The Sedna Conflict

 Ice floes and melt ponds pick up a glimmer by the light of an Arctic sun

(photo credit NOAA, September 2008)

At 11:47 a.m. (UT/+0 time) on May 21st, dwarf planet Sedna moves from 22 to 23 Taurus. If that doesn’t sound noteworthy to you, remember: Sedna takes 11,400 years to go once around the Sun.

You know, give or take. Such details are still getting nailed down.

Saturn takes 29.45 years to orbit the Sun. Neptune takes 164.7 years - over five times Saturn’s orbital period. Even dwarf planet Eris, which dwarfs the 248 year orbit of fellow dwarf planet Pluto by taking 557 years to go once around the Sun - not even Eris approaches the length of one Sedna ‘year.’
 

It’s not even close.

But then, Sedna’s so far away from us (and the Sun) that it’s tempting to not even think of Sedna as being part of our solar system - except for the fact that it really does orbit the Sun.

And that says a lot about the Sun. It’s impressive what one moderate-size star can do, isn’t it?

 

 The Sun

(photo credit: NASA-JPL)

So let’s think this through for a moment - just on the theoretical plain. Sedna’s orbit isn’t round, but orbits are all 'theoretical' circles. And at some level, all cycles are circles. So let’s take the length of Sedna’s ‘year’ and divide it by 360 - the number of degrees in a circle. That would be…11,400 (years) divided by 360 (degrees in a circle).

The answer: 31.66 - 31.66 years, that is.

As it happens, Sedna just changed degrees in 2011. Before that, it changed degrees in 2010. Keep tracking back through the years and what we find is that Sedna keeps up this changing of degrees every two years or so until we get to around the year 1901. At that point Sedna is at 7 Aries and it starts taking three years to change degrees. Keep going back...back...back some more, and around 1876 (with Sedna at 1 Aries) it starts taking Sedna three or four years to move a single degree...which by 1836 has stretched out to four or five years per degree.

So what's happened to the 31.66 year thing?

The simple answer is that Sedna has a very oblong orbit.

 

 The orbit of dwarf planet Sedna (red) drawn in

perspective to the rest of our solar system

here pictured as a cluster of multi-colored orbits

nested together at the top.

(diagram credit: NASA-JPL)

 

Leave that aside for a moment and let's turn to storybook part of our program. The Sedna myth is an Inuit story about a young girl brought up in a comfortable home. Liking her creature comforts and easy lifestyle, Sedna isn't all that keen on growing up. She doesn’t want to go out on her own. She doesn’t want to take on the responsibilities (emotional and physical) involved in being an adult.

Then - predictably - this all goes bad. (It is a myth, after all! What’s a myth with no peril?)

After much nudging and prodding from mom and dad Inuit, Sedna surveys her picks for husband. And after rejecting all the ‘nice guys,’ she leaves home with a Bird Man who has won her over by telling Sedna everything she wants to hear.

But after he's got her all alone, then the Bird Man spirits Sedna away to his isolated, barren island in the middle of the Arctic sea. He's nothing that he claimed to be. And yes - we could say he's flighty, but that’s not the half of it!

 Though the island in the story of Sedna is made to sound far away from

everything, it may have looked something like Chamisso Island, which here

is being photographed from nearby Puffin Island in Alaska

(photo credit US Fish and Wildlife Service, August 1977)

After much misery and loneliness, finally Sedna’s father shows up. Upset at what's happened to his daughter he kills the Bird Man and sets off for home with Sedna safely on board his boat. But the Bird Man's friends know what's happened. And they're angry - so angry that they 'stir up a storm,’ which threaten Sedna's father's Inuit boat.

Ultimately, Sedna’s father abandons Sedna. He has to, if he's to save himself. This sounds harsh until you remember that Sedna has refused to learn to take care of herself in any way - physically or emotionally. She can't help with the boat. She's so scared she's even making things worse.

Sedna’s father makes his choice. It's not a happy one. Either he can save himself or they can both perish. His answer is to sacrifice Sedna - not that she goes any too easily. And when Sedna clings desperately to the boat, her father cuts her fingers off, throwing them into the ocean.

Literally severed from her family, Sedna sinks into the cold and tumultuous water. And there she is drowned in surging undercurrents of darkest emotions…an ocean of feelings.

But Sedna doesn’t die. Through being overcome and overwhelmed by long denied emotions, her human frailty (i.e., mortal craving) is ripped away, leaving her naked in the deep and transformed into a goddess of endless, eternal emotional fertility and power. Sedna symbolizes the power we cannot find except when stormy times come upon us…when we’re alone. When we’re feeling abandoned by those we so desperately want.

Yet note…this is about what and those we want, not need. Sedna is an adult. She could assume the responsibilities of an adult but prefers being provided for. And because when Sedna is alone when forced to confront the reality of her emotions in the oceanic depths, we know that the ‘fertility’ referred to in this symbol isn’t about having literal children, but about the ‘children’ of our mind, spirit and soul.

Thus we also know that wherever we find Sedna in the natal horoscope, that is where we will encounter our fear of what we are - emotionally - in the depths of our soul and psyche. Yet ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ and nature will out. The dynamic energy of Sedna surfaces in our life ever-so creativity, circling and tugging on us from afar.

When we do not solve our problems, the storm comes upon us, forcing us to ‘reach down’ and find the creative solutions to life’s problems - mostly caused as they are by an unwillingness to own our inner power.

Sedna is, in other words, connected to the sort of independence we think of not as simple ‘adulthood’ but the autonomy which comes from emotional individuation or (if you prefer,) emotional integrity. Those of us who grow up still dependent on others for approval, security or self-worth, our Sedna work isn’t done. Maybe not even half done. And why would that be?

As for the astronomical reason Sedna is clipping along at such a quick rate, that's because Sedna is heading towards the ‘close’ end of its orbit – the perihelion – where it will be closer to the Sun (and Earth) than at any other time. And because the perihelion point will be reached in the year 2075, we can expect variations on difficulties stemming from the need to mature, individuate, assume adult autonomy to continue. We can expect a lot of insecurity resulting from lack of   self-worth.

And there is that other thing. You know, how the rate at which Sedna will be changing degrees is going to continue ever-so-slowly increasing along the way? As that happens, we can expect the ‘pressure’ felt by one and all to increase as well.

Plus we know nothing of how this really works. Half a (11,400-year long) Sedna cycle ago was in the environs of 3,600 BCE. The Egyptians were working on the idea of a calendar and some clever Mesopotamians were trying out the very first forms of organized writing.

That's half a Sedna cycle ago. The last time Sedna was where it is now was back around 9,300 BCE. About that we know very little. We have some fossils and such - but what the people were feeling? What personal dynamics were part of their daily life? About that, we know nothing. So we are in uncharted waters.

Sitting in the depths of the dark Arctic ocean, Sedna populates the sea. Her severed fingers become the seals, walrus, whales and fish which provide food for the Inuit. Sedna had this ability all along - the ability to provide for her people. But she resisted having to try. She wanted to be taken care of. She wanted to be given the finest of everything. Sedna wanted to have nothing out of the ordinary required of her…and yet she had so much to give, once she could find no escape from her feelings.

This seems something to really give some thought to. After all, Sedna the celestial object is so far from our Sun that in some senses, it ‘embraces’ the whole of our solar system, containing it as life contains us. And that Sedna’s lessons are hard…well, that’s not really any mystery, either. We humans aren’t exactly known for shouting ‘oh joy!’ when it comes to painful self-confrontations and giving up what otherwise might come easily to us.

 A Bering Sea walrus contemplates the photographer

(photo credit: NOAA, June 1978)

Because of this, we can probably expect a lot of resistance to people - and society - learning Sedna’s lessons in the years ahead. We can expect a lot which reminds us of Sedna’s sense of entitlement. The Inuit men who were good and honest and willing to work to build didn’t interest her. She wanted the easy way out - and in wanting that easy way out, created a mammoth hardship for herself.

