Tomorrow, 7 January 2014, will be the 170th anniversary of the birth of Bernadette Soubirous, a miller's daughter born in Lourdes, France, later venerated as a Christian mystic and Saint in the Catholic Church: Saint Bernadette. She was born in 1844, died 1879, aged 35. Her story is well-known, related in the movie Song of Bernadette, and honoured in this Song of Bernadette written by Leonard Cohen, sung here by Jennifer Warnes ~
The early months of 1844 brought forth some rather special natives with fairly unusual natal charts. Personal planets and some outers clustered around "the winter signs" Capricorn/Aquarius/Pisces. Occasionally Moon would be found out on a limb, as in St Bernadette's case. Her chart is below, using data from astro.com.
Some others born during the first half of 1844 have a touch of mysticism in their makeup too - there must've been something in the air during those months! That doesn't apply to the first of the group listed below though.
On another level altogether, and a bit closer to home : Cole Younger - Thomas Coleman "Cole" Younger (born January 15, 1844, 2 weeks after St Bernadette). American Confederate guerrilla during the American Civil War and later an outlaw with the James-Younger gang. He was the eldest brother of Jim, John and Bob Younger. tacitly acknowledged as "the brains" of the gang. He sometimes showed kindness, giving stolen foodstuff to the poor, and among Confederate sympathizers Younger and his cohorts were perceived almost as folk heroes. Their occasional hide-out in the hills of Oklahoma is now known as Robbers' Cave State Park.
(See HERE)
Olney H. Richmond (22 February). American mystic. From a mundane background, he became a feed and grain dealer. However, he had so many "unusual" experiences during the Civil War that he turned to metaphysical study. Richmond later founded the Temple of the Stars and wrote the "Mystic Text Book" for Masons only.
Abdul Baha'i, (23 May). Persian religious leader of Baha'i who aimed to establish a New World Order. The eldest son of Baha'u'llah, he followed the mystic path from age nine and became his father's successor. Abdul-Baha weathered internal strife and religious persecution to establish communities around the world. In 1920, the year before his death, he was knighted by the British government.
Camille Lemmonier (23 March). Belgian novelist, short-story writer, and art critic, one of the outstanding personalities of the 19th-century French literary renaissance in Belgium.
..........under the influence of the naturalism of Émile Zola. Like his other novels, it is a work of great violence, describing characters of unbridled instincts and passions. Happe-Chair (1886)....deals with the life of drudgery led by mill workers. Later, in the work of his middle period, Lemonnier turned to psychological analysis, condemning the conservative tendencies of the bourgeoisie. He then developed a mystical naturalism, as in Le Petit homme de Dieu (1903; “The Little Man of God”).
There's something else worth a mention, it's what blog friend and commenter "mike" calls a "quinky-dink". William Miller (1782-1849), a Baptist preacher, from the United States, credited with beginning the mid-nineteenth century North American religious movement now known as Adventism, predicted that sometime between 1843 and 1844....Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same, with all the saints, sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844.
He didn't. I do wonder, though, whether William Miller had astrological knowledge and had noted the peculiar line up of planets during part of that period.
Hmmm - funny ol' year, 1844!
Postscript
RIP Phil Everly.
There's an old post on Phil and his brother HERE.
