Li Wenliang, the Coronavirus and Saturn-Pluto Conjunction

Dr. Li Wenliang

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, 2020.  The first official case of COVID-19 was a 55-year-old woman from Wuhan China who was diagnosed on November 17, 2019.  (1)

Astrologers anticipated events of great magnitude to develop near the time of the exact conjunction of Saturn to Pluto on January 12, 2020, when it would complete and commence once again its continuous thirty-four to thirty-eight-year cycle. The aggressiveness of the insidious coronavirus conveniently reflects the combined profile of these two notoriously feared planets. Their slow orbital movement allows a wide time-orb of influence for a significant phenomenon to emerge in correspondence to their coming into conjunction aspect to each other. The illness first appeared in the news during the third week of November 2019 as SARS-CoV-2. For slow-moving planets, the two-month leeway for a manifestation of the conjunction is acceptable when comparing astrological events with their earthly counterparts.

The two formidable planets have varying speeds that create a syncopated slow dance to the rhythm of retrograde and direct motions throughout 2020. As the year progresses, Jupiter joins in as it approaches its new transit cycle with Saturn commencing on December 21, 2020.  Jupiter weaves in and out of conjunctions with Saturn and Pluto during the year and will merge for its 3rd and final conjunction with Pluto at the time of the US presidential elections in early November 2020.

Saturn aligning its forces with Pluto at the January conjunction exacerbated an otherwise normal display of disease often identified by the ringed planet. As a result of this ominous partnership, the world was brought to its knees. Pluto naturally defies constraints and endows stealthy microbes with free-rein activity. The planet rules microscopic realms and its invisible characteristics have promoted numerous theories attempting to track the origin of the virus. (2)

With the number of cases worldwide topping over a million and a quarter with an accompanying 70,000 deaths (as of April 5, 2020), the result is continuous global fear, anxiety, and panic, which are all the combined negative attributes of Saturn and Pluto. As the ubiquitous virus continues on its trek across the globe an astrological picture offers revealing insights. The chart most likely to yield planetary connections with the pandemic should be one that adequately represents an entire world population. The inaugural chart of the United Nations (UN) is an appropriate candidate because the organization is comprised of 193 countries out of a global count of 195. (3) This group of nations first pledged their affiliation on October 24, 1945, and its current functioning as a representative body gives the chart validity.

There is a strong tie between the transit Saturn-Pluto conjunction on January 12, 2020 and the UN chart. Shown with a red arrow in chart #1 is an opposition aspect applying from the exact transit-conjunction to the UN natal Mars-Saturn conjunction. The transit Saturn and Pluto were also opposite natal Mercury in the chart of the United States in January 2020, however, the more powerful indication lies with the chart of all nations since it is a worldwide crisis of which the United States is only a part. The activated Mercury in the US chart does indicate why America was hit so hard with the virus. Mercury’s decision-making process, as far as simple procedures to contain the virus, has been confusing at best and has sparked controversy and polarization of approaches that confound the issue. This may be because the US has not dealt with a catastrophic pandemic since the Spanish flu of 1918 which had its origin in the state of Kansas.

Li Wenliang – the Whistleblower 

An integral part of the story of the coronavirus includes the life and horoscope of ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, the physician and whistleblower who notified his colleagues in a private WeChat social media platform concerning the sudden outbreak of a virus at the Wuhan Central Hospital in Wuhan, China. Li’s concern was that patients were exhibiting severe symptoms similar to those displayed by the SARS virus that infected 8,098 people and killed 774 worldwide in 2003. Li’s leaked warnings alarmed the Chinese government which then sent police out on January 3, 2020, to reprimand and force him to sign a statement that he was making false comments on the internet. The Chinese Communist Party apparently was set to do a coverup of what only was the beginning of the coming worldwide pandemic.

Relatively soon after the reprimand, Li himself contracted the insidious illness while performing an eye operation on a patient who was later found to have been infected with the coronavirus. Li was hospitalized and rapidly succumbed to the disease on February 7, 2020.* Li’s natal chart is shown in chart #2, with his progressions and transits on the day of his death in the outer two wheels. He was 33 years old when he was officially pronounced dead on February 7th. There was confusion over the actual time of death and the procedures that led up to it. Millions of Chinese citizens had been tracking updates on his condition which when his death was announced caused shock-waves and disdain throughout both professional and lay communities.

Li’s horoscope shows that progressed Venus had been in a conjunction aspect with natal Pluto for a while, an indication that something rather deep was transpiring. His progressed Sun was leaving its conjunction with natal Venus, another indication of the finalization (Venus) of personal affairs (Sun). Other than transit Mars passing by progressed and natal Uranus there are very few traditional transits of import marking the event of death.

Transit event chart #3, however, shows a distinct connection with Li’s death by the transit Moon’s position exactly on the 8th house cusp  This temporary placement of the Moon at the door of the house of transitions, with the ultimate transition being death, shows an obvious positioning of an indicator of physical expiration. The Moon, at 13 Cancer 33, sheds light on the deeper meaning of Li’s acts and sacrifice through its revealing Sabian symbol. He was a young man with an old soul on a mission that unfortunately was cut short. The words in the symbol’s description highlighted in bold give stark testimony to his contribution to society.

CANCER 14 A very old man facing a vast dark space to the northeast This is a symbol of the immeasurable reaches of past experience as a strengthening of the human spirit for its immediate destiny, and of the eternal rebirth through which man may discover that present aspiration and future achievement are without the slightest limitation in any terms of events to come. Here is an absoluteness of self as a completeness of expectation. There are no dark moments of outlook that cannot yield inspiration or assurance. The keyword is SANCTION. When positive, the degree is a highly effective enlistment of deeper and hidden elements of life for some momentary end, and when negative, lack of purpose and utter chaos in understanding.

The Sabian symbol for Jupiter at 14 Capricorn 55 which lies at the other end of the dynamic polarity is also revealing. The symbol literally describes a hospital scene that literally reflects Li’s actual workplace. The sentence in bold explains the randomness and capricious nature of the native’s sacrifice, and the positive of the degree reveals his heroic potentials.

CAPRICORN 15 Many toys in the children’s ward of a hospital This is a symbol of the inescapable richness of life in any normal manifestation of itself, here given emphasis through its ample rewards on the social and ideal side. There are physical and psychological limitations which come to all humankind without apparent reason, and which often seem a travesty of divine justice, but they are always an unrealized opportunity for a deeper fellowship. Experience is real in its fruits, rather than in the means to its ends. The keyword is ABUNDANCE When positive, the degree is man’s ability to develop the real potentialities of himself and his fellows despite every transient accident of circumstance, and when negative, hypocritical sympathy and childish self-pampering.

TRANSITS 2020

Transits Saturn and Pluto

The Saturn-Pluto conjunction clearly identifies Saturnian individuality within the Plutonian collective. Saturn’s capacity for drawing boundaries created the measures that each country dictated to its citizens that included closing bars and restaurants and instructing residents to stay home and avoid large social gatherings with which Pluto is associated. Social Distancing became the moniker of the times with Saturn marking boundaries within the extended social arena. Each citizen was called to be responsible for the care and welfare of all. More than ever before, we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. The stressful and unprecedented times called out from all citizens of the world a deeper understanding of the requirements of Saturn as the planet of individual self-conscious awareness and of Pluto as the representative of the greater collective of which we are all a part.

This powerful and extremely tense Saturn-Pluto configuration will remain effective throughout 2020 as these dominating planetary actors station (4) to go retrograde, a reversing of direction and meaning from time to time during the year. The effects of what Saturn and Pluto brought to humanity with their conjunction in January will continue to manifest throughout the remainder of 2020, and for the United States until 2023, while Pluto completes its 248-year cycle return in the US chart.

Pluto stationed to go retrograde on April 26, 2020 at 25 Capricorn. Saturn will do the same on May 11, at 1 Aquarius 57. Transit stations indicate an intense release of planetary energy that requires a compulsory and critical regrasp of the immediate situation. Station’s readdress astrological trends and the present high number of COVID-19 cases can reverse along with the retrograde, and bring with it the possibility of remission in some areas of the US. (5) As well, cures for ailments are often discovered during retrograde periods, especially while Mercury retrogrades.

Pluto was slowing down for its station in late April synchronous with a decrease of cases in the state of New York, the area with a higher death rate than any other place in the world. It is tempting to read premature positives into changes in planetary directions, and the late Marc Edmund Jones reminded us that Astrology is the science of probability. Stations are markers for imminent change on the horizon near the particular dates upon which they fall, yet they are suggestions, not predictions.

Chart #4 is the inaugural chart for New York City. (6) It reveals that the high number of coronavirus cases and fatalities was due in part by the Moon degree’s close association with the January 2020 Saturn-Pluto conjunction occurring at 23 degrees Capricorn. The City’s natal Moon, circled in red, is located within orb of that point and is also conjunct the US natal chart’s Pluto which was in its return to its natal placement at the time.

As Saturn slows to station-retrograde soon after Pluto, the reminder to shelter in place and keep at a social distance continued for the United States. Saturn is the planet that pointed to the cover-up and condemnation of whistleblowers by China, the slow to declare a world crisis by the World Health Organization, and in the US, the Trump administration’s months of denials that the virus was a real threat and its slow response to hospital requests for testing, personal protective equipment and ventilators. Containment and mitigation are Saturn’s methods of controlling Pluto’s otherwise unstoppable spread of the disease. Although “herd immunity” has been suggested by some experts as the natural way to ultimately conquer disease, very few individuals were willing to risk their health or their lives by participating in that method of control, considering the aggressiveness of the virus.

Transits Venus and Jupiter

The US economy is also due for more fluctuation, with transit Venus coming to station-retrograde two days after Saturn on May 13th at 21 Gemini 50. The station will be conjunct President Trump’s natal Sun and will set off its natal opposition with the Moon. This will intensify the tension concerning his personal yet public image, and also will put pressure on his hopes to open the US economy by putting people back to work. The issue of his own finances takes front stage as well when on May 12th the Supreme Court will hold a hearing concerning the release of his tax returns and financial records.

In an interview on April 10th with MSNBC’s news anchor Brian Williams, the respected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, (7) stated that he hopes that November could see some normality return. That projection parallels with the Jupiter transit making its final conjunction with Pluto in the early part of that month. The Greater Benefic may manifest in a more positive manner in November, than when it first made its rendezvous with Pluto in March, when it greatly expanded the number of those stricken with the virus, especially in New York and other hard-hit cities and states. In other parts of the world, Jupiter had a kinder effect by lessening the spread, with some countries attempting to normalize and go back to work.

 

 

 

Resources and Links

1. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back

2. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/us/coronavirus-scientists-debate-origin-theories-invs/index.html

3.  https://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-world/

4. Stations are when planets appear to stop in the movement to turn retrograde or back to direct.

5. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

6. Source of New York Horoscope, https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Manhattan,_New_York_(New_York)

7. A member of the White House coronavirus task force. Discovered the AIDS virus, and participated in the development of the cure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci

* February 7, 2020, is the date of Li Wenliang’s death from the coronavirus. The first death from the coronavirus in the United States was on February 6, 2020, in San Francisco, California. Sara Cody and other health professionals were monitoring the new virus and were the first to pronounce the “Stay at Home” order in the US. Their first initiative was to keep crowds down to less than 100 persons.

 

Andrew Cuomo – Governor Extraordinaire – Coronavirus in New York State

Andrew Cuomo is the Governor of the state of New York. When the coronavirus hit his state, Cuomo “did the numbers” by comparing what was happening in his region with how countries abroad experienced the pandemic. He was frustrated with the lack of quick response to the needs for all types of medical supplies and by his outspoken condemnation of the slow response by the federal government, things began to change and eventually moved forward.

Cuomo was the first to mention publically that although there was an abundance of test kits, there was a lack of follow-through on receiving the results from federal laboratories. After days of “pounding” the Trump administration, and communicating directly with him, the state laboratories Cuomo wanted to mobilize were finally freed to do so.

