Venus, Mars and Neptune, with a little Zeus for good measure…

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Thunderbolts are go!

Today I would like to look in some detail at the various dynamics of the relating planets – Venus and Mars – in their applications to Neptune. Whilst not nearly as abrasively uncomfortable as Venus and Mars to Pluto connections, this blend does create its own unique difficulty and with understanding, there is certainly enormous potential for progress.

I could of course talk in the abstract about these energies, but it would be better in my view to use the example of Venus Williams, the American tennis sensation who has won, with her sister, every major title and honour in the sport. Let us begin by looking at her chart for reference:

Venus Williams: 17 June 1980, 14:12 (+7:00) Lynwood CA, USA

Of course, what can be seen right away is the enormous number of correlations to her sister Serena: here are just a few:

• Vesta (at one level, the sister) is on the Aries Point, thus public projection and prominence are the result in relation to the female sibling.
• The only real connection that Vesta makes though – at a subjective level – is its conjunction to Sun, thus the father is the common ground, and pretty much the only common ground.
• The asteroid Isis (42) is exactly conjunct the Midheaven: a career configured with a sibling, (Isis also relates to sibling relationships), and with the sign Cancer there is tenacity and loyalty here, but crucially, the conjunction is squared by Icarus (1566), and this is a square from Isis to Icarus of only 7 minutes of arc, so there is astonishing adrenaline-producing tension between them; a big part of her drive to the top is based upon her need to beat her sister, to be faster, better, in Icarus’ terms, to fly higher!
• Mercury is at the apex of a tee-square from Pluto opposition Pallas. If we take Mercury to signify sibling relationships, what we have here is in fact sibling rivalry, Pallas speaks of behaviours and strategies that are developed to please others, and learned (most especially in a female nativity) through the daughter role; thus pleasing father is the key. Imagine how that feels when opposed by Pluto; it’s not going to be comfortable; there’s a real desperate, gun-to-the-head quality at work here, must be what father wants, and that tension gets channelled into Mercury, into the sibling dynamic. Note how Pluto is ruled by Venus and Pallas by Mars, and these planets are square to each other and both in hard aspect to Neptune, there’s essentially a competition here based on a need to be more attractive than the sibling, to be more lovable, to be preferable to father. This is echoed by a conjunction of the asteroid Lilith (1181) to Pluto, selection or favouritism, being the chosen one is a life or death issue.

The ultimate sibling rivalry, Venus as runner-up...

Now let’s consider, in this context, the tee-square of Mars, Venus and Neptune. Mars is the focus of the tee-square from Venus opposition Neptune and is therefore squared by both and importantly ruled by Mercury, echoing the key motivator in the pattern, being more attractive to father than the sibling. Confusing messages about sexuality would have begun here, love would have begun to unravel as a concept, and very early on this would have been a feature of the family dynamic. All the groundwork for later psychological imprints is done between the ages of 3 and 5 when the hard aspects of Mars to Venus/Neptune and Pluto to Pallas are perfected by Solar Arc, these early childhood years are formative in terms of the sibling dynamic and an awareness of what it means to compete for and win father’s attention begins to make itself felt. In any case, Neptune configured with the Venus-Mars square is profoundly significant, and this is the timing that we can isolate through Solar Arc measurement. We can project these timings forward and look for applications to angles to determine major transition points in relation to these early dynamics. We note the following:

Lifetime Solar Arc directions to As/Mc

1999 was Venus’ breakthrough year, and it marked a period when both herself and her sister Serena were in the zenith of their sport, Venus was ranked in the world’s top 3 for the first time and she faced her sister in a major final for the first time too. The sibling rivalry dynamic was lit up by the Sun’s presence at the zenith of the chart, and with Sun in Gemini, ruling Mercury therefore, it was inevitable that her sister would be configured.

Moving ahead to 2003, the Venusian quality is illuminated by the Arc to the Midheaven. The date here is 5th August and exactly 40 days later, her sister Yetunde Price was murdered by mistake (Venus is opposed to Neptune) in a drug-related drive-by shooting (squared to Mars which is profoundly conjunct Zeus, which rules firearms) near the tennis courts where the sisters used to practise when younger. Note too that Yetunde was a half-sister, and half-siblings are very often a feature of hard Mercury-Pluto contacts. 2004 was inevitably a hard year, Venus lost much of her previous form and struggled to make her usual impact in part because of a persistent abdominal injury which first troubled her at the time of her sister’s shooting. Note then that Mars (violence) conjunct Zeus (firearms) falls at 17 Virgo, the degree that corresponds to the abdominal muscles.

What we glean from the general tone and dynamic of the nativity is that this tee-square is profoundly powerful, most especially when it is activated by Solar Arc in this way. Let us try to understand the energy at work here, because these planetary relationships do manifest in very specific ways. When we understand and recognise these patterns we begin to be released from their unconscious directives.

The theory of tee-squares is very simple. The opposition creates a pattern of dissatisfaction, inability to find peace because of contrary drives, and the tension this creates is expressed through the apex planet; it fuels the apex point, and in the nature of the square aspect is a tense, driven, challenging and experientially uncomfortable force; it is the channel through which the internal tension is cathartised. Thus, when we understand the opposition, we can begin to speculate as to the motive force behind the external expression of drive.

So, Venus opposition Neptune. We can tell right away that there is a problem balancing (opposition) the themes of love (Venus) and reality (Neptune); in a nutshell it describes a condition whereby the experience of love never quite matches up to the ideal. There is a longing and a yearning – at a very deep level – for perfect romantic union, and the usual pattern for the individual with this aspect is to fall in love very quickly, and for a time everything is perfect, wonderful, a transport of the most exalted kind; the new partner is delightful in every way, it is a rapture, a deep and rapturous soul-union and all is well with the world. Neptune creates enormously high expectations, indeed, it creates impossible expectations, and this is the mechanism by which the innate spirituality of the planet is awakened, regardless of what planets it contacts. The expectations of impersonal Neptune are designed to be so perfect that they have to be beyond the reach of any mere mortal being, so the inevitable conclusion is disappointment (another profoundly Neptunian theme), and with time and repeated episodes of disillusionment in relation to the contacting archetype (in this case Venus, thus romantic disappointment), the transcending process is awakened. The soul learns that no other human can fulfill the dreamy expectations of Neptune, so the love nature begins to focus on transcendent objects of love, the divine, the spiritual, a love of humanity; impersonal love is awakened, the soul begins to focus on spiritual rather than personal desires and themes. Neptune uses divine discontent to fuel the journey toward transcendence.