Yet life did out. When we resist, life brings sufficient force or energy to break down whatever barriers prevent us from moving towards our Purpose.

And yes: evidently the hardest part of being human is feeling our feelings! We hold on and hold on until all falls apart, or is ripped from our grasp. Then life changes. And from coping with those changes, in being forced to face all the emotions we tried to avoid in the first place we acquire emotional and personal power.

But personal power over what? According to the myth, Sedna acquires the ability to ‘populate the seas and feed her people,’ which in Inuit terms would roughly denote the ability to survive and the insuring of a future for our children.

If this all sounds like people you know, or like the world in current times, we could guess that’s because of two factors. One would indeed be a reflection of Sedna’s picking up its pace. But there's another part here...the reference to Sedna's love of 'creature comforts' which would seem to be very applicable in a world society which is so into materialism (and blatant materialism at that!) of late.

Some part of that must be intrinsically Sedna. But considering that Sedna is currently transiting the sign of Taurus - it all makes additional sense. Taurus, after all, is a sign which aims for 'satisfaction and security' with one's life. But the trick is that the Taurean challenges in our lives are very, very seldom satisfied by money and 'things,' even if that's the most common way people try to satisfy this desire.

At it's heart, Taurus is about self-worth and knowing you've lived your life well...not that you've lived a well heeled life. It's about knowing you've used your talents to earn your way, earning respect, love and support from others with each passing year. Often stubborn, often reluctant in an endearingly hesitant (read:  emotionally vulnerable) way, wherever we see Taurus in the chart we know we will be tempted to 'bluff' having control (or insist on having it even if we don't know what to do with it)...which ultimately results in damage to the native self-worth.

So with Sedna in Taurus? Money, stuff and the worship of materialism would seem to be right on target.

That Sedna initially accepts the Bird Man - someone not living a totally ‘human’ life - is much like people who like Sedna, want to ride (rise) above their own emotional ocean deeps. Inhumanity to mankind is one thing; to live with half our psyche? That just may qualify as inhumanity to Self! And it's certainly the very definition of being incomplete as a human being. Humans are emotional beings. By definition we cannot therefore feel complete (i.e., satisfied and secure - those Taurus aims) without our full range of emotions.

And without that? Without that, we are likely to feel dissatisfied, unfulfilled, unsupported - even under-nourished way deep down inside. So considering that any astrological symbol in our chart can only be about us (others have their own charts and therefore their own Sedna issues), with Sedna in Taurus, we can see how at one end of the spectrum we could be seeing so much materialism and how at the other we could have so many people feeling abandoned, emotionally isolated and lacking a sense of fulfillment.

We will all tend to think it's about 'them'...but it isn't. It's about us. And of course there will be the many who will simply be driven to attract those who embody everything they won't feel.

Ah, the ‘magic’ of projection! Its patterns are unmistakable. Yet we so resist thinking they’re about us.

As for Sedna’s father trying to rescue her, once we’re grown, can our parents really ‘rescue’ us? That answer is no if only because as with Sedna, the ‘who’ we are really wanting to be rescued from is our Self - that feeling Self we are (strangely enough) scared of. So our dislikes, our trepidations at the idea of having to feel our feelings, those are things our parents can’t help us with.

And if we continue to make choices and choose to associate with people who do trigger our Sedna ‘fear of Self,’ then that’s a rather solid sign that we do have what we might call a “Sedna conflict.”

A well-trained astrologer can help you define how this feeling/lack of feeling works. They can define the parameters astrologically. They can like as not tell you where your mortal life has created the circumstances which shape your ‘reactive Sedna nature.’ But in the end, each of us must plumb our naked, deep water depths. No one can do this for us. And if we won’t make the journey, no one can save us from the denial of responsibility for our own life.

Moving from the personal to the thematic, Sedna’s transiting through the signs - even its increasing rate of movement through degrees is fascinating symbol of historical and societal patterns. The early 1800s were a time of ‘emotional protocol.’ Manners and mannerisms ‘ruled’ - which when looked at through Sedna being in Pisces at the time, is an interesting comment on Sedna’s societal reflection as a ‘rejection’ of - or reactive opposition to - Sedna symbolism. If Pisces is all about facing our emotions and the ‘collective’ experience of human commonalities, it shouldn’t be surprising that the early 1800s was rife with a world in which people aspired to be so prim, proper and ‘well respected.’

Prim, proper, well respected, well mannered…that’s a list which sounds rather Virgoan, doesn’t it? Not necessarily Virgo at its best, but Virgoan in theme. And isn’t Virgo is the polarity sign to Pisces - the sign Sedna was in at the time?

Astrologically, that is the very image of reactive response. If the celestial object is in sign ‘x’ and we ‘polarize’ to qualities most associated with the oppositional sign, considering the natal chart is ‘us’ (at either a collective or individual level), that’s literally ‘doing the opposite thing.’

And yet, nature - creation - will ‘out’ us in the end. Taking the United States as an example (obviously being an American I know its history best), Sedna’s passage culminated in a thoroughly bloody event known as the Civil War. The Civil War, known greatly for the emancipation of the slaves, was also a war about economics and - in essence - economic freedom.

Couched as a debate between states and Federal rights, the overarching question was ‘are we a free people or are we going to have our lives being run by someone else?’ The Civil War forced people to feel their feelings at an individual and collective level. Even though feelings ran deadly high on both sides, individual diaries (there are many left for us to read) clearly indicate that many people saw the futility in fighting, killing and dying over political definitions when it’s obvious that any human being wants to have a life where they can be free to live in dignity and peace.

 Escaped slaves (then known as 'contrabands') at the Headquarters of General Lafayette (photo credit Mathew B Brady, c 1862 - courtesy of the Randolph Linsly Simplson African-American collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University) Text from below the photo reads: 'Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by Barnard & Gibson, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Columbia.'

Every country has its national Sedna. And we should not be surprised if that nation goes on struggling with its Sedna issues, despite something as terrible as the Civil War.

Sedna moved into Aries in 1864, as the tide of America’s Civil War finally turned. From 1864 until May 1966 (when Sedna moved on into Taurus), Sedna-in-Aries energy bounced back and forth in very Aries-as-Self sort of ways. On one side the world saw an amazing rise of the industrial age and the dawning of modern society. Sedna in Aries would ‘shield’ its ‘Self’ rejection by living behind a Libra mask and indeed, the world ‘did for others’ and through that, put all sorts of Aries physical strength and human prowess to work through building, inventing and crafting.

Of course, there was a Sedna down side, too. A handful of terrible wars (including WWI, WWII and various genocides) and much ingenuity being put into perfecting how to kill, maim and torture people was a magnificent example of just how willing humans are to ignore their humanity. And while some were doing the deadly deeds, others were standing by in denial.

Sedna in Aries: to borrow from Charles Dickens, it was truly the best of times…and the worst of times.

And about that May 1966 date. I’d like to clarify. All celestial objects – with the exception of the Sun and Moon – have retrograde cycles. Sedna is no exception. So let us be clear: Sedna started moving into Taurus in May of 1966, but didn’t commit to its passage of Taurus until February of 1968.

(Yes, that is a note for you of the ‘stickler’ sort!)

Since then, (whichever ‘then’ you want to cite) Sedna has been in Taurus…which is where the theoretical metaphysics comes in and makes things rather more interesting. Remember that little equation we started out with? That 11,400 (years) divided by 360 (degrees) equals 31.66 (years on the average) thing?

The ‘goal’ of Sedna in Taurus would be individuality based on personal autonomy which reflects self-worth.’ But as with Sedna’s passage through other signs, this Sedna period will ‘mask’ itself - try to ride above the level of inner conflicts - through the oppositional sign: Scorpio.

