Anthony Louis's Blog, page 63

A Lenormand 3-card reading

Recently I’ve been learning more about the Lenormand system of cartomancy.  It’s quite different from tarot, which has moved away from fortune telling in recent years and become more psychological in its approach.  Lenormand is pure fortune telling of the “you will go on a cruise with a tall dark stranger” variety.

It turns out there was a Lenormand deck in my family many many years ago.  I remember looking at the cards as a child and thinking what nice pictures of animals, boats, etc., they contained.  I had no idea back then about using the cards to “predict the future.”  In recent years there has been a bit of a craze about the Lenormand cards.  It seems that fortune telling is again on the rise.

Astrologically, I relate the cartomantic arts to Uranus and Neptune.

In 1993, Uranus conjoined Neptune in Capricorn.  This conjunction correlated with a huge interest in tarot.
In 2009-2010, Uranus formed a semi-sextile with Neptune from Pisces to Aquarius.  This semi-sextile correlated with a huge resurgence of interest among tarot readers in learning about the Lenormand cards.
In 2017-2019, Uranus will semi-square Neptune.  I suspect that during those years the interest in Lenormand among tarot readers will undergo another significant transformation.

In any case, I wanted to present a recent 3-card reading to illustrate Lenormand divination for readers who may be unfamiliar with it.  Yesterday I drew three cards with the question in mind about what might be coming up during the rest of my week.  These are the cards that appeared:

26.Book – 15.Bear – 12.Birds

These cards are from the 36-card Petit Lenormand deck.  There are several regional traditions for interpreting the cards.  My current preference is for the German tradition.

The first card Book has to do with knowledge and secrets.  I assumed the reading was about learning something, or discovering some unknown information, about the Bear in position two.  The open side of the Book is facing the Bear, so something will be learned about the Bear.

The Bear is often regarded as one of the cards that represents people in the deck. In nature bears are large, imposing powerful creatures that you treat with respect.  Their divinatory meaning often has to do with people in power or authority as well as people who are our elders and who thereby deserve our respect.

The final card Birds has various interpretations.  It commonly has to do with minor or fleeting difficulties and troubles.  Some readers regard it as representing communications, including phone calls.

I thought this 3-card reading meant that something unknown would be learned about a person who commanded respect and that some passing difficulty and perhaps a phone call would be involved.

Not long after I drew the cards my wife telephoned me to say that her mother’s leg was swollen.  Her doctor had ordered an ultrasound of the leg, and my wife wanted to know if I could re-arrange my schedule to take her mother to the ultrasound appointment the next day, which I was able to do.  Fortunately, there was no blood clot so that the swollen leg, though of some concern, was not a major difficulty.  The 3-card Lenormand reading appeared fairly on target.

Going too fast around a bend

This past weekend saw two dramatic travel accidents, each now being attributed to going too fast around a bend.

Actor Paul Walker died when the car in which he was riding apparently sped at 40+ mph around a curve in the road where the speed limit was only 15 mph.  The car veered off the road and collided with a tree.  This occurred around 3:30 pm in Santa Clarita, CA on Saturday November 30, 2013.

Metro-North Derailment, 7:22 AM, Dec 1, 2013.

Early the next morning a Metro-North train was doing 80+ mph around a bend in the tracks where the speed limit was at a maximum of 30 mph.  The train derailed killing 4 passengers and injuring many others.  This occurred around 7:22 AM in the Bronx, near the northern tip of Manhattan.

Do these two incidents have anything astrological in common?  Here is a chart for the dramatic train wreck with the Paul Walker crash superimposed:

Dec. 1st train derailment with Walker crash superimposed. Placidus houses.

Because the two accidents occurred only hours apart, the charts are very similar.  The Moon has moved from about 11 Scorpio to 19 Scorpio between the time of the two events.

To see what the events might further have in common I cast a Davison composite chart.  Davison, one of my favorite modern authors, suggested the technique of casting a chart for the midpoint in time and space between two events (or nativities) to see what they had in common.  Here is the Davison chart for the combination of the two accidents:

Davison composite chart for the midpoint in time and space between the two accidents. Placidus Houses.

