forgives and loves everyone.

His emergence through the second house awakened a religion.

The incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, 1601

Wherever we have Gemini in the chart, we relate with people from all walks of life, and Caravaggio has Gemini in his fifth house. With Neptune in Gemini, he drew inspiration from the people around him, people on the street and in the taverns; he transformed ordinary people into religious figures in his paintings.

Caravaggio     I did. What I loved most was looking at people, and if I came across an interesting face, I asked if they would model for me. 

Chart for Caravaggio, born September 29, 1571, 2:35 pm, Julian calendar, Milan

He captivated his audience in the eleventh house with his realism, his unique ability to depict a moment in time, and with his theatricality.

Caravaggio     Cardinals and dukes commissioned my work, mainly for churches. They said my paintings were so vivid, they pulsated with life. But some of my paintings shocked them, did you know? They rejected them outright; they didn’t want churchgoers getting the wrong idea.

Uranus in Capricorn can be yin yang.

Caravaggio     I know, I know. Sometimes I just needed to rebel from all that religious pretension with some Enki humour. I got away with John the Evangelist fleeing in disarray in the Taking of Christ, and with Thomas poking inside the wound of Christ in the Incredulity, but I knew that my Madonna and child with St. Anne was a bit too much for St. Peter’s; I was prepared for them to take it down. Have you seen it? Look; there’s my voluptuous Lena as the Madonna, with her breasts swelling out of her low cut gown. And her son’s genitals are in full view; I realize he’s a bit too naked for Jesus.

Caravaggio     For the most part though, I stuck to the rules; I just added that dramatic flair that took people’s breath away.

The conversion of St. Paul by Caravaggio, 1601

I look again at the chart of Jesus Christ to see if his fourth house fits in with his story, and it does. Taurus is in his fourth, and he was born in a cave and adored in a manger, and he grew up the son of a carpenter, an earthy childhood. His parents kept him safe, and with Venus, ruler of Taurus, in Pisces, we can imagine that he was loved the way Venus-

Venus clears her throat   

loves Eros.

Rahu is in his fourth and his destiny brought him back home, through the resurrection, and through the religion established after him. Neptune in Scorpio in the tenth, the most public house, points at the eighth and the second, at the passion, the miracles and the sacrifice, and declares him a holy man.

Caravaggio     Taurus is in my third and the story of Christ was part of my early education. My life crumbled when my father died of the plague, but my community held me up. I was apprenticed to a painter who taught me to mix colours and discipline my brush. I learned how to paint and I put the story of Christ into my paintings, and the sadness of his story gave my solace, and his miracles opened up a world of mystery; they opened up my thirst for knowledge.

Your Saturn and Mercury in the ninth are conjunct his Neptune in Scorpio.

Caravaggio     Like I said, I disciplined my brush to paint his story, but more than that, I began to ask questions, to get his story straight, and I ran away to Rome.

The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio, 1599-1600

Jesus has Gemini on the cusp of the sixth house, and he preached to all who would listen, and he cared about everyone, including the most marginalized. When he retreated into the twelfth, he travelled; he has Sagittarius in the twelfth, and some say he travelled as far as India.

Caravaggio     Cancer in the sixth house bound me to my homeland; I learned how to please the audience I depended on. When I broke a law in Rome, I travelled to another city to escape punishment, and my fame preceded me. I had plenty of work to keep me busy until I received a pardon from the pope and was allowed to return. My virtuosity in art made me a valuable asset, and I kept it up when I retreated into Capricorn in my twelfth. I worked arduously to improve my foreshortening technique and my chiaroscuro.

Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio, 1606

Death of the Virgin was rejected by the church that commissioned it. It lacked decorum, they said, and Caravaggio’s physician recognized the model; she was a prostitute. But the Duke of Mantua bought it, and it is now in the Louvre.

Caravaggio     When I started painting her, Venus in Virgo in my eighth awakened memories of loved ones who died from the plague. I could not make death look beautiful. I painted death the way I remembered it, knowing that the church would not be happy, but also knowing that it would not hurt my career. There was an undisputable honesty to my work; a Caravaggio was that.

Caravaggio’s biggest strength in Aries in the second house was his innovation and the creation of a new style of painting. Many artists began to work in the style of Caravaggio, and his followers were known as the Caravaggisti.

Caravaggio     With my Sun in Libra in the eighth, you would think that I was the victim of copyright infringement. There was no such thing when I lived; people were free to copy, and there was no judgement on my part when people copied my work.

His Sun in Libra attracted a different sort of trouble; friendships turned sour, provocations and disputes settled with swords. Each time, he resurfaced in Aries with head wounds, and the last time, his face was severely slashed and disfigured.

David with the head of Goliath by Caravaggio, 1610

Caravaggio      Ominous, isn’t it? That was one of my last paintings, and I painted  my self-portrait on the head of Goliath. But you can go back and see me whole in the Taking of Christ. I’m the bystander holding the lantern.

Some say that the Moon in Aquarius gives prescience.

Caravaggio     Jesus has it too.

His Mercury in Aquarius in the first house made him a gifted orator, and he preached of an ideal world, a heavenly world. He partnered with people in Cancer and Leo, people who protected him and had the courage to spread his word.

Caravaggio has Mars in Leo in his seventh house, and he put all his effort into his partnerships. He never married; his partnerships were work related, contracts with wealthy patrons that allowed him to practice his craft.

His paintings were admired, but he also had his critics. He was criticized for his technique, for having trouble with perspective and the arrangement of figures in space. Like in the Taking of Christ; there’s a problem with the arms.

He responded to his critics with arete, and with his Jupiter in Pisces in the first house; that side of him that was Typhonic and would not be put down, that rose to the challenge.

When a patron commissioned him to do a painting of the Greek gods, Caravaggio used the most dramatic arrangement he could come up with to discredit his critics.

There’s Jupiter with his eagle, bending over to move the celestial sphere, and Pluto with Cerberus standing next to Neptune with his sea horse.

And to make sure that nobody would doubt who the artist was, Caravaggio painted his self portrait on all three gods.

Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto by Caravaggio, ca 1600

Caravaggio     Too naked?

Scandalous.

Caravaggio     Yes; it’s not like Michelangelo’s David; not idealized and diffused by the colour of marble.

David by Michelangelo, 1504

Caravaggio     Mine would have been torn down in a public setting, but it was made for Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte’s garden casino; a private commission for a male audience.

Like Jesus, Caravaggio’s MC is in Scorpio. Jesus’ MC is at 0° Scorpio, and there’s purity at 0 degrees. Caravaggio’s is at 28° Scorpio, and 28 is a naughty degree.

Caravaggio     Blame that on Venus, there, in the eighth.

You said Venus brought you painful memories.

Caravaggio     One side of her did. There’s another side that made me a lover of details that were naughty, as you say, and there’s another side yet; the side of her that lies across from Pluto and asks to be taken under, like Pluto took Persephone to the underworld.

It’s an opposition that craves intensity, a roller coaster ride. You drew inspiration from living on the edge, and you were very productive when you were on the run, escaping punishment. But that body of work lacks the finish and the luster of the paintings done in Rome.

The Adoration of the Shepherds by Caravaggio, 1609

Venus also tells what you valued most, what you spent freely on, and you spent freely on the women you loved, the courtesans who modeled for you. A Libra Sun doesn’t walk alone.  

Caravaggio     Lena, Anna and Fillide. Fillide was the most dangerous; I painted her as Judith.

Judith beheading Holofernes, 1599

Enki humour?

Caravaggio     The painting was an in joke between us. Look what you do to me, I’d tell her, and she’d laugh. She’s also in other paintings; she’s Mary of Clopas raising her arms to heaven in my Burial of Christ.

In the Burial, Caravaggio broke with the tradition of representing the Virgin as eternally young. There she is, an older woman wearing the robes of a nun.

The Burial of Jesus by Caravaggio, 1603

I wonder if someone has imagined her chart, and someone has.

Chart for the Virgin Mary, born August 5, 22 BC, 5:05 pm, Julian calendar, Jerusalem (astrotheme.com)

When artists paint The Annunciation, they paint Uranus in Mary’s twelfth house. He’s the angel who appears while she’s resting and announces the birth of Christ.

The Annunciation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1849

After her encounter with the angel, the planets in Leo in the seventh transform Mary’s relationship with Joseph. She tells him that she must remain a virgin.

Allegory of Chastity by Hans Memling, 1475

When the baby’s born, the Moon in Gemini in the fifth spreads the news of his birth. And Jupiter in the tenth elevates Mary and calls her the mother of god, but with this title there is sacrifice.

Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, 1423

Mars at 0° Scorpio points at the angel in the twelfth, and guards the chastity of Mary’s marriage, and proclaims her purity. He is conjunct Jesus’ MC, tying Mary’s public life to her son’s.

Madonna in the Church by Jan van Eyck, 1440

Mary’s Saturn in the eighth is conjunct Mars in Jesus’ chart, and when Jesus journeys through the eighth, Mary’s duty is to walk by his side; she suffers the journey with him.

They resurface together in the second house, and Mary holds her son.

She holds him with grace.

Pietà by Michelangelo, 1499

I look for another person, with a different signature, a fourth and tenth house signature, and there’s Picasso.

His Sun is in the fourth house, and all his life, he needed a woman to raise his spirit, to be his muse and to take care of him. His Sun in Scorpio asked for a woman who would protect him like a mother would. Mercury is also in his fourth, and he worked in his atelier at home; he perfected his skill as a painter surrounded by family life. Family life stimulated him.

Mars in Cancer in the twelfth confirms this; he spent his energy behind the scenes; his life was a retreat.

Chart for Pablo Picasso, born October 25, 1881, 11:15 pm, Málaga (astrotheme.com)

In Taurus, his new style was grounded in the senses, in the sense of seeing. He painted figures in motion, broke them up into planes, and painted the planes on a flat surface; half a face looking at the viewer, and then turning away and seen in profile.

Seated woman (Jacqueline) by Pablo Picasso, 1960

When Picasso died, Claude is the son who fought on behalf of Picasso’s children born out of wedlock for a share of their inheritance.

Chart for Claude Picasso, born May 15, 1947, 3:30 pm, Boulogne-Billancourt (astrotheme.com)

He has his Sun in Taurus in the eighth house conjunct Mercury, at the same degree as Picasso’s Jupiter.

Claude began his journey through the eighth fighting a legal battle, and ended up in the second house with a gift the size of Jupiter. His Jupiter in Scorpio in the second is conjunct his father’s Mercury, and he became the court-appointed administrator of his father’s estate.

But Jupiter is the great balancer, and Claude had to give up his career in photography and film to dedicate his life to his father.

Claude Picasso, 1967, photograph by Richard Avedon

Libra in the first house endows the holder of the chart with perfectly balanced features, and Neptune in the first gives those big and watery Neptunian eyes.

The first house influences the appearance of the face, and the first also influences the choices we make that define who we are.

Claude sees the best in everyone and gets along easily; he’s charming and he’s a romantic.

Venus, ruler of Libra, is conjunct Mars in his seventh house, but the two planets are also on the cusp of his eighth, and conjunct his father’s MC. 

Claude is open to people using his father’s name and his father’s oeuvre, as long as they go through him first, get his approval and sign a contract.

