Arty Farty Friday ~ Henry Miller

"When I write, I work, but when I paint, I play" (Henry Miller)

On this day, 26 December, Henry Miller was born, in 1891 in Yorkville, Manhattan. As well as being a writer, Miller was a painter (well, kind of). It's said he painted in excess of 3000 watercolours during his life. He loved to paint, though wasn't exceptionally talented in that direction. He was enthusiastic about his art, loved colour, experimental style and composition.

Gremlins

 The Procession

Miller's  Paris Diary

 Percha

For more general information on Henry Miller, as well as Wikipedia's page there's a very nicely designed website: Henry Miller Online - a tribute to his work and life, books, art, loves & friends by Dr. Hugo Heyrman.
Also Henry Miller Info, Personal Collection, website of Miller's daughter, Valentine.


As well as writing and painting Miller had a serious interest in astrology. Some snips from Arthur Hoyle at goodreads.com --

Henry Miller was a devotee of astrology. He employed astrological imagery in his writing for expressive purposes, and he relied on astrology when faced with important decisions in his personal life. Miller viewed astrology metaphorically, as a system of correspondences between the inner world of the psyche and the soul and the outer world of the planets and the stars between the microcosm and the macrocosm. And because Miller wished to lead an astrological life marrying his own personal rhythms to the larger rhythms of the universe, he looked to astrology for guidance through personal difficulties.

Miller’s interest in astrology as a literary device is evidenced by the titles of two of his most famous books, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. These titles reference both geographical zones on the planet Earth as well as signs of the zodiac. As he worked on Capricorn in Paris, he wrote to his lover Anaïs Nin explaining the astrological significance behind these books. “For me Cancer means the crab the creature which could move in any direction. It is the sign in the zodiac for the poet the halfway station in the round of realization. Opposite Cancer in the Zodiac is Capricorn, the house in which I am born, which is religious and represents renaissance in death. Cancer also means for me the disease of civilization, the extreme point of realization along the wrong path⎯hence the necessity to change one’s course and begin all over again. Cancer then is the apogee of death in life, as Capricorn is of life in death.”

.........while Miller was living in Big Sur, California and working on his novel trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion (another title rich in occult symbolism), he received a letter from the astrologer Sydney Omarr, who had noted the frequency of astrological imagery in Miller’s books and proposed writing a study of it.... Omarr asked Miller for cooperation in writing his study, to be called "Henry Miller, His World of Urania". In his forward to the book Miller wrote, “What interests me primarily in astrology is its holistic aspect. The man who is whole sees whole, and for him the universe is an ever expanding universe......" Elsewhere in the forward Miller warned against using astrology as a predictive tool: “It is not to discover what is going to ‘happen’ to us, it is not to forestall the blows of fate, that we should look to our horoscopes. A chart, when properly read, should enable one to understand the over-all pattern of one’s life.” .......But despite this disclaimer, Miller did turn to astrology to help him cope with stressful periods in his life....

For many years he contemplated writing a purely astrological work to be called Draco and the Ecliptic. Omarr explains the significance of Draco: “For the esoteric astrologer a tremendous idea lay behind the myth of the Dragon, which was called the thirteenth House of the Zodiac. For the Chaldeans the Dragon was the first created being; it was through the Dragon in the sky that man gained admittance to the ‘heaven beyond heaven’.

"The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order."
― Henry Miller

ASTROLOGY

Natal chart with 'A' rated data from astro.com.

Henry Miller born at 12.30 PM in Yorkville, Manhattan, NY on 26 December 1891.

Mr Miller had some nice harmonious aspects in his natal chart: Venus/Saturn in trine from late Capricorn and Virgo; Sun & Mercury in Capricorn sextile Moon, Mars & Uranus in Scorpio; Jupiter in Pisces trine Moon/Mars/Uranus. Earth and Water, earthy, emotional, sexy; a little eccentric and at times "over the top" - which, I think, more or less describes his writings. I admit that I haven't read any of his work though.

Generational Neptune/Pluto in Gemini are linked by out-of-sign trine to Miller's Venus and Saturn, forming a Grand Trine - harmonious circuit linking his career (Saturn), his art (Venus) to Neptune (creativity, imagination) and Pluto (erotic, sexy, dark).




This Yod (Finger of Fate) consists of the sextile between his Sun/Mercury and Moon, etc. being hooked up to Neptune/Pluto by quincunx (150 degree aspect). I'd translate that as a further configuration helpful to his writing skills - though I dare say astrologers might not agree, some regard Yod formations as being less helpful.

Can Miller's interest in astrology be identified in his natal chart? Triple Scorpio emphasis trining Jupiter seems a likely source.

"We are dancing in the hollow of nothingness. We are one flesh, but separated like stars."
― Henry Miller