erry Gilliam, RIP?
At 3:13 p.m. PDT on September 8, 2015 in Los Angeles, Variety magazine published the obituary of filmmaker and Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam.1 Awful news. Except — guess what? — Gilliam was, and still is, absolutely, positively not dead.
How could this howling error happen? Why would it happen to Terry Gilliam? Was it a totally random, freak occurrence? What if an investigative reporter looked a little deeper? If one did, she’d find that how this freaky thing could happen is screamingly obvious in Gilliam’s horoscope.
Terry GilliamGilliam’s Sun is at 29°49’ Scorpio. On the day his obituary was published, transiting Saturn was at 29°24’ Scorpio, almost exactly conjunct his Sun. Transiting Saturn conjunct the Sun is a heavy, few-times-in-a-lifetime transit, suggesting potentials including (but not limited to) a streamlined focus on ambition (on the upside) or a squeeze on one’s vitality (on the potential downside).
Gilliam’s Midheaven (MC) is at 8°19’ Gemini. The MC refers to career and public status. Transiting Neptune was at 8°11’ Pisces, in an almost exact square to that MC. Transiting Neptune tends to dissolve whatever it touches, often shrouding it in a rose-colored fog. Things may not be as they seem. The resulting bedazzlement and/or bewilderment may be experienced as what astrologer Noel Tyl describes as an “ego wipe-out.”
So, we see in Gilliam’s horoscope two huge patterns that do not happen every day, suggesting potential limitation and illusion. Gilliam is declared dead, but — wait, things are not as they seem — since he is most assuredly alive!
What else would Gilliam’s transits suggest? Neptune may also be experienced as a need for a creative or spiritual vision. Transiting Neptune has been within a 5° orb of squaring Gilliam’s MC since February 2013, and will be within 5° of opposing his Ascendant until May 2019. In May 2016, it was announced that one of his cherished creative ambitions had finally received another round of funding, reflecting the potential for abundance that solar arc Jupiter square natal Venus (exact on April 15) suggests. The film is scheduled to begin shooting in the fall. What’s the project? The Man Who Killed Don Quixote!2 Cue “The Impossible Dream,” please — the ultimate Neptune endeavor.
Now, let’s look at the timing of headline-grabbing events in the horoscopes of people who are clearly, dearly departed.
"Woodrow Wilson, Stud Muffin"
Yes, really, that was Maureen Dowd’s catchy headline, topping her Sunday column in The New York Times on December 7, 2013.3
Dowd had spent an evening with Pulitzer Prize–winning author A. Scott Berg, discussing Wilson, his biography about the 28th president of the United States. The book was generating quite a buzz, but of greatest interest to Dowd that night were juicy tidbits about Woodrow Wilson’s love life. Why in the world would his love life be attracting attention now?
Wilson-DiCaprioWoodrow Wilson was born on December 29, 1856. His Sun is at 7°47’ Capricorn, opposed by Saturn at 11° Cancer. If this were a living person’s horoscope, we’d expect major events in life development to occur between 2012 and 2014, as transiting Uranus and Pluto made hard aspects to the Sun and Saturn. We see the potential for an upset to the status quo and a dramatic change of perspective, ideally evolving into emancipation (Uranus) and empowerment (Pluto). At the very least, we might expect a prominent buzz.
Woodrow Wilson (being dead) can’t take action to manifest this potential, but the horoscope has a life of its own. The potential was realized in perfect synchronicity with Wilson’s horoscope when A. Scott Berg’s sizzling biography was published. It was such a hot property that Leonardo DiCaprio optioned it, intending to portray President Wilson in a future film. Wilson’s horoscope is still working, even if Wilson isn’t!
As for being called “stud muffin” in a serious news publication, note that Wilson has Venus and Mars exactly conjunct in Aquarius, both of which square Uranus. We could expect an electric, focused sex appeal and unconventional relationships. His Moon–Pluto square suggests intense emotional engagement. On December 7, 2013, transiting Saturn was at 17°52’ Scorpio, less than one degree past an exact square to Wilson’s Venus–Mars conjunction. His “stud muffin” qualities were being taken with much gravitas, as Dowd notes (quoting Berg):
Wilson wrote thousands of letters to his first wife, several hundred to his second. These are the most passionate love letters I’ve ever read. They’re not pornographic, so you don’t have to run out to look for that, but they are incredibly romantic, often sexual, very emotional, deeply, deeply emotional letters. At a certain point, they get sickening. They’re just too much.