The mid-1960s was the heart of the ‘sexual revolution,’ replete with all the pluses and minuses, medical and otherwise. Even though ‘sex sells’ has been an eternal thing, in every year since the 1960s, most cultures have seen an influx or increase of sexual liberation. Of course there are those who walk the road of Scorpio sexual repression too - ultra conservatives, religious and otherwise, would fit in this group.

We have also seen an evolution and revolution in social economics and the debt/credit system (all Scorpionic manifestations) and a materialism which in the past decade has moved from simple having it/enjoying it to a distinct ‘keeping up with the (insert name)’s’ sort of competitive materialism which, along with the rise in body modification and enormous emphasis on looks amounts to an attempt to build self worth on the basis of what others think of you on the surface - physically or in terms of your lifestyle.

It’s all alienation - a mask we wear for others in order to try not to see the insecure state of our Self and self-worth. In the end, we cannot take our value from what others think of us. When the door closes and we all lay down and close our eyes at night, we know who we are. And if someone has admired us for the results of our plastic surgery or the label inside our shoes, if someone thinks we ‘have it made’ because of where we live, how we live or what we drive…when we lay in bed at night we realize how much they don’t know.

And that is the sound of our Sedna, calling to us from our emotional depths.

 Inuit Art...a serpentine mask

(photo credit Ansgar Walk, February 2005)

Sedna in Taurus – in many ways – would seem to be Sedna in its sign of rulership. As yet, astrologers haven’t gone through assigning sign dignities to the many new points discovered in the past 10-15 years. But when it comes down to tackling this task, don’t surprised if Sedna ends up being ‘in rulership’ in Taurus and ‘in detriment’ in Scorpio – Taurus’ polarity sign.

This is a commentary on Sedna. Sedna isn’t supposed to spell ‘happy days’ for us as humans. Sedna is a testing point to see how human we can be and become.

Back when Sedna entered Taurus (in May 1966), Pluto (marker of generations) was at 15 Virgo, conjunct Uranus and Pandora - and in opposition to Kallisto at 15 Pisces. This tells us that Sedna’s passage through Taurus was always going to be an innovative, plainly transformative, and unpredictable - even volatile time.

Which it certainly has been.

 

Pluto-Uranus-Pandora is also a very good symbolic image for the rise of technology, computers and the internet, replete with all their good and startling ability to show up the chinks in the human mind and behavior.

 

LINK TO ARTICLE ON PANDORA

Pandora is an as-yet little studied point. But the basics of the Pandora story are an eloquent commentary on our time: it’s full of surprises, opportunities, hassles and when, despite all, we still have a deep and abiding hope.

That hope may in the end be our guiding light to finding our Sedna. For those born under Sedna in Aries (prior to May 1966) the emphasis is on your self-worth as it relates to whatever you hold to be your values. For those born with Sedna in Taurus, the emphasis is on self-worth based on what you do with your life.

Sedna will leave Taurus and move on into Gemini as of June 16, 2023. And in case that rings a bell (as it did with me) that may be because Pluto will leave Capricorn and enter Aquarius on March 23, 2023 - even though Pluto will not commit to its transit of Aquarius until January 21, 2024...which for those who watch the news should ring a bell since 2024 is the 'end' date cited in the just-announced 'support' agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan.

Such things are pointers. And when they happen this far in advance they're a good indicator of many other things which will happen. In many ways, by many means, we can all expect a massive ‘turning of the emotional tide’ during in this 2023-2024 period. It will affect social collectives and individuals alike, moving us all into an era where slogans, ideas and dogmatic debates are likely to replace, or at least modify today's focus on money and sex and/or sexuality. Just as Sedna in Taurus has had many avoiding what it takes to find and maintain the integrity of self worth, so Sedna in Gemini will, in ways we probably can't see clearly from here, have many speaking without necessarily knowing, competing on a Sagittarian playing field which may well prize noise over knowledge and theory over priority. The 'anybody can say anything' we see today is likely to be  not just escalated, but embraced with fervency as a way to get around one's own lack of willingness to learn the real facts or develop intellectually.

One wonders how this will come about. And what will confront us so inordinately that before Sedna in Gemini takes hold we will finally be forced to recognize our missing Sedna in Taurus self worth.

Meanwhile, here we are in 2012 with Sedna, moving from 22 Taurus to 23 Taurus. Twenty-two Taurus is a degree all about the workings of destiny. When used as a lens for Sedna, it truly tests our ability to earn respect (and support our self worth and efforts to have a satisfying life) but being able and/or willing to take our satisfaction simply from the job well done…with the obvious glitch being Sedna’s ability to evoke the Taurean love of materialism. Liking nice things is fine. Needing them to validate your worth? That's rather Sedna.

23 Taurus itself pits our ability to balance self-confidence against arrogance. Considering that, these next few years are going to evoke, test, tumble and/or reward us - in great measure - depending on how ‘blind’ we are to our own weakness of self-worth.

Remember…this is not about what you want to think about yourself or what you want for yourself. It’s how you do feel about yourself and what that native unity with your deepest emotional (watery) spirit allows you to create and contribute to the lasting benefit of those around you and your world. 

That said, finally we get back to the 31.66 year thing - which is really metaphysics rather at its most esoteric. Thirty-one (plus) years ago was the latter part of 1980. And what was happening back then? Back then, Pluto was just moving over the very degrees (and fixed stars Arcturus and Polaris) Saturn is retrograding back towards and indeed will take a station atop in late June, 2012…in opposition to Eris.

This is all about being a leader in your own life and being/becoming willing to do what it takes to raise yourself to whatever your highest standards and qualities are. Saturn’s opposition to Eris from Libra (Saturn) to Aries (Eris) is a plain picture which can be roundly encapsulated as try, or suffer the consequences of not trying with a real emphasis on paying attention to problem areas in your life. Wherever you are having difficulties, they are not about ‘them’ they are about you and like as not, given the planetary picture these symbols set up with Sedna, what you are doing (or not doing), inclusive of the prioritization good or bad you currently have in place in your head…that’s all about your issues with self-worth.

Cycles are cycles. They come to us in waves and overlapping patterns. Back in 1980 the world experienced a solar eclipse at 18 Leo and that coincided with the great rise of wide-scale credit. Page forward to 2008 and we have another Leo solar eclipse - this one at 9 Leo. And that times out the crumbling of world economies.

Eighteen degrees of any sign is an emotional degree. 18 Leo speaks to what ‘feels good’ and indeed, people on both sides of the credit/debt line did exactly what felt good to them between 1980 and 2008. Then along came the 9 Leo eclipse. 9 Leo is a first decan degree.

Again, the decanate (or decan) rules: all degrees between 0 and 9 manifest physically. All second decanate degrees (those between 10 and 19) are where any sign manifests emotionally. All third decan degrees (degrees from 20 to 29) are where those around us or the world reacts or creates situations we have to respond to.

We wanted to feel good about ourselves. We thought ‘stuff’ and money could ‘fix’ our inner lacks. Apparently it can’t. At the metaphysical level, the Sedna connection to the world-wide recession would seem to be all about that. Sedna finished crossing 15 Leo in the year 2000, making everything which happened after that the ‘trigger’ for the economic lesson which finally manifested with Sedna at 21 Taurus.

 

Why do we care about 15 Leo? We care about 15 Leo because it is one of four zodiacal ‘cross-quarter’ points.

 A diagram of the zodiac's four cross-quarter

points (in red)

These points - all of which occur in fixed signs - represent where we need to move (and yes, probably with some reluctance or trepidation) from the learning phase embodied by each zodiac quadrant into the application phase where we experience possible consequences.

And that stirs up all sorts of insecurities - said insecurities probably being the hinge upon which our fated Sedna conflict pivot.

