Yin Yang XV
Chart for Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, born 29 June 1900, Lyon, France, data from birth record
There are the Eleusinian mysteries in Virgo, secret rites unknown to us today. They say that those who were initiated in the mysteries lost their fear of death.
Antoine lost his fear early on. His brother fell ill with rheumatic fever when they were in boarding school, and he was by his brother’s side when he died.
His tenth house in Gemini asks for initiations, death and rebirth, transformation. The crown chakra in the chart.
His fourth house in Sag asks for re creation, exploration, boundaries to break. The root chakra in the chart.
Mutability.
His work was in Gemini and he had a Geminian life. He became a pilot when the risks were high, when motors fell off planes and the weather could not be tracked. He became a pilot when the winds were unknown and routes yet to be established to deliver mail in Africa and South America, across the Sahara and across the Andes.
He survived four plane crashes
miraculously
and he rescued plane crash survivors
brothers
of a colonial homeland.
Jupiter expands what he touches, and Antoine went beyond the colonies, to Argentina. There, he met his wife. She called him Tonio,
Tonio!
Come back!
Dionysian man
intoxicated with flight.
In Virgo, Demeter protected the innocence of her daughter.
Mercury, ruler of Virgo and Gemini, is in Leo, behind the scenes, conjunct the Moon, among the stars.
He protected the purity of his spirit with ascension
Every ascent an initiation, a rescue mission that he penned down
Fingers of god point at Saturn, earthbound, god of time
Fingers of god point at Saturn in Capricorn
Sign of Pan, his solitude, his music, wild man
Sign of Enki, protector of mankind.
Saturn touches the Sun in Cancer, and in Cancer there’s a lake of memories. Antoine dropped a book in the lake for the child in all of us.
The Black Moon is in Libra with the part of fortune
Something that made him feel ashamed also brought him fortune
In the second house, it is a resource, lacking a resource
He couldn’t draw
Grownups didn’t understand his drawings
That’s why he chose another career. He learned to pilot airplanes.
He said the biggest resource man had was the ability to create relationships. It kept him alive in an emergency, the thought of a spouse waiting for him, the thought of friends missing him.
Venus is retrograding in his chart, in Cancer in the eleventh house
Loyalty to the group
She is under the shadow of the Sun in a quincunx to Sag
The willingness to sacrifice for the mother, the homeland, for France
Patriot.
Chart for 31 July 1944, Corsica, dated to match Antoine’s rising sign
He flew reconnaissance missions in preparation for the Allied invasion of France
during his Uranus opposition Uranus.
They say that by then he suffered from pain and immobility, and couldn’t put his flight suit on his own.
But he applied and re applied until his return to service was granted.
On this day, transiting Saturn was conjunct his natal Sun in Cancer, in a quincunx to the root chakra. Across was the crown chakra activated by Uranus.
He dropped the pen.
On this day, he didn’t come back.
Today, Jupiter and Uranus are transiting Taurus.
People born between 1974 and 1981, with a natal Uranus in Scorpio, are experiencing their Uranus opposition Uranus with Jupiter involved.
Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus will reach 8 degrees of separation on September 4, and on September 5, Jupiter turns retrograde. His retrogradation will increase the space between them and delay the conjunction.
They will conjoin on April 20-21, 2024, at 21 degrees Taurus.
The last time they danced together was in Pisces and Aries and Pisces, in direct and retrograde motion.
So much of what happens when they meet is internal and invisible, and related to the house that the sign and the planets are in the personal chart. But we look for what is visible in the external world, to find meaning.
When Jupiter was nearing his conjunction with Uranus at 0 degrees 17 minutes of Aries, in that space between two signs, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla set out from Cyprus, to break a barrier put in place by the laws of the land and bring humanitarian aid
by sea.
Chart for May 30, 2010, Cyprus
This is where Saturn and Neptune will dance in 2025, and in 2026, they will conjoin at 0 degrees 44 minutes of Aries. Astrotheme says 0 degrees 45 minutes of Aries.
Chart for February 20, 2026, Cyprus, timed
Time will tell if the degree and minute still apply to Gaza. It may apply to the world because there is universality in Aquarius, and Pluto will be in Aquarius. Mars will be there too.
Time will tell the difference between a Uranus Jupiter conjunction and a Saturn Neptune conjunction in the space between the two signs.
The work will be in Virgo, sign of Dike and Demeter.
Jupiter will be in Cancer. There is a lake of memories in Cancer and something new may enter the lake.
The rising sign during the exact conjunction will be Leo.
After the Jupiter Uranus conjunction in Aries in 2010, the two planets conjoined in retrograde motion at 28 degrees Pisces.
Chart for September 19, 2010, Cyprus
The day before the exact conjunction, a convoy of vehicles left the UK with humanitarian aid for Gaza. This was organized by the Viva Palestina charity in response to the Gaza flotilla raid.
The work was in Cancer, and the Moon, ruler of Cancer, was in Aquarius. In Cancer are the needs of people, the people who guide the laws we make to ensure their needs are met. In Aquarius there are universal rights.
Mars and Venus were in Scorpio, with Mars at a lower degree. The ‘will to live’ in the sign that protects clan.
There is a never-give-up in the Jupiter Uranus conjunction. Something rises in us to do the work of the sign.
Uranus, spirit of the times.
Jupiter expands what he touches. He sets free.
In Aries there is survival. We take the first step, we take a risk, we learn to lead.
In Pisces boundaries dissolve, molecules reach out, overflow. There is contagion in the sign.
Pluto was in Capricorn, still is. He burns down to be born again.
Saturn brings limits, restricts. He asks for mastery.
In Capricorn there is hierarchy, there are laws and lawmakers, environmentalists too. In Libra there are principles that guide a society, there are arrangements, ripples into the future.
On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia. Uranus and Jupiter, now moving direct, were 2 degrees apart in Pisces.
Chart for December 17, 2010, Sidi Bouzid, 11:30 am
Aries can ask for a voyage, a quest.
Pisces can ask for a change of age.
Jupiter can begin a story, fertile god. He can set free a child of Uranus,
Uranus who wouldn’t let Gaia birth their children, imperfect as they were.
There can be force in the conjunction,
and there can be an element of surprise,
to see what’s been cooking in the sign Uranus is.
Uranus asks for uniqueness, originality, wherever he is in the personal chart.
In a personal chart, a Jupiter Uranus conjunction can gift the holder of the chart with a unique story that in some way benefits society.
Uranus can set apart, but Jupiter is a social planet.
We don’t always see what’s coming when the two come together in the sky.
A clap of thunder, a flash of lightning.
The conjunction was powered by the Sun in Sag on December 17, 2010.
Whatever it takes.
youtube.com/watch?v=gOsM-DYAEhY
Chart for Mohamed Bouazizi, born March 29, 1984, time unknown, Sidi Bouzid
An initiatory chart.
His cousin Ali says that he was a good person. The only problem was that he got angry quickly and couldn’t see reason. Emotional man.
He got angry that day. A policewoman asked to see his street vendor license. He didn’t have one. His cart was confiscated and she took away his scales.
They say the way out would have been to give a bribe. He didn’t give a bribe. He went to the provincial government building to complain to the governor, but the governor wouldn’t see him.
He had been experiencing his first Uranus square Uranus, with Jupiter involved, and his natal Venus, and now the Sun.
To rise out of anonymity,
buy a truck.
To be unbound.
They say he had been supporting his widowed mother and six siblings since the age of 10, and that he had debts to pay.
Transiting Mars and Pluto were conjoining his natal Jupiter in Capricorn.
Action that would call attention and be of influence.
He set himself alight outside the government building.
aljazeera.com/features/2020/12/17/remembering-mohamed-bouazizi-his-death-triggered-the-arab
Jupiter Uranus formed an exact conjunction at 27 degrees Pisces the day he died, January 4, 2011. The beginning of the Arab Spring.
There is containment in Taurus.
A labyrinth with a secret.
A lab with a secret.
The responsibility of a wartime secret.
While the Luftwaffe bombed England between September 1940 and May 1941,
Plutonium was synthetically produced from uranium.
Fissile elements.
www.rsc.org/periodic-table/video/94/Plutonium?videoid=89UNPdNtOoE
Jupiter began his transit through Taurus in May 1940. He was conjunct Uranus on May 8, 1941, at 25 degrees Taurus.
Chart for May 8, 1941, London, UK
By then, various universities in England were researching the possibility of developing an atomic bomb. The MAUD Committee.
The United States was doing the same, in response to the 1939 Einstein-Szilard letter.
There was potential for Germany to make one before them.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Einstein-Roosevelt-letter.png
Scientists in the UK and in the United States kept in touch, and the UK admonished the United States for lagging behind. Of course, the United States was not yet at war.
Liverpool Blitz, May 1-7, 1941
Chart for the first Blitz bomb that landed upon Seacombe, Wallasey, Wirral, at 22:15 on May 1, 1941
Taurus can ask to secure resources.
A Uranus Jupiter conjunction can free resources, to fight for the homeland, defend an ideology. On May 1, the conjunction was powered by Mars in Aquarius in the fourth house.
For seven days, the time it took Jupiter to travel one degree and form an exact conjunction, German bombers attacked Liverpool and its surrounding area. It was an open enemy’s last attempt to get Britain to negotiate a peace treaty, to surrender.
Unleashed.
The RAF and the FAA fought back, protecting people and the country’s borders.
The courage to die for one’s country.
They say it was the first major German defeat. A crucial turning point in the war.
All along, Churchill and Roosevelt carried on a correspondence about strategy, pilot training in the States, and American aircraft serviced for the RAF. About Iceland too.
A partner with resources, willing to secure them for a cause. Saturn can ask for mastery in security.
A partner willing to free resources for a cause, for justice, to defeat an enemy, win a race.
On May 8, Hitler turned his attention to the Soviet Union.
Pluto was in Leo where the Olympic Games began. He can break down what no longer serves us to win a race. He can dig to find a better way of winning it.
Uranus in Taurus can ask that we find a new way in the body, the earth, the earth’s resources.
Norway had the world’s only supply of heavy water. The French helped the English buy it before the Germans did, before Germany took Norway. The English also looked into obtaining uranium ore from Belgium Congo.
They experimented with it, and with plutonium. They studied the properties to arrive at universally accepted facts about the compounds.
There is apprenticeship in Virgo, and putting things in order, and there are systems without a centre in Aquarius, universality and a bird’s eye view.
Nazi Germany used the energies in a different way.
There is marginality in Virgo, and in Aquarius there is humanity and there are the gods, and there are ideals.
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-medical-experiments
James Mitchum was born on this day, with the stellium in Taurus in the sixth house. He plays with patterns at work, in the roles he plays.
But playing with patterns isn’t always innocuous.
There is no document dated May 8, 1941, that would indicate this was the day the atomic bomb or nuclear power was born.
There is the devastation of Liverpool.
