MUSIC MONDAY ~ Tom Waits. Adam Lambert.

Tom Waits, born 7 December 1949 at 7:25 am in Pomona, California. (Astrodatabank).

This singer, songwriter, composer and occasional actor doesn't immediately strike me as a Sun/Mercury Sagittarian with Sagittarius rising. His demeanor, his broken-down, hard-lived-in crackly voice, and the unrelenting melancholia seeping through his songs seems far too downbeat for bright and breezy, extravagant Sagittarius.






Neptune (creativity) sextile Sun is a helpful link for a song writer/composer. Jupiter, his Sun's ruler is in Aquarius conjoined with Venus, planet of the arts . Perhaps an Aquarian penchant for the unusual and unexpected is playing into the picture via his stage persona. Aquarius can be sensed in some of his more socially concerned lyrics too. This article refers: "Tom Waits and the Return of the Political Ballad"

Mars conjunct Saturn (a rather difficult combination of two planets often seen as having negative connotations) in Virgo form a challenging square (90*) aspect to Tom's natal Mercury, planet of communication. This Mars/Saturn link could well account for his draw towards the downbeat of life. His natal Moon in sensitive, moody Cancer just five degrees from Uranus, planet of the unexpected and rebellious echoes the peculiarly dismal impression Tom Waits projects.

The best way I can think of to describe Tom Waits' singing, to anybody who hasn't heard it, is "like the sadder, darker side of Louis Armstrong". Yes, unexpected!

I recall once, back in the UK, when my husband was staying there with me, we came across a recording on-line of Tom Waits singing "Somewhere" from West Side Story. We were fascinated! The husband copied it at once, sent it to his son (a graduate music major) with a note saying "You've never heard this song sung like this before!" I've found that one on YouTube, as well as my favourite from Tom Wait's repertoire:

"Tom Traubert's Blues"



"Somewhere"







MUSIC MONDAY UPDATE

We watched (well, semi-watched) the AMA Awards last night, toggling back and forth between the Awards and MASH repeats. I only really wanted to see Adam Lambert's performance, which closed the show, but we saw bits and pieces of the rest during commercial breaks. Not a lot to interest us, although Lady Ga-ga's number was fun, and as Himself said "It's so bad it's good and I like it!" Adam's number, "For Your Entertainment" was way over the top, risque - verging on "nasty". His voice didn't come across as the powerhouse it really is, and although I enjoyed hisnumber as a bit of fun (and that's what entertainment is supposed to be) I think he can do so very much better. The audience didn't seem too enraptured, and he flipped a finger at the end of his number. Not good. He's getting a lot of bad press today, I do hope he hasn't blown it (no pun intended).

Well - that's Aquarius/Aries for ya.

I note that Saturn in early Libra was opposing his Aries Moon yesterday - not exactly at the time of the show, but near enough to symbolise a bit of bother. He's appearing on Letterman's show tonight and promises to show us a different side of himself in the number he will sing.

Funny thing I've just noticed - Adam Lambert has Aquarius Sun & Aries Moon, so do I, and so does Alan Alda of MASH . One of 'em was watching t'other two last night.

SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT ~ Ancestry

The dear husband noticed me looking bored and blank at the computer, devoid of inspiration. Helpful as always, he invited me to partake of his subscription to Ancestor.com. "You're part of the family", he reminded me. Yes indeed! I'd have been the last of my line if I'd tarried in Yorkshire, a childless gal and an only child myself. Now, by marriage I'm part of a chain again - albeit a link late and loose - a link nonetheless.

I began with some misgivings, for my father's side of the family I'm missing essential information. I'm not sure exactly where my paternal grandfather was born. Never mind. I made a start on the easy ones, two fairly unusual surnames from my mother's side made tracing back to the early 1800s and late 1700s fairly painless, though a little confusing at times. They had such big families in those days, ten and upward was the norm. Common first names tend to be repeated a lot in families too (John, Elizabeth, Mary, Sarah, Edward, Charles.....) It's very easy to get into a muddle. A sad sidelight was how many infant deaths there were. One family line I noticed had three successive offspring marked "died as infant".