What could possibly signify a bend in the road in an astrological chart?  Perhaps the mutable angles in the Davison composite chart are the answer.  Cardinal signs tend to go in a rush straight toward a goal.  Fixed signs don’t like change.  Mutable signs are by nature transitional and always changing direction.

Perhaps Mars in the 1st house represents the shifting nature of the force involved in both accidents.  The powerful energy of Mars, which propelled the train and the sports car, was required to change directions rapidly to keep the vehicle on track.

The ASC-ruler of the Davison chart is Mercury, which lies in Scorpio in the 3rd house of local travel.  Mercury makes a stressful sesqui-square with Uranus Rx in the 8th of death.  Both Mercury and Uranus are ruled by the 1st house Mars in this chart.  Uranus in the 8th forms a highly stressful square with Pluto in Capricorn in the 5th.

The Moon/Saturn/Mercury conjunction in the 3rd in Scorpio forms a trine with Jupiter in Cancer in 11th and a sextile with Mars in Virgo in the 1st.  The combination of Jupiter and Mars with Mercury suggests that high speed was involved.

The two most angular planets are the Sun in Sagittarius the 4th and Neptune in Pisces in the 6th.  Sun and Neptune form a square aspect.  The prominent Sun in the house of endings suggests that these accidents will be dramatic and drawn much public attention.  The Sun rules the 12th house of undoing by domicile and the 8th house of death by exaltation.  The presence of Neptune close to the DSC in the 6th suggests that some type of carelessness, distraction, confusion or inattention was involved.

Actor Paul Walker dies in car crash

On Saturday, 30 November 2013, at about 3:30 PM a car carrying actor Paul Walker crashed and exploded in flames in Santa Clarita (Valencia), California. Paul Walker played Brian O’Conner in The Fast and the Furious film franchise.  His Facebook page states that the actor was “attending a charity event for his organization Reach Out Worldwide.  He was a passenger in a friend’s car, in which both lost their lives.”

I wondered what was going on in his birth chart at the time and noticed that the recent solar eclipse had occurred opposite his natal Mars.  The red planet has to do with speed and fire and frequently figures in automobile accidents.  According to the NY Daily News, police determined that speed was a factor:

“The 40-year-old Walker was riding in a red Porsche GT about 3:30 p.m. when the sports car flew off the road and slammed into a tree in Santa Clarita, authorities and witnesses said. The car burst into flames.”  The NY Daily News also quoted a friend of Walker who said: “Him and his buddy, his brother in arms at heart, just decided to joyride, take a spin. Something we all do.”

[Keywords linked to the planet Mars include red, fast, furious, flames, speed, joyride, slammed, burst, etc.]

Paul Walker was born on September 12, 1973 in Glendale, California, time unknown. Here is a generic sunrise birth chart for his birthplace with Placidus houses.

Paul Walker, generic sunrise birth chart, time unknown.

In the sunrise chart with Placidus or with solar sign houses, Mars rules the 8th house of death and also the 3rd house of local travel.

With his Taurus Mars square Jupiter in Aquarius in the sunrise 5th of fun and recreation, Walker described himself on twitter as  an “outdoorsman, ocean addict, adrenaline junkie … and I do some acting on the side.”  Mars square a 5th house Jupiter symbolically fits the notion of an outdoorsman and adrenaline junkie. With Mars in the Placidus sunrise 8th, his love of high-speed thrills becomes linked to his demise.

Earlier in November a solar eclipse fell in Scorpio in Walker’s 2nd house where a stellium of Scorpio planets during the eclipse opposed his natal Mars.  Here is his natal chart with the eclipse superimposed.

November 3rd solar eclipse superimposed on Walker’s natal sunrise chart.

Note that at the time of the eclipse the stellium of Mercury/Moon/Sun/Saturn opposed his natal Mars.