The fear of losing the war.
Chart for April 20, 2024
So many possibilities.
Aquarius is the most socialized sign. There is service in the sign. There are pooled resources to provide service.
Pooled resources for an individual, a king, a church, a cause, a union.
Pluto’s transit through Aquarius can dig out abuse and corruption in the fields Aquarius rules.
Like during the French Revolution. The end of feudalism. The end of the tithe.
Chart for June 30, 1789
A Jupiter Uranus conjunction in Leo powered by a sextile.
Sextiles can bring opportunities.
They carry potential.
In a local situation, where there is familiarity, sextiles can reprimand. They can express frustration over not getting their needs met.
Taurus can contain, mounting frustration.
Chart for July 14, 1789
Gemini vents.
The storming of the Bastille, 14 July, 1789, artist unknown
An extra push to free a child of Uranus in Leo.
Back to June 30, 1789
Pluto was breaking down an old way of pooling resources, and Uranus asked that a new one be created taking into consideration
the rights of man.
Saturn in Pisces in a trine to Mercury in Cancer and the conjunction in Leo asked that the rights of man be defined, made concrete.
There is raw material in Pisces. Saturn can ask that we mold it and give it form.
There is memory in Pisces, all that came before, the discussions and the writings of the age of enlightenment.
Saturn can consolidate.
The work was in Taurus and Mars was in Taurus.
There is old age in Taurus. Heritage. Genealogy. There are resources and the containers of our resources. Libraries. There is responsibility in the sign.
The opportunity to take responsibility and create a new individual, a new citizen. He was created on August 26, 1789.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen
With all its imperfections, it was to be a document of influence. Radical.
Article XIII stated: A common contribution, equally distributed to all citizens, according to their ability to pay.
Separate but together.
youtube.com/watch?v=xuLcTd9U8TA
Mars was in Cancer, uniting all generations, through time. We come from a mother that comes from a mother that comes from a mother, all the way to the beginning of time.
He can unite by force, if necessary.
Chart for April 15, 2023
The day Macron signed a pension reform into law.
Saturn in Pisces consolidates.
There are generations to come in Cancer.
There is old age and there are resources in Taurus.
There is forecast in Libra.
Chart for Emmanuel Macron, born December 21, 1977, data from birth record
With Rahu in Libra and Pluto digging for riches in Libra, he has formed a government that forecasts.
The pension reform aims to eliminate a projected deficit in the pension system by 2030. A burden for future generations.
Transiting Jupiter was in Aries, conjoining the Sun. We can move forward or fall back in Aries.
He found the courage to move forward. An act of influence.
Transiting Pluto had been on his Ascendant, making his entry into Aquarius.
In Capricorn we study the patterns of the past to plan for the future.
In Aquarius we are separate but together. Aquarius looks to the future, careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Aquarius rejuvenates, and the fact is that people are living longer. Access to health and education is prolonging life to the Uranus return and beyond.
He was having his Uranus opposition Uranus, with Mercury involved, and his natal Moon,
and his natal Chiron attuning him to a gap in Taurus.
Transiting Pluto, in the place between Capricorn and Aquarius, asked him, Who has more power? Government or unions?
He put his signature in Cancer in the seventh house, despite the opposition of eight unions. Transiting Mars was in Cancer, uniting all generations, to take responsibility.
Menelaus and the beautiful Helen by Jan Styka, 1901
Before Helen chose her husband, all her suitors swore the Oath of Tyndareus.
In her youth, she had been abducted by Theseus, king of Attica, and her brothers Castor and Pollux rescued her. In revenge, they took Theseus’ mother Aethra to be Helen’s slave.
Castor and Pollux rescuing Helen by Jean-Bruno Gassies, 1817
If she were to be abducted again, an army would rescue her.
There is rescue in Gemini. There is recruitment, an oath that binds, and a spark that can ignite a war.
Gemini is in Macron’s sixth house. The people he works for, the people who work for him.
He brought up pension reforms before the pandemic, and again on October 26, 2022. He intended to gradually raise the retirement age, beginning in 2023.
Chart for October 26, 2022
A Saturn Uranus conjunction can break a barrier.
After the Jupiter Uranus conjunction on May 8, 1841, Jupiter entered Gemini, and Saturn and Uranus danced together in Taurus.
In Taurus, the barrier can be one of containment.
On October 30, 1941, Churchill signed a document authorizing the development of nuclear weapons, to be carried out in Canada. On Canadian soil and with a Canadian war loan to Britain. Still under secrecy. The Tube Alloys project.
Chart for October 30, 1941
On October 26, 2022, Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus were in a square.
A push and pull
to maintain a barrier
to break a barrier
for the good of society.
There was a grand trine in air. Mercury in Libra was forecasting a deficit, Mars in Gemini offered to open doors to find possible solutions,
for the good of society.
There is room for growth in a trine. In a personal chart, trines take time to mature. They can attract criticism and the banging of pots and pans. They can ask for a thicker skin and greater effort.
On October 26, Macron brought up pension reforms, and on October 31, Mars went retrograde.
He was at the final degree of his retrogradation on January 10, 2023, the day the proposed reforms were published. A preliminary move, before consultation with unions and debate in parliament scheduled for January 23.
Chart for January 10, 2023
When Saturn touches the Moon, he can cut in half.
A people divided.
Venus and Mars in a trine expressing their differing opinions about the gift Jupiter was bringing. Did it mind the gap in survival or not?
Mars stayed at 8 degrees Gemini until January 24. He took his first step forward on the 25th.
Mars in Gemini can exercise an oath with force, if necessary.
Venus in Gemini can trigger a war.
Chart for April 15, 2023
Venus in a trine to Pluto, in the space between Capricorn and Aquarius.
There are scholars who describe the war in Sudan as a war between centre and periphery.
Chart for June 8, 1775
A model was freed on this day.
Not this kind.
Helen of Troy by Antonio Canova, 1817
This kind.
billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/declaration-of-independence
A document drafted by men who were not members of royalty or nobility.
A document that would establish a government led by people without inherited titles.
Not an appointed president and vice president, but an elected president and vice president.
In the beginning, every state chose the electors who would vote, electors who lived in the state capitals and had easier access to information.
The Jupiter Uranus conjunction is in the sign of the hoi polloi, the people. In the sign that makes connections. But the conjunction is in a grand trine, and grand trines take time to mature.
Libra can detect imbalances in arrangements. Saturn in Libra in a trine to Jupiter Uranus can break barriers to match arrangements with written words.
Pluto in Capricorn changes the laws to assist in this endeavor.
Until the grand trine becomes a solid foundation.
Mars is a warrior.
In Virgo he can fight against injustice, fight for the marginalized.
Neptune can turn him into a poet.
A desk warrior.
The men who drafted the document were learned men, men of letters. Their work led them to become spokesmen for American interests. Their work led them to distinguish themselves from the British.
They wrote a list of 27 injuries and usurpations that caused the split.
Such a list gave them the right to throw off the British government and provide new guards for their future security.
Faithful guards around a new lake.
Founding document of the lake.
They say the document is one fourth the length of the original draft. Concise and to the point. It was printed and circulated on July 4, 1776.
Mars was in Gemini,
and in Gemini there is an oath.
Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David, 1784
Chart for December 23, 1954
The end of a stage and the beginning of a new one in clinical transplantation.
Joseph Murray carried out the first successful human kidney transplant.
He took all the knowledge gathered in the previous attempts between animals, animals and humans, and humans, and did it the only way known
to bring back to life.
A transplant between identical twins.
He was the first,
but it was a collaborative effort that involved his generation and past generations.
There is criticism in the chart, and there is praise, in the trines to Saturn Venus in Scorpio.
He played it safe.
Didn’t break any boundaries.
We already knew it was possible between identical twins.
Still can’t do it between people who are unrelated.
But he did it. The opportunity presented itself and he took it. He laid the foundation.
You know Hera. She went after the child of Jupiter with Alcmene. It all began when Jupiter brought the child to her breast while she slept, and she woke up and pushed the child away.
khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/high-ren-florence-rome/late-renaissance-venice/v/jacopo-tintoretto-the-origin-of-the-milky-way-c-1575
How to get past such defences was the next stage in clinical transplantation.
How to get past them ethically.
Doctor Murray’s success received international attention. There was also international awareness of all that had gone on before, the medical research and experimentation,
without laws to distinguish what was legal and illegal.
The Doctors’ Trial in Nuremberg in 1947 had brought this to the fore.
During the trial, a code was put together, outlining what was needed for medical research and experimentation to be considered legitimate. The Nuremberg Code.
muhc.ca/sites/default/files/users/user136/The%20Nuremberg%20Code.pdf
Here again was the opportunity to create laws that would ensure ethical and humane medical practices.
The opportunity to break something down in Leo and create it anew in Cancer.
To break down the way we laboured to bring Hera and Hercules together.
The Nuremberg Code was written on August 9, 1947, and the verdict against the doctors was delivered on August 20, 1947.
Temple Grandin was born on August 29, 1947, 2:30 pm, Boston.
There are big animals in the twelfth house. Jupiter in Scorpio brought her in contact with big animals in an uncle and aunt’s farm.
She studied their behaviour.
The Moon in Aquarius can study the behaviour of people and animals. But she found people too complicated, so she stuck to animals.
In doing so, she changed a whole industry. The way we handle cattle and sheep.
There is a centre in Leo, ruled by the Sun, pater in the sky. There is heart and there are children, the children in all of us. There are labours, and there is atonement for the sins of others.
She became their spokesperson.
Before she studied the behaviour of big animals, her mother studied her behaviour.
Wild child. Autistic.
She looked for medicine to change her child’s behaviour,
a miracle.
Temple was 7 years old when Jupiter and Uranus danced in Cancer, in her eighth house of crisis, house of healing.
It was the year they spent Christmas at the farm, the year Temple wouldn’t come inside when dinner was served.
“Where’s Temple?” her father asked.
“With the cows.”
He looked out the window and saw his daughter. A lone wolf watching the cows.
She watched them walk, never in a straight line. She watched their natural circling behaviour.
grandin.com
She heard a sound and saw her father walking toward her. When he reached her, he wrapped something around her, and she suddenly knew the name for it, blanket. On that day, her brain made the connection between object and word. It was a relationship that she had not understood before, and it had prevented her from joining her herd.
From that day on, she worked on acquiring language, turning the pictures in her head into words.
There are tools in Gemini, and this is the tool that differentiates her, the ability to think in pictures.
It has bridged two worlds.
There are two worlds in Sagittarius, civilized and uncivilized, wild and tame.
She has brought understanding between two worlds.
She uses her knowledge to design facilities where farm animals are bathed, vaccinated and slaughtered, with the least amount of stress as possible.
Facilities facing behavioural problems, like animals balking and refusing to move, seek her advice.
“See the blue tarp flapping in the wind? It’s scaring them. Secure it.”