Nothing very exciting emerged though. Nobody famous or infamous, apart from two men with my maternal grandfather's fairly unusual surname shipped to Australia on a prison ship for "machine breaking". My ancestors were sons and daughters of the soil, the lot of 'em, at least until my grandparents and their offspring found their metaphorical feet from the mid 20th century on. Still, as a researcher into one of my family names quoted:

"Whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together." (Jonathan Swift)

My forebears came from Hampshire, Wiltshire, Yorkshire, and possibly Suffolk, not a townie among them. Agricultural workers, ploughmen, grooms, labourers, domestic servants, cooks, farm manager, and a flour miller. Offspring from my parents' generation changed all that though. As far as I know, not one of my many cousins is still engaged in farming, instead there's a doctor, a couple in teaching, secretaries, an actuary, a couple of government workers. Improved opportunities in education and better health care for all after World War 2 in the UK were instrumental in opening wider opportunities to the Great Unwashed (eg: National Health Service, free higher education, nationalised public transport and utilities.) Scared of socialism anyone? It worked well then, for us.

Others have been researching their family history for years, in depth. Some can reach as far back as the Middle Ages in England. One of my family's surnames belonged to a rather swisher class, way back - landowners and Lords of the Manor types. I think my particular branch of that clan must have peeled off onto a side road somewhere and got themselves seriously lost!

One individual of the same surname as my paternal grandmother had gone as far as having his genome analysed. Apparently the Y chromosome he carries (it's carried only by the male line) links back to some of the original farming tribes of humankind. I'm more than a bit wary of this, to be honest, but dutifully did a little more research.

Cambridge DNA Services has an interesting website explaining in simple terms background information on DNA, Mitochondrial DNA, Mitochondrial Eve, Y chromosomal Adam, and Ancient Migrations. The slideshow of maps tracking early migrations is particularly fascinating.

It's pretty mind-blowing to consider that we've all, every one alive on this planet today, descended from a relatively small group of humans. It's useful to keep in mind though, when we start investigating and magnifying our differences.

Arty Farty Encore ~ Edward Steichen

It's good to get requests now and then - makes me feel a bit like a DJ, gives me illusions of grandeur ! A reader's request has led me to investigate the work of Edward Steichen, artist and photographer.
(Self portrait, left.)
I wasn't familiar with the work of this artist/photographer, but having seen some of it on-line, I'd definitely want to visit any available exhibition featuring it.

Edward Steichen was born on 27 March 1879 in the tiny Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which lies between Germany, Belgium and France. His place of birth is recorded as Bivange, a town of around 600 inhabitants which doesn't appear in my software's atlas, so I've taken the nearest town I could find in southern Luxembourg as basis for his natal chart. His family moved to the USA in 1881, settling in Michigan. Steichen became a US citizen 19 years later. An apprenticeship in lithography led to his earliest artistic endeavours. He took up photography from around 1895, but continued to paint as well. Steichen was one of the first photographers in the US to experiment with colour photography.

He travelled in Europe connecting with some other now famous artists and photographers. World War One brought Steichen the opportunity of involvement with aerial photography. The experience of seeing the horrors and devastation on the Western Front from the air persuaded him to concentrate in future on realism rather than his former love of impressionism.

"I am no longer concerned with photography as an art form. I believe it is potentially the best medium for explaining man to himself and his fellow man."

Between the wars he concentrated on commercial and fashion photography, his work was often seen in glossy magazines of the time. After World War Two his organisational abilities came to the fore. Steichen became Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1955 he organised what became the most popular exhibition in the history of photography, The Family of Man. This was a huge, thematic presentation. To organize the extravaganza, Steichen spent more than three years sorting two million photographic submissions. The 502 photographs he selected represented the work of 273 photographers from 68 counties.

His biographer, Dorothy Norman wrote:

"At a time when the atomic bomb's potential for total world destruction made life seem fragile and uncertain, he affirmed the essential oneness of humanity and the universality of everyday experience. By underscoring the shared values and experiences of humankind and thereby erasing the distinction between 'us' and ''them,' Steichen sought to further world peace. It was a message that spoke powerfully to the postwar world."

In 1964 the Edward Steichen Photography Center was established in the Museum of Modern Art.

On his 90th birthday Steichen is reported to have said:

"When I first became interested in photography, I thought it was the whole cheese. My idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don't give a hoot ...about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself. And that is no mean function. Man is the most complicated thing on earth and also as naive as a tender plant."

Edward Steichen died in Connecticut, in 1973.

His natal chart is set for 12 noon, in the absence of a time of birth. Moon before 8pm would have been in Taurus, if born later than that, Moon would have been in early Gemini. If pressed, I'd guess Moon in Taurus.