Note here: that we are fated to face our Sedna problem is one thing. But to those who say there is no such thing as Free Will please remember: it's up to you whether you tackle your challenges or not. And that choice - to try or not try - either way, that constitutes Free Will.

So it is with all things, throughout life.  

The good news here is that Leo is a second quadrant sign and the second quadrant has a ‘localized’ quality. It’s not ‘just me’ - it’s ‘me and my family’ or ‘me and my friends and school mates.’ But it’s plainly not worldly. So the ‘up’ side is that though the economic recession was a global factor, it was localized by country.

On the other hand, that does allow for a lot of finger pointing and not tending to one’s own national issues because ‘they’ are so much worse off, right? Dealing with the difficulties and truths-behind-the-mask in your own back yard (or personal life) is so much more difficult, more scary, more insecurity provoking than pointing out someone else's flaws...particularly if you can feel better off by comparison.

The recession occurring with Sedna at 21 Taurus gives us a degree for which the Sabian Symbol is ‘a carrier pigeon fulfilling its mission.’

That was Sedna - the metaphysical Sedna 'speaking' to us through manifesting as a component in the time/space machinery which is Existence.

And Sedna is still out there, trying to evoke in us the understanding that to feel complete, we have to be willing to own our own feelings.

Have we gotten the message? 

Marie Antionette: A Head of State, Lost

 The Dauphin of France's Coat of Arms

  

Once upon a time, a little girl was born in Austria. 

And because mommy was Maria Teresa, Empress of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and ruler of all the Hapsburg dominions ...

 Emperess Maria Teresa in 1727 (at age 10) 

by Andreas Moelier

 

...and because daddy was Francis Stephen I,  Holy Roman Emperor of Austria and Grand Duke of Tuscany...

 

 Francis I of Austria in 1745 (at age 37)

as painted by Martin van Meytens

....that meant that this little baby girl was a princess!

Her name was Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, Archduchess of Austria, and she was born on November 2, 1755.

Marie Antoinette

And from the moment she was born, she was hardly ever alone! Back then, half the court was allowed into the Royal Bedchamber to watch the Empress give birth. It was something Empress Marie Teresa really didn't like. So in inimitable Empress style, she did away with it - the minute she would go into labor everyone would show up in her royal apartments and she would start having them royally shown the door. 

This wasn't actually the only thing this royal couple changed about Austria. Not particularly fond of pomp and circumstance and the hoidy-toidy of courtiers, when official things needed to be official they stayed official. But when situations didn't demand it, this Francis and wife Marie Teresa liked to dress more casually. They liked to have 'regular' folks around - not just titled members of aristocracy.

But that isn't to say they really 'mixed' with the outside world. Nor did it mean Francis and Marie Teresa weren't seriously into the business of monarchy. Francis was serious about keeping things basically pretty kingly and royal. And Marie Teresa? Of no mind to wait a couple of centuries for woman's lib and female equality, Marie Teresa went about building alliances and occasionally ticking off other countries royally - maybe just so she'd have more alliances to build and cement. It's hard to know with some monarchs.

And all that concreting of alliances - how did she do that? 

She did it in the time-honored manner of her day: by having children and finding "suitable" (politically advantageous) partners to marry. In other words, one big reason for having little princes and princesses was so she could marry them off and use them as living treaties and tokens of alliance with other nations.

How motherly, right?

And so ambitious was dear mamma that by the time Maria Antonia was born, she had lots of brothers and sisters...she was the fifteenth of sixteen children.

And though no one surely knew it then...she would, in the end, be by far the most famous of them all. If yes, for all the wrong reasons.

The story is rather fascinating. And it's actually very sad. It's about a time when rulers of countries didn't care about much about their people. If the people were okay enough to pay their taxes, that was in many (if not most) cases, good enough for 18th century royals.

The story is about a way of life where parents thinking of children as political tools and chattel was common and totally accepted. Did some think of their kids as the sweet, precious treasures we think of them today? Of course! Some people are simply born to be great parents.

But even those parents lived in a day when marriages were arranged. When it was common to think of the simplest forms of education as totally unnecessary. When parents could be commanded to turn over a child to a monarch who might in passing see them and decide they would make a handsome groom or maid.

Into this world Maria Antonia was born. And when she was born she was by all accounts healthy and cute - you know, your normal adorable baby!

From which cradled spot she grew up to be Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. Ill-equipped to understand the world around her, she lost her way and in the end, lost her head - the hard way.

It got cut off.

Marie Antoinette in French court dress
painting by Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun

 The story actually starts off in a very nice place - Castle Schoenbrunn, family seat of the Hapsburgs. This was the residence most favored by Francis, Marie Teresa and the sprawling family and court.

Castle Schoenbrunn - the Palace of the Hapsburgs 

where Marie Antoinette grew up

Yet even in such beautiful surroundings, life was far from perfect. For one, Maria Antonia's mother - the Queen - had little personal interest in her little one; her daughter would grow up to describe her relationship with her mother as one of "awe-inspired fear" with the accent on the 'fear' part.

Mother was far more interested in one of Maria Antonia's older sisters - Archduchess Maria Christina, who in sharing mom's birthday evidently got the typical astrological benefit most of us would think of as regal mom and royal daughter 'having some things in common.'

All this - the non-motherly mother part in particular - is etched in Maria Antonia's chart by an interception in her 10th house at the top of the chart...the 10th more and more being come to be seen by astrologers as the house of the mother, since mom is the one who generally sets the 'how we are to act in daily life' (Saturn-Capricorn) rules and standards for most kids.

Dad and 'the family' as a unit are 4th house...and with Maria Antonia, one's pretty much as bad as the other. Why? Because to have an interception in the 10th automatically means the other half of the interception will be in the 4th.

It's pretty much why bad parents come in pairs. Even if one's totally the monster and the other is co-dependent, they're still a pair. And to the child... even if they get married, figure out they can't STAND each other and divorce - to their children they are still (and eternally) mom and dad. In the child's chart, there are two bio-parents and that's that. 

So back to the mom/10th house thing. In this overbearing mother/10th house department we have an intercepted South Node. Given that the South Node is always 'the easy thing to do,' intercepted we have a picture of a child who not only is inclined to cooperate (as opposed to face possible consequences) but a child who pretty much has no other options. Whatever they are handed, they accept - good, bad, poor...or in this case royally rich and entitled, a status which set Maria Antonia apart from her world. That 'different' sort of life is her Uranus in 10, but again, it's intercepted - which makes sense. After all, she got born into a family which was already royal.

Last item in this interception...is Sedna, the symbol of our need for maturation, our struggle with becoming our own person regardless of what we are told by our parents, what our upbringing is/was - and in Maria Antonia's case, despite her having grown up in a family which didn't care about her first and last as a person, since obviously (at least to her mother) she was in part an asset to be used by the Royal State (her parents) as a means by which politics of the day could be advanced  and/or operated. 

With interceptions meaning 'there's no getting out of it' Maria Antonia had no way out of what she was born into and what she was born to be and become. She would never learn what the 'regular' world was about - which left her open to the criticisms of people dealing with life struggles Maria Antonia would never face or really understand.

Bottom line, Sedna in the 10th, here conjunct Uranus (her life "separate" from the real world) in an uncomfortable inconjunct with fanciful Neptune in the 3rd house of mentality gives us a picture of a Royal child...and in time, woman...who was charming yes. But realistic? No. Fully informed? Not hardly. Yet she was a royal female of her day...so what she need with maturity?

Some people still think that way. For them, we have articles - like this ARTICLE ON SEDNA.

In the end, Sedna will prove emblematic of Maria Antonia's downfall - and with the 10th and top house of the horoscope being our most 'public' house, well it should. We see her through a prism of history, through a kaleidoscope of our own feelings about privilege, isolation and a distant past we think of romantically and yet with some disdain.

