Obits : Big Sky AstroBlog

Dec

27

jerry The 1970s were an ugly decade, and it’s only the fact that I came of age then that I hold any nostalgia for it. For instance, I’m stunned today to find myself shedding a tear over the death of former President Gerald Ford.

My mother disliked Richard Nixon even as she carried me in her womb, and by the early 70s the loathing of Nixon had become an article of faith in our household. Yet I remember crying the day we watched Nixon make his last, pathetic walk to that helicopter; and although at the time I thought Ford a giant sell-out for pardoning Nixon, I sort of saw his point, and I never disliked Ford. How could you? After Nixon’s sweaty, malevolent Capricorn-gone-wrong show, it felt really good and reassuring to hear Cancerian Jerry Ford pronounce, “Our long national nightmare is over.” (Well, it sort of seemed true at the time.) It was sweet to watch him bump his head on things, and even though he was a gifted athlete (Sagittarius Moon) his reputation as a klutz took hold - thanks, Chevy Chase! - and was actually sort of endearing. And his wife! Betty was - is - fantastic, the embodiment of Ford’s candid, inspiring Sag Moon id.

He’ll be remembered as a guy who fell down a lot, but also as the accidental president who made a single difficult, graceful gesture that essentially ruined his political career. In the op eds I’ve read today, many have commented on his misguided attempt to impeach Justice Douglas - hey, Ford was no saint - and of course the political risk of the Nixon pardon; but hardly anyone has come out and said, “He shouldn’t have issued the pardon.”

My own reaction upon reading the news last night was, “Awwww!”, quickly followed by the vestigial remnants of my mom’s vendetta: “That pardon was a mistake.” But today, having read and thought about it as an adult who has lived through at least 26 years of a politics almost entirely devoid of grace, I’m grateful to Jerry. If only because he thought it was the right and healing thing to do, I think he did the right thing, Mom. Give him a warm welcome when you see him.

December 27, 2006 | 1 Comment

Sep

4

Sad news today that Steve Irwin, TV’s “Crocodile Hunter,” was killed by a stingray while filming in the Great Barrier Reef. Irwin was born February 22, 1962 - a Pisces Sun (opposed Pluto), but one of those folks with a cluster of planets in Aquarius. I don’t know his time of birth, but at the time of his death transiting Jupiter was conjunct his natal Neptune and progressed Jupiter was conjunct his natal Sun. Wouldn’t you have thought that would be a lovely transit? I suppose it depends on your interpretation of “lovely.” Jupiter enlarges us, and there is ultimately nothing larger or more lovely, I suppose, than to merge with the cosmos - though it never seems to feel like that to those who are left behind.

Fortunately, I know nothing about how to predict death in a natal chart, and would like to keep it that way. I do know that my teacher used to tell us that Jupiter usually figured more prominently in charts of death than we would normally expect, given his reputation as a sort of kindly, jovial uncle who brings us gifts and enjoyment. And I doubt it’s coincidental that the Saturn/Neptune opposition at 17 Leo/Aquarius hit Irwin’s natal planets pretty hard, too, conjunct his Nodal axis, close to natal Mars and Jupiter (conjunct and opposed Uranus), and square Neptune.

It’s odd that the news of his death feels so surprising, given that this was a guy who made a living getting up close and personal with beasts of the wild. But it is surprising. He had such an oversized, ebullient persona - Jupiterian, indeed - that it’s a bit of a shock that his luck ran out. I’m keeping his wife and two young children in my thoughts today.

September 4, 2006 | 5 Comments

Feb

22

I can assure you I was the only 12 year old in my Catholic grammar school who ever toted a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to class. For this, I blame not only my insatiable need for attention, but also my older brother, ten years my senior and unusually attentive to his young sister’s cultural development. He had me on a diet of Hunter S. Thompson, Rolling Stone magazine, Leo Kottke, Mott the Hoople, and the films of Akira Kurasawa before I was in my teens.

As an adolescent I didn’t understand most of Thompson’s opus, but something about the tone of it really appealed to me. He had a Venus in Gemini’s rapier way with language ( it didn’t hurt that his Venus exactly conjoined my natal Moon; he was the funny valentine of my Gemini heart), and his sheer delight in wrestling words to the ground made me want to jump up and down and applaud wildly.

Thirty years later, I had more or less forgotten about Thompson until I read his merry screed against the Bush administration, published just a few days before the election. This time I did jump up and down and clap, and made sure to forward the link to my brother with the subject line, “Kerry gets the Gonzo vote!” Good times.

Nobody seems to know why Hunter S. Thompson killed himself on Sunday. I couldn’t sleep and got up to watch TV in the middle of the night, and there was the news: Hunter S. Thompson, mortal gunshot wound… I was so stunned that my initial response was, “But… is he alive?” Because geez, he was not that old, and his writing was vibrant, and he seemed utterly untamed and full of piss as ever. My 4 am mind simply couldn’t wrap itself around the twin concepts of “Hunter S. Thompson” and “mortal.” It’s not having much more luck two days later and wide awake.

February 22, 2005 | Comments Off

Jan

23

Johnny Carson

Johnny Carson has died.

From Salon:

Carson choose to let ‘Tonight’ stand as his career zenith and his finale, withdrawing into a quiet retirement that suited his private nature and refusing involvement in other show business projects.

Johnny was a Libra, the acme of cool Libran charm. But with the sun in the twelfth house and a Scorpio ascendant, he was notoriously private offscreen. That didn’t matter to us; our experience of Johnny’s twelfth house/Scorpio energy was that he always felt just right late at night, in the dark, in the privacy of your bedroom. You’d be lying there in bed, half-asleep, or wishing you could be. And there Johnny would be, flickering away on the TV, graceful and deadpan and … comforting. It wasn’t a Mr. Rogers kind of comforting, or a Walter Cronkite kind. Johnny was not avuncular or warm; he was Mr. Cool, with Mercury/Saturn rising in Scorpio. Yet considering he was such a smart-ass, Johnny inspired tremendous warmth.

It’s been years since he left the Tonight Show, and it’s surprising that the news of his death should hurt so much. I suppose losing the icons of our youth is wounding because they take little bits of our youthful selves with them as they go. At least with Johnny, you get the sense those youthful fragments are in good hands. Vaya con dios, Johnny.

January 23, 2005 | Comments Off

Sign of Leo

Moon sextiles Mercury at
4:20 pm on Jul.5, 2008

Moon opposes Neptune at
5:22 pm on Jul.5, 2008

Moon trines Pluto at
3:05 am on Jul.6, 2008

Moon goes void of course at
3:05 am on Jul.6, 2008

Moon enters Virgo at
4:04 am on Jul.6, 2008

Moon conjuncts Mars at
9:19 am on Jul.6, 2008