Vernal Equinox!

Welcoming Spring with, appropriately enough,
"The Coming of Spring" by Erté

An archived post on Erté is HERE.

“In olden times, it meant the long dark of winter was finally over, and things would start growing again and the world would be renewed. The solstice was the promise–that the days wouldn’t just keep on getting shorter until they disappeared altogether. The equinox was the day when the promise was fulfilled.”
― M.R. Carey, The Girl With All the Gifts

Also today the Sun moves into zodiac sign Aries, bringing in an astrological New Year - here's to a happy one for us all!

Circular Thoughts

In the circle of the zodiac, around which our planets and lights travel, the first and last signs are opposites in characteristics, they are also neighbours. Aries, the initiator, full of energy, impatient to get things started; cheek-by-jowl is Pisces, the loose, visionary dreamer in no hurry to, as they say in the USA, "haul ass".

Circles don't have extremities, only departure and return points, which means that opposites - the extremes - are liable to bump into one another, even co-mingle, in effect.

Many people will have both Aries and Pisces emphasised in their nature, this will happen not all that infrequently, as Mercury and Venus are never far from the Sun, wherever it may be in the zodiac circle. If such people can learn to live with this kind of push-pull contrast, encourage balance, interesting and often helpful blends will be forthcoming. Such helpful blending and balancing seldom seems to happen in politics, however.

In the circle of political opinion, the further left, or right, one moves in entrenched viewpoints, the more liable one is, without even realising it, to be in danger of assisting the very causes one started out to oppose, thereby damaging one's own best interests.

Extreme right and extreme left are neighbours in the circle of political opinion, just as Aries and Pisces are neighbours in the astrological zodiac. I am not comparing those signs to political viewpoints, except in the way that extremes are liable to co-mingle and produce unintended results.

The most extreme left-wing views can do more harm than good to more moderate opinions, even at times inadvertently assisting the aims of the right. Farthest right extreme opinions could end up helping perceived enemies on the left. Extreme words, and actions, leave nothing but ridicule in their wake eventually serving only to assist the left.

“Extremes, though contrary, have the like effects. Extreme heat kills, and so extreme cold: extreme love breeds satiety, and so extreme hatred; and too violent rigor tempts chastity, as does too much license.”
George Chapman, English poet and dramatist c.1559-1634.

COMMENT FROM 2009

anthonynorth said...One of my political 'laws' is that extremism always results in the opposite outcome. I think you've got this about right. And it's the same with a straight line. No such thing. Draw a line anywhere on this planet and if you keep going long enough, you'll end up back where you started.

Twilight said...AN ~~~ Oh good! I'm glad you agree because after I'd drafted this post I did wonder if others would see it as I do. Then I thought - oh, what the heck, if I see it that way, that's good enough - my blog my thoughts. ;-)

Aries Remembered

I can find little new to say about Aries, the zodiac sign through which our Sun now travels. Because my mind (most minds too, I guess) has been, of late, mainly on politics, the two people in my life who have influenced my political thinking most strongly come to mind often; one had Sun in Aries. The other, I suspected had Aries Moon, same as me - though his time of birth remained unknown. The Sun in Aries guy has been described in posts before, but it's worth repeating, I think, in honour of his birthday which would've been in late April.

Aries represents all that's bright, energetic, warm, enthusiastic and full of potential. That's the essence of Aries. The essence can get pretty mashed up and diluted though, when it becomes a part of that peculiar life-form known as a human being.

There is no such creature as "an Aries". It's convenient shorthand, I use it myself.

The beauty and individuality of Aries, and of any other zodiac sign, is in the way it blends with the rest of the chart's contents. How does a hint of impulsiveness, a little impatience, a yen for leadership, or a habit of walking and doing most things quickly and with enthusiasm, mix with and match other chart ingredients?

If Sun, Moon and rising sign were all grouped in Aries, there'd be an outside chance of encountering a near-stereotype, but even then a stray Mercury in Taurus would slow it down. Venus in Pisces would soften it. All manner of combinations could get to work on the Aries essence to modify it. The result: something unique.

My husband's Sun is in the first degree of the sign, he really isn't stereotypical Aries though. I have Moon and Saturn in Aries, which could qualify me as more of "an Aries" than he is. In reality though, we're both a tangle of all-sorts.

The only other person with Sun in Aries who I've known well, over a long period of time, was my very first boss. I'll call him Mr. H. That's what the tea lady used to call him when she brought our morning and afternoon cuppas.

Mr. H was County Archivist of East Yorkshire, I was his assistant - my first job after leaving Grammar School. We were a department of two, so it was essential that we got along. He trusted teenage me with stuff that nowadays would be tackled by someone at least of university graduate level: helping to clean and catalogue valuable archives, rescued from stately homes in the county. It was a totally fascinating job. I find it hard now to understand why I ever left it to go wandering into the hotel life, and later into the civil service. I did return though, after my first defection, at his invitation and did a second stint of three years with him, until love and wander-lust had me on the move again.

Mr. H was a great guy, I had a crush on him, of course. His great sense of humour enchanted me, and I was not easily enchanted in those days. But I can't identify him "an Aries", textbook style. Oddly though, I often see or rather "feel" an eery hint of Mr. H in my husband (birthday 22 March). Something in the way he tells a joke, notices certain things - other stuff too. It's hard to put into words, complicated, esoteric even, peculiar to myself, I guess, and nobody else would understand. It feels strange at times.

I hadn't looked at Mr. H's natal chart before. I don't remember whether his birthday was 27 or 29 March, but I do know the year was 1922. I've investigated both dates. Either way, his Sun and Venus (plus possibly the Moon) were in Aries. Mercury in Pisces conjunct Uranus - here could be why we got on so well, Uranus being my Aquarius Sun sign's ruler. But there's more: his Mars was at either 16 or 17 Sagittarius - my Venus is at 19 Sagittarius. Also my Aries Moon complemented his Aries Sun. He had Saturn and Jupiter in Libra opposite his Sun and Venus in Aries; his sharper edged Aries traits were balanced by the charm and diplomacy of Libra.

