Health and HIlary Clinton

In light of Dick Cheney getting a heart transplant, I decided to look at some other politicians from a health perspective. From the orientation of critical illness, I am most concerned by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's chart. Hillary Clinton was born October 26, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois. There has been some debate about a.m. versus p.m. and how close to 8:00 her birth was. Knowing that Chelsea was delivered by C-section, I feel confident in altering Hilary's birthtime by adding a single minute, to get 8:01 a.m. Chelsea has Mars Rx at 4:36 Virgo and Jupiter Rx at 4:50 Virgo. So the tweak made Hilary's MC just a wee bit closer at the time of the delivery.

If Hilary Clinton were a male, I think that she would be a prime candidate for prostate cancer. She has Scorpio on both the 12^th house of critical illness and the ascendant--the health center of the horoscope. Pluto, the ruling planet is conjunct both Mars and Saturn, which suggests both irritations and blockages. Her Sun in the 12^th house also suggests a systemic weakness in those body parts associated with Scorpio. She has Jupiter in the first house, both as a final dispositor and peregrine. I think Noel Tyl's evaluation of health is pretty good, with some exceptions. Personal experience has led me to consider Scorpio, rather than Libra, to be the ruler of the bladder. Since Hilary does not have a prostate, I think she is at high risk for bladder cancer.

When cancer is analyzed astrologically, Jupiter presents a true conundrum. Jupiter in the 1^st house does preserve the basic health. Yet with Jupiter as both a final dispositor and peregrine, there is a risk of uncontrolled cellular growth running away with the organism, which is exactly what cancer is.

Then there is the issue of Hilary's Pisces Moon. Although, I don't particularly like Hilary, it breaks my heart when I discover that someone that I do like has a Pisces Moon. I've seen far too many people die of cancer at far too young an age, if they have the Moon in Pisces. We've all seen far too many Pisces Moons get hooked into some kind of addictive behavior. To name just a few are Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Rush Limbaugh.

Back on June 17, 2009, Hillary Clinton fell and broke her elbow.  Still some people might think that the fact that she broke her elbow would give credence to the evening (Gemini rising)chart, I think that looking at the transits (and other predictive tools) might give us more insight in general.  The first thing I noticed was transiting Uranus squaring its own place.  Uranus is easily associated with things that happen suddenly, and accidents certainly happen suddenly.  Hillary's natal Uranus is in Gemini, and will function as such regardless of what her ascendant is.

At noon, her TP (tertiary progressed) Moon was 23:04 Taurus, which is close to some midpoints involving the North Node, the ascendant and Mercury.  As I don't have the time that she fell, the incident does seem more consistent with a morning birth.

Perhaps it's too early to voice my concern, but at the end of 2017, Saturn. Mercury and the ascendant will all all arc to Hilary's Sun while Neptune arcs to her Moon. If she were to develop bladder cancer, I suspect that time to be the most ominous.

                                                                                 Don Borkowski

dgborkowski@msn.com

A Simple Synastry Snapshot

I took up the serious study of astrology back in the “What's your sign?” days of the early 1970s. And even with the sophistication that the passage of 40 years can bring, sometimes looking at synastry from a macrosmic level can be revealing. The term, “macrcosmic” or “macro” level is one that I use when I just want to discuss basic, overall principles, rather than quibble over details that would normally just get in the way.

Recently, I have been looking back at my involvement with astrology and noticed that many of the people who have been the most supportive and encouraging of me have had the Moon in Leo. Just off the top of my head, I can think of Press Roberts, Edith Custer, Joan McEvers and Noel Tyl who fit this description. In the course of conversations with various friends in the astrological community, nearly everyone would have a different point of view regarding these people. So then it became obvious that these people were whom I needed for my fulfillment, whether or not my friends needed them for their fulfillment. On a macro level, their Moons were nurturing my Leo Sun. The next question that I needed to ask myself was, “Does this principle work in the other direction; in other words, does my Virgo Moon nurture anyone with a Virgo Sun?” My father was a Virgo with a Cancer Moon and a Libra ascendant. Basically, I had a good relationship with my father, despite the clashes between my realism and his idealism.  Interestingly, when I was in college, my best friend was a Virgo with a Leo Moon.  To a greater or lesser degree with both supported and nurtured each other.

