Stephen Sondheim, the composer and lyricist, who elevated stage musicals to a new level has died aged 91. Over a celebrated 60 year career he co-created Broadway theatre classics such as West Side Story, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods, all of which also became hit movies.
He was born 22 March 1930 9pm New York, and grew up an isolated neglected child with his parents divorcing when he was 10. He was left with a psychologically abusive mother he detested; and was estranged from her for many years until her death.
His saving grace was a close childhood friendship with James Hammerstein, son of lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II, who became his surrogate father. The legacy of his emotionally stunted childhood was a reclusive, solitary adult life. He came out as gay when he was 40 and went on to have a few long lasting relationships.
He was one of the resourceful, highly innovative and tough-minded Great Depression Saturn Pluto generation with his Capricorn Moon conjunct his Saturn opposition Pluto and squaring Venus Uranus in Aries – restless, prolific, creative, with a cold, controlling mother. She evidently blamed him for the breakdown of her marriage – Moon Saturn suggests a mother who landed a guilt trip on, and Saturn Pluto is a chained-together relationship seething with resentment on both sides.
He also had musical Neptune in the 10th opposition Mars in the 4th square a lucky Jupiter in the 8th. So along with his depression went a sense of a life more fortunate than most.
His creative 5th and 7th Harmonics are strong are as his global-renown 22nd H.
His mother, Etta “Foxy” Sondheim, 13 March 1898, had her Pisces Sun, Mercury, Venus all in his 5th house so in some odd way she would be a motivating force in his life despite her cruelty – and his 10th house Neptune does point to a creative Neptunian mother. But her unstable Uranus Saturn in Sagittarius opposition Pluto (Neptune) in Gemini crashed into his 4th house Mars (argumentative childhood home life) and his 8th house Jupiter, in a discouraging way.
Their relationship chart echoes his own with a composite Saturn (Moon) opposition Pluto square composite Sun; with the composite Mars sextile Saturn and trine Pluto.
So often talent comes along with emotional deprivation.
The astrological crossovers with Oscar Hammerstein who nurtured his creative abilities and saved him from his emotionally damaging childhood are fascinating.
Hammerstein, 12 July 1895 4.30am New York had his Pluto conjunct Sondheim’s Jupiter and his Sun Jupiter in Cancer conjunct Sondheim’s stressed Pluto. Together they created a success. Hammerstein’s Midheaven was also conjunct Sondheim’s Sun.
Fate stepped in to give him the lifeline and jet-propelled boost he needed.
Saturn Neptune conjunctions come round roughly three times a century – in 1989 in Capricorn, in 1953 in Libra and in 1917/18 in Leo. The next one falls in Aries in 2025/26.
Historically they have been associated with the fight for womens’ and workers’ rights, epidemics, religious events and collapsing empires.
From The Astrological History of the World.
‘Neptune’s compassion for the victim meets Saturn’s ability to organize in a constructive way. If the balance is wrong, however, then Saturn’s authoritarian need to exert order and maintain the status quo can completely crush the Neptunian dream.
The English Peasants’ Revolt during the Saturn–Neptune conjunction in Aries in 1381, demanding an end to serfdom was suppressed and its leader, Wat Tyler, beheaded. Two conjunctions later, in Virgo, Irish rebel Jack Cade leading the Kent and Essex peasants’ revolt, was also killed. Another two conjunctions further on, in Pisces in 1524, there were extensive peasants’ revolts in Germany.
By 1845 with Saturn–Neptune in tolerant Aquarius, Engels was writing The Condition of the Working Class in England. Still under the same influence, the Irish potato-crop failure of the following year drew attention to the plight of the starving and the suffering. By the next conjunction in Taurus in 1881, British prime minister William Gladstone had passed the Irish Land Act to prevent excessively high rents, although the outrages of 1882, when 10,500 Irish farming families were evicted, gave every indication that Saturnine rigidity and greed still held sway. In the United States, the American Federation of Labor was founded in Pittsburgh in 1881.
One conjunction on, in 1917 in Leo, striking Russian workers rose up, and were joined by soldiers to overthrow the last feudal tsardom.