The chart for Andrew Cuomo is missing the time of birth, leaving the placement of the Moon and the location of planets through the houses questionable. The powerful dynamic that is active in the chart, that puts Cuomo in a place of leadership, is his progressed Neptune, two years in the formation of an intensifying station-retrograde (Figure 2). Neptune moves slowly and can identify pertinent events that possibly take place a year or more outside of the actual station.

Authoritative is a keyword for Neptune, for which Cuomo has shown great capacity. Neptune is a planet closely associated with the medical field. It rules hospitals and healthcare in general and works in partnership with Uranus as the planetary pair of Significance.

Transit Uranus is in opposition to progressed Neptune, which can be seen by the arrow pointing from the proposed wheel from the 2nd house to the 8th. Cuomo is the surrogate leader of New York state and his birth potentials extend to the people under his administration. The tension of an opposition aspect well-describes the awareness of the magnitude and critical concern felt by both the Governor and the people to whom he is responsible.

The Sabian Symbol for the Neptune station at 5 degrees Scorpio is A massive rocky shore. 

The symbol reflects the immediate situation faced by all New Yorkers.

This is a symbol of the dependability of the physical universe whenever man holds the center of reality within himself and uses the static constituents in nature as a sustainment for his essentially dynamic being. Implicit in the symbolism is the need for a direct and continual attention to the overall interests of the self at every point in life. Here is an exaltation of pure experience in its eternal and universal lineaments. The keyword is STABILIZATION. When positive, the degree is a poised spirit and a firmness of personality which enables every individual to prepare himself and his fellows for any possible contingency, and when negative, blind stubbornness or unreasoning conservatism.

The Sabian Symbol for transit Uranus at 5 degrees Taurus, A widow at an open grave, is also alarmingly enlightening.

This is a symbol of the impermanence of physical things whenever man permits reality to come to center in the static representation, and thus neglects the creative contribution through which he has responsibility for the larger whole. Implicit in the reversed symbolism is the need for an inner and constant return to every enduring value achieved by the self, and for a complete and immediate release from all outworn elements of experience. The keyword is REORIENTATION. When positive, the degree is man’s genius for personal aplomb or an effective transcendence of disappointment and delay in an ever-spiraling self-discovery, and when negative, surrender to frustration or descent to ineptitude.

Figure 2

The coming progressed Mars trine Pluto, indicated in Figure 3 will be exact on April 9, 2020. This may bring some good news, however, the progressed Sun squaring Mars is an aspect that will just be starting, showing that stressful circumstances will continue in spite of when the Mars trine takes hold. The Uranus transit will still loom over the situation, with the station on August 16th, only to retrograde back to its opposition to progressed Neptune. It will retrograde until its station-direct mid-January 2021, just two degrees of separation from the tense and formidable aspect that is associated with the collective challenge to New York and its besieged population.

Figure 3

 

The Challenge of a Sharp Destiny, Part 3, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The vibrant and outspoken Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, from the 14th district of New York, has Jupiter and Saturn in an opposition aspect in her natal chart. This is a Sharp Destiny that differs somewhat from the one defined by a square between the two significators which has been discussed in the analysis of the charts of Anthony Bourdain John McCainJupiter and Saturn in square aspect animate a heightened moral struggle that encourages the native to align their behavior in accordance with principles of right action. The same indicators in opposition aspect, as seen in the horoscope of Ocasio-Cortez, is described in the following passage found on page 124 of the Essentials of Astrological Analysis by Marc Edmund Jones:

Jupiter and Saturn in opposition aspect indicate an ordering of life’s fundamental motives, through which the native is usually compelled to dramatize himself continually in the presence of his fellows, at least if he wishes to participate with them in any course of everyday experience. This necessity often tends to throw a given lifetime into two entirely separate periods, with the latter revealing greater depth and continuity of realization, as perhaps an unsuspected consequence of the mirroring it has given itself through some more superficial role-playing in the former. There may be either a prodigal expenditure of the self’s resources, with their ultimate recapture in a refinement of soul, or a moral vacillation that accentuates every weakness of character, and so encourages a surrender to a final and hopeless ineptitude.

The activist and unapologetic socialist candidate Ocasio-Cortez, in a surprising upset defeated Joe Crowley, the ten-term Democrat Caucus Chair, in the midterm election primaries held on June 26, 2018.

She then went on to win victory over Republican Anthony Pappas, in the November 6, 2018 general election. The candidate was 29 years old when Saturn in transit approached the first of its three possible Returns, which could dramatically activate her Sharp Destiny. This first activation subsequently propelled events that would prove the aspect’s primary characteristic explained by Jones, that through increasing awareness, the life can be thrown into two distinct periods. It is well-known that Ocasio-Cortez’s life was spent in far less significant fashion as a waitress and bartender, before successfully acquiring the status as the youngest member ever to be elected to the United States Congress. This extreme and consequential turnabout in life direction gives stark witness to the powers of the Sharp Destiny, facilitated through the opposition between Jupiter and Saturn, that is the Departmental Pair of Motivation.

Throughout the time of Saturn’s transiting pilgrimage toward its natal location in the first house, it periodically traveled direct, went retrograde, and also stationed closely with its sensitive point of origin, before its final pass of natal Saturn, one month after her historic win. For astrologers, and for Ocasio-Cortez, the Saturn Return will forever be known as the major astrological indicator of the start of her career in politics. However, recognition must be given to other planetary actors in play at the same time as the Saturn Return. The native’s launch into her more significant life role was also synchronous with transit Jupiter, as it partnered in a passing conjunction with natal Pluto. Transit Pluto, at the same time, was approaching the 2nd house cusp in square with the natal Sun. The pressures of a square from the planet of transformative possibilities gave impetus to the Sun; the symbolic representation of one’s true purpose and vital potentials.

Success came with the Greater Benefic lending its good fortune through the support of the masses, in concert with the Sun, representing herself in a role to be played on the political stage. Pluto’s transit ingress into the 2nd house signaled the native’s upcoming position on the House Financial Services Committee. She would also secure a seat on the committee for Oversight and Government Reform, also pointing to Pluto; the planet known to encourage reformation and transformation toward a higher expression of conscious behavior of either an individual or group entity.

THE COMPLEX CROSS

At the core of the chart is a complex configuration that may include up to eight out of the ten planets. It is a coalescence of energies that can manifest in one of two possible ways, depending on the orb-allowance accepted by the astrologer. The chart’s basic aspect-structure is a Grand Square with six planets if the orb chosen is 10 degrees for the planets, Sun, and Moon. If however, the astrologer uses Marc Edmund Jones’ orbs of 17 degrees for the Sun and 12 and a half for the Moon, the Grand Square would then include eight planets, rather than the six planets involved when using a lesser orb-allowance.

An examination of the planets’ aspects reveals the foundational complexities. The horizontal oppositions of Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune spanning from the first to the seventh house Jupiter, includes the Sharp Destiny, and these four are perpendicular to the Mercury opposition to the Moon that both tightly hug the Midheaven and Nadir respectively. This creates a more simplified cross structure.

The integration of the Sun-Mars conjunction, with the six-pronged Grand Square, just described, forms a subtle tangent away from the four-pronged multiple squares, and either option gives the native an exceptional inner self-grounding, only described as slightly different potentials.

A Translation of Light becomes operative to include Mars, when the wide orb of the Sun conjuncts Mercury and opposes the Moon, and the Sun is activated by Mars, when using the 10-degree orb linking Saturn and Neptune through squares. If only a 10-degree orb is used, there is the possibility that the oppositions of Saturn, Neptune, and Jupiter can give rise to a T-Cross bringing the Sun and Mars into Point Focus. This eliminates the inclusion of the Mercury/Moon opposition from the grand configuration, as they would lie outside this narrower orb allowance.

Either orb-allowance supports a Grand Square, and in order to avoid a confusion of focus, one must define a Focal Determinator that can point to one of the four prongs as High Focus, which leans the native’s attention toward a special area of interest. Although Mercury is High Focus by virtue of its elevation, it is actually Jupiter that is the High Focus planet of the Grand Square because it is a Singleton in Hemisphere, if one ignores Mercury’s slight lean to the western side of the meridian by a few degrees.

Jupiter in High Focus draws energy and support from all other planets and is empowered as the Handle of a Bucket Temperament Type. The Natural Disposition is obviously Cardinal which motivates the native toward a characteristic ambition, and in Ocasio-Cortez’s potentials, it is tempered by a concern for justice and balance in judgment, enhanced by the presence of a strong concentration of planets Point Focus in Libra.

A Cardinal disposition defines an immediate, restless, self-directed and crisis-oriented personality, and endows the native with an exciting and charismatic quality, that aids the native in attracting the attention she so dearly covets. When functioning in the positive, these individuals are problem-solvers and live to be needed and admired. Jupiter and Saturn act as the needed core opposition of the Temperament Type, so that there is backbone to the character, helping to thrust the native ever-forward courageously.

The Bowl segment of the Planetary Pattern contains the elements of intelligence that are filtered through the planet in High Focus, and Jupiter’s placement in the 7th house gives Ocasio-Cortez an alert awareness for all incoming opportunities that enhance her purpose in life: which is to work in partnership with others on an equal basis. Jupiter makes her enthusiastic, paternal, optimistic, and with the influence of the sign of Cancer, is maternal as well, with a perpetual willingness to expand her horizons.

Mercury and the Moon form the Dilimiting Rim opposition of the Bowl segment of the Temperament Type, and act to restrain the emotions, offering the native time to think before acting. Together these contradictory features, of the core opposition charging forward unrestrained, yet having the control to hold back when necessary, helps balance the multifaceted attributes of the native.

The 7th house is also the indicator of any push-back or challenge to the native’s intentions. It facilitates a place of competition, conflict, and direct combat, but when handled with real moral authority, which the Sharp Destiny can provide, the congresswoman becomes a force for cooperation and compromise in order to reach any lofty goals she has in her sights.

The combined energies of Sun and Mars point their release in the direction of the 10th house of career, honor, and authority, which the congresswoman has begun to acquire at an early age, by winning a seat in the House of Representatives, in the 2018 U.S. mid-term elections.

Ocasio-Cortez has come onto the political scene, with at times, a characteristic over-exuberance, powered by a naturally energized Sun/Mars in Point Focus. The liberties she takes in her outspokenness and authoritarian determination, already in her relatively short career, has been demonstrated at congressional hearings when chastising those not living up to the promises they made as public servants.

SEXTILES AND TRINES, ASSISTING SQUARES AND OPPOSITIONS

Whether considering the chart to have a Grand Square with eight planets, or a Grand Square with a T-Cross combined, only natal Pluto and Venus stand apart from the stress and strain of the squares and oppositions of either Cross. In contrast, these two planets lend the horoscope a much-needed relief of tension, through a series of sextiles and trines, that integrates nicely into the formidable Cross structure. There are no hard aspects to or from Pluto and Venus with any other planets in the horoscope.

The High Focus Jupiter applies in trine to Pluto, while Venus graciously receives a trine from the Moon and a sextile from Mercury. These two forces become the reins of the entire configuration and add supportive direction for the expansion of potentials seen at the descendant, which is the place of all forthcoming opportunity.

PAST DYNAMIC CHARTING

The dynamic conjunctions of progressed Sun and Mercury took their turns joining forces with natal Pluto, to deepen the understanding of the native’s creative role in life throughout 2014. The Sun’s conjunction brought to life the deeper side of herself and put Ocasio-Cortez in touch with friends and those of like-kind associated with an 11th house placement of Pluto. Personal associates became powerful connections that helped manifest the native’s political aims. Progressed Mercury, a year later, assisted in forming more specific ideals and objectives with its own passage over natal Pluto.

Major transits also played a great part in the native’s maturing process when Pluto passed over the three natal planets in the first house from 2008 to 2013. This was followed by a refinement of character, with Saturn’s passage of the same planets throughout 2018, which included her first Saturn Return. Ocasio-Cortez came into her powers with the stimulation of the Sharp Destiny’s Jupiter/Saturn opposition. Life changed radically in 2018, laying the groundwork for years to come.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

Marc Edmund Jones defines Astrology as the “science of probability.” Looking forward to what may possibly occur is a tempting pass-time for astrologers. It is contrary to the Humanistic approach, where the astrologer encourages the client to use astrology for self-realization as opposed to seeking advantages in the manipulation of circumstances. However, it can bring personal gratification and public recognition when an astrologer can prove his or her talents of prophecy.