But why Leonardo DiCaprio? What was his attraction to Woodrow Wilson? Would the synastry we’d expect to see in two living people be found between the horoscope of a living person and a dead person? Yes!
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Moon is at 15° Libra, right on Wilson’s Ascendant. This is a compelling emotional and personal connection. DiCaprio’s Scorpio Sun and Venus trine Wilson’s 17° Cancer MC and sextile Wilson’s Mercury at 18° Capricorn. We can see how Leonardo DiCaprio might feel that he could successfully express himself (Sun–Venus) through Wilson’s identity (Ascendant), status (MC), and mindset (Mercury).
DiCaprioNumerous other synastric connections suggest the force of their “mutual attraction,” including, but not limited to:
DiCaprio’s Libra Ascendant opposing Wilson’s Jupiter
DiCaprio’s Cancer MC square Wilson’s Jupiter
DiCaprio’s Libra Moon trine Wilson’s Venus–Mars conjunction
DiCaprio’s Scorpio Sun–Venus in Scorpio trine Wilson’s Neptune and MC
DiCaprio’s Sun–Venus square Wilson’s Venus–Mars conjunction
DiCaprio’s Libra Pluto square Wilson’s Capricorn Sun
DiCaprio’s Scorpio Mars sextile Wilson’s Capricorn Sun
Fascinating, isn’t it?
We’d also quickly see that transiting Pluto and Uranus would be supercharging angles and planets in both horoscopes in 2015–18, as they hit 15°–18° Capricorn and Aries, respectively.
In 2013, I wrote that if the Woodrow Wilson biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio was released in 2015, it would likely generate fame and potential good fortune for them both.4 As it turned out, the Wilson biopic was not released in 2015, but The Revenant was. DiCaprio won a truckload of awards for his starring role in late 2015, as well as his first Oscar® in 2016. Score!
What about Woodrow Wilson? True to the potential of his horoscope, his status was also dramatically upset. Transiting Uranus squaring Mercury and the MC was the provocateur, suggesting potential for a shocking revelation about Wilson’s mindset. The first square to the MC from Uranus was in April 2015; the first to Mercury was in May. A few weeks later, The Washington Post ran a piece reminding its readers that, soon after Wilson became president in March 1913, he:
… promptly authorized members of his cabinet to reverse [a] long-standing policy of racial integration in the federal civil service … [re-segregating] facilities such as restrooms and cafeterias in their buildings. In some federal offices, screens were set up to separate white and black workers.5
Shocking, indeed. A man revered in the late 20th century as a Nobel Peace Prize–winning progressive was also a fierce segregationist.
The second hits to Wilson’s MC and Mercury from Uranus were in early October and November. On November 23, 2015, The New York Times reported that, at Princeton University (Wilson’s alma mater), “the heralded alum was now being recast as an intolerant one.”6 A campaign that had started in September demanded that the university publicly acknowledge Wilson’s “racist legacy” and rename the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and campus buildings bearing his name. By November, there were walk-outs, sit-ins, and other disruptive actions on campus.
In April 2016, weeks after the final hit by Uranus to Wilson’s Mercury and MC, Princeton officials voted to preserve the status quo. But the sullying of Wilson’s reputation by the awful truth had already been done. Astrology is amazing!
Postscript: In the course of writing this article, I looked at Wilson’s solar arcs. If I had looked at them back in 2013, when considering Wilson’s prospects for 2015, I would have zeroed in on a solar arc from Pluto to his natal Saturn, exact in August 2015. This suggests that a particularly grueling effort would be required against a threat of loss. Wilson received the prominence his transits indicated, and the solar arc suggests how much would likely be at stake!
Frida Kahlo’s Big Close-Up
In early May 2015, New York Times reporter Guy Trebay was surprised that Ms. Kahlo was “having a moment”:
In a welcome though unexpected convergence, an array of new books and exhibitions about Kahlo have suddenly appeared this spring, adding insight and depth to our understanding of a woman who would seem among the most overexposed artistic figures of all time.7
Frida Kahlo died in 1954 when she was 47 years old. Patterns in her horoscope in 2015 clearly reflected the increasing buzz her work had been generating around the world. The words in italics (mine) in the above quote from Trebay’s article give us a clue to the transits triggering the attention.