“That chain hanging from the fence. Get rid of it.”
“It’s too dark in here. You should install an overhead light. Like us, animals like to see where they’re going.”
She sees the facility from the animals’ point of view.
With Mars in Cancer she joined the herd, and Neptune in Libra paved the way for relationships.
Neptune accentuates the qualities of the sign, and paves the way.
He can turn Mars into a poet.
Here they are in a square.
Inspiration.
She is inspiring what she calls a ‘bottom up’ relationship with the animals bred for us to eat.
It begins with sight, observation of the animal’s behaviour, and it ends with a design that-
(Splash)
allows things to happen with ease.
There is harmony and grace in Libra,
and the Trojan Horse, remover of obstacles.
The Trojan Horse that rolled through the gates of Troy.
She can get nasty when livestock handlers don’t follow her directives.
Chart for December 23, 1954
Dr. Murray said this was the first time the medical community faced the ethical decision of removing a healthy organ from a healthy person for the benefit of someone else.
There were consultations with physicians and clergy of all denominations, and they found it reasonable to proceed, given the genetic compatibility.
A hurdle out of the way.
Chart for June 15, 1931, date of birth of the Herrick twins
There is divine rescue in Aries, and a search for the golden fleece. An initiation and arete, and before that, there is innocence and there is
trust.
They trusted their doctors to take them to the underworld and bring them back.
Undifferentiated.
They were made aware of the risks and possible complications, but there were no waivers to sign, no legalities. An industry that was paternal. A relationship based on trust.
Chart for April 1, 1919, date of birth of Joseph Murray
Mastery in an industry, in his profession. Reluctant to break barriers imposed by the body’s immune system.
Pluto in his chart digs in Cancer, to create something new in-
Uranus was in that place between two signs, Aquarius and Pisces.
If Uranus had been fully in Pisces, he may have found it easier to experiment with immunosuppressant drugs.
But Uranus was in between, and he opted to find out whether the body would accept an organ from a donor that had a biological commonality other than genetics.
That’s when the dogs started coming into the lab.
There were colleagues who warned him that the research could harm his reputation, but he needed to know.
What he found out was that the body rejected all commonalities except genetics.
By the time the Herrick twins came in, he had perfected the technique for kidney transplantation.
Theirs would be the first human kidney transplantation and it was important for it to succeed. For the future of organ transplantation. For its acceptance by the public.
It succeeded.
At this point, he knew there was no moving forward without experimenting with drugs.
More dogs came into the lab.
He speaks of them fondly in his Nobel Prize lecture, dogs sacrificed for the advancement of science. He doesn’t speak of all 500, but of those that pulled through for a few days, a few months, a year. Those that prepared him to do what he had always been reluctant to do.
Chart for September 20, 1962
In 1962, during his Uranus opposition Uranus, he performed a kidney transplantation from a cadaver to an unrelated recipient with the help of an immunosuppressant drug.
Transiting Pluto was digging in Virgo, in his sixth house of small animals, and transiting Uranus asked that he create something new in the same house.
He didn’t let his experimentation go to waste,
and he brought something new into the culture. Deceased donation.
He played it safe in 1954, laying a foundation with a great sense of responsibility. His natal Venus in Taurus was across transiting Venus Saturn in Scorpio. He measured the ripples he sent.
This time he opened new territory for all generations. His natal Venus in Taurus was across transiting Venus Neptune in Scorpio, unblocking the potential for everyone to bring back to life.
Questions arose about the deceased donor. Had the heart stopped? Was the brain dead? He helped define what it is to be legally dead.
He participated in breaking something down in Leo to create it anew in Cancer, ruled by the Moon, mater in the sky. He asked for feedback from the community before performing the first human kidney transplantation. Was it morally and ethically right? He dipped the question into a multicultural lake.
There are unequal relationships in the sixth house, and equal relationships in the seventh. A pet can enter the seventh house if it were to become equal to the chart holder. The seventh isn’t just about written contracts. There is a psychological component to it as well.
He kept the dogs in the lab, for the people who trusted him, for humankind.
He won the Nobel Prize on December 8, 1990.
A grand stellium crowning Capricorn, grand enough to bring down an empire with-
youtube.com/watch?v=LhhMHoH_c4Q
While the bones holding us up were breakdancing and singing,
he was given permission to tell us the history of transplantation. To show us the immune system of the body through images of burn victims and lab animals, skin grafts and bone marrow.
His audience was made up of apprentices such as himself.
Some of them cringed.
“Does he have to be so explicit?”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
If ever there was a time to be explicit and truthful, this was the time. Pluto was digging into mysteries, and the bones holding us up were breakdancing and singing, and the Sun and Venus were in Sag.
“What if those animal rights activists watch the recording? They’ll shut us down.”
“He’s being institutionalized, isn’t he? We’re giving him the immunity of the Nobel Prize.”
With Jupiter in Leo, he acknowledged all the scientists who came before him and worked alongside him to trick the body into accepting a foreign graft.
“He’s giving us all immunity.”
“I wish he didn’t mention the numbers. Thousands of dogs.”
“He was always a bit obsessive.”
“Good thing Mars is retrograding in Gemini.”
“Good thing. Not so judgemental.”
With Mars retrograding in Gemini in his third house, house of Ketu in his chart, he gave an example of the kind of anecdotal experiences he and his team had with transplantation. He told of a transplant patient who came in with an infection. He had to expose the transplanted kidney to drain it out. While he waited for it to drain, he decided to put a piece of the patient’s own skin, an autograft, on the transplanted kidney.
Just to see what happened.
He went on to say how kidney transplantation became the model for other organ transplants, and a graph showed how many lives had been saved up to date.
He finished by expressing the hope that we would one day find naturally occurring immunosuppressant substances in the body, in the liver perhaps, to eliminate or reduce the need for drugs.
He was given permission to say all this when we could put aside animal rights and applaud the commitment, the labour and the sacrifice.
Ketu and Chiron were in Cancer.
A generation tasked with bringing unity by rearranging the bones.
Chart for March 11, 1989
It all began when Saturn bumped into Neptune
and something was unblocked.
In Canada, a piece of land called the Pines was unblocked to expand a golf course.
When Saturn bumps into Neptune, something seems to get unblocked
and a long journey begins.
The destruction of tea at Boston Harbor by Nathaniel Currier
They bumped into each other in Virgo in 1773.
It was the year of Britain’s Tea Act, and the year American colonists disguised as Native Americans dumped tea into the Boston Harbor.
It was the year Benjamin Franklin wrote the satirical piece, Rules by which a great empire may be reduced to a small one.
Chart for September 11, 1773
Sign where Demeter came to be a servant in the House of Eleusis. Where she taught the art of agriculture to Triptolemus.
Sign of the apprentice, where farmers talk to farmers and bricklayers talk to bricklayers. Intramural conversations. The insular nature of earth.
Libra prefers intermural conversations
and the challenge of an obstacle.
To get past the gates, they inscribed the words Paladi Votum on the horse, an offering to Pallas Athena.
The procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 1760
First social sign of the zodiac, first to be seen and judged. First to become aware of the public,
the public eye.
30 contestants from the first Miss Universe pageant, 1952
Favourites.
Apollo protecting Hector with his Aegis and dispersing the Greeks by John Flaxman, 1787
In Libra the gods have favourites.
Achilles vanquishing Hector with Athena’s assistance by Peter Paul Rubens, 1630
Unseen presence in the sign.
To please gods unseen,
a public unseen,
intermurally.
youtube.com/watch?v=zaBcgbZsJEU
There is a wedding banquet in the sign, the one Eris was not invited to, and there is a marriage restored.
There is love so profound between two men that their bones lie in a single urn.
Achilles lamenting the death of Patroclus by Gavin Hamilton, 1760
There are alliances and open enmity,
Achilles surrenders Briseis to Agamemnon, Pompeii, fresco, 1st century AD
and more intermural conversations.
Priam asks Achilles to return Hector’s body by Alexander Ivanov, 1824
Saturn and Neptune danced together in Libra in 1952 and 1953.
Chart for December 1, 1952
They say that a personal letter was leaked to the New York Daily News, a tabloid newspaper. It was a letter written by a woman, formerly a man.
Saturn Neptune unblocked an intermural conversation sideways.
In Capricorn, Inanna stole the mes and Enki chased her.
Mind the gap in authority in the sign.
Uranus, spirit of the times, was in Cancer, and there are defences in Cancer, and there can be censorship,
but Saturn Neptune broke through.
Here was the opportunity to dig in the riches of Leo, dig out what was no longer needed. There are the Olympics in Leo, a central hearthfire, and there is individuality, a mirror reflecting our individuality.
To create something new in Cancer, new patterns in the homeland.
Christine told her story to the hoi polloi, how she went to a foreign land to change her sex. She said people thought she’d be a freak, but were surprised to find that she wasn’t. She was a well spoken, thoughtful woman, who had not felt comfortable with the gender assigned to her.
Questions of morality arose.
“The gods will surely punish her.”
“They’ve punished her already. She can’t have children and she can’t get married. Her birth certificate says she’s a boy!”
“The gods are with her. They dropped a book on her lap when she needed it, The Male Hormone.”
“I’m with her.”
She became a spokesperson for people whose psychology did not match their bodies.
“We need new archetypes.”
“You mean like artist, explorer, rebel?”
“No. I mean like Adam and Eve.”
Mars was in Aquarius-
“Did you read about Ivy Mike?”
“All these things happening all at once, I can’t stand it!”
“One of the pilots sent into the cloud to collect samples didn’t make it back.”
“No way.”
“Lethal stuff, man.”
“They’re going to make us sick and destroy the planet! We should protest!”
“They’re trying to contain communism.”
“I bet you within a year the Soviets will detonate their own Ivy Mike.”
“Yeah. There’re spies everywhere.”
“We should focus our technology somewhere else, somewhere that’ll bring us peace and understanding.”
“Like space?”
“Like space.”
“You’ve been reading the series.”
“I have.”
“You know who Wernher von Braun is?”
“I know. But he’s on our side now.”
Wernher von Braun powered us into space. With his rocket, we went to a place we’d never been before.
We.
We say,
We.
The Apollo program was the first one to carry
the public eye.
The Saturn Neptune conjunctions in Libra saw breakthroughs in transmission, and more homes were equipped with TVs. They say 10 million homes tuned in to watch the I love Lucy show.
Ideologies are harder to break through. They so often require bloodshed.
Chart for Dwight D. Eisenhower, born October 14, 1890, Denison, TX, time of birth unverified
With Saturn in Virgo, Eisenhower was willing to compromise in Korea.
Transiting Saturn Neptune were conjunct his natal stellium in Libra, and he found a unique way of having an intermural conversation with the Chinese communists, of getting them to sign an armistice.
Compromise.
He has a grand trine in air. Mercury in Libra, Jupiter in Aquarius, and Pluto Neptune in Gemini. They form a kite with Venus in Sag.