During the last Saturn–Neptune conjunction of the 20th century, in Capricorn in 1989, Solidarity, the Polish workers’ party, came to power in democratic elections. The fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe freed workers to control their own lives and government. There was also mass rehabilitation of Russian citizens who were victims of Stalin’s brutal purges, Stalin himself having succumbed on the Saturn–Neptune conjunction of 1953. Also in 1989, the Tiananmen Square demonstration in China, staged by students and workers, was brutally suppressed, resulting in 2000 deaths. In Britain just a year later there were the violent Poll Tax Riots, the first serious mass revolt against the government in decades.’
There’s always a dual nature to this conjunction, more so than most since they are diametrically opposed energies – Neptune dissolves and undermines while Saturn aims to build and maintain boundaries.
Although Saturn Neptune doesn’t sound rebellious it tends to bring the state and the status quo (Saturn) into conflict with spiritual movements or the underdogs (Neptune). The flower power, hippie movement was very much a Saturn Neptune in Libra phenomenon in the 1950s.
The 20th Century ones aren’t necessarily a good guide since the 1989 one was a triple conjunction with Uranus; and the 1953 had Saturn Neptune square Uranus.
The 1917/18 Saturn Neptune oversaw the Spanish flu epidemic which wiped out more people in a single year than the Middle Ages black death plague had done.
It doesn’t happen in isolation, of course. In 2025 Neptune moves into Aries along with Saturn and Pluto two years earlier has made the shift into into Aquarius and Uranus is poised to move into Gemini – so quite a shift of the outer planets. At one point there will be a Pluto sextile Uranus with Saturn Neptune as the midpoint. At best that could be a reforming movement that leads to a fairer society. Though that’s probably wildly optimistic.
Saturn in Aries tends to be tough and hard, producing circumstances that require self-reliance; Saturn Pluto is war-like and deprived; Neptune Pluto fosters megalomania. But there’ll be enough good in there to produce positive changes (Saturn Uranus), creative inspiration (Uranus Neptune) and the perseverance to make at least some benefits of new thinking stick.
I hope Andre Barbault is right about this upcoming Neptune Saturn in Aries though it did sound a touch hopeful. I’ll look tomorrow at previous Neptune in Aries back through history.
Saturn has an undeservedly malefic reputation. Death, disaster, failure, depression, delays, lack of self-worth. The reality is it induces a strong work ethic, instils a sense of discipline over time, is practical, realistic and provides a backbone when mush threatens to take over. Where Saturn is marked in a chart, it gets easier the older you get. The negative side reigns over the first third of life; it mellows through the middle third; and the final third becomes everything that wasn’t there at the start – warmer, more supportive, consolidated.
In Roman mythology, he was a god of generation, dissolution, plenty, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. Saturn’s mythological reign was depicted as a Golden Age of plenty and peace.
Saturn is essentially about structure in earthly terms. It plans, prepares, thinks long term to a feasible goal, then gets foundations laid, builds slowly and securely so its achievements stand the test of time. The end result of its endeavours is not necessarily aesthetic, since it isn’t concerned with cosmetic fripperies, but it is enduring.
Ruling Capricorn, it has the same steady ambition, which is willing to forego instant gratification for long term goals. Like the symbolic mountain goat, it starts in the foothills and works its way up to the peak, along a winding path if necessary.
Saturn restricts, so oversees limits and boundaries which may not feel like fun but are essential, psychologically as well as practically, in life. Neptune dissolves boundaries, Pluto invades across them to grab all the territory, Uranus blows them up, but Saturn stands firm for order, delineation, marked borders. In action, it is like a gardener who prunes plants back, lopping off overgrown branches, to stimulate fresh growth and produce a more manageable shape.
Often called a money-grubbing scrooge, Saturn is concerned with material security and can be less than generous and open-hearted. Again that’s down to its earthly nature and liking for boundaries. ‘Me and mine’ come first.
Not that Saturn is a delight at close quarters in intimate relationships. It can be cold, putting up a defensive wall against any encroachment, tending to put things above feelings, and is better at ‘doing’ than ‘being’.
The myth of Saturn eating his children depicted in a horrific Goya painting is apt, since it ties into his obsessions with time and mortality. Saturn was scared of being overthrown by his sons so he ate them at birth. Deep down he knows he is going to die and his children represent a future that he can never possess, since his is limited by his mortal span. He both loves and loathes the boundaries of his life, so he tries to over-ride them and stop time.
