Gray
Active Member
Posts: 129
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« Reply #217 on: Jun 17, 2013, 08:02 pm » |
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Hello Rad and Group,
I also intend to continue participating in this thread, and apologize for not making this post sooner. I've run across a number of obstacles recently in process of trying to write something, and though it is not as in depth as I would have liked, I would at least like to post what I have at this point. Thank you for waiting for me, and if I have the time I may make a few modifications to what I have included below.
Investigating the placement of Venus in the birth chart of Charles Darwin through our “planetary method” means exploring the types of values that Darwin lived from and that influenced his beliefs about the meaning of life. As we have already discussed that the soul intention of Darwin was to investigate the ultimate meaning of life through his intuition, research, and rational scientific method, examining how his Aries Venus influenced his beliefs concerning the meaning of life is very important, as it would influence the way he carried out his scientific method and interpreted the results. With an Aries Venus at the very end of his third house, Darwin had an intense self motivated drive to expand his consciousness and awareness of mental concepts underpinning the nature of reality. This Venusian value system influencing the process of his research methodology goes back lifetimes, because his Aries Venus is the ruler of the South Node of his Moon in his 5th House. As a result his Aries Venus is a major clue to the nature of his past incarnations and their relationship to the life and work of his soul’s incarnation as Charles Darwin.
An Aries Venus can often be narcissistic and intensely focused upon fulfilling desires of the self, and this is clearly the case with the past life ego identities of Darwin as the South Node of the Moon his Venus rules is also in the 5th House, meaning his past life identities had a sense of themselves as being special, with an important destiny to fulfill. In addition his South Node of the Moon is in Taurus, again giving an emphasis toward focusing upon his own internal nature and self-resources as a means to fulfill his special sense of a grand purpose in life. Incarnating as Charles Darwin with an Aries Venus at the end of his third house means that he would again have an intensely narcissistic value system underpinning his beliefs and motivations, and that he would again have a pull toward getting his own way or using others for his own purposes. It also means that his own glamorized sense of this special purpose he had to fulfill in his lifetime would mean that it would be challenging to fully commit his entire being to another in relationship, for fear of losing himself through enmeshment. Thus he would have a fear of not being able to complete his important work as a result of putting the needs of others in relationship at least at the same level as his own desire to complete his purpose, or through somehow losing himself in the relationship and putting completion of his purpose at risk as as a result. So, for example in his marriage while he may have outwardly sustained a committed partnership, internally there would have been a part of him more removed and more independently focused upon his own intellectual pursuits.
However, since Darwin has a skipped step of an Aquarius Chiron squaring his lunar nodal axis and a Scorpio Uranus conjunct his North Node of the Moon, it also means that in past lives Darwin had also begun a process of evolutionary development. However, these symbols indicate that it oftentimes took a crisis, at times even a cataclysmic crisis of intense trauma, to basically force him to move out of his own self-preoccupation and evolve his consciousness forward toward a more objective understanding that there are countless other special people in the world who have just as much right as he does to follow and fulfill their own special purposes in life, as well as that by forming relationships with others he could combine with them toward a more collective purpose instead of his own specialized individual life purpose. In other words, in one way or another he would take his self-obsessed Aries Venus value system and find a way to use his special sense of purpose to serve the greater humanity and fulfill the collective needs instead of his own personal egocentric needs. The Uranus and 11th house signatures combined with Scorpio would also indicate an evolutionary purpose to objectify his intense soul desires and come to a greater wholistic understanding of his nature, ultimately helping him liberate himself from past limitations. Thus these birth chart symbols in totality indicate that Darwin incarnated with an Aries Venus again in order to have the self-focused drive to follow through with his special purpose (which truly was important because of the extraordinary impact it would make upon the consciousness of humankind), but that in this incarnation he would be provided with opportunities to make new choices that would lead to more of a balance between pursuing his own passions and purposes and being aware of the needs, purposes, and passions of loved ones and other fellow humans in his path. His soul coming into its incarnation as Charles Darwin from a series of traumatic lifetimes in which it experienced intense crises, and as Darwin displaying a repressed nature at times that could be interpreted as being frozen in a way from this past life trauma, one reason Darwin had a Venus in Aries was to give him such an intense focus on self and his impulsive desires that he couldn't help but be moved into action at times by his Aries value system in a manner that wasn't just about being obsessed with himself, it would also have the purpose of helping him recover his essential Self from limitations of past conditioning.