At the time of the fatal accident, the Moon of the eclipse chart had just completed a full cycle so that the fatality occurred at the time of the lunar return of the Nov. 3rd eclipse Moon, which triggered the eclipse Scorpio stellium opposition to natal Mars in the 8th.

Fatal accident occurred at the lunar return of the Nov. 3rd eclipse Moon.

The eclipse Moon returned to its Nov. 3rd position during the eclipse at exactly 3:22 PM on Nov. 30th.  The police estimated the time of the crash to be 3:30 PM, just 8 minutes later.

The police reports suggest that Walker and his friend were joyriding in his red sports car when they lost control and veered off the road at high speed only to be stopped by a tree.  Note that Saturn (immovable obstacles) opposes natal Mars at the time of the eclipse.  Saturn also rules the sunrise 5th house of things we do for fun.

Gandhi as a Dirty Old Guru

Although Mahatma Gandhi accomplished great things for his country, in his private life for a time he used his position of power and authority to sleep naked with girls and young women who came under his influence.  Gandhi apparently believed that his sleeping with naked girls was a spiritual practice designed to help him keep his strong sexual impulses in check.  He did not look at matters from the point of view of the girls involved. Rita Banerji writes:

“Gandhi had young women in his ashram, some of them still teenagers, one of them his own grand-niece [Manu Gandhi], sleep naked with him in his bed at night. … Most angering for me was reading about the psychological and emotional trauma of the girls and women who he used for his “experiments,” which is what he called these incidents.  The word ‘psychotic’ repeatedly came up in various documents with regards to these women’s mental state.  The women, most of who were in their late teens or early twenties [not surprisingly, given he could have ‘experimented’ with the older women or even his own wife!] were repeatedly described as depressed and weeping, and seemed to be completely in his control. Besides this, some of the archival references lead me to believe that Gandhi may well have been practicing the traditional, historic form of Indian celibacy which hinges on one thing only – and that is control of ejaculation. Everything else is permitted.”

Fortunately, according to Banerji, Gandhi’s associates “not only recognized that he was abusing his position and power in a way that was unethical and depraved, but they outright condemned it, confronted it, and eventually forced him to stop!”  Unfortunately, the emotional damage to the girls he sexually exploited was done.

Can we see Gandhi’s tendency to behave inappropriately with minors in his chart?  Based on the data in astrodatabank, here is Gandhi’s natal chart with Placidus houses:

Mohandas Gandhi natal chart, 2 October 1869.

With Libra rising, Venus rules his ASC — a symbol of his body and his physical needs.  Venus closely conjoins Mars in Scorpio, suggesting a highly sexed individual.  The intensity of his sex drive is supercharged by this Venus/Mars conjunction being opposed by both Pluto and Jupiter in Taurus in the 7th.  As the ruler of Taurus, Venus disposes this Jupiter/Pluto conjunction.

Because Venus/Mars opposes Jupiter/Pluto from the 1st to the 7th houses, this opposition plays out in the area of close interpersonal relationships.  The 7th is the house of marriage, partnerships, and adversarial relationships.

Also striking is that his Leo Moon, ruler and occupant of his 10th house of career and authority, forms part of a powerful T-square with this Venus/Mars opposition to Jupiter/Pluto.  Moon in Leo in the 10th suggests a strong emotional need to achieve recognition in career and to be the center of attention in personal relationships.  Moon square Pluto often correlates with a tendency to dominate others emotionally.  This aspect may have helped Gandhi sway world opinion to his cause but was less fortunate for the girls who were under his emotional dominion.

Uranus in Cancer in the 9th trines Venus in Scorpio in the 1st, suggesting a fondness for excitement and novelty in his love life.

In many ways Gandhi was a great man but he had some glaring flaws, which we should acknowledge so that we can view him as a whole person.  In his mind Gandhi probably believed that he was proving to himself that he was spiritually evolved enough to be able to sleep with naked young women without feeling compelled to reach orgasm.  He was apparently oblivious to the negative psychological impact that his “spiritual practices” were having on the girls he recruited to be his spiritual temptresses.  Mohandas Gandhi may not have been as much of a Mahatma (‘venerable’ or ‘great soul’) as the textbooks have made out to be.