Mundanely, the pattern is nearly always identical; I call this the ‘One Who Got Away’ Syndrome. Usually, there was a figure from the past with whom the individual didn’t quite consummate a relationship. There may have been a brief fling, or even no fling at all, just a desire for one, but crucially, the relationship never progressed beyond the first rapturous days and weeks of divine contentment. The relationship may have lasted long enough to have been in some way meaningful, but never so long for the mundane and unpleasant realities to impinge upon Neptune’s awareness. The personal hygiene issues and tendency to be a real grump on Monday mornings never quite registered, so the relationship still holds the promise of perfection, even after it is over. Often the reason that the relationship ended is considered to be in some way tragic, as befits Neptune, perhaps they were forced apart by external circumstances and loss and sorrow are bound up in the story, but crucially, it is important to recognise that had the relationship managed to progress, then it would inevitably have fallen into the disappointment trap: because that is what Neptune does.

Now we should consider in this exact context the fact that Mars also squares Neptune. You can put this together yourself, because as the other major component of relationship, Mars concerns itself with sexual (as opposed to romantic) love and this then is also pushed to be the focus of the Neptunian disappointment trap. Typically, Mars – Neptune has very vivid sexual fantasizes that – again – cannot be satisfied by mundane reality and so sex becomes a disappointment too. The wish is to be transported into a state of sexual Nirvana, but it cannot happen, the woman with this aspect especially tends to project it onto the man in her life, his sexual performance doesn’t therefore match up: it is always disappointing. The man is of course perfectly aware of this (albeit at an unconscious level) and this is why he often takes refuge from the self-doubt that is engendered by the projection in Neptunian themes, alcohol, drugs, pornography and illicit affairs. Deception becomes a key component of the projected dynamic. It is astoundingly common for Mars – Neptune women to discover that their husband has been having an affair behind their back, often for many years! The dynamic is quite compelling, knowing (deep-down) that he can never satisfy his wife’s sexual needs, he protects himself from emasculation and ego-collapse by finding somebody whose sexual needs he can satisfy. He is not ostensibly being unfaithful even, or at least that was never his objective, it is invariably an act of self-defence (although understandably it is extremely difficult for the deceived partner to see it this way).

Finally, Venus squares Mars, and here there is no transcendent conundrum, this is simply an inability to reconcile love and sex, the two feel uncomfortable because there is a competition dynamic at play where love is concerned. Love (Venus) becomes confused with winning (Mars), indeed, all Venusian themes are given dynamic tension through the competitive, physical, go-getting drive of Mars. This dynamic again plays out in Venus Williams’ nativity: with Venus in Gemini (siblings), there is a competitive edge to the need to be loved. Competing for love, might be the watchword of this aspect, and remember that this square rule the Pallas-Pluto/Lilith opposition, which says “if I’m not father’s favourite, then I’ll die”. It was her father who pushed the sister’s to become tennis players and his ruthless determination that they be the best that has provided much of the energy for their astonishing rise to prominence.

There is so much more of interest here (if I had the time I’d write it all out), but suffice to say:

• Consider how the tee-square expresses. Mars is in Virgo, so power is combined with precision. Ed Moses had Cazimi Venus conjunct Mars in Virgo, perfect precision of movement, economy of movement, here force is applied with skill.
• Then Mars is in an absolutely partile conjunction (10 minutes!) with Zeus, the Transneptunian associated with firearms and sports! (Archie Griffin has a Cazimi Zeus!) Zeus threw thunderbolts right? Venus Williams has the fastest serve in women’s tennis:
  

  [From Wikipedia] She holds the record for the fastest serve struck by a woman in a main draw event. At the Zurich Open, she recorded 130 mph (210 km/h). She also holds the record for fastest serve in all four Grand Slam tournaments: 2003 Australian Open quarterfinal – 125 mph (201 km/h), 2007 French Open second round, 2008 Wimbledon final, 2007 US Open first round – 129 mph.At Wimbledon in 2008, her average first serve speed was 115 mph (185 km/h) in the quarterfinal, 116 mph (187 km/h) in the semifinal, and 111 mph (179 km/h) in the final. She also had a higher average serving speed than then World No.1 Roger Federer as well as eventual men’s champion Rafael Nadal.

• Mars is at the halfsum of Uranus and the Midheaven, so unusual authority, career individuation is realised through precision and power (and throwing thunderbolts).
• Venus’ boyfriend Hank Kuehne has (wait for it) Zeus conjunct Sun, with Sun at 18° of Virgo, mere minutes from Venus’ Mars/Zeus conjunction. It’s impossible without knowing his birth time to say how exact this might be, certainly it’s within a few minutes at most. That’s one relationship that was certainly written in the stars!

That’s plenty for this article, please bear in mind that I can apply this same insight (and much greater detail) to your own nativity, so please check Astrology Hour if you would like more information.

Hank Kuehne

 

On the Employment of Politicians

Imagine that you are a king or queen that rules over a vast and fertile country. On the day of your coronation your subjects are happy, prosperous and the land is blessed. Like all good monarchs you desire to do your very best for your country and so, recognising your relative inexperience, you hire the most revered and respected statesman in the kingdom to be your most trusted advisor. There is no matter of policy that you do not seek his view upon, no decision taken that has not had his influence upon it and his reports from all around the kingdom indicate that your rule, and his beneficent advices have created a fair and just society that continues to prosper, where the people are safe and happy, and you are revered amongst the common folk as a wise and gentle ruler. One day you awake and call your advisor to council only to discover that he is fled with your treasure and the people are rising up against you. Years of oppressive rule, famine and disease have pushed them beyond all endurance and the mob calls for your blood in the streets outside the palace gate. Your end is violent, terrifying and swift.

It is not a pleasant vision, and yet it is the story of nearly every human life that employs a tricky politician to be their most trusted advisor. If the mind is your advisor, and it most likely is, then you are already in dire straits though you may not know it; because he cannot be trusted, he does not have your best interest at heart, only his own and though he will tell you that your kingdom is in good order and that the people love you he does not truly know, because his reports are all based on lazy informants and besides, he is too busy coveting the gold to worry overmuch about the world outside. You may well realise his treachery just before the end and bitter indeed will be your last moments as you finally comprehend the folly of your entire reign, you who employed a politician to give you advice. The mind will tell you just what is designed to safeguard its own position, influence and prosperity, irrespective of whether that be the truth or not. The mind will tell you that you are happy and respected even as you are miserable and considered a laughing stock by others. There is no degradation that the mind would not hide from you to further its own design.

This then is the ultimate danger. Given the task of self-regulation the mind – like many a politician – will overstep its boundaries and a little corruption will creep in. It will take campaign funds from some lobbyist or special interest group, or it will ignore the plight of some disadvantaged minority in order to better serve the interests of business and with time and the gradual erosion of any objective standard of behaviour it will become as aristocratic and depraved as any Borgia. Has any man’s final thought in this world been to mull over the value of his property portfolio or the profitability of his investments? And yet these are the obsessions of an entire life, exposed at the last gasp as a cheap imitation of value.