Furthermore, the intensity of his past life trauma is so extreme it was like Darwin was operating from a perspective of post-traumatic stress from birth, without even being aware of it. The fact that Chiron is his skipped step, and he was born over a century before the discovery of Chiron, is an additional symbol to me of how unconscious this trauma would have been for him. His birth chart symbols also indicate that in this lifetime he would again face crises and traumas to force himself out of his own bubble and gain greater awareness of the presence and needs of others- since his Aries Venus is conjunct his IC and his fourth house cusp, this issue became important with regards to the marriage and family he created. It has been brought up in this thread that his soul’s previous incarnation was as the famous sea explorer William Dampier, a man who achieved great fame for himself through navigating around the world and publishing written accounts of his adventures that brought him a great following of readers. Dampier had a progression of first being essentially a pirate who would have been focused upon taking from others in order to perpetuate his own survival needs, to eventually a celebrated explorer and author who also took advantage at times of indigenous people he met in order to parade them about society and increase his own fame in the process. Dampier also had to defend himself against charges of cruelty and abuse against members of his own crew, and as a man spending most of his time sailing around the globe, he of course would not have been much of a devoted family man or romantic partner. All of these historical fragments about Dampier lend themselves to a portrait of a man who put a lot of energy and focus into succeeding at his own endeavors and acquiring a great amount of knowledge for himself that he could communicate in a third house manner to the world. In contrast, we can see the placement of Venus in Aries being at the very end of the third house and conjunct the IC and fourth house cusp in the incarnation of Charles Darwin to be a symbol of how Darwin did make choices to sustain a committed marriage and to be part of the life of his children, even though at the same time he was obsessed with his own intellectual pursuits and communication with the world at large. His soul has a deep history of conflicts between home, family, and career pursuits, and in the life of Charles Darwin these conflicts were brought up in sharp relief.
Further information about the influence of previous lifetimes through the placement of Darwin’s Aries Venus can be seen in the fact that the South Node of Darwin’s Venus is in Capricorn in his second house, conjunct his natal Capricorn Moon, as well as the south nodes of Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn, Vesta, and Mercury. The second house placement of this South Node of Venus, as well as the fact his Aries Venus rules his South Node of the Moon in taurus, means that Darwin’s Venus has a deep connection with survival issues going back lifetimes, and the other planetary south nodes indicate his survival resources included his beliefs, communication and perceptual skills, and understanding of ultimate reality. As JWG has written, the archetype of Venus correlates with the archetype of survival in every Soul, however, in the case of Darwin this is an especially strong correlation, since the South Node of his Moon is in Taurus and ruled by his Aries Venus. The soul of Darwin had learned that it could rely upon it’s own internal resources, in particular it’s highly developed mind and communication skills, in order to survive and in some lifetimes even flourish with a degree of fame. However, other symbols associated with his second house, such as his skipped step of Aquarius Chiron squaring his lunar nodes, indicate that he also could have faced traumatic survival issues at times that led him to become even more fixated and locked into looking to himself in order to survive instead of being open to merging with others. Darwin’s strong Capricorn energy in his second house also indicates that the value system his soul developed across lifetimes became heavily conditioned by society, and with a Saturn in the 12th House conjunct Jupiter, also strongly conditioned by dominant religious thoughts and beliefs of the time. At the same time, however, with his evolutionary development in an 11th house direction already partially developed, and with an Aquarius Sun also in his 2nd house, another element of the value system of Darwin’s was that he had an intention to ultimately liberate himself from these conditioned values. Thus, he was a complex character who had highly conditioned values he was living from as well as a value system that led him to want to liberate himself from this same conditioning.