Identifying major transits and secondary progressions to natal planets is astrology’s way of pushing the curtain aside to reveal the possibilities of future accomplishments. The Dynamic Aspects (progressions and transits), that will stimulate the profound future potentials for Ocasio-Cortez, will take effect in approximately ten years. If the adept congresswoman maintains her career in politics, she will have experience in legislation by the time the Dynamic Aspects mature. This will provide her with all the necessary planetary support needed to advance her career toward great accomplishment if she is able to rise to the occasion of the forthcoming cluster of progressions.

FUTURE PROGRESSIONS

In the search for significant progressions in the distant future, one finds Mars standing out by its conjunction with natal Pluto, commencing on October 20, 2030. The conjunction takes place at 14 degrees 08 Scorpio and lies at the center of one of the four fixed power signs of the zodiac. The progression will set off an intense release of potentials.

SCORPIO 15. Children playing around five mounds of sand. This is a symbol of absolute self-integrity at a simple extreme of social consciousness, or of the human spirit in its nascent competence for meeting all possible eventualities. There is here, a dramatization of the psychological faculties as a means for contact with other people, and of the illimitable capacity for experience in any situation where man may find himself. The individual is able to deal with whatever may arise in the circumstances of his being and to commit himself to whatever proves to be worthwhile. The keyword is NAIVETÉ. When positive, the degree is a gift for a continual discovery of new and effective facets of selfhood, and when negative, wholly purposeless ineptitude.

Squares, conjunctions, and oppositions from progressed planets to natal, are more noticeable to a native because of the stresses they produce, especially when they resist change. Sextiles and trines on the contrary, indicate momentum and assistance, and a general continuing flow of conveniences that were set in motion at the times of the more challenging and productive hard aspects. It is wise to observe when aspects enter, are exact, and completed, and then connect corresponding events, even before and after these precise astrological dates, to identify experiences that may also be related to the planetary activities in motion at the time.

Mars is exact in its conjunction with natal Pluto, April 8, 2032, and completes the intense interaction on September 25, 2033. This is an astrological calculation that must link to experiences that are not necessarily bound to the enter, exact, and leave dates, as previously mentioned.

When the conjunction of Mars to Pluto begins, it will occur in the midst of an array of progressed Moon squares, which exacerbate the tension around the conjunction. The progressed Moon will square the planets in the 1st and 7th houses from the 10th house of career, honor, and authority, and foretells of either a devastating fall from power or the exact opposite; the rise to a high position, possibly well anticipated.

A reasonable prognostication is that the native may launch a campaign or project during this three year period, that requires a vast amount of energy and focus. To assist in this matter is the exact phase of the Mars conjunction of Pluto, as it is surrounded by supportive conjunctions, sextiles, and trines from the progressed Moon to various natal planets. 

These future astrological events certainly point to an important time in the career of the newly positioned congresswoman.  Ocasio-Cortez will undoubtedly continue to impress the American public with her unrelenting presence and driving force, thanks to her Sharp Destiny and her Bucket Temperament, and their pressing desire to fulfill a missionary vision in life.

With all that has been said to reveal a powerhouse of personality and drive, there is yet another extremely encouraging feature of the horoscope that is effective from birth and throughout the native’s entire life. Her natal Sun is located in the heavens, adjacent to the benefic fixed star Spica, that offers one of the most gracious stellar influences in the astrological pantheon of stars. It promises great good fortune by its placement in the 10th house, especially for her hopes and wishes, which presently are well underway.

What Makes Robert Mueller the Man of Integrity?

Sometimes a horoscope tells a fascinating story, and this is what we find in the chart of Robert Swan Mueller III, the man who was appointed as special counsel to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

An interpretation of natal potentials is compromised when the time of birth is unknown because the Moon’s degree and house placement and the distribution of the planets throughout the houses are virtually unknown. However, Marc Edmund Jones offers techniques in his Essentials of Astrological Analysis that offer an abundance of tools that aid in circumventing the lack of a correct time of birth.

One of these possibilities is the T-Cross as a Focal Determinator. However, when one of the three prongs of the configuration is the Moon, again the accuracy of interpretation may not be valid. This is the case in the horoscope of Robert Mueller.  The Moon moves swiftly through the degrees of a sign within an entire day and may or may not be in orb of an opposition to Neptune in Mueller’s chart to create a T-Cross. Looking closely because of this factor, we can assume that the Moon’s sign and degree placement throughout the 24 hours of the day of Mueller’s birth shows the Moon’s transit stays within close proximity of its 12-and-a-half-degree allowable orb to create a possible opposition to Neptune. This ultimately brings Saturn into Point Focus since its position is perpendicular to the opposition of Moon to Neptune.

Astrologers consider that aside from the frustrations, delays, and disappointments for which Saturn is known, it is also the planet of integrity, responsibility, maturity, and conscientiousness. This suggests a host of positive characteristics that can imbue an individual with extraordinary and honorable stature. These constructive expressions of Saturn explain why Mueller is known for his spotless reputation as a Marine Corps officer during the Vietnam War who received a Bronze Star for heroism and a Purple Heart. He spent his civilian years in both private and public service engaged in a stellar career that included 12 years as director of the FBI.

THE REVEALING SABIAN SYMBOLS

Mueller’s chart is especially interesting because the Sabian Symbol degrees play a compelling role when telling his story.

There are three Sabian Symbol degrees in Mueller’s chart that refer to the first light of day or the Sun in general. When symbols contain similar imagery they are supportive of each other and point to an emphasis on the native’s psychological patterning. These three similar concepts in the chart are symbolic of the revelatory effects of light as it illuminates hitherto unforeseen factors otherwise obscured by darkness. They are those that shine light on the “shadow” as it is defined from a Jungian perspective. These symbols refer to an awareness that overcomes darkness or “stormy” situations. They confirm Mueller’s dedication to truth and lawfulness, and most of all, to his personal integrity which always shines through when faced with the challenges of humankind’s propensity for wrongdoing.

Neptune, 2 Libra 17 rounded to 3 degrees:

The dawn of a new day, everything changed This is a symbol of the illimitable potentialities to be found when it comes to any personal participation in everyday affairs, and of the thoroughness with which each individual remains the recurrent expression of his own self-consistencies. There is here the necessity for an ultimate self-dependence, and the consequent need to blaze a path of special recognition for each particular characteristic of selfhood. The keyword is INNOVATION. When positive, the degree is man’s insatiable appetite for experiment, and continuing self-discovery in every possible area of human experience, and when negative, inability to catch the challenge of living in even the most trivial matters.

Venus, 26 Leo 27 rounded to 27 degrees:

Daybreak This is a symbol of the cycles of change as an ultimate assurance to the human heart, with an emphasis on reason, as the means by which man knows the nature of his own continuance. No matter what may be the course of events in their over-all unpredictability, there is always dawn, or springtime, as the promise of resurgence, or a new potential in every manifestation of self and its world. Reality is ever a beginning in the sense of the immediacy it offers the individual. The keyword is GENESIS. When positive, the degree is an untiring capture and recapture of life throughout the constant and confusing shifts of being, and when negative, wishful thinking and satisfaction in a vague tomorrow.

Sun, 15 Leo 00 round to 16.

Sunshine, just after a storm This is a symbol of personal stability through man’s recuperative powers, emphasized in terms of his psychological or inner orientation. Here is nature’s inevitable return to enduring values, as this occurs after every major issue of life, and the consequent opportunity for self to regrasp itself and to enlist every element of its environment in some new effort or fresh approach to experience. Everyday stress and strain are found of high use, either as a clearance or a reconstruction in all human affairs. The keyword is RECOVERY. When positive, the degree is exceptional steadiness of perspective and fidelity to individual responsibility, and when negative, continual upset over petty issues.

The Sun in any chart points to the purpose or role a person plays in life. It is Mueller’s destiny to usher in the light, in answer to infractions that have held their sway over good. This he has done valiantly in his long career as a prosecutor and public servant.

One of the most delightful Sabian degrees suggesting a curious nuance in the story of Mueller’s natal horoscope is 7 degrees Cancer, Two fairies on a Moonlit night. Interestingly, this image contains a reference to the moon and compliments the symbols in his chart associated with light. This symbol plays a prominent role because it characterizes natal Saturn, the Point Focus of the T-Cross.

Two fairies on a moonlit night. This is a symbol of nature’s illimitable potentialities on the side of the release she offers man from his physical or psychological involvement, and of the necessity that he achieve some measure of lightness in self-expression as a balance for the strain of everyday existence. Here is exaltation of fancy, as a dynamic factor in all self-realization, and of the quiet moments of experience as a real opportunity for self-orientation. The magic of selfhood lies in its ability to rise above whatever may threaten its well-being. The keyword is ASCENDANCY. When positive, the degree is a transforming sensitivity or a healing imagination. And when negative, a senseless retreat to make-believe.

A study of symbol definitions allows astrologers to penetrate deep within a native’s psyche to reveal the theme of life in general when taking all of the symbol definitions together as a whole. The planet configurations have their job through the signs and houses to suggest the overall potentials. Cancer 7, accompanies a “handful” of otherworldly elfin degrees that take part in the Sabian Symbols’ collection of visionary imagery.

Planets, together with these special Sabian Symbol degrees, vibrate to a higher frequency and encourage the native to reach beyond the conventional expression of planetary energies. Robert Mueller’s chart is an example of the rich resources the symbols have to offer. The elfin degree confirms a highly deviant yet refined character which, normally with Saturn involved, relied on once-respected old-school principles.

The following images are the group of elfin symbols in the 360-degree Sabian series. They are rounded to the following degree.

Aries 16, Brownies dancing in the setting sun.
Scorpio 23, A bunny metamorphosed into a fairy.
Scorpio 28, King of the fairies approaching his domain.
Cancer 7, Two fairies on a moonlit night.
Capricorn 26, A water sprite.
Virgo 5, A man dreaming of fairies.

THE SOLAR ECLIPSE AND PROGRESSED SATURN STATION

The solar eclipse of July 2, 2019, at 10 degrees 37 Cancer, synchronized with the compelling presence of Mueller at congressional hearings where he confirmed the findings of his investigative report which was disseminated but not widely read by the American public. The eclipse fell 4 degrees 37 minutes from Mueller’s natal Saturn and brought into public view signs of his declining, physical vitality noticeable through his sometimes feeble responses to questions by House Representatives. The eclipse intensified his reserved demeanor by landing within 10 minutes of progressed Saturn.

The ephemeris graph for October 1944 shows Saturn station retrograde in Mueller’s secondary progressions on February 15, 2021. The station actually occurred  76 days after birth and corresponds with the native’s 76th year of life. Two important circumstances related to the Saturn station are Mueller’s resignation from the Justice Department on May 29, 2019, because his investigation on election interference by Russia was completed and his attendance at the hearings before the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees on July 24, 2019, that also may prove to be his last personal appearance before the public.

Both events are well within the time period expected of a slow-moving progressed station. However, the station has not culminated as yet, and more details of his retirement and possible acceleration of physical limitations, indicative of the expression of Saturn, may be reported in upcoming years. In general, it could be said that the entire two-and-a-half-year period of the historic investigation fits perfectly into the theme of a stationary Saturn. The station going retrograde and inward, rather than direct and outward, points to the disdain for public comment and the general secrecy that surrounded the investigation as Mueller orchestrated it.

With his stoic appearance before Congress, Mueller was able to confirm the truth that the report did not exonerate the president, and with quiet yes-and-no answers, with occasional enlightening comments, Mueller set the story straight, and in that way, starkly contrasted the President and Attorney General’s mantra, that there was “no collusion, no obstruction.” He furthermore confirmed to Adam Schiff, the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, that the investigation was not a witch-hunt when responding to Schiff’s request for verification which would ultimately counter the President’s habitual false accusation in that regard.

