Two polar opposite faces of Aquarius share a birthday today giving a flavour of what might be to come. One was Lord Byron, known as one of the greatest of English romantic poets and forever synonymous with sexual licence and depravity. In his 30s he joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire and died at 36 leading a campaign during that war.
The other is the austere, intellectual Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, imprisoned by Mussolini in his late 30s whose 3000 page Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory. He died 9 years after his incarceration.
Byron, 22 January 1788 2pm London, had an 8th house Aquarius Sun opposition Uranus Moon in Cancer so was drawn to revolutionary causes as well as to sexual liberty. He also had a 9th house Pluto in Aquarius in an Air Grand Trine to Jupiter trine Neptune, with Saturn Venus also in Aquarius in his 9th. And his Moon Uranus opposition Mercury square Neptune – creative, inspired, though none-too-sensible. In his own way he had a vision to communicate through his poetry and was drawn into the Aquarian need to find a worthy cause to devote his life to.
Gramsci, 22 January 1891 11am Ales, Italy, had a 10th house Aquarius Sun square Uranus and trine Neptune Pluto in Gemini. With his 8th house Venus opposition North Node square a serious, workaholic Saturn in Virgo. His revolutionary Uranus was not only square his Sun and trine his Cancer Moon but on the focal point of a yod inconjunct Mars sextile Neptune Pluto. So his Aquarius activism was amplified.
Other 22 January types – Franz Alexander, one of the founders of psychosomatic medicine and psychoanalytic criminology.
August Strindberg, Swedish playwright, and author of works on cultural analysis and politics.
Martha Beatrice Webb, an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer; one of the founders of the London School of Economics and played a crucial role in forming the Fabian Society.
This is just one Aquarius day with another 30/31 having similar examples – intellectual, activist and (is it just me) seemingly lacking a touch in humour?
BYRON QUOTES:
“Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!”
“There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.”
“Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.”
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes…”
“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”
“The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree
I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.”
“Tis strange – but true; for Truth is always strange, Stranger than Fiction”
ADD ON:
Ada Lovelace was the daughter and only legitimate child of Byron from his short lived marriage. She showed an early gift in mathematics. After marrying and having three children, she met Charles Babbage “the father of computing”, became his assistant and for her work with him is often called “the first programmer.” She had health problems and mood swings which she treated with opium and brandy. Found to have uterine cancer, she died just before her 37th birthday.
Born 10 December 1815 1pm London she had a Sun Neptune in Sagittarius in her 9th house trine Mars in Aries and square Pluto in her 12th. A prominent Neptune is often found in high level mathematicians’ charts. Her upfront Aries Moon on her Ascendant was trine an inventive/inspired 8th house Uranus Mercury in Sagittarius. She also had a sociable and seductive Jupiter Venus in Scorpio in her 7th which was blocked by a square to Saturn in Aquarius.
ADD ON: Lady Caroline Lamb with whom Byron had an infamous though surprisingly short affair was the wife of a politician who later became Viscount Melbourne and prime minister (Queen Victoria’s teenage crush). Caroline struggled with mental instability which was not improved by her use of alcohol and laudanum and she died aged 42.
Born 13 November 1785 4.30 am she had a Sun Mercury in Scorpio trine Uranus – passionate and defiant. With an Air Grand Trine of an 8th house Mars trine a 4th house Pluto (Saturn) in Aquarius trine Neptune Venus in Libra, formed into a wide-ish Kite by Neptune opposition Moon Jupiter. A tragic life with equal parts emotional turbulence and good luck.
Her synastry with Byron was not encouraging with his Aquarius Sun conjunct her Saturn and his Saturn square her Sun. But their relationship chart had an affectionate and sparky composite Sun Venus opposition Mars which would bring an instant (if not long lasting) attraction.
Could you write another add-on, about Skanderbeg? Byron wrote admiringly about him. Wikipedia doesn’t have a birthdate, but the Biblioteca Nacional de España has 6 May 1405 in Krujë, Albania (elsewhere Sinë). Thank you!
Lady Caroline Lamb along with her brother wrote the famous ( and I hope that I have gotten it right) Tales From Shakespeare. It was told in a story format designed to make Shakespeare’s work more accessible for children.