Frida Kahlo chart
If an event is unexpected and sudden, offering insight and depth, we can reasonably expect transits, solar arcs, and/or progressions involving Uranus and Pluto. In a two-second glance at Kahlo’s horoscope, we’re immediately drawn to her natal Neptune and Sun in Cancer opposing Uranus and Mars in Capricorn. We see the potential for an electrifying visionary — a creature like no other — alluring and fiercely revolutionary. The planets in that intense configuration were receiving exact, hard transits from Uranus and Pluto for three years, beginning in February 2013, with transiting Pluto at 10° Capricorn conjunct her natal Uranus.
In Kahlo’s horoscope, Uranus is in the 5th house, ruling the 7th. A Pluto transit to her Uranus suggests prominence or empowered perspective in matters related to unconventional relationships (7th house), as well as creativity and self-expression, including sexual expression (5th house). In October 2012, as transiting Pluto came to within 3° of its first exact conjunction with natal Uranus, Kahlo was one of the first honorees inducted into Chicago’s Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display celebrating the lives of influential LGBT people. On the plaque commemorating the bisexual Mexican artist, we see these words, “Defying convention, she flaunted numerous extramarital affairs.“8 Yes … and with a Pluto transit through her 5th, it would be more power to her.
The creativity Kahlo expressed in her partnership with her husband, fellow artist Diego Rivera, also gained prominence at that time in a dual retrospective entitled “Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting.” It opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Canada in October 2012 and traveled to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in February 2013.9
Throughout 2013, transiting Pluto and Uranus would continue to make contact with Kahlo’s natal Uranus and Neptune, sowing seeds of genius and inspiration the world would see manifested in 2014 and 2015, when Pluto and Uranus supercharged her Sun and Mars. In April 2014, Tree of Hope, a musical about her life, premiered in West Hollywood. In October, the four-act opera Frida y Diego premiered in Helsinki, Finland.
Frida KahloAlso in 2014, transiting Saturn at 23° Scorpio made contact with all four angles of her horoscope, actually stationing retrograde on her IC at that degree in March. When a living person experiences transiting Saturn at the IC, we can expect a need to focus on core foundation, family, and other domestic concerns. In Kahlo’s horoscope, with all of her angles at 23° fixed, we expect to see her life getting Saturn’s streamlining focus and potential for advance from all angles — literally: in her relationship to the public (Descendant), in her personal presentation (Ascendant), and in her career/public status (MC), as well as in family/domestic concerns (IC).
In fact, intimate details of Kahlo’s domestic life were the focus of one biographer and several museum curators, whose efforts went public in 2015. In March, Frida Kahlo: The Gisele Freund Photographs was published, and the book was lauded in Trebay’s NYT article for its “most intimate insights into her life and working process …
The opening of “Art-Garden-Life” in May 2015 coincided with the following energizing patterns in Kahlo’s horoscope:
During the first half of May, transiting Sun and Mars in Taurus successively hit all angles in her horoscope.
Transiting Jupiter in Leo made the third hit to all angles in July, after stationing retrograde at 22° Leo in December 2014, just minutes away from her 23° Leo Ascendant.
Transiting Uranus at 18° Aries would station retrograde in July and square her natal Jupiter at 20° Capricorn.
It all added up to a summer of prominence, expansion, and empowerment for Frida Kahlo. This was surprising to the reporter who marveled at her commercial success,10 but not to the astrologer who looked at her horoscope. What further surprises and fresh starts will Kahlo “experience” when she “gets it from all angles” from transiting Uranus at 23° Taurus on her MC in 2024 and 2025?
Hans Christian Andersen: Frozen Hot!
Andersen died in 1875. He is the author of “The Snow Queen,” the classic fairy tale that inspired Frozen, the highest-grossing animated film of all time, as Variety reported on March 30, 2014.11 Frozen was released by Walt Disney Studios in November 2013. What was going on in Andersen’s horoscope to suggest so much fame and fortune?
Andersen-Frozen
The short answer is a transiting Uranus–Pluto square. Yea, verily, in headline after headline after headline, a deceased person making news is experiencing a heavy outer planet making a hard aspect to a faster-moving personal planet or angle, just as we’d expect in a living human being.
In Andersen’s case, we immediately see the Sun and Mercury in Aries opposing Saturn in Libra (inner wheel). Each of these planets was transited by Uranus and Pluto simultaneously: in May 2013, when Uranus and Pluto were exactly square at 11° Aries–Capricorn; in April 2014, when the two were at 13° Aries–Capricorn; and in December 2014, when they were at 12° Aries–Capricorn.