Mueller is a man who has maintained over time a reputation of unequaled integrity and wholehearted dedication to the precepts of American democracy. There were headlines criticizing Mueller for deliberately sticking to the “four corners” of his report, and in answer to his own inquiry, he conceded to the written response from the Justice Department, compelling him to withhold information about ongoing investigations. But these limitations are to be expected when Saturn takes center stage through its natal position receiving a recent eclipse and its progressed position stationing to go retrograde.

Remaining within boundaries and withstanding grave and perhaps undeserved criticism all relate to the functioning of Saturn and are unavoidable. One cannot manipulate planetary forces, but advantages do exist when noting any planet’s correspondence to everyday affairs and adjusting to them with humility and a conciliatory attitude.

There was no drama or theatrics in Mueller’s manner at the hearings, and in contrast with Trump’s often bombastic and unrestrained hyperbole, Mueller seemed almost docile. But the man will go down in history as the person credited for documenting the unprecedented acts and intractable behavior of the Trump administration.

No doubt, Russia will continue to aggressively tamper with America’s central core of its democracy; the citizen’s right to vote. Point by point, Volume I of the “Mueller Report” openly lays bare how and what the Russians did in their manipulative interference in the 2016 presidential election and outlines in Volume II President Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Special Counsel’s investigation.

History will look back at the report as it shone a light on right as opposed to wrong and truth as opposed to falsehoods. Time will tell if Mueller will be recognized for his distinguished and honorable investigation into the facts of the 2016 presidential election and whether the effort will have assisted in supporting the original blueprint of America’s constitution and its guiding principles.

“This is what is at stake; our next election . . . our democracy . . . This is why your work matters Director Mueller, this is why our investigation matters. To bring these dangers to light.”  –  Adam Schiff

Challenge of a Sharp Destiny – John McCain – 1936 – 2018

John Sidney McCain III served his country throughout his entire life, but it was during his tour of duty as a pilot in the U.S. Navy, and especially as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, that he unknowingly took on the challenge of the formidable Sharp Destiny, identified in his chart by the square between Jupiter and Saturn.

The naval captain managed to rise to the occasion, only after years of personal, agonizing struggles and peer criticism that the daunting configuration bestows on a soul in need of awakening. He gained a reputation from fellow airmen for recklessness in the cockpit, and later as a Senator, drew condemnation from the public for reasons that included racial remarks, (1) and for his involvement in the Keating Five scandal in 1989. There were character flaws to overcome, and the Sharp Destiny’s presence in the chart points to the need for correction.

Both McCain’s father and grandfather were distinguished admirals, and in 1954 their third-generation namesake followed in their footsteps by attending the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis Maryland. Unfortunately, however, he fell short by graduating 894th in his class of 899.

In spite of scoffing at rules and protocol, McCain was responsible enough to be trained to fly bombers from aircraft carriers. His headstrong and undisciplined nature may have led to carelessness, resulting in three flight accidents (2) before being assigned to the battle-worn carrier USS Oriskany.

There were younger pilots with better records and more experience, but McCain pressed for the combat assignment that would ultimately seal his fate as a prisoner of war. On his 23rd combat mission over Hanoi on October 26, 1967, his A-4 Sky Hawk was shot down by enemy fire. He injured himself severely while ejecting from the cockpit, but successfully parachuted into Trúc Bach Lake, only to be captured by North Vietnamese soldiers.

McCain would spend the following five and a half years in Hỏa Lò Prison, nicknamed “Hanoi Hilton” by U.S. prisoners, where he would be subjected to barbarous torture. Anyone shot down in military service is considered a hero, but because of McCain’s history of marginalizing proper procedures, his fellow airmen deemed the event pilot error. (3) Controversy often follows an individual with a Sharp Destiny. It comes as a result of the square aspect’s counter-energies and often manifests through demands from others who stand in judgment of a native’s acts and attitudes. External factors contribute additional pressures to a native’s inner crises normally felt under the influence of a square, especially one involving Jupiter and Saturn.

McCain’s notorious temper, coupled with periodic bouts of irresponsibility, set him up for condemnation. But ultimately he would confront himself, and tackle his shortcomings when forced to do so in the years of his solitary confinement. In his own words, “I had a lot of time to think over there, and came to the conclusion that one of the most important things in life – along with a man’s family – is to make some contribution to his country. . . I thought a lot about the meaning of life.” Time would give McCain the chance to achieve the lofty goals encouraged by the Sharp Destiny, so clearly defined by the renowned astrologer and creator of the technique, Marc Edmund Jones.

JUPITER AND SATURN IN  SQUARE ASPECT indicate an ordering of life’s fundamental motives, through which the native usually suffers very immediate consequences of the least neglect or abuse of his own potentials. He finds he must fight continually for the ideals in which he has come to take the most consistent interest, and also learns that his conscious well-being is wholly dependent on the moral struggles in which he becomes involved almost inevitably at every stage of his experience. If he does not relish the days in which he seems torn to pieces in self-uncertainty, he must discover ways to tear himself apart deliberately, and in equally painful fashion, on behalf either of some cause of real significance or some conception that he can dramatize through his own being. Personal existence under this configuration can become either great opportunity, or else a gradual disintegration of the soul in the very core of itself.(4)

A Sharp Destiny is identified by a conjunction, square, or opposition between Jupiter and Saturn within a 10-degree orb. The same orb allowance is given for a Loose Destiny and is defined by a sextile, trine, or lack of major aspect between the two planets.(5) The Loose Destiny differs greatly from the more formidable Sharp Destiny described in McCain’s case, and affords the native the freedom to resist ingrained cultural standards, allowing one to dictate one’s own life path with minimal resistance from outside sources. Of the three major aspects defining the Sharp Destiny, the square and opposition are the most exacting. They drive an individual through inner struggle or direct conflict, respectively, to seek and live up to an exemplary high code of ethics.

The Sharp Destiny is prominent in McCain’s horoscope because Jupiter is High Focus at the midheaven and in square to Saturn rising in the 1st house. Neptune from the 7th house applies in opposition to Saturn, and Saturn, in turn, opposes Venus in the 7th. These oppositions, create the necessary polarization of forces that form a T-Cross that has its expressive outlet through Jupiter in Point Focus. The Sharp Destiny forms one essential angle of the T-Cross and becomes the signature configuration that assists the native’s development into a notable figure on the world stage.

THE CAPTURE AND RELEASE

The most difficult aspects of Dynamic charting (6) are those that involve Saturn and Pluto, especially when aspecting each other. Saturn is notorious for its unrelenting laser-like role in the refinement of character, and Pluto is associated with a wide spectrum of possibilities, ranging from a demand for the ego’s total surrender in the process of transformation, to the opposite extreme, in a profound gifting of power and influence.

At the time McCain was captured by the Vietcong, Pluto was transiting the 7th house at 21 Virgo 53 and well-engaged in its approximate three-year opposition to natal Saturn. This vigorous activation of the Sharp Destiny manifested the more arduous attributes of the planets involved and corresponds to the fierce abuse the native suffered while imprisoned. Here is where the most persuasive forces in the solar system, manifesting through people, pit themselves against another’s greatest fears and vulnerability. During his incarceration, McCain transformed his struggle for survival into the opportunity to develop better character potentials. The victim of torment and misfortune took hold of inner strength that gave power to his higher motivations, thanks to the Sharp Destiny’s potential for turning a person’s life around under pressure.

Transiting Pluto’s effects are usually recognizable when it comes within a five-degree orb of a natal planet, and its long duration may include highly consequential stations when conjunct or opposite within one degree. During the first few years of incarceration, Pluto would station several times, intensifying the dangerous situation as it threatened McCain’s very existence. Pluto stationed once in opposition to natal Saturn in May of 1968, and twice in conjunction with natal Venus, in December of 1967 and June of 1969. Events related to these stations, and to Pluto’s aspects to natal Mercury in the early 1970s, are disclosed in McCain’s personal account of his imprisonment.(7)

McCain was released from prison on March 14, 1973, as the war was reaching its end. His homecoming corresponds to 4th house “end-of-the-matter” aspects to Point Focus Jupiter in the 10th. Aside from the transits to and from Venus, the real harbingers of freedom came from the progressed Moon and the transit of Saturn respectively, in tight opposition to the greater benefic. The Moon was just beyond its aspect by 1 degree 30 minutes, while Saturn was tighter, with 42 minutes before exact opposition. The Moon and Saturn in tandem charged the situation with emotional fervor as the release from prison became imminent.

The Sharp Destiny brought into focus the chasm between American ideals and the despotism McCain endured while a victim in captivity. Upon his return home, he received physical therapy, attended the National War-College in Washington D. C., and in 1977, accepted the position of naval liaison to the U.S. Senate, which was the bridge that would lead to his political career, first as a lawmaker in the House of Representatives and later as a Senator.

McCain believed in the importance of bipartisanship. He was not held back by differences of opinion or policy and would reach across the aisle to get things done with members of both political parties because he believed the individual was part of a greater whole. The Sun represents Will and Purpose (8) (its keywords) and its placement on the 7th house cusp encourages acting in partnership with others in the name of opportunity and cooperation for the benefit of all. The 7th house also rules open conflicts and outright warfare, and when compromise occasionally failed, McCain’s volcanic temper would surface in fierce confrontation.

THE VOLATILE SABIAN SYMBOL

McCain’s sporadic abrasiveness can be seen woven into his behavior through random planetary influences in his chart, including characteristics revealed through the Sabian Symbols.(9) In spite of his need for establishing relationships, his erratic and combative responses could repel others. He was known for his biting sense of humor and volatile disposition, but fortunately, those defining idiosyncrasies also contributed to lifelong friendships and camaraderie rather than proving a deterrent. When friends and colleagues gathered to eulogize him, each in his own way gave an account of an encounter with his destabilizing humor and fierce passion. Testimonials of his dark, as well as his light side, poured out from both Republicans and Democrats.(10)

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat from Rhode Island remarked;

“John could be annoying. In Munich, accepting an award for John, his beloved wife Cindy said, ‘I love him most of the time, but his temper could be explosive.’ I learned once about a man who was named for a South American volcano because he constantly fumed and regularly erupted. And of course, I thought of John.”

Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois stated;

“Typical John McCain, A volcanic temper, but an embracing loving approach when it came to friendship.”

Senator Ben Sasse, Republican from Nebraska explained;

“After he was released, he wanted to make sure that he spent all of his time on big things. His impatience, his volcanic temper, flowed directly from the fact that he thought that life was too short to waste on the small stuff.”

These and numerous other statements reveal McCain’s temperament as it is symbolically reflected in his Neptune Sabian Symbol degree, 16 Virgo 08, A volcano in eruption.  Here is where a symbol’s phantasmal imagery affects actuality. In uncanny fashion, members of Congress and friends, described the statesman’s nature as “volcanic,” just as it is stated in the symbol itself. The symbol’s description, as Jones composed it, describes in detail the motives behind the native’s excessive emotional reactions, especially as it relates to the “mobilization of his deeper potentials.” And just as Senator Sasse concluded, the frustrations the native suffered were born of the need to achieve success with issues of grave public concern.

Neptune’s Sabian Symbol, 17 VIRGO,  A volcano in eruption. In Sabian Symbols in Astrology, Marc Edmund Jones writes:

This is a symbol of that constant expansion of self and nature which constitutes reality in its most fundamental terms, emphasized here on the side of physical force and the blind urge of life to continue to be. Implicit in the wonder and destructiveness is man’s ease of self-recovery in the critical phases of his experience, often aided by the sheer violence with which he acts to meet some major issue. His irresistible outbursts may be merely the total mobilization of his deeper potentials. The keyword is EXPLOSION. When positive, the degree is creative passion as a rejection of superficiality and a genuine ordering of self, and when negative, petulance and tantrums.

THE CANCER DIAGNOSIS

Businessinsider.com reported the details of McCain’s threatening diagnosis (11);

“McCain was scheduled for a regular physical on Friday, July 14, 2017,  at the  Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale Arizona. The brain scan, that McCain had undergone during his physical, had discovered something. He underwent surgery several hours later. And then a few days later, it was revealed that the blood clot was a primary brain tumor.”

During the discovery of the brain tumor, the fast-moving planets identified the timing of this event and linked the nuances of activity with the greater development of the slower celestial bodies. The swift movers fill in the details as the outer orbiting planets create the base-note foundation of experience.