He encourages new projects, but he’s tough when people use Picasso without proper authorization. When this happens, Venus takes his hand and walks him to Taurus that she also rules, Taurus in the eighth. She reminds him that he has patience, and she points at his Sun Mercury conjunction, and reminds him that he has acquired the skill to fight and win legal battles.

Chart for Paloma Picasso, born April 19, 1949, 7:45 pm, Paris (astrotheme.com)

There are no direct correlations between Paloma’s chart and her father’s, not like Claude’s. They experienced their father differently.

They say that the Moon tells how we experience our mother, and the Sun tells how we experience our father.

Claude has the Sun conjunct Mercury in Taurus, and he experienced his father as the artist that he was, but in the eighth, there can be a sense of loss. After his mother published a book about Picasso against Picasso’s wishes, Jacqueline, who was Picasso’s wife at the time, barred Claude and Paloma from seeing their dad.

Claude suffered his dad’s absence.

Paloma has her Sun conjunct Venus on the cusp of the seventh house, and she experienced her father as a man who put his relationship with the woman he loved first, a man who would not jeopardize his relationship.

In terms of her work, the planets in her seventh tell of her fashion related contracts; she designs jewellery for Tiffany & Company. They also tell of her marriage, and she’s married to a physician who she says is the driving force behind her, more organized than she is, and better at business too. He plants trees; orange, grapefruit, pomegranate and olive trees, and makes his own olive oil. He has the Taurean qualities she likes in a partner.

She has a strong sixth and twelfth house signature. Mars has his joy in the sixth house, and she has Mars and Rahu in Aries in the sixth.

Her work is her life.  

Mars rules metals and she makes jewellery out of metal; she’s always looking for inspiration, working on original designs.

She designed a wedding ring that has eight grooves, because eight is the number for infinity. And it’s a ring that can stand, for a long standing marriage.

Tiffany & Co. Paloma’s Groove Collection

In the sixth, Aries needs freedom and independence to work, and she has it. When she retreats into her twelfth house in Libra, she likes company, elegance, romance. This is when she shares what she’s been up to with her partner, and when she’s receptive to his advice.

Françoise Gilot with her children, Claude, Paloma, and Aurelia Provvedini, 2000

Paloma’s third and ninth house show the influence of her mother.

Her Moon is in Capricorn in the third, and during her early years, she experienced her mother as the person who gave her stability and oversaw her education. Jupiter in Aquarius is conjunct the Moon, and her mother has fame; she’s very well known and very well connected. Her connections have been useful to Paloma.

The Moon rules Cancer in her ninth, and her mother also played a part in her higher education. She’s been a guide to her daughter.

Claude’s Moon is in Pisces in the sixth house, and he has always thought of his mother as an artist, a painter in her own right. The Moon points at the eighth and second house, and it was his mother who gave him the money for his eighth house journey.

Chart for Pablo Picasso

With the Sun in Scorpio in his fourth house, Picasso experienced his father as a man who kept a close eye on his family, a traditional man tied to his roots. His father was a local artist, an art professor and curator, and he was the one who recognized Picasso’s talent and sent him to art school.

Picasso has his Moon and Rahu in Sag in the fifth house, and he experienced his mother as someone with strong beliefs, someone who could lift his spirits and was utterly dedicated to him.

He fell in love with women who had these qualities.

With Sag in the fifth, what he loved most was to discuss ideas, theories about art, and the purpose modern art served in the world.

Gemini is in his eleventh house, and after his discussions with friends and family, he would go for a stroll or to a bullfight and be in a crowd. Here he is with Jean Cocteau, watching a bullfight and playing with his son Claude.

Photograph by Brian Blake, 1955

Caravaggio or Picasso

Picasso. He’s my archetype. I’m the Picasso among cops. It’s the only way for me to survive my  job.

Caravaggio pulls you in; Picasso doesn’t. He makes you aware of the flat surface of the canvas, a scene you cannot enter, just observe.

It all began the first time I was sent to a crash site. I felt like I was looking at one of his cubist paintings; planes of motion broken up and painted on a two dimensional surface.

Picasso’s my archetype and my defense mechanism.

Now every time I’m sent to a crash site, I assess the situation like it were a cubist painting. I take my pen and write,

3 pm. Even light on a large rectangular canvas.

Two cars

broken

shattered planes of motion

standing still.

Then I begin to sketch. The only way to shield myself from people’s strong emotions is to sketch them while they tell me their stories. They move around to tell me what happened, and I sketch them from multiple points of view.

When my supervisor asks me, What’s this, and points at my description and my sketch, I say that I’m a follower of Picasso.

The Poet by Pablo Picasso, 1911

Caravaggio. I’m the Caravaggio among cops. Picasso’s approach to art is detached and intellectual. Caravaggio’s approach is realistic and dramatic; his paintings grip you.

He’s my archetype.

The first time I was sent to a crash site, I felt like I was looking at one of his paintings; I got pulled in. The dents on the metal, the gestures and the expressions of the people involved told me a story. I could read what happened.

Now every time I’m sent to a crash site, I look at the scene like it were a Caravaggio, a tableau vivant.

I take my pen and write,

3 pm. Two dented cars fill the canvas. The driver at fault lies in shadow, turned away from the viewer, looking grim. The driver not at fault is bathed in the afternoon sunlight, looking at the viewer, inviting the viewer in. Their eyes say, Look what happened to me.

I take a picture and walk into the tableau.

When my supervisor asks me, What’s this, and points at my description and my picture, I say that I’m a follower of

Le Caravage.

The Musicians by Caravaggio, 1595

I used to be a Caravaggio full time. Caravaggio evokes mastery of one’s craft, boldness, and the Leo in Mars archetype; the drive to make a difference, to be of value, to shine.

But Mars in a fire sign will sooner or later burn out. He’ll take a dive under water to recover from  all the effort, the emotional intensity, the confusion that results when the light changes and makes the guilty look innocent and the innocent guilty.

The day that happened to me, I began to experiment with the Picasso archetype.

When I handed in my report, my supervisor raised an eyebrow and asked, What’s this.

A Picasso, I said.

Cubist poem by Wax Weber, 1914

The opposite happened to me. I used to be a Picasso full time. Picasso’s Leo rising at 5 degrees evokes presence, regality, sexiness. His twelfth house evokes the Mars in Cancer archetype; the awareness of one’s vulnerability and need for protection.

I took measures to protect myself.

I had barriers in place.

Yet one day, despite myself, I got pulled in.

When I handed in my report, my supervisor raised an eyebrow and asked, What’s this.

A Caravaggio, I said.

Christ displaying his wounds by Giacomo Galli, in the style of Caravaggio, 1623

I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve learned to go back and forth; Picasso, Caravaggio, Picasso, Caravaggio. Sometimes I’m a Picavaggio.

First I maintain my distance.

Then I get pulled in.

My name’s Roger, and I’m the one next to the tall one over there. I’ve been paying attention to astrology like everybody else. Got to keep up with the times; my job demands it. Knowing what’s going on in the community, what’s in vogue, helps us judge people’s mental health correctly.

Not long ago, when we asked someone, How’s your mental health, and they went on about a Mars retrograde in their first house, we thought they were nuts.

Now everyone’s nuts and we’ve joined the movement.

Astrology is a play of archetypes. Mars is an archetype. He’s flavoured by the zodiac and influenced by the living and the dead, but he always reflects the underlying nature of his archetype. He’s a warrior.

The Day of the Bear, Mars in the sky was in Capricorn. When the warrior is in the sign of Enki-Ea, he maintains order; he makes sure that everyone’s in the right place, having a purpose and being useful, without losing touch with their inner child.

The Day of the Bear, Mars was at 29 degrees of Capricorn, the last degree of the sign, and before he exited, he showed us what a warrior can do

in the style of Capricorn.

First he asked Uranus in Taurus to send some wildlife downtown. A wild animal to shake up the senses, he said. Uranus was in retrograde motion, so he could only send something that he’d already sent before, something people were familiar with, and he sent a bear.

This is when Venus in Libra reached out to Mars and said, Partner your warriors on earth to capture the bear, and that’s what Mars did. He partnered conservation officers with police officers and the fire department to capture the bear

as gracefully as possible and before noon, which is when Venus was going to move from 27 degrees to 28 degrees Libra. When she’s at 28 degrees Libra, she’s naughty and prefers a bear on the run.

The picture up there epitomizes the Mars in Capricorn archetype;

warriors doing their job and carrying their inner child wherever they go.

Last of all, the Moon stepped into Leo to applaud her heroes.

Chart for the Day of the Bear, noon

My name’s Roger 2 and I was a Picasso that day. They tried pulling me in to catch the bear, but I suffer from allergies. I’m allergic, I said, and I stayed with the crowd, making sure nobody got too close. I kept everyone’s inner child in check until the bear was in the cage; that’s how I did my Capricorn part.

Internally, though, a struggle went on. Mars in the sky wanted me to participate; he wanted me to stay in touch with my inner child. But Picasso’s Mars in Cancer said,  No; he needs to protect himself; he’s allergic.

I resolved the issue with a sketch. 

When my supervisor asked me, What’s this, I said, Two shades of Mars.

I’m Roger the conservation officer, and I agree with Roger the cop that astrology is an archetypal language. But our choice of archetypes differ. Jane Goodall is my archetype at work; she has Mars in Aries and she was the first person to study chimpanzees. Her fiery Mars is a good balance to my natal Mars in Pisces.

Mars in Pisces relies on intuition to understand an animal, and Mars in Aries relies on observation. The two shades combined make me good at what I do.

The Day of the Bear will always stay imprinted on my mind, because it was the day Neptune in the sky sat on my natal Mars, causing a surge in my intuition and extrasensory perception. I became aware of a greater purpose to the situation we faced that day.

A bear had wandered downtown, and by the time we all got there, it was up a tree. I looked up at the bear, and that’s when I began hearing voices in my head.

Saturn     Son, I know that you and your guys can handle this alone-

Pluto     But not today.

Venus     We need you to collaborate today.

Merc     Tranquilize the bear, climb up a ladder and tie a rope around the bear.

Mars     Let the police officers do the rest.

Saturn     Don’t let them drop the bear, or I’ll hold you responsible.

Merc     I’ll give you clear instructions; all you have to do is repeat them.

Venus     Make them look good.

Mars     This is their chance to reconnect with their inner child-

Sun     A break from the usual.

Moon    A bit of excitement.

Uranus     Better give that bear an extra dose of tranquilizer.

I did as I was told. Merc wanted ten police officers to carry the bear to the truck, and I asked for ten. People applauded when they saw them carrying the bear.

Now I know why they say that Neptune opens the door to the heavens.

I’m Roger 2, and that’s my boss up that ladder. I told him we didn’t need a ladder; I could climb that tree easily.

No monkey business today, he said; this has to look professional; look at all the media.

He asked me to step aside and had police officers help him bring the bear down, and I stepped aside and watched and knew what this was all about.

Miasma.

People’s strong emotions can stick to us and we end up with a buildup of miasma.

This would help wash some of it away.

I waited until they carried the bear to the truck to climb the tree.

When she was younger, Jane Goodall loved horseback riding and climbing trees, and she’s my archetype. Her Mars in Aries told me to go ahead and climb, nobody will notice, and my natal Mars in Sag agreed; he likes getting a higher perspective. Then there was Mars in the sky telling me to connect with my inner child.