The human mind is a politician; predisposed to cleverness and corruption alike. You believe its every declaration at your eternal peril.

 

Describing the Indescribable

In my last post I discussed the problem with Mercury and made a case for something else. I would not wish to posit a specific astrological entity for the other awareness, it no doubt lies at the centre of your nativity, the place you are drawn to if you are prepared to suffer a little or a lot, or repelled by, if you are otherwise. This otherness is entirely Chirotic, in my view.

And should we find ourselves in pursuit of this ‘other’ faculty that is not the mind, not the feelings and not the body either, we might well ask, “what is it?”. Well, it is a sense of rightness. It is an innate and non-intellectual understanding of things. It has a deeper and more profound sense of conviction than opinion and it informs our experience, our morals and our true sense of self. This principle is easily demonstrable; imagine stealing money from your friend while their back is turned and examine your reaction to the commission of such an act. It does not feel comfortable of course and there is a deep and profound sense of wrongness attached to the action but you will notice that you don’t simply ‘think’ it is wrong; you feel it. If it were an intellectual understanding then it follows that the more intelligent you are, the more moral you would be and that is clearly a nonsense. Indeed, if you wanted to posit a generalisation, you might very well be able to make a case for the opposite truth! Clearly, the mind has no real influence on the morals other than to work very hard at defeating them.

This presents us with a classification problem, not least because we are trying to describe something that does not lend itself to intellectualisation. This is partly because it lies some way above the mind and the mind is not really aware of it all that much, but beyond this it is – for the most part – indescribable.

The usual stratagem is to use a blanket term that satisfies the mind’s propensity for trivialising anything that is not of itself and call this other faculty “the feelings”, although this is clearly misleading too, because whilst a moral sense is apprehensible, it is not particularly felt; certainly not in the way that physicality or the emotions are felt. Thus language rather runs out, but we should not be surprised by this. Language is the medium of the mind after all, and once we move beyond the mind it has no grasp of the tenuous qualities of these strange quasi-mystical environs. We should additionally not be surprised since the numbers of travellers in this rarefied realm are so few and so far between and for the most part they are not ‘men of science’ in particular because they are off in another direction altogether, marching to an entirely different beat.
And this is where the inner path bears no admittance to the sacristy of proof so revered by scientists, if it cannot even be described how much further away is that from the minimum requirement for measurement and analysis? It simply will not do, the hocus-pocus of garden gnomes is as intelligible.

Only for scientists is such explicit vulgarity so enshrined. However, the poet has no such retardation with which to contend and he is free to make an attempt at it, not by creating some improbable taxonomy of labels but rather by invoking the non-mind itself to grasp the fleeting tenets of this unknowable kingdom. Poetry itself is a method of describing the indescribable.

It goes without saying that not all poetry is so inclined, nor that all poetry that attempts it succeeds. But it is inarguable that poetry does invoke in the non-mind of the reader a certain irrefutable awareness of things simply by conjuring a vision or sense of non-intellectual understanding through the exposition of sympathetic themes. This is not disputable even though it is hardly considered an outright definition of the poet’s craft, and from cultures as wildly varying as those which fostered the poetic gifts of Basho and Keats, the common thread of attuning the higher sense with the exact same language – albeit differently configured – that fails to classify it is uncovered. This must not be a mystery to the student of the inner path. It is a truth, and a love for poetry ought to be a sign or indicator of one who is comfortable with the arena of the non-mind. Those who do not ‘get it’ are reading it entirely with their minds after all; seeking literal description rather than the prayer or spell of invocation; because poetry, like prayer, is meaningless to the unbeliever and the mind is incapable of faith. Its only currency is knowledge.

A student of the inner path then should attempt to read poetry. They might even have a go at writing it. There can certainly be no harm in such activity and the potential it nurtures for easing access to the non-mind is invaluable. Any method that increases our familiarity with this most tenuous of realms is beyond value because by it we might realise wealth.

 

New Journal

Just a quiet mention for the advent of my new journal site dedicated to recording the wholly unesoteric sum of my views on real life, at least some of which does not involve astrology. Okay, so that’s a slight misrepresentation I know, life really  is astrology, but it helps to get out there and do something mundane once in a while.

Our Great Outdoors is a serialised ramble about rambling and other outdoor pursuits, I am soon to embark on a hundred mile walk with Alice down the spine of Northern England, from Hadrian’s Wall to the Yorkshire Dales and we’ll be writing that up, as well as our other various misadventures in the same vein.

Please visit and say hello if you get a chance.

 

Retirement?

After much consideration I have decided that I am no longer going to practise as a professional astrologer. I simply cannot earn enough money to make ends meet and the pressure is causing a great deal of anxiety in my life.

I aim to maintain my theoretical interest in the subject and when I feel that I have regained my momentum and sense of optimism about the subject, I hope to go back to making posts here on this journal; I am not sure how long that might take, but I am in a difficult place with my vocation just now and I need to take a break so that I can see clearly how I might move forward with my life.

I guess I could do with a good astrologer…

 

Transits of Pluto: Kill or Cure…

It’s absolutely no coincidence that Ben Franklin’s famous line “in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes” speaks specifically to eighth house matters. Both death and taxes are ruled by Pluto, and to that list, I’d like to make an addition: in this world, nothing is certain but death, taxes and the hard transits of Pluto.”

Mel Gibson ought to be able to attest to that reality because for today’s article I will use his recent history to provide an insight into the reliability of this process and furthermore to echo the underpinning maxim of my previous article: you cannot weigh the Plutonic effect except within the context of the radix nativity. My intention is then to look at a few of the possible repercussions of those Pluto transits which will make themselves felt in the next few years of his life.

This will necessarily be a rather pared down exploration. However, it is a process with which I am extremely familiar as I have used it for several of my clients to very positive effect, although in considerably more depth than this article will allow.