Before the diagnosis of cancer on July 14, 2017, were several developing aspects involving the Sharp Destiny. Progressed Saturn was retrograding toward the closure of the five-degree aspect gap it had with natal Jupiter at birth, and at the same time was tightening its opposition with natal Neptune. Transit Saturn was also retrograding toward a station, that in the following month, would square its natal position within one degree. Transit Uranus was in a tight square with natal Pluto, and transit Neptune’s subtle effects were operating through an opposition to its own natal location. These compelling Dynamic aspects, to and from powerful outer planets, point to the seriousness of events, as they made an impact on the native’s health at the time.

Looking at the finer details of Dynamic charting, are the very effective and developing transit-to-progressed aspects of import. When McCain was informed of his rare and aggressive cancer, transit Pluto was retrograde, and moving to meet with the progressed Moon at the exact same degree and minute, 18 Capricorn 1. Also, at the time of the diagnosis, the speedier transit of Mars was approaching a conjunction with natal Pluto. Thirteen months later, on August 28, 2018, the same Mars would station-direct in exact opposition to Pluto, announcing the native’s passing that took place four days earlier. Mars’ potent forces joined the overall buildup of the slower orbiting planets, and all gave warning of the impending fatality of the illness.

THE SENATOR’S ACA VOTE

Ironically, at the time of McCain’s advancing illness, the Affordable Care Act was under scrutiny in the Senate. McCain’s own health concerns alerted him to make a profound statement by voting to defeat the bill to repeal the ACA. McCain’s thumbs-down vote was the decisive factor that resulted in the law’s continuance, although he had a history of disdain for it.(12)

Peter W. Stevenson from the Washington Post, relays the nuances of the historic congressional vote.

“In the early hours of July 28, 2017, Sen. John McCain slowly walked onto the floor of the Senate. It was a vote, for the GOP’s “skinny repeal” bill, — a measure that would have permanently repealed the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, among other provisions.  . . . As McCain’s turn to vote arrived, the Senate clerk nodded at him. The Arizona Republican paused, then gave a dramatic thumbs down, eliciting gasps from the Democratic side of the chamber, and grim looks of resignation from the GOP leadership, that had spent the past few hours trying to get him to change his mind.”(13)

The planetary configurations in the early hours of July 28th, just two weeks after his devastating diagnosis and surgery, were similar to those that were active during events on July 14th. Additionally, progressed Mars was in close conjunction with natal Mercury, giving impetus to take decisive initiative as a result of serious thought to the issue at hand. The maverick politician made the difficult decision “hard” aspects propose, and voted against what his fellow Republicans favored. His conscious concern on behalf of average Americans can be traced to the influence of the Sharp Destiny that solidified his commitment to his high ideals. He demonstrated his devotion to the welfare of others through the protest-vote against what he deemed a renegade Congress and administration.

McCain’s health was continually challenged throughout his life. He suffered permanent injuries from being tortured, had recurring bouts of skin cancer, and was finally diagnosed with the cancer that took his life. The Sabian Symbols have already proven to be revealing when pointing to McCain’s “volcanic” temper. Here again, they are highlighted, this time by Uranus at 9 Taurus 30, in the degree of A Red Cross nurse, as another example of the remarkable concurrence between symbolic imagery and actuality.

Like Jupiter, Uranus is also Point Focus, because it is the squaring participant of a T-Cross with the Moon and Mars in opposition. When in Point Focus, a Sabian Symbol’s meaning is amplified. A Red Cross nurse articulates clearly, the ideals McCain embraced and expressed in so many concerns during his life, including the now-legendary thumbs down vote that gave longevity to the ACA as established during the Obama administration.

Uranus 10 Taurus,

A Red Cross nurse  This is a symbol of human service, on the ideal or spiritual side, and it emphasizes the greatest of all roads to self-realization. The steadiness of concern, for the more extreme needs of others, is dramatization of the most consistent opportunity for the self to become momentarily a phase of all-self, and through that universal experience, to become more satisfactorily whatever it wishes to be on its own account. The keyword is ENLISTMENT. When positive, the degree is a complete dedication of the self, to the worthwhile and enduring projects through which it can lose all sense of separateness, and when negative, a superficial pretense of humanitarianism, in order to gain transient importance.

NAUTICAL SABIAN SYMBOLS

The Sabian Symbols examined thus far, have illustrated McCain’s outer persona as well as his deeper stirrings. A volcano in eruption points to his turbulent temperament while A Red Cross nurse celebrates his empathy toward others. Surprisingly, there are several nautical images that literally speak of the native’s naval background. The three symbols with brief comments are below. The degrees are rounded up to the following degree.

Moon, 3 Aquarius:

A deserter from the navy  This is a symbol of human independence carried to a point of extreme rebellion against things as they are, here emphasized in disregard of all consequences, for the sake of an immediate liberation of the spirit. There is a demand for a more rewarding expression of individuality, and the reversed symbolism suggests that any late acceptance of full and personal responsibility for life, is better than none at all. Except as man creates his own allegiances, his destiny holds no depth. The keyword is DEFIANCE. When positive, the degree is genuine psychological courage, in a repudiation of all meaningless loyalties, and when negative, complete inability to follow the rules of any game.

Though never a deserter, the Moon’s degree, alludes to the time when McCain was a P.O.W. The symbol reflects his impassioned refusal, to surrender to the communist dogma he witnessed in the autocratic North Vietnamese regime. The symbol’s original version, from Jones’s 1925 mimeographed series, expresses the degree in more detail; A deserter from the navy stands suddenly aware of the dawning truth, that freedom is never the result of compromise. McCain held to his integrity and resisted any compromise with the enemy while in prison, and again, later, when in contention with his peers on the floor of Congress.

The second symbol to review is An old sea captain rocking, and it is extraordinary because it mirrors the native’s actual rank in the navy. McCain retired as a captain in 1981, but maintained a longing to return to Vietnam, to come to terms with the trauma of his once harrowing internment.

Mars, 13 Leo:

An old sea captain rocking  This is a symbol of man’s great love for reliving his experiences in memory, and of his gift for achieving a mastery, in advance of whatever new situations he may face, by bringing all the ramifying relationships to a focus, in a personal and competent grasp of their more pertinent potentialities. He fights the battles of the world in his imagination over and over again. He knows that events repeat themselves, and so may be brought in leash. The keyword is RETROSPECT. When positive, the degree is each person’s unlimited capacity for calling up afresh, the powers he has gained in his struggle toward self-fulfillment, and when negative, insensibility to present reality, in a full surrender to the past.

The old sea-captain’s wish was fulfilled in April 2000, when he arrived in Hanoi, to review his past, and assist in the reconciliation, of the two governments that had been at war decades prior. He told reporters at an airport news conference, “I put the Vietnam War behind me a long time ago . . . I harbor no anger, no rancor.”(14) It was his “capacity for calling up afresh, the powers he gained through struggle,” as cited in the symbol, that gave him the fortitude to overcome justifiable resentments he held toward his prosecutors.

The 3rd and last maritime symbol to discuss is established by elevated Jupiter. Its influence is outstanding because of Jupiter’s distinction as both Point and High Focus and because of its participation in the all-important Sharp Destiny.  The symbol speaks of McCain’s unrelenting ambition which was fulfilled by his political career.

Jupiter, 16 Sagittarius:

Seagulls watching a ship  This is a symbol of the spirit’s demand for its full share in the privileges and rewards of human society, and of the individual’s realization that his personal interests are served only as he maintains an unceasing vigilance in his own behalf. There is a continual, and wholly impersonal give and take, in every phase of life’s overall economy, so that what loses its usefulness in one respect, will gain an immediate high potentiality in another. Moreover, what man fails to claim definitely for himself, is promptly surrendered to the devices of someone else. The keyword is ALERTNESS. When positive, the degree is a gift for recognizing every opportunity at hand, and when negative, aimless expectation.

A POIGNANT FAREWELL

John McCain died of brain cancer on August 25, 2018, just four days before his 82nd birthday. Referring to the title of McCain’s book, Character is Destiny.(15) Democrat, and former Vice President Joe Biden, in his speech at McCain’s funeral, said, “Character is destiny. John had character.” When asked to explain McCain’s character to those not knowing him well, Biden continued,  “He lived by a code where honor, courage, integrity, and duty were alive. . . Underlying values animated everything John did, everything he was.  He’d part company with you if you lacked the basic values of decency and respect.   Biden’s words paraphrase Jones, as they express the Jupiter-Saturn square’s positive encouragement to, “fight continually for ideals, and to tear oneself apart on behalf of a cause of real significance.”

The most significant astrological event, at the time of McCain’s passing, is shown in the ephemeris for 1936. Counting 82 days after birth shows progressed Saturn had arrived to station direct at 15 Pisces 47. The station in real-time was exact on December 19, 2017, and corresponds to the diagnosis of the native’s illness five months previously, and with the death that resulted eight months later. A liberal time allowance is given to ultra-slow stations when pairing them with earthly events.

Progressed stations are powerful, and are indicators of life-changing experiences. But their significance intensifies, when in tight aspect with natal planets. In this unique case, Saturn’s station emphasized the completion of its square with natal Jupiter, and became the high point of the Sharp Destiny’s promise; signaling the last opportunity for the aspect to express its deep meaning. McCain had gained mastery over the destined square, that “followed” him throughout the years. In acknowledgment of the good reputation he worked so hard to achieve, he was given the rare honor, to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol. It was the decision of congressional leaders from both parties, calling McCain, “a great American patriot, a statesman, who put his country first, and enriched this institution through many years of service.”

In his youth, McCain was inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s protagonist in the 1940 novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, (16) which sourced its title from the 17th-century poem by John Donne, wherein the poet professes the vital interconnectedness of society;

“Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

McCain revisited the story numerous times during his life, as it presented a complex war of ideologies with which he easily identified. It paralleled his own experience, and became the seed of his growing embrace of a cause greater than himself, that came in the form of American values and probity of spirit.

McCain writes his parting words in his last book The Restless Wave:

“The bell tolls for me. I knew it would. So I tried, as best I could, to stay ‘apart of the main.‘ I hope those who mourn my passing, and even those who don’t, will celebrate as I celebrate a happy life, lived in imperfect service, to a country made of ideals, whose continued service is the hope of the world.”(17)

The Sharp Destiny endowed John McCain with the “right stuff” to become the hero and role model for which he is ultimately known. The bravery he demonstrated as a naval airman and captive, and in his public service thereafter, are a testament and encouragement for future generations of Americans of both political persuasions to aim for their highest aspirations.

“Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely, and who rely on you in return.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        John Sidney McCain III

 

 

Chart Data – Chart wheels sourced through Matrix WinStar 6.0 software. Tropical, Placidus Houses.

John McCain, August 29, 1936, 6:25 PM, Colon, Panama – Rodden Rating AA, BC/BR in hand.

Capture by the North Vietnamese, October 26, 1967, 12:48 PM, Hanoi, Vietnam. Online resource, See: http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/McCain-Shootdown.htm

Release from prison, March 14, 1973.

Cancer Diagnosis, July 14, 2017, 8:00 AM, Scottsdale, Arizona. Doctor’s appointment. See: https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/19/health/gupta-mccain-glioblastoma/index.html

Affordable Care Act – Repeal Vote, July 28, 2017, 1:30 AM, Washington, D. C… See: https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/john-mccain-casts-decide-vote-to-save-affordable-care-act-obamacare-9540353

Date of death, August 25, 2018, 4:28 PM, Cornville, Arizona. See sidebar: https://www.verdenews.com/news/2018/aug/25/mccain-discontinues-cancer-treatment-year-after-di/

References and Notes (Online references accessed August to December 2018)

1. TeenVogue.com, The Problematic Things Senator McCain Has Done During His 35-year Career in Politics, See: ttps://www.teenvogue.com/story/5-problematic-things-senator-john-mccain-has-done-during-his-40-year-career-in-politics

2. History.com, Three flight accidents, See: https://www.history.com/news/john-mccain-navy-career-timeline-vietnam-pow

3. Factcheck.org and latimes.com, McCain’s flight record, October 6, 2008, See: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/06/nation/na-aviator6 and https://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/mccains-plane-crashes/

4. Marc Edmund Jones, The Essentials of Astrological Analysis, Sabian Publishing Society, Stanwood, Washington, first edition 1960, p. 125.