I had everyone’s permission.

Centaur by Picasso, 1955

Jane Goodall too worked with everyone’s permission.

Chart for Jane Goodall, born April 3, 1934, 11:30 pm, Hampstead (astrotheme.com)

Mars is conjunct her Sun in Aries, a conjunction that gives her good instincts and good powers of observation. There’s courage in this conjunction, but there’s also protection from making decisions that would endanger her life.

She says that her fondness for chimpanzees began when her father gave her Jubilee.

When she went to Africa, met Louis Leakey and decided to stay and study chimpanzees, her mother came with her. There’s her mom, in her house of retreat, sharing her daughter’s adventurous nature and love for the outdoors.

Dian Fossey was a rebel in comparison. She’s the woman who studied and protected mountain gorillas.

Chart for Dian Fossey, born January 16, 1932, 11:17 am, San Francisco (astrotheme.com)

She was a lover of animals and a prize winning equestrian. Before going to Africa, she worked in a children’s hospital as an occupational therapist. She said that her experience working with children with autism helped her communicate with mountain gorillas.

Mars is at 29 degrees Capricorn conjunct Saturn and her Sun. Her mission in life became the protection of mountain gorillas; she protected them like they were her own children.

She took it upon herself to enforce the law and capture poachers. She was a guerilla when she retreated into her twelfth.

That’s why Goodall is our archetype. She studies chimps, notes their intelligence, loves them, but she wouldn’t go risking her life for them. She’s got Mars protecting her Sun at the root of her chart, and she has Jupiter in Libra. Wherever Jupiter is, I imagine a chalice that the chart holder has to fill. She’s had to fill her chalice with good manners in Libra, with advocacy and partnerships.

Dian Fossey, on the other hand, wouldn’t let us do our work. We’d end up bonding with the animals and carrying them around. We’d war with the people downtown and fill her chalice in Leo.

I have Mars in Taurus, and Mars in Taurus is like a trapped bull, waiting to be set free. I could have been a revolutionary, like Che Guevara, but my parents intervened. They took me by the ear and introduced me to their friend and screenwriter Angel Faretta, and said, Set your bull free in film.

What drew me to El Che was his natal Mars at 28 degrees Pisces.

Chart for Che Guevara, born May 14, 1928, 3:05 am, Rosario, Argentina (astrotheme.com)

Mars at 28 degrees Pisces hiding in the twelfth is El Zorro. He’s a dashing and masked vigilante, defending the defenceless against villains. He evades capture with his cunning and skill and good intuition. Above all, he’s charming and women are attracted to him.

The thought of attracting women awakened the bull. He was still trapped, but he was awake at 5 degrees Taurus.

Chart for Damián Szifron, born July 9, 1975, Ramos Mejía, Argentina

When my parents caught me reading El Che’s Guerilla Warfare, his Uranus and my Uranus weren’t getting along.

His Uranus in Aries on his Ascendant prioritized revolution over the love of women. He made Mars in Pisces wear combat clothes, take up arms and kill.

My natal Uranus in Libra pointed at my natal Mars and said, I’m not doing that to lover boy.

We could have negotiated something in between, but my parents came into my room and tore the book away from me. You can actually see them coming in. There they are, the Sun and Moon in Cancer, bringing Saturn’s discipline with them.

They dragged me to meet Angel Faretta, and he became my mentor and my archetype.

Chart for Angel Faretta, born April 21, 1953, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Jupiter expands anything he touches, and when he touches Mars in Taurus, Mars is confident. He’s strong, he’s sexual, he’s territorial and he’s free. He could be dangerous; that’s why Jupiter directs all his energy into the arts. Follow the green brick road, he says.

Angel gave me confidence to set my own bull free, and with a nod from Uranus, I’m now the Che Guevara of Argentine cinema. My movies are filled with insurgencies.

But the chalice is filled with love.

Damián is a romantic; I was never like El Zorro. Before I met Fidel, I was more like a doctor without borders. Uranus in Aries made me daring, and I traveled around the continent on my motorcycle, treating people who had no access to medicine.

I wanted to make a difference.

Me.

With my body.

Jupiter endowed me with a strong body, the body of a warrior. My chalice asked to be filled with acts of courage that involved my body.

That’s fine, my mother would say; travel and treat people and make a difference.

When I got agitated about the poverty that I witnessed, she would try to calm me down. Stay non-violent, she would say; take Gandhi as your archetype.

Chart for Mahatma Gandhi, born October 2, 1869, 7:08 am, Porbandar (astrotheme.com)

Mars in Scorpio is a great strategist; he wars with the mind. He can war with his body too, but in this chart, he’s opposed by Jupiter and Pluto in Taurus.

Jupiter expands anything he touches, and when he touches Pluto in any sign, he expands his shamanic qualities. Shamans don’t fight; they heal. 

Gandhi found peaceful ways to war against the British. 

I was considering Gandhi, his strategy of civil disobedience and how I would apply it to Latin America,

when I met Fidel.

Chart for Fidel Castro, born August 13, 1926, 2 am, Biran (astrotheme.com)

His Uranus in Pisces sits on my natal Mars. It was Fidel who transformed the doctor without borders into a guerilla warrior.

His Mars in Taurus sits on my natal Venus, and for him, Venus draws her weapons, rests a leg on a lion, and becomes Inanna-Ishtar, goddess of war.

I left my land and joined Fidel’s armed struggle in Cuba. I filled my chalice with acts of courage, and I helped fill his with dreams of a utopia.

I’m Roger from counter insurgency, and I agree that Pluto makes all the difference in Gandhi’s chart.

I once arrested an individual who claimed Mao as their archetype. Mao has that same Mars Jupiter opposition, but without the presence of the shaman, and he was nothing like Gandhi

Chart for Mao Zedong, born December 26, 1893, 7:30 am, Siang Tan (astrotheme.com)

Mars acts with stealth in Scorpio, but when Uranus is in the same sign, Uranus will change the shade of Mars with his irreverence.

They both lie across from Jupiter in Taurus, and Jupiter in Taurus is a landowner; he is power that comes from the earth, from the land and her natural resources.

Gandhi fought to take back possession of his homeland.

Mao fought for land reform, for a revolution that would replace one class with another and repartition the land.

He fought with the kind of irreverence that would say, A revolution is not a dinner party.

The Dinner Party, restoring women to history, by Judy Chicago, 1974-1979

I’m Roger 2 from counter insurgency, and it doesn’t seem like it today, but back in the 1970s, Judy Chicago was considered an insurgent. She destabilized the art institution by establishing the first feminist art program.

She said, We’ve learned so much about the human experience from men; why should they not learn about the human experience from us.

She calls herself a troublemaker, and as soon as she does that, we look to see where Uranus is in her chart.

Chart for Judy Chicago, born July 20, 1939, 7 pm, Chicago

He’s in Taurus.

She was born in 1939, when Germany and the Soviet Union were annexing and invading their neighbours. Countries began making pacts and alliances to protect each other’s homeland.

It is also the time when Gandhi began a fast to protest British rule in India.

1939 seems to have been a time when Uranus was destabilizing land ownership.

In Judy’s chart, Uranus in Taurus is in her fourth house, and she moved around a lot. If her work required a bigger space, she’d pack up and leave. She lived in more addresses than any revolutionary I know.

Mars is at 0 degrees Aquarius in her first house, and Mars expresses himself through the purity of colour when he’s at 0 degrees. In Aquarius, he likes colours that are bold and that stand out in the crowd.

Pluto in Leo lies across from Mars, and Pluto has a way of pulling us toward him, and he brings her into the seventh house. He asks her to transform people’s lives through her art program and her collaborative art projects.

The Dinner Party was a collaborative art project that involved women from around her country. It was a group project in the spirit of Aquarius. 

The making of the dinner party. Needlework loft, 1977

Her chalice asks to be filled with leadership.

I’m Roger from the fire department.

On the Day of the Bear, we were asked to go downtown because Conservation needed a ladder. There was a bear up a tree. That’s when I heard talk about archetypes. A Picasso stays on the surface and a Caravaggio plunges in, and after much thought, I decided that neither one’s suitable for my line of work.

Neil Armstrong is better. He said that he always knew there was a good chance of returning to Earth, but only a fifty-fifty chance of landing on the Moon. The return to Earth was more important than the mission; that’s why he took off.

His natal Mars is in Gemini, and Mars in Gemini takes calculated risks.

Chart for Neil Armstrong, born August 5, 1930, 12:31 am, Washington, OH (astrotheme.com)

Mars sextiles the Sun in Leo, and there’s a bit of the hero in him, and Mars sextiles Uranus in Aries, and there’s a bit of the daredevil in him too.

Plus a space suit looks like a fire suit; I can relate to it.

I’m Roger 2 from the fire department, and I agree with Roger; Mars in Gemini takes calculated risks.

Mars was in Gemini the day Notre Dame burned.

Chart for April 15, 2019, 6:19 pm, Paris

There’s Jupiter is Sag telling the world, Notre Dame is burning; save her.

Mars in Gemini ruled out aerial firefighting because the risk of structural damage was too high.

When the fire spread to the northern tower, firefighters realized that there were eight giant bells hanging on wooden beams. If the beams collapsed, the bells could bring the northern tower down and the southern tower with it, and the cathedral would collapse.

A team took the risk of going up the southern tower to control the fire in the northern tower. There was no escape route, but there was skill, and there was the influence of Jupiter in Sag.

Jupiter in Sag asks us to find meaning in life. Save her, he said.

Not the goose!

The cathedral.

They saved her. There were proposals to restore her with a more contemporary look, but Uranus said, No. He had just made his entry into Taurus, setting the spirit of the times as the preservation of our heritage.

Her restoration will be historically accurate, but she’s going to be fireproof this time.

He said, No

During the Apollo 11 mission, Mars was in Sagittarius.

Chart for Apollo 11, first steps on the Moon, July 20, 1969, 10:56 pm, Houston (astrotheme.com)

Mars is Sag conquers his fears for knowledge. He reaches out to Mercury who’s about to cazimi the Sun, and Mercury hands him the knowledge he’s looking for.

And they share it with us through Libra.

When Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, Uranus had just made his entry into Libra with Jupiter. If’ there’s a planet that stands for invention and new technology, it’s Uranus; he’s Hephaestus and Prometheus. On the day of the landing, Uranus was the camera specially designed to capture man’s first steps on the Moon. Jupiter expanded the power of the camera’s transmission for the people on Earth.

650 million people watched the Moon landing.

Uranus set the spirit of the times as one of connectivity and sharing information. He’s pure at 0 degrees Libra. Not so pure in the later degrees.

My name’s Roger, and I’m one of the paramedics sent downtown on the Day of the Bear, just in case things got out of hand.

I was actually born the day Nixon resigned.

Chart for August 9, 1974, noon, Washington, D.C.

He was emotionally raw that day when he spoke to the White House staff. He said, Sometimes when we suffer a defeat, when things go wrong, we think that all is ended. Not so; it’s only the beginning, always. Greatness comes when we’ve been really tested.

I’m attracted to that kind of emotional honesty; that’s how I am myself.