Mr. H. died in 1999. We kept in touch for many years. When I heard that he had suffered a stroke in 1998, I visited him in hospital. I'm not certain whether he remembered me or not, but from the twinkle in his eye, I believe he did. I've always been very thankful for knowing Mr. H, for his influence on me as a young woman, and for what I learned from him and remember still.

Aries Considered

In his book, Astrology published 1964, Louis MacNeice, not an astrologer, but a poet and scholar, gathered together much of interest from a variety of sources, ancient and modern. On zodiac sign Aries, through which the Sun now travels, he wrote the paragraphs below, quoting from some professional astrologers whose works may now be less known by the average astrology fan. Some related links identifying those astrologers are added at the end of this post. The excerpt has been copy-typed by my own fair fingers, rather than copy-pasted from elsewhere on the internet. Illustrations here were added by me.

Though Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, it is the last of this monthly series; for some reason I began, last year, with Taurus. The whole set of 12 posts can most easily be accessed by clicking on "Louis MacNeice" in the Label Cloud in the sidebar.

Aries the Ram
March 21 to April 20

The hieroglyph for Aries looks like a ram's horns (though Morrish says it might just as well represent a fountain). A cardinal fiery sign, ruled by Mars: cardinal in that it serves as the ignition key for the year, fiery in that it symbolizes the explosive suns of spring. This is the sign of the vernal equinox when the ecliptic crosses the equator and day and night are of equal length. To the ancients it seemed natural to begin the astrological year on March 21 with the first degree of Aries (0 Aries), though the people in the southern hemisphere were not consulted about this. That Aries is a "priority" sign in almost every respect is shown by the instructions given in some of the early Hermetic writings as to the use of " Zodiacal plants" for magical purposes: Whatever the plant and whatever other sign is concerned, it should be picked and its juice extracted when the Sun is in Aries.

 Aries by David Palladini

Aries is in general the adventurous pioneer sign and, like all the other signs, has the vices of its virtues. It had been assigned to Mars and its basic character stablized by the time of Ptolemy, and the association of Britain with Aries goes back to that time. The traditional qualities of the Aries man were briefly and clearly outlined by Raphael in he early 19th century: "Aries, the house of Mars and exaltation of the Sun......is a vernal, dry, fiery, masculine, cardinal, equinoctial, diurnal, moveable, commanding, eastern, choleric, violent and quadrupedian sign." It will be remembered that, apart from the sign that a planet "rules", there is usually another sign in which he feels particularly at home; this is the sign in which he is said to have his "exaltation." So Aries fiery furnaces are kept doubly stoked, by Mars who rules it and by the Sun who is exalted in it.

On the other hand, a planet who is not at ease in Aries is Venus. André Barbault stresses that the fire of Aries, in contrast with that of the other two fiery signs, Leo and Sagittarius, in the PRIMAL fire that both creates and destroys. So the Aries type of person tends to be an impetuous juvenile type taking no thought for the morrow. And not only juvenile but primitive: Ingrid Lind says there is something of the cave man about him.

There is general agreement about the character of the Aries man: He is an enthusiast, tough, rather reckless, impetuous always and irritable sometimes, and he falls in love like a thunderbolt. Aries moves much too fast for the Taurus type and is exasperated by the fussiness and exactitude of Virgo. From early times astrologers have also described his physical characteristics, making him strong, with powerful shoulders, and so on. After a warning about Zodiacal morphology, Barbault suggests that the Aries type does tend to look like a ram (Gleadow writes that "his nose, even when small, has an energetic arch") and notes that he walks rapidly and has a strong, quick hand-grip. He is something of a menace as a driver, and does not like wearing a hat. As for Aries women, in dress they don't wish to follow the fashion but to lead it; on the other hand they are almost aggressive in their non-use of make-up.

 Aries by Erté,

As examples of Aries types, Barbault gives Louis Armstrong (who invented "hot" jazz), Marlon Brando, George Sand ("the first feminist"), Savonalrola, and St. Teresa of Avila. To prove the point that two Aries types can be thoroughly Aries and yet, owing to the positions of the planets, in many ways very different, he contrasts two French writers, Baudelaire and Zola. Each of them had a notable conglomeration of planets in Aries but whereas Zola had the Sun, Moon, Mars and Pluto, and at that in trine (a good relationship) with Saturn, Baudelaire had the Sun, Venus (bad, as just mentioned, in this sign) Jupiter and Saturn - and at that in eighth house, the house of death.

Morrish's evolutionary theory has already been mentioned. According to this scheme - in which the whole Zodiac symbolizes the universal "Wheel of Life and Death" - Aries, the first sign, represents ignorance (at whatever level) in contrast with the last sign, Pisces, which represents universality (at whatever level). Focusing in, Morris makes the first three signs stand for "unit germination." Aries here stands for the male creative impulse (to be quickly followed by the traditionally feminine sign, Taurus, which represents matrix or matter).

Morrish, like many artists, believes in the fertilizing effects of conflict, and stresses the importance of Zodiacal opposites; for example, "in a physical analogy Libra (air) is required to enable Aries (fire) to 'burst into flame' ." As well as making Aries play the male to the female matrix of Taurus, Morrish makes him stand for motion in contrast with the Taurine inertia. This evolutionary scheme of Morrish's, which involves the concept of yoga, is a peculiarly modern outcrop to which we shall return later. But, on the traditional premises, he has not miscast either Aries or Taurus.

Astrologers mentioned:
Morrish (L. Furze-Morrish?)
André Barbault
Ingrid Lind
Rupert Gleadow

Arty Farty Friday ~ Ford Madox Brown - Aries x 6

 Self portrait

I've chosen to feature Victorian artist Ford Madox Brown as much for his unusually Aries-packed natal chart as for his paintings. More on the astrology later in this post.










His style has similarity with that of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (including Rossetti, Hunt and Millais), but he was some years older than the main group of Pre-Raphaelites, and in fact has been described as having pioneered the style of painting which which came to be known as Pre-Raphaelite before the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was actually founded in 1848.

Ford Madox Brown's paintings tended to be less "perfect", more down to earth, sympathetic to ordinary people, less in awe of the beautiful people, whether mythical or real. He was a longtime friend of my own hero, William Morris. In 1861 he was one of the founding members of William Morris' business, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company (later Morris and Company).