First then, to some ground-rules:

1. Pluto transits will always take on the ambience of his radix position by sign and house and will further activate any natal aspects, particularly those to personal planets. Thus if you have Mars configured to Pluto, the transits, progressions and directions involving the Lord Hades will inevitably intimate a Martian quality. If you have Pluto in Virgo then transits will throw up Virgoan, 6th house themes: health, simplicity, service, the fine detail of things and your day to day habits and working life.
2. Remember too that Pluto kills and then is reborn, so his transits will inevitably reflect this quality also. This tends to mimic, albeit serendipitously, the rule of retrogradation which states that the 3 passes of an outer planet (direct-retrograde-direct) contain a fairly consistent quality of process: shock – acceptance – gift. This is my rule though, so you can disbelieve at your discretion (and peril). Pluto transits echo this exact quality: death of the old form (often violent) – a period of adjustment and mourning – birth of the new form (invariably better than what went before). Of course, Pluto very often makes 5 passes to a point so the process is a little stretched, but the general methodology remains consistent.
3. Aspect styles do matter. Trines are not necessarily easier to experience than squares. The necessity however, for change, is usually felt more keenly so there is less resistance. The conjunction, opposition and square are invariably felt to be more distressing than the so-called easy aspects, but this does not mean that they should be in any way discounted. On the other hand, a hard aspect from Pluto transiting will be a major deal, regardless of any other factor.
4. Even more pertinent is the transit of Pluto to one of the 4 angles. I have meditated on this considerably. If Pluto is crossing the Descendant then in truth he is opposing the Ascendant and that is the pertinent observation. The Pluto transit therefore opposes the self, it challenges one to defend one’s entire way of being through the interactions of others because when we are alone in the world we can behave exactly as we wish (Asc), but we will find our exposition of self challenged as soon as others come into play (Dsc.) What this relates then is that it is the aspect to the Ascendant and the Medium Coeli which is relevant. A square of Pluto to the MC will therefore be only marginally less profound than a transit of the IC. Pity those then whose Ascendant is exactly square their Midheaven!
5. Solar Arcs outweigh mundane transits by a factor of ten to one. If you see a Solar Arc aspect of Pluto to the angles (especially a conjunction to the Asc or MC) then sit up and take serious notice.
6. Similarly, aspects to midpoints are also profoundly insightful, and in many ways translate more directly into events where transits to single points often reflect more general psychological themes that manifest into events. This might appear obscure but when you look at your own transits in this light you will quickly catch the drift. Don McBroom has written an excellent treatise on midpoint theory which (essentially) espouses the philosophy that a midpoint picture can be decoded through the insight that the quality of the intersecting body is realised through the blend of the bisecting bodies. Thus, Moon = Mars/Jupiter might be understood as “security is realised through enterprise.” Similarly, birth might be suggested as a specific transiting event since the sexual principle of Mars is made fruitful by Jupiter and realised through a female, represented by the Moon.

There are many other factors to consider, but these provide an excellent lexicon from which we can create our outline narrative. By far the easiest approach here will be to use the example of Mel Gibson’s recent life and times to illustrate the methodology. In order to understand therefore we must make reference not only to his Pluto transits, but also to his radix nativity thus:

Mel Gibson: 3 Jan 1956, Peekskill NY, USA 16:45 (+5:00)

Looking at Mel’s chart you might begin to wonder why he’s famous at all. The answer lies in the Moon, ruler of the Ascendant, on the Aries point of Libra to the absolute minute! The Solar peregrination is undoubtedly intriguing and it inevitably creates interest in Mel’s father, Hutton Gibson, who has to date 48 grandchildren and is a dyed in the wool Catholic. Hutton once stated that:

The greatest benefit anyone can have is to be a Catholic. You have the lifelong satisfaction of being right. But we can’t go to Mass, there are no sacraments and I feel cheated.

Hutton is a conspiracy theorist who believes that the Second Vatican Council introduced explicitly heretical and forbidden doctrines into the Roman Catholic Church in order to destroy it from within, and he holds that every pope elected since John XXIII, inclusively, has been an anti-pope or illegitimate claimant to the papacy.

The sign of Capricorn is indeed ultraconservative, and here the Sun is ruled by Saturn who is himself squared to Pluto, an aspect which is profoundly and unbendingly dogmatic. Sun is also semisquare Saturn and sesquisquare Pluto, tying the Saturn-Pluto square into a direct configuration with the father figure in Mel’s life. When you consider that Uranus, ruled by the Sun in turn rules the 9th and is opposed by Mercury, ruler of the 4th, you can easily see that there is a great deal of unfinished business in the early home life which specifically relates to his relationship with his father.

Venus too of course is peregrine and in the 8th, which is probably rather bad news for his impending divorce, most especially when you consider that Venus is quindecile Pluto and ruled by Uranus opposed to Mercury and both square to Neptune, but we will discuss this in context a little later on.

Here then are Mel’s major transits of Pluto from the end of 2005 for a period of ten years. I hope to be able to predict with some accuracy the trends which will manifest out into his life from these initial conditions. Of course, it ought to be possible to create a much more detailed picture by including Secondary Progressions of the Sun and Moon, the Solar Returns for each of the years in question and of course major transits and arcs of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune too as well as Solar Arc Directions of all the planets, especially where they make contacts to the angles. For the purpose of this discussion however, it will be easy to demonstrate how accurately the broad strokes can be gleaned from transits of Pluto alone.

It is worth considering this just a little philosophically before we continue too much further. In my experience, no planet’s effects are ever quite so clearly delineated in the life circumstances as are Pluto’s, and it ought to be clear why this is so. Pluto is the most unconscious and compulsive of all the planets, so it is intriguing to note that Pluto transits will be conspicuous in inverse proportion to the level of compassionate evolvement and self-awareness of the individual in question. This is not as overtly disparaging as it sounds upon first inspection: an individual with Pluto making no hard aspects from the 9th house will not be nearly as under the cosh as another person – like Mel – with a Mars – Saturn conjunction squaring Pluto; quite possibly the most difficult of all possible Plutonic combinations. Put simply, Mel has much more Plutonic material to work through than the vast majority, so we should not look upon this as a fault or failing; more a cause for sympathy or at least, understanding.

On December 17th 2005 then, Pluto squared his Midheaven from the 6th house and Sagittarius. Let us consider all the various factors at play in this transit therefore:

1. Tr. Pluto is in the 6th, so his daily habits will be exposed.
2. Na. Pluto is in the third, so transport and communication will be configured.
3. The MC is ruled by Neptune, so religious beliefs and drugs or alcohol are brought into play.
4. Neptune is tee squared by Mercury opposition Uranus, thus sudden vocal outbursts are possible.

On July 28, 2006, at 2:36am PDT, Gibson was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol after being stopped for speeding on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California. A breathalyser test measured Gibson’s blood-alcohol level as “0.12%” (the state’s legal limit is 0.08%), and next to him was an open container of “Cazadores Tequila,” 750ml at 75% full. Gibson was described by the arresting officer James Mee as cooperative until arrested, at which point he became belligerent and experienced mood swings. While handcuffed in the car, Gibson made anti-Semitic remarks to Mee, who is Jewish. Gibson was released on bail at 9 am PDT. The next day Gibson confessed to driving under the influence and to “despicable” behaviour during his arrest, and a frenzy of media coverage followed.

At the time of his arrest, Pluto was by far the closest transiting aspect, in square to Midheaven.