The Moon in astrology is the mother; she’s also how we feel and she holds our secrets. When Uranus lies across from her, he exposes all of that. He’s an honest guy.

Truth attracts truth, and people tell me their secrets too. If they ask me not to tell anyone, I say, I can’t promise you that; Uranus may not let me. Beside, in Libra, he’s about sharing.

Sharing information is what makes a good paramedic. We learn from each other.

So you see Uranus and the Moon squaring Venus in Cancer, feeding her information, and Venus is the planet I identify with. That’s me up there in the house of knowledge.

Let me tell you how I ended up in this profession. It was because of a painting of Saint Sebastian; the painting pulled me in and activated my Virgo Pisces polarity.

Mars in Virgo in the eleventh renders service to his community. He’s good with his hands and knows how to focus his attention on the crux of the matter. Jupiter in Pisces gives him faith in his ability, and he gets better with practice.

Saint Sebastian tended by Saint Irene and her maid by Vicente López Y Portaña, ca 1800

I’m Roger and my natal Mars is in Libra. Mars in Libra gives Libra courage and confidence; he makes Libra decisive and competitive; he brings in the spirit of Aries.

Libra gives Mars a taste for connectivity and sharing information, a taste for fashion too. Libra rules aesthetics, and when Mars is in Libra, he wants to be the best looking guy downtown.

Like her.

Like me.

My natal Mars is in the second house of resources. He lies across from Uranus on the cusp of the eighth house, and I’ve become experimental in that department now that I’m almost three years old.

Chart for the bear, born December 7, 2017, 1 am, In the forest

The Day of the Bear, Venus in the sky was sitting on my natal Mars, and I had just had my first Jupiter return.

Jupiter in Scorpio gives me a taste for the mysteries, for uncovering the mysteries. He gives me a taste for what’s forbidden too, and I had been wondering what it would be like to be held by a man.

The Day of the Bear, Uranus told Venus what I was thinking, and she leaned over and whispered to my natal Mars, Follow me and I’ll fulfill your wish.

She was persuasive and Mars so easily swayed by her.

I groomed myself and followed her, and she kept her word.

I was held by many.

When I regained consciousness, I told her that it wasn’t at all the way I had imagined it, and she said it could have been worse if she had been at 28 degrees.

Playing with archetypes

When Saturn and Jupiter came together in 1821, they moved through Aries the whole year, in direct and retrograde motion. It was the year that countries in Latin America fought for their independence from Spain, and new institutions were formed.

San Martín proclaims the independence of Peru on July 28, 1821

Saturn and Jupiter form the archetype of the institution; Saturn is the framework and Jupiter gives it purpose.

This woman carries it in her chart; she was born in 1821.

Pluto in Pisces and Mars in Virgo, and we imagine her a healer. She’s intuitive and good with her hands, with the finer details. Mars touches Uranus Neptune and a new Moon in Capricorn, and we imagine her a healer who introduces something new and unconventional into the establishment. Mars Uranus is a revolutionary, and Mars Neptune puts his energy in spirituality, in an ideal, in volunteerism.

She has the institution in her first house in Aries. In the first house, it has to do with the body, and in Aries, something new begins. The institution touches Merc in Sag, and Merc in Sag is in search of knowledge, and the institution touches Venus in Aquarius, and Venus in Aquarius distinguishes herself from the group. She’s a trendsetter.

The woman is Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross.

Chart for Clara Barton, born December 25, 1821, 11:40 am, Oxford, MA (astrotheme.com)

She established the American Red Cross when she was 60 years old, after caring for the wounded during the American Civil War. When she did, Saturn and Jupiter in the sky were together in Taurus.

The institution was in Taurus, sign of nature and the body, with a stellium that spoke of love with Venus, mastery and longevity with Saturn, knowledge with Jupiter, compassion with Neptune, and healing with Pluto.

Mars in Aries spoke of the courage to lead, Mercury in Gemini spoke of intelligence and the ability to relate to all peoples, and Uranus in Virgo set the spirit of the times as one of equality.

Chart for the establishment of the American Red Cross, May 21, 1881, Washington D.C.

Saturn Jupiter transited Taurus more recently in the year 2000.

They were five or less than five degrees apart in April, May and June, and formed only one exact conjunction on May 28, 2000.

Uranus in Aquarius squared the two planets during the three months they traveled together, bringing to light problems with institutions.

Chart for May 28, 2000, Walkerton, Ontario

Walkerton is a small town, and in mid May 2000, half the population got sick from E. coli. The outbreak was due to a contamination of the water supply, and the people in charge of water safety tried to cover it up.

The Walkerton Public Utilities Commission came under scrutiny, and was declared to have provided inadequate training, inadequate monitoring of the system water, and improper chlorination.

On Friday, May 26, a $1 billion class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the victims.

By the time of the exact conjunction, the problem had been identified and the stage set for compensation. What followed was cleaning the water and restoring the community back to health. And as the planets began to separate, Jupiter entered Gemini and spread the word,

Check your water.

During the same Saturn Jupiter transit in Taurus, the ILOVEYOU computer worm infected over 10 million Windows personal computers.

Chart for May 4, 2000, Manila, Philippines

A college student from Manila created the virus. There he is at 0 degrees Gemini, pure. He’s touched by Neptune in Aquarius, and the belief that internet access should be a human right, free for all. He could not afford to pay for his own internet account, and all he had intended with the ILOVEYOU was to steal people’s passwords, so he could log into their accounts without paying.

And there we are in Taurus, tempted by an email that says, I love you. In Taurus, our bodies tremble and we can’t resist; there’s a new Moon filled with possibilities.

The student was released and all charges dropped because the Philippines did not have laws against writing malware.

Now they do.

National heroes bring a country together, and Terry Fox is Canada’s national hero. He began his Marathon of Hope on April 12, 1980, and had to end it in September, when cancer appeared in his lungs.

While he was undergoing treatment, the country rallied around him, and Saturn and Jupiter moved in direct and retrograde motion through Libra. They were conjunct the day that he died, on June 28, 1981. They were conjunct the day that would have been his 23rd birthday, on July 28, 1981. They were conjunct the day that Canada held the first Terry Fox Run, on September 13, 1981, and began to separate after that. 

The Marathon of Hope fund became The Terry Fox Foundation.

Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were both born in August 1981.

Mars in Cancer     The landlord raised the rent; says the rent’s higher when two people live in the apartment. How’re we going to pay for this.

Merc in Virgo     We could go out there and look for a job.

Uranus in Scorpio     There must be an easier way. Let me think of something-

Mars in Cancer     Wait; we’re not taking any risks. We could ask our parents-

Pluto in Libra     Dig.

Merc in Virgo     Could you be more specific.

Pluto in Libra     Dig in Libra.

Pluto’s the planet of riches, and he’s where we dig, and in Libra, we dig in connectivity and sharing-

Venus in Libra     In the arts and in the hospitality industry. We could rent out air mattresses in the living room for short stays.

Saturn Jupiter in Libra     Yeah, lay the foundation for an online company. Call it the AirBedandBreakfast.com.

Merc in Virgo     What a mouthful.

Neptune in Sag     How about Airbnb.

Chart for Brian Chesky, born August 29, 1981, time unknown, Niskayuna, NY

Saturn and Jupiter met in the sky in 1981, in 2000, and it’s time for them to meet again. They meet every twenty years.

In December 2019, Jupiter joined Saturn in Capricorn. Since April 2020, they’ve been five or less than five degrees apart, transiting  direct and in retrograde motion through Capricorn. They haven’t formed an exact conjunction yet, because Pluto’s standing between them.

This was not the case back in 1901, when they were also in Capricorn.

Back in 1901, when Jupiter entered Capricorn, Queen Victoria died, and Venus stood between him and Saturn.

Chart for January 22, 1901, London, UK

There’s Jupiter at 0 degrees Capricorn, and Venus blocking the way. Venus in Capricorn is the queen who won’t give up her crown. She tells Jupiter that he has to get past her to crown someone else and form a new institution.

Meanwhile, the doctors in Virgo are pronouncing the queen dead. But Mercury conjunct the Sun in Aquarius already knows, and he’s written the announcement and called the police to surround the queen’s residence.

News travels fast with Pluto Neptune in Gemini. It’s the turn of the century, and inventors have been dreaming up ways to keep in touch. They’ve been tinkering away in their workshops, and there are now telegraph wires and telephones. In no time, the country’s in grief and chaos.

Jupiter’s trying to figure out what to do, and Uranus in Sag leans over and says, Find another Saturn you can crown.

Jupiter looks around and finds a match in Queen Victoria’s son. Her son’s Saturn is at 0 degrees Capricorn, and he sits on it. He crowns the new king and forms a new institution.

Chart for King Edward VII, born November 9, 1841, 10:48 am, London, UK (astrotheme.com)

Saturn in the sky isn’t happy, He tells Jupiter that he could have waited. Venus is bound to move; she’s a faster planet.

Jupiter apologizes and promises to make it up to him.

They spend a year together in Capricorn, and all sorts of things happen around the world. The first Fingerprint Bureau is established at Scotland Yard, the first Bureau of Chemistry is established in the United States, and more.

In February 1902, Jupiter bids Saturn farewell and enters Aquarius. He boosts everyone’s genius when he’s there, and all of a sudden, there are vacuum cleaners, and there’s Ford and Harley Davidson, and there’s flight. Uranus in Sag dreams of travel and enlightens the Wright brothers. Then there’s Pluto and Nep in Gemini, finishing up a day’s work, and heading over to stir up the suffragettes.

In January 1903, Saturn enters Aquarius to regulate all the new inventions. He waves at Jupiter who’s about to enter Pisces, and Jupiter says, Catch!

What’s this, Saturn asks him.

I said I’d make it up to you.

The first teddy bear, 1902-1903, by Morris and Rose Michtom

Now they’re in Capricorn again.

Chart for November 2, 2020

But this time, we haven’t heard of new institutions springing up, not with Pluto joining the archetype. Pluto pulls us into the underworld, to the place of soul. He peels off layers we no longer need. He asks for transformation.

He’s been transforming institutions all year, initiating us to a new way of living.

Jupiter will cross over to Saturn’s side on November 13, and the planets will make their way to Aquarius.

They will form one exact conjunction on December 21, 2020 at 0 degrees Aquarius.

The stage will be set for what comes next.

Chart for winter solstice, 2020, 1 pm

There’s Mars in Aries asking the shaman of the zodiac to put an end to his transformation and bless the new beginning.

In January 2021, Saturn and Jupiter will transit Aquarius less than five degrees apart. They will begin to separate in February, but they will both be in Aquarius for one year, innovating, regulating and updating, and most of all, cleaning.

Age of Aquarius by MK Anisko, 2018

Aquarius is a humanitarian sign, where every person in a group is an individual that matters. The sign is ruled by Saturn and Uranus, the old and the new, the traditional and the progressive, the establishment and the rebel.

This man puts all his energy into Aquarius. His natal Mars is in Aquarius and lies 9 degrees away from Uranus. Uranus is too far to form a conjunction, but he’s at 28 degrees Capricorn and Mars feels his influence; he’s Mars with a twist. He pays attention to the peculiarities that distinguish one individual from another, and he’s good at drawing, so he draws them.  

