A fun spin on serious cosmic stuff! Wendell C. Perry has 40 years experience studying astrology and how it impacts personalities & relationships. He's written two books & published articles in astrology magazines. He's happy to share this website so that you, too, can have fun with astrology to help you in everyday life!
A couple of days ago Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador shocked people attending a town hall meeting in his district when he said that people don’t die from a lack of health insurance. The remark was booed when he made it on Friday, and it has since inspired a wave of outrage and derision that has burned through the internet.
Looking at a horoscope done for noon on Raul Labrador’s birthday (click here to see the chart) what is remarkable is the fact that he has four planets, Mercury, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, all at or close to four degrees in their respective signs. This means that all of these planets aspect one another, and that when one is aspected by a transiting planet, all of them are activated.
Aside from the Sun and the Moon, the two most important points in any horoscope are the Ascendant and the Midheaven, or Medium Coeli (M.C.). The first reveals the person’s “outer” personality, the version of him or herself that is projected out into the world. The latter show us the identity that is projected onto that person by the outside world. In other words, the Ascendant is how we wish to be seen and the Midheaven is how we are seen.
What makes the distinction between these two points so important is the fact that in most horoscopes the sign ruling the Ascendant is going to be in a square aspect to the sign ruling the Ascendant. That means that the two sigsn are going to of the same Quality but of different Elements. This implies different aims, conflict and a general lack of agreement.
Back in April 2001 I read an article in The Mountain Astrologer written by Jim Shawvan. Shawvan predicted that the then newly elected president, George W.Bush, was going to involve the U.S. in a war. At the time I recall thinking, “With who?” The Russian empire had fallen apart. China was developing its own form of controlled capitalism. It seemed that all of this country’s traditional enemies were at peace. Of course, my question was answered in emphatic fashion a few months later on Sept. 11.
Shawvan based his assertion that Bush would be a wartime president on the fact that Bush’s natal Mars formed a sesquidquadrate with his Midheaven. That seemed a little weak to me, but then I noticed that Bush had Mercury conjunct Pluto on his Ascendant. This aspect as lot to do with Bush’s famous problems with the English language, but Pluto has many of the martial qualities we associate with Mars, though with Pluto the aggression is largely hidden and tends to be drawn out. The wars Bush led us into were, for the most part, long, grueling guerilla wars.
The horoscope of Donald Trump also has Mars in a prominent position. It is very strongly placed in Leo close to his Ascendant. Even more worrisome is the placement of Trump’s natal Sun on Mars in the Sibley Chart. (Click here to see a double chart with the U.S. Sibley chart in the center and Trump’s on the outside.) Taken together, these aspects could certainly be seen as indicators that Donald Trump is destined to be a wartime president.
The other day I had to drive to a city an hour away from my home for a meeting. I knew that I had some pretty serious Mars aspects going on that day, and since hard aspects from Mars can indicate conflict and accidents caused by going too fast, I allowed plenty of extra time and took extra care driving. As it turned out, even though I thought I knew where I was going, I got lost and ended up arriving late, but not nearly as late as I could have been and in one piece.
That’s one of the advantages of being an astrologer. You can see in advance periods of time when accidents and errors are likely to disrupt your life. Some astrologers might have refused to travel under the aspects that were impacting my chart that day. I opted for driving but taking precautions, and it worked out okay.
That brings me to one of the most famous auto collisions in pop culture history: the crash in 1955 that killed "Rebel Without a Cause Actor", James Dean. Any astrologer looking at Dean’s horoscope and the aspects impacting it would have strenuously warned the actor against driving his Porsche 550 Spyder that day. (Click on James Dean to see a double chart with Dean’s natal horoscope in the center and the chart for the accident on the outside.)