Besides the Sun, the other two major building blocks of the horoscope are the Moon and the ascendant. I have noticed that if a person has troubles with a given Sun sign, people with the Moon or the ascendant in that sign are often more difficult to deal with—with one exception. For some reason, Aquarius ascendants are easier to deal with that Aquarius Suns, but Aquarius is the only sign that exhibits that phenomenon.

I want a Curmudgeon for Christmas

John Lennon: His Inconvenient Truths

If you, the reader, have not yet read my previous blog entry, “Lovely Lori (Reta Gene),” it would be best that you set this article aside, go back and read the other first.

As I pointed out in that earlier article, my late wife really did know the Beatles. She had to contend with a lot of prejudice on the part of astrological snobs who felt that since she (and I) were not part of the elitist subset of the astrological community, that we had no right to discuss celebrities as if we knew them. I'll admit that I did not know John Lennon; Georgie was the only one who did.

When the Beatles traveled to India to visit the Maharishi, it was the beginning of a great metaphysical experience for them. They all gained a lot knowledge and some wisdom, in varying degrees in accordance with their own needs. Before the trip to India, John did not have much interest in astrology to speak of. He blithely accepted the birth data that his aunt thought she reembered for him: October 9, 1940 at 6:30 p.m. GMD in Liverpool. At that stage in John's life, astrology was no great concern.

After the Beatles returned to England, they were changed men in many ways. John thought that astrology might help him to get a better handle on the meaning of life. After some personal investigation and in-depth research, John found a more satisfactory birth time and abandoned the prior one. The 6:30 chart gave him an Aries ascendant and an Aquarius Moon. Neither of those placements really fit John. Physically, the only Aries trait that John exhibited was his prominent adam's apple. If John really did have Aries rising, he would have probably gone bald before the age of 30. Other astrologers think that an Aquarius Moon was a good fit because John was eccentric and because his wife, Yoko Ono, had the Sun in Aquarius. Believe me, limiting the study of synastry to Sun signs is much too shallow to dignify here.

The data that John was able to ascertain was October 9, 1940 at 7:14 a.m. in Manchester, U.K.. Perhaps the location in Manchester may be incorrect, but the time is most believable. This chart gives John a Libra ascendant and a Capricorn Moon. In my analysis of this chart, I realized that if I tweaked this time by a scant 4 minutes to 7:18 a.m., Neptune would have arced exactly to his ascendant on July 15, 1958, the date that John's mother was killed when a drunken driver ran over her. The conjunction of his Nodal axis with his ascendant-descendant axis reflected John's closeness to his mother. John was devastated by the his mother's death, and he never did recover from the emotional blow..

John's Capricorn Moon illustrated John's need to have an older woman serve as a mother substitute, and Yoko was 7 years older than John. Likewise, as Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, Yoko's darker complexion also fit the physical description provided by the Capricorn Moon. In the words of Noel Tyl, a person with Capricorn Moon needs “to administrate (sic) progress and to make things happen. In John Lennon's case, it reflects the battles he had with Paul McCartney over the course they each wanted the Beatles to take. John was looking for a venue for his highly personalized self-expression in music, prose and art. But Paul wanted the Beatles to be crassly commercial, reflective of the career of Paul's father, a British music hall entertainer.

Looking again at the death of John's mother, we must remember that solar arcs do provide the background framework for any event. But still, transits are necessary for these events that are called the “big bells”. The most revealing transits are Venus and Mars both squaring the Moon—and sopposing each other. Most likely, she died a few minutes later when the transiting ascendant was conjunct his Moon..

John's midpointology is also significant. The morning chart shows VE = AS / MC = SU / MC = NO / MO. The evening chart cannot possible come close to anything resembling those midpoint pictures. Although some people feel that John got his outrageous side from an Aquarius Moon, I submit that his midpoint picture, AP = UR / PL applicable to anyone born October 9, 1940, would suffice. Former major league baseball player, Joe Pepitone, was an astro-twin of John, and his own outrageous side was documented in Ball Four by Jim Bouton.

There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that John Lennon was born in the morning and is a double Libra with a Capricorn Moon.