5. The Essentials of Astrological Analysis, the Jupiter-Saturn square p. 125; conjunction p. 122; opposition, p. 124; sextile, p.127; trine, p. 126; no major aspect, p. 123.

6. Dynamic aspects are transits and progressions to the natal chart, including planetary stations.

7. USnews.com, McCain’s account of the times before his release, See: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account

8. Marc Edmund Jones, Astrology, How and Why it Works, Sabian Publishing Society, Stanwood, Washington, first edition 1955, p. 308.

9. Marc Edmund Jones, The Sabian Symbols in Astrology, Sabian Publishing Society, Stanwood, Washington, first edition 1953.

10. Excerpt remarks: Rhode Island Democrat, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, C-SPAN2, 8/28/18; Illinois Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin, C-SPAN2, 8/28/18; Nebraska Republican, Senator Ben Sasse, C-SPAN2, 8/28/18.

11. Businessinsider.com, Aug 26, 2018, See: https://www.businessinsider.com/mccain-reveals-how-he-found-out-he-had-brain-cancer-2018-5

12. PBS.org, McCain’s history on health care, See: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/mccains-complicated-health-care-legacy-he-hated-the-aca-he-also-saved-it

13. Washingtonpost.com, The ACA Senate vote, See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/08/27/iconic-thumbs-down-vote-that-summed-up-john-mccains-career/?utm_term=.29f030d7ffd8

14. Deseretnews.com, McCain’s return visit to Vietnam, April 25, 2000, See: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/813634/McCain-returns-to-Vietnam—hails-dawning-of-a-new-era.html

15. John McCain, Character is Destiny, Penguin Random House LLC, October 25, 2005.

16. Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, October 21, 1940.

17. John McCain, The Restless Wave, Published by Simon & Schuster, May 22, 2018.

 

CHALLENGE OF THE SHARP DESTINY – Anthony Bourdain, 1956 – 2018

Celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain, took his own life on the evening of June 7th, or in the early hours of June 8th, 2018. His body was found in his hotel room in Kaysersberg France, while on location for the shooting of an episode of his popular television series Parts Unknown. Bourdain was a writer extraordinaire who artfully introduced his audience to exotic cultures through the lens of gastronomy.

Astrologers use diverse methods to analyze the components of a natal horoscope and then note the transits and progressions that set their findings into motion. The examination of Anthony Bourdain’s chart focuses on a small segment of the wheel to draw attention to what is called the Sharp Destiny. It is identified in his case by the square between Jupiter and Saturn. The technique is part of a collection of advanced procedures that were developed in the mid-20th century by astrologer par excellence, Marc Edmund Jones.  The Sharp Destiny explains Bourdain’s early struggles in life but also contributes to his growth and later successes. Failures and achievements are both born of this challenging aspect, and a native is clearly at an advantage when recognizing the blessing of its presence in the chart and works to actualize its elevated purpose.

Marc Edmund Jones

In his  Essentials of Astrological Analysis, Jones gives startling insight into the psyche of anyone with this aspect, and no exception is found in the life of the charismatic chef and storyteller, who would have benefited greatly from the following description.

JUPITER AND SATURN IN A  SQUARE ASPECT, indicate an ordering of life’s fundamental motives, through which the native usually suffers very immediate consequences of the least neglect or abuse of his own potentials. He finds he must fight continually for the ideals in which he has come to take the most consistent interest, and also learns that his conscious well-being is wholly dependent on the moral struggles in which he becomes involved almost inevitably at every stage of his experience. If he does not relish the days in which he seems torn to pieces in self-uncertainty, he must discover ways to tear himself apart deliberately, and in equally painful fashion, on the behalf either of some cause of real significance or some conception that he can dramatize through his own being. Personal existence under this configuration can become either great opportunity, or else a gradual disintegration of the soul in the very core of itself. (1)

The lifelong tension between the energies of Jupiter and Saturn is the celestial factor that brought Bourdain’s attention to the anxiety and feelings of guilt he struggled with when weighing moral concerns of right and wrong.  In his own words,  . . . “oh God, whatever I did yesterday is really shameful and embarrassing, and that’s the story of a lot of my life . . . I’m constitutionally unable to wake up in the morning and to know that the show we did was really cynical, stupid and I don’t  care if people like it.”(2)  Bourdain was prone to confront his actions in hindsight, and those feelings of guilt are the mark of the Sharp Destiny’s ultra self-reflection. He was unaware that periodic crises were provoked by the square of Jupiter and Saturn and lacked an understanding of the forces at play. This left him at a disadvantage when dealing with his sensitivities and insecurities, and so at an early age, he sought solace through drugs and alcohol.

Addiction can be compulsive escapism that becomes a hindrance to true self-discovery, and for the person with a Sharp Destiny, the urgency to find answers is very real. In the face of formidable challenges, Bourdain admitted to taking a good hard look in the mirror and saw someone deep inside who was worth saving. He candidly opened up in an on-screen therapy session about his past substance abuse by stating,  “Something was missing in me. Whether it was a self-image situation, whether  it was a character flaw … some dark genie inside me, that I very much hesitate to call a disease, led me to dope.”(3)

The Sharp Destiny acts as a reality check that makes the native uncomfortably aware of personal shortcomings. Bourdain often showed traits of humility and compassion but also was a self-confessed narcissist, and his self-defeating “bad-boy” demeanor blocked the utilization of transformative principles he was exposed to through Buddhism. One can view the Sharp Destiny as a celestial non-doctrine incentive encouraging personal growth, however, in spite of periodic revelations the native was left to battle his “demons” on an ongoing basis.

THE PLANETARY DEPARTMENTS

Jones’ innovative techniques were based on early astrological practices, and he expounds on them in his writings to give a deeper and more comprehensive scope to chart interpretation. In his chapter on Self-Ordering in the Essentials, he begins by pairing the planets into four distinct departments of Self-Determination.(4) Each departmental pair is then assessed for a possible major aspect between their positive and negative significators. To complete the analysis, with what Jones calls the  Mode of Self-Integration, he pits two pairs in major aspect against two that are not, to define how a native psychologically approaches external circumstances and opportunities. The four planetary departments of Self-Determination are,

1) The Sun and Moon of Vitality, as the organic will-to-be of the Greater Light, coupled with the  Lesser Light’s emotional response to its surroundings.

2) Jupiter and Saturn, as they define the soul’s personal Motivation through Jupiter’s enthusiastic outreach, paired with Saturn’s complimentary sober self-restraint.

3) Mars and Venus are paired to establish Efficiency in experience, through the initiative of Mars in concert with Venus’s gratifying completion.

4) And Uranus and Neptune, the planets of Significance, as they work together to encourage the elevation and expansion of consciousness.

Mercury and Pluto are supernumerary and are not active in this departmental categorization.

THE SHARP AND LOOSE DESTINY

Each planetary department is vital for a well-rounded involvement in the business of everyday living. However, it is the role of Jupiter and Saturn, as the department of Motivation, to introduce to the native, the responsibility to develop self-awareness and personal accountability. Their process unfolds the necessary foundation for higher consciousness, represented by Uranus and Neptune, which are the planetary pair of Significance. The prominence, or lesser influence, of the department of Motivation in the chart, is determined by the major aspects between them, signifying whether life is lived through a Sharp or Loose Destiny.

An aspect allowance between Jupiter and Saturn has an orb of 10 degrees. A Sharp Destiny is identified when the pair of Motivation is in conjunction, square, or opposition, with each aspect characterized by its own definition. These formidable aspects produce continuous self-monitoring, which should lead to a dedication to high moral standards.(5) A Loose Destiny is found in the chart with Jupiter and Saturn in sextile, trine, or not in major aspect, allowing the native to be more relaxed in the judgment of their own or others’ acts and attitudes, and with relative freedom from the pressures of environmental influence.(6)

The contribution of the Sharp and Loose Destiny, as they relate to all other chart configurations, helps form the basic differences in personal life potentials. Jones elaborates, “The fundamental distinction is between the life with its course rather well-determined at birth, or before, and the one where there is little preset in its development.”(7)

BOURDAIN’S SHARP DESTINY

Using the Placidus house system, the chart shows natal Saturn in the 4th house of the soul’s deeper impulses as it applies in square to Jupiter near the cusp of the 2nd house of personal and financial resources. The aspect is in a mere 45 minutes of separation. Natal Pluto conjuncts Jupiter with an orb of 1 degree 13 minutes, and at the same time applies in square to natal Saturn with an orb of only 28 minutes. Pluto’s intimate participation in the square, buttresses the effects of the Sharp Destiny and greatly amplifies its over-all power in the chart. Its presence in close contact with Jupiter increased Bourdain’s already good fortune and was the indicator of his at times brutal honesty, considering one of Pluto’s keywords is Probity. This formation of planetary influences reveals a portion of the native’s promise in natal terms, but it is the transits and progressions to this unique configuration, that signal the timing of events that propel its potentials toward self-actualization. Natal Venus, Sun and Neptune flank the complex square with sextiles that ease an otherwise solely tense situation.

PROGRESSIONS to the Jupiter-Saturn Square

The activation of the Sharp Destiny in Bourdain’s chart focuses primarily on Saturn and Pluto as they transition from natal characteristics to the roles they play as Dynamic catalysts. Natal planets, within their aspect networks, manifest on a subtle level throughout life, but the promptings of transits and progressions put the native on alert to deeper possibilities latent within. Saturn and Pluto awakened the full force of the Sharp Destiny with three important progressed aspects. In chronological order, they are; a progressed Saturn station direct, the progressed Pluto conjunct natal Jupiter, and progressed Saturn square natal Pluto.

The Progressed Saturn Station Direct  

Progressed stations mark pivotal life changes even when they are not in close aspect with natal planets, which are a prerequisite for transit stations. Whether turning retrograde or direct, a  progressed station signals a halt in time and space, to change and rearrange things in life’s ever-pressing journey. According to Jones, “The phenomenon in the secondary directions, always identifies a subtle or psychological shift in the fundamental course in life, such as requires a critical regrasp of experience.”(8)

Neptune, Venus, Saturn, and Mars, all stationed in Bourdain’s progressions during his lifetime, stationing at ages 14, 19, 36 and 47, respectively. In this chart interpretation, the focus is on the station of Saturn, because it takes part in the formation of the Sharp Destiny.

Saturn was retrograde at Bourdain’s birth and was separating from its square with Jupiter for 36 years when at that time it stationed to go direct. After turning direct, it is calculated to complete its square with Jupiter at the age of 82, when it arrives at 22 Scorpio 57. Since this is beyond the span of the native’s lifetime, the climactic potentials of this chart’s primary feature will not be a part of this delineation.

On September 3, 1991, Saturn stationed to go direct at 26 Scorpio 10, approximately 36 days after birth, and corresponds to age 36, the time of the native’s dramatic career advancement. The progressed station is shown in an ephemeris on July 31, 1956. Stationary planets are effective for a period of time, before and after the exact pause in their motion. The slowly developing station of Saturn tracked Bourdain’s evolution from dishwasher and line cook to executive chef. He matured into his new position by realizing his latent integrity, enabling him to live up to more demanding responsibilities. Jessica Lindsay of Metro News stated, “By 1992, Bourdain was executive chef at Manhattan’s Brasserie Les Halles, where he remained for a number of years.”(9) This advancement corresponds with a station going direct, marking an outward step in life, rather than an inward withdrawal, synchronous with how a station retrograde would manifest. It was rewarding for one who had long paid his dues, to be elevated as overseer of the then prominent New York brasserie. Jones further explains a progressed station,  “. . . it often proves to be an adjustment over an appreciable span of time, whether marked by some single sharp event of easy identification, or by a complex syndrome of changes of less obvious interrelation.”  The turning point in the early 1990s came from both a single event and a tireless work-ethic over an appreciable span of time. Menial labor, at last, gave way to an illustrious and prosperous career.