But meanwhile, there was Empress Mom, a woman who thought so little (or infrequently) of or about her little princess that by the time she was 12 (and getting betrothed to the future King of France) Maria Antonia could barely read or write properly in German, her native language. She was evidently some better with French though - that being because French (not German) as the language of the Austrian court.

What she did learn were manners and things thought useful to women of the time...her carriage was graceful and she was an excellent dancer, her style much admired and praised. She was also quite  talented with the playing of the harpsichord and was often prevailed upon to play for others, who took great delight in the young princesses musical abilities, all of which were such positive manifestations of her Neptune in 3 - the ability of the mind to suspend conscious ego in the freeing of artistry and talent.

 Thought to be either of German or Austrian of mid-17th century

make, the harpsichord shown above is probably much like

that played by Marie Antoinette

(displayed in the Courtauld Gallery)

  
But all this was to change. 1761 and 1762 were both marred by the death of siblings by smallpox timed out in detail with oppositions by Jupiter and Uranus to Maria Antonia's 5th house Libra Jupiter (emblem of her well-heeled childhood and all her fun times as a child). With natal Jupiter conjunct Sabine, she had been both captivated in her captivity and forced into isolation from others - that being the Libra part. 

Smallpox put and end to that, and that the overarching transits here were Pluto (emotional transformations) sextiling her Midheaven (view of life) and opposing Maria Antonia's ill-placed Eris-Medea was the onset of reality.

And once reality began imposing its chilling effects on her life, life would never be the same - which is exactly what Pluto does in astrological terms: the emotional experiences we undergo during Pluto transits change us, forevermore.

Smallpox would plague the family from 1761 through 1767, killing two of Maria Antonia's siblings and afflicting the formerly robust health of her mother.

Even more important than all this however, was the death of her father. Francis, Holy Roman Emperor of Austria, dies in 1765 when his daughter Maria Antonia is only 12 years old.

Astrologically, this is again Jupiter, which would have reached its first return point when Maria Antonia was 11.6 years old. That's the end of the first major period of human grown - self realization, we might call it.

That this loss was her father and that it was an enormous blow to the still young girl is told to us by the Solar eclipse of that summer hitting the bottommost point in her chart - the IC or Nadir. Her inner, foundational world had been blown apart. Neptune sextiling her Ascendant tells us she felt helpless and confused.

And that Eris (discord) was also trining a natal Vesta, signature of service, which is in this little girl's chart positioned right close to that IC/Nadir if on the 'I need to think in these terms' side? 

It all made perfect sense as mom took the reins of state into her imperial, Empress hands.

 Empress Marie Teresa of Austria in 1759 (at age 38)

as pained by Martin van Meylens

In a world of politics forged by marriage and with mom needing to cement alliances with Russia, Naples, Parma and Austria's enemy France in the wake of the Seven Years' War, the timing was perfect. For those times, Maria was all the woman she needed to be to be profitable (Jupiter) to others (Libra) by who she could be made to swear to serve both at a national and familial level (Vesta/IC).  

So it was that as a Lunar Eclipse hit Maria Antonia's Sedna (her maturity point) and Uranus (sudden changes) - both of which are 'captured' (intercepted) in her 10th house of marriage and all worldly, social doings, the mom so emblematic both of Austria as a sovereign state and so much in charge of Maria Antonia's rather 'intercepted' life...mom made all the arrangements: Maria Antonia would be married off to her second-cousin-once-removed, Dauphin Louis Auguste of France. 

As a little token of same, a miniature was painted of the future bride and sent off to the prospective hubby...

 The miniature portrait of the barely-teenaged Maria Antonia

which was sent to Louis to show him his future bride

- painting by Joseph Ducreaux

What young Louis August said when he saw the tiny painting of his future wife isn't recorded (or at least admitted to). There is in fact, every chance that he didn't even pay much attention to it, being far more interested in hunting, lock-smithing  and playing with model trains.

Whatever the case there however, as the North Node (that we have to do) came into position to sextile (interact with) Maria Antonia's learning-what-I-like-to-do Jupiter, obligation (North Node) won out and Maria Antonia obliged by allowing (sextile) herself to be married (by proxy) to Louis - who was physically still in France.

It must have been an interesting affair. Maria had just finished three months of oral surgery. Given there was no such thing as anesthesia as we know it in that day, she must have been happy to turn up and get the nod of approval from French representatives - the French having required this dental repair as part of the marriage deal, proving that France was ever a place where good looks were not only in fashion, but pretty much de rigure.

Thus with a 'beautiful and straight' smile, Maria Antonia went into a the Church of the Augustine Friars and, with brother Ferdinand standing in for the far-away Louis Auguste, she was married.

And thus she became Marie Antonette, Dauphine of France. 

Delivery to the French was made in early May under a shower Uranus transits showing Marie Antonette to be nervous, curious, being made to deal with strangers and probably above all, being made to leave all she had known.

Already married to him, Marie meets Louis on May 14th...

 Louis Auguste, Dauphin of France in 1776 at age 20

- painting by Joseph Siffred Duplessis

 ...and from there they proceed to a grand ceremonial wedding at Versailles...

 

 A modern panoramic picture of the central palace

which is Versailles - photo credit: Samuli Suomi

....after which off they go to the Royal Bedchamber, where the marriage is (of course!) supposed to be consummated.

Signified by 'this is what I was brought up to be' Vesta/IC conjunct a reluctant Cancer Mars, Marie probably wasn't enthralled with the prospect of sex with her new husband. And considering that as many a report would bear out he was less tickled than most with the idea of sex in general, it isn't surprising that the couple failed to...rise to the occasion in setting about their 'royal duty' to begin making heirs.

And that's where much of the troublesome rumors which would in time spout, grow and flourish all  started.

But for a time, the French populace was at least pretty happy with their new Dauphine. When Marie made her first royal appearance at the Tuileries in Paris, even royal watchers nodded in approval. With the occasion marked on her chart by a Lunar Eclipse conjunct Pluto, Eris, Tantalus and Medea, Marie herself probably thought it all a bit much, if something she knew she had to endure with as much grace, charm and enthusiasm as could be mustered.

And yet...that same set of symbols - the intense surge of sudden adoration (Pluto/Eris), enchanted admiration and love (Tantalus/Medea) - all that the  public suddenly felt for their new princess, those were exactly the qualities which would eventually turn on her. In the end, Pluto/Eris would be the violent loathing of the crowd, demanding her execution. Tantalus/Medea would accuse Marie of terrible crimes - everything from siphoning money off to her homeland of Austria to threesomes with ladies of the French court and even incest with her son, the one charge Marie Antoinette respond to by refusing to respond directly saying: "If I have not replied it is because Nature itself refuses to respond to such a charge laid against a mother."

But all that was still years away. In the meantime, there was the French court to deal with. Though she wasn't herself fond of the current king's powerful mistress Madame du Barry and though the King's own daughters hated daddy's mistress, Marie Antoinette knew that she had best be courteous.

Madame du Barry, mistress of King Louis XV

- portrait by Francois-Hubert Drouais

So as Pallas squared her Sun on New Year's Day 1772 she knew (Pallas) that she needed (square) to say something and be polite if merely to preserve herself (Sun).

And though the polite remark 'there are a lot of people at Versailles today' was certainly begrudged, it broke the ice. Du Barry was placated, the King calmed down and in time, Marie figured out that not all powerful women were as bad as her mother.

Another form of Pallas square Sun, yes: we face the challenge and through the challenge learn better.

Yet there was still the problem of no royal intimacy. To ease her feelings of rejection - and with a Sagittarius Juno in the 6th conjunct the critical 29 Sagittarius 7th house cusp we may assume one of Marie's problems (at least to begin with) was sheer sexual ignorance (Sedna intercepted in 10 as her mother having failed to properly educate her daughter in 'womanly matters') - to ease her feelings, Marie Antoinette took to gaming and gambling...and increasingly to indulging herself in pretty clothes and a 'pretend' land where she could have what she imagined a 'normal' life.