Sun conjunct Saturn in Aries doesn't immediately say "artist" to me. It says scientist , mathematician or lawyer. A little further research brought the answer to this astrological puzzle. Steichen began looking for inspiration in the natural world, following advice from his friend the sculptor, Auguste Rodin. This led him to an intense study of the mathematical ratios of plant growth. He taught himself plane and solid geometry and read complicated theory in his quest to discover nature's "golden mean." He had come to believe through his mathematical studies that a rectangle, when dissected into three triangles, each in extreme and mean ratio, represented nature's golden mean. He even conceived a children's book based on this principle(Right: He created Le Tournesol (The Sunflower) in the years after World War I, when he painted, photographed, and gardened at his home in Voulangis, France. The geometric patterned background reflects his studies). This is how Saturn conjunct natal Sun manifested in Steichen's case. Later in his career he displayed a very Saturnian flair for organisation - of art and photography for exhibitions.

Steichen is said to have been a keen gardener, breeding new varieties of delphinium and raising sunflowers and other blooms - a reflection of his three planets on the Earthy sign Taurus.

Venus, planet of the arts lies at home in Taurus, one of its rulerships, a clear pointer to his path in life, especially so as Neptune, planet of creativity and photography, lies within 6 degrees of Venus. Jupiter in its traditional home, Pisces, the sign ruled by Neptune in modern astrology, makes a helpful sextile aspect to Venus and a nice art/photography linkage!

Mars, planet of drive and energy in Aquarius makes a helpful sextile to Sun/Saturn in Aries. Aquarius represents the avant garde, and a draw towards social reform. Here his early experimentation with color photography is reflected, as well as his social conscience coming to the fore in his tour de force "The Family of Man" exhibition.

Sources
Wikipedia
Spartacus Educational
National Gallery of Art (Le Tournesol)
Book Rags
The City Review:Art Museums

EXPERIMENT IN 3 COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY


IRENE DUNN


THE POND - MOONLIGHT 1904 (World's most expensive photograph. In February 2006, a print of the photograph sold for US $2.9 million, at the time, the highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction.)




ISADORA DUNCAN


THE FLAT IRON









SELF PORTRAIT WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT


Painting: MARSHES

Arty Farty Friday ~ Richard Lindner

"Who?" you say. So did I, at first.
(Left:"Hit", by Richard Lindner. 1971)

I settled on writing a few lines about Richard Lindner after considering first Egon Schiele (too porny and horny for a family blog), then Lucian Freud (nudes can get so boring), and finally found something of interest in Mr. Lindner's artwork. Investigating examples via Google Image, the style seemed kind of familiar. It had a general "feel" of The Beatles about it - think of those Yellow Submarine images. Lindner's style seems reminiscent of much from the early 70s, even though some of his work was painted well outside that time span - perhaps it provided the inspiration for later artists.

My feeling of a link to the Beatles was triumhantly justified when I happened upon some websites showing the famous cover of their Sergeant Pepper album.




Richard Lindner is one of the numerous faces featured there, the cover was said to be a kind of homage to people they admired.....Lindner's face is behind George Harrison - not immediately behind, but the next one up, and below a female face.


Back to the astrology of artist du jour: Richard Lindner. He was born in Hamburg, Germany on 11 November 1901. His family moved to Nuremburg , later Lindberg studied in Munich but at the rise of Hitler and the Nazis he escaped to Paris, then in 1941 traveled to New York, where he worked as illustrator for various glossy magazines. He became an American citizen in 1948. He later taught at the Pratt Institute and Yale University.

His natal chart is set for 12 noon as no time of birth is available.




It's another of those distinctive-looking charts, with all personal planets clustered within just 3 zodiac signs: Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn. Two outer planets Pluto and Neptune lie roughly opposite. Some astrologers class this type of configuration as a fan or bucket pattern, the "odd" planets form the handle. In this case, because the handle planets are outer, slow-movers which relate to whole age groups, I'm not so sure this applies.

What we can say about his personal planets is that though they are clustered close together, they still present a fairly well-balanced picture, element-wise and mode-wise. In a nutshell Lindner's Sun, and Moon (whatever time of birth) in Scorpio indicate an intense character, one with the ability to see through pretense and get to the core of things. A spot of Sagittarian exaggeration from Mars seeps into all of his art - it's his trademark in fact, along with the bright garish colors, as can be seen below. Venus Jupiter and Saturn all in Capricorn reflect a basically practical, rather than whimsical nature - and perhaps the strange flatness of his paintings comes from the Capricorn and Saturn in his nature, both link to limitation and structure. He lets himself go on color and content but limits himself in depth and perspective.