Review of Donna Cunningham’s Stellium Handbook

The Thanksgiving holiday this year found me spending time with family and friends, and also some time alone reading through Donna Cunningham’s Stellium Handbook.

On her website, Donna tells us that her interest in this topic is deeply personal.  She was born with a stellium of four planets in Gemini the 11th house, which she has found to be a source of many blessings but also of powerful vulnerabilities. Donna uses Placidus Houses and the tropical zodiac.  Here is her chart cast with data from astrodatabank and Whole Sign Houses (horizon and meridian in yellow):

Donna Cunningham, natal chart with Whole Sign Houses. Note stellium in Gemini in the 11th house, which is also present in the Placidus House system.

Before reading this book, I never realized that so information that could be gleaned from analyzing stelliums in a natal chart.  Donna’s approach was an eye-opener.

This book is refreshing both for its new insights and its transparency of presentation.  Donna states her premises clearly so that astrologers of any persuasion can judge where she is coming from.  She prefers Placidus houses but is not dogmatic about their use.  She bases her delineations in Zip Dobyns 12-letter system (which goes back to Alan Leo in the late 1800s) but also expresses her misgivings about Dobyns’ approach.  Her goal is to make matters simple so that beginning astrologers will be able to use her book productively.  Donna uses the modern planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) as sign rulers.  Because she is so explicit about her premises, traditional astrologers will have no difficulty adjusting Donna’s findings about stelliums to their own astrological belief systems.

Basically, the book deals with two important phenomena that can occur in birth charts: the stellium and the superconjunction.

Donna defines a stellium as “a combination of four or more planets placed within a narrow range of the zodiac, within the same sign and/or house. This makes the planets involved act in concert with one another, becoming a very powerful influence. The influence is strongest if they are also conjunct.”

A superconjunction is similar to a stellium but consists of only three slow-moving planets  They occur “in rare intervals lasting several years when three of the four slower-moving planets—Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto—are within about an 8-10 range° of one another. The only one in our lifetime occurred in 1988-89, a superconjunction of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune in Capricorn. … People born with superconjunctions made up of three of the outermost planets are a special case. These combinations are extremely uncommon from a historical perspective—there can be centuries between them—yet they represent major personal obstacles and opportunities in the lives of millions of people born all around the globe with that combination.”

An example of a superconjunction of Pluto, Saturn and Uranus in Virgo can be seen in my post about the chart of the sadistic missionary Junipero Serra who enslaved and maltreated the native Americans of California and brutally forced them to adopt Christianity.

Donna provides several fascinating case examples.  For me the most interesting was the comparison of the charts of Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr, who share a Pluto/Uranus/Mars conjunction and have almost identical angles (ASC and MC) but whose lives have evolved with distinct differences.

Donna’s book contains worksheets for evaluating the strength of each planet in a stellium and explains how to judge the order and importance of each planet’s role as the stellium is triggered by transits and progressions.  It is written with beginners in mind but contains much valuable information which will appeal to experienced astrologers.

Donna has a Master’s Degree in social work and many decades of experience as a professional astrologer.  Her knowledge and experience in dealing with clients shines through on every page.  One can see her social work background in her statement explaining one of her main motivations for writing the book:

“The young people born during the winter months of 1988-89 may have as many as 7 planets total in Capricorn. The transiting Pluto and Uranus square is setting off their natal planets in the middle degrees of Capricorn. Many of them are struggling during this critical life stage of emerging into adulthood, and they could benefit greatly from the insights astrology can provide. In addition to the many self-help features, the book devotes a special chapter to them.”

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this text and learned a lot by reading through it.  I will never look at stelliums the same way again.

50th Anniversary of JFK’s Passing

Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  I hadn’t look at his birth chart recently, so I decided to post it here.  In addition, last evening I attended a lecture by Carolyn Egan on progressed declination graphs, and I thought it would be interesting to look at Kennedy’s progressed declinations in November of 1963.

Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917 at 3 PM.  Rodden lists the 3 pm time as “from memory” so it is close but may not be exact.  I tweaked the chart to 3:00:43 pm for reasons that will be explained below.  Here is what his progressed declination graph looks like.  The wavy line that goes up and down, forming two humps, belongs to the progressed Moon and shows its changes in declination over time.

Kennedy progressed declination graph to age 60.

Kennedy was elected president on November 8, 1960 and inaugurated on January 20, 1961.  You can see from the graph (the second peak the Moon makes) that the progressed Moon formed parallels of declination with a large number of natal planets between July of 1960 and March of 1963, as the Moon was ascending to its maximum declination north of the equator.  What you can’t see in the graph are the contraparallels of declination.  These were calculated in Solar Fire:

Kennedy secondary progressions October 1963 x 4 months.

I adjusted the time of birth so that the progressed ASC contraparallel natal Pluto would occur on November 22, 1963.  This required adding 43 seconds to his stated birth time (from memory) of 3 pm.  If we use the 3 pm time, the ASC # Pluto occurs on January 26, 1964 and the progressed Moon semisquare natal MC occurs on November 17, 1963.  The 15:00:43 time works better with this progressed declination technique.

Whole Sign Houses also give a telling account of what happened.  Here is a whole sign chart from Morinus software.

JFK with Whole Sign Houses (time adjusted to 3:00:43 pm).

Note that the 8th house of death is ruled by Venus, which occupies the 9th house of foreigners and long-distance travel.  The Mars/Mercury/Jupiter conjunction in Taurus in the 8th is square Uranus in Aquarius in the 5th.  Uranus square Mars could certainly symbolize a sudden violent death.  Mercury and Jupiter are planets associated with travel, and in this chart they rule the 9th and 3rd houses respectively.  The symbolism of sudden death while traveling and involving a foreigner is apparent in the chart.

The 300th anniversary of a sadistic missionary in America

November 24th is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Junipero Serra, a missionary who enslaved the native peoples of California in labor camps and treated them with sadistic brutality to force them to accept his brand of Christianity.  Serra’s methods are directly responsible for the death of tens of thousands and native Americans.  Writing in The Guardian, George Monbiot says of Serra:

“Working first in Mexico, then in Baja California (which is now part of Mexico), and then Alta California (now the US state of California), he presided over a system of astonishing brutality. Through various bribes and ruses Native Americans were enticed to join the missions he founded. Once they had joined, they were forbidden to leave. If they tried to escape, they were rounded up by soldiers then whipped by the missionaries. Any disobedience was punished by the stocks or the lash.  They were, according to a written complaint, forced to work in the fields from sunrise until after dark, and fed just a fraction of what was required to sustain them. Weakened by overwork and hunger, packed together with little more space than slave ships provided, they died, mostly of European diseases, in their tens of thousands. … Felipe de Neve, a governor of the Californias, expressed his horror at Serra’s methods, complaining that the fate of the missionised people was ‘worse than that of slaves’.”

Despite the historical evidence that Junipero Serra was one of the most evil Europeans to inflict his warped methods and beliefs on American soil, there is a movement among some Catholics to canonize him as a saint.  Go figure! Serra’s time of birth is unknown.  He was born on November 24, 1713, in Petra, Majorca, Spain.  Here is his Noon chart with Sun Sign Houses:

Birth chart of Junipero Serra, cast for Noon with Sun Sign houses.

Is there evidence in this chart of Serra’s egotism, sadism and brutality?

The Sun in Sagittarius closely squares Jupiter in Pisces.  Jupiter squaring the Sun could certainly indicate a large ego, especially because Jupiter rules Pisces and receives the Sagittarius Sun.  This square is closely tied to Pluto in Virgo, so that Jupiter opposes Pluto and squares the Sun, forming a highly stressful T-square pattern.  Pluto, of course, is a planet closely linked with sadism and brutality.  Hades (Pluto) abducted Persephone and enslaved her in the underworld, much as Serra enslaved the native Americans of California in his labor camps where they were totally under his sadistic control.

