Descartes denied that animals had reason or intelligence. He argued that animals did not lack sensations or perceptions, but these could be explained mechanistically. Whereas humans had a soul, or mind, and were able to feel pain and anxiety, animals by virtue of not having a soul could not feel pain or anxiety. If animals showed signs of distress then this was to protect the body from damage, but the innate state needed for them to suffer was absent. Although Descartes’ views were not universally accepted they became prominent in Europe and North America, allowing humans to treat animals with impunity. The view that animals were quite separate from humanity and merely machines allowed for the maltreatment of animals, and was sanctioned in law and societal norms. [Wikipedia]
Such cold, clinical mindset (which ignores the fact that we are animals and we feel) still pervades today, because progress depends on it, not because there is any truth to it.
Uranus was discovered in the 18th c, and along with the many scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, the shadow side was this overly-clinical, detached way of relating to other living ‘things’. Nature was no longer sacred, only the human soul was. Everything else was formula, which could be measured, dissected, categorized. Astrology was kicked of of astronomy, alchemy out of chemistry, and myth would become synonymous with ‘lie’. Doctors took over from midwives, magic became a sideshow act, as did people with physical deformities.
It’s no wonder there was a huge, spiritualist movement at the end of the 19th century. Perhaps this was indicative of another side of Uranus coming into play – the free thinker, telepath, prophet or astrologer who seeks to unify everything and who can ‘see the world in a grain of sand.’ The fin-de-ciecle of the 19th c also gave us Frankenstein and Dracula, metaphors for mad science/creation envy and inherent, human cannibalism (according to Guillermo del Toro).
The overwhelmingly positive response to the Queen’s simple and predictable address today, as Black Moon Lilith conjuncts the Sun, shows that many people are starved for the slightest bit of the sacred in their lives. Popular religion is often too abstracted, no longer bearing any resemblance to the natural cycles and phenomena it was originally inspired by.
I’m reminded of when Diana died in a car crash. People were weeping in part for the princess, but more deeply, I think, for the Goddess. Lilith’s destructiveness stems from the lunar Goddess’ rejection and the stripping of her ‘corona’ – the severing of her head/mental power source. This is more obvious in the myth of Medusa, whose head writhes with primordial serpent wisdom.
Looking at this corona virus (even the name) as a symbolic phenomenon, it is a symptom of our dislocation from the sacred, within and without. The lungs are where grief manifests, around the heart (Aquarius/Leo). Viruses are now thought to play role in our evolution, in changing our DNA. So this is also part of our birthing process.
Restoration of the sacred is something we can all take part in. We simply need to listen, become humble in the presence of nature, life, death and learn to live with reverence again – easy! – we are all indigenous to planet earth and this infinite universe.
The number 20 illustrates an ear and open orifice. Yes it is the Judgement calling card, but it is also through the ear (sound, vibration, frequency) that the holy spirit – the shape-making essence – is conceived.
Medical Definition of conception 1a : the process of becoming pregnant involving fertilization or implantation or both. b : embryo, fetus. 2a : the capacity, function, or process of forming or understanding ideas or abstractions or their symbols. b : a general idea. [Merriam Webster]
Saturn has been coming up as a topic for me, during this Mercury retrograde, I guess because of age, but also I have Saturn in the 3rd house, sexile my own Rx Mercury. Also it is my late father’s birthday, today. [Serendipitously, as I was writing this piece, some people began singing happy birthday, next door.]
Saturn can represent the father, or parent/grandparent/teacher that first enforces structure in our lives. I say ‘enforces’ because we have no choice in the matter. This can be for our protection, but it can also be to control us with or repress our natural expression, so, as we grow, we seek to redefine this outer structure that we didn’t create. Sometimes the repression can be quite severe, but Saturn is also the ‘karma lord,’ so somehow, somewhere, we must have had a hand in it and needed the lesson, if only to rebel against and thereby grow into ourselves.
found on ground
The first Saturn return (around age 29) is often difficult because, though it is usually defined as our first ‘true’ initiation into adulthood, reality and responsibility, our unconscious urges are to break out of any left-over, imposed structure not of our own creation, that we have spent our teens and 20s rebelling against.
So part of us may still be modelling our ‘adult’ self on the old blueprints and part of us seeks to continually redraw them until we come up with something more authentic. (We may have had kids prior to the first Saturn return and discovered we ‘turned into our parents’ along the way). Usually by the second Saturn return we have had some TIME and experience to soul-search and let go of definitions that no longer apply to who we are, often during the ‘mid life crisis’ that is the Uranus opposition and Chiron return.
Aki Inomata hermit crab glass cathedral shell (photo from Fast Company)
It reminds me of the hermit crab (since we’re in Cancer season), who has to keep changing shells as it outgrows the old one, but who always needs a shell to protect it’s soft body. Sometimes it’s new shell is not a shell, but whatever material it finds fitting.