The pretty clothes matter has long been expected of royal women...and when they are loved, all eyes devour such beauty with rapturous pleasure! But when things get bad? Then every royal woman in history has been accused of excess. It's just the way things work and this double edged sword in Marie Antoinette's chart is perfectly pictured by her intense (critical degree) Gemini Ascendant - specifically that it's ruled primarily by a Sagittarian Mercury in the 6th, if also colored by Neptune fantasies from the mental 3rd.

Mercury is highly functional in the 6th, if very hasty and 'over-the-top' in Sagittarius. So when things were good for Marie Antoinette, she was the darling of the court and populace. But once people turned against her...?

This is all made worse by her Mercury being conjunct Ixion. So yes, excess will be required of Marie Antoinette, and yes, that helpers, servants and the court egged her on? Mercury as symbol of communication in the 6th house of helpers, service people and subordinates  would be the court supporting her...and gossiping behind her back, too! Throw in Ixion and we get the image of someone who was taught from birth that was actually part of her job to look better than the rest (thanks, mom).

And having had the French literally have this drilled into her with all that dental work prior to the marriage probably didn't help. The 6th being the house of health and Mercury/Ixion thus also the critique of her natural teeth would have hurt Marie Antoinette's confidence. Even once her teeth were fixed that sense that she could at any moment become the object of criticism...and that she had been sent from where she was accepted into this land of critique to do the job of being married to Louis?

It all had to be a terrible emotional stew from which came desperate (Mercury-in-Sag) efforts to 'fit in' and 'measure up' and of course the inborn sense of entitlement that her 'job' (station in life) gave her the right to dress in finery and so as she pleased.

Which was all well and good...until it wasn't, that is. And once it wasn't, then the gifts of office became the Queen's arrogance, sense of entitlement and  extravagance with the public treasury.

It all would have been made vaguer, grander, more lustrously beautiful and ultimately more obscene for her, for all who beheld her and for those who simply loathed her with Neptune - the ideal against the disappointment - in the mental 3rd. What had begun as her mother's neglect to teach Marie Antoinette to be intelligent instead of immature (Sedna) and fanciful (Neptune) became the combination; an immature inability to cope with life's realities.

For more on Ixion, CLICK HERE. We all have one, after all.

This was also the time when Marie Antoinette developed her own retinue - her "posse," in today's terms. Given that platonic relationships are very much symbolized by ego-denying Neptune, to have Neptune in the 3rd would also suggest a whole cadre of friends which filled her hours, says and thoughts.

Unfortunately however, such friendships in a land of suspicion could also be taken otherwise - which they were. Later, the very friendships with women of the court who helped Marie Antoinette learn French ways and wile away the hours in the absence of anything real to do would turn into wild accusations of lesbianism.

Was she bisexual? That would see a hard thing to think, considering Marie's in-built fear of women (starting with her mother) and the Scorpio Venus ruling her house of fantasies.

Conjunct her Sun, Medusa (the fearful truth) and Kallisto (carnal cravings) in the 5th house of childhood, it's to be imagined that every part of Marie Antoinette wanted to be anything but her mother. Mother had been to her nothing if not a dominant female and mistress of abandonment edged mightily in control over Marie Antoinette's youngest years. Men? Men she probably mistrusted as well but then again, if you had to pick one, with Marie Antoinette men were probably the far, far preferred gender.

A whole other way to look at the layout of Marie's chart would be to use it to see her mother's life. And if looked at in that light, the chart of Marie Antoinette suggests that her mother (the Empress) was herself was emotionally compromised in the sexual arena. Perhaps dominated if not out-and-out brutalized by her husband? Perhaps. But that would mean the great Empress loathed and feared the man to whom she delivered sixteen children!

Could that be? Actually, yes. And if you ask why, one very large reason for acquiescing would be because of a threat coming from the religious realm. Question: as Holy Roman Emperor, did Francis  threaten to excommunicate and damn Marie Teresa's very soul?

We'll probably never know. But Marie Antoinette's chart says it could have been so.

What we do know is that as summer 1775 was coming into flower and the societal/social Lunar Nodes were  returning to where they were when Marie Antoinette was originally born, Louis XV fell ill. He died in May and on June 11, 1775, Marie Antoinette's husband was made King.

This didn't make much difference to the marriage, however. And Louis seemed perfectly okay with things as they were, gifting his wife with the Petit Trianon - a little present from the husband King, as it were...

 The gates of Versailles' Petit Trianon, where Marie Antoinette

would try to recreate the magical surroundings of her youth

Was this love or trying to keep his wife out of the way on Louis' part? Maybe a bit of both. Marie Antoinette certainly humored Louis' 'who me, bed you?' stances. and no matter what the French tabloids said about "l'Autrichienne" (that Austrian woman!) Louis was quite adept at avoiding anyone his wife suggested might be suitably appointed to just about any post you can name.

And about that nickname from the press? When things got bad it (probably predictably) morphed into something a wee bit harsher: l'Autruchiennenne - with the change of one vowel (the middle 'i' to a 'u') 'that Austrian woman' became ostrich (autruche) + bitch (as in female dog: chienne).

Never let it be said the French aren't artful about and with their language!

As for the child(less) situation, that became more problematic when in 1775 a sister-in-law gave birth to a widdle tiny baby duke - who, unless Louis and Marie got busy might well become the next King of France.

With Saturn (life's requirements) square (challenging) Marie Antoinette's Chiron (things I know I need to do that I don't quite know how to get done) and Jupiter (childhood) opposing (facing) natal Eris in 6 (discord in one's responsibilities), Marie plainly knew The Deed needed doing. But how to entice a husband more fond of trains than French lingerie to her bed?

On his side, Louis had his own 'headaches.' Not only was France still reeling under war debt from that Seven Years' War (with Austria) which his wife's mother had decided to tar-paper over in part by marrying France's son to Austria's daughter, but then there was this pesky thing going on with Great Britain's north American colonies. Given a long-standing animosity between Britain and France it was a no-brainer - France was going to side with the colonists, future Americans though they may be. France was good at holding off on critiquing other countries for everything from fashion to bad cooking and they could wait where the colonies were concerned too.

So France was a busy place and already much wracked with national debt by the time the latest Austrian Holy Roman Emperor (Marie's brother Joseph) shows up for a visit in April 1777.

Emperor Joseph II of Austria

painting by Anton von Maron

And who knows what got said, too. But with Jupiter (knowledge) connecting with Marie Antoinette's North Node (what needs to be done) and Ceres (what we must do to bring in the harvest) and necessity-provoking Chiron both in a face-off opposition to her Moon (womanhood and/or money and/or family), something about this visit got the ball(s) rolling, as come May of 1778 the Ceres harvest was on Marie's agenda and her Ascendant - she was confirmed as being pregnant.

The first child was a daughter: Marie Therese Charlotte. And with a solar eclipse on Marie Antoinette's Ascendant at the December 1778 birth (thus on her daughter's Sun-as-life) point, it's not to be shocked that the daughter would go on to get caught up in the French Revolution, nor that during birth Marie Antoinette collapsed in (yes) one of those packed 'standing room only' boudoirs full of people wanting to see the Royal Birth even though the mother was hemorrhaging at the moment.

Solar eclipses having a record for unfolding as lengthy, three year transits, it's unfortunate if not surprising to hear that Marie then miscarried in 1779, lost her own mother in 1780 and in October 1781 finally gave birth to the long-desired son: Louis Joseph Xavier Francois.