Having Saturnine parents means facing two things – their envy and their ability to induce misplaced guilt on their child. The Saturnine father pushes and pushes his children to be a success, being excessively critical of any failures, making them feel they never achieve enough to satisfy him, so damaging the child’s self-esteem though it can helpfully induce a driving need to be a success. But deep down the father’s fear is that they might outdo him, become more successful and outlive him. It’s difficult to cope with since if the child grown to adult became stratospherically successful, the father would shrivel, feel worthless himself and be consumed with envy. So it’s a no win situation, until the child/adult separates enough to understand it’s the father’s issue, not theirs.
The Saturnine mother on the other hand insinuates into the child a sense that they are responsible for her depression; and their role in life is to look after her and make her happy. She makes an under-nurturing mother but expects her offspring to give her the caring she never gave them.
The mythological Saturn showed his other face at the autumn festivals of the harvest, when the agricultural bounty of the year was brought in and drunken celebrations ensued after the hard work was done. Earthly delights are also his preserve and his reign was seen as one of peace and plenty. Despite the devouring father, he’s associated with the flow of the seasons, especially winter when everything dies back to be reborn in spring.
Capricorn as a sign is unfairly dubbed as the cold, materialistic workaholic, but in fact has a highly creative and (indulgent) side. The old Capricorn symbol was half goat half fish. He operates in two realms – in the watery realm of ideas and visions and then makes them real on dry land. He is the stander on the threshold between the unconscious and the conscious; just as Capricorn stands on the cusp of the year that has past and the year that is about to come, looking both ways. He both mourns and celebrates.
The 29 year Saturn cycle of transits round a chart can be split in a simplistic way into four sections which are seven years roughly each, sometimes less or more depending on the axis. The peak in terms of career and outer ambition is Saturn through the 4th Quadrant (10th to 12th houses) which is a time of hard work and consolidation of the preparations of the 21 years before. Where the groundwork has been laid, then respect and recognition as well as heavier responsibilities come through this phase.
When Saturn moves below the Ascendant and even slightly before, old ambitions become less important and there is need for a re-evaluation. People find they don’t want to work 80 hour weeks anymore which is the psyche’s hint to wind down and step back slightly for a rethink.
Hyper-ambitious ego-maniacs find Saturn into the first quadrant (1st, 2nd and 3rd houses) difficult to handle since they live totally for outer achievement and approbation. So they keep pushing on as before, start making mistakes as their psyche short circuits their actions and they find success doesn’t come as easily as it had done in the previous 7 years, no matter how hard they push. Eg. Maggie Thatcher started to slide with Saturn here, as Emmanuel Macron has now as well.
What Saturn really wants is for you to re-balance your life – to come off the ego and into the centre – to find time for play and emotional matters as well as work. Often people get married and have kids when Saturn is moving through the first quadrant since it fulfils more personal needs.
It needn’t mean that life grinds to a halt. Shirley MacLaine stopped movies for a while when her Saturn was in her first quadrant and wrote her books. Saturn here is a time to find what is really important for you, not for other people.
The last time I had Saturn into my 1st and onwards, I stopped a pole-axing schedule of producing live TV shows and then documentaries, took time out, wrote a novel and started doing astrology.
You do usually have to get your finances in order to make do with slightly less when Saturn moves through the 2nd which is a time of getting priorities straight and realising that money isn’t the be all and end all it may have seemed before. But clearly you do need enough to get by so getting organised in advance is usually a good idea.
Sometimes Saturn through the middle of the First Quadrant, usually at the start of the 2nd house brings up old unresolved psychologically issues. This isn’t a negative. More the psyche trying to plumb the depths to find parts which have been left lying on dusty shelves of the unconscious. So when you start gradually emerging usually with Saturn into the 3rd, you move ahead as a slightly different person, hopefully more rounded, with different ambitions. Then you’re into the planning phase of the next great Saturn sweep out and upwards in your chart.
When Saturn reaches the nadir/IC at the base of the chart to move into the Second Quadrant (4th to 6th houses) you’re ready to go out and engage more fully with the outside world again. First requirement with Saturn through the 4th is to reorganise at home to create a solid base of operations for the future which may involve moving house, renovating as well as sorting out family tensions. The 2nd Quadrant Saturn isn’t necessarily a spectacular success but it is a vital and unglamorous stage of laying foundations for the future. Saturn through the 6th usually means extra hard work with less appreciation than seems fair but rewards come in later years. Also a time to get real about health and physical needs, learning where your limits are.
