"The infant boy struggles against his father's hands, fighting the narcissistic father's desire to bind or murder him; and he struggles against the swaddling bands, fighting the narcissistic mother's desire to change him into what she wants. When the boy fails to get free...he learns to sulk... he becomes passive to his own hurts...." Robert BlySo it's been a while since I posted (a week is a long time for me). I've been dealing with filtering lots of info and trying to get a sense with what's appropriate for the site and of course there's plenty to talk about regarding the passing of Michael Jackson (Virgo) and I wanted to give the subject and Michael's passing a few days before commenting on him and what might be the meta-meaning, especially as it relates to astrology. I think enough time has passed to look at Jackson's passing from many angles. So let's shoot the rapids down the rabbit hole and see where we go.
On an archetypal level. one could easily predict that Michael was not long for this world. Whether it was a health or wealth issue, Jackson was living on borrowed time.
One of the most meaningful books I read in my early twenties was written by one of Carl Jung's proteges,
Marie Louise Von Franz. Von Franz started off as an assistant for Jung and eventually became a Jungian therapist and an important one in her own right. The book she wrote was
"Puer Ateernus" which loosely translates into, "Eternal Youth." In "Puer Aterenus" Von Franz uses two examples of prolonged adolescence in literature, the main and most important one being "The Little Prince" by
Antoine De Saint Exupery. In it, she weaves the story of "The Little Prince" with that of Exupery's own life and case studies of men who, in essence, refuse to grow up. Exupery was a pilot and spent a lot of time flying (not grounded) away from his wife and her mother, whom Exupery considered oppressive and meddling. In this flight from terrestrial responsibility, Von Franz saw a man who was not willing to confront the challenge of channeling his masculinity and dealing with the rigors of responsibility. She makes allusion after allusion that "The Little Prince" is in actuality Exupery himself and that their fates were intertwined.
Von Franz rejected the idea that Exupery was an artist, she claimed that he was not someone committed to the psychic rigors of being a dedicated and successful artist. She felt that Exupery at best was an auteur and at worst a dilletante, who simply played at being an artist, much in the same way a child would.
In many regards, this completely fits Michael Jackson's profile, everything from "Moonwalking" (not on Earth) to Capt. Eo, to Neverland (Peter Pan) he occupied the same flighty atmospheres as Exupery and his Little Prince. Michael was a puer incarnate. He avoided real intimacy much like Exupery, even though he had children (well sort of). While I don't want to disrespect the life of Michael, I'm not sure that he was a great artist. He didn't play anything, didn't really write much of his own material and was not heralded as a producer (that honor would go to Quincy Jones, Jackson's opposite, with Sun in Pisces). He was a performer, like the man whom he is most often compared to, Elvis Presley (Capricorn). He was one of the best, but he was not an artist along the same lines as say Prince (more on him later). In essence, Jackson fit the profile of the puer to a tee and his inability to ground himself in relationships and intimacy would doom him to the gravitational pull of the spirit realm, flight out of the body, escaping from the chains of this mortal coil.
Getting a fix on Jackson's chart is not easy.
Astrotheme has him as a Libra Rising, which would place his Moon, in Pisces, in his fifth house. Ellie at Crystalinks has Jackson's Moon in the 10th house, so getting a fix on Michael's stars is nearly as difficult as getting a fix on this plane. I'm okay with the Astrotheme chart as it has Cancer on Jackson's mid-heaven, which makes his 10th house, Leo and also makes total sense to me. There, in the 10th house, we find Uranus, Venus and Pallas, all projecting out into the world. Venus in Leo sextiled Jackson's ascendant. The love and adoration that he experienced on the world's stage, moved in a graceful flow towards Michael's projected self and then back again. The Venus/Leo circuitry creates a charismatic loop that fueled Michael's love from his fans and vice versa. it was a love affair that was tested often throughout Jackson's turbulent career. Uranus conjuncting his Venus in the 10th House illustrates the sudden and dramatic turns in his relationship with the public, with startling moments like Martin Bashir's revealing and at time startling interview, the child abuse/molestation cases/trials, etc. Shcoking details and events would be par for the course with Jackson throughout his life. Chiron in Aqurius in the fourth house speaks to Michael's shy and retiring nature, opposite Leo and his house of fame (Thanks Gloria!). It also speaks of a wounding of perhaps being exposed to mass media at a young age.
Jackson wrestled with fame and was hurt when he showed too much and starved when he got too little of it. But perhaps Michael's most telling planet on so many levels, was his Moon in Pisces.
Jackson's Moon in Pisces was in his 5th house, the house of children, creativity, romance and the father. In Michael's 5th house the relationship with Papa Joe is obscured by the Moon opposing Michael's Sun. All is not what it seems. Not only does it oppose his natal Sun, but also his natal Pluto. This is more than powerful--it's positively polarizing. What do we know about Jackson's relationship with his father and what don't we know?
It has long been established that Michael had been abused by his father. Michael himself had openly stated it. But to what extent? One of the the theories that's floating around deep, alternative, news sites, is that Papa Joe had had Michael castrated after the age of ten, so that Michael could keep his falsetto voice. Go back to the beginning of this piece and the whole concept of "The Puer" as exhibited by Exupery and "The Little Prince." If there's any truth to this terrible possibility, it would lend credence as to why Michael never grew up and felt more comfortable around children, since he would have been emotionally sealed off at the age ten when he would have been castrated. In essence, he would have been emotionally frozen in time. Factor in the opposition of The Sun and Pluto with his Moon, the darkness of the moon in house five, in Pisces, where all is not what it seems. But that isn't exclusive to Michael's life, but also extends into his death as well. Controversy surrounding his children, who they will live with, even the actual paternity of those children will also come into question. Then there's the meta-level.
While Michael died, titanic legislation was passed by congress as the world was stunned and mourning for Jackson.
"The Clean Air And Security Act" a 1200 page bill that hardly anyone in congress had read was passed. While CNN and Fox devoured every single morsel of Jackson's demise, this bill sailed by, mostly in anonymity. While there's layer upon layer of rules and bylaws in the bill, the bottom line is that people are going to be systemically taxed, everything from turning on their computers, to driving to work in order to fund this bill. Not only that, but it dramatically changes the economic and energy landscape in this country. One of the industries most affected by this is the coal industry, yet another of the last American industries that is being truncated and erased, thus taking more jobs and money out of the pockets of American workers. Say what you will about automobiles and coal, they're still two of the few industries that produce something in The USA. That means less jobs and dollars, yet again.
Some people might look favorably upon these events, but try telling that to a family in MIchigan or West Virginia, whose futures are considerably less clear than they have ever been before February. The party line is that sacrifices are going to need to be made and that these are the hard choices that are going to be "forced" upon the American people and that they have little choice in the matter.
Whether it was the stimulus bill, the government takeover of GM and now this bill, the current administration is quickly morphing into something resembling a deathstar, obliterating almost anything in it's path in order to achieve it's goal of establishing itself as the dominant force in politics and business, a corporacratic monolith that swells in power with each passing week.
Meanwhile, the public downloads Jackson MP3s (Sony thanks you) and waxes nostalgically, not just for the life of Michael, but for the innocence of the times that he represents. Those days with his passing, are officially over.
Tomorrow, is Mike Tyson's birthday and we'll have a look at him as wel as yet another glance at the life and death of Michael Jackson.
Editor's Note. This is breaking and heart breaking news, yet it relates to the Pisces Moon in The 5th House:
Jordan Chandler reveals that he lied to dig into Jackson's fortune.