When Variety announced Frozen’s record-breaking revenue, transiting Jupiter was at 11° Cancer, adding its expansiveness to the Uranus–Pluto square (outer wheel). Sprinkling more pixie dust was transiting Neptune, just past an exact square to natal Jupiter, ruler of Andersen’s Sagittarius Ascendant. While Neptune–Jupiter transits on the downside suggest potential scandal and challenging legal concerns, on the upside we could imagine other Neptune arenas — such as music, fairy tales, and movie magic — expanded beyond one’s wildest dreams.
In March 2015, plans for a sequel to Frozen were announced; plans for a stage version of the original animated film were announced in early 2014.12 The stage play is expected to open in 2017. Might this coincide with the Jupiter transit to Andersen’s natal Uranus (ruling the 2nd house) and his MC? Frozen 2 is expected to arrive in movie theaters in 2018, perhaps just in time for Hans Christian Andersen’s exuberant Jupiter return and solar arc Moon conjunct Jupiter.
Harper Lee’s Fresh Start
Harper Lee chart
The reclusive author of the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird passed away in February 2016. Her Ascendant at 25° Libra was opposed (within 1°) by transiting Uranus in August 2016, and the opposition will be exact in May 2017. Uranus will station retrograde and hover at 25° Aries for months between November 2017 and February 2018. Transits to the Ascendant from Uranus often suggest a fresh start. Guess what’s planned for Lee around that time? A new stage production of To Kill a Mockingbird to be written by Aaron Sorkin. The play has never had a Broadway run. It’s scheduled to open during the 2017–18 season.13 A fresh start, indeed — and potentially quite a splash when it premieres, as a look at other transits in Lee’s horoscope suggests.
Transiting Jupiter will cross her Ascendant in October 2017. How nice for a potential public debut! Starting in January 2018, transiting Jupiter in Scorpio will then energize and expand her natal t-square involving Mars–Jupiter conjunct in Aquarius, opposed by Neptune in Leo, all square to the Moon and Saturn in Scorpio. Mars conjunct Jupiter in Aquarius and opposing Neptune suggests no small amount of energy and charisma for championing a faith-based and/or humanistic cause. The Moon–Saturn conjunction in Scorpio suggests a need to be appreciated for depth and substance, mastery and control.
Transiting Jupiter will station at 23° Scorpio in March 2018, exactly conjunct Harper Lee’s natal Saturn and square her natal Jupiter. It will conjoin her Moon at 19° Scorpio, ruler of her 10th house, in May — just as transiting Uranus squares her MC at 28° Cancer. Tony nominations, anyone?
Lucy, Loved at Last
On April 7, 2015, it was reported that possibly the most unflattering statue ever erected of anyone was to be taken down — with apologies from the artist who created it.14 Back in August 2009, the freakishly ugly life-sized bronze purporting to depict Lucille Ball was installed in a park in her hometown of Celoron, New York. Dramatic patterns in Ball’s horoscope were at play.
Lucille Ball
In 2009, transiting Pluto conjoined her 1° Capricorn Ascendant three times (inner wheel), suggesting a ruthless tear-down and/or transformation in how she is perceived. Transiting Uranus in Pisces was opposing her natal Venus, ruler of her MC and the 5th house of creative self-expression. Uranus–Venus transits can suggest unconventional attraction and aesthetics. There’s the potential for “freaky.” Expanding on that potential was transiting Jupiter in Aquarius opposing Ball’s 13° Leo Sun.
So, why did it take six years to uninstall “Scary Lucy”? What was the world waiting for? Only this: In the last week of March 2015, as transiting Jupiter retrograde conjoined Ball’s 13° Leo Sun, “outrage over the statue exploded seemingly out of nowhere.” (outer wheel.) Jupiter stationed direct at 12° Leo on April 8. Plans to remove the statue were announced that week, with Jupiter applying to its third conjunction with Ball’s Sun (exact on April 29). On May 11, at transiting Jupiter’s third square to her Mars at 14° Taurus, ruler of her 4th house (home), local officials formally voted to have the ugly statue sent away.15 Lucy was loved at last! Coincidence?
Not a coincidence at all. Horoscopes live forever, as these convincing cases suggest. The patterns in the horoscope, when triggered by planetary transits, solar arcs, and progressions, are reflected in life events even after that life has ended.
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