Chart for Joseph Barbera, born March 24, 1911, time unknown, NY (astrotheme.com)

He was a naughty Mars when he was going through puberty. Uranus at 28 degrees Capricorn can be a naughty influence during adolescence, and his drawings took on a different slant. His father in Aries happened to see one and said, Son, people have been drawing this since prehistoric times; why don’t you try something more original. His mother agreed and pointed at Jupiter in Scorpio, protector of the mind and of kin, and said, Something families can watch together.

Just then, Mars felt the tug of Saturn in Taurus. Taurus rules history, heritage, and the land and the body, and Saturn in Taurus is tied to all that, but he’s at 5 degrees Taurus, more relaxed and very sexy. He’s conjunct Venus in all her purity at 0 degrees, so he’s sexy pure, and now that he has Mars’ attention, he’s sexy pure and quirky.

Uranus holds the story of Prometheus and Hephaestus, and there was a time when Mars felt the story of Hephaestus very strongly. That’s when he came up with the Jetsons.

Best of all is when he puts the whole chart together. He takes animals from Taurus, without causing any harm to keep Neptune in Cancer at peace, and gives them their own funny personalities. He then adds Pluto in Gemini and digs in the action.

He and his partner, William Hanna, gave us Tom and Jerry, and Yogi Bear.

He’s very different from Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy’s a live action kind of a guy. 

Chart for Teddy Roosevelt, born October 27, 1858, 7:45 pm, NY (astrotheme.com)

They say that the sixth house is the house of small animals and the twelfth house is the house of big animals, and there are a lot of animals in Teddy’s chart.

Venus attracts, and he has Venus in Sag filling the sixth house with pets; a small bear, a lizard, guinea pigs, a rabbit, a badger, snakes, a blue macaw, a hyena, a hen and a rooster, a barn owl, many dogs, and a pony. He brought them all with him along with his six children into the White House.

His son Quentin on his pony

Then there’s Jupiter and Uranus in Gemini in the twelfth. Jupiter and Uranus bring in the biggest and most surprising animals, and Gemini multiplies them.

He has Pluto in Taurus lying across a Sun Mercury conjunction in Scorpio. He took pleasure digging in Taurus; he took pleasure in history, in museums, in land conservation and in the hunt. He has the duality of Artemis who was both mistress of the animals and skilled at hunting.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota

When he went on an African expedition to hunt for specimens for the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History, he didn’t just kill one of each specimen, he killed many. There were people who condemned him for it, but he defended himself with Gemini’s ability to hold a contradiction; he could only be condemned if the existence of a museum was to be condemned.

On a hunting trip in Mississippi, he wouldn’t kill an old bear, and the Washington Post made a cartoon out of his compassion.

The cartoon inspired the Michtoms to create a small plush bear cub. They sent it to Teddy and asked permission to name it after him, and he said he didn’t mind.

Washington Post, November 1902

He has Neptune in Pisces in the tenth house, and Pisces is water, and Neptune is god of freshwater and god of the seas.

A war was once fought in Pisces between the Titans and the Olympians. Pisces holds memories of that war, and Neptune in Pisces remembers the part he played in it.

Theodore Roosevelt was interested in the influence of sea power. As a student, he wrote a book about the Naval War of 1812, and as president, he developed the American navy.

Uranus in Gemini is at the bending of the nodes, and he was a brilliant strategist  and behind the scenes negotiator. He played a part in Panama’s independence and secured the land to build the Panama Canal.

Roosevelt on a digging machine during construction of the Panama Canal, ca. 1908

He was fearless.

Mars in Capricorn in the eighth house made him fearless. He was unafraid to expose and prosecute corruption in government, and his anti corruption laws won him the love of his homeland.

But Mars in Capricorn in the eighth also brought him dangers.

Neptune touches Mars and gives him advice on the dangers of going to war, the dangers of going on expeditions, the dangers of becoming president.

He was shot in the chest while campaigning in Milwaukee in 1912.

When he was shot, Neptune triggered the squares to the animal houses, and told him to diagnose himself like he would one of his animals, and that’s what Teddy did. He coughed into his hand, and when he didn’t see any blood, he knew the bullet had not penetrated his lungs. He then unbuttoned his vest, showed his audience the blood on his shirt, and said, It takes more than that to kill a bull moose.

Augusto Pinochet also has his MC in Pisces.  Not at 0 degrees like Teddy, but at 29 degrees Pisces. His regime will forever be stained by human rights abuses, but he stands as the man who rid Chile of Salvador Allende’s communism.

Chart for Augusto Pinochet, born November 25, 1915, 7:30 pm, Valparaiso, Chile (astrotheme.com)

Like Neptune, Jupiter in Pisces also remembers the part he played in the war between the Titans and the Olympians. The Titans created Typhon as their last resort to win the war and Jupiter’s thunderbolt defeated him.

Jupiter aiming his thunderbolt at Typhon, ca. 540 B.C.

Pinochet has Jupiter in Pisces in the house of knowledge. He studied geopolitics, military geography and military intelligence at the war academy. His success as the commander of a regiment saw him rise in the military.

When people began to protest against Allende’s unconstitutional economic policies, Allende put Pinochet in charge of imposing military curfew. He appointed Pinochet commander-in-chief of the army less than a month before the combined armed forces of Chile overthrew his government in a coup.

Some say Pinochet participated in plotting the coup and others say he reluctantly agreed to join a couple of days before. Either way, he found himself head of the new government, but behind him stood the army, the navy, the air force and the national police force.

They protected him in the house of Pisces until the very end, until the last degree. Pisces is where a war took place but Pisces is also a place of refuge. Pinochet was never convicted of any of the crimes he was accused of when he was stripped of his parliamentary immunity.

But he couldn’t be protected for what Uranus revealed in the eighth house; secret bank accounts, tax fraud, passport forgeries. These revelations sullied his reputation among his supporters.

Chart for Salvador Allende, born June 26, 1908, 1:39 am, Valparaiso, Chile (astrotheme.com)

Saturn in Aries is at the bending of the nodes, in the house of retreat, planning a revolution. He touches Uranus in Capricorn who’s studying Marx, and he touches Neptune in the third house who dreams of a more equitable society.

But he’s not one  to pick up arms like Fidel. Fidel has Uranus at 28 degrees Pisces in the tenth, and Uranus in Pisces rains on Gaia and she gives birth to Typhon. Fidel also has Mars in Taurus high up in the chart,  and Mars in Taurus can rise from the earth with the power of a bull.

Allende’s Mars is in Cancer under Neptune’s influence and he’s a romantic. He’s below the horizon and in the darkest part of the chart, the nadir, where images of our early childhood reside. Usurping power has never crossed his mind. If he’s going to bring change, he’s going to do it democratically.

He’s already tried winning the presidential elections three times and failed, but he’s going to try again.

He wins the fourth time around in a three-sided race, with only 36.3 per cent of the vote. Not a majority, but he wins.

Before he begins to bring change, he needs a bigger home.

Jupiter in Leo in the fourth house speaks of prominent people in his family, like his grandfather. His grandfather was a physician and a social reformer who founded the first secular school in Chile.  Jupiter in Leo also speaks of having been brought up in a well lit home, filled with books and objets d’art, and he’d like one of those again.

Once he settles in, he begins.

He begins by providing food for the poor, raising minimum wages and raising taxes on the highest earners.

Then Fidel comes for a visit.

When Fidel leaves, he nationalizes Chile’s natural resources, he starts an agrarian reform and expropriates land, he empowers workers to take over the private industries they work for-

All of a sudden, production slows down. The state has no money and there are shortages and there’s resentment and there are strikes and there is strife.

Chart for Juan Velasco Alvarado, born June 16, 1910, time unknown, Piura, Peru (astrotheme.com)

If we take Pinochet as framework and add Allende as content, we end up with Velasco from Peru. He led a coup in 1968 with only a few army general behind him, but it wasn’t long before the rest of the  army, navy and air force joined him.

There’s Neptune and Mars at 28 degrees Cancer. He’s a romantic, unafraid to carry his revolutionary dream into the government palace.

He dug in Gemini; his father did too. His father was a jack of all trades surviving in Peru’s informal economy, until his son made it into the army and rose until he reached the top.

His son was an astute man.

When he reached the top, he stood where Mercury is in Gemini and walked over to Jupiter in Libra making deals with all the generals, and they weren’t empty deals.

From Jupiter in Libra, he pointed at Saturn in Taurus and said,

Join me and I’ll make you head of fisheries.

Join me and I’ll make you head of sugar cane.

Join me and I’ll make you head of oil and refinery.

Join me and I’ll make you head of censorship.

Join me and I’ll make you head of the banks.

While he pointed at Saturn, Venus displayed all her glorious wealth in Taurus ready for the taking.

The generals took it.

At the end of it all, they left the country so impoverished that the national police went on strike asking for higher wages. When they went on strike, Velasco sent army tanks after them. That’s when another general in the army led a coup against him.

There are no images to show due to the censorship.

Apollo Robbins, born May 23, 1974, time unknown, Plainview, Texas

His brothers taught him how to pick pocket and he found himself to be a natural. He has Mercury’s swiftness. He can distract with one hand and take a wallet with the other.

But he wasn’t going to go around pick pocketing for real, not with Jupiter in Pisces and Mars in Cancer asking him to protect the vulnerable, and Venus in Aries demanding honesty.

So he pick pocketed to entertain people, and the more he did it the more masterful he became.

Then one day he ran into the president’s secret service agents. They were hanging out waiting for the president, and he chatted with them and took everything they had; wallets, watches, the president’s itinerary and the keys to his motorcade.

He gave it all back and the secret service hired him. They wanted him to share his technique with them so that they could protect themselves better.

That’s when Neptune in Sag lit up; Neptune in Sag likes a mission.

Chart for Edward Snowden, born June 21, 1983, 4:42 am, Elizabeth City, NC (astrotheme.com)

Nothing in his chart prevents him from stealing, but he doesn’t steal until he gets a push from the universe.

Mercury in Gemini is swift with his hands, and when Jupiter in the sky sits on him, he’s even swifter. Across form Mercury are natal Jupiter and Uranus in Sag, ready to enlighten humanity with the stolen information.

The stolen information is about global surveillance.

People have a right to know about it, he thinks; people have a right to privacy.

When Jupiter in the sky sits on his natal Mars, the warrior in him awakens. Mars conjunct Rahu and the Sun is destined to be a warrior.

He partners with journalists who share his mission and will make the information public. But before he partners with them, he digs in Libra and transforms his messages to protect them from eavesdroppers; he encrypts them.

He’s been digging in Libra in his free time and mastered the art of encryption and password protection.

When the stolen information becomes public, he seeks asylum and finds it in Russia. From Russia, he defends his actions and wars against surveillance.

He wars in the style of Gemini, by duplicating himself.

Some people in the audience disagree with what he’s done and some people are undecided, but most people applaud him. Then Oliver Stone gets in touch and Venus in Leo lights up. She’s going to be a star.

TED Talks, March 18, 2014

 Chart for Oliver Stone, born September 15, 1946, 9:58 am, Manhattan (astrotheme.com)

Oliver Stone digs in Leo professionally, and he’s mastered the art of transforming people into heroes.

He transforms people of questionable character into heroes.