Brown was born, according to Astrodatabank on 16 April 1821 at 4.00 PM in Calais, France to English parents. He studied in Europe, remained in France for some years, married his first wife, Elizabeth. Their first child died in infancy in 1842, a second child was born in 1843. They moved to England in 1844. However Elizabeth contracted tuberculosis, and died aged 27 on the journey back to England from Rome where she had been staying. Brown married again, to a younger woman, Emma Hill, who had been his model, and live in lover for several years. He's said also to have had some "associations" with women outside his marriage, in particular with another artist, Marie Spartali Stillman and a writer, Mathilde Blind.

Detail of his biography is at Wikipedia.
Also, there's a good combinations of biographical facts and copious illustrations
at Hoocher.com HERE.

As for Brown's personality, I've gleaned little. At mentalfloss there's this note:

4. According to one source, Brown "threw brilliant parties, hosted animated debates and even fashionable seances." The article goes on to state that Brown's admirers considered him "the handsomest man in London" as well as "the best conversationalist." Apparently, he was referred to as a "King of Hearts."

Ford Madox Brown's best known paintings are The Last of England, Work, and the frescoes he painted for Manchester's Town Hall.


Click on image for a bigger version:

 The Last of England (1855)

The painting tells the story of the emigration of a young family from England to Australia; part of the emigrating movement of the 1850s, when people sought new lives around the British Empire.
See HERE.
Compelled to leave all they have known and loved, their grim stoicism testifies to their determination.

The Last of England also tells the story of the artist, Ford Madox Brown. In 1852, he was "intensely miserable, very hard up and not a little mad". The main figures are portraits of Brown and his beloved model, Emma Hill, whom he married in 1853. They form a solid unit, bound together in their love. It is a painting full of human emotion, incident and drama; from the vulnerability of their baby's tiny hand to the savage anger of the figures in the background.

His painting, Work, really needs to be seen in large format, this is better done by going to Wikipedia HERE and clicking on the image there.

From The Guardian:

Underpinning these two great paintings lay Brown's abiding interest in the underdog. Unlike his friend William Morris, he was never a systematic socialist, opting instead to make a series of pragmatic and personal interventions in the lives of the poor. He taught art at the Working's Mens' College and, later, set up the Labour Bureau in Manchester. In the same way, his art is one of engaged observation rather than noisy propaganda. Perhaps this was because, unlike the independently wealthy Morris, Brown understood poverty to be a complex, nuanced business. While never actually starving, he spent at least two decades of his working life harried by a lack of cash. The Last of England sold for less than it should, and Brown's hyper-sensitivity also meant that he tended to crash up against the institutions and people who would have done him most good.

Below is just one example of frescos in Manchester Town Hall (click on it for a bigger version)
- the rest can be seen at the BBC website HERE.

From the same Guardian piece:

Although he had no prior relationship with Manchester, its brisk, nonconformist atmosphere suited him particularly well. While reviewing the city's history to find subjects for his murals, he found an abundance of moments that chimed with his own subtle understanding of the human condition.

ASTROLOGY

What can I say? All personal planets are in Aries, apart from Moon in Libra - a predominantly Cardinal chart. Moon in Venus-ruled, arty Libra symbolically depicts a kind of funnel through which all Aries' pioneering, motivated and forceful attributes are directed. Moon lay in opposition to
Venus, Saturn and Jupiter, with Libra's best balancing act going on to calm down the worst of Aries' impetuosities and aggressive instincts.

Generational outer planets Uranus and Neptune were in exact conjunction in Capricorn when Ford Madox Brown was born.

From Gary Lorentzen's website:

Uranus/Neptune in the 19th Century—Economic Self-Interest vs Social Benefit ~
The old Sagittarius influence was gone and an entirely new, modern impulse was shaping the expression of Uranus/Neptune. Commercial capitalism was replaced by industrial capitalism and a growing state capitalism. Colonialism came into its own as states consolidated their holdings forming extended, global empires. Almost immediately, however, there was a reaction to this trend in the form of a growing socialist/communist movement that applied the lessons of the previous cycles to a new, scientific materialism and scientific state management. But the conjunction took place in Capricorn in the Capricorn decanate. The impulse to move away from the old Sagittarian idealism was strong, and a new, more practical, economic idealism was forming.

That does fit Brown's art, generational and astrological outlook well. The conjunction makes challenging square aspects to his natal Mercury and Mars in Aries - could be seen as challenging him to get with the new paradigm!

Fixed Stars in Aries

I mentioned in February, in THIS POST, that it might be worthwhile to do a monthly post about Fixed Stars in each zodiac sign. That was back in Aquarius-time, and I forgot Fixed Stars in Pisces. Now's as good a time as any to start though, at the beginning of the zodiac with Aries.

There are various and variable lists of Fixed Stars in Aries around the internet, I'll show one here, it might not be exhaustive. Exact positions of Fixed Stars move very slowly. Most lists give positions for the year 2000, some give comparisons with 1900, or 2010. A good overall list, with ancient interpretation, is an updated one from Rob Tillett See HERE. A word of caution: ancient astrologers were either a tad gloomy or way over excitable about a person's prospects. Take the interpretations with a large pinch of salt!

Anyway, here's a compact list of stars in tropical zodiac sign Aries, extracted from THIS website

 Hat-tip HERE for illustration

Two stars stood out, for me, as deserving a little more scribbling: Alpheratz , the brightest star in the constellation of Andromeda, located northeast of the constellation of Pegasus; and Erakis also called Mu Cephei, known as Herschel's Garnet Star, a red supergiant star in the constellation Cepheus, and one of the largest and most luminous stars known in the Milky Way.

I don't have a planet close to Erakis (I think 1 or 2 degrees would be the widest to consider a conjunction for Fixed Stars), but my natal Saturn at 12.55 Aries could qualify as conjunct Alpheratz. Alpheratz was at 13.28 of tropical Aries when I was born (it's now around 14.26).