Thus with Pluto less than 4 minutes from partile square with Midheaven (The likelihood of sudden ruin through misuse of power, a crisis at a certain juncture in life [Ebertin, The CSI 1972]) Gibson was arrested (na Sa sq. Pl), for driving (na. Pl in 3rd) under the influence (MC ruled by tee-sq. Ne.); an event which will probably be better remembered for his inappropriate outburst (Me opp. Ur forming the spine of the Ne. tee-sq.). Transiting Uranus was also in the 9th (unorthodox religious views or fanaticism) and at the midpoint of natal Moon and Pluto: again, fanaticism, the desire to fight, and sudden upsets and in quindecile to both Moon and Pluto simultaneously, creating both obsession and compulsion around religious themes.

The sheer number of correspondences is exhaustive, but I must move forward.

Mel’s wife of nearly 30 years, Robyn Gibson filed for divorce on April 13, 2009, citing irreconcilable differences. Gibson’s representative announced in May 2009 that Gibson and his girlfriend, Russian-born musician Oksana Grigorieva, are expecting their first child some time in the fall. It is likely therefore that their child will have been conceived just as Pluto was applying to the Venus-Mars midpoint; one of the most important midpoints in all astrology for predicting major relationship trends. By Ebertin, the transit of Pluto here signifies “a very strong sex life” and “an unusual power of procreation.” Mel’s sexual urges are being supercharged at this time by another major Pluto transit and once again, when you consider that natally Venus is quindecile Pluto, then there seems little doubt that his sexual compulsions will be especially strong at this time; and with Venus in Aquarius, it is unusual women who are fuelling his fire. He will probably marry Olga close to one of these transits. Unfortunately for Mel, the next round of Pluto transits do not exactly favour his new amorous union.

I would say that almost certainly, this relationship will come to an end in 2011. The transit of Pluto across the Venus-Saturn midpoint is extremely unfavourable to the long-term success of their relationship. Alone, this creates unusually strong tension in love-relationship, but on the 15 February transiting Neptune also opposes natal Pluto, which promotes the pursuit of fantastic ideas, self-torment, manias and a craving for alcohol. Mel will undoubtedly throw himself into his work and turn his professional life around; the combination of an interconnected series of transits to the Mars-Jupiter midpoint and his peregrine Sun will undoubtedly spur him to tackling an enormously ambitious project which will fill his days with activity thus distracting from his relationship woes, although it is entirely possible that he will also lose his father at this time as well.

Mel and Olga will probably split as Pluto transits his descendant; but such an outcome is not absolutely assured, Pluto after all is kill or cure. If his new marriage survives this transit then it may stand the test of time, but without considerable transformative work having been realised in the interim, I would imagine this to be unlikely, especially since Jupiter squares Uranus by Solar Arc and this creates an enormous impetus to get oneself free of a stifling situation and taste freedom once more.

There is very much more that could be said here, however, I do believe that this gives a good feeling of the narrative that can be constructed from the transits of Pluto. I am able to offer a more detailed narrative of this type through Astrology Hour, if you are interested in discovering what the future may hold for you in this manner.

In my next article, I aim to use another example of this type to underline the methodologies and techniques employed here.

 

Thanatos, Eros and the Uranus half-return.

Thanatos and Eros

It occurs to me – some 5 days and 2 hours before my Uranus half-return is partile for the first time – that there are very few uniform astrological opportunities of this magnitude available in a human life for evolution. I can only document my own experience of course, but there is no question that as an astrologer, I face the coming days and weeks with a sense of anticipation and reverence that surpasses even that of the Neptune squares which so stealthily dissolved my understanding of success and meaning in this life. I emerged from that transit (I prefer to say that I washed up ashore from that transit actually) having undergone a radical reassessment of my life priorities, although that might inaccurately convey a sense of revolution where there was none at all: the Neptune experience was much more of a return, a homecoming, after years of increasing isolation and loneliness, whereupon I found my way back to myself.

In the initial aftermath of that experience I was disorientated and driven almost insane by the shrieking dissonance between the expectations of a society blind to all meaning and my inner certainty that all the understandings with which I emerged from a difficult and lonely childhood were – despite the roaring remonstrance of that same society – absolutely true. I felt vindicated and cut-off in the same moment. In truth I felt like a stranger in a strange land, even among my own people. The blind society which I refer to was within my own camp: I simply did not recognise a single friend in all the world.

I experienced a most complete spiritual crisis. I could not question the dogma of the world without first understanding my own beliefs, and these, terrifyingly did not seem to exist. I had become a shell. A brittle ego with no inner support threatening to collapse at any moment under the weight of dogma being piled atop my spirit by friends, family, anyone I met, strangers, haters. I realised that I had nothing and, at that point, I began.

Deciding to live life with integrity is the most difficult decision a human being can take. The nature of that ideal – the intrinsic foundation upon which it is built – is first and foremost a determination to be honest with yourself. Not in a way that creates intractability and refusal to be moved compassionately, but in a way that accepts that while you have not lived your life in a way that respects your own needs you have let the ball of string unravel and become a hopeless tangle over the long years of your neglect. Some might have the means to unravel that knot of self-unawareness, or the time, but sometimes you simply have to accept that it cannot be undone. It can only be forgiven.

And that is where I find myself, trying to take back my power, trying to learn to love and to trust for the first time in my adult life. Most of all learning to have respect enough for myself to no longer be denigrated, denounced and decried by the blind and frightened. The first part of that healing journey requires a reconciliation with my purpose and the methods by which I actualise it, and the second lies in finding truth and respect in that path. As an astrologer, I have found that path and that purpose. There is no question that I try, at the very least to dedicate my life to the ideal of helping others to navigate their challenges and difficulties. The process is very familiar to me now and one of these days I shall document it here because it is a simple and wonderful concept.

Most profoundly however, and herein lies the apex of all this preamble, this experience is the bridging mechanism of the Uranus opposition. It is the paradigm-shift from Saturn to Uranus writ into the small-print of my contract with the Universe. I cannot even begin to describe how moving, wonderful, powerful and daunting such a realisation becomes when you begin to understand it in this way. I feel myself being stretched and tempered and purified by it.

This will not be a polemic against the rationalised avarice of our times, however, it cannot be adequate to simply ignore the reality that the Saturnian mindset creates the enormous materialistic blockage of this age. I try to convey this with a little humour: “there was a time that I thought to myself I’d like to buy a Porsche, but when I turned eight it began to seem a little silly. ” And yet, grown men (and sometimes women) of fifty seem unable or unwilling to move on from the exact motivations and aspirations that they entertained in their primary school playground. (That quite frankly seemed a little silly to me even then…)

Astrologically, the process is quite clear.

At 30 (Saturn return) we are challenged to learn the lesson of Kronos and become proficient with the requirements of materiality and structure. Invariably this precedes a sustained period of 10th house focus where we concentrate our effort into vocational and career success and realise the tactile benefits of this innate stage of human development. It is universal, although unique. To some extent too we manifest the qualities of the 10th house through the concerns of Saturn’s natal house placement. That is to say that career and wordly success is realised to create a support structure for the affairs of the house wherein Saturn is found in the nativity. If Saturn is in the 4th therefore, then wordly success supports the need for stability in the home environment.