Jupiter at 28 degrees Libra conjunct Mars in the twelfth house gives him a taste for such personalities. He forms relationships with them when he’s behind the scenes.

Jupiter and Mars touch Uranus in Gemini, and relating with personalities that cause a stir and making movies about them is the way that he rebels against the establishment.

Neptune in Libra knows how to rebel gracefully.

When he met Snowden, he walked around in Snowden’s shoes. He felt his need to do something meaningful after his Saturn return in 2012; it was the same year that Jupiter in the sky began his transit through Gemini. Stone studied the information that Snowden stole and examined all the muddled details of his life. He took all those details to Virgo and extracted the ones that would make a good story.

Synastry chart for Snowden and Oliver Stone, with Oliver Stone’s chart in the inner wheel

Stone’s Pluto Saturn in Leo pull Snowden’s Venus into the tenth house, and in the movie, Snowden does some serious soul work. He resurfaces loyal to his people, a protector of his people.

Stone’s Jupiter in the twelfth house crowns Snowden’s Saturn and portrays him as a grand master in information technology. He’s been hired to strengthen the NSA’s computer security and-

and the rest is classified information.

He reveals classified information and finds refuge in Russia. His parents come to visit, and his girlfriend joins him and marries him. Russia grants the couple permanent residence, and now that they’re about to have a child, they’re applying for Russian citizenship.

Chances are they’ll get it.

Before scientists called it a corona discharge,

and before the middle ages called it St. Elmo’s Fire,

the ancients said it was a sign of the twin brothers Castor and Pollux, protectors of sailors and horsemen.

When a glow of blue light appeared on the rigs of ships during a storm, they saw it as a hopeful sign that the Dioscuri would see them safely to their destination.

St. Elmo’s Fire by Ashley Kerins, 2014

Do you know where you’re going to

Born November 19, 1998, 10:58 am

I once ended up inside a storm drain. I was out with friends and saw one illuminated by the moonlight, and I said, I wonder what it’s like inside. They lifted the cover and helped me down, but it was deeper than we thought and they couldn’t get me back up again. We had to call 911, and after they got me out, they lectured us on the dangers of entering a storm drain system and charged us with trespassing.

But at least I got to know what it’s like inside and came out with a bit of wisdom.

Soon after that, we heard they were looking for artists to decorate storm drains across the city. We weren’t very good in art, but we signed up anyway and got selected.

One thing led to another, and the next thing you know, we were in charge.

Born November 20, 1995, 5:11 am

In the 90s, Neptune and Uranus travelled together.

They work together in so many ways.

If the dreamer finds a flaw, the rebel will try to fix it, in his own way.  

If the rebel gets out of line, the dreamer can make him feel guilty; he can water the rebel down.

I belong to the dreamer and the rebel generation.

My planets were triggered on my first day of high school. A student greeted me outside the doors with a petition. It was to bring awareness to our storm drains and prevent people from throwing toxic waste into them. I signed it right away. It was the first of many.

They’re all coming back to me now, one after the other.

My very first call for service was to fish someone out of a storm drain. I got to lecture about the dangers of jumping into one and the importance of keeping them clean. Then I had to stick around until an Aqua Drain truck came to put the cover back on. I made sure they secured it in properly because it was obviously not secured in properly before. Then I was sent to participate in a storm drain art project; part of our community building program.

When I was putting the finishing touches to my fish, I tried to remember which petition I had signed next.

Born November 19, 1998, 10:58 am

Now that I’ve been working in this field for some time, I can sense when a storm drain is in trouble; either the cover needs to be replaced or there’s a major blockage or the catch basin’s about to collapse. Someone told me that it has something to do with belonging to the Neptune Uranus generation. Neptune opens the door to other worlds and Uranus brings revelations.

In my case, Neptune’s been opening the door to the drainage system, and Uranus tells me when something’s wrong.

One day, I sensed the imminent collapse of a catch basin. I worked up the courage to call my supervisor and tell them about it, and they laughed and said, Is that so. They’re from a more skeptical generation.

Crash site by Kurt Wenner, 3D sidewalk chalk art

Born November 20, 1995, 5:11 am

I remembered.

The next petition I signed was to combat animal cruelty.

So when I got a call about someone hearing what sounded like a child crying in the woods, I had an inkling that it was an animal. But I kept it to myself. The generation calling me and telling me where to go is a more skeptical generation.

3D sidewalk chalk art by Joel Yau

Born November 22, 1989, 9:56 pm

I was born during the singing revolution. My chart sings its way to freedom.

Uranus in Capricorn wants to be free, and Neptune and Venus hold hands with Saturn and make him sing. Let’s sing to free our nation, they tell him.

They dig up poems from the past, set them to music, and sing in defiance.

It’s a romantic chart, tied to ancestry.

Personally, it makes me musical, and I once thought of becoming a radio host. But a volunteer position and family connections got me a job as an emergency dispatcher.

With all the activity in the fourth house, I sometimes have prophetic dreams. I’ll dream of a sinkhole, and the following day, someone calls about a sinkhole. I’ll dream of a goat getting their head trapped in a fence, and the following day, someone calls to say they hear crying in the woods. I didn’t take that call or I would have told them to check the neighbour’s fence.

Baltic Way Monument in Vilnius

Born November 23, 1991, 3 pm

I applied to become a dog handler a long time ago, and I’m hoping it will come through for me soon. I’m about to have my Saturn return and I’m ready for a change, ready for the next step.

Jupiter in the sixth house is too big of an energy to be contained for long; he’s asking me for a bigger playing field.

I love dogs and I know that I have the right psychology to partner with one.

I need a sign. I look up at the sky and ask the gods to give me a sign, and the dispatcher calls and says, There are a couple of dogs stuck in a storm drain.

Born November 24, 2003, 1:32 pm

I went fishing every day this summer, and when I finally caught  a fish, my parents wouldn’t let me eat it.  

My dad said he’d just taken someone to the hospital with stomach cramps after they ate their catch, and my mom said my fish looked like it had swallowed some of the paint our neighbours used during renovations.

Meet my paranoid parents.

I asked them if there was a way to test my fish for poisons, and my mom who’s a microbiologist arranged for me to take my fish to a food lab.

I watched them chop up my fish and test it for everything, from bacteria to heavy metals, and it was just fine.

I came out of there knowing that I could eat the next fish I caught, and that I’m going to be a food scientist. I’m going to dig into food to make sure it’s safe, and when I’ve earned enough money, I’m going to buy myself a boat.

No more of this drain fishing.

Born November 26, 1994, 2:17 pm

I’m in a boat in the middle of a storm and I’ve lost all control

I give up and lie down and I surrender

And it’s in that moment of surrender that calm is restored and I feel the presence of divinity.

The angry sea by David Vandy, contemporary

I wake up still holding my drainage manual, and I look at the page I fell asleep on and it all makes sense to me now.

I can do this.

I have a stellium in the eighth house and the eighth demands courage to go where we haven’t been to before. My remembered dead had the courage to step into the unknown and now it’s my turn.

It all began the day I went to paint a storm drain. Where does this lead to, I wanted to know, and I stepped into the unknown with courage.

Now I know it leads to this

and I’ve got this. I can figure this out. I have unremembered dead helping me bring order to the chaos of hydrology.

Saturn brings order in any sign, and in Pisces, he brings order to Neptune’s realm. The problem is that Neptune and Uranus are in his realm in my chart, and every time Saturn brings order, Neptune and Uranus will challenge him.

But I think I can handle this now.

Born November 26, 1994, 5:57 pm

Born at 2:17 pm would flood the city if they were put in charge.

We were paired up to develop a storm drain system for our final project and they came up with this.

I looked at it and said, You’d flood the city, cause an overflow and drag sewage to the river with this design; the elevation’s too high and the pipes are too narrow.

I made the necessary modifications and we were certified, thanks to my engineering mind-set.

We now work together; we’re part of the team improving the city’s age-old drainage system. 2:17 pm needs me; they say I’m the voice of one of their unremembered dead giving them guidance, and boy do they need it. Water seems to spurt from the ground unexpectedly around them, and I always know how to fix it. I figure it out.

I love fixing things. When the city turns quiet, I sometimes wander around fixing things.

Pavement Kintsugi by Rachel Sussman

Born November 26, 1994, 11 pm

Pluto asks for total transformation in the fourth house. I didn’t know what that meant until a flood damaged my house and forced me to move. Then a tornado flattened my house and I moved again and waited. My mom says things come in threes, so I waited for what would happen next. What happened next was that my house was demolished to make room for a light rail.

Now I live in a home where there’s nothing but a bed. When people come over, I tell them to bring their own meditation cushions. I have no furniture, I say; I’m a minimalist, de rooted.

We sit around on our cushions and eat from paper plates. The silence of my house brings up soul conversations; where are we going; what’s our purpose.

I’ve become a therapist.

A patient has brought me a gift. I encouraged them to participate in an art project that’s turned their life around, and they’ve brought me a gift to show me their appreciation. It’s an enlarged and mounted photograph that leans against my wall, asking to be put up, but I’m reluctant. A picture needs a sofa and a sofa needs a table.

I go out for a walk and the pavement’s turned into gold.

Alchemy.

I come back with a hammer and hammer a nail into the wall.

Born December 2, 1980, 10:05 am, birth chart with asteroids

I was in and out of the hospital when I was little, but I don’t remember any of it. What I remember is that I could never keep up in school. We’d go out on excursions and I struggled to keep up with the group. I was always the last one, and my biggest fear was being left behind, until the day it happened.

I couldn’t see them and I couldn’t hear them anymore, and they couldn’t hear me. I hugged my knees crying, and then I stopped. I gave in.

When I heard them calling my name, I couldn’t make myself respond, until I saw something that brought me back and I responded, and they came running. When I turned to look at it again, it was gone.

If there’s a turning point in one’s life, that one was mine. It awakened Chiron at the bending of the nodes.

I went off to university to study child development, and now I work with children who are like me. Because we always carry our inner child with us.

One day I took one of my students to participate in a storm drain art project, and they were paired up with someone their age who had come alone. The two of them sat around figuring out what to draw, and that’s when I told them my story. I told them that once upon a time, I was lost, and I saw something extraordinary peek out of a storm drain.

Chiron is one of a great number of centaurs that lie between the outer planets; he orbits the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. When he was discovered in 1977, people wished him to be the tenth planet, but he was too small and too much like a comet. But still, their wish got him a place on the birth chart.

They say that after he mentored the children of the gods and trained them to be heroes, he was accidentally wounded on the foot by a poisoned arrow. All his knowledge of medicine and herbs could not cure the wound, and the pain of it took him to the gods, to Saturn who was his father, and he asked them to relieve him of his immortality. The gods could not take his immortality without giving him something in return, and he asked them to free Prometheus.

With Chiron, we help ourselves by helping another.

Chart for Franklin D. Roosevelt, born January 30, 1882, 8:45 pm, NY (astrotheme.com)

On August 9, 1921, Roosevelt fell ill. They now say that he was misdiagnosed with polio, that he actually had Guillain–Barré syndrome, but whichever one it was, he went through an ordeal with his body, an ordeal that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

The day he fell ill, Saturn and Jupiter in the sky were over his natal Uranus and his Ascendant. They transited his first house less than five degrees apart until December of that year, changing the structure of his life, giving him a new life purpose.