“Sexual licence and depravity”… Made me stop for a moment. I’ve been wanting to say that I saw one amateur astrologer a few years ago mention sexual dolls as what’s coming during Pluto in Aquarius. Does that mean e.g. that people will be able to purchase a doll for their sexual pleasures in the shape of their favourite celebrity, or maybe have that all in some kind of virtual reality, and that would be the licence part, whereas the depravity would be that it will not bring anyone any kind of deep, meaningful, and joyous contentment and fulfilledness?
John Lydon born 31/1/1956. He has 2nd house Mercury/Sun in Aquarius opposition Uranus in the 8th. Outspoken, at the forefront of the Punk movement and unafraid of speaking the ugly truth. I’m not surprised it was he who first exposed Jimmy Savile.
“I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.”
Thanks Marjorie. Interesting quote, particularly when you think about Byron’s ancestors. His family background/ancestry is really quite extraordinary. Generations of his family were known for tales of
“scandal and impropriety, from elopement, murder, and kidnapping to adultery, coercion, and thrilling near-death experiences at sea. Just as it had shocked the society of Georgian London, the outlandish and scandalous story of the Byrons – and the myths that began to rise around it – would his influence his life and poetry for posterity.”
He never knew his father, sometimes called “Mad Jack” Byron, or the great uncle from whom he inherited his title – “The Devil Byron”, or “The Wicked Lord”. But he certainly felt their presence in some way in his own psyche. There are passionate, adventurous, volatile individuals in both male and female lines of his family tree.
I found his father’s date of birth on a genealogy site. Another Aquarian, 7 February 1756. What’s interesting about Captain Jack Byron is Sun 17 Aquarius trine Jupiter in Libra, both sextile Pluto at 18 Sagittarius. Blowing up some kind of wild storm there I think…. And there’s Byron’s own airy planets connecting with his father – Jupiter, 17 Gemini, Neptune 21 Libra, and Pluto 15 Aquarius. Captain Jack’s Saturn, 3 Aquarius, is conjunct Byron’s Sun. Jack’s Chiron, 14 Capricorn is close to Byron’s Mercury, 18 Capricorn. Byron’s Saturn and Venus align with Jack’s Mercury, 26 Aquarius.
Mathematician Ada Lovelace, Byron’s only legitimate child, also connects – having Sun 17 Sagittarius, conjunct Neptune 19 Sagittarius, trine Mars in Aries and square Pluto 20 Pisces. Like Byron himself, she never knew her father, and died young – in her late thirties – from cancer. She’s said to have had a volatile nature, and suffered from mood swings.
Emily Brand’s book ‘The Fall of the House of Byron’ (2020) tells the almost unbelievable tale of this family, where I imagine there would be further astrological ‘coincidences’ linking them together. Many apples, not falling too far from the ancestral tree!
I’m intrigued by a man with Saturn-Venus in Aqua and Moon-Uranus in Cancer writing poems about love. Especially when he has Sun in Aqua, Jupiter in Gemini, Neptune in Libra. All potential for having ideas of what love is rather than ever actually experiencing it.
The question of what love is means different things to different people and in one of Richard Idemon’s books he examines how the fixed signs see it and relates them to the Greek ideas. If I recall correctly Aquarius is the agape lover – “let’s love each other from a distant – you stand back and appreciate who I am, while I stand back and appreciate who you are. And neither of us tries to change the other.”
What I nearly added but did not have time is that many of the early sex researchers were Aquarius. I always assumed that was because they approached sex cerebrally rather than diving into the fleshly reality.
This generation of free-loving aristocrats are all born with Pluto in Aquarius trine Neptune in Libra (like the ‘hippy’ generation) as well as Uranus in Cancer and some have a Pluto/North Node conjunction in Aquarius – sexual revolutionies perhaps.
Byron’s lover, writer Lady Caroline Lamb for instance has this marker, along with Saturn at 0degrees Aquarius. It is she who labelled Byron ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ and who reportedly sent Byron pieces of her pubic hair along with her letters. She has an Air Grand Trine between Pluto in Aquarius, Mars in Gemini and Neptune in Libra. Regarding the Air emphasis, it occurs to me that Byron writes copious letters to his lovers, some in the form of poems. Lamb has a Venus/Neptune in Libra square Uranus in Cancer and pursued Byron obsessively following their break-up. Lamb’s mental health had always been unstable, but became worse as she grew older. With her complicated Neptune, she developed an addiction to laudenam and alcohol and died at 42.