From HERE

Alpheratz is a purplish-white double star of the2nd magnitude located at 14 degrees Aries 26minutes. It is benevolent, with the overall nature of Venus. A part of two constellations, both Andromeda and Pegasus, Alpheratz has the added distinction of being among the fifty stars catalogued by the Elizabethan astrologer William Lilly in his book Christian Astrology. Alpheratz is also noted by the 1st-century astrologer Manilus in his work Astronomica where it appeared on the title page in a drawing of the constellation Andromeda..........
......When a fixed star conjoins a luminary or planet it will dominate the outcome of events or the path of an individual’s destiny. Consider only the conjunction when placing a fixed star in a birth chart, and the orb is just three degrees.

Some keywords showing the significance of Alpheratz’ influence in the
natal horoscope are listed (See site linked above). What relevance might be attached to my natal Saturn conjunct Alpheratz? -

With Saturn
Frugal, seeks popularity, domestic harmony, to health problems involving the head.

Hmmm! Well, I seek domestic harmony anyway! I did have a scalp problem last summer, during the Uranus/Pluto square times, but I also had a foot problem soon after too, so.... If throat counts as head my recent fall to Earth might count too.

The article linked above goes on to say:

Alpheratz will exert a great deal of influence during 2014–15. Uranus will be in orb of a conjunction with this fixed star most of the year. The aspect will be strongest when Uranus is at 14 degrees of Aries during April 30 – May 19, 2014; September 26 – October 20, 2014; and again February 20 – March 11, 2015. The total lunar eclipse on October 8, 2014, will also be in very close proximity to Alpheratz. At these times those practicing ritual magic can invoke the myth archetypes of the rescue of Andromeda by Perseus as well as the power of flight through calling upon Pegasus.
Magical workings to save those in distress, especially for the sake of love, and travels for the sake of pure and virtuous motives would be favored.
– Dikki-Jo Mulle.

There's mention of Alpheratz in natal charts in an archived post of mine about Shel Silverstein. (Scroll down to the astrology paragraphs there.)

Erakis called the Garnet Star & aka Mu Chephei, currently at around 9.50 tropical Aries.
Click on image for larger, clearer version.

 Hat-tip HERE for illustration

From HERE

Conjoining Algenib and marking mid-sidereal Pisces [tropical Aries] is the Supergiant Garnet Star, Erakis. Most people naturally tend to notice the bright stars of Cepheus when looking into the heavens, but the blood-red Garnet Star of Cepheus is often missed — a beauty, especially through binoculars. Similarly, we miss seeing the opportunity for attainment or solution when only watching the obvious around us.

The Garnet Star lies at the head of King Cepheus forming a triangle with Alderamin and Zeta Cepheus. Erakis imparts a quality of royalty, prominence, largeness, passion, prosperity, abundance and wealth; and the appreciation of such. North of and conjoining Algenib, Erakis exemplifies the role or crown of the King — to govern without being lost in the drama of that which he may need to govern. As a supergiant star (about 1420 times our Sun's radius), Erakis imparts a significant astrological influence along with fortuitous Algenib, especially regarding financial affairs and opportunities.

Astrological reflections of the constellation Cepheus, of which Erakis is a part, as given by Manilius are listed at Constellations of Words.


Sidelight: Frank Herbert, in his famous novel Dune used a similar-sounding name for planet Arrakis (see Wikipedia). Perhaps the author took inspiration from Fixed Star Erakis.

Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose noble family accepts the stewardship of the desert planet Arrakis. As this planet is the only source of the "spice" melange, the most important and valuable substance in the universe, control of Arrakis is a coveted — and dangerous — undertaking. The story explores the multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the forces of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its "spice"

Pesky Grand Cross, plus Bits & Pieces.

First, a wee bit of reporting back, regarding that pesky Grand Cross formation of late April this year. In my post about the formation I mentioned that my own natal Saturn at 12.55 Aries would be hooked up in the Grand Cross pattern which linked planets in cardinal signs at around 13 degrees. At the time I couldn't relate anything personal to me other than having recently changed computer operating system after some 10 years, from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Shortly after those Grand Cross days of late April I began to be aware of a problem with my scalp - itching, scaly, getting gradually worse. I'd experienced a similar condition before, back in the 1990s in the UK. I wasn't unduly alarmed because then it was reasonably quickly cleared up using a particular shampoo (Nizoral 2%), and a mild corticosteroid liquid scalp treatment. This year's version eventually grew more virulent though, possibly it was seborrhoeic dermatitis rather than a simple fungal scalp infection. My hair began falling out in places where the problem was at its worst.

The Grand Cross involved my natal Saturn in Aries being conjoined by Uranus, squared by Pluto and Jupiter and opposed by Mars. Aries in medical astrology rules the head face and eyes; Capricorn rules knees, joints and hair, Saturn, Capricorn's governor rules the skin and bones. (Information from here) So, did the Grand Cross reflect its challenges in my scalp and hair problem? Any ideas?

I think - hope - that I now have the problem under control, I'm fairly optimistic that the lost hair will grow back in time, in the meantime I can cover the loss by some judicious combing...or by wearing a hat! I cannot, though, risk carrying on with my visits to the hairdresser every 2 months or so for a dye job. It could even be that my scalp, at last, had rebelled against some element of that treatment. I won't mind the white/grey - it's time now. ...some would say past time!

This is clever!

Quick & Animated History of the English Language

"That lucky old sun has nothin' to do
But roll around Heaven all day"

Russell Brand taking on Fox News - perhaps his accent might confuse some US viewers - I'll translate where needed, just ask!

Lastly ~

Ever wondered why, in a universe as vast as we are told it is, we Earthlings have never been contacted by beings from somewhere out there? There's an entertaining and enlightening article titled The Fermi Paradox at an always interesting website:
Wait But Why.

Linda Goodman

American astrologer Linda Goodman was born this day, 9 April, in 1925. She's the astrologer who lit the fuse under Sun sign astrology with her book
Sun Signs, first published in 1968. Sparks of inspiration from her book still fly far and wide, long after the author's demise in 1995. Back in England, I bought that book in the mid-'70s, enjoyed it a lot, due to her writing style and sense of humour. I passed it around work friends to spread "the word"; it was never seen by me again!