Saturn’s cycles are in sync with the progressed Moon’s, as well as the lunar nodes’ which makes sense, since these represent instinct, the soul urge/potential, emotional body, memory, etc.
Tower and Moon cards
In Tarot, the Tower is the old structure that is struck down, thereby releasing the prisoners. It is often associated with Uranus. Indeed, Uranus is the first planet situated beyond the boundaries of Saturn (Chiron orbits between the two and has been called the ‘Rainbow Bridge’). As 16, it is a ‘1/4’ card (every 4th card is also the 1st card of a new cycle of 3, thus having to do with change/transition, death and rebirth). This type of change is a blow, shock or awakening from without (well, the lightening is attracted to certain structures for a reason).
In the Moon card, we see two, less imposing towers, with an opening in between, for the soul’s watery emergence. They may well be bridge towers. The Moon is a ‘3’ card (a womb for new creative potential, from which the next cycle is born). Since the Moon controls the tides of life, and the body of water that provides it, we can equate this with the soul forming and reshaping matter. Just look at beach glass, driftwood, etc. This type of change is a slow, but synchronized metamorphosis from within, that can be quite mysterious.
Saturn ultimately knows that in time, all structures will be changed, somehow. But the key word here is TIME. Patience, continued effort…there are no mistakes, no punishment, it’s all a process of becoming.
Meanwhile, Neptune in Pisces tides are wearing down our old preconceptions and washing away the footprints in the sand left by the Piscean Age. Things are cracking open. The Earth itself is changing, her waters rising, her crust shifting. It’s up to each and every one of us to use this opportunity to create new space for becoming who we really are, from within. Only we can change ourselves so that the old structures have no foundation to be re-built on.
Mr. Peter Cushing (May 26), Mr. Vincent Price (May 27) and Sir Christopher Lee (May 27)
Explain that, you astrology skeptics!
Three actors whose suns are conjunct one another, and who became best known for their horror film personas. And yet, they were all such sweet fellows, true Gemini gems, in reality – and good friends, as well.
Admittedly, I did not follow the career of Peter Cushing as closely as the other two – I’ve had a mad crush on Sir Christopher since childhood and Vincent Price was absolutely everywhere when we were growing up, you couldn’t turn on the TV or listen to a record or open a magazine without him making an appearance. He was a ‘household name’, never one to turn down a gig. I was fortunate enough to have seen his one man play, Diversions and Delights, before he died, in which he played an aged Oscar Wilde. Appropriately, he got his start in Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre.
The birth time for Cushing might be derived, not exact (it’s not from the astro data bank), however, it does make sense that he’d be a Cancer rising.
Cushing’s mother had wanted a girl (maybe that Venus in Aries sq the ascendant?), so early on, she dressed him as one, letting his hair grow in long curls. While he joked that psychiatrists would have something to say about that, to him it was merely his first role. Unlike his two horror bros, he had always known he wanted to act, from day one.
By all accounts Cushing was a gentle soul, artistic, thoughtful of others (including animals, he was vegetarian), self-effacing with a quick sense of humour, loved a practical joke. That all sounds very Cancerian, as well as Chiron in Pisces, who feels the pain of others. Aquarius Moon also tends toward kindness, humanitarianism, friendliness. Also just look at him, he’s the soft romantic, slightly hurt looking, very much the gentleman. Here he is with Carole Lombard, early in his career.
And here he is with his wife, Helen, who he was devoted to as only a Cancerian husband can be. When she died, he didn’t want to go on living, tried to induce a heart attack by running up and down the stairs, but then realized she wouldn’t have wanted him to kill himself. He said he looked forward to their reunion in the afterlife. His Juno in Pisces, conjunct Chiron and Lilith and sextile Rx Jupiter in his 7th, suggests they were definitely soul mates of some kind. His North Node in Aries indicates that his evolutionary lesson was to learn to go it alone, which proved difficult.
Both Cushing and Price have their Part of Fortune in Pisces, signifying their happiness and likely wealth is found in Piscean pursuits, namely arts/film. Cushing did not like doing plays, repeating the same lines over and over, he preferred movies. He played down the camp, not wanting to ‘insult’ his audience (thinking of others, again). His style was perhaps more natural. With Moon and Uranus in Aquarius, he’d likely be the type of actor who ‘channels’ their character, morphing into them, rather than attempting to create them. He often played the straight man – Sherlock Holmes or Van Helsing, in Dracula, for example (though he was just as comfortable in a monster role), because he understood that was how people preferred to see him. Here he is as Sherlock.
And here playing the villain in the Star Wars prequel…Carrie Fisher said he always smelled like linen and lavender. Out of consideration for his co-stars, he was fastidious about being clean and brushing his teeth. She had to pretend he was someone else in order for her character to hate him.