At 40, the Uranus half-return creates an entirely new impetus but it is one that is tempered by a raft of intermediary realisations. The Pluto square breaks down our most compulsive obstacles to evolution; the Neptune square dissolves materiality and (as with all Neptunian experience) acts almost as a goad to the spiritualising impetus by fostering a burgeoning sense of disappointment with materiality. Our society, cynical to its rotten and dead core, creates an ever-tantalising and diminishing nirvana of wealth however, such that, like the carrot on the stick suspended in front of the donkey we assume that our dissatisfaction might be cured by more…

So while Saturn is earth, Uranus is sky. Mythologically, Saturn castrated Uranus and such is the fear of making the shift from earth to sky, the fear that we might be rendered impotent by it, and so, many of us stay fearfully locked into the Saturn cycle until age 58, when he comes home again and we are offered a final chance to let go of the earth and soar the wide blue realms. Then of course our opportunity is very much diminished.

Looked at in another way, in Freudian concepts at least, Saturn is thanatos, Uranus eros. At midlife we are presented with the choice: to remain with Saturn, wherein the soul dies and the long slow march into materiality and spiritual death ensues – and this is clearly the choice of the very vast majority in a Western society whose only wisdom is based upon a philosophy of greed – or instead to let go and allow ourselves to be infused with a reaffirmation of love and spirit. Here we are required to be enormously resolute in the face of outright derision and slander from all quarters, even, very often, within our own house. But with faith comes, not only emancipation from Saturn and his clutching disciples, but a slow exaltation and exultation, we are freed into our integrity and the changes ring into every corner of our being.

In my own experience I began to feel the rise of kundalini energy in my feet and lower legs many weeks ago. Burning, tingling feet, and occasional rushes of liquefied heat up through my knees and into my abdomen. I could feel the sluggishness of that molten river through the atrophied channels of my subtle body more insistently with each passing day, until like the reinvigorating sap of spring the sensations of clearing out have become less urgent as my solar plexus chakra has begun to clear. I am taking back my power and I will no longer defer to those who want to shout down my contribution to the world simply because it makes them feel insecure about their own.

Right livelihood, right intention, right speech, right action. Out of that resolution you will find those you love, and those who can love you, you will find your true friends, and your means of compassionately supporting yourself and your true family, genetic or otherwise, and all those who become your family. A family that is yours not through birthright, but because they are your own people.

So if you find yourself at this same crossroads: reach for the sky.

 

Venus – Pluto: Love and Survival

Venus - Pluto tries too hard to be liked...

“Pluto connected with Venus is an important factor in love life and married life. Already in the Kosmobiologisches Jahrbuch 1965 I have drawn attention to the fact that the  two “society ladies” Nitribitt of Frankfurt and Keeler of London, in fact had a close conjunction and opposition of Venus and Pluto respectively. In their cases, an excessively accentuated sex life was combined with immoral conduct.”

So says the late, great Ebertin in his seminal treatise on “The Influence of Pluto on Human Love Life”, published in English in 1970: he goes on to intimate something of the profound difficulty with the contact:

“However it must definitely not be thought that Pluto – Venus combinations are always indicative of negative qualities, and that so a warning should be given to be careful about entering into marriage with such a person… Venus and Pluto do not necessarily lead to debauched and licentious ways. They can also endow with charm and popularity.”

Of course, these observations are tinged with the zeitgeist of a different astrological outlook, one that reflects the received wisdom of its time and indeed the subjectivity of its author, but regardless, there is no doubt that Venus – Pluto contacts, most especially in a female chart, are among the most problematic of all; at least they would be considered extremely difficult if the objective of life were to realise and enjoy a calm, secure and uneventfully committed marriage. That is not to say that the contact makes such an amorous Nirvana unattainable, only considerably less likely, but the irony of Venus – Pluto is that it very often thwarts its own deepest desire: to be loved, through its compulsive expression.

Ebertin’s understanding of Venus – Pluto was – whilst laudable for its time – doomed to be overtaken by the increasing sexual sophistication of Western society and an ongoing liberalisation in particular of women’s self-expression and attitudes toward marriage and partnership. Astrology too has raised its expectations and inasmuch as we are no longer condemned by our astrology, we are equally permitted to reach for the very highest potentials of even the most difficult of Plutonic compulsions. The purpose of this life, after all, is to become our best selves: not to remain trapped in a gruelling cycle of blind, desperate self-undoing like unwitting automata enslaved by the soulless mechanisms of a rigid nativity. Venus – Pluto is no exception and shares in common with all Hadean contacts the potential for transformation: indeed, its requirement is to transformation, one that is ongoing and ever exalting, but which – by necessity of providing incentive -  is in its untransformed state nothing short of ugly, base and as subjectively uncomfortable as it is objectively peculiar.

So first, to some broad ground rules. Venus – Pluto can manifest through the entire spectrum of aspectual contacts but as ever its urgency can be determined by gauging all the many factors that are the framework for understanding and insight. Consider the power and weighting of the planets themselves, the placements by house and sign, the aspect type and orb and so forth. Venus in Capricorn square Pluto in Libra will manifest very much differently from Venus in Cancer making the same aspect. To some extent Venus in Scorpio and/or the 8th will share some quality of this aspect and it cannot be denied that Pluto in Libra, most especially when found close to the Descendant and making other connections to personal planets will have some echo of this same quality.

So then, how does Venus – Pluto work in practice? We must first consider the key themes of the energies at play: Venus is concerned with being attractive; how we attract others and too how we make ourselves attractive to them. Venus defines something about beauty for us subjectively. It is most crucial in our manner of relating to the opposite sex and in a woman’s chart especially it describes something about the innate manner of appealing to men, while in a man’s chart it has more to do with the qualities that we find attractive in women. There is a subtle distinction therein of course: Venus in Virgo in a male chart and unmoderated or unrestrained by any other factor finds qualities of refinement, modesty and simplicity attractive in a woman’s manner; then too he will find a woman that is neat, who dresses simply and without ostentation and who above all appears natural and healthy, (no doubt with long, dark hair too!) most pleasing. He will not be impressed by short skirts, skimpy tops and layers of make-up. This of course describes exactly the manner in which the Venus in Virgo woman will seek to make herself appear attractive, but importantly, it does not describe the qualities that she will find attractive in a man any more than it describes the manner in which a man makes himself attractive to women (that is Mars’ domain).