Saturn through the Third Quadrant (7th to 9th house) is rising upwards in terms of outer activities, which requires sorting out and strengthening close relationships or abandoning those that don’t work. Then a hard lesson through the 8th of developing resilience and resourcefulness where money and emotional support are concerned. The universe can feel less than generous since this is a time of standing on your own two feet and often being responsible for others. Saturn through the 9th – rethinking beliefs and attitudes, testing out ideas, being intellectually challenged.
Then Saturn moves across the peak upper Fourth Quadrant (10th to 12th houses).
To be remembered, the transits will only bring out what is already in potential or implicit in the chart. And Saturn does have tough lessons to teach about shirking the effort and discipline required to lay foundations. Like a house built on swampy ground with substandard materials and workmanship, it won’t turn out to be a success.
There are always other outer planet influences in play which may distract Saturn from producing the results it might otherwise have done. Fate is not always kind – and there are missed opportunities in timing which are the result of random mischance.
Taylor Swift’s fan obsessives are at fever pitch with the rerecorded reissue of her 2012 album Red out this month which appears to have references to her short-lived relationship to Jake Gylenhaal more than a decade ago. One celeb magazine said: ‘It has received obsessive levels of textual analysis that would make a Talmudic scholar blush.’
She’s had a stream of extremely speedy and very public liaisons through the years – all good publicity – though her present beau Joe Alwyn has stuck around longer than most. The smooch with Gyllenhaal lasted three months but seems to have become embedded in fan mythology like Brad and Jen. He evidently baled because he didn’t like the media attention.
Taylor, 13 December 1989 8.36am Reading, Pennsylvania, is a Sagittarius but has a controlling and possessive Pluto (in Scorpio) in the 10th so she won’t let go easy; as well as Mars in Scorpio and a Cancer Moon.
She’s not remotely easy on the emotional front with her Moon opposition a changeable Uranus, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn in Capricorn.
Jake Gyllenhaal, 19 December 1980 8.08 pm Los Angeles, is also a Sun Sagittarius conjunct Neptune with a restless Gemini Moon. It was never destined to last since his Uranus in Scorpio is conjunct her Mars for a tinderbox chemistry – fiery, then explosive.
Their relationship chart has a wildly enthusiastic, upbeat composite Sun Mars Uranus trine Jupiter and opposition the composite Moon so it would be a rip-roaring adventure at the start. It would transition into running arguments and a definite need for space on his side. But her Pluto wouldn’t be keen to let go control.
Their relationship chart is sagging under Neptunian influences now and through next year. With last week’s Lunar Eclipse and next May’s rattling up the composite Saturn for less than romantic vibes.
I suppose it beats politics for water cooler gossip.
Priti Patel, the UK Home Secretary, is having a worse month than usual, being brickbatted for not getting on top of migrants crossing the channel and is now facing serious questions about her department’s handling of Windrush compensation. Just 5% of the victims formerly from the Caribbean who were mistakenly written off as illegal immigrants have received any recompense and some have died in the interim. No doubt she’ll blame her civil servants which is her typical response. The media have her written off as one of the least able of Boris’s right-wing, anti-Eu lieutenants which is saying something.
Matthew Parris said of her in the Times: “Priti Patel’s record of abusive and undisciplined behaviour is as long as your arm, the people who ought to know this know it, and she should never have been allowed anywhere near a ministerial red box.” She was forced to resign from Theresa May’s cabinet for unauthorised meetings with Israeli politicians and officials; and more recently faced bullying allegations from senior staff, which were found to have breached the ministerial code again. Boris refused to take action against her. And on she marched.
She was born 29 March 1972 in London and has a forcefully confident, pushy and super-resourceful chart with her Aries Sun and Mercury opposition Pluto (Moon) Uranus in Libra square Jupiter in Capricorn.
There are slight chart similarities to Tiger Woods who has Jupiter in Aries opposition Pluto square a Capricorn Sun but he channels his driving obsession to win at all costs into competitive sport.
She also has a (Boris special) scattered, argumentative Mars Saturn in Gemini opposition Neptune making her short-tempered, hard-edged, suspicious.
Last week she had the Lunar Eclipse conjunct her Venus in Taurus and Algo and also triggering her Solar Arc Sun in late Taurus.
Her relationship chart with Boris is riddled with illusion, delusion and deceit with a composite Sun opposition Neptune – which has a separating tr Saturn square from late February 2022 and continue throughout the year. This New Year through to February looks riddled with yet more crises and it won’t let up thereafter. So they won’t rub happily along together, for sure.