Everyone heaved a big sigh - a son...a future king had been born! And yet, you'd think someone would have asked (or listened to) some court astrologer: the birth of this son - like that of Marie Therese - had been marked by an eclipse. This being a Lunar Eclipse cross-collateralized little Louis' chart about as distinctly as the Solar Eclipse had marked his sisters chart. Maybe even more so, since he was the child marked to be King and the Moon is always the sign of populace and homeland - and it would be Louis' homeland and populace which came to hate him so, though still a child he was when all finally went up in flames.

And there is the point that with the Moon representing the body's absorption processes, a Lunar Eclipse around the time of birth often signals problems with a little one's health. This would be seen with Louis Joseph, who was never a very sturdy child.

Mom meanwhile, must have been missing home, since she started doing what her own parents had done: de-formalizing the court. Marie Antoinette wanted out of the heavy make-up and was done with the big hoop-skirted gowns, favoring something more of the countrified look she'd seen growing up.

 Marie Antoinette wearing a "plain muslin dress"  critics considered highly 'improper' for any queen to be wearing - painting by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun

Marie Antoinette in the garden wearing another

'informal' dress, flanked by her children Marie-Therese

Charlotte and the Dauphin, Louis Joseph

- painting by Adolf Ulrich Wertmuller

Apart from the 'plus' of having given the nation an heir and the 'minus' of her departures from approved fashion, Marie Antoinette had other troubles too. Brother Joseph, for instance, had provided some sort of assist in the 'get on with the having kids' thing only to then go off and stir up military trouble against French interests.

And in a world where gossip was caloric intake, that wasn't good for his sister Marie Antoinette - to say nothing of what was actually going on (as evidently demonstrated in correspondence) between Imperial Bro of Austria and Queenly Sis of France. Joseph accused Marie of being politically inactive and therefore highly ineffective - for his purposes, of course. And she replied that she was not privy to the King's political views, nor was it advisable to be seen as being influential: "Would it be wise of me to have scenes with his (Louis') ministers over matters on which it is practically certain the King would not support me?" 

No, Marie Antoinette saw her role as being more about raising her children, seeing to their education and when she could, retreating to her little hameau - a real village hamlet created amidst the gardens of the Petit Trianon complete with a mill and a dozen cottages.

  Belvedere, one of the hamlet 'cottages' set amidst

the gardens of the Petit Trianon

When she wasn't busy watching village bread being baked and overseeing her children's lessons, the Queen was reading historical novels and indulging her 'scientific interest' in hot air balloons. She was fascinated by the philosophy of Rousseau and Inca  culture, sought out tutors in English and even began a pen-pal sort of correspondence with the Duchess of Devonshire - no doubt discussing the making of good cheeses and such.

But her children remained Marie Antoinette's greatest focus. As 1784 rolled through, the health of her son the Dauphin was hardly robust and Pluto squaring Marie's Sun told a tale of her concerns for his health. And, if truth probably be told, her health if he didn't survive, which considering the times was a very real consideration.

So she and King Louis got busy again, and as March 1785 was just about to end, son Louis Charles was born, probably to great joint parental elation. With Sedna square Eris (immaturity challenging discord) Marie cooed over her new little one and the wrong ears heard: questions began to fly as to exactly who the father of this new little royal actually was.

The other side of Sedna - that of feeling separate and separated from the life you really want - is probably all about Marie Antoinette's happiness at her second son, a far healthier boy than the first. She may have also longed for a big family like that she grew up in. Manifesting oftentimes as the wishes and hopes we cling to without really realizing how to achieve them, Marie Antoinette spent most of her fairly short life trying to find or construct somewhere she felt 'at home.'

She probably never did, never could and didn't know how to even get there. Virtually confined by royal privilege from birth, hers was probably the quintessential life in which happiness could not be really felt because she had no toil or basic challenges to use as a baseline. So when Louis Charles was born she celebrated by buying a chateau, intending to give it to her children.

The French public took note - for all the wrong reasons. The country was in debt and the Queen was buying a chateau to give to baby children?

Then of course came the infamous 'Diamond Necklace Affair' - a little debacle which had everyone buzzing that the Queen was trying to defraud the crown jewelers, regular Frenchmen just trying to do an honest job. True or not true, the image of Marie Antoinette was souring; that she was even part of the French royal scene was becoming more and more of an irritation to the people.

 The Jebuton reproduction of the famous 'diamond necklace'

which so contributed to the marring of Marie

Antoinette's reputation with the French people.

After the necklace affair, things got no better. In 1786 a daughter - Sophie Helen Beatrice - was born, and died within the year. 

The French monarchy was dying too. Between internal strife, external politics and an inability to pass fiscal reforms the very ship of French state looked ripe to sink.

All this was happening as yet another Solar Eclipse was hitting Marie Antoinette's chart. This time positioned at her Ascendant, it did was Solar Eclipses do, brought about a 'breakdown.' And on the Ascendant, this would be a breakdown of all she would try to be and do - and a breakdown of everything she got involved in.

Could that be a good thing? Possibly yes. If your chart is well formed and the Ascendant is well ruled and well aspected, we might think you were going to do a great deed. Even cure some rancid disease. But this just wasn't the case in Marie Antoinette's case: with a critical degree 29 Gemini Ascendant ruled by an  overblown Sagittarius Mercury sitting with the entitlement 'limited vision' of Ixion in the 6th house of responsibility? The natal position/rulership combination is a bomb. Then along comes the solar eclipse, which inserts a fuse into said bomb.

Then we add in Eris (discord) opposing Marie Antoinette's Part of Fortune: everything happening to disrupt (Eris) what she has to do in the moment (Part of Fortune). PLUS Neptune was trining her Eris - a signal of Neptunian veils as situations (or mindsets) which made it nigh unto impossible for Marie Antoinette to recognize the full and nasty scope of what was going on - or how she was making things worse for herself. That Eris, goddess of discord was also in this moment in trining league with the Queen's calculated Lilith - the emblem of societal disapproval? AND that Saturn (responsibility, government, one's times and time in life) were peaking, hitting the most public place in Marie Antoinette's chart?

This is the match being struck and applied to the fuse shoved deep into the bomb. It was only a sizzling matter of time before the blast would come.

And come, it did. On July 14, 1789 the French people rebelled. A mob stormed the Bastille.

 The Storming of the Bastille

- painting by Jean Pierre Houel

Did Marie Antoinette know her time had pretty much come? Pluto (emotional transformation) was squaring Marie Antoinette's calculated Lilith - the Black Moon of negative public opinion. Pallas (knowing) was united Eris (discord) - as was Ceres, the symbol of what we have sown, so do we reap.

 Maybe she saw herself as one of the causes of the revolt. More likely she saw herself as exactly what she was - a product of excessive times for some and impoverished privileges for others which had finally run its course.

On October 5th, the mob descended on Versailles. The King and Queen were escorted to Paris and locked up in the Tuileries. And there they stayed while the country raged and virtually tore itself apart fro two long years until in June 1791, the family tried to escape.

It didn't work. Vesta opposition Pluto on Marie Antoinette suggests she either was or felt betrayed by those sworn to serve her - and within 24 hours the Royals were back in custody. Political opponents called for the end of the monarchy in France, insisting that people so cowardly as to run should hold no power.

The Revolution surged on. A new constitution was adopted on September 3, 1791 - with Marie Antoinette hoping it would fail. All she knew was the rights and life of royalty; she thought democracy unworkable. Maybe, she thought...just maybe it was all going to be okay. Her brother Leopold II was now Emperor of Austria. Maybe he would find some way to quash those nasty revolutionaries!

 Leopold II, Emperor of Austria, with his family

- painting by Johann Zoffany

 Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (son of Leopold II),

who succeeded his father in March 1792, just in

time to receive France's declaration of war

- painting by Ludwig Streitenfeld

Alas, no. An aggressive politician in his own right (never mind what so often proves true when it comes down to family affection versus historical power), Leopold was more interested in how to possibly use French unrest to his (national) advantage rather than anything else.