He hoped that all nations would come to see the wisdom of composing differences in this fashion, before rather than after resorting to brutal and futile battle.
youtube.com/watch?v=Ha5gQO42u_s
He didn’t always compromise.
Saturn in Virgo is in a trine to Mars in Capricorn, and when a mob prevented the carrying out of a federal law, he issued an executive order directing the use of troops to aid in the execution of that law.
Trines don’t always agree, and he wasn’t always popular.
youtube.com/watch?v=ZzT5v_ICU6I
Jupiter and Uranus were conjunct 3 times in 1968 and 1969.
The first two conjunctions were in Libra.
Chart for December 11, 1968
A stage had ended and a new one was beginning.
They had corrected the mistakes of Apollo 1, found all the Achilles heels-
Achilles, son of Thetis and Peleus.
Thetis was destined to have a son more powerful than his father, and so with the advice of Themis, Jupiter married her to the mortal Peleus. Everyone was invited to the wedding, everyone except Eris.
Thetis was destined to have a son, a mighty warrior, who would die young in battle. To protect her son, shield his skin, she dipped him in the waters of the River Styx.
There, in the sculpted columns, are the queen and king of the underworld, Persephone and Pluto.
In the background is Charon the ferryman, and in the water, Cerberus, guarding the entrance to the underworld.
There, holding the torch, is the Fate Clotho who spins the thread of life.
And there is Thetis, her hand around Achilles heel.
Thetis dipping the infant Achilles into the River Styx by Peter Paul Rubens, 1635
They had launched Apollo 7 successfully in October, and were about to launch Apollo 8,
when Saturn restrained them.
There is discipline in the chart, the discipline needed to be the first to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely to earth.
Because of the Apollo 1 fire, the crew had become involved in monitoring the construction of the space modules. Intramural conversations made room for intermural conversations.
The crew gave feedback on the apparatus in the modules, the life support they had to wear, and their feedback spurred improvements and new technology.
Like the Apollo 7 mission, the Apollo 8 mission involved the lunar and command modules in medium earth orbit, but the lunar module still needed work, and there was no compromise.
The command module, however, was ready, and Pluto in a square to the Sun Mercury asked that it be tested to its full potential.
Apollo 8 would orbit the moon 10 times,
and show us an image of Earthrise.
A Libran image.
I AM and YOU ARE, and in between, all the emotions from love to strife.
Culture was changing.
Not just an intramural conversation with the earth, but an intermural conversation.
Venus was in Aquarius, and the culture that was changing was universal.
Chart for March 12, 1969
Neptune in Scorpio was paving the way for the mysteries in outer space, the mysteries of the mind. Understanding another’s psychology.
And Mars was in Sagittarius.
Venus was in Sagittarius on the day the first hydrogen bomb was tested, back in 1952. And Mercury was in that place between Scorpio and Sagittarius.
Chart for November 1, 1952
youtube.com/watch?v=LYkGCxy3cmc
Before it was played on TV, there was
calibration.
“Did you read about Ivy Mike?”
“All these things happening all at once, I can’t stand it!”
“One of the pilots sent into the cloud to collect samples didn’t make it back.”
“No way.”
“But it looked so grand on TV-“
“So surreal.”
“Lethal stuff, man.”
youtube.com/watch?v=Q3ezhvCzWCM
There is in this chart the wisdom of turning laid into beau laid and not sending people into a panic.
On March 12, 1969, Mars was in Sagittarius, asking us to see from another’s point of view, to identify with another’s goal.
youtube.com/watch?v=8ygoE2YiHCs
He was conjunct Neptune, and the two can make poetry together. They enamoured people with Kennedy’s goal,
engaged them.
Mercury was in Aquarius and Pisces, that place in between that can join us with an ideology, and join us through space and time.
The command module of Apollo 9 was named Gumdrop, and the lunar module was named Spider, and people watched the astronauts maneuver Gumdrop and Spider in real time.
They watched the astronauts of Apollo 10 maneuver Charlie Brown and Snoopy in real time.
The Jupiter Uranus conjunctions in Libra freed real time.
To be there.
The astronauts practised and polished their craft. They participated in creating a new craft in space. When they got nauseous, they had private conversations with doctors in Houston who took notes and gave advice. They made changes to the way they moved and performed tasks, and took more notes
to seal any weakness, any vulnerability.
Chiron was in Aries, and Venus, ruler of Libra, was conjunct Saturn in Aries,
ensuring survival,
and longevity.
Chart for July 20, 1969
There are arrangements in Libra, to maintain the balance, disturb the balance.
Arrangements to shield Achilles heel
Arrangements to please the public eye.
Thetis receiving the arms of Achilles from Hephaestus by Peter Paul Rubens, 1635
And there is the challenge of removing an obstacle to have an intermural conversation.
youtube.com/watch?v=J6jplPkbe8g
Words calibrated to unite us all.
The third conjunction of Jupiter Uranus was in that place between Virgo and Libra.
When Kennedy proposed landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth before the end of the decade,
Saturn was in Capricorn, and there was a grand trine in air in the sky.
Chart for May 25, 1961
He was setting the stage for an institution that joined government, a hierarchical system, with science, a system without a centre.
The Sun was in Gemini where we make connections and build bridges, and the Moon was in Libra where we form relationships.
He set the wheels in motion.
They were competitive times.
Pluto was digging in Virgo
and Uranus was in Leo.
Crafts were put to work around a central hearthfire to win a race.
It was no longer enough to come from a long line of farmers or bricklayers. There were standards to be met.
Standardization.
Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963
The compromise in Virgo gave rise to the seasons, the rites and rituals of every season, the order of things in a culture.
With Pluto and Uranus in Virgo, the order was changing.
There is apprenticeship in the sign, what we teach.
The United States had been teaching that black people were inferior,
and the United States had been teaching
defence.
Culturally ingrained.
Demeter, Persephone and Triptolemus, marble fragment, Athens, ca. 27 BCE
With Saturn in Aquarius, the civil rights movement was changing the order of things.
With Saturn in Aquarius, Kennedy swayed congress to direct more and more pooled resources to space exploration.
He said that space was a place untouched by man and man’s mistakes. There was no strife and no prejudice in outer space, and to keep it that way, its conquest deserved the best of all mankind.
He said this was an opportunity for peaceful cooperation that may never come again.
jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/address-at-rice-university-on-the-nations-space-effort
Saturn was in a sextile to Jupiter in Aries.
Odysseus.
When he made it to the shores of Ithaca, Athena instructed him to take the oar of his boat as far inland as possible, to a place that knew nothing of the sea, and to leave the oar planted in the turf.
So that when someone came across it, they would wonder what it was, and would travel to the shores of Ithaca to find out.
And keep the journey going.
Some say the by-products of the Apollo missions were more valuable than the missions themselves, or just as valuable.
Kennedy secured funding for missions that had a target, a final goal, and on this day, it was fertilized.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy by Aaron Shikler, 1970
In Virgo, Demeter tried to burn off Demophon’s mortality, child of Metanira.
To make a mortal immortal, an immortal child to replace the one she had lost.
When Metanira came upon the scene, she threw Demeter out, and the goddess revealed her true form.
Metanira asked for forgiveness and built a temple dedicated to the goddess.
Chart for July 20, 1969
Venus in Gemini and Mars in Sag were across from each other, with an orb of 8 degrees on July 16, the day of the launch.
Lovers.
Witnessing what they had fertilized back in 1963.
They had been conjunct Wernher von Braun’s natal Jupiter back in 1963.
Chart for Wernher von Braun, born March 23, 1912, Wyrzysk, time of birth from memory
He had walked with Kennedy earlier that year, discussing Saturn V. His dream of spaceflight coming true.
It all began in 1928, when transiting Saturn was conjunct his natal Jupiter. He was 16 at the time, and he’d gone to watch an Opel RAK demonstration.
youtube.com/watch?v=xO2NxU5vsNM
He looked at his hands and knew what he wanted to do.
Obsession.
His V-2 broke the Kármán line during his first Saturn return, the result of his work with the government of Germany.
In 1969, during his second Saturn return, he watched the launch of Apollo 11, the result of his work with the government of the United States.
Chart for Wernher von Braun, rectified
There is great responsibility in Taurus.
There were people who tried to give him the responsibility of the death and damage caused by the V-2s, but he didn’t take it.
He took the responsibility of sending man to the moon.
The Moon is in Taurus in his chart, and there is heritage in Taurus. They say his mother traced her ancestry all the way back to Philip III, Edward III and Robert III.
He took her with him, because home was wherever he was allowed to continue the journey of rocket science.
The decisive conjunctions to his natal Jupiter in Sagittarius were in his eighth house, house of mysteries, the mystery of outer space.
His contracts were in Scorpio.
He came to the United States in 1945, carrying military secrets that allowed him and his engineering team safe passage.
They were put to work to develop a rocket for nuclear ballistic missiles, and he developed the Redstone rocket.
Weapons for Germany.
Weapons for the United States.
The child in him still wanted to travel to space, and so he began to write a series about space, about a crewed space station, and Collier’s Weekly published it.
Then came Kennedy, and he and his team were transferred to NASA.
The rulers of his seventh house are in Gemini, in his second house of resources. Obsessive mind, experimental, learning by trial and error, to make a rocket powered by liquid fuel, powerful enough to go to outer space.
youtube.com/watch?v=yXLPlIzyGlY
Daedalus.
Hephaestus.
Chart for Neil Armstrong, born August 5, 1930, Washington, OH, with AC and MC aspects, data from birth record
He knew what to do with his hands.
youtube.com/watch?v=nC_cUaJ86To
Venus formed an exact conjunction with his natal Mars on July 20, 1969.
Planets in Gemini can attract copycats, and on that day, everybody wanted to be him.
With his Sun in Leo and his MC in Aquarius, he introduced a new archetype.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Neil Armstrong!”
“Oh, wow, so you want to be an astronaut.”
When he landed the Eagle on the Sea of Tranquility, he forgot to turn the engine off.
The engine had to be turned off upon contact to avoid an explosion.
Good thing Buzz was there to remind him.
Chart for Buzz Aldrin, born January 20, 1930, Glen Ridge, NJ, with AC and MC aspects, data from birth record
youtube.com/watch?v=9HvG6ZlpLrI
Rahu was in Pisces, and an old order was dissolving.
The ruler was in Virgo Libra, conjunct Uranus,
setting free a new order of things and new arrangements.
Uranus carries with him rebellion,
and a counter culture arose that broke with traditional arrangements,
and traditional forms of nurture.
There is nurture in Taurus.
Sex, food and shelter.
On this day, two astronauts walked on the moon and left a plaque that read, We came in peace for all mankind,
and they returned safely to the earth.
Apollo 12 was launched in November of that year, the same month that the US and the USSR sat down to have serious talks about limiting strategic arms.