There is also a ‘karmic’ composite yod of Pluto sextile Neptune inconjunct Saturn suggesting their fates are intertwined for good or for ill.
Her own chart (without a definite birth time though 6.30 to 6.48am is floating about) isn’t showing much strain until 2023/24 – but with a chart axis there might be midheaven challenges which we don’t know.
Amanda Knox vilified after the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007 in Italy and convicted in one of the most notorious trials of the past half-century was then acquitted with the spotlight turning on a shoddy police investigation and sensationalised prosecution. She has never quite disappeared from public view since, nor been totally exonerated in the court of public opinion. Tales of her odd alleged behaviour at her arrest and media-fanned scandal about ‘Foxy Knoxy’ did her no favours. She subsequently became an author, an activist and a journalist with her memoir, Waiting to Be Heard becoming a best seller.
She married and has recently produced a baby and has an active social media presence with copious photos of her in her underwear which hardly helps to boost her gravitas. Stillwater, a recent movie with Matt Damon, which is a fictionalised version of a story similar in some respects to hers has raised her ire.
Born 9 July 1987 2.47 am Seattle, Washington, she has a 2nd house Sun, Mercury and Venus in Cancer across from Neptune in Capricorn in her 8th. Neptune in the 8th occurs in film stars’ charts, giving them an unconscious ability to project an aura. In her case it clearly propelled her onto the public stage in a different way. Her Sagittarius Moon in the needs-a-partner 7th is conjunct a ratchety Saturn Uranus conjunction so she won’t find close relationships easy. She also has Mars in flamboyant Leo square Pluto in Scorpio which carries overtones (or undertones) of brutality and ruthlessness. That may be one of the reasons she attracted such a bad press, since energy of that intensity, carried at an unconscious level, will still seep out to be picked up by others.
Meredith Kercher, 28 December 1985, also had a hard Mars Pluto in a conjunction with her South Node and conjunct Knox’s Pluto – so quite a tangle. And Meredith’s Capricorn Sun was exactly conjunct Amanda’s 8th house Neptune. There was some weird karma going on in there even if the murder was all drifter Rudy Guede’s doing. He has just been released from a long prison sentence and wants to disappear into anonymity.
Knox has had tr Pluto moving through her trapped 8th house since around 2010 during her trial and four year imprisonment and has only recently emerged from that long tunnel.
Her scapegoat 12th harmonic is powerfully aspected. The meaning of this number is sacrifice. Being sacrificed or becoming a victim to other persons’ intrigues. 12 warns against being a victim of circumstances or dragged into other people’s affairs to suffer the consequences. It can be the harmonic as well of the victim/healer.
Mars Pluto can also carry the meaning of having the misfortune to suffer brutal assaults.
In less than eighteen months Pluto will shift sign for the first time in sixteen years, moving into Aquarius from March 2023 and after a hover on the cusp will enter fully in 2024 to stay till 2043.
Some random thoughts. In mythology Pluto was Hades, lord of the underworld and the realm of symbolic death and rebirth. The sacred river into his domain was guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog representing the past, the present and the future. Entry into Pluto’s territory is not to be taken lightly since it strips away the past, reducing it to rubble out of which the new emerges over time.
Pluto amplifies the essence of the sign through which it passes, for good or for ill – transforms, destroys, reconstructs. What is fascinating, looking back, is how apt the changes and themes that occurred:-
Pluto in Taurus, 1851 -1882. London’s underground railway had its first short test tunnel built in 1855 and it opened in 1863. London’s sewage system was being discussed in 1856 and got underway in earnest after the Great Stink of 1858. Construction took several years all under Pluto in Taurus.
Pluto in Gemini, 1882 – 1912. An Air sign (I think and I talk) and Mutable – communicative, restless, friendly, a multi-tasker and often high-ranking amongst the wealthy, not always straightforward.
The emergence of modern cities and skyscrapers. Telecommunications. The Electrical age starts. Tabloid Journalism. An age of prosperity.
Pluto in Cancer, 1912 – 1937. A Water sign (I feel) and Cardinal, family-oriented, ruled by the Moon, mother and female associations.
A darker time with World War 1 (20 million dead) – it started with Pluto at zero degrees Cancer – with the Wall Street Crash/Great Depression in the middle. As an unexpected consequence women were emancipated, went to work, got the vote. The old family and conservative lifestyle values were destroyed.