To heal his body.

Chart for August 9, 1921, time unknown, Bay of Fundy

Healing his body took him on an eighth house journey. He suffered with the possibility of never walking again, and he saw others suffer the same plight.

When he retreated into the twelfth house for treatment, he was a patient among patients; his recovery was as important as someone else’s. That’s why he became such a great president; his illness brought him to the level of an ordinary person. Mars in Gemini doesn’t just care about the hoi oligoi; Mars in Gemini cares about the hoi polloi.

Roosevelt with polio patients in Warm Springs, Georgia, 1925

He worked on strengthening his body so that he could hold himself upright when he re entered public life.

When he did, he never spoke about himself, his grief. Instead, he focused on alleviating the grief of a nation going through the Great Depression. He did his Chiron.

He became president when Jupiter in the sky, had circled his birth chart and come back to transit his first house again. It was also the day Saturn in the sky was conjunct his Sun.

Mastery.

A master healer.

A master wounded healer.

Chart for March 4, 1933, time unknown, Washington D.C.

He never lost hope of walking again. He never lost hope in treatment and medicine; he was an Aquarian man. In 1938, he established the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis that raised funds for Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine.

He died on April 12, 1945, when Jupiter in the sky had circled his birth chart and come back to where it all began.

Chart for April 12, 1945, time unknown, Warm Springs, Georgia

Chart for Nicolas Copernicus, born February 19, 1473, 5:13 pm, Julian calendar, Torun, (astrotheme.com)

Chiron isn’t always a personal wound, but a wound that one takes on. Copernicus made the ignorance of people his own wound.

His father died when he was young, and it was his mother’s brother, a bishop and a man of letters, who took over his upbringing. The bishop allowed Copernicus the freedom to study, and Copernicus went to three universities; he studied mathematics, geometry, astronomy, medicine, canon law-

He would have kept at it if it weren’t for his Saturn return asking him for a change of scenery.

The bishop secured a position for him in Frombork, and he became one of the administrators of the church estates in that region. It is here that he came into contact with people who had little knowledge and lived by superstition.

So every day, after he was done attending to his duties, he put his knowledge of medicine and law at their service. He did his Mars Chiron in Aquarius.

If the skies were clear at night, he would go to one of the towers around the city wall to study the stars, and whatever he learned there, he also shared with others. He did his Mars Chiron in Aquarius, at the bending of the nodes.

Teacher.

From the Sun, Aquarius is in the twelfth house, and Copernicus saw the work that he did for his community and his study of the stars as a pastime. He saw himself doing his Mars Chiron in Aquarius as a pastime.

But from the Ascendant, Aquarius is in the sixth house, and it is the work that he did here that his birth chart considered to be his real work. His position in Frombork allowed him time to exercise his inquisitive mind. It gave him access to a tower and to the instruments he needed to observe the skies.

He was part of the hoi oligoi, and he was known among scholars for his brilliance and his unorthodoxy. Mercury Venus in the eighth are attracted to the unknown, and Pluto in Virgo and Uranus Neptune in Scorpio don’t conform; they’re drawn to lifting the veil of ignorance.

In 1514, when he was having a Mars return, scholar friends encouraged him to write down his findings on the revolution of the planets around the Sun. Copernicus wrote a few copies by hand, titled them Commentariolus, and passed them around.

When he did this, Jupiter in the sky was on his MC, and the Sun and Venus in the sky were on his natal Saturn.

Life purpose and commitment.

The Commentariolus became the outline of a book he would work on for the rest of his life.

Chart for June 1, 1514, time unknown, Frombork

By the time Jupiter in the sky was conjunct his natal Saturn, and Saturn in the sky was conjunct his natal Jupiter, he was the talk of the day. Most of it was curiosity and admiration; this was the age of exploration and the age of the Renaissance.

Some of it was mockery, but he did not respond. Neptune in the sky was conjunct his natal Mars and he focused his attention inward. He started adding all the proof he had to his outline, double checking his measurements and mathematics.

Chart for April 30, 1515, time unknown, Frombork

If he needed a sign from the heavens that he was on the right track, he got it in 1524. In February of that year, word of a great conjunction happening in the sky sent everyone into a panic.

The world is ending!

People from all over came to see him.

Copernicus! Will the world end!

He said, No. He made a drawing of every planet’s orbit around the sun, and demonstrated that a conjunction was not a collision of planets. It was a lining up of planets, each one in its own orbit, separated by space.

He made the drawing that he would become most famous for.

Nicolaus Copernicus by Jean-Léon Huens, 1970

The conjunction happened at 10 degrees Pisces, over his natal Sun.

February 11, 1524, time unknown, Frombork

He was on the right track.

Trundholm sun chariot, ca 1400 BC

He’s attracted to the unknown and the forbidden, to the secrets of the universe and to me, his housekeeper in the eighth house.

He loves me.

He thinks nobody notices, but when his scholar friends come to visit, they notice; Venus in Aries isn’t demure. His manner changes when I walk into the room; he signals that I’m somebody in his life.

He talks to me.

He tells me that people are superstitious, tied to the ancient ways. I tell him that there’s some truth in the ancient ways, truth tied to the gods.

Like the day he told me the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. When he finished explaining it to me, I sneezed.

The ancients said that a sneeze could not be controlled; it was a supernatural act. The gods tickle our nose and make us sneeze. A sneeze is an omen, a divine message from the gods.

He laughed, but it wasn’t Penelope’s laugh. He laughed in the same mocking way some Protestants laugh at his work.

So I pulled out Homer’s Odyssey and read the passage where Penelope speaks with Eumaeus. She speaks of the suitors infesting the palace day and night, and how she wishes Odysseus would return. Only Odysseus and her son Telemachus can avenge their outrage, she says, and right there and then, Telemachus shakes with a sneeze that thunders up and down the halls. Penelope is seized with laughter and asks Eumaeus, Do you hear how my son seals all that I said with a sneeze.

I sealed what he said with a sneeze.

When I closed the book, we heard people call his name.

Copernicus! Will the world end!

Chart for Hieronymus Bosch, born June 29, 1450, time unknown, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands

All we know about Bosch is that he was born around 1450, and so I looked for an ephemeris that would match his personality. When I came up with this chart, I heard a sneeze.

That’s why astrology isn’t a science; it involves the gods; it involves the Shiv sneeze.

But he never sneezes when I try to figure out what’s to come. When I look at January and speculate about the possibilities, he’s silent. The heavens look fierce in Jan.

Chart for January 15, 2021

There’s a powerful square and squares trigger us to action. Mars and Uranus in Taurus square Saturn, Jupiter and Merc in Aquarius. Taurus and Aquarius.

A medical breakthrough? There’s a lot of intelligence in the mix, and there’s healing too; the Sun is conjunct Pluto in Capricorn. Venus participates as well; there’s fierceness and passion-

silence

And there’s power too. Maybe a meteorite will fall from the sky.

silence

Euphoria? Riots? Mars Uranus can be explosive.

silence

I hope the Dalai Lama will be alright; Mars in the sky will be transiting over his natal Uranus.

silence

A power outage?

silence

The Ascension of the Minotaur!

silence.

See what I mean? He keeps me humble. Astrologer monks of the middle ages assigned a deadly sin to each of the seven classical planets, and they assigned pride to the Sun. I’m susceptible to the sin of pride, know-it-all intellectual pride. The antidote to that is humility, and Shiv keeps me humble.

The monks assigned sloth to the Moon, and my instincts tell me that Bosch was susceptible to the sin of sloth, the kind of sloth that makes you want to curl up in bed and live in fantasyland.

The Moon is strong in his chart, and Mars and Jupiter are retrograde and not so quick to act; quicker to imagine than to act. He had an active imagination, and a playful one too with Uranus conjunct Venus, like Gustav Klimt, remember? Bosch’s conjunction is in Cancer.

If Pisces is an ocean and Scorpio is a waterfall, Cancer is a lake, a busy lake in Bosch’s case because of the stellium he has there; Mercury Sun Uranus and Venus are the antidote to sloth. 

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, ca 1500

They sextile Saturn in Virgo and liven up the lake with details.

Detail of the Garden of Earthly Delights

The sin of Mars is anger, and anger can be a driving force to fight injustice, but anger can also blind us and lead to violence.

It led to violence during the yellow vest protest march on December 1, 2018.

Chart for December 1, 2018

Mars Neptune in Pisces squared the Sun and Jupiter in Sag, a spirited and expansive energy that promised triumph, liberation and freedom that is out of bounds.

Jupiter     Sometimes I just can’t get enough.

Saturn     That’s why they assigned you the sin of gluttony.

Jupiter     I prefer the way the ancients described me, as an archetype of desire.

The march got out of control and turned violent.

Pluto nudged Saturn and asked him, “What are you going to do?”

Saturn looked at Merc retrograding and bringing up past grievances; he looked at the Moon in Libra calling for justice; he looked at Venus waving a peace flag at Uranus, and Uranus burning things up.

“Too fiery to do anything,” he said. “Nobody will listen. I’m going to wait for nature to take its course. When the Sun and Jupiter separate, I’ll do something. By then Merc will be direct and the Moon will be with us in Capricorn asking for order.”

“Remember how you ate your children to stay in power?”

“How can I forget when you keep reminding me.”

“Liberality is the antidote to greed.”

“I’ll make concessions.”

Chart for December 10, 2018

On December 1, 2018, I made up my mind to come here to study. It’s something that I had considered before but had never been ready to commit to until that day. There’s commitment with Mars Neptune sextile Saturn. In my case, it was a commitment to study the healing arts, including astrology. I remember it as a day of exaggerated emotion; my family wasn’t happy that I was breaking away from home.

To be allowed here, I had to first confess my sins.

They say that we can only apply the antidote to a sin if we recognize it, and even if the antidote takes a long time to work, awareness will prevent us from doing harm.

Ahimsa.

The say that admitting to our sins and seeing our own imperfections allow us to be compassionate toward others.

Karuna.

When I first got here, they shaved my head. With no hair and dressed alike, we all look the same, like the stars all look the same at a glance. It teaches us to use the yin eye first to recognize each other and distinguish between the stars.

The monastery where I live and study is in the Valley of Eye, the valley of Op-Pollo’s holy footprint. I walk around it every day. Even though this is his valley, I know that the sneeze I hear is not his. This is how I know.

Op-Pollo?

silence

Op-Maul?

silence

Op-Shiva?

Achoo!

Buddhist monk by Francesca Escobar, contemporary

Some medieval monks assigned the sin of envy to Saturn and some to Mercury, and this is where the deadly sin assignation falls apart. Christianity and Astrology did not develop hand in hand.

Chart for November 12, 1970

This is the day Tonya Harding was born.

There’s inventiveness and courage to break boundaries with Mars Uranus in Libra; there’s also courage to be an outcast in the fields that Libra rules. There’s toughness of spirit; the Sun Jupiter Venus in Scorpio give great spirit, great physical and mental strength and lust for life.

In the first house, Merc Neptune give winged feet, swiftness of feet. There’s lyricism in this combination, there’s poetry and there are dreams, and in Sag, the dreams are big.