Then of course we have Pluto. Much more difficult to understand, because there is no easy awareness of Plutonic tenets in the human consciousness. Pluto is hidden, forceful but in an insidious and indirect manner, deep – in the sense of being profound and for all of these reasons, he supercharges with invisible power. Most often this manifests as compulsion, which is only an imperative that is hidden from the self. While we cannot see Pluto at work in our lives we are doomed to do his bidding without having any awareness of his control except for a deep and nagging sense of discomfort and lack of ease when we are expressing the energy of the planet thus connected. This is however, a condition that is literally brimming with transformative potential since very often it is only required that one “sees” Pluto in oneself for the transmutation to begin. Seeing Pluto though, requires a glimpse of patterns of behaviour and self-expression that may be deeply unpleasant; even repugnant and it is no surprise therefore that we would very often prefer to not look at all. Pluto rules key biological drives, and as such it coarsens (where Neptune by contrast refines) and when all of these principles are combined we arrive at an expression of the Venusian principle that – untransformed – is crude (at least in terms of subtlety and sophistication), compulsive and control-focused.  The symptoms of Venus-Pluto therefore are an obsession with appearance, in women especially this can manifest as the type of person who dresses in a noticeable manner, and usually one that makes a feature of her ‘best attributes’ in some way. Then too, in encounters with the opposite sex the Venus-Pluto person seems to embark on a continual charm offensive which can be quite overwhelming to the recipient. If you find yourself in contact with Venus – Pluto you may well feel as though you are “in the headlights” as the intensity and focus that characterise the interaction is really quite startling. There is often a magnetic, covertly (and occasionally overtly) sexual undercurrent in the exchange but even where the interaction occurs between members of the same sex this rather disconcerting energy seems to be brought to bear: the Venus – Pluto native wants you to find them attractive, wants to be appreciated, admired and loved, even in the most fleeting and innocuous of encounters.

Of course, the exchange is rarely comfortable for anyone. There is a fundamental sense of anxiety – as with any Plutonic contact – when the untransformed energies are brought to bear. People with Venus – Pluto contacts are actually involved in an inner struggle, the people upon whom they turn their charms find it flattering but usually disconcerting and observers will very often feel ’shut-out’ of the interaction as well. With Venus-Pluto, three is most definitely a crowd. Inevitably this creates enormous difficulties for the spouses and partners of the Venus – Pluto native, but quite possibly, with time and realisation that these intense, charged encounters do not ever ‘tip-over’ into a physical impropriety they become inured to the insecurity and jealousy which characterises the early relationship. Venus – Pluto’s intimate relationships are often something of a battleground for this and other reasons.

To understand the other reasons we have to comprehend something of the motive force behind the contact. In almost every case it boils down to an enormous anxiety about being loved. The native feels that they are in some way unlovable and inevitably this stems from a peculiar set of circumstances in childhood where the parents used affection as a means of control. It really is just that simple. Of course, there are nuances and sub-plots, but fundamentally, this is the long and short of it. There is an unconscious connection between love and survival where a lack of love is perceived in the dark of the soul to be life-threatening. Usually the parents used praise, approbation and affection as a cynical medium of control over the child and indeed the child will have picked up on the ambiguity of these feelings from the earliest age. In my experience this ambiguity can go far back, very often to the stark realisation that the child was not ever wanted at all. This spills over into the dynamic between parent and child so that the child – feeling as though they were never wanted in the first place – is insecure and actually rather desperate for reassurance. The parent unconsciously senses this anxiety and exploits it by giving and withholding love, reassurance and affection to ensure that the child meets their expectations. The Venus – Pluto child therefore learns, and learns well, that love is all about power and control, and learns to be able to switch their own emotions and affections on and off as Mother or Father did so effectively. All of this black baggage is carried into adulthood, and there it remains, subtly poisoning all future relationships until the darkness is faced and transformed once and for all.

The pattern in later relationships is classic and easily identifiable. The partner of Venus – Pluto finds themselves on an ever-shifting surface that is characterised by anxiety and upheaval. Their partner is very demanding, sexually ambiguous yet sexually motivated, is able to disconnect emotionally, thus veering from evincing great warmth to extreme coldness seemingly at a moment’s notice and is apparently obsessed with being attractive to everyone and anyone else. If the relationship survives at all in the face of such pressure then invariably Venus – Pluto’s partner loses all respect for their mate. Women with this aspect (Cher, Madonna, Elizabeth Taylor, Glenn Close) will either form liaisons with men whom they do not love at all – thus allowing them to retain their self-respect – or with men who have no genuine interest in them except possibly as a conquest – wherein they become little more than sex-object which serves only to further undermine their confidence and self-respect. Through this process of humiliation and ever diminishing self-worth she becomes a contemptible non-entity to her partners. Men with the aspect (Woody Allen, Harrison Ford, Rock Hudson, Sean Connery) identify more with the power and control issues of the aspect: they switch emotions on and off at will in order to maintain control of the object of their affections and then begin to complain that their partners are unstable and psychologically damaged. What they fail to see is that it is almost certainly their fault that the woman in their life who wants to be loved and cared for is bewildered and confused by the emotional amputation they are subjected to and eventually it takes its toll on their mental health and wellbeing.

Of course, this is Venus – Pluto at its worst. If you have this aspect and you find that your relationships are a battleground, that you are arguing long into the night and every time you fight it is as though all is lost and yet somehow – against all the odds – the next day you have made up again; then the chances are it has more of a compulsive hold over you than you might imagine. Transformed however, Venus – Pluto creates a treasure of the love nature. If the childhood planted seed of insecurity and anxiety can cease being watered then the choking thicket of love, survival and control can die back to leave a limitless capacity to love in its stead. This undoubtedly takes courage and prodigious levels of honesty. What helps for Venus – Pluto victims is to stop trying to be liked, turn off the charm, dress down and demurely and to stop trying to control people and situations with appearances and affections.

Help with your own Pluto problems can be found here…

 

So, you want to be a writer?

Possibly the most over-asked off-the-cuff question I am asked as an astrologer is : “will I be a writer?”

It normally arrives in this exact format too, undisciplined, badly thought through, open-ended. It occurs (without wanting to split hairs particularly) that so long as one writes, one is by definition a writer. Of course, the question people are most especially asking is whether or not they have the astrological quality to become a successful, published, career author.

The binary nature of the human mind craves, inevitably a stark indicator of such destiny, an x + y = z signpost of such outright clarity and inevitability that somehow, were it present in the nativity the great American novel (or its geographically relocated counterpart) would somehow fall unbidden out of their brain onto paper and be snapped up by clamouring agents and rushed to print. Plaudits would ensue, and all that would be required was to be born at that fortuitous instant wherein success was guaranteed by the machinations of heaven’s unknowable mechanisms.