The Progressed Pluto Conjunct Natal Jupiter

Pluto’s ultra-slow movement in its orbit of the Sun can have only limited Dynamic contacts with natal planets during the span of a lifetime. However, in Bourdain’s chart, Pluto is already in close conjunction with Jupiter and has only a short distance to progress to complete its aspect. The conjunction was exact on March 11, 2000, occurring at age 44, when the Greater Benefic, prodded by powerful Pluto, launched him from executive chef to become one of the world’s most influential and celebrated food and travel television hosts.

The progression synchronizes with Bourdain’s groundbreaking article, Don’t Eat Before Reading This, published in the April 1999 issue of The New Yorker Magazine. The article opened the door that year for his tell-all book and best-seller,  Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.(10)  These writings marked the author’s rise from relative obscurity to fame and fortune. About his past difficulties and new-found fortune, Bourdain told Wealth Simple,  “I didn’t put anything aside, ever. Money came in, money went out. I was always a paycheck behind, at least. I usually owed my chef my paycheck: again, cocaine. Until I was 44, I never even had a savings account.”(11) And in  Kitchen Confidential,  he wrote,  “Only one in four has a chance at making it. And right there, I knew that if one of us was getting off dope, and staying off dope, it was going to be me. I was the guy.”  These statements illustrate Jones’s positive potentials of a Sharp Destiny. For at least 17 years hence, the native tore himself away from financial ineptitude and obsessive drug abuse, for a cause he could dramatize through his creative role as the philosophical wandering gourmet.

The Progressed Saturn Square Natal Pluto

Exact on April 2, 2016, at the age of 60, Bourdain’s progressed Saturn, now in direct motion, completed its square to natal Pluto. Squares in progressions are considered fulcrum because they play the crucial role of giving the native the emotional leverage for change, which Jones described  as “a critical self-mobilization required by the native under the pressure of objective events.”(12)  The characteristics of this particular square correspond to Bourdain’s official split in September 2016, after years of marriage, from Ottavia Busia.

The aspect also marked the start of a new and captivating love affair. In an article in Eonline.com about the parting of ways with Busia, an insider stated, “There was no one else involved.”(13)  It is not certain if that is factual given that shortly after the separation, news reports proclaimed his budding romance with Italian actress Asia Argento, who appeared in the December episode of  Parts Unknown filmed in Rome. Obviously, the couple must have had contact before the episode aired, and although there is no date published for their first meeting, it was undoubtedly before their romance became public, and perhaps closer to the exact date of the life-altering square.

A COMPARISON OF POTENTIALS  – Venus to Pluto Cross Conjunction

In a comparison of charts between Bourdain and Argento, the conjunction and opposition aspects are the important planetary connections to look for when seeking longevity in a relationship. Synastry between the lovers reveals two planetary conjunctions, within, or in the proximity of the allowable 1-degree orb. The first of the two conjunctions to note is Argento’s Venus at 25 Leo 31, as it applies in a 1 degree 8-minute conjunction with Bourdain’s Pluto at 26 Leo 39. Due to Pluto’s proximity to Jupiter, their irresistible mutual attraction drew her sensibilities into the confines and influence of his Sharp Destiny. And here is the astrological validation for the Plutonian obsession displayed by the storyteller toward the actress. His fixation on her alarmed his friends who likened him to a love-struck teenager, as documented in their remarks made to People.com.(14) On the positive side, the conjunction stirred Argento to great affection for him, and as a film director, she contributed her artistic Venusian touch to several episodes of Parts Unknown. Bourdain reciprocated with the loyal support of her involvement in the #MeToo sexual abuse movement.

Saturn to Uranus Cross Conjunction

An equally important conjunction is Saturn at 0 Leo 17 in Argento’s chart, applying to Bourdain’s Uranus at 0 Leo 49. This is well within the accepted 1-degree orb allowance. Positioned in the exact same degree, their planets share the Sabian Symbol,  A case of apoplexy.  Both cross pairs between the couple show Argento holding the reins of the relationship because the planets in her chart apply in conjunction with his planets which are separating from their mutual placement.

Interestingly, this contact draws Argento’s Sharp Destiny into the picture with Bourdain’s Uranus in this instance providing stimulus to her own fated square. When both individuals contribute a Sharp Destiny to the relationship, it is cause for some concern. In this case, the tension is exacerbated because their Sharp Destinies are tied through the synastry of the cross pair of her Saturn to his Uranus. Jones explains, “The partnership develops its best potentials for them, as they are able to survive strains and crises that often prove very tragic.”(15) Examples given by Jones are the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, and the accidental death of Queen Astrid, while married to King Leopold of Belgium.

Without consideration of its tie to Argento’s Sharp Destiny, their Saturn-Uranus pairing, of itself, hints of contrasting proclivities that the natives would need to endure. For her, Saturn leans toward sobering resistance because of their age difference, professional careers, and family obligations, while his Uranus, on the contrary, tends to minimize restraints, as it vies for unconventionality. Apparently, the couple resolved conflicting demands by the agreement to exercise the necessary freedom to pursue their separate careers and lifestyles. This seemingly liberated arrangement and the influence of the duel and linked Sharp Destinies set the stage for the unfortunate tragic end of their relationship.

There is the possibility of a crosstie from Bourdain’s Moon to Argento’s Saturn, however, because the time of birth noted in the Rodden Rating is not taken from a document, but from memory, and considering the tight orb-allowance of one degree, a discussion of this possible opposition will not be explored in this analysis.

TRANSITS TO CROSSTIES 

Eclipses are transits and are supplemental to the all-important progressions. Together they simultaneously create a complex platform of multi-dimensional experience. There were several solar and lunar eclipses throughout 2017 and 2018 that were interacting with Bourdain’s natal planets. The most impactful was the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, that fell within a few degrees of his Pluto. Besides being a stimulus for his own independent involvement, the eclipse energized the couple’s Venus-Pluto crosstie.

An eclipse that stimulates a shared zodiacal point draws a powerful focus on relationship potentials. It intensifies the interaction characterized by the planet’s meanings, the function of the signs they occupy, and the circumstances of the houses involved. It is likely that the total eclipse lifted the couple to emotional sublime heights, enhanced by demonstrative Leo and its association with the glamour of the entertainment world. They appeared together on the Red Carpet at the Emmy Awards on September 17, 2017, just shy of one month after the total eclipse. Bourdain did not win an Emmy award that year, but the eclipse does correspond to his nomination in five categories.

From the beginning of their relationship in 2016, until its abrupt end in 2018, and not before or after, eclipses were perpetually energizing their ardent crosstie.  With an orb allowance of 5 degrees, there were 4 major eclipse contacts.

The penumbral lunar eclipse on August 18, 2016, opposite the crosstie at 25 Aquarius 52;

The penumbral lunar eclipse on February 10, 2017, conjunct their crosstie at 22 Leo 28;

And more powerfully, the previously noted total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, with its conjunction to the cross tie at 28 Leo 53;

And finally, the partial solar eclipse on February 15, 2018, opposing their crosstie at  27 Aquarius 08.

THE DYNAMICS OF 2018

On May 31, 2018, one week before the suicide, Uranus was transiting Bourdain’s Midheaven at 0 Taurus 49, and was in exact square to its natal position in the 12th house, bringing his hidden inner turmoil into public view. Uranus in transit was also just leaving its conjunction with the progressed Moon as it ingressed into the 10th house at 0 Taurus 4. The progressed Moon also was in square aspect to natal Uranus.

The lineup of challenging progressed Moon aspects appears on the Aspect List from March until June 2018. The progressed Moon alternated between squares to its own natal position, and to natal Uranus for four long months. Moon progressions have a two-month duration, with recognizable events on the days the progressed Moon enters, is exact, and when it leaves its aspect.

Bourdain’s suicide synchronized with the very day on which the progressed Moon was leaving its square to natal Uranus. One month later, Moon progressions turned toward emotionally easier sextiles and trines into early 2020. Had Bourdain been aware of this, perhaps he would have been encouraged to soldier-on. The chart and the Aspect List show the network of aspects leading to June 8, 2018, when Bourdain’s body was found.

Argento was also drawn into this astrological complex with both transiting Uranus and Bourdain’s progressed Moon making a tight opposition to her natal Uranus at 0 Scorpio 37. In addition, her Saturn, linked to Bourdain’s natal Uranus, was also stressed by the square from transiting Uranus, as well as receiving the square from Bourdain’s progressed Moon. While these aspects triggered the couple’s Saturn-Uranus cross pair, the February solar eclipse, still in effect in June, did the same with their Venus-Pluto tie. The eclipse fell in the native’s 7th house of relationships and confrontational challenges, bringing to focus the effects Argento’s infidelity might have on Bourdain’s state of mind. The eclipse was particularly strong, as it was within one minute of an exact square with his natal Saturn – one of the all-important planets defining the Sharp Destiny. All transits and progressions to Bourdain’s Pluto and Uranus affected Argento’s through crosstie, simultaneously activating their Sharp Destinies at the time of his death. 

The most visible event related to their mutual aspects near the time of the suicide is the publication of the compromising photographs of Argento with French-reporter Hugo Clement, taken by photographer Agostino Fabio, as they strolled affectionately down the streets of Rome. Paparazzi photographer, Rino Barillari, also took photos of them dancing after dinner at a well-known restaurant-bar. When Argento realized they had been photographed, she asked him to delete the images from his camera. She was obviously aware that if the images were in print or online, they could be seen by Bourdain, who might find them disturbing, in spite of her claim that they had an open relationship. Barillari did not delete them and they were promptly published, going viral on June 5, 2018, just days before Bourdain took his own life. After hearing of Bourdain’s death, Barillari expressed regrets for having sold them for publication and then pulled them from the internet. He told Italian newspaper  La Verità, “A picture is not worth a life. If that shot triggered suicide, this would make me suffer.”(16)

In an interview with Daily Mail, Argento said, “I understand that people wanted to blame me because he was so deeply loved, and he entered the hearts of so many people. Do people need to think he killed himself for something like this? He had cheated on me too. It wasn’t a problem for us.”(17)

Bourdain however, was prone to letting even minor things get under his skin. In his Argentinian Parts Unknown episode of 2016, he revealed,  “I will find myself in an airport, and I’ll order an airport hamburger. It’s an insignificant thing, it’s a small thing, it’s a hamburger, but it’s not a good one. Suddenly, I look at the hamburger and I find myself in a spiral of depression that can last for days.”  In that episode, he also expressed having trouble communicating with people he cared about. And unfortunately, he did not confide in chef and close friend Eric Ripert, who was with him on location in Kaysersberg, nor did he reach out to his lover before his suicide, though according to rumors he had been showing signs of distress for some time. 

A more penetrating understanding of the Saturn-Uranus dynamic between Bourdain and Argento is revealed in the following Sabian Symbol.

LEO 1  A case of apoplexy.  From his Sabian Symbols in Astrology.

This is a symbol of an overwhelming potentiality, and of an ever-pressing necessity for genuine self-establishment and personal stability.  Implicit in the reversed symbolism is man’s complete lack of inhibition in his everyday make-up, together with his ability to mobilize all his powers, and even risk his own existence rather than accept any thwarting of his desires.  Here is emphasis on the unbroken continuity between being and doing, or between identity and its continual manifestation of itself. The keyword is IRRESISTABILITY. When positive, the degree is creativity in the day-by-day expression of the self’s real possibilities, and when negative, thoroughgoing self-indulgence and imposition on others.

The pressure of squares by transits and progressions to this particular degree on the day of his passing undoubtedly figures in with Bourdain’s act of self-inflicted violence. The original symbol is described as,  A fat, and normally good-natured little man of affairs, is red to bursting with a determination to have his own way.  Although this is far from a literal description of either of the natives, the symbol does suggest that there was for both, an irresistible drive to achieve what they wanted at all costs, even to the extent that they would literally live out the negative description of the symbol, and forfeit life itself, as Bourdain did, for yet an undisclosed reason. But one can safely assume that there were thwarted desires to contend with, as the symbol implies.