Don “Donbee” Borkowski

dgborkowski@msn.com

Lovely Lori (Reta Gene)

If I could remember the exact date that I met the woman I was to marry, the presentation of the astrology behind it would be even more dramatic. I do know I met the woman I'll always remember as Georgie in June of 1975. I'll just have to approximate the date for the middle of the month, using June 15^th to check for the solar arc positions. I had SA Moon = Neptune, as well as SA Saturn and SA Mercury both = my MC.

This is a very difficult story to start at the beginning. As it stands now, there are so many factors that have to be weighed with the perspective of the lapse of many years between then and now.

I met Georgie at Press and Ima Roberts' Arcane Book Store in Portland, Oregon. Once after visiting his store one Saturday, Press suggested that I give her a ride home. I did and the next week I asked her out to dinner. On our first date, just to make conversation, I asked her if she knew any famous people. When she started stammering, I should have suspected something. Since she, herself, was extremely psychic, she probably just assumed that I was equally psychic, and suspected something. In reality, I am as psychic as the legendary bag of hammers. Later when I discovered her to be a compulsive chatterbox, I concluded that my simple, innoocent question must have really shaken her if it made her clam up so tightly. Later, it took a lot of work on both her part and mine, but we eventually got to know each other, somewhat. After experiencing a number of supernatural occurrences, it came out that not only had Georgie met the Beatles, she was friends with some of them. In fact she had even changed her name in a court of law to Georgeanne Veronica Harrison to honor her favorite one (and one of her favorite saints, as well.)

As the months went by, and I got to know her and her relatives, I became rather puzzled why her 17-year-younger half-brother always called her “Sister” and never by her name. I was later told that it was to make it easier on him having to deal with her name change. But it turned out that she had a number of names floating around in the ether for her. Officially, her given name was Loreta Gene McClearen. Since Loreta has only one “T”, the “E” is lengthened, as compared with “Loretta”. Add to this the fact that since her mother's name was also Loreta, my future wife was called “Reta Gene” by her family members. She didn't like that because she wanted her own identity. So she had her friends and peers call her “Lori”. Keeping in mind that because she was a compulsive chatterbox, she gave this background to most of her friends--including Paul McCartney. When she told Paul that in the United States, traffic wardens were called “meter maids”, he thought that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. So what started out as gentle teasing, “Reta Gene the Meter Maid” morphed into the hook on which “Lovely Rita” of the Sgt. Pepper album was based. In fact the term “meter maid” was not used in England until the Beatles popularized it.

Here is a link to read about her in the Astrologers' Memorial web page: http://www.solsticepoint.com/astrologersmemorial/borkowski.html

The Birth of An Arabic Part

In the 40-1/2 years since I began my study of astrology, many cultural and attitudinal changes have taken place. Some are good; others are not as good. One aspect of of an astrological study that I truly miss is the willingness to share new ideas with others. Back in the day, people shared new ideas most willingly. If a new idea had merit, it skyrocketed. If a new idea was bunk, it would peter out and just fade away. The marketplace of ideas would separate the wheat from the chaff. Nowadays, astrologers look on new ideas as ways to make money, and people are reluctant to share lest they get lost in the lurch, especially if they have put some substantial time and effort to introduce a new technique to the astrological community.

Now, more than ever, astrologers have become obsessed with mathematical rigor. I suppose that is necessary, but I truly hate to see how such stilted formality is stifling creativity. I think new ideas should be pursued with enthusiasm and joie de vivre at the outset. Once the new idea starts to take root only then should it be formalized. In the meantime, astrological creativity should not be stifled.

Nowadays, if some object has some astronomical significance, astrologers will assume that it must have some astrological significance, whether it does or not. Some astrologers will toss anything into a chart, even the kitchen sink. (I don't know for sure, but I am tempted to bet money that someone has probably gone so far as to name an asteroid “Kitchen Sink” by now.) In fact, Pluto had been known for 40 years when I took up our craft, and yet even then, many astrologers were afraid of committing themselves to adding Pluto to their astrological pallette. Pluto was generally ignored until Sakoian and Acker first published The Astrologer's Handbook in 1973.