By the time the Apollo program ended, an agreement between the two countries had been signed, SALT I.
In Aries there is ego birth, first sign of the zodiac.
They say Scorpio is our first encounter with ego death.
To merge with another.
On February 14, 1990, Voyager 1 looked back before leaving the solar system, and took a picture of the earth.
Pluto was in Scorpio that day. Pluto of the underworld, with its seven gates. He can take us under and peel a layer of excess at every gate.
A mote of dust in a beam of light,
enhanced.
To awaken poetry, maturity. Inanna mature enough to hold the mes.
youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
Carl Sagan requested the picture.
Chart for Carl Sagan, born November 9, 1934, NY, with AC and MC aspects, data from birth record
With a grand stellium transiting Capricorn in his ninth house, he unblocked a new consciousness.
All his life he wondered if there were beings from another civilization in space.
He was chair of the committee that selected the contents of the Golden Record in Voyager 1 and 2.
youtube.com/watch?v=iVysAQVPCAY
Romance in Virgo.
Voyager 2 was launched first, on August 20, 1977.
Transiting Uranus was at 6 degrees Scorpio, conjunct his natal Jupiter, in January 1976. He danced in direct and retrograde motion in the sign, and was at 8 degrees Scorpio when Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 were launched.
A Uranus opposition Uranus with Jupiter involved.
Uranus in Aries and Uranus Jupiter in Scorpio, with his Sun, Venus and Mercury R.
An offer came to him to produce a television series about the cosmos, and in 1978 and 1979, he was involved in the production of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.
He gave new life to an old mystery.
Such a stellium as his in Scorpio demanded artistic expression, with measured words.
It attracted popularity,
and lest he took himself too seriously, it attracted a Scorpio rising.
youtube.com/watch?v=iIbbTHQmPkE
The stinger of comedy,
to deflate.
He was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson’s show, part of the clan,
youtube.com/watch?v=cPM5WpS65tk
a gem in his neighbourhood.
With his Pluto in Cancer in the third house of neighbourhood,
and his Moon in Sagittarius in the eighth house of other people’s money, house of mysteries,
he made his neighbourhood a place he didn’t know,
until he came to know it and it changed the way he thought.
youtube.com/watch?v=uHGS8XU_k78
With transiting Pluto conjunct his Sun in Scorpio in 1990,
he translated feelings into words,
exquisite.
To feel what he felt.
He had been on a long journey of exploration, searching for intelligent life in space, a blue bird in space,
and he found the blue bird in his backyard,
Delos.
He offered us the one thing we all have in common,
the earth.
He died on December 20, 1996.
Transiting Uranus was conjunct his MC and the point of Rahu,
in a square to Aries and Scorpio,
and across from Pluto in Cancer.
The teacher who decentred us.
His last book was published after he died.
The last time Jupiter and Uranus in the sky were conjunct in Scorpio was in 1471.
They danced together in Libra, met briefly in that place between Libra and Scorpio, and went back into Libra to dance some more.
They say this period in time was the beginning of modern warfare.
Chart for December 23, 1471
In South America,
Cuzco,
heart of the Inca Empire,
the sole ruler Pachacutec died,
and his heir and head of the army, Tupac Yupanqui, took his place.
Under his father, he had conquered the red section of the map. He now proceeded to conquer the green section,
but he needed a bigger army.
He opened the coffers and built a bigger army.
He made recruitment compulsory, the nobility exempt.
They trained in the official language and found respite in the ceremonies of the official religion.
What better way to acculturate all the amalgamated clans?
He turned war into an initiation, joining all generations.
War, an initiation into the Inca lake.
youtube.com/watch?v=GdXTwUTsni0
He couldn’t oversee such a large army, so he broke it down into units overseen by a commander, and a group of units overseen by a commander of a higher rank, and so on until came the generals overseen by him.
The larger the army, the greater the chance of preventing war altogether.
Chart for Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici, born February 15, 1472, Florence, data from birth record
They say he didn’t hold the mes properly.
Maybe he had his own unique way of holding the mes.
Maybe he let go of them intentionally.
Maybe they were taken away.
He was 22 when Charles VIII of France set out to claim Naples, and he wanted to save Naples. But he couldn’t garner enough support from the other members of the families that controlled Florence. They felt siding with Charles would be more to their benefit.
No, he said. If Florence would not pick up arms to save Naples, then Florence would remain neutral.
But Charles did not respect their state of neutrality. His army massacred everyone at the fortress of Fivizzano.
The realization that Florence did not have a proper army must have hit Piero. The yod to Saturn in Gemini must have lit up. Mercenaries were unpatriotic and unreliable. What Florence needed was an army made up of Florentine citizens.
He would make that his life work,
and he dreamt of the army he would build. Always at the ready.
He saw men training in the fields, felt their camaraderie.
He’d hire mercenaries to train them, but he’d supervise them.
He saw the men standing in formation, with him at the helm.
To command an army, his life work.
But first he had to stop Charles, and he made his way to Charles’ camp.
Chart for November 17, 1494
He did not negotiate.
With Venus, Pluto and Mercury conjunct his stellium in Scorpio,
he gave Charles everything he asked for, as if he were descending the seven gates of the underworld, offering sacrifices before he could make his dream come true. Soul making.
When he informed the governing body what he had done, he was exiled.
His destiny in Sagittarius in the twelfth house.
He wouldn’t build an army after all, he would join one. Become a soldier. A mercenary.
His contracts in Cancer, with the Moon in Taurus, in his fifth house of romance, across from his Uranus Jupiter conjunction on his MC.
He died on December 28, 1503, doing what he loved to do, with the biggest contract he’d had.
He died in the Battle of Garigliano, fighting with the French against the Spanish over Naples.
Battle of Garigliano by Henri Philippoteaux, 19th century
Chart for Karl Landsteiner, born June 14, 1868, Vienna, Austria, time of birth unknown
There are three Saturn squares before the Saturn return. The third one is around age 22. At age 22, Karl and his mother converted from Judaism to Christianity.
Chart for June 14, 1890
He was 6 when his father died and he was an only child. His mother was a big presence in his life.
In his chart, the Moon conjunct Jupiter Neptune in Aries is in a grand trine with Saturn R and Venus, both in that place in between.
Saturn R in between Scorpio and Sagittarius. Merging with another, and seeing another in their own right.
Venus in between Cancer and Leo. Sacrificing for the mother, and finding one’s own personality.
In 1890, transiting Mars conjoined his natal Saturn, and transiting Saturn in Leo squared the conjunction.
It must have felt like the need to exorcise.
No better place for an exorcism than between Scorpio and Sag.
Minor exorcism in Christianity may be done at the door of a church before baptism
They say they converted because of the growing anti Semitism in the country. They say he wouldn’t be allowed to practise his profession if he kept the religion of his ancestors.
A mother and child ensuring their survival.
Pluto and Mars are in Taurus in his chart, and there is heritage in Taurus, and Pluto and Mars can ask for transformation.
They can dig for riches, and he dug for riches in the body, the blood.
Chart for June 14, 1900
The pressure of mom in his chart, to break a barrier, make a name for himself.
After the conversion, he wrote a paper on how diet can affect the blood, and to see his name in print made her proud.
He came home for every meal, but on this day he came home reluctantly.
You are distracted, she said.
I’m on to something.
She brought him pen and paper and told him to publish it right away. He could explain the details in a follow up.
He wrote A, B and C. A gets along with A. B gets along with B. A and B don’t get along. C gets along with both.
Before he left, he pricked her finger and collected a few drops of blood. He thought of Gregor Mendel and his pea plants. Trying to formulate laws of inheritance, biological laws of heredity.
He walked back to the lab, exorcised, only to find that the new found freedom still tied him to the fabric of society.
Photographs by Emil Mayer, 1900s-1910s
Individuals in their own right, belonging to 3, maybe 4, blood groups.
To create a social obligation based on the fluid of life.
The drive to do that.
Chart for October 20, 1900
The day of the exact Jupiter Uranus conjunction in Sagittarius, he completed his follow up.
Saturn was in that place between Sag and Capricorn,
and he and his colleagues wondered if his discovery would help determine paternity, wherever paternity was in question.
Saturn touched Neptune in Gemini, and he unblocked the correct way to rescue people with blood.
He gave blood order, and made it the focal point of research in the years to come.
There is medicine in Scorpio, Asclepius,
and volunteerism in Gemini, the Dioscuri involved in every battle.
His discovery would bring together medicine and volunteerism, donors, to fulfill a social obligation.
In 1907, the first successful blood transfusion was performed based on his blood type theory. Crossmatching blood between donors and patient.
In 1908, his mother died.
Chart for June 14, 1908
It was the year of his Uranus opposition Uranus, in the Cancer Capricorn polarity. The year he could have dropped everything and gone off into the wilderness,
but she stopped him.
She left him a long list of things to do.
The last one made him laugh and made him cry.
So he wouldn’t miss her, she asked him to make a death mask of her and hang it on his bedroom wall.
It was on his bedroom wall until the day he died.
Chart for Deng Xiaoping, born August 22, 1904, data from autobiography
Chart for December 1, 1978
They say that every relationship, every friendship, must go through a crisis, some form of betrayal, a passage through the eighth house, and if it survives, it enters the ninth house of wisdom, where there is a distancing, seeing another in their own right.
In his chart, Pluto is in Gemini in the third house, house of the village that raises us, a house that is familiar.
And Uranus is in Sag in the ninth house of what is foreign to us.
We step into the ninth when we group with people from different regions, different cultures, house of higher education. The ninth is where we can turn to the left and be anti-clan, and turn to the right and be anti-institutions. It is the house where we can pick up another person’s cause, fight for another person’s cause.
Sag carries the energy of the ninth, natural ruler. It can ignite a cause that-
needs a guide,
requires guidance.
It can turn a cause into a social obligation,
tie the galactic centre to the fabric of society,
ruled as it is by a social planet,
the king of the heavens.
In his chart, Jupiter is in that place between Aries and Taurus,
with Mars in Leo, bringing in Scorpio’s ability to merge,
and Venus in Virgo, bringing in Libra’s arrangements.
He would initiate a voyage of discovery, the discovery of the science and technology of other lands, with a final destination. Not Ithaca, but Crete.
He would ensure the survival and prosperity of his country by setting new standards and re-arranging the order of things.
Seek truth from facts, 1978
Have fewer children, raise more pigs, 1979
He broke down old ways of thinking in his familiar place
by digging in the riches of its slogans.
He took the slogans to Sagittarius and paired them up with visuals of modernity.
When the sun rose in the eastern sky, it rose over industry.
He laid down to rest at night and thought of all the raw material China would need to reach its goals. He had lived in all four corners of the land, and his mind’s eye travelled through all four corners, witnessing the results of Mao’s great leap forward.