Most Sun sign astrologers, in spite of their continued popularity, and position as "gatekepers" to astrology proper, still receive a bad press. There are bad ones, some very bad ones, but those with a flair for writing in a style accessible to interested but low-information readers, who can show a modicum of humour and insight into the human condition, while tempting readers to find out more about their subject, continue to survive unfair ridicule and denigration. Linda Goodman was one such astrologer. In preparing this post I discovered more about her. Whether what has been published is 100% accurate only those closest to her will know, but it makes interesting reading, and paints a (possibly exaggerated) picture of a rather eccentric, driven, intense but very generous character.
Ms Goodman chose never to reveal full detail of her birth data, what she did reveal turned out to be inexact, once detail from her birth certificate became available.

I'll quote excerpts from each of the links below as samples, then take a peek at her natal chart.

Astro.com:Linda Goodman

Conscious Evolution - piece by Maria Barron about Linda Goodman (2000)

People.com - piece by By Sarah Moore Hall, Richard K. Rein originally published 1979.

From astro.com - notes regarding time of birth:

LMR quotes Kathleen Johnson for the date, from Goodman; confirmed by Frank C. Clifford by phone from the records bureau. Time deduced by LMR from her statement that she had Neptune right on the ASC. For the most part she concealed her own data, only dropping hints and clues to her colleagues.
According to Wikipedia, the magazine 'Today's Astrologer' writes on February 6, 2008, p. 11:
According to her birth certificate, on file at the American Federation of Astrologers in Tempe, Arizona, she was born on April 9, 1925 at 6:05 a.m. EST in Morgantown, West Virginia

From the Conscious Evolution link above:

...............Although Linda never revealed the full contents of her own birth chart publicly, a chart cast for around 8:23 a.m. on April 9, 1925, in Morgantown, West Virginia, matches all the aspects she did reveal about her natal chart and the circumstances she believed about her birth.

(NOTE: This time of birth is some 2 and a half hours later than the time on her birth certificate)

In Gooberz, Linda says she was born in the morning and that she always had a hard time really reconciling who she was because of her "somewhat afflicted planet in Libra." That kind of identity conflict fits the astrological description of a person with the Sun and Moon in opposite signs. In the chart as cast, it is the Moon, representing the emotional nature, which shows up as Linda's "somewhat afflicted planet" in gentle, beauty-loving Libra. It opposes her natal Sun in the fiery, independent and combative sign of Aries. The "graceful conjoining" of the stars Spica and Arcturus, which Linda mentions in the same description as a blessing in her chart, is there as well. The two stars are conjoined with her natal moon.

Linda also says her chart was blessed by trines from Gemini, Neptune and Mars. In the chart as cast, Linda's ascendant shows up at about 9 degrees Gemini, and indeed there are trines emanating from the point of her Gemini ascendant as well as from Neptune and Mars. Neptune, the planet of dreams, trines her Sun and Venus. The ascendant and Mars, both located in quick-thinking, communicative Gemini, trine the mid-heaven point in the chart. Suggestive of how one might be remembered in the world, Linda's mid-heaven point is in the New Age sign of Aquarius.
Also, in the chart as cast, Linda's ruling planet, Mars, sovereign of Aries, is conjoined with her ascendant, providing an explanation for why Linda would refer to herself, in newspaper articles and with friends, as a triple Aries. Only two planets -- the Sun and Venus -- are in Aries at any time that morning. But with Mars located at the point of the ascendant, the third dose of Aries Ram energy is added, conspicuously, to the personality...............................

Linda told interviewers that she began her career writing for newspapers in the eastern and southeastern United States. She also said she had written speeches for black American civil rights leader Whitney Young, who served for several years as president of the National Urban League. Her political activism re-emerged at various times throughout her life. In 1993, she whipped off political letters on both the national and local level. One, to President Clinton, advised him to study a particular experimental fuel additive as he formed his environmental policies. The other, a letter to the editor of Cripple Creek's little weekly newspaper, The Gold Rush, advised local voters to return incumbent city council members to office.

In her personal life, Linda endured the pain of loss time and time again. She had children who died in infancy and a daughter, Sarah, nicknamed Sally, who died or disappeared as a young adult.
........... during her final years, as she faced declining health caused by diabetes -- when her belief in the benefits of physical immortality would occasionally give way to a desire to move on from this earthly plain of experience -- she would call to the love of her middle years, her second husband, Sam Goodman, who had preceded her in death.

From the People link above:

As dawn breaks over her remote aerie high in the Colorado Rockies, Linda Goodman shakes off sleepiness, feeds wood into the stove against the chill and sets about a bizarre daily ritual. To the low recorded music of a Gregorian chant, she lights candles on a handmade altar and recites a mystical litany she created six years ago as a message to her departed loved ones. It begins with the prayer of St. Francis: "Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace..."

Goodman's life defies imagination. On the one hand, she is a very rich woman, made so by her wildly popular books on astrology. Her 1968 explanation of the zodiac titled Sun Signs sold four million copies, and paperback rights to her current best-seller, Love Signs, went last year for $2.25 million, equaling the record held by Mario Puzo's Fools Die. By any standard, Goodman at 54 is the most influential astrologer in the world. But she has also become a recluse, hidden away in Cripple Creek, Colo., haunted by the disappearance of the two most important people in her life within the space of 20 months. One was her lover, Robert Brewer, a marine biologist of 22 who fled to Mexico without explanation in the spring of 1972 and has not been seen since. The other was her daughter, Sally, officially listed by the New York medical examiner as a suicide just before Christmas 1973, a casualty of liquor and barbituates at 21.

Goodman believes Brewer will return soon of his own accord; she keeps a place set for him at the dining table. Her grief over Sally, a budding actress and drama school graduate, has taken a more obsessive turn. "I know Sally is not dead," says Goodman. "I've done her chart over and over again. An astrologist can't predict death, but I can foresee non-death. I don't know exactly why she was taken, but I feel the time is right for her to reappear. The only reason I'm talking now is hope that I'll find some lead to her." ........................................
.....................A well-known astrologer on the East Coast, provided (by PEOPLE) with the date and place of Linda's birth (West Parkersburg, Va., April 9, 1925) but not with her identity, describes "an Aries who has a tendency to spin dreams. She is not a liar—she just dramatizes things. She tries to make her fantasies come true." Indirectly, Goodman's explanation seems to agree. "I admit that to be an astrologer you live a great deal in the imagination," she says. "But about Sally I'm like any distraught mother. I just want my daughter back."