Saturn and the Moon bring order to all the chaos. In Taurus, they bring order through technical discipline of the body. Pluto in Virgo knows sacrifice, and with sacrifice, Tonya became the second woman in history to land a triple axel.

This is the chart of a gutsy athlete who challenged the look and the manners a figure skater should have. This is also the chart of a woman who set a new standard in competitive figure skating; mastery of the triple axel is now expected of an Olympic figure skater.

Like any other chart, there’s potential for sin and potential to draw sinners into the chart.

Tonya says that she suffered physical abuse from her mother, and there’s the Moon conjunct Saturn in Taurus. In light, it brought technical discipline to her art. In shadow, it brought physical abuse.

Traditionally, Jupiter is the husband in a woman’s chart, and Jupiter is conjunct the Sun and Venus in Scorpio. During her time as a figure skater, she married a man who she says took over her life force; he consumed her. In shadow, there is pride with the Sun and gluttony with Jupiter, and gluttony can lead to lust, the sin assigned to Venus. Lust is a deadly sin when it harms another.

Venus rules Taurus and Libra, and in light, she shines on the ice with Saturn and the Moon’s technical prowess and the daring of Mars and Uranus. Venus in Scorpio competes to stay ahead.

She may get jealous of another competitor’s attributes and wish she had them too. She may work hard to have them, avoiding the sloth and greed that lie across from her. But if she doesn’t, and she lets jealousy turn into envy, and wishes the other ill, she’s picked up a deadly sin.

Envy is the sin assigned to Saturn or Mercury. It could be Saturn’s; greed can lead to envy. But Merc’s sins are of a different nature; they’re trickster sins of the ancient world.

When Mars Uranus break the law, Merc Neptune can lie, tell a tale, obfuscate the truth.

Big Maple Leaf

When the police arrested me for stealing the coin, they asked me to checkmark which of the seven deadly sins had been my motivation;

• Pride
• Sloth
• Anger
• Gluttony
• Greed
• Envy or
• Lust

I added

• None of the above

to the list, and checkmarked it.

thief #1

I was hired as a security guard at the Bode, and when they gave me the night shift, they told me that one of the windows on the second floor was malfunctioning. I had to make sure the window was properly closed when I did my rounds.

“You mean to tell me the window isn’t armed,” I asked them.

“Correct,” they said.

“Shouldn’t someone fix it?”

“The head of security made a report but hasn’t heard back from the Board.”

“Unbelievable,” I said.

I opened the window to make sure they weren’t bluffing, and they weren’t; the alarm didn’t go off. Unbelievable. I looked down and below were the railway tracks. We were at the far back of the building, the side nobody takes pictures of because it isn’t pretty.

I closed the window and stuck my gum on a pane so I wouldn’t forget, and we walked three rooms down to take the elevator. When we got inside, they said, Good night Elizabeth. I held the doors open to look at her, and beyond her was the malfunctioning window.

The Bode Museum, Berlin

Not long after that, on a day shift, a woman bumped her forehead against the coin’s glass case.

“Are you okay, ma’am,” I asked her.

“I’m alright,” she said, tapping on the glass.”This must be bulletproof; you’d need a carbon fiber axe to break it. Tell me young man, why is she called Big Maple Leaf?”

I showed her the other side and she laughed. She looked closely and said, “100 kilos! They must have rolled her in!”

polizei     What are you saying exactly?

thief #1     Someone was giving me all the pieces, like a challenge. Could I pull this off?

polizei     It could have been a test; will you fall into temptation type thing.

thief #1     Our gods are different; mine is a god of thieves.

polizei     Our god is the same; the god of thieves catches them as well.

thief #2 and thief #3

standing behind the museum on the raised platform beside the railway tracks

thief #3     Which one’s the window?

thief #2     The one over there, with the gum.

thief #3 limps over to stand below the window with the gum

thief #2     Why are you limping?

thief #3     I fell off a ladder.

thief #2     We’ll need a ladder to get up there; put that on the list.

1. ladder

thief #3 (looks around)     Remember we used to skateboard around here?

thief #2     A skateboard would be useful. We can move the coin to the window on a skateboard; it’ll be faster. Put that on the list.

2. skateboard

thief #3     It’ll probably land where we’re standing when we throw it out the window.

thief #2     We’ll use a wheelbarrow to cart it over to the bridge, and we’ll drop it as close as we can to the getaway car. We’ll need a rope to climb down.. Put that on the list.

3. wheelbarrow
4. rope

polizei     Did it go as planned? How long did it take?

thief #1     I heard it took you an hour to respond after the museum sounded the alarm.

polizei     There had been so many false alarms due to the malfunctioning window that we didn’t take it seriously.

thief #1     The museum is guilty of sloth, wouldn’t you say?

polizei     What did you do with the coin?

thief # 1 (remains silent)

 polizei     We’ll make you a deal if you tell us what you did with it.

thief #1     The god of thieves is also the god of merchants.

thief #4

We had to get rid of it fast, so I made deals with jewellers and gold suppliers.

I’d call and say, “I’m selling 24k gold of the purest grade.”

“99999?”

“That’s the one.”

“How much?”

“Half price because it’s stolen.”

“I’ll take a kilo.”

Next thing I know, people were calling me.

“I hear you’re selling 24k gold of the purest grade.”

“That’s right,” I’d say. “It’s 99999.”

“How much?”

“Half price because it’s stolen.”

“I’ll take a kilo.”

polizei     We can’t make you a deal; I was bluffing to get you to talk.

thief #1     How many years do you think I’ll get? I mean, nobody was hurt, and the owner of the coin got enough from the insurance to buy himself another one. He told me-

polizei     Wait a second. You know the owner?

thief #1 (nods)     He loaned the coin to the museum, so he was allowed entrance anytime he wanted. He once came during my night shift, and I showed him the window that was disarmed because it kept malfunctioning.

polizei     What did he say?

thief #1     He said it took four men to lift that coin, and he doubted four men would creep in through that window to steal it. Besides, if it did happen, he was fully insured.

Red 1 and 2     Bless you.

Red 1     Did you sneeze?

Red 2     I didn’t; I thought you did.

Red 1     I didn’t; I thought you did.

They look around; they look at each other; they look at the coin; they avoid looking at each other and stand as they were before.

Red 1     What were you thinking about?

Red 2     How rugged gold looks when it’s found, and how we purify it and polish it and make it look like this.

They glance at the coin 

Red 2     What were you thinking about?

Red 1     They used to have dragons guarding treasure, like the dragon guarding the golden fleece. Now they have us.

They glance at themselves

Red 2     We’ve been tamed-

Red 1     Trained; we’ve been trained to look pure and polished, but deep down we’re dragons. What else were you thinking?

Red 2     The Klondike Gold Rush; how everyone had to get past us to get to the gold. We’d only let them through if they had the right gear and food supply.

Customs post at the Chilkoot Pass, 1898

Red 1     The only way to get past us now is if they have a million dollars.

Red 2     It’s like we’ve come full circle, beginning with the gold rush and ending up with 99999. What’s next?

Red 1     Back to the beginning. The coin’s yearning to re live some of that gold rush adventure again; my dragon senses can feel it.

Red 2 (rolls their eyes)

Red 1     Who’s buying it?   

Red 2     A German investor.

Red 1     I bet you it’ll get stolen.

I rained on the earth millions of years ago from a falling star, and the earth hid me. Some things are so precious, they need to be hidden and made difficult to find. To find me, a young prospector and his three mates had to get past a customs post, climb up a steep mountain pass, survive a harsh winter and get to work.

They worked in a cave that the young prospector called The Cave, until one day his pickaxe dislodged me and he told his mates, Look what I found! Don’t hide it, they warned him. Cry gold until everyone comes running, and he cried, Gold! Gold! Gold! until everyone came running, saw the size of me and began picking at the rock in the cave. That’s when the four of them rolled me out and between sled and wheelbarrow took me to town.

They made a show of me in town. We need to make a show of it, they said; get everyone involved; get everyone to celebrate; it’ll protect us from harm. They made a show of me until they attracted the attention of the Reds who guided them to a safe place to bargain for their gold.

Before they sold me off, they ran their rough hands over my rugged surface. Before they sold me off, they chipped a bit of me to keep.

When gold was found in California in January 1848, only the locals paid attention. Jupiter was in Cancer, and when Jupiter is in Cancer, the comforts of home life and intimacy are highlighted; milk is what we crave.

Everything changed when Jupiter entered Leo in July. The New York Herald reported the discovery in August, and that’s when the gold fever began.

When Jupiter is in Leo, he highlights

the individual

turning away from the breast to look at the Sun

the need to shine

the hero’s journey.

There were no railways connecting the east coast to the west coast of the United States in 1848, and there was no Panama Canal to make the passage by water easier. Still, 300,000 set out and arrived in 1849.

Their journey was arduous; it brought attention to the need for railways and a canal to bridge the country together. The gold they found stimulated the economy-

It’s the Leo Aquarius polarity; the individual and the group.

Jupiter in Leo takes people on a hero’s journey that in some way benefits the group.

Chart for the North-West Mounted Police, formed on May 23, 1873

It’s a competitive chart; may the best win and lead.

The spirit of the times called for the selection of the most accomplished to dig in Taurus, protecting the country’s territory and resolving territorial disputes. It called for the most accomplished to focus their energy in Libra, the sign of justice and good relationships.

Imprinted in the chart is the willingness to undertake a hero’s journey, both for self discovery and the benefit of the group, for love of the land and for the challenge itself; Neptune in Aries opposite Mars takes us into uncharted waters.

In 1896, when the government was considering closing the NWMP and giving its responsibilities to the  provincial authorities, gold was discovered in the Klondike.

Chart for the discovery of gold in the Klondike region of the Yukon, August 16, 1896

It was the time when the NWMP was having a Jupiter return, renewing its purpose and showing its value.

The force was redeployed to the Yukon to protect the region and manage the gold rush. They had endured and learned from the March West, and their first rule was that nobody could go looking for gold without a year’s supply of food.

Nobody would starve on their hero’s journey, not under their watch.

Jupiter was back in Leo when the NWMP merged with the Dominion Police to become the RCMP.

Chart for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, formed on February 1, 1920

Jupiter’s return in 1920 brought the NWMP a new chart altogether. The ruggedness, physical effort and improvisation demanded by the grand square in the chart of 1873 was no longer needed. It was no longer relevant to the times and getting the force into trouble.

The grand square was replaced with a more complex chart, a chart with three structures of navigation; a yod, a mystical rectangle and a kite formation.

In Leo, Jupiter brings opportunities to develop individuality. Conjunct Neptune, he dissolves all barriers that would prevent the individual’s full expression. There’s a push in the chart for the hero’s journey, but the hero is supervised by the Sun and Merc in Aquarius.

The hero’s journey is directed to service in Virgo and protection of the homeland in Cancer. Other avenues open up from there under the supervision of Venus in Capricorn, Mars in Scorpio and Uranus in Pisces.

Venus is the strictest and the most ambitious; in Capricorn she’s all about hard work, structure, spartan living, seniority and status. Mars is the most dangerous; in Scorpio he’s all about strategy and stealth and going undercover and penetrating illegal and criminal organizations. Uranus is the most unorthodox,

the most yin yang.

If you don’t know what that means,

go back to the beginning.