




Yoko Ono acclaimed as an avant-garde artist and controversial as John Lennon’s muse, blamed for the Beatles’ split, is having a retrospective at Tate Modern as she nears her 91st birthday.
She was well known in the New York art world before she met Lennon in the late 1960s, staying with him till his death in 1980, recording experimental music with him and campaigning for peace.
She was born 18 February 1933 8.30pm Tokyo into a wealthy family with a childhood spent in New York and in Tokyo during the war which fuelled her later pacifist activism. Her creative tastes always ran to the outre and surreal in music and art. She has her Sun in final degree Aquarius as well as Venus in Aquarius conjunct Saturn all in her performing 5th house so will be attention grabbing as well as good at organising entertainment events. Her Sagittarius Moon squares Neptune Mars Jupiter in Virgo in her 12th giving her a colourful, exuberant streak to counter-balance the chill of Saturn in Aquarius. What sets the mark on her revolutionary, rebellious, mould-breaking streak is Pluto square Uranus which is strategically placed in her career 10th and relationship 7th. She likes upsetting convention and stirring up a reaction. Her Chiron in Taurus in her 8th has a hint of ‘the heart of darkness’ about her, whether consciously or unconsciously attracting her to destructive situations. Being forever known as the widow of a murdered John Lennon may be part of it.
What is delightful is that on her astrocartography Liverpool, John’s birthplace puts Venus within a degree of being conjunct the relocated Midheaven with her Sun in his 10th. A place that boosted her status.
With Pluto in her 10th she will be influential and also controlling, perhaps fulfilling John Lennon’s early pattern of a possessive mother figure with his Moon opposition Pluto. Yoko’s Uranus in her 7th hints at her need for an unconventional relationship where she could still be a strong individual.
Their relationship chart describes a complicated chemistry – tightly bound together with undercurrents of resentment. There was a Grand Trine of a power couple Pluto Jupiter trine Venus trine Saturn, with Saturn opposition Mars Neptune squaring onto the composite Sun. Power-struggling, passionate, aggravating, unfair even cruel at times as one stifled the assertiveness of the other. Quite a powder keg.
John Lennon, 9 October 1940 6.30pm Liverpool, England, had a Libra Sun conjunct his Descendant and a creative, attention-grabbing 5th house Pluto in an emotionally intense and possessive opposition to an Aquarius Moon. With a Saturn Jupiter conjunction in Taurus in his 1st and Uranus also in Taurus. He came to fame aged 20 on the next Jupiter Saturn conjunction and died 20 years after that when the Jupiter Saturn conjunction in Libra was in place. Jupiter throws a few too high and then Saturn steps in to cut them down.
New York was not his easiest place since it put a trapped Pluto in his 8th.
When he was shot Yoko had a devastating SA Pluto conjunct Neptune and the transiting Jupiter Saturn conjunction crossing her Ascendant. A moment in cultural history.