Natal chart using data from Astrodatabank (AA rating, confirmed by birth certificate)

Linda Goodman's birthname: Mary Alice Kemery. Born on 9 April 1925 at 06:05 AM in Morgantown, West Virginia.

The chart differs in detail from the time of birth Ms Goodman gave to interviewers, but doesn't differ a lot in spirit. (See the snips from the Conscious Evolution link above). The Sun-Moon opposition is here. Her rising sign isn't Gemini though, but Aries, resulting, as she had stated, but for different reason, that she was "a triple Aries".
Neptune isn't on the ascendant, but it forms a nice close trine to Sun on the ascendant. Her mid-heaven was Capricorn, not Aquarius - and Capricorn underlines the kind of business sense she must have had, in spite of her seeming eccentricities and quirks. Jupiter close to mid-heaven reflects her reported generosity.

RUSSELL BRAND ~ "he's a darling, he's a demon, he's a lamb"

When I read him I'm confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
He's as flighty as a feather
He's a darling! He's a demon! He's a lamb!

He'd outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
He could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
He is gentle! He is wild!
He's a riddle! He's a child!
He's a headache! He's an angel!
He's............... Russell Brand

As I read the New Statesman piece, carried at Common Dreams on Friday, written by British actor/comedian Russell Brand the words of a song from "The Sound of Music" kept floating into my head. I've parodied them above, with apologies to Oscar Hammerstein II .

It's a l-o-n-g piece for ADD-afflicted internet inhabitants, but it's one I couldn't stop reading halfway, as I do so many others. Brand's piece at Common Dreams is headed: "Before We Change the World, We Need to Change the Way We Think.......On revolution: 'We no longer have the luxury of tradition'".

Before I go any further, I'm leaving a link to an antidote for any hint of Brandish hero-worship a passing reader might detect: Douglas Valentine's piece at Counterpunch is a knock-down, drag-out put-down of Russell. I don't agree with Mr Valentine, though do admit that there's an occasional whisper of sense in what he writes as, I feel pretty sure (and this is important) that Russell Brand would too.

Russell Brand: the guy is Gemini incarnate....really! The Trickster, brilliantly fluent, ridiculously talented, flawed mouth-on-a stick. But make no mistake, in this piece Brand is making more sense than any dozen of mealy mouthed pundits you'd care to bundle together. And he's funny with it....that is very hard to do for most of us struggling non-Gemini mortals. Several commenters have described his piece as "stream of consciousness stuff". I've never been reliably sure what "stream of consciousness" looks like until now!

I've chosen a few quotes from the piece to share its flavour, and to spice up this post. It was hard to choose, there are so many quotable chunks. I highly recommend reading the article in full. Sometimes the piece relates to British political figures, but mostly his remarks apply to the USA also, and the rest of the world for that matter.

To give some idea of the subject matter, some random paragraphs - not always chronological:

The serious side:

First, he excuses his wealth:

I should qualify my right to even pontificate on such a topic and in so doing untangle another of revolution’s inherent problems. Hypocrisy. How dare I, from my velvet chaise longue, in my Hollywood home like Kubla Khan, drag my limbs from my harem to moan about the system? A system that has posited me on a lilo made of thighs in an ocean filled with honey and foie gras’d my Essex arse with undue praise and money..............

.......The right has all the advantages, just as the devil has all the best tunes. Conservatism appeals to our selfishness and fear, our desire and self-interest; they neatly nurture and then harvest the inherent and incubating individualism.

I imagine that neurologically the pathway travelled by a fearful or selfish impulse is more expedient and well travelled than the route of the altruistic pang. In simple terms of circuitry I suspect it is easier to connect these selfish inclinations.

These problems that threaten to bring on global destruction are the result of legitimate human instincts gone awry, exploited by a dead ideology derived from dead desert myths. Fear and desire are the twin engines of human survival but with most of our basic needs met these instincts are being engaged to imprison us in an obsolete fragment of our consciousness. Our materialistic consumer culture relentlessly stimulates our desire. Our media ceaselessly engages our fear, our government triangulates and administrates, ensuring there are no obstacles to the agendas of these slow-thighed beasts, slouching towards Bethlehem.

(After a visit to African slums, seeing emaciated children there, and on return home attending a fashion show with stick thin models who deliberately starve themselves):

...I could not wrench the phantom of those children from my mind......I felt the integration; that the price of this decadence was their degradation. That these are not dislocated ideas but the two extremes are absolutely interdependent. The price of privilege is poverty. .....To have such suffering adjacent to such excess is akin to marvelling at an incomparable beauty, whose face is the radiant epitome of celestial symmetry, and ignoring, half a yard lower down, her abdomen, cancerous, weeping and carbuncled. “Keep looking at the face, put a handbag over those tumours. Strike a pose. Come on, Vogue.”

Suffering of this magnitude affects us all. We have become prisoners of comfort in the absence of meaning.

The "spiritual" side:

For me the solution has to be primarily spiritual and secondarily political. This, too, is difficult terrain when the natural tribal leaders of the left are atheists, when Marxism is inveterately Godless. When the lumbering monotheistic faiths have given us millennia of grief for a handful of prayers and some sparkly rituals.

The only systems we can afford to employ are those that rationally serve the planet first, then all humanity. Not out of some woolly, bullshit tree-hugging piffle but because we live on it, currently without alternatives. This is why I believe we need a unifying and in - clusive spiritual ideology: atheism and materialism atomise us and anchor us to one frequency of consciousness and inhibit necessary co-operation.

In 2013 (another made-up imaginary concept) we cannot afford to giggle, drivel and burp like giant, pube-covered babies about quaint, old-fashioned notions like nation, capitalism and consumerism simply because it’s convenient for the tiny, greedy, myopic sliver of the population that those outmoded ideas serve...........