When he was travelling in the north, the words ‘open door policy’ came to mind. Who said that? The United States. Boxer Rebellion, 1899. Secretary of State John Hay had proposed an open door policy to ensure that all countries could trade freely with China.
But they weren’t ready. They preferred to have a piece of China.
Things were different now.
Neptune had been paving the way to see China in her own right.
He made his first entry into Sagittarius in 1970, and when China, the People’s Republic of China, replaced the Republic Of China in the UN in 1971, he was well established.
Kissinger came to visit first and then Nixon, to normalize diplomatic relations. But by then Mao was tired and in bad health, and Watergate happened, and everything stalled.
He got out of bed and took a great leap forward, and tripped.
Serves me right, he thought. Can’t reach for the galactic centre without ties to the fabric of society.
Jupiter was transiting Leo, and he thought of the youth of the country. He would begin by re-opening universities, and he would set up exchange programs. Let them bring knowledge from abroad.
An open door policy would require careful planning, specific zones for specific investments and development. The whole country involved.
Pluto was transiting Libra and Uranus was transiting Scorpio in his eighth house, and he thought of other people’s money. They would have to make economic adaptations to draw foreign investment. A market economy, careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. A socialist market economy.
He would travel and befriend old enemies, shake hands, ride a fast train and wear a cowboy hat, and he would send home photographs, to desensitize the population to foreigners. Couldn’t have another Boxer Rebellion.
Good guidance with discipline and punishments in place.
Everyone in line for the new agenda.
Chart for September 25, 1983
Old people, the most orthodox, loyal to the long march, didn’t like what was happening in the country. They didn’t like what was happening to the youth of the land, the colours rising in their faces. They blamed every offence and every crime on the open door policy and the influence of western culture.
“Where are the old slogans?” they asked. “What’s this!”
They wanted the simplicity of Confucius back, the spirituality of the olden days, and they spearheaded the anti-spiritual pollution campaign.
Deng curbed their campaign, afraid it would draw away foreign investors, and he spearheaded the strike hard against crime campaign.
While both sides focused on their responsibility to clan,
the youth of the land wondered what their responsibility was. Were they mere tools for a government that wanted to modernise?
Deng had opened universities and restored many intellectuals educated in the west to their former posts.
Mercury in Virgo was at the bending of the nodes, and the university halls were abuzz.
Students’ reflections changed. They grew self conscious. They came into their own, anti-clan and anti-institutions.
Deng had decentralized the government so much that there wasn’t one clear governmental voice, but many, and students found voices they could follow, guides.
The Jupiter Uranus conjunction in Sag was in a sextile to the Sun in Libra, and there were guides who said that the stage to follow the open door policy should be democracy.
Democracy wasn’t new, but it was a new discovery for many students.
Deng may have been considering something radical as well.
Transiting Venus Mars were conjunct his natal Sun in Leo, and transiting Neptune was conjunct his natal Uranus in Sag. And there was also the Uranus Jupiter conjunction in Sag.
He may have been considering expanding China, taking China to Africa and South America. To be at par.
In his chart, Neptune is in Cancer in the fourth house, paving the way.
They say that Neptune in the fourth can give an affinity for another land. It doesn’t mean that the chart holder will move there or take any other kind of action.
It lies in the Nadir.
But in his chart, the Moon joins Cancer with his MC in Capricorn, and he made good use of his affinity.
Chart for December 5, 1986
He was 82 in 1986 and still labouring, making progress in getting the ruling body to consider his second stage.
Neptune was in Capricorn, paving the way.
But on this day, everyone’s attention was diverted.
The 1986 student protests began in Hefei, when students refused to choose a candidate for the People’s Congress from a given list. They wanted the power to nominate candidates.
Local authorities acceded to their demand,
and the protest spread through wallposters that appeared in different universities.
Students clamoured for freedom and democracy, but they say their grievances were local and pertaining to their own universities. The time the lights were shut off, the university fees, the inefficiency of the administration, and there was dialogue to fix the problems.
Nevertheless, a barrier was broken,
and a barrier had to be repaired.
The media degraded the protests. Intellectual guides lost their membership to the communist party. Student guides were sent to work in farms and factories. Guides in government were demoted.
Neptune was paving the way.
He watched from behind the scenes, the youth he had empowered.
If there had been political parties in the country, they could have taken their differences to the polls.
But he always said democracy would not work in China.
In January, universities reopened and students went back to class,
and he stepped out to reassure foreign investors.
youtube.com/watch?v=QcFuN0GNrOY
The last time Jupiter and Uranus danced together in Capricorn and formed an exact conjunction was during the Ming dynasty.
The Tang dynasty was followed by the Song dynasty, and then the Mongols took China and established the Yuan dynasty. Peasants rose against the Mongols and their forced labour, and joined the Red Turban Movement to fight against them. The Red Turbans wanted to restore the Song dynasty, but when they defeated the Mongols, their leader, Zhu Yuanzhang, declared himself first emperor of the Ming dynasty.
Red Turbans rise up against the Mongols by Wang Jinyuan, 1973
A former peasant and his wife now emperor and empress. They say he was educated in a Buddhist monastery and understood the suffering of people. But he still killed to consolidate power, and he had his concubines killed after he died. Concubines can carry unofficial stories that can taint the official story line. They can vie for power, vie for power through their sons.
He made Nanjing the capital and built a palace where many sons and daughters were raised. His eldest was heir, and when his eldest died, his eldest’s son became heir and then emperor. The new emperor did what his grandfather had done. He killed to consolidate power, demoted his uncles and imprisoned their sons. He imprisoned his uncle Zhu Di’s three sons and sent imperial forces to occupy Beijing and arrest him.
Zhu Di, fourth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, had been given lands we now call Beijing. He had pacified the lands, but was always vigilant of a northern invasion.
Chart for Zhu Di, born May 2, 1360
A warrior and a scholar, he had distinguished himself during his father’s reign. He could have harboured resentment for not having been named heir after his brother died, but he minded the gap in who he blamed.
If he had promised his father to stand by his nephew the emperor, he was about to break the promise.
When his three sons were imprisoned, he prepared his army, and when guards rushed to inform him that imperial forces were at the gates, he picked up arms. A barrier had been broken and a barrier had to be repaired.
Chart for July 1, 1398
He was comfortable in Beijing. Had made it comfortable. The Sun Jupiter in Taurus across from the Moon in Scorpio like a place they can dominate and call home.
The square to Saturn in Leo asked him for stability and a safe place to study, something he had achieved during his first Saturn return.
He indulged in studies of Confucian thought, and had come across the Rites of Zhou and the Kao Gong Ji when news of his nephew came to disturb him.
It took a Uranus opposition Uranus, with Pluto Neptune and Saturn involved to get him out of Beijing, and just in case he lagged, they came to his door.
It would take 4 years for his army to push the enemy back where it came from,
because he got busy getting to know the people of the land.
Chart for Zhu Di, timed
Jupiter’s gifts don’t come easy. His transit through Leo triggered his fourth house in Sag and his eighth house in Aries, and he left home in an emergency. An emergency that would birth an institution. A world heritage site.
He saw a hidden language everywhere he went. Confucian principles of harmony put into practice, in the way homes were built, in the direction front doors faced. He saw expressions of beliefs older than Confucius, superstitions, in the talismans people wore to ward off evil. Numbers and colours held meaning for the people of the land. A land laden with symbols.
While his army perfected its military tactics, he spoke to artisans, philosophers, architects. He inspected the Grand Canal with master masons and discussed how it could be repaired to transport goods again. Improve commerce.
Saturn ended his transit through Sagittarius and began his transit through Capricorn, and he began a romance with the implementation of ideas. To have the power and resources to give them material form.
When his nephew freed his sons and asked to negotiate an armistice, he turned a deaf ear and carried on until he reached Nanjing.
He was crowned emperor on July 17, 1402,
timed to match Zhu Di’s chart
He adopted the era name Yongle, the Yongle Emperor, of perpetual happiness.
In his chart, Saturn, ruler of the fifth house, is in Leo, in the house behind the scenes, and his personal interests, academic in nature, were a private matter before he became emperor.
His natal Mercury puts him in the eighth house, digging in the riches of Aries, and Mars joins Aries with Pisces in the seventh house. He was a vigilant warrior, sent to the north to ward off invaders.
But it was this combination that also gave him a taste for the hidden language of the land.
On the day of his coronation, transiting Saturn was retrograding in his fifth house, aspecting Mercury in Cancer and the Sun Mars and Venus in Leo.
To fertilize something of the highest standard for the group that he belonged to, something theatrical and of cultural value,
according to a set of laws.
Capricorn asks for a foundation.
He would first gather all the scrolls on ancient Chinese philosophical thought that held the hidden language, and he would create an encyclopedia, a reference work, a depository of raw material from whence laws could be derived.
He designated the Hanlin Academy in Nanjing to select an elite group of scholars to work on what would be known as the Yongle Encyclopedia.
Chart for February 8, 1403, timed to match Zhu Di’s chart
Jupiter Uranus danced in Capricorn with an orb of less than 5 degrees from January to October 1403.
On this day they formed an exact conjunction.
It was the day Zhu Di sat in front of a drafting table at the Academy. Venus was returning in his chart, and gathered round him were three architects holding scrolls and discussing the ancient Chinese theory of five elements.
Mercury and Saturn were transiting his sixth house in Aquarius, and one of the scholars brought a map of Beijing, an aerial view, and set it on the table.
“I’ve decided to make Beijing the imperial city,” said Zhu Di.
“Too risky, Your Majesty. The Mongols-“
“Let’s begin with a barrier that cannot be broken.”
“Water cannot be broken.”
Neptune was paving the way in Gemini, and Pluto was there too, with his natal Uranus.
Gemini rules the air of pedestrians, city air, and the emperor was city planning,
sitting on a solid foundation.
They applied autochthonous laws carefully, and there was play among them too. Jupiter Uranus in Capricorn can bring out Enki and his hardware.
“The correct location, most auspicious, for Your Majesty’s residence is here,” said one of the architects, pointing at the map. “The Palace of Purity would be a suitable name.”
“But it’s only metres away from the Palace of Great Brilliance!”
“Capricorn is a practical sign, Sire.”
“But won’t the names clash?”
“Contrast makes good yin yang.”
Chart for July 25, 1320
Back in the summer of 1320, before Zhu Di was born, in a land we now call Mexico, the elder of a nomadic tribe had a dream. His name was Tenoch.
“The god Huitzilopochtli sent me a dream,” said Tenoch. “An eagle eating a snake on a prickly pear cactus. We must go find it and settle there.”
He led the tribe across the land while Jupiter and Uranus danced and conjoined in Capricorn. They travelled far until they came upon a lake of brackish waters. There was an island in the middle of the lake, and perched on a prickly pear cactus was an eagle eating a snake.
The people of the tribe knelt on the marshlands bordering the lake.
“When the eagle flies, we will build a sacrificial altar where the cactus lies, and we will go in search of fresh water,” said Tenoch.