Sadly, no one can know for certain what the cause of suicide might be when there is little forewarning, and no note left behind. However, the series of unyielding and stressful aspects to the couple’s crossties, give the impression that the indiscreet photographs were among the concerns on the native’s mind in the days before his death. While one cannot entirely dismiss Argento’s influence on Bourdain’s emotional state in June 2018, it is not the objective of astrology to find the cause or to place blame, but to note synchronicity between aspects and experience, with the limited knowledge available. In the words of Marc Edmund Jones,  “Astrology is the science of probability.” Although aspects may present a tempting scenario, the ultimate truth lies in the heart of he who has passed. Sadly, Bourdain gave way to the negative propensities described by the Sharp Destiny, as a result of the inability to rise to the challenge of its better potentials.

BOURDAIN’S SATURN SABIAN SYMBOL

Because of Saturn’s fundamental role in the Sharp Destiny, and its importance as a progressed station in midlife, and its fulcrum square to Pluto, it warrants a mention of the most illuminating Sabian Symbol in the chart. Rounded to 28 Scorpio, natal Saturn is in the degree of The king of the fairies approaching his domain.  In its original draft, published in mimeographed form in 1925, the symbol is more explanatory; A pageant of fairyland is made visible to mortal eyes; the king of the little people is welcomed to his domain.

There is a  “handful of elfin concepts,”  as described by Marc Edmund Jones, among the 360 images that collectively are the Sabian Symbols. Included are, A bunny metamorphosed into a fairy, Brownies dancing in the setting sun, Two fairies on a moonlit night, A man dreaming of fairies, and King of the fairies approaching his domain.  Of these five, King of the fairies holds a unique place in the series, by describing the sovereign of the community of elfin characters also known as the “little people.”

In his Essentials, Jones elaborates on these images when delineating the Sun degree of Prince Charles of England, explaining that the degrees,  “. . . carry an implication of otherworldliness, or of some psychological exemption from the common limitations of mediocrity, such as is the plague of all too many members of the human family.”  He continues to elucidate,  “that one cannot ever live for himself, but instead, must exist as a special incarnation of some social ideal. He must be the imaginative reality, in which others may have their particular self-fulfillment, and he  essentially  becomes a myth figure.”(18) This is truly how so many in Bourdain’s audience viewed him, as they lived vicariously through his travels and compelling commentary.

SCORPIO 28,  The king of the fairies approaching his domain

This is a symbol of the eternal promise underlying all inner self-realization, since any actual fullness of life is altogether independent of the passing state of affairs in a world of time and space. Implicit in the symbolism is the futility of man’s common reliance on people and things through some mere accident of contact. Outer reality takes the form with which he endows it as he exercises his sovereignty over its various potentials in the creative realms of his own imagination. The keyword is ALLEGIANCE. When positive, the degree is a special competence of inward vision, and a consequent outward perspective of high effectiveness, and when negative, capricious self-indulgence.

This description expounds on Bourdain’s imaginative writings of his worldwide travels and his intimate relationship with food. All limitations aside, Bourdain emanated an enchanting persona with which these special degrees endow an individual. His fans and followers honored him with the ultimate homage that was due a king, or at the very least, a great storyteller on the world stage. Everyone, everywhere, welcomed him into their realm and into their homes, and ultimately, into their hearts. His audience felt blessed to journey with him, whether on-screen or in some far-off parts unknown.

 

Low plastic stools, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer. This is how I’ll remember Tony. He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together, to make us a little less afraid of the unknown. We’ll miss him.”

– Barack Obama, June 8, 2018

 

Chart Data and notes

Anthony Bourdain, June 25, 1956, New York, NY at 8:35 AM. Rodden Rating A – from memory.

Asia Argento, September 20, 1975, Rome, Italy at 8:07 AM. Rodden Rating AA – quoted BC/BR.

Date of death, June 8, 2018, Kaysersberg, France. Time unknown.

Ephemeris images used with permission from Alois Treindl, astrodienst.com.

Chart wheels sourced through Matrix WinStar 6.0 software. Tropical, Placidus Houses

References and Online Resources (accessed from July to October 2018)

1. Marc Edmund Jones, The Essentials of Astrological Analysis, Sabian Publishing Society, Stanwood, Washington, first edition 1960. Jupiter-Saturn square, p. 125.

2. Chefs at Google, YouTube, October 20, 2011.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cicCuAYkLjA

3. Parts Unknown, Argentina episode, June 2016 episode.

See: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6gj8kd – segment 14:25

4. The Essentials of Astrological Analysis, Chapter 3, Mode of Self-Integration, p. 151. Self-Determination, pp. 108 -144

5. Sharp Destiny, Jupiter-Saturn, conjunction, p. 122; square, p. 125; opposition, p. 124

6. Loose Destiny, Jupiter-Saturn, sextile, p. 127; trine, p. 126; no major aspect, 123

7.The Essentials of Astrological Analysis, p. 343

8. Marc Edmund Jones, The Scope of Astrological Prediction, p. 49

9. MetroNews.comWho was Anthony Bourdain and what were his best culinary moments? Jessica Lindsay, June 8, 2018.

See: https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/08/anthony-bourdain-best-culinary-moments-7615910/

10. Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000.

11. WealthSimple.com, March 14, 2017.

See: https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-us/magazine/money-diary-anthony-bourdain

12. The Scope of Astrological Prediction, Fulcrum square p.46.

13. Eonline.com, Comment, “There was no one else involved.” September 19, 2016.

See: https://www.eonline.com/news/795894/anthony-bourdain-and-ottavia-busia-split-after-9-years

14. People.com: Friends’ comments about the Bourdain-Argento relationship, June 12, 2018.

See: https://people.com/food/anthony-bourdain-lovestruck-asia-argento-friends-concerned/

15. The Essentials of Astrological Analysis, p. 343.

16. Pagesix.com, Photographer, Rino Barillari statements.

See: https://pagesix.com/2018/06/12/paparazzo-who-snapped-asia-argento-with-french-reporter-regrets-shots/?_ga=2.10621492.1233964617.1528718531-300722313.1522585570

17. Argento’s remarks to DailyMail.com, September 24, 2018.

See: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6194885/Asia-Argento-reveals-open-relationship-Anthony-Bourdain-says-cheating-wasnt-problem.html

18. The Essentials of Astrological Analysisp. 317.

Book References

Marc Edmund Jones, The Essentials of Astrological Analysis, Sabian Publishing Society, Stanwood, Washington, first edition 1960.

Marc Edmund Jones, The Scope of Astrological Prediction, Sabian Publishing Society, Stanwood, Washington, first edition 1969.

Marc Edmund Jones, The Sabian Symbols in Astrology, Sabian Publishing Society, Stanwood, Washington, first edition 1953.

Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential:Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000.

How Planets “Talk” to Each Other – What is an Aspect?

There are numerous branches of astrology and diverse methods of analysis within the art/science. The techniques used on this blog are predominantly those created by Marc Edmund Jones in the early 20th century, and they are found in his Essentials of Astrological Analysis. This approach makes use of the Major Ptolemaic Aspects*; the Conjunction, Sextile, Square, Trine, and Opposition. The geometric arrangements among planets are derived by a division of the 360-degree circle of the zodiac by 0, 6, 4, 3, and 2 respectively.

The nature of the solar system in terms of geometry must be understood by astrologers in order to interpret a horoscope. Besides the Major planetary aspects, there are highly sophisticated techniques that are based on the foundation of the five aspects. It is fascinating as well as informative to reveal the mechanism on which these planetary interrelationships perform and mirror life experiences. The origin of all events on Earth and personal human experience takes their cue from planets when they contact each other through a merging of electromagnetic fields. In one of their many YouTube videos, The Thunderbolts Project attempts to explain in detail the active result of planetary interactions.

From Symbols of an Alien Sky, The Thunderbolts Project:

“In an electrical Solar System, if two planets or Moons approach each other from regions of different potential, an electrical discharge will occur, producing plasma formations stretching between the approaching bodies.

Plasma laboratory experiments can tell us what the formations might look like. The backbone is typically a column of twisted filaments, but disks and embedded cylinders also arise to evolve in spectacular ways.

The counterpart to such formations looks like ancient depictions of the cosmic thunderbolt. But what an outrageous idea that exotic formations could arise between planets in close approach! The space between the two planets lights up and is set aflame by both planets and produces a train of fire.”

These celestial events are imbued with intelligence as well as fire and light. They are like the synapses that are sparked between brain cells in order to transmit and develop thought patterns in the brain and mind. The chakra system is involved as well. The entire solar system and life on Earth is a closed unit and its purpose is the enlightenment of humanity. All planetary aspects in a person’s chart are designed to bring growth and awareness to that individual.

For more about this subject visit other posts on this blog:

Planetary Aspects, the Electrical Connections of Intelligence

The Connective Electrical Planetary Powers and Human Receptors


*In astrology, the interaction between planets is called an ASPECT. They are geometric relationships that carry unique meanings that depend upon the nature of the configuration.

The five Major ASPECTS:

The Conjunction is 0 degrees and is an Aspect of emphasis and intensity.

The 60 degree separation of planets is called a Sextile, which is a harmonious interchange of energies because the discharge is not confrontational.

The Square is a 90 degree separation is indicative of struggle with the need to take action and change.

An ease of the interactions occurs with planets that are in a Trine ASPECT. It is the separation of 120 degrees. It refers to momentum and inner talents and abilities.

The 180 degree Opposition creates conscious awareness and can be combative because it is a direct confrontation of energies.

All of these geometric relationships have a 10 degree orb of allowance.

Total Solar Eclipse, the USA and War

The day of the Great American Total Solar Eclipse is the day Trump spoke for his administration’s decision to send additional American troops to Afghanistan. The Total Solar Eclipse activated Trump’s natal Mars because the planet is within a few degrees of where the eclipse fell. Mars is High Focus when Rising and in a Conjunction with the Ascendant. In its normal function, the keyword for Mars is INITIATIVE, but when in High Focus the keyword becomes INDOMITABLE. This non-stoppable drive is something that the public has witnessed in Trump’s character for some time, but now that he is in a position of real power it can cause shock waves across the globe. Leaders of countries worldwide must take the President’s words seriously.

When initiatives are set in motion, counter-actions from resisting individuals or groups can block the direction of energies coming from the original source. This is when confrontations can escalate into full-fledged war between contending entities. Mars means war only when initiatives are frustrated. Otherwise, Mars merely means, starting to put energy behind an idea to commence action.

North Korea poses a threat to its neighbors and to the United States because its nuclear initiatives bode ill in a world that wishes to keep a balance of peace among nations. From September 2nd to the 6th, 2017, transit Mars and Transit Station Mercury joined in Conjunction at 29 degrees Leo where the recently Solar Eclipse took place. In these few days, the conflict with North Korea’s missile testings accelerated the rhetoric within the US that is a block to the ambitions of the young North Korean leader. Mars’ signature is written all over this potential catastrophe, in the fact of Trump’s Mars being activated by the Solar Eclipse and the Transits of Mars and “supportive” Mercury. But the likelihood of outright war is also evident in the chart of the United States.

Transit Saturn has been making an Opposition Aspect with the US natal  Mars since late December 2016 and early January 2017 when Trump was inaugurated the 45th President of the United States. At this time, Transit Saturn was making a Conjunction with the President’s natal Moon, which also Opposes his natal Sun, because of its natal Sun/Moon Opposition. This means that Trump’s Sun is in Conjunction with the US natal Mars. This configuration is a powerful stress upon the core dynamic between the two entities of the United States populace and its surrogate leader President Trump. And Transit Saturn has been prodding the promise of war especially at the time of its Station at 21:11 Sagittarius on August 26th. It is another supportive indication of imminent danger shown primarily by the Solar Eclipse that crossed the continental United States. It will be interesting to see what takes place when Transit Venus visits 29 degrees Leo on September 19th and 20th.

The group of planets circled on the left of the chart show Trump’s natal Mars eclipsed on August 21, in Opposition to the US natal Moon. The US Moon, representing the populace, is directly engaged with the indomitable actions of a president who is not shy of touting his erratic, unpredictable urges off-the-cuff, toward enemies national and international.

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