Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln
No Coincidence

I got back to these charts a couple of weeks after a New Moon at 23 Aquarius conjunct Uranus. Is this a coincidence?

February 12, 1809 @ 3:00 am
Shrewsbury, England
Moon at 21 Capricorn

Charles Darwin with South Node at 6 Taurus in the 5th; North Node at 6 Scorpio in the 11th

This chart has Virgo and Pisces intercepted.

Health in the Chart

Darwin had very poor health, suffering from the classic maladies of too much mutable energy: allergies and constitutional weaknesses. People with many planets in mutable signs need "space" and time to relax. Darwin seemed much better when traveling on the Beatle and began to suffer when confined "at home" in a 3rd house extreme; for example, he had a wife and five sons. A third house extreme is living or working in close proximity with, in the same house or workspace with, many other people or in a crowded neighborhood or housing complex. People with mutable energy need the freedom to get out an circulate.

Darwin's discomfort is well described in his loaded and afflicted 3rd house -- the esoteric image is of a person who takes in too much of the environment at one time, lacking the ability to alternate rhythmically in and out. We relate this to someone who wolfs down their food, gulps their drinks or gasps for air (asthma is a 3rd house condition).

People like this will communicate their karmic misunderstanding in their lives by crowding their schedule, trying to do too many things at one time, putting everything at the same value (lacking the ability to prioritize), getting lost in the details with obsessiveness and failing to create time and space for the natural swing of the pendulum: reaction, feedback, digestion and synthesis, as the case may be. They are prime candidates for chronic fatigue syndrome as a result.

Altered Reality

Look how Darwin used that Saturn/Neptune conjunct to "alter reality". This is a good example of making necessity a virtue, the key to working with Saturn. In asserting that we do not come from Adam's rib but are descended from apes, Darwin completed a biological/genetic shift in our way of looking at reality. With those planets in Sag, we can see that this is as important because it is a symbolic shift as anything else. In other words, with this new concept, new worldview, new paradigm and more importantly new view of Man, we are able to cooperate with what we understand is an organic process rather than the arbitrary and close-ended myth of Jahweh.

In the Christian myth, God created us once and for all time and set us in a bi-polar reality of good vs. evil where we have struggled ever since. This is a state of consciousness, of course. It is a matter of the way we think of ourselves. The Devil Card in the Tarot Deck is a good rendering of this concept of man.

In Darwin's myth, we relax along an organic line of unfolding possibilities. We can see the optimism of the Sagittarius energy as evolution generally assumes a positive orientation toward reality.

Symbolically, this loaded 12th house addresses the procession of the ancestors as Darwin genly lifts us onto a branch of the living tree of evolution and away from the static and close-ended symbol of Yahweh in the Old Testament. Apparently he, himself, was not too eager to publish his findings.

That lineup Mercury/Pluto/Jupiter trine Uranus in Scorpio retrograde in the 8th heralds a revolutionary new thinker whose theories amount to a shot heard round the world. See the forces of evolution at work when Uranus, Pluto and Sagittarius combine.

In this chart, the retrograde Uranus in the 11th in Scorpio is also an explanation of why Darwin would be so reluctant to reveal his findings. He knew he was sitting on a time bomb that would reverberate powerfully through centuries to come. Well, let's say he knew but didn't know.

February 12, 1809 @ 6:54 am
Hodgenville, Kentucky
Moon at 27 Capricorn

Abraham Lincoln with South Node at 6 Taurus in the 2nd and North Node at 6 Scorpio in the 8th with Uranus on it

This chart has Virgo and Pisces intercepted.

This is probably about 5 hours difference.

Altered Reality

Look at how Lincoln used his Saturn/Neptune reality check: freeing the slaves. His conjunct is a double Sagittarian -- by sign and house. I have learned to look to the 9th house for slavery issues. You might think it would be in the 6th but properly it is tied to economics. Lincoln's chart would support my hypothesis.

The "Ugly Duckling"

The intercept takes place in the first house where the affliction might very well be Lincoln's personal appearance, oft commented upon. He may actually have suffered from a deforming genetic disorder, the name of which escapes me for the moment.

In this chart, the emphasis is on the square of Mercury/Pluto/Jupiter in the first to Saturn/Neptune in the 9th. One would be led assume that Lincoln's unhappy physical appearance might have lent him to both identify with and be shunned by others who were in some way cast out by society. Again, as is so often the case, this was probably more of a problem for others than for Lincoln (the Ascendant "problem"). It is likely that Lincoln really felt very different based on his ideas, which there is some evidence he, himself, was not that confident about.

At any rate and for whatever reason, by the time Lincoln became president, we can be sure he had learned how to stand up for himself as an outsider. This chart demands that the person take the time to explain themselves to "others". History gave Lincoln the opportunity to explain one whole group to another, despite overwhelming odds. He did it pretty well; what he had learned to do for himself, he did for others.

In no way do I mean to be reductionist. There is a consistency in energy. Odd man out will be consistent in appearance, thoughts, feelings, lifework, interface with society, etc.

Our greatest contributions to the world (healed Saturn) are always a result of great personal pain and triumph over it. For whatever reason, we can be sure from this chart that Lincoln felt an outsider. With an eye to that 8th house, it might be in sexual preferences as well. We know that he had syphilis but I would suspect unusual preferences as well as the use of prostitutes which history has acknowledged.

Another coincidence encountered in preparing this section of the website is that John Nash's Nodes are at 7 degrees Gemini/Sagittarius. This is conjunct the negative Fixed Star Aldebaran (responsible position and danger of violence).