The eagle flew and they built the altar and went in search of fresh water.
They didn’t find fresh water that day, so Tenoch changed the direction of the altar.
They didn’t find fresh water the following day, so Tenoch changed the direction of the altar.
When they found fresh water, they knew the altar was facing in the most auspicious direction.
Next they had to figure out how to anchor the island to the mainland, and how to build an aqueduct.
Can’t build a city without a good foundation.
They built bridges that could be removed in case of an attack, and they built an aqueduct, and the council of elders made Tenoch chief.
On March 13, 1325, Tenoch made a sacrifice to the patron god Huitzilopochtli, and founded the city of Tenochtitlan.
Chart for March 13, 1325
The city would grow to become-
“Not the imperial city!”
“Of course not, Your Majesty. The imperial city cannot have more than 9,999 rooms.”
“That’s correct. Nine times four is thirty-six, and three plus six is nine. Nine is the highest single number. It is Your Majesty’s number as the son of heaven.”
“Add one room and Your Majesty will be in heaven. 10,000 is the number for infinity.”
His Majesty’s eyes grew wide in panic.
“How will I control that! What if someone adds a partition!”
“You are right, Sire. We will keep the rooms at 9,000. It leaves plenty of room to play.”
“9,000 has as much omnipotence as 9,999.”
“I could use some of that,” sighed Zhu Di.
Sensing his dilemma, the eldest architect wrote down the name of a medicine man and handed it to the emperor’s most trusted eunuch,
and the medicine man’s medicinal herbs revitalized the emperor.
He could once again feel the tug of the Jupiter Uranus square to his natal Venus and his natal Mars.
They went on to discuss colours at the Academy, the symbolism of colours in the land, and they gave the emperor exclusive rights to yellow and red.
They discussed roofs, the symbolism of the various roofs in the land, and they gave the emperor exclusive rights to the hip roof that curved up.
They formalized a hierarchy of colours and a hierarchy of roofs.
They chose the wood, the marble and the tiles for the city, and thought of how they would transport such large quantities.
When repairs to the Grand Canal were completed, the emperor sailed to Beijing holding the meh.
Construction of the imperial city began in 1406.
Chart for January 1, 1406, timed to match Zhu Di’s chart
With Saturn transiting his seventh house, conjoining his natal Neptune, he erased his nephew’s rule and reset time.
“Hanky panky,” said the people of the land, not without affection.
There is the story of a wicked stepmother in Aries. The wicked stepmother who would not let the son of a concubine be emperor, fourth son in line.
With Jupiter transiting his seventh house, conjoining his natal Mars, he defied her.
“Defiant, like his father.”
He was the subject of local talk, the warrior emperor, scholar emperor, building an imperial city and consolidating China, and sending diplomatic expeditions.
In 1403, the year Jupiter and Uranus danced together in Capricorn, he ordered the construction of a treasure fleet, and he made his most trusted eunuch Zheng He commander of the fleet.
He sent Zheng He off with gifts of gold, porcelain and silk to the rulers of India, Arabia and Africa.
Historians have come up with conjectures about why he may have done this – conquest, influence, power, or to find his nephew who may have escaped when he entered Nanjing.
It was curiosity.
He was curious to see what they would send back.
They once sent him a giraffe.
Chart for September 20, 1414, timed to match Zhu Di’s chart
Transiting Uranus was in Aquarius, and the people who worked for him came up with the idea of presenting it to the people of the land as a qilin, a magical creature in Chinese mythology. Its appearance was said to signal a benevolent ruler, a sage. Its appearance had signalled the birth of Confucius.
“It will unblock your acceptance in the group you belong to, Your Majesty.”
“The people will rally behind you.”
“No one will doubt you are the son of heaven.”
The fifth house is the house of romance, children, and how we parent, and with Capricorn in the fifth, he was subject to the influence of an authority figure,
until that day in 1406.
He took charge that day and became the parent, and with the ruler in Leo in the twelfth, he presented his subjects with the finest gifts from travels abroad, the finest big animal,
and an imperial city. It was completed in 1420, four years before he died.
He lived in his old palace and watched the meh become a foundation, the centre of rituals and ceremonies. Of use for 500 years. A cultural monument. A model.
youtube.com/watch?v=HTpZELFKH2w
Jupiter and Uranus have danced and conjoined in Aquarius every 84 years more or less, at least since the 15th century.
They conjoined in Aquarius in 1417, when Italy took an interest in the past, in ancient Greek and Roman art, in the ancient philosophers, Cicero and Plato, and there came the revival we call the Renaissance.
The gods of the past, pagan gods, Bacchus and Pan, found a place in Christian times. The gold leaf of the Middle Ages, applied around the figures of Christ, the Virgin and the Saints, was replaced with landscape and architecture, bringing heaven down to earth.
Mathematics entered the practice of art, and the use of linear perspective was codified.
Christ giving the keys of the kingdom to St. Peter by Perugino, 1481
The planets conjoined again in 1499, when the Renaissance was underway.
Chart for December 30, 1499
A lyrical stellium in Capricorn, patterns that flow
on a foundation joined with Taurus, in the body and the earth,
not without sacrifice, a sandal lost, and demons to vanquish
Driven by passion
to make soul,
to dig beneath the surface and evoke
with grace, purity of form, and a balanced composition
emotion.
La Pietà by Michelangelo, 1499
He was 24 when he finished it.
Chart for Michelangelo, born March 6, 1475, Caprese, data from birth record
He had ancestry in the Florentine Valley, and they say his father owned a marble quarry. There was something he understood about marble that feels innate, effortless, but that came with having held a chisel from a young age.
His father sent him to grammar school but he was interested in art, and he was apprenticed with one of the leading Renaissance artists.
Aquarius is in his third house, and Jupiter, ruler of his Ascendant and fourth house is in Aquarius. Mercury is also there, ruler of his house of contracts and house of reputation.
Local artist and local patrons in a universal sign,
with Saturn in Cancer in the eighth.
He lived in Florence and in Rome, place of banking families and popes,
who promoted their own. A universality ingrown.
Saturn in Cancer asked for references in the lake of memories, in the art that came before, classical art, and in the current trends. In the ancient writers and writers of the time, like Alberti who codified perspective, and in religious texts, the bible.
They say that after the damage made by the French King Charles VIII, the French Cardinal Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas was sent to Italy to make repairs. He came to live in Rome as ambassador to the Holy See, and for the Jubilee year 1500, when thousands would flock to St. Peter’s Basilica, he wanted to present a gift,
a Madonna della Pietà, and he gave Michelangelo the commission in 1498.
They must have discussed Pietàs that came before.
Pietà, school of Avignon, early 1400s
They must have discussed the composition of the piece, the size, the viewer’s point of view.
Renaissance art had become highly conventional. There were guidelines to follow, harmony of proportions, symmetry, unity and-
“Don’t forget to add embellishment,” the Cardinal said.
In Classical art, embellishment was the interplay of opposites, chiaroscuro, light and dark, movement and repose.
Jupiter was returning in his chart, a Jupiter return that conjoined Uranus.
His arete elevated him.
The artist who brought heaven to earth,
the artist of divine inspiration.
With Michelangelo, the idea of the artist as creator was born,
shapeshifter.
His next commission was David, symbol of Florence, meant to be placed on the gable of the Cathedral. He sculpted it with the viewer in mind, standing below.
Jupiter in the chart can tell of a gift, a talent developed over time, and his was the ability to give up symmetry for another, distort anatomy for another, to see from another’s point of view. Planet of hospitality.
Over time, he earned the trust of his patrons, and he co-opted them to see from his point of view, Sag rising that he was, in a sextile to Mercury.
He formed a club that would become the foundation of a masterpiece. A club funded by the resources of his patrons and the establishment, in Cancer. A club that depended on his loyalty to the lake of memories, in Pisces. A club willing to be iconoclastic, for bringing heaven to earth would have been a form of iconoclasm in earlier times. Heresy, even.
He was born during a time when Uranus and Neptune danced together in Scorpio, when the scholar Marsilio Ficino, a solar Scorpio, translated ancient Greek manuscripts into Latin. He made accessible the gods of the Greeks, the astrology of the Greeks, their medicine, alchemy, magic.
Fear of excommunication, fear of the inquisition, kept interest in the discoveries behind closed doors,
until Pluto joined the dance in the 1490s.
Could Christian faith live side by side with the paganism of the Greeks, the humanism of the Greeks?
There is an inclination for the mysteries in Scorpio, an inclination to find out, and the Renaissance was finding out.
Such planets in his twelfth house brought him secret enemies.
Pope Julius II knew, patron and protector. He asked Michelangelo to come to Rome, paint the Sistine Ceiling.
“Give me freedom and I will paint it.”
Freedom tied to the social fabric.
He began in 1508.
Chart for November 1, 1508, Rome
He would not break the order of things, but stretch them to the limit.
If one of the requirements of Renaissance art was embellishment, he would make embellishment the focus of his art,
dig in the riches of embellishment,
the interplay of opposites.
Not just of light and dark, contrasting colours, and bodies turning in different directions, but of religious figures and secular figures, central themes and marginalia.
Virgo can do that. Focus on one thing.
Mars was transiting Capricorn in his second house of resources, and there is history in Capricorn, the history of art, and he had been studying art since he was a boy.
He relied on his foundation
to show off,
to show off his sprezzatura,
the ability to make art look effortless.
Mars in a square to Uranus in Pisces, and to his natal stellium in Pisces, can cause a craze, the Michelangelo craze.
His natal Venus was in opposition to transiting Venus retrograding in Libra, and he was introducing a new style, a style with a focus on embellishment, the style we call Mannerism.
If there were those who would do him harm, Jupiter’s transit through the twelfth house brought him protection. His gifts don’t come easy. There were all the preparatory drawings, the studies, the endless corrections. Four years of labour, arrangement, invention.
Pluto’s transit through his first house made him dig with his whole life, and made him a powerful man, tied to a powerful pope, of like mind.
Pope Julius II got to see the work completed before he died.
“Michelangelo,” he said. “You’ve proven that they can co exist.”
Moses by Michelangelo, Tomb for Julius II, San Pietro in Vincoli, completed in 1545
The third house is the house of the village that raises us and the house of skills, the skills we pick up to make life better.
He improved his understanding of anatomy in the church morgue.
He could learn from live models and relics of the past, like the Belvedere Torso he so admired,
Belvedere Torso by Apollonius, 1st century BC
but Mercury in his chart is in a square to Scorpio, pushing him to find out, dissect, and the prior of the Church of Santo Spirito allowed him entrance.
A progressive prior, willing to break a taboo for a student’s mastery, for art and the glory of god.
It was a time when the church relied on the skills of artisans and artists.
It was a time when the church relied on guilds.
They say that Renaissance architecture begins with Brunelleschi’s dome for the Cathedral in Florence.