All three men have prominent Saturn, which accounts for their goth sensibility. Cushing and Price were of the Pluto in Gemini generation, while Lee, being younger, was of the Pluto Cancer generation. Their unconscious ‘evolutionary’ urges would be different, Gemini driven to ‘know’ as much as possible on an intellectual level, while Cancer is more about vulnerability and insecurity issues, needs. More on that later.
If it isn’t obvious without even looking at his chart, Price was the sensualist of the three. Besides being a prolific actor, he was an art collector (had a degree in art history) and, together with his second wife, Mary, a published, gourmet cook. Just look at all that earthy Taurus, plus Jupiter in Scorpio (big desire factor), Pisces ascendant, Mars in Pisces trine Neptune and Venus in Cancer. Other than his dual Gemini and Libra, all his planets are in feminine signs. Price was also a loving man, a ‘lover’ in the universal sense of the word, which is what made him the perfect Oscar Wilde. Lilith in Sagittarius does not like her freedom confined in any way, ‘don’t fence me in’. Price’s daughter is almost certain he was bisexual, but the point is that his Pluto Gemini ‘need to know’ everything was expressed through the physical senses. He looks very Taurus-y in this photo…that neck!
Although Venus can be tasteful in fashion, it depends where she’s situated. In fun Cancer, inconjunct Lilith, camp and kitsch might well be her weapon of choice against the status quo (Saturn also inconjunct Lilith).
Mars in Pisces and Jupiter in Scorpio probably made him more convincing as the kind of movie villain who plots and poisons while trying not to look guilty, as opposed to the sort who just shoots people. My generation knows him well as the evil Egghead, in the ultra-camp, ultra fun, Batman TV series.
Jupiter in Scorpio conjunct the South node might also have to do with him being a descendant of one of the first white settlers born in Massachusetts, on the Mayflower, since Jupiter is often the planet associated with the US and to some extent, ancestry. His father owned a candy company, and grandfather had made a fortune in cream-of-tartar based baking powder, so there’s that Taurus Moon foodie lineage (and probably inheritance).
Price was married three times, his third wife was also bisexual, apparently, which is just interesting because he has Juno in Libra. His daughter is gay and he was totally supportive of her coming out. He was one of the first people to speak out on AIDS. He was also outspoken on racism, was a commissioner of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and an art populist who believed and saw to it that everyone should have access to fine art. His Scorpio-Taurus polarity planets/nodes would bestow a fixity that was expressed in his legacies, of which there were many (Gemini). True to Jupiter, he scattered his seeds far and wide, true to Taurus, he nurtured them all.
Ok….I’ve saved the most compelling for last, Sir Christopher Lee, the “man of Many Faces”, with Sun, Moon and Mercury all in Gemini, in the 9th house. He spoke about eight languages and could talk your ear off, ’tis said. Add the Super Galactic Center to that 0 Libra ascendant. “If you want a long and interesting life, pursue something that has no end.” (Arty Shaw). He had an insatiable, inquisitive mind.
It has also been said that, in his most famous role, Count Dracula, Christopher Lee introduced a ‘dark, brooding sexuality’ to the character, and that “Lee’s sensuality was subversive in that it hinted that women might quite like having their neck chewed on by a stud.” [Tim Stanley]
…Am I right, ladies? His Lilith in Pisces is ‘vamped up’ by a trine to his Pluto/Venus.
Maybe an acting out of that shadow Pluto in Cancer need to suck, but who cares, just bite me.
But seriously, this does happen a lot in real life, and who better to play Death to the Maiden than an actor with Pluto conjunct Venus on the midheaven? It’s the stuff of myth. And Saturn on the ascendant gives him that dark, slightly malevolent look – Saturn is the Devil, and the Devil is sexy.
Side note: was he aware of his Saturn position or was the titling of his autobiography just unconscious?
Though he had acted in plays in school, Lee had wanted to be an opera singer (all that Libra), like his great-grandmother, but after his parents separation and divorce (young Christopher aged 4 and 6 respectively) – there’s that Pluto in Cancer sense of not being nurtured – and his mother remarried, his step-father didn’t want to pay for him to go to opera school, so that was that. His mother and stepfather later separated when he was 17 and he would have to work.
At this point, war was breaking out and to make a long chapter short, Mars in Sagittarius kicks in: the knight. He joined the air force at first, but ended up in special forces. Let’s just say he saw the un-seeable, in those years, including the death camps, and it becomes clear that playing the ‘shadow’ was probably therapeutic for him, as well as for the rest of us. While Lee may not have been the most flexible, natural actor (unlike a Brando, for example), he was the kind of ancient school, Mercurial thespian who was able to take on an archetype without being consumed by it. In true, knight tradition, by his portrayal and embodiment of our demons, he ensnares them. By saying “look, this can’t happen, or it shouldn’t happen” (his own words), he was effectively slaying dragons. Ironically, he was knighted for his ‘service to drama and charity’, not for his military service.