Pluto conjoins Saturn and Uranus in Virgo, and this conjunction squares Serra’s Sun and Mercury in Sagittarius, so that his manner of thinking is highly influenced by the self-willed brutality and conservatism of the Pluto/Saturn/Uranus conjunction.

Jupiter makes a partile sextile with Neptune, suggesting a strong interest in religion and the potential for a vocation in the priesthood.  Mars is exalted in Capricorn and forms a trine with the planets in Virgo and a sextile with Jupiter in Pisces.  Thus, the tension of this brutal T-square finds an outlet in his missionary work at which is is able to be very successful.

It is ironic that Junipero Serra was a Franciscan friar who theoretically modeled himself after Saint Francis, whose name the new Pope adopted for his papacy.

An interesting tarot/horary consultation

Around midday Friday November 15, 2013, I got a message from a distraught young man who was given my name by a mutual friend for whom I had done a tarot reading about career matters a few months ago.  The reading turned out to be fairly on target, so our mutual acquaintance thought I could be of help in this situation.  To preserve confidentiality I’ll call the frantic querent ‘Victor” though that is not his real name.

Victor worked as part of a team in an office consisting of architects and engineers.  The team had designed a building, but during the construction phase it was discovered that some parts of the plans were not up to code.  Victor was being blamed for the costly mistake, but he had no recollection of having made the error.  He worried that he might have inadvertently caused the problem and would now have to face the consequences.

We did a four-card spread, which turned out to be:

Chariot – Fool – 2 of Coins – 6 of Coins.  (Using the geomantic method, this converts to 1.2.2.2 or Laetitia.)  This looked generally positive, as confirmed by Laetitia, and I felt the outcome would be in his favor.  When he asked for more details, I also did a celtic cross spread, which was striking for the Moon card in the near future position.

We also looked at a horary chart for Friday Nov 15, 2013, at 12:58 PM EST.  Here it is with Placidus houses, which was how my computer happened to be set at the time.

Victor’s horary question.

With Aquarius on the ASC, Victor is signified by traditional ruler Saturn, which occupies the 8th house of anguish of mind.  This certainly described Victor.  Neptune close to the ASC represented his state of confusion and raised the possibility of some type of deception going on.

With Sagittarius on the 10th cusp of career matters, Jupiter represented the quesited.  Jupiter is exalted in Cancer but Rx, which fit the setback the team was experiencing because of the costly mistake in the plans.  Saturn and Jupiter are mutually applying to a trine, a very favorable aspect.  In fact, transiting Jupiter trines transiting Saturn on December 12, 2013, so I felt that by that date the matter would be resolved in the querent’s favor.

The querent contacted me two days later to say that he had discovered that one of the architects in the office had asked for the change in the plans but there was no written record of it.  This person was now trying to minimize his role and let someone else take the blame.

The situation is still in progress, but I think it will work out in his favor in the long run.

The natal chart of the 7th Raphael

Seven British astrologers wrote under the pen name Raphael.  The 7th and last of these was Frederick Robert Tuck Cross (May 15, 1850 – May 29, 1923), a name which he shortened to Robert T. Cross.  I was curious about the birth chart of this famous late 19th century – early 20th century astrologer who did much to popularize astrology and who continued to publish Raphael’s Ephemeris with the Placidus House system for many years.  His publications had a major impact on how modern astrology was practiced during the 20th century.

Apparently R.T. Cross, the 7th Raphael, published his own natal chart in the 1913 edition of Raphael’s Ephemeris, where he gives his time of birth as 2:35 AM.  I was unsure whether he used LMT or GMT, so I contacted Tom Callanan, who in turn asked Philip Graves.  Fortunately, Philip had a copy of the 1913 ephemeris and responded that Raphael’s chart is set for May 15th 1850 at 2:35 a.m. and gives an ASC at Aries 4º 5′ and an MC at Capricorn 1º 29′.   The place of birth is Brockley Farm, Worstead, Norfolk, East Anglia, UK.