We British seem to be a bit embarrassed about revolution, like the passion is uncouth or that some tea might get spilled on our cuffs in the uprising. That revolution is a bit French or worse still American. Well, the alternative is extinction so now might be a good time to re-evaluate. The apathy is in fact a transmission problem, when we are given the correct information in an engaging fashion, we will stir.

Now there is an opportunity for the left to return to its vital, virile, vigorous origins. A movement for the people, by the people, in the service of the land. Socialism’s historical connection with spiritual principles is deep. Sharing is a spiritual principle, respecting our land is a spiritual principle. May the first, May Day, is a pagan holiday where we acknowledge our essential relationship with our land. I bet the Tolpuddle martyrs, who marched for fair pay for agricultural workers, whose legacy is the right for us to have social solidarity, were a right bunch of herberts if you knew them. “Thugs, yobs, hooligans,” the Daily Mail would’ve called them. Our young people need to know there is a culture, a strong, broad union, that they can belong to, that is potent, virile and alive.

(My highlight)
But we are far from apathetic, we are far from impotent. I take great courage from the groaning effort required to keep us down, the institutions that have to be fastidiously kept in place to maintain this duplicitous order. Propaganda, police, media, lies. Now is the time to continue the great legacy of the left, in harmony with its implicit spiritual principles. Time may only be a human concept and therefore ultimately unreal, but what is irrefutably real is that this is the time for us to wake up.

The revolution of consciousness is a decision, decisions take a moment. In my mind the revolution has already begun.

If I believed in spiritualism I'd suspect that the spirit of comedian Bill Hicks, who left us much, much too soon, had been in contact with Russell Brand....or maybe Bill Hicks and George Carlin got together in the ethers and decided enough was enough, something simply had to be done, a new messenger had to be appointed.


ASTROLOGY

I made a point of describing Russell Brand as "Trickster" at the beginning of the post; astrologically he is. Sun and Mercury in Gemini. I've posted a 12 noon version of his natal chart, no time of birth is known. I'll link, at the end of the post, to two websites where interpretation has already been done. For me, other than his "mouth-on-a-stick" Sun and Mercury in Gemini, I'd focus on the three planets in Aries, (Moon would have been in Aries, whatever time he was born), and on the fact that he's "unearthed" - no planet in an Earth sign unless an Earth sign (Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn) was on the ascendant as he was born....chances of that, I'd say, are slim!

The three Aries planets bring a fresh child-like streak into his nature, enthusiasm for his subject, whether nefarious, sexy, or serious. I like the freshness and a rather strangely innocent feel to him- don't know how else to describe it, but have recognised it in those with Aries strong in their natal charts - a lot, love it! That's not to say he's always all that's wonderful. He's not - far from it. I was disgusted by reports of a mean prank he'd played on a fellow-actor some time ago. Aries childlike-ness can, and does, go right over-the top at times. Because of his writing though, he's forgiven - not forgetting the interview in the video below, from British TV. Interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, well known in the UK for his penetrating interview style when dealing with politicians, took on Russell Brand. I suspect Jeremy has a warm spot for Russell and his views, though it didn't seem so at times.

For more on Brand's astrology:
See Adam Sommer's article at Reality Sandwich
and
My Encounter with Russell Brand  by British psychic Michelle Knight.  

Beginnings....

A few very Aries-related items stand out in Wikipedia's list of 12 April events through the years.
Aries = initiating, leading, firsts, beginnings.....





12 April 1606 – The Union Flag is adopted as the flag of Great Britain.

When the first flag representing Britain was introduced on the proclamation of King James I in 1606, it became known simply as "the British flag" or "the flag of Britain". The royal proclamation gave no distinctive name to the new flag. The word "jack" was in use before 1600 to describe the maritime bow flag. By 1627 a small Union Jack was commonly flown in this position. One theory goes that for some years it would have been called just "the Jack", or "Jack flag", or "the King's Jack", but by 1674, while formally referred to as "His Majesty's Jack", it was commonly called the Union Jack, and this was officially acknowledged. (Wikipedia)



12 April 1861 American Civil War: Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina became The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861). The bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter began the American Civil War



12 April 1935 – First flight of the Bristol Blenheim.The Bristol Blenheim was a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company that was used extensively in the early days of the Second World War. It was adapted as an interim long-range and night fighter, pending the availability of the Beaufighter. It was one of the first British aircraft to have all-metal stressed-skin construction, to utilise retractable landing gear, flaps, powered gun turret and variable pitch propellers. Bristol Blenheims lost more aircrews than any other aircraft in World War 2. (Photo from http://www.hq.wwiionline.com/profiles/blenheim.shtml)


12 April 1937 – Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
From HERE: Thanks to Frank Whittle, the world has shrunk. We have all become travellers. We are all the beneficiaries of this modest Warwickshire genius who took on the aviation establishment and changed the world that day. As Churchill noted at the time: ‘Get me a thousand Whittles.’








12 April 1961 – The Russian (Soviet) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1). Colonel Gagarin died on 27 March 1968 when the MiG-15 he was piloting crashed near Moscow.













12 April 1981 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle (Columbia)on the STS-1 mission. It completed 27 missions before being destroyed during re-entry on February 1, 2003 near the end of its 28th, STS-107. All seven crew members were killed

A Quintuple-Aries Poet, Prone to Excesses and Urges to Shock: Algernon Charles Swinburne

English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne was born this day, 5 April in 1837, in London. By all accounts Swinburne was something of an enfant terrible - but in strait-laced Victorian England that may not have been a difficult reputation to achieve. Some excerpts from online biographies serve to illustrate how his natal chart matches his reported character very well.

First, his chart, set for 5:00 AM as stated at Astrodatabank, with a "B" rating - from a biography so fairly reliable but not 100% so.










Words relevant to the natal chart are in bold font. my comment follows similarly bolded.


Above clip of text from piece by Kirstie Blair, Swinburn'e Spasms at JSTOR. "Ripples of sexual and religious rebellion" -

Mercury/Venus (poetry), Uranus (rebellion, the unexpected), Neptune (creativity) in a semi-sextile chain....there's an astrological tidal wave!