Back in the early 1970's, I was a lonely, unloved man, and I truly envied all the people in my life who were sexually fulfilled. I spent far too much time and effort trying to ascertain when I would join the ranks of the sexually active. I noticed that my most fulfilled peers tended to have Pluto and Venus in a harmonious aspect—usually a trine where Pluto was 4 signs ahead of Venus. My choices of Venus, as the planet of romantic love and sensuality and of Pluto, as the planet of pure sex were fairly straightforward. Then I experimented with how to combine Venus and Pluto in a meaningful manner. If I went with Venus and Pluto in the other direction, my new Arabic Part would show up in the 9^th house, tather than the 5^th for those fulfilled people. By Jove, I then realized that I was onto a brilliant idea. When I computed this new Arabic Part for my own chart, I found it to fall in my first house. Oh well, it was plenty obvious what that meant.

I promoted my finding in the letters column of the March, 1974 issue of American Astrology magazine. I kept on promoting it every chance I got. When Press and Ima and I wrote Signs and Parts in Plain English, I included the Part of Sex Drive along with all the other Arabic Parts that had been known and used for centuries. Then when Astro Computing Services offered lists of all the possible Arabic Parts, I suggested to them that the formula of Asc. + Pluto – Venus be called the Part of Sex Drive, they adopted that name for it. Now my work is an official part of the astrological literarure. It figures that I have not been given the recognition that I deserve. But the right people do know from whence it comes.

Don Borkowski

dgborkowski@msn.com

Where I'm Coming From

I started my study of astrology on June 7, 1971. I had been curious about astrology since 1960 when I read an article in Parade magazine by an astrologer that predicted that John F. Kennedy would defeat Richard Nixon in that November's presidential election. I felt that Nixon, as the sitting Vice-President, who “pinch-hit” for Eisenhower dring Ike's illnesses, was more qualified than Senator Kennedy.  Nixon lost, much to my disappointment, but I was now motivated to learn astrology so that I could make accurate forecasts. This was not just about elections, I wanted to make all kinds of predictions about the future and to be accurate about it.

Before I began my studies, I would buy any book that talked about astrology, but all I seemed to be able to find were books that said how wonderful astrology is. Heck, I always considered astrology to be wonderful, but I couldn't seem to find anything to show me what I really wanted to know—how to calculate a horoscope. Then in 1970, I acquired a roommate named Craig Fox who loaned me copy of My World of Astrology by Sydney Omarr. That book taught me a little bit more, but still left me hungry. I did not have to be convinced that astrology was valid and worthwhile. Then, finally, in 1971, I discovered a metaphysical bookstore in Portland, the Arcane Book Store, that had what I needed.

The Arcane Book Store was owned by Press Roberts and his wife Ima. If I may borrow a phrase from the Readers' Digest, Press was the most unforgettable character I ever met. I follows logically that many of my astrological beliefs are wither the same as I learned from Press or they are somewhat inspired by what I learned from him. One of Press's habits that I've adopted is to refer to people by their ascendants, rather than their Sun signs.  Since 2000, I have absorbed a great deal of knowledge from Noel Tyl and his books, with a particular focus on solar arcs and midpoints.

Press's classes were mostly learning by doing. In each class, a person was chosen arbitrarily to write his or her chart on the blackboard, and Press would read it to teach the principles of delineation. We were expected to have a basic knowledge of what the planets in the signs or houses would suggest to us. Press taught about hemisphere emphasis, element and quality stress, chart patterns a la Marc Edmund Jones—those topics that are more intermediate than the absolute basics. Then about halfway through most class sessions, Press would get bored and revert his focus to his favorite topic—medical astrology. Press was a retired licensed practical nurse, and Ima a was a active registered nurse. Every class contained so much off-the-cuff medical astology that I couldn't help learning it—and learning it well. I must say that although I am neither a physician nor a nurse, I can read a chart medically, even better than many of the “big names” out there.

Press took up astrology in January 1946. Interestingly, Zipporah Dobyns also began her studies in 1946. And they did have a number of similarities in their styles. Press got a lot of value by equating signs and houses. Zip did also, but she would also equate the natural ruler of the sign in question.  Press did his forecasting based strongly on transits and progressions, with quite a bit on emphasis on lunations.

Press was born roughly 11 hours before Queen Elizabeth of England, and coincidentally, her daughter,  Princess Anne and I share the same date of birth.  Press's eldest son was also a 1950 Leo, born July 29, 1950.  What's more, my second co-author, Joan McEvers, also had a son born July 29, 1950.

Don Borkowski

Feel free to write me at:  dgborkowski@msn.com