In this quote his art is described as "erotically drawn" (Scorpio) "highly defined", "mechanistic"(Capricorn/Saturn):

His work has been described by art critics as "mechanistic cubism." Infused with personal imagination, his style has overtones of the "Cabaret-Berlin" culture of the 30's, with flat areas of often garish colors, separated by highly defined edges. His subjects, too, seem to come from that era. His women, archetypal in this respect, are often corseted, erotically drawn in a garish and generic, rather than individuated way. Streetwalkers, continental circus women, and men in uniforms populate the Lindner landscape

Richard Lindner died in 1978.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN



ROCK, ROCK.


PORTRAIT NUMBER 2



HOMAGE TO A CAT



PILLOW AND ALMOST A CIRCLE



5TH AVENUE



FUN CITY



THE MEETING



TELEPHONE



UNTITLED



MAN WALKING ROOSTER BY A CRESTED MOON

Skeptics are trying......

It's always a fun(ish) read when the skeptics come out to play on an astrology forum. I came across an example of this in an exchange at Skyscript -"Comments by a skeptic", posts between 31 October and November 16, after which the moderator had locked the thread to avoid further argumentative input.

I do understand, but disagree with the argument skeptics drag out, on a regular basis, proposing that what astrologers and tarot readers deal with (illustrations on a deck of cards, and positions of Sun, Moon and planets in the sky) can be interpreted in so many different ways, therefore interpretations must be suspect. There is some latitude, for sure, but it's not that wide a latitude.

Each tarot card has a fairly narrow scope of interpretation, as has each planet and zodiac sign. In tarot the reader is strictly bound by the cards drawn, and for my taste, the fewer cards the better - it cuts out that accusation of too many potential interpretations of a larger spread. Three cards offer pretty strict boundaries, context has to depend on the question posed.

In astrology the same applies. There is some latitude, but not much. Neptune, for instance, does not indicate anything connected to violence. Mars cannot be said to indicate art. Mercury isn't an indicator of physical energy, etc. The zodiac signs do have a variety of keywords, but all of related "flavour".

The full natal chart has so many possibilities of combinations that, yes, interpretation can get a little confusing, but each individual part of the chart has very limited interpretation. Again, if astrological interpretation is restricted to absolute basics, it's easier to see astrology working, without peripheral stuff to interfere, and play into the skeptics' arguments.

Always, always, astrology depends on the movement and cycles of the planets, with data from an ephemeris - which is not arbitrary or interchangeable with anything, it's a rock solid basis. Stuff simply cannot be made up to suit the occasion.

For me, this particular type of argument against astrology, and tarot, fails miserably.

18 Nov: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

This day in history has brought forth more than enough of the bad and the ugly, reflecting the very worst that late Scorpio has to offer, but there was one very good event. It happened just 100 years ago today:



THE GOOD
1909 – Johnny Mercer, American lyricist was born 100 years ago today. A brilliant songwriter whose work will live on until there's nobody left to sing it. He had Sun and Mercury in Scorpio with a Grand Trine linking Sun, Neptune and Mars in Water signs. A list of many of his songs here .
- How could one man write so many wonderfully poetic lyrics ? Truly - they don't make 'em like him anymore. He died in 1976.

THE BAD
1421 – A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people in the Netherlands.

1929- Grand Banks earthquake: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula.

1947 – The Ballantyne's Department Store fire, Christchurch, New Zealand, kills 41 (New Zealand's worst ever fire)

1987 – King's Cross fire: In London, 31 people die in a fire at the city's busiest underground station at King's Cross St Pancras.

1999 – In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when a massive bonfire under construction collapses


THE UGLY

1978 - The worst case of murder-suicide in history took place in Jonestown, Guyana. Religious-cult leader Jim Jones (Peoples Temple) directed the ingestion of Kool-Aid (laced with cyanide) by at least 900 of his followers. He and his mistress then followed suit. Earlier in the day, Jones had directed the murder of California Congressman Leo J. Ryan, three newspeople and several ‘defectors’. Ryan, on a fact-finding tour of Jonestown, was boarding a privated airplan with the small group when they were shot down.

(Information @ Wikipedia)

Scorpio to 2012 via William Lonsdale...

In a few days we'll move from the sign of Scorpio into Sagittarius. As a parting gesture to I'm copying some words from a fascinating book by anthropologer Dr. Richard Grossinger: "The Night Sky". The good doctor is not an astrologer, but he respects astrology's doctrines, it seems, which is a refreshing change from the attitude of most academics.