Caroline Lamb’s mother was an ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, which makes one think of Diana’s ancestral 8th house Moon in Aquarius.
Correction, Diana had a 2nd house Aqua Moon opposition Uranus in Leo in the 8th. Both planets align with her nodal axis.
This is my birthday too. It’s been a grim one this year.
Other 22nd Jan types are Sir Alf Ramsay, Michael Hutchence, John Hurt, Linda Blair, The Galloping Gourmet, Diane Lane.
Oh and Bennie Hill.
Lizzie: Love your post–laughed out loud as I read it. I have Aquarius rising, so–yeah–I’m thinking Pluto is going to beat me up and leave me for dead any minute now. That little sh**t terrorized me beyond words during his 15-year stay in my 12th. God only knows what new evil plan he has in store…. May we both prevail.
If it’s any consolation, Pluto’s arduous journey through Capricorn opposed my natal Venus (6 Cancer), followed by my natal Saturn (15 Cancer), followed by my natal Moon (19 Cancer). Fun times.
What would you say are the recognizable traits of an Aquarius rising, especially compared to, say, Piscea?
Perhaps Senor Pluto through the 12th ripped away all that is no good to you and gets you ready for him to authenticate you as a person.?
At 68 this year I can say I did this in mid 80’s. Scorpio asc. All hell broke loose, threw out my violent husband who made me pay to this day in other ways especially financially. Terrorised is a great way of describing 12th house Pluto. But, when I look back I don’t have one single regret about it. Even though I then went though the next nearly 4 decades of the Capricorn planets against me and square lots of other placements. You will survive and enjoy the feeling.
Thank you Marjorie! I am also born January 22. It’s so nice to see a discussion of my fellow Aquarian rebels as I sit here waiting for Pluto to stomp the crap out of me. LOL. (Some of us DO have a sense of humour, albeit the dark kind.)
I think I do. Perhaps a rather dark one though
Marjorie, it might be time to fire the researcher. The first quote is from Sardanapalus and actually reads “Eat, drink, and love; the rest’s not worth a fillip”, the second quote is from Don Juan de Marco – a hollywood film – and nothing to do with Byron. The third quote seems to be from a book called “Lord Roldan”. Only the 4th is by the man himself.
A second scan and I see the fourth quote is wrong too. It’s the ‘great object’ not art. (What a wretched chinese whispers resource the internet has become.)
Chuckle, thanks. I was in a rush and I must admit I blinked slightly since they did not sound like Byron. Anyway I have replaced with (I think) more legit examples.
Byron was born with a club foot and with a traditionally fortunate caul (the amniotic sac) on his skull. A wonderful, entertaining poet, and a great friend, with bags of charisma, but a disaster area as a lover and parent, much as his parents were before him. I sometimes wonder what he would have been like had he not died young: would he ever have grown up, or would he have continued to live a rackety life, drinking too much, siring children on gullible young women, fondling boys and running up debts? Or perhaps he would have liberated Greece. For all his gadding about, he obviously worked hard at his poetry, and it paid off, because Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) made him famous overnight. Very Saturn Venus on MC. He’s the sort of person one would love to have met, but I wouldn’t him taking my daughter home in a car.
I just read last week that Byron’s only legitimate daughter was the amazing female mathmetician – she recognized that an analytical machine (i.e. computer ) had uses beyond calculation – Ada Lovelace. Like her father, she also packed an extraordinary life into a short space of time…worth a look.
Yes its so frustrating how women were written out of history, not that women were ever taken seriously or allowed to be educated or have positions in society. Just think how much more advanced society would be now, if women and people of color had not been excluded & subjugated for thousands of years. Not just technical, but creative as well.
Ada Lovelace was remarkable, we would not be here on this website using our computers without her – Marjorie, any chance of a look at her astrology?
Also just have to drop in that famous quote you all know by Lady Caroline Lamb, that was about Byron – ‘Mad, bad & dangerous to know” Such a delicious thing to say!