Pluto in Leo, 1937 – 1956. A Fire sign and Fixed, (I am), ego-centric, attention-demanding, inspirational, a grandstander.
Fascism, promoting ultra-nationalism along the way, led to World War 11. Nuclear bombs, culminating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “If the radiance of a thousand suns Were to burst at once into the sky That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One…I am become Death, The shatterer of worlds.” That was Pluto in Leo. Baby Boomers.
Pluto in Virgo, 1956 -1971. An Earth sign and Mutable, practical, health-conscious, communicative, restless.
Major medical advances with polio & measles vaccines, heart pacemakers in place as well as President Johnson Medicare Act. There was also a deadly Asian flu pandemic. The EEC trade pact came into being. Suez Crisis – was the symbolic end of British and French imperialist ambitions (and a Pluto Return for the England 973 AD chart). Pluto is often a marker of rise and falls.
Pluto in Libra, 1971 – 1983. Air and Cardinal, the relationship and justice sign.
The divorce rate jumps noticeably with changing expectations of marriage and more independence for women. The first domestic violence shelters open and USA Equal Rights Legislation gets underway. The wedding of the century between Prince Charles and Diana.
Pluto in Scorpio, 1983 – 1995. Water and Fixed, intense, determined, rules money, sex and crime.
Economic shift into laissez-faire capitalism. Also the crime of the century, the Brinks-Mat bullion Robbery – equivalent of $150 million in gold/diamonds stolen in London, most never recovered. On the sexual front AIDs emerged with devastating and deadly effect. Also child sexual abuse was dragged into the open – the emancipation of women in Pluto in Libra helped to expose the scale of it.
Pluto in Sagittarius, 1995 – 2008. Fire and Mutable, communicative, adventurous, a traveller, a thinker, can be self-righteous, opinionated and a religious zealot.
Globalization and multiculturalism was in full swing; with the EU Schengen cross border travel in operation. Terrorism became a foreground issue with Al Quaeda ramping up attacks in the late 1990s before 9/11. The Oklahoma bombing was white supremacist terrorism in the USA. Rabin assassinated in Israel by a homegrown extremist. And the Sebrenica Massacre in 1995, a religious genocide, killed off 8000 Muslims.
Pluto in Capricorn, 2008 – 2023. Earth and Cardinal, rules money, business and government, conservative. Banking was founded by Charlemagne under a Pluto in Capricorn in the 8th Century; and two Pluto cycles later Kublai Khan introduced paper money. This time round paper has been replaced largely by plastic and cyber currency.
The financial crash. Migrant crisis stemming from political, economic and climactic pressures. Rise in populism & neo-nationalism as the ultra-conservative streak in Capricorn is amplified. Global warming
Pluto in Aquarius, 2023 – 2043. Air and Fixed. A thinker and communicator, curious, stubborn, scientific, interested in the future and the distant past, individualistic, rebellious, androgynous (gender/sex not as relevant), humanitarian but can be an ideological extremist.
American colonies rebelled against British over taxes during later stages of Pluto in Capricorn and declared independence. The French Revolution triggered by wealth inequality, based on high ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood, turned bloody in the Reign of Terror. Industrial Revolution in full swing – age of prosperity. Scientific advances, chemistry. Explorers – James Cook and William Bligh. Philosophical and social thinkers – Emmanuel Kant and Thomas Paine (Rights of Man.
Pluto in Aquarius, 1532 – 1552. The Protestant schism with Roman Catholicism got under way in earnest, which led to centuries of conflict. Henry V111, Luther, Calvin. A clash of ideas. Scientific advances in earth and medical science. Exploration.
As ever there were additional factors during these times from the other outer planets. Neptune Pluto in the Pluto in Gemini late 19th Century phase is scandal-prone which would slant the communicative drive towards sensationalist journalism. Pluto at the start of World War 1 had a tr Saturn Pluto conjunction as the war got under way; and ditto for World War 2. Saturn Pluto hard aspects also oversaw 9/11 and the Wars on Iraq/Afghanistan.
Further thoughts:
Significant atrocities/disasters came at the start of each Pluto transition into a new sign.
Virgo 1956 – Suez crisis. Russia invades Hungary.
Libra 1972 – Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. Munich Olympics massacre by Palestinian terrorists of Israeli athletes. Watergate underway.