Indeed, part of the evolutionary intention of Darwin having an Aries Venus in his third house is simply the exact placement of Venus itself, as the north node of his Venus is also in Aries and also conjunct the natal placement of his Venus in the third house. Thus, by following the lead of his Aries Venus and all of its aspects, he will be on the evolutionary path of his Venus, which involves helping to liberate him from past conditioning of belief systems dominating the cultures he lived within in past incarnations of his soul. This is partially done through Darwin re-living and re-experiencing past incarnational issues and soul wounds symbolized by the fact that this same Aries Venus is also the ruler of his south node of the Moon and so the themes of his past life ego identity. So his Aries Venus is yet another symbol of this, similar to how his North Node of the Moon is in Scorpio and ruled by his Pluto, meaning he would have an evolutionary intention of re-living and re-triggering past incarnational issues. We can see this in some of the main aspects of his Venus: for one, his Aries Venus being in balsamic semi-sextile to his South Node of the Moon reveals how it's self-centered focus would help him center on more timeless visions his soul had been developing across lifetimes that would lead him to let go of his past conditioning, and open himself to new ideas and impulses that could help move him more toward his evolutionary purpose of serving the collective needs of humanity. Furthermore, since his Aries Venus is in a gibbous inconjunct to his North Node of the Moon and Uranus in Scorpio, it shows how this evolutionary development to serve humanity would involve lessons of humility in which he would find a way to use his special abilities to serve the whole, instead of the narcissistic needs of his Aries Venus. Again, this aspect also indicates that this process would involve experiencing crises, and with his soul history most likely they would at times be crises that would re-trigger deep soul wounds in order to help him adjust and modify his Aries Venus value system to align with the needs of his external social environment. The intensity of his experiences in the end could help him dissolve his limiting past conditioning, and this can be seen in the fact his Aries Venus is also in a first quarter trine to a Sagitarius Saturn conjunct Neptune in his 12th House, a dissolving 12th House conjunction whose planets together rule his Capricorn Moon, South Node of Venus conjunct a stellium of South Nodes of planets, and his Pisces Pluto and Mercury. As a result of being full of himself in a very Aries Venus manner, he would in the end lead himself into intense situations and other experiences that would force him to face his evolutionary issues.
Darwin’s Aries Venus also correlates with the narcissistic and self-absorbed inner relationship his Soul had to himself, which then became the basis for how he related to others. So the past life identity of Darwin that his Aries Venus ruled came into this, and he tended to often relate to others in accord with how they could help him fulfill his own special purpose. Likewise, his own resulting inner magnetism would attract similar figures who would also look to use Darwin to aid their own purposes. So in this way he could have relationships in which he got something out of them in order to help him complete his own missions, and in which he would also help them at other times with their own missions. Thus a strong component of the intense curiosity his Third House Venus would express would be tied into listening to how others could help him. When listening to others in conversation, for example, his perception could be focused upon the information he could glean that would ultimately help him with his own intellectual work, instead of listening out of pure interest in the perspective and experience of the other person. As a result at times this could make Darwin appear to others like a self-obsessed intellectual who was more interested in his own mental pursuits than genuine emotional connection with others. This can be seen in how Darwin decided to get married in part because of a more rational analysis of how a marriage could help him in life, instead of through an intense passionate desire to merge with the being of a lover. Through the mirror side of his internal relationship with himself, it also indicates that in his external relationships he would also be used by others for their own purposes. With the self-focused nature of an Aries Venus, Darwin would be hypersensitive about being used in this way by others upon realizing it, even though he himself may have been doing it at times, and this would contribute to his periods of extreme depression and introspection. As a result he could have a feeling of disillusionment, and this would help explain how he could at times seem so dynamic and persistent about pursuing his special sense of destiny, and at other times appear to be hypersensitive and mired in deep levels of depression and darkness, including making himself ill in the process.