The published chart, by modern computer calculations, is cast for 2:36:35 AM LMT, which is equivalent to 2:31:27 AM GMT.  From this, I deduce that the 2:35 AM LMT is probably his recorded birth time.  Another possibility is that the 2:35 time is a typo that was intended to be 2:37 AM LMT as his recorded birth time.  It is unlikely that an astrologer would make a mistake with the ASC and MC in a publication.

Based on this information, the chart below is a modern depiction, and very close approximation, of the natal chart Raphael used for himself and publish in the 1913 edition of his Ephemeris.

Natal chart of Raphael based on the ASC and MC published in the 1913 edition of his Ephemeris.  This chart has an ASC 01′ later than the one published in 1913.  A birth time of 2:36:33 AM LMT would give an ASC of 4 Aries 05.

Based on this chart, the following were in effect when he died on May 29, 1923:

Primary directed square of Saturn to ASC on April 6th (Placidus semiarc with latitude).
Transiting Saturn oppose natal Saturn on April 15th.
Transiting Uranus square natal Mercury on April 16th.
Secondary progressed Mars sesquisquare natal Uranus on May 23rd.
Solar arc directed ASC semisquare natal Pluto on June 4th.
Primary directed MC to square of Mars on July 16th (Placidus semiarc with latitude).

Mars rules his 1st and 8th houses.  Raphael died during the period between stressful primary directions involving the angles (ASC and MC) and the two traditional malefic planets, Saturn and Mars.

The Passing of Sir John Tavener

Musician John Tavener died this week (on November 12, 2013).  He had suffered ill health much of his life. Tavener was a Grammy winning composer of classical and spiritual music who owes some of his popularity to the Beatles. His Song for Athene was played at Princess Diana’s funeral.

Tavener was deeply religious, and in a BBC interview he commented that writing music was, in a sense, “channeling God.”  Tavener felt that he could experience the divine in poetry, literature and music. According to the Washington Post:

“Sir John’s later, better-known works flowed from his conversion to Orthodox Christianity and his collaboration with Mother ­Thekla, a Russian emigre and Orthodox nun to whom he turned for support after his mother died in 1985.”

Fellow composer John Rutter, quoted by the BBC, said of Tavener:

“He could bring an audience to a deep silence which is a very rare gift. He believed that music was for everybody and was a prayer.”

The planets most closely associated with music are Venus and Neptune.  Not surprisingly, Tavener has Neptune in Libra (ruled by Venus) trine his Sun and square to Venus. Neptune is associated with spirituality and forms part of a remarkable “kite pattern” involving the Sun, Uranus, Mars, the North Lunar Node, and Pluto.  Transiting Saturn in Scorpio this year placed tremendous stress on the tight Sun/Pluto opposition in his natal chart.

Sir John Tavener birth chart. TIME UNKNOWN. Sun sign houses. Noon positions of planets.

Here is what Halloran software has to say about the kite pattern:

“With Pluto as a Kite pattern focus planet, you have a powerful intensity and can experience some dramatic changes in your life. You may know from an early age what will be your career. Your career could be versatile and wide-ranging. You have keen judgment and are willing to take risks. You could work as a producer, especially if Jupiter and Saturn are strong. You become conscious of how the world operates at a young age. Certain features of your career and/or life choices may violate social custom. Still, it is a mistake for you to play it safe, as doing so will only cause your career to stagnate. Your success will be in proportion to the extent to which you seek truth, not popularity. You face life fearlessly. A woman with this pattern will display exceptional courage and spirit. Big events could change your life and expand your awareness. When faced with life path choices, you will prefer the direction that leads to personal growth.”

Interestingly, another famous musician with a kite pattern having Pluto as a focus is the late Kurt Cobain, who also has a Pluto/Uranus conjunction on his ASC.  Here is Cobain’s chart with Whole Sign Houses:

Kurt Cobain natal chart. Whole Sign Houses. Born at 7:20 PM.

Kurt Cobain committed suicide by gunshot to the head on April 5, 1994.  At that time transiting Mercury and Mars were conjunct and in partile oppositition to his natal Uranus in Virgo.