Capricorn 2009/10 – Gaza War. Haiti earthquake, one of worst in history. Horizon oil spill, one of largest ever.
GAME CHANGERS: Historical figures whose influence/effect changed the course of history during a Pluto transition often had their natal Pluto at a cuspal degree.
Henry V111 had his Pluto at 29 degrees Libra and was a major player in triggering the Protestant schism when Pluto moved into Aquarius.
Thomas Paine (Rights of Man) born with Pluto at 0 Scorpio was central to the Pluto in Aquarius USA and French political scene.
Jean Jaques Rousseau, father of the French Revolution, was born with Pluto at 0 degrees Virgo (conjunct Uranus).
William Herschel born with Pluto in early Scorpio discovered Uranus when Pluto was in early Aquarius. [Percy Lowell, whose Observatory discovered Pluto was born with Pluto at 2 Taurus.]
Jonas Salk whose polio vaccine marked Pluto into Virgo, was born with Pluto at 2 degrees Cancer.
Queen Elizabeth 1 was born with Pluto at 0 Aquarius and Neptune at 29 Pisces.
So the Pluto transition does throw up influential individuals who often make their mark when tr Pluto moves into a later sign.
On the basis of very few examples tr Pluto through an Air sign appeared to coincide with a time of prosperity.
Pluto through a Water sign is a much darker energy.
Events which carry the essence of what is to come can occur in the final degrees of the previous sign. The financial collapse can be timed to Pluto in late Sagittarius but carries the theme of Capricorn.
These are trimmed down notes from a recent lecture on Pluto. I thought it useful to have a precis.
Lax US gun laws, the wild-west spirit of vigilantism, and undertones of white supremacy all came together in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager who admitted to killing two white men but has been controversially cleared of all charges. He turned up in Kenosha, Wisconsin last August for protests against the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, armed with a semi-automatic weapon. The reason he gave was to ‘protect property’ from rioters.
The prosecution described Rittenhouse as an armed “chaos tourist” who travelled to Kenosha “looking for trouble”. They argued “you cannot claim self-defence against a danger you create.”
His acquittal hinged on the specific details of Wisconsin’s self-defence laws. It ‘considers whether he believed himself to be in imminent threat of harm, but it does not factor in the choices he made in the hours and days beforehand that put him in the middle of a volatile situation, with guns drawn and tempers flaring.’
Reactions to the verdict have been starkly opposed across the political divide with the right believing “justice has been served”, and the Democrat chair of the House judiciary committee, calling the verdict a “miscarriage of justice.”
Rittenhouse, born 3 January 2003, in Antioch, Illinois, is a conservative Sun Capricorn with Mercury Moon also in Capricorn. But the real eye-opener is a volatile and volcanic Fixed T square of Uranus opposition Jupiter in flamboyant Leo square a vengeful Mars Venus in Scorpio conjunction. He looks like a weedy, spotty nerd in photos but he has all the potential to turn into a dangerous obsessive. There’s ramped-up sexual desire in there from pumped-up Scorpio as well as aggravation and an explosive resistance to having his wishes thwarted from Mars Uranus. Mars Jupiter can also justify self-interested, opportunistic acts by adding a veneer of morality – trying to look like a holy crusader. He also has an immoveable, can-be-depressive and ultra-stubborn Saturn opposition Pluto.
When the shooting occurred there was an exact Mars in Aries square Saturn in Capricorn (conjunct Pluto Jupiter) so the mood was febrile and inflammatory – and that Mars Saturn would impact on his Mercury and maybe his Moon in Capricorn; as well as his deluded Sun/Neptune midpoint.
This week’s Taurus Lunar Eclipse falling on the day of his acquittal was exactly opposition his Venus which might have suggested an emotional crisis rather than an exoneration. Though the fallout may continue since he’s not looking chipper through this December and will be devastated through 2022; with an extremely bruising few years ahead till late this decade with tr Uranus hard aspects to his Mars, Venus, Uranus in 2023/24 and a series of punishing Solar Arcs between 2024 and 2029.
The Wisconsin state chart, 29 May 1848, has Venus in Taurus conjunct Algol picking up yesterday’s Lunar Eclipse; as does the Solar Arc Sun in late Scorpio on the exact degree. When the shootings occurred the Wisconsin Uranus Pluto Moon in Aries square Mars Jupiter in Cancer were also being triggered so the stage was set for over-reactions and high-tensions.
