Monday, November 12, 2007

We Lost An Aquarian

I'm pretty sure that some astrologers or bloggers before me will have written about Norman Mailer, who died last week. I'm going to carry on regardless, however, because he was a fellow Sun Aquarian. Mr. Mailer was aged 84, experiencing a 12th Uranus transit to his natal Sun. That planet lay at 11 Pisces when he was born and is currently at 14 Pisces.

Norman Mailer was born in Long Branch, New Jersey on 31 January 1923 at (according to Astrotheme) 9.05 am




As a change from a brief interpretation of his chart I decided to take an article by R.J. Eskow "Norman Mailer's City", quote a few extracts, and relate them to Mailer's astrology. This way, one can see astrology working. (My comments are in red.)

..... What would you admire about Norman Mailer, exactly? His brilliance? His omnivorous interest in any and all subjects? His seeming fearlessness in venturing opinions, often highly eccentric, about any topic? His willingness to try almost anything, from electoral politics to film-making? (Sun and Mercury in mentally based often eccentric but brilliant Aquarius, semi sextile Aquarius's ruler Uranus in Pisces. Planets well scattered throughout chart = versatile individual)

Then there's the matter of Jewish identity. Mailer's generation of Jews, our fathers' generation, struggled with manhood and virility in the American context. But while Philip Roth wrote, Mailer acted out on the public stage. He stabbed his wife, for Christ's sake. What kind of human being does that, and why? Was it some ritual exorcism of the curly-headed boy beaten up by gangs from another neighborhood? (Belligerent Mars in its own sign of Aries in first house of self, trine natal Sun in unruly Aquarius. Pluto in Cancer squares Aquarius Sun, trnes Aquarius's ruler, Uranus - something of a dangerously explosive anomaly there?)

The 60's/70's Mailer loved to coin words. "Factoid" was the most famous, for a fact-like construct that illustrates a truth even if it's literally false . But there were others. Somewhere he wrote about a "thanatosphere" where he believed the dead hovered around the Earth like a second atmosphere. Of course, he didn't really believe it. Belief, too, can be a factoid. (Pisces ascendant is ruled by Neptune planet of illusion/delusion)


(And again dreamer Neptune itself - in the sign of Leo with a trine from Saturn in Libra - Saturn the constructor).......... Mailer designed cities in his dreams..... it caught my eye when Mailer wrote a piece for the New York Times Magazine in 1968 called "Cities Higher Than Mountains," and built a sculpture to illustrate it.

Mailer was unafraid to enter into areas where he had no credentials (Aquarian know-it-all?). In "Cities Higher Than Mountains" he was willing to radically (Aquarian word)redesign the American urban landscape, despite his lack of architecture experience......Mailer proposed that we spend the next forty years recreating urban America according to his vision (Neptune again), influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright but all his own, of suspended communities towering over greenscapes and farmlands. (More evidence of illusory Neptune trine structural Saturn?)

Had we followed his suggestion, the radical re-engineering of America would be concluding this year. I didn't realize until his death that Mailer's undergraduate degree from Harvard was in engineering. (Saturn, in Libra, widely trining Sun in Aquarius may represent his engineering credentials.)

There are no planets in Earth signs - which probably adds to that wildly imaginative nature - nothing to keep the feet planted firmly on Mother Earth!

R.I.P. Norman Mailer - you were a fine example of Aquarian eccentricity and rebellion against the status quo.

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