I feel part of the Libra side of Darwin’s Aries Venus can be seen in how not only does Gemini rule the cusp of his seventh house, that his Venus is in his Third House. Combined with the creative and energetic nature of his Venus being in Aries and ruling his South Node of the Moon in Taurus, it would mean that he would be able to form relationships with other narcissistic and self-focused beings who had a strong sense of self and highly developed internal resources. These people would be highly successful in some way in the external world, and with Darwin’s interests most likely in an intellectual capacity in some way. With his Aries Venus, Darwin could be quite charming with these relationships and ingratiate himself with them in a manner that they would follow through with helping him in some way. This can be seen in Darwin’s ability to win over extremely influential mentors and friends and every stage of his lifetime. Another symbol of this would be that his Aries Venus is ruled by a Libra Mars in his 10th House, and that in addition these relationships could trigger old incarnational issues since his Libra Mars squares his Capricorn Moon that is conjunct his stellium of south nodes of planets, including the south node of Venus. One example of a relationship like this would be Alfred Wallace- on the one hand, Darwin made choices to align more with his 11th house soul direction by deciding to help promote Wallace instead of entering open competition with him for developing similar ideas. However, at the same time Wallace could have been triggering for Darwin since while on the one hand they shared commonality in belief and intellectual theorizing, at the same time they had some sharp differences, and Wallace in particular held some beliefs that seemed to strike at the core of some of Darwin’s conditioned beliefs he seemed to have difficulty liberating himself from.
In addition, Darwin’s Aries Venus being in the third house that is associated with the Gemini archetype would bring up the polarity JWG described as a “reactive process” of “thought possibilities” in which he would learn about himself “through cycles of contraction which are induced as a reaction to excessive expansion” (Pluto book II, p. 140). In this way his Venus connects to his deep soul work of intense mental pursuits, going to the extremes of mental curiosity, research, and expression, only to come up against an obstacle or simply a sense to turn back inside in a more internal direction to withdraw and reflect in the face of acquiring an extreme level of new information and knowledge through his variety of mental pursuits. In this way the extremity of intellectual pursuits would enter a process of re-balancing by him also going through periods of solitude and withdrawal from the world and his intellectual striving. In Darwin’s case, again the idea of a crisis forcing this withdrawal at times can be observed, such as his repeated bouts with sickness and illness of one kind or another, as well as the death of beloved children or the risk of death of loved ones through illness.
Finally, Darwin’s Venus correlates with his sense of feelings through the self-absorbed and intellectually obsessed placement of his Venus in Aries and the Third House. Darwin could be hypersensitive and find ways to interpret stimuli in his environment to be about himself, to be a threat or insult to his sense of self in some way. With a Libra Mars in the 10th house that is square to his second house Capricorn Moon, it is almost as if he couldn’t help himself in forming relationships and asserting his Will into his external environment in a way that would ultimately trigger situations that would be deeply wounding to himself. This wounding, however, and extreme hypersensitivity, was serving a purpose of ultimately helping Darwin evolve if he could in the end objectify this emotional process and come to more of an understanding of the folly of him taking everything so personally on an emotional level.
Sexually, I feel the paradox of Darwin appearing to have been very repressed sexually, yet having an Aries Venus which can often correlate with a strong sexual nature and magnetism, can be better understood through the placement of Venus being at the end of the third house, and so still connected in some way with the Gemini archetype and so there could have been a more mental orientation to his sexuality. So in this way, part of his liberation from past sexual conditioning could have happened to a degree within in his own mind, with him thinking about various sexual scenarios and doing various sexual thought experiments in a way in which he would consider in his mind a wide variety of sexual experiences and even techniques. Thus his Venus being in Aries would on an instinctual level bring more thoughts of sexuality into his mind, so that even though he may not have been acting upon these sexual desires, there would have still been an internal process of liberating himself from past sexual conditioning occurring inside himself.
peace and love,
Gray
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