"Then Scorpio comes in Autumn bearing Antares on its spine, exactly counter the Bull - he is destroyer, resurrector. To Taurus, Scorpio answers, "Nothing is forever". The quintessential Scorpio characteristic is to fall into utter gloom and despair and then, at the moment of greatest hopelessness, to rebound with tremendous energy, to transform everything that was dark into light - but ultimately to descend back into the abyss. (Astrologer William) Lonsdale describes three ways we contact Scorpio:

In the best love experiences we ever have, in the best relations with other we ever have, and in the deepest darkest crannies of our psyche that we've ever explored. ........The world of Scorpio is the solitary individual in a kind of inferior reflective relationship with all of being.....It takes us through total total underworld experiences and then there's a moment where we emerge and we realize that, oh, there's a whole other side, there's a whole other way....."

I'm not familiar with the writings of William Lonsdale, so after typing the above I did a quick Google search.
No information available about the man himself, but curiously I was led to astrologer Molly Hall's blog, to a page where she had listed several quotes from "2012. Crossing the Bridge to the Future" by Mark Borax. In his book Mr. Borax attributes these quotes to astrologer William (aka Ellias) Lonsdale. Molly's post is an interesting read, and moreso because this week the movie "2012" is showing in cinemas, and depicts a quite different version of imagined events of 2012.

I particularly like this snippet from Max Borax's book:

"The Atlanteans knew the great secret that Earth, like the human body, is a fluid medium, awash in tides of electromagnetic force, composed of invisible meridians, energy frequencies that weave together matter and can be manipulated for various purposes. Everything here is energy."

We're awash in tides - I think so too - tides we don't understand, but struggle to do so by using ancient, and what will surely turn out to be crude, astrological tools.

PS: And regarding the other "2012" - we saw it last evening. It wasn't as bad as some reviewers have suggested, it was every bit as scary as expected, like a long white knuckle ride at the fairground. One thing it does is make the world outside seem a whole lot less depressing as you walk out of the cinema after two and a half hours, Adam Lambert's "Time for Miracles" still fresh in mind. It was good to feel the earth solid beneath our feet, all buildings still in place with no tidal wave about to rush over the sleepy Oklahoma landscape. If for no other reason, it's worth seeing "2012" to bring it home that we are lucky, in spite of our individual difficulties and frustrations - but we are fragile. One thing that has to be kept in mind all the way through the movie though: IT'S A PIECE OF FICTION, and doesn't profess to be anything else - especially not a prediction!

MUSIC MONDAY ~ Diana Krall

There are only two living female vocalists I'd go to a lot of trouble and expense to hear singing in concert: kd lang, or today's subject Diana Krall, and it happens to be her birthday.

Born 16 November 1964 in Nanaimo, Canada (time unknown). 12 noon chart below.



Diana is a gifted jazz pianist as well as the best interpreter of lyrics since Sinatra (in my opinion). Her rare talent for interpretation comes from Scorpio Sun/Neptune - it cuts to the heart of any story in song, lays it out there, blood, tears an' all for the listener to absorb. Her deep Scorpio bits are flanked on one side by Venus in its own arty sign of Libra and on the other side by Mercury the communications planet in happy-go-lucky Sagittarius - reflecting that her emotional renderings can morph quite easily into jazzy, sharp and worldly-wise interpretations of more upbeat songs.

Her Moon would be in Aries whatever the time of birth - it's likely helpfully aligned with Mercury in Sagittarius, a hint that her true inner self is lighter and brighter than the melancholy image presented by some of her vocals.

Jupiter in Taurus opposite her natal Sun/Neptune repeats the theme of the last paragraph - Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius is balancing the deeply emotional traits of Scorpio with more down to earth, practical attitudes of Taurus.

Diana married British musician Elvis Costello in 2003, they had twin boys on 6 December 2006. Costello, 10 years Diana's senior, with Sun in Virgo has natal Venus just 2 degrees from her natal Venus (19 and 17 Libra). Her Mars and his Mercury are both at 5 Virgo. Two clear astrological links.






Here, on Letterman's late night show, Diana sings "Quiet Nights".



HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DIANA!

SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT ~ Generations again.

Following last Tuesday's post on generational conflict, a friend and relative pointed me towards an article at the Pew Research Center website: "Forty Years After Woodstock, A Gentler Generation Gap" by Paul Taylor and Richard Morin, published in August. The main thrust of the research piece was to trace musical taste, but results touch on many different social aspects too.