Here he is being knighted, looking more regal than the somewhat sheepish Prince of Wales.
He’s like the old, White Knight who slew the Jabberwock, in his youth. And of course, he recorded Lewis Carroll’s poem.
I love seeing where lineage shows up in a person’s chart. Sir Lee’s is well-known, he is a direct descendant, through the matrilineal line, of Charlemagne (‘Charles the Great’), first Emperor of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Indeed, his ‘crowning glory’ was to finally sing opera on his ‘metal concept album’ about his ancestor…Saturn’s long-awaited, earned rewards.
Charlemagne, a conquering, warrior king, who converted Saxonia to Christianity by force, was thought to have been born on April 2, making him an Aries, and Lee’s South Node is in Aries, opposite his regal Jupiter and Saturn, in the first house – which alone is a high falutin placement for these two. (Saturn and Jupiter come together once every 20 years in what’s called a ‘Grand Conjunction’, which can herald births or leaders of importance – supposedly what the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ actually was).
Albrecht Dürer painted this portrait of Charlemagne, six centuries after his reign, and about five centuries prior to Lee’s. Dürer must have been psychic channeling.
Dante includes Charlemagne in his sphere of Mars, home of the Warriors of the Faith, who ‘gave their lives to God, thereby displaying the virtue of Fortitude.’ Later, the Waite-Smith Tarot immortalizes him yet again as the Aries Emperor. Lee may not be into the occult, but the occult is certainly into him.
More fun Saturn facts: Lee and his distant ancestor were both big on books and education (though the Emperor could not himself read), measured over 6 feet tall and walked with a limp due to battle injury, albeit Lee’s was sustained during a Three Musketeers film sword fight. Oh yes, he did his own swashbuckling scenes and had many of them, Mars in Sagittarius, again.
Lee’s beloved wife and soul mate, Birgit, who had her own career as a model and actress, is also an Aries, and we can see he has Juno conjunct Chiron, conjunct the S. node, in that sign. As is suited to a triple Gemini, both his wife and daughter were born on cusps. Geminis will settle for nothing less that a ‘yin for their yang’ (or vice versa). They were a very Euro couple, very cosmopolitan, always getting on ‘best dressed’ lists. Here they are in different phases of life. I’m not jealous.
Jupiter and Saturn – are they two sides of the same coin ?
Here’s a very simplified, astrological comparison, without going too deeply into the mythology…
Jupiter (Zeus) was ‘King of the Gods’. He resides in the clouds and never was big on limitations – his own, that is. Though he does think it important that we humans should have spiritual laws, moral codes of ethics, philosophies and things like that, but also faith. The big 3 religions that can’t stop being morally superior to each other, all have an incarnation of Jupiter at the helm and are based on the belief that spirit exceeds all physical limitations. His glyph is a half circle rising over a cross, ‘spirit over matter’. The planet Jupiter, 5th from the Sun, is the biggest in the solar system and mostly gas. A ‘jovial’ windbag. His metal is tin – which may not seem befitting for the heavenly father, but it is the lightest and can be mixed with any metal.
Saturn (Kronos) , in ancient times, was the last planet visible to the naked eye, so his sphere was, literally, the limit, and thus he represents accepting/learning to work within our own limitations and the laws of nature – the biggest one being that we inhabit a material body. No escaping that, until death. Also he has rings ‘binding’ him. At Saturnalia, these, in the form of chains, come off his statue (Lord of Misrule) and everyone parties. His glyph or sigil is a cross, above a half circle (which sometimes looks more like a tail/snake), meaning ‘matter over spirit’. Thus Saturn is earthy, his metal is lead, he is gravity in all forms. The 6th planet from the Sun.
Wherever Saturn is situated in your natal chart represents where you feel limited or where your most important life lessons are (the ones you committed to), what karma you are working through during this lifetime. It can feel ‘grave’ or serious, at least at first, until you have learned and matured according to Saturn’s rules. There is comedy in tragedy and vice versa, that’s life. Tragedy means ‘goat song’.
Wherever Jupiter is, on the other hand, is a place you feel fortunate, rewarded, free. The gifts he brings may feel like lottery winnings, but they are actually rewards for good deeds and hard work in past lifetimes. Jupiter especially enjoys buffoonery and of course, gambling. He is also Santa Claus.
So as you can see, they work together. Body and spirit are interwoven during this lifetime and we can’t progress in one without the other, or we might experience their shadows. For example, some people who are all spiritual or preachy with Jupiterian morals start to express the grave or humorless characteristics of Saturn or neglect their bodies. Those who are focused only on the material , worldly concerns of Saturn can start to embody the ruthless, megalomaniacal side of Jupiter, in their sense of entitlement.
Thus, it is very important to keep these two archetypes in balance.