The Arte della Lana, the guild of wool merchants, had taken patronage for the construction of the Cathedral in the 1300s, but the dome was still missing. In 1418, it held a design competition and gave Brunelleschi the commission.
Brunelleschi was inspired by the dome of the Pantheon in Rome, but the technique to build it had been lost, and so he devised a new way to build an old dome.
Like other artists of his time, Michelangelo never belonged to a guild or a confraternity.
They say his mother died when he was six years old, and his father sent him to live with his nanny, married to a stonemason who worked at the marble quarry.
Pluto in his chart is in Virgo, and a stone mason first taught him to hold a chisel and hammer. He was later apprenticed in the workshop of Ghirlandaio.
Powerful people who taught him his craft, powerful to him, until he came into his own.
Chart for June 1, 1533
Pluto began his transit through Aquarius in 1533,
the year Pope Clement VII approved Copernicus’ theory that the earth revolved around the sun. Pope Paul III approved it too in 1534. He was the first pope of the Counter Reformation.
A decentering, and making reforms to stay central.
It was Clement VII who commissioned Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, and Paul III who would see it carried out, above the altar of the Sistine Chapel.
June 1 was the day of Anne Boleyn’s coronation. Clement VII had not given Henry VIII permission to marry her, but he married her anyway, and would soon become head of the Church of England.
The time of Michelangelo’s second Saturn return.
Around this time he met Tommaso dei Cavalieri, a young nobleman he was smitten with.
He wrote him poems and sent him drawings,
poems that play with desire, unrequited,
an armed cavalier’s prisoner I remain.
The cavalier put a barrier of virtue between them,
and Michelangelo asked if it was because he lacked wings. Who was he to pursue an angel when he lacked wings. Never mind, he said. His heart would char to ashes, but like the phoenix, rise again, brighter than before.
The correspondence between them lasted until Tommaso married, but they remained friends.
Neptune was in that place between Pisces and Aries in his fifth house, and Mars was in Aries, conjoining his natal Venus, bringing romance into his life, a romance that opened doors to his community in Libra, gave the artistic community licence to homosexual love. Safe haven.
The powerful people in his life during this time were the ones who inspired him to draw and to write, people who inspired his conclusion to the High Renaissance.
There was Tommaso,
and there was the marquise Vittoria Colonna, poet in her own right. More a mother than a friend, she took an edifying role, like Dante’s Beatrice, and when he began to paint the Last Judgement, she sent him a monocle.
Michelangelo honouring the dead body of Vittoria Colonna by Francesco Jacovacci, 1880
There was the village that raised him,
the village that rushed to make copies and prints of the original work, with all the nakedness and mischief of the grand master, before the spirit of the Counter Reformation changed figures and added breeches.
Last Judgements traditionally relied on the audience’s knowledge of the scriptures, as imparted by the church.
Fra Angelico’s Last Judgement, painted during the Early Renaissance, made personal statements to a learned audience, and added an element of entertainment.
Last Judgement by Fra Angelico, 1435-40
thevcs.org/videos/gemaldegalerie-unlocking-christian-art-jesus-christ/9-last-judgement
Michelangelo’s Last Judgement tests the audience’s knowledge of the scriptures, the passion of Christ, the saints and symbols of their martyrdom,
because there are no halos, no wings.
Bodies, indecorous, in a moment of chaos,
beau laid.
It tests the audience’s knowledge of the ancients,
Apollo, god of the Sun,
an Apollonian Christ,
and below him, Charon, ferrying the damned into hell.
Christian and pagan on the same plane.
The Last Judgement by Michelangelo, 1534-1541
The fresco was unveiled on October 31, 1541, with Pluto in Aquarius and Uranus in Leo.
His own.
He broke the conventional image of Christ, but did not change it. Some of the later copies of his Last Judgement give Christ back his beard.
Last Judgement after Michelangelo, cirlce of Guilio Clovio, tempera on parchment, ca 1570
Still, he set the stage for something new in art, not just humanism, but realism.
Neptune was transiting Aries, conjoining his natal Venus, and there can be a confrontation with reality in Aries, a fight against the ideals and conventions in Aquarius, and Aquarius can fight back.
The tension in Baroque art.
Chart for Victor Hugo, born February 26, 1802, Besançon, France, data from birth record
No one better than Pisces to express
the tension between two snakes
Tails tied by the knot of Necessity
Ananke
and mouths about to kiss
the kiss of Eros
He takes us wandering through the streets of Paris in 1482, and tells us about the feast of fools.
His purpose was with Mars in Aquarius, a social purpose. To raise consciousness, the consciousness of his homeland. He had already tried to stop the destruction of old buildings, the gothic architecture of the past, books written in stone, to no avail, and he feared for Notre Dame. He feared that the printing press would replace her and we’d find out about her in a book, get to know her in a book.
He had procrastinated writing the book, until the weight of responsibility bore down on him when his publisher gave him a deadline, February of next year, 1831.
He studied the history but did not plan the story he’d write, not with that stellium in Pisces. Ananke lives in the sign and her force can be greater than us.
What is destined.
He had learned not to fight against her, learned to go with the flow, and he began wandering the streets, pouring out his thoughts, and came upon the feast of fools. He saw a costume that was sure to win, and when he touched it with his mind’s eye, it was made of flesh,
flesh that would be punished.
The hunchback asked for water and the gypsy girl gave him water,
and a story began to take shape, in that liminal place between two snakes, where Romanticism was born.
A tear for a drop of water by Luc-Olivier Merson, 1903
He changed the order of things and made us pay attention, not to the altar of the church, but to the gargoyles, and the hunchback that lived among them.
It was on the roof that sculptors had free reign.
The amulets of Notre Dame, the amulet of the gypsy girl, the alchemy of the priest. Superstition, sorcery, sanctuary.
Mars drew the hidden languages and protective measures of many cultures, past and present, into Aquarius,
and he gave them equal value.
The gypsy girl carried an amulet that would help her find her parents, but it would lose its virtue if she were to lose hers,
the driving force of the story in a charm,
a radical arrangement.
In Pisces she fell in love with love itself
when she set eyes on Phoebus.
To consummate this love, the kiss of Eros, would deprive her of her origins.
Such is the nature of Romantic love in the sign.
Rescue came in the form of the priest who stabbed Phoebus, the jealous priest, burning with desire for her.
The hunchback would protect her from the priest,
the only one who knew how to live in that liminal place.
In the end, the priest led the gypsy girl to her mother. He threw her into a hole in the wall where the recluse lived, the recluse who accused her of stealing her child.
But I wasn’t even born then, she defended herself, opening the bag she wore around her neck, the bag that had her amulet,
a little shoe that the recluse recognized,
the recluse had the other.
She was carried by her mother before she was taken away and hanged,
and the hunchback found her body and held her until he died.
Notre Dame de Paris, 1482, was published on March 16, 1831
“Have you finish reading it?”
“Yes. Do you want to borrow it?”
“I’ve read it. I’m thinking of going to the cathedral.”
“I’ll come with you.”
They spoke of the riots on their way there.
“It’s the silk workers causing trouble.”
“The price of silk has dropped and their wages have dropped, so they want a minimum price imposed on silk.”
“A minimum wage would make more sense.”
When they got to the cathedral, there were many people there, holding copies of the book.
“Where did he fall from?”
“Way up there, over the balustrade.”
“He pushed him.”
“I would have pushed him too! The villain priest!”
“The gipsy girl and the villain priest. Hugo has enriched our vocabulary.”
“She’s in such disrepair. A shame.”
“No bell ringer and no priest. She’s living through one of those gaps, you know, like an interregnum.”
“A long interregnum.”
“Over 3 centuries long.”
“Those sculptures over there were decapitated during the revolution.”
“The bells were melted down to make cannons.”
“He must have watched her dance right here where we’re standing.”
“Look! A goat!”
They looked at the goat in astonishment.
“It’s a sign.”
They made the sign of the cross.
“She wants us to keep her memory alive.”
“How-“
“We should ask the authorities to restore her. She’s historic-“
“A place of sanctuary.”
Sanctuary by Luc-Olivier Merson
Jupiter Uranus formed an exact conjunction at 27 degrees Pisces on January 4, 2011, the day Mohamed Bouazizi died.
The day he became a martyr.
While he was in the hospital, Jupiter and Uranus danced in Pisces, and his story danced as well, taking the shape of those who told it, voicing the grievances of those who told it.
Through word of mouth and social media.
One story bringing people together. One story creating a crowd.
In Aquarius we are separate but together.
Pisces rules the crowd, pressed together.
There is that side of the sign that can lose itself in a crowd, and the side that can sense when it’s time for a new era.
So when the president of 23 years promised to make reforms and not to run again, it was too late.
They say that during the protests, social media was used primarily for logistics, the places to avoid, and to bypass censorship and show the world.
nationalpost.com/news/q-a-what-role-did-social-media-play-in-tunisias-revolution
A new kind of crowd was emerging, one that the president was unfamiliar with and could not sway. It was intelligent. It knew its history and laws. It understood the psychological manipulation of those in power.
There is discipline in the chart. A square that guards a foundation. They say Tunisia was the right place to begin the Arab Spring, because of its good foundation for a multi party system.
In Pisces lives Ananke
and Mercury in Pisces can give the sign a Romantic streak
But on this day Mercury was in Sag
and Sag wants a taste of that kiss
A crowd with a mission
come what may.
On January 14, with Jupiter and Uranus one degree apart and Mercury at one degree Capricorn, the president and his family went into exile.
Chart for Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, born September 3, 1936, Hammam-Sousse, Tunisia, time unknown
There is in the chart faithfulness to the homeland, sacrifice and labour, and a great sense of responsibility.
Like his predecessor, he made a commitment to guard the country against religious extremism and leftism. He made a commitment to a secular system of government, democratic.
There is engagement in his chart. Jupiter in Sag can be hyper engaged,
in a t-square with Saturn in Pisces and Neptune in Virgo.
Saturn Neptune can unblock. They can push and pull to unblock in an opposition.
But in this opposition, with his faithfulness and commitment, and with Venus in Virgo holding her beauty balm,
it held him from unblocking.
It built temples instead.
There is service in every sign.
Pisces can serve people it may never know, in this world and on the other side, permeable sign.
Catching fallen blossoms with a fish net by Suzuki Harunobu, 1766
There are scary things in Pisces
abstract
isms
and Saturn asked him for mastery, and he was a military man. He served his people by putting barriers that prevented any isms from getting through,
and time stood still. Neptune could not pave the way for the order of things to progress.
He was a prisoner like everyone else, caught in a t-square, until Jupiter Uranus freed him.
The conjunction was in opposition to his natal Venus and in a trine to his natal Pluto,
and the crowd chanted, Dégage!
Chart for Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, timed
He offered an ideal image of Tunisia, a safe place for tourism,
and when he left, democracy took its course.
January 29 and February 7 1845
