News of the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize award has spawned more vitriol than I recall ever accompanying it in past years. It's sad and rather peculiar that an award with such good intention has to be met with so much ill feeling, and really for no valid reason. I can only assume that people like to feel negative - about everything. Ah well, as my old Gran used to say, "All the world's queer save thee an' me - an' even thee's a bit queer". Garrison Keillor has it about right in his piece "Betting Against America", except that he should have included a good slice of so-called "progressive" liberals in his criticism of Republicans.
For Alfred Nobel to have specified, among the five awards he outlined in his will, one to reward a person who"....shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses...." seems surprising in view of the fact that Nobel's life's work and resultant fortune was based on producing and selling explosives.
It was probably the influence of Nobel's sometime secretary and housekeeper, Countess Bertha Kinsky, an Austrian noblewoman, which led to the inclusion of a Peace Prize. He and Bertha continued a lifelong correspondence, even after her marriage to Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. She was always very critical of the military applications of the dynamite Nobel produced and sold worldwide. She worked actively for the peace movement in Austria and Germany. Among her books is the classic, "Lay Down Your Arms" (1889). She also published a pacifist journal of the same name. Nine years after the death of Alfred Nobel, in 1905, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Their natal charts are below (12 noon versions, as no times of birth are known.)
In Alfred's chart it's very apt that Mars (which could be thought to represent explosives) lies close to his late Libra Sun, but is in the early degrees of Scorpio ancient rulership of Mars, and lies close to Mercury. Without a time of birth (and my usual software) we can't be sure that his natal Moon was in Aquarius, though chances are that it was, along with the sign's ruler, Uranus. This provides one link to Bertha's chart - the Aquarius content, the social awareness: she has Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius. Their Airy Suns in Libra and Gemini would have provided an initial mental compatibility, and with the added underlying Aquarian input, I'm not surprised that they maintained relationship through extensive correspondence, aided in part by her (probable) Scorpio Moon linking to his Mars/Mercury also in Scorpio.
Alfred Nobel born 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden
Bertha Kinsky born 9 June 1843 in Prague, now in the Czech Republic
For Alfred Nobel to have specified, among the five awards he outlined in his will, one to reward a person who"....shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses...." seems surprising in view of the fact that Nobel's life's work and resultant fortune was based on producing and selling explosives.
It was probably the influence of Nobel's sometime secretary and housekeeper, Countess Bertha Kinsky, an Austrian noblewoman, which led to the inclusion of a Peace Prize. He and Bertha continued a lifelong correspondence, even after her marriage to Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. She was always very critical of the military applications of the dynamite Nobel produced and sold worldwide. She worked actively for the peace movement in Austria and Germany. Among her books is the classic, "Lay Down Your Arms" (1889). She also published a pacifist journal of the same name. Nine years after the death of Alfred Nobel, in 1905, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.Their natal charts are below (12 noon versions, as no times of birth are known.)
In Alfred's chart it's very apt that Mars (which could be thought to represent explosives) lies close to his late Libra Sun, but is in the early degrees of Scorpio ancient rulership of Mars, and lies close to Mercury. Without a time of birth (and my usual software) we can't be sure that his natal Moon was in Aquarius, though chances are that it was, along with the sign's ruler, Uranus. This provides one link to Bertha's chart - the Aquarius content, the social awareness: she has Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius. Their Airy Suns in Libra and Gemini would have provided an initial mental compatibility, and with the added underlying Aquarian input, I'm not surprised that they maintained relationship through extensive correspondence, aided in part by her (probable) Scorpio Moon linking to his Mars/Mercury also in Scorpio.
Alfred Nobel born 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden
Bertha Kinsky born 9 June 1843 in Prague, now in the Czech Republic