And of course such simplicity belies the myriad realities of this life. First there must be an idea, an original idea – or at least an idea of sufficient uniqueness as to slip out of the plagiarist’s attire – and then there has to be time and sufficient energy and self-discipline so as to actually write the thing, and attendant upon that must be a modicum of good grammar and a plot or premise worthy of extrapolation and then perhaps some luck and perseverance in the face of a world of indifference, the list goes on, and so it stands to reason that there ought not be a simple solution to the question: “will I be a writer?” Indeed, there is a veritable clamour of contingencies to consider – in the astrology as in life.

But this of course does not mean that there are not combinations which are helpful. I have studied the nativities of authors of various import and I have found a number of clear correspondences: no hard and fast rules (the wearisome cry of rule-bound, constipated statisticians notwithstanding) some extremely intriguing predilections too, and much of my study has involved halfsums, the third house, and of course the planet Mercury.

I can boldly claim that in the vast majority of cases other than the planet Mercury itself, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are most commonly configured in the nativities of successful writers., in almost every case Mars is configured with Mercury or the third house or in an intriguing combination of midpoint factors. On the whole however, the flavour of the astrology has an influence not so clearly upon the binary nature of becoming an author or not, but rather on the style of work evinced. Neptune, for example, figures strongly in the charts of fantasy writers, Venus in romance, Uranus in science fiction and often there might be some other key factor which supercedes even these observations: Barbara Cartland for example evinces a cazimi Cupido…

I will then work on a spectrum of coarse to fine granularity and begin with that most reliable indicator of vocation: the midheaven. By far the most common signs on the 10th house cusp are Gemini, Aquarius and Aries; also to a lesser extent Scorpio. Taurus, Cancer, Libra, Sagittarius and Capricorn almost have no propensity toward a vocation as an author at all (but there are of course exceptions) while Virgo is rather surprisingly under-represented in the author community, which only underlines its lack of suitability as Mercury’s domicile (in this astrologer’s humble view). Aries of course has a go it alone tendency that is undoubtedly well-suited to the solitary pursuit of slogging through an entire manuscript. Gemini, ruled by the writer’s own Mercury is an easy bet, while Aquarius seems to enjoy the novelty of writing novels. Gemini appears to offer the greatest hope for the aspiring author since it appears on the 10th house cusp of a veritable raft of well-known authors thus:

• Charlotte Bronte
• Ernest Hemingway
• Oscar Wilde
• J.R.R. Tolkien
• Charles Dickens
• George Orwell
• Jane Austen
• Jack Kerouac
• Rudyard Kipling
• Louisa May Alcott

Aquarius follows a close second with such luminaries as:

• George Bernard Shaw
• Mary Shelley
• Isaac Asimov
• Jules Verne
• Arthur Conan Doyle
• Leo Tolstoy
• Jack London

To name but a few, and invariably the quality of those novelists is quite distinctive with a marked leaning toward offbeat and rather fantastical genres of fiction being in evidence. It must be remembered though that the Midheaven is but a broad stroke in the matter of the vocation and the condition of its ruler and any major tenants must also be considered.

Next then, the third house. Inevitably, Mercury’s accidental dignity ought to be considered since this represents the area of life most suited to the expression of communication, thus any planet found herein will lend its energy to the writer’s craft. Now it should be no surprise to find that an untenanted 3rd is really quite rare in the astrology of proven writers. That is not to say that it is never to be found – far from it – but invariably there are compensations relating most especially to the Midheaven and the 10th which appear to compensate. Mary Shelley and Thomas Hardy are examples of excellence and cases in point, although both shared Pluto in the 10th (I have studied Hardy’s astrology in depth previously in my article: Pluto on the 10th, Thomas Hardy, Tragedian). Both Mercury (e.g. Oscar Wilde, Paulo Coelho, Jane Austen, Stephen King) and Mars (also Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo, J.R.R. Tolkien) feature heavily in the 3rd houses of many well known writers; but invariably there are tenants in the 3rd regardless with a marked frequency in the cases of Sun, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn too. Moon, Uranus, Pluto and Chiron in the 3rd seem to be least common in the charts of well-known writers.

Noel Tyl made the rather remarkable claim that the midpoint of Mercury and Jupiter is the “signature of a writer” and I certainly understand the logic of that as an idea and I respect Mr Tyl greatly, however, I could not find many examples of this midpoint featuring in these various nativities. It might well indicate the signature of an aspiring writer of course, so I cannot say with any certainty, and about the only meaningful example I could find was that of Michael Crichton who evinced Ur=Me/Ju, thus individuation is realised through writing to improve oneself, to communicate one’s sense of life, through a certain prolific tendency in one’s writing too. Much more startlingly common, however, was the combination of Mercury with Mars in the halfsum, which speaks quite clearly to an exposition of communicative energy: and even where this is not present, there is very often a marked combination of Mercurial and Martian factors which suggests this same quality. Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and Alex Haley (writer of Roots) all share, for example the conjunction, Alexandre Dumas and Tennessee Williams the sextile, Mars tenants the 3rd in numerous cases, and (as a further example of the potential for combination) Charlotte Bronte evinces a mutual reception of the two. In any case, the tendency to find these powers in some sense conjoined, either by midpoint, aspect, house placement or in some other pattern is distinctly marked.

Let us consider an example:

J.R.R. Tolkien, author. 3 Jan 1892, 22:00 (EET -2:00) Bloemfontein S. Africa

Tolkien’s nativity is remarkable in several factors and carries a number of writer’s potentials:

1. The square of Mercury to Saturn has an orb of a mere 2 minutes across the Libra and Capricorn Aries Points, thus giving an enormous tension to the need to write but with a real promise of fame or public recognition.
2. The midheaven is in Gemini.
3. Mars is on the 3rd.
4. Pluto is applying hard to the 10th, tightly configured with Neptune.
5. Following the same logic, the ruler of the 3rd is applying to the 10th, thus writing as a career is a distinct possibility and the Neptune conjunction speaks to an element of fantasy and imagination too.

Like any formula there must always  exist an element of je ne sais quoi in the pursuit of any life objective but the broad indicators are at the very least the sign of the Midheaven, third house tenants and the quality of its ruler also, and any combinations most especially of Mercury with Mars, providing energy, drive and motive power to the writing itself.

Of course, none of these will indicate talent (although Mercury quintiles might be suggestive of this and Tolkien has Me q Ju to his credit), and of course, the most pressing requirement for any writer, (and my most oft-quoted response to the question “will I be a writer?” ) ought to be clear: have you written a book?

It’s a great place to start.

 

Apologies for any inconvenience…

I am going through a dreadful upheaval just now so I am having to defer today’s post until the weekend at the earliest, maybe till Tuesday, I simply haven’t got the mental fortitude to write it out today. However, if you want to read some incredible astrology, go and see my true friend Deirdre, she will tell you something wonderful, have no doubt.

Best wishes to all.