.....two intensely vigorous forces.... strangely combined in his nature; for while no man has ever been a more violent romanticist than Swinburne, yet, as one critic has said, 'All the romantic riot in his blood clamored for Greek severity and Greek restraint.'

Jupiter conjunct Mars in Leo opposite Neptune in Aquarius, both square to Saturn in Scorpio. The severity and restraint of Saturn squaring (conflicting with) the energetic exaggeration of Jupiter/Mars and rebellious creativity of Neptune in Aquarius.

Swinburne carried his radicalism into all lines. Though an ardently patriotic Englishman, he was an extreme republican; and many of his poems are dedicated to the cause of Italian independence or to liberty in general

Neptune in Aquarius, part of the sexi-sextile chain linking Uranus, Neptune and Mercury/Venus, as described above.

Others of his distinctive traits are lavish alliteration, rich sensuousness, grandiose vagueness of thought and expression, a great sweep of imagination, and a corresponding love of vastness and desolation. He makes much decorative use of Biblical imagery and of vague abstract personifications ......forgetfulness of
all proportion and restraint.

Excesses of Jupiter, (the planet also connects to religion) conjunct dynamic Mars in show-boating Leo.
Source of quotes: About.com Classic Literature.

He was small, frail, and plagued by numerous peculiarities of physique and temperament, including an overlarge head, nervous gestures, and seizures that may have been manifestations of a form of epilepsy. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s he drank excessively and was prone to accidents that often left him bruised, bloody, or unconscious. Until his forties he suffered intermittent physical collapses that necessitated removal to his parents' home while he recovered. In 1879, Swinburne's friend and literary agent, Theodore Watts-Dunton, intervened during a time when Swinburne was dangerously ill. Watts-Dunton isolated Swinburne at a suburban home in Putney and gradually weaned him from alcohol—and from many former companions and habits as well.

From Poetry Foundation

5 planets in Aries, the sign said to rule, or connect to, the head.

It's interesting that Theodore Watts-Dunton acted as the human manifestation of Saturn in the T squre in Swinburne's natal chart, restraining his excesses!

He had an extremely excitable disposition: people who met him described him as a "demoniac boy" who would go skipping about the room declaiming poetry at the top of his voice. In this as in many things, he seems to have eschewed moderation..... Throughout the 1860s and '70s he rode an alcoholic cycle of dissolution, collapse, drying out at home in the country, then returning to London where he would begin all over again.

His mania for masochism, particularly flagellation, probably began at Eton and was encouraged by his later friendships with Richard Monckton Milnes (one of Tennyson's fellow Apostles), who introduced him to the works of the Marquis de Sade, and Richard Burton, the Victorian explorer and adventurer. Some gamey stories survive from the year or so that he spent living at 16 Cheyne Walk with Rossetti: according to one, Rossetti once had to tell him to keep down the noise — he and a boyfriend had been sliding naked down the bannisters and disturbing Rossetti's painting.......... He took a sardonic delight in what the critic and biographer, Cecil Lang, calls "Algernonic exaggeration": When people began to talk scathingly about his homosexuality and other sexual proclivities, he circulated a story that he had engaged in pederasty and bestiality with a monkey — and then ate it. How many of the stories were true and how many inventive fiction is still unclear. Oscar Wilde, thoroughly capable of inventing his own interesting fictions, called him "a braggart in matters of vice, who had done everything he could to convince his fellow citizens of his homosexuality and bestiality without being in the slightest degree a homosexual or a bestializer."
In 1879, with Swinburne nearly dead from alcoholism and dissolution, his legal advisor Theodore Watts-Dunton took him in, and was successful in getting him to adopt a healthier style of life. Swinburne lived the rest of his days at Watts-Dunton's house outside London..... He died of influenza in 1909.

From bio at The Victorian Web


His alleged draw to masochism and other deviations is directly linked, I believe, to his natal sun exactly conjoining Pluto - the darkest of all the planets.

Overall these extracts echo two or three most significant character traits which are evident in the natal chart: a person prone to excesses of all types, including addiciton; a person of multiple eccentricities, physical and mental, a propensity for shocking others, but with a built-in restraining element which needed the help of a human manifestation for it to kick-in.




Swinburne's poetry, in general, isn't my cup of tea. It needs too much research to discover what the heck it's all about. Yet some extracts have remained attractive through the years, even in ignorance of their original context. A couple of extracts from longer poems follow with a home-made "Swinburne for Dummies" rundown on the context of the full poems.





From The Garden of Proserpine

(Goddess Proserpina, Roman equivalent of Persephone, was abducted to the underworld by Pluto, released after the anger of her mother Ceres had scorched the earth and forced Jupiter to make a deal with Pluto that Proserpine would be released for part of the year. Her re-emergence = springtime.

At the beginning of the poem is quoted Vicisti, Galilaee = "You have conquered, O Galilean", supposed dying words of Emperor Julian who had attempted to rescind official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire. The poem is a lament on the passing of paganism, and regrets the rise of Christianity)

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.


From Atalanta in Calydon: Chorus.

(Atalanta in Calydon is in the style of a Greek tragedy. Artemis, goddess of the hunt was miffed when the king of Calydon forgot to pay homage to her, loosed a wild boar to ravage the city killing many citizens and destroying the land. Enter the Greek Heroes, including the lovely Atalanta who was reared by a bear and no stranger to the chase. She wounds the boar with one of her arrows, and it is later killed by Prince Meleager. He's all for awarding the head and hide of the boar to Atalanta, thus angering his uncles, who are against a woman from Arcadia receiving the spoils of the hunt.)

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears,
Grief with a glass that ran,
Pleasure with pain for leaven,
Summer with flowers that fell,
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And Madness risen from hell,
Strength without hands to smite,
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.

And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years;
And froth and the drift of the sea;
And dust of the laboring earth;
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth;
And wrought with weeping and laughter,
And fashioned with loathing and love,
With life before and after
And death beneath and above,
For a day and a night and a morrow,
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow,
The holy spirit of man.