To make things more complicated, Leopold dies just as hostilities are whipping into a froth. So it's his son - Francis II - the latest Holy Roman Emperor of Austria who is sitting in the royal hot seat when in

April 1792 France declares war on Marie Antoinette's native country.

Marie Antoinette, by now, is well vested in being French - the reasons for which were like as not still clustered about her feet reading books and playing with their expensive, royal toys. But her image suffers nonetheless. The French see her at that Austrian woman and with France now at war with Austria, she's one of THEM. 

To make things worse, Louis is still (of course!) fighting for his royal rights (not to mention his Royal Life)...during that summer, as French troops are getting their French fannies handed to them by blisteringly feisty Austrians, Louis vetoes several measures which might have helped the army - but which would have done so at cost to royal power.

Saturn - restrictions, governance, punishments, earning what you get (good or bad) and the reality of Reality - was at that point squaring Marie Antoinette's natal 8th house Saturn. Always a symbol of her difficulties with others, now it manifested in the public blaming her for her husband's choices as Parisians (and others) start calling her 'Madame Veto.'

On June 20th of that same year came the next literal blow - a terrifying mob breaks into the Tuileries. Louis is able to appease them, but just barely and only temporarily. The mob returns less than a fortnight later and forces the family to seek refuge at the Legislative Assembly. That sanctuary lasts barely an hour an a half - the Swiss Guards are massacred and the family is removed from what has been  relatively genteel house arrest in the Tuileries to the unpleasant realities of harsh confinement.

Trining Marie Antoinette's Midheaven - her image of the world - Neptune's famously awful power to symbolize the dissolving and dissolution of things we think so real marks this terrible time.

A week later, with cries of the Queens selfish lack of consideration for everything French being shouted in the streets, the family's attendants are taken away for interrogation, forcing Marie Antoinette to - for perhaps the first time in her whole life - take care of herself and her family. Sedna is at Marie Antoinette's South Node: her having had an 'easy time' hits home with a literal vengeance as she learns her dear friends and faithful household companions have been killed. Their heads are impaled on pikes and paraded outside the prison windows.

On September 21st, the end of the French monarchy has arrived. Pallas (wisdom) conjuncts Marie Antoinette's Sedna (our unwillingness or incapacity to grow up). Was she scared? Yes - very. But like as not, she also didn't yet conceive of what others could think of doing to her.

She soon learned. Separated from his family, Louis was charged with undermining the First French Republic and found guilty. He would be executed in January, 1793 at age 38 - guilty of having been born the son of a King.

Eris - discord - conjuncted Marie Antoinette's reality (Saturn) the day her husband was killed. It was also the day when the North Node would once again conjunct it's natal position...the same signal which had marked Louis' coronation.

Did she love him? Servile Vesta, positioned at Marie Antoinette's foundational IC, on that day merged with Venus - all which is brought to us and made real in our life. He had become her world...and now Louis was gone.

Once King Louis was dead, there was a debate about what to do about his wife and children. Ultimately, eight-year-old Louis Charles was taken from his mother and given into the care of a cobbler. Neptune trining Marie Antoinette's Ascendant was the disappearance of her love, her connection with hope, and probably her faith in life itself.

On August 1st she was taken from the tower and assigned to the Concierge as Prisoner Number 280. Uranus inconjuncted Saturn...change was rejected for resignation. The Queen was done fighting.

The Revolutionary Tribunal of October 14 was greatly a joke. Conducted by misogynistic Jacobians, it was mostly a moment to accuse Marie Antoinette of everything from sending money to Austria to plotting the death of a rival Duke to orchestrating the massacre of the Swiss Guards to incest with her son.

There was some protest - and some unexpected support from commonplace women who in the end recognized that Marie Antoinette was simply a woman...not some royal ghoul.

But the cards had been dealt, the trial's outcome rather surely pre-determined. On October 16th, after only two days of proceedings Marie Antoinette was declared guilty. Her keepers arrived and cut off all her hair, she was put in an open cart and driven across the city and at 12:15pm, Marie Antoinette was publicly executed in the Place de la Revolution - today's Place de la Concord.

An odd statement that...as a word, 'revolution' is a very long way from 'concord.' The former is violent and bloody, the latter intellectual and peaceful.

But then, if there's anything mankind doesn't like to think about, it's just how inhumane humans can be to other humans in the name of goodness and equality.   

 Today's Place de la Concorde...then,

Place de la Revolution (Paris, France)

  

Marie Antonette's first son - the presumed Dauphin of the discarded monarchy - died in prison at age 14. He was guilty of nothing except having been born a royal son.

Marie-Therese Charlotte, Marie Antoinette's daughter, was finally turned over to Austria in a prisoner exchange. She married and died childless in 1851.

Originally tossed into unmarked graves, the bodies of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were exhumed on January 18, 1815 and given a fitting Christian burial at the Basilica of St. Denis.

 Originally a Benedictine monastery, the Cathedral of

Saint-Denis became the final resting place for

Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI during the 

Bourbon Restoration. 

photo credit - Beckstet/2005

 

Two last pieces of business before we close here. One is the famous 'let them eat cake' comment attributed to Marie Antoinette. Often quoted as an 'example' of how foolishly silly and uncaring she was, this seems an odd judgment considering Marie Antoinette probably had little idea (if any) of what it meant to live hand to mouth or count your pennies.

Beyond that, there appears to be no real evidence that she ever said such a thing. The original statement is this - it comes from the writing of Rousseau: 'Enfin je me rappelai le pis-alle d'une grande princess a qui l'on disait que les paysans n'avent pas de pain, et qui repondit: Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.'

Even if you don't speak French, it's easy enough to see that while there is a reference to 'princess,' no 'princess' is actually named. With Rousseau (like many philosophers) being prone to fanciful scenarios we are left to wonder. 

But cake? 'Qu'ils mangent de la brioche' does not mean 'let them eat cake' - brioche is a bread (and yes, I speak French).

  Et voila - brioche!

The very last thing...a perhaps sobering concept: the story of Marie Antoinette revolves in her personal chart greatly around the symbol of Eris Discord. And this is more than apropos when one thinks of the French Revolution - it was bloody discordant indeed!

Don't know enough about Eris? CLICK HERE.

And if we look to the dotted line between Marie Antoinette and the Revolution, what we see is France: a nation which had expended so much on war that it couldn't afford to exist. In the end, the government imploded not because France the nation was conquered from without, but because it became  undermined from within, collapsing under its own overextended weight.

That's in the end how Eris works. Eris is not about what others do to us or who they are and whether we like them, believe them or believe as they do, it's about our ability to be either rational and not discordant - or the very embodiment of rationally discordance: the person willing to risk personal discord in the name of social/societal equanimity and equality.

Eris has an orbital period of 557.438 years. Granting this is a global transit, it seems worth contemplating that a quarter Eris cycle after America won its independence was when the world went into WWI. And that one quarter Eris cycle after the French Revolution brings us to the date of America's Great Depression - an event which like the recent economic downturn  was felt around the world. And how a quarter Eris cycle after Civil War and the United States launched its assault on Iraq.

Granted - the world is a naturally erratic place. But it seems just as obvious that Eris and its cycles matter.  Are we all pawns...? Or are we willing to accept that (to paraphrase the Bard...) the discord lies not in our stars, but in ourselves?

As this blog posts....it's November 2, 2010, the 255th anniversary of Marie Antoinette's birth. She probably wouldn't want us to lose our head over anything - so let's not.

Instead, let's wish her well and thank her for having left us the legacy of a life story which, in teaching us something, perhaps makes us all her children of spirit...which might be a gift to her as in the end it seems obvious that Marie Antoinette did very much want to be the good and caring mother her own mother wasn't to her.

And the lesson? There may be much to think about, but maybe the most important point is how privilege matters not at all if we have no idea what privilege really means.

Or is.