Pew's findings are interesting, though some of the musical results seem obvious enough not to require anybody going to the trouble of conducting a survey. In a way, although the survey's findings are more optimistic than the impression I had formed from articles and comments elsewhere, I can't help wishing that this very idea of investigating differences would just go away, and start being thought as totally irrelevant to anything.

It is relevant to marketing of course, so it won't go away. That is a pity, because every division embedded into our consciousness, however minor it may seem, can grow and spread, and develop into ugliness. There's more than enough evidence of that in history.


I keep hearing, at the back of my mind, words of one of America's past presidents: "Tear down this wall!" It must be the Aquarius in us both coming to the surface. (Winks and exits.)

"The Box" & Richard Kelly

We saw the movie The Box this week. Written and directed by Richard Kelly, it's his second movie since Donnie Darko(now a cult favorite). The Box takes its main theme from a short story by Richard Matheson, also featured in an old episode of The Twilight Zone, titled Button, Button. The Box is in no way a feel-good movie, in fact if there is such a thing, it's a feel-bad movie. It's also a movie that made us think. I'm still thinking about it, so it can't be all bad.

This movie reminded me of a surrealist painting or poem, or certain enigmatic song lyrics: it can be interpreted in more ways than one. There's a straightforward, if weird, storyline (from Richard Matheson's plot) : a married couple is faced with a mysterious option of pressing a button to make themselves wealthy, but in doing so they would cause the death of a stranger. This original line is expanded by Kelly in the movie to put it into a specific context. There are lots of extraneous, often pointless and possibly self-indulgent, bits thrown into the almost 2 hour long film. But as with a surrealist painting or poem, parts which seemed pointless initially might start to become significant after further consideration.

I will not give away more of the plot, but should a passing reader be interested a full synopsis can be found at Wikipedia.



Towards the end of the movie I'd come to the conclusion that, more than a fantasy, or a sci fi tale or off-beat thriller, it was an allegory. I haven't seen any reports of other viewers seeing it as such though. I can't explain in detail without giving away the plot, but standing a long way back from the details of the storyline, I reckon it could be looked into being an allegory for what has happend to the USA and other western countries, over the time span from 1976 when the movie is set, to the present. Greed of people who already had "enough", at the expense of others either in their own country or abroad, about whom they knew or cared nothing. The result: hundreds of thousands of dead civilians abroad, tens of thousands of people dying needlessly in the USA for lack of proper health care, when the country should be wealthy enough and successive governments should have been skilled and caring enough to have devised a national health care plan. I might be wrong, of course - the complication and peculiarities of the plotlines might have addled my brain.




Let's have a look at Richard Kelly's natal chart. Born 28 March 1975 in Newport News, Virginia. No time of birth available so a 12 noon chart is shown below. Rising sign and Moon degree will not be accurate.





At 34 Kelly is young to have three movies to his name. Aries Sun conjunct Jupiter indicate his go-getting attitude, impetuous and risk-taking. Pluto lies in exact opposition to his natal Sun; I see this as a reflection of the darkness which seeps through his movies; oppositions tend to balance polarities, so Pluto is balancing the lightness and brightness of his Sun with a touch of darkness, which may never come out in real life, but manifests on screen.

It's a pity there's no time of birth available to pinpoint the Moon's exact degree. At noon it was around 7 degrees from Uranus (planet of forward looking stuff, the unexpected, sci-fi etc.) A birth time late in the day could put Moon and Uranus closely conjoined, which I see as a good fit, for the Moon relates to his inner self. Even as it stands, at 12 noon, Moon and Uranus are close enough to be termed conjoined, though in different signs (Libra and Scorpio). Mars in Aquarius might well be in helpful trine to natal Moon (again no time of birth to establish this) and if so, it underlines again the quirky Uranus link to Moon, because Uranus rules Aquarius.







Venus, planet of the arts is at home in Taurus. In a biography we're told that Kelly was drawn to art proper in youth - the pull towards film came a little later. Neptune is the planet most connected to film and creativity by astrologers, and here it lies in harmonious trine to Kelly's Sun, from Sagittarius. Mercury, the communication and writing planet in imaginative Pisces lies in another harmonious trine to Saturn in Cancer. Linking Mercury and Saturn means, to me, that the message communicated will not necessarily be all sweetness and light, but in this case because both are found in Water signs, there will be deep emotional content.