David Bowie, magical changeling, rest in peace

art found on Facebook here.  It’s hard to believe he is gone because he seemed immortal, other worldly. He wasn’t really of this earth and seemed to slide in and out of a kaleidoscope of personalities. He awakened our imaginations and expanded our consciousness in peculiar ways that no one else had done before, nor has since.  While I wasn’t particularly a fan of David Bowie’s music, I found him irresistibly fascinating and certainly a harbinger of the Aquarian Age to come.

David Bowie was born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947 in London England.  According to the source notes at Astro.com his parents provided a birth time of 9 am GMT.  This is fascinating because it places the asteroid Pallas right on the Aquarius ascendant, the point of the chart which describes the persona of the individual.  Pallas is a symbol of androgyny and as I have written before, I find it to be quite prominent in the charts of gender-fluid individuals.

Aquarius itself is ruled by Uranus (modern ruler; the traditional ruler is Saturn).  Uranus instigates radical behavior that revolutionizes the way we view our world.  The instinct for innovation and eccentricity was particularly strong in him as was the desire to continually reinvent himself.

Still, the power of discipline and achievement was strong in him: his Sun and Mars were aligned in Saturn-ruled Capricorn, the sign of success and mastery.  Mars is the planet of war, and when conjunct the Sun it tends to denote an individual with a warrior type personality; the choice of “Bowie” for adopted last name was after the inventor of the Bowie knife because “it cuts both ways,” reflecting both the penchant for warfare and the neutrality of gender.

The Saturn influence of a strong work ethic and difficulties to overcome continues in the triple conjunction in Leo, with the Moon (emotions) and Pluto straddling Saturn.  The Leo Moon demands to be seen, to be witnessed.  It is not enough to travel through an interior life of transformation, that transformation needs to be performed in the public eye.  Saturn adds an aspect of discipline and a strong head for business, and Pluto, especially conjunct Saturn, suggests crisis and stress especially since the triple conjunction is locked in a challenging square to Chiron, the planet of ancient psychic wounds and their healing.  Saturn and Pluto are both retrograde in the chart which reveals an interior pressure and drama that was much stronger than any revealed to the outer world.  This is especially true since Bowie’s Sun and Mars are found in the twelfth house representing that which is hidden.  There is a need to perform, and an equally powerful need to hide and withdraw.  We can see this in the lyrics to his song “Days”:

My crazy brain in tangles
Pleading for your gentle voice
Those storms keep pounding through my head and heart
I pray you’ll soothe my sorry soul

The evidence of success Bowie’s chart is helped along by a conjunction from Venus (attraction, benefic) to the Midheaven (the point of our calling or avocation) in the sign of Sagittarius – the sign of the adventurer, the explorer.  It’s no coincidence that Bowie’s venture into outer space with “Space Oddity” brought him into the limelight.  Bowie’s Sun (Self) had just progressed into the innovative sign of Aquarius in 1959 when he began his professional music career and shortly thereafter David Jones adopted the stage name “David Bowie,” perhaps to better reflect the new Aquarian influence.

While his progressed Sun was in Aquarius Bowie went through numerous transitions from one persona to another.  David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust, then a small transition to Halloween Jack, and then Aladdin Sane, followed by the Thin White Duke.

In 1990 his progressed Sun moved from Aquarius to dreamy and mystical Pisces.  That year he divorced his wife Angela and fell in love with Iman, his wife of 26 years.  During this period he continued to reinvent his music, but stopped creating new character.

Saturn and Pluto are the Lords of Death, and when they align in a birthchart as they do in David Bowie’s they tend to reveal someone who has an intimate relationship and sometimes even obsession or fear about death.  We can see this in many of Bowie’s lyrics even as far back as Ziggy Stardust:

My death waits there among the leaves
In magician’s mysterious sleeves
Rabbits and dogs and the passing time

My death waits there among the flowers
Where the blackest shadows, blackest shadows cowers
Let’s pick lilacs for the passing time

My death waits there in a double bed
Sails of oblivion and my head
So pull up your sheets against the passing time

Read more here.

In the summer of 2014, when Bowie’s cancer was diagnosed, his chart reveals a series of powerful Jupiter transits.  We typically associate Jupiter with good luck and good fortune, but there can be a release and liberation under Jupiter’s influence.  He also experienced a “New Moon” of sorts at that time when his progressed Moon aligned with his natal Sun.  All of these factors combine to suggest that this began a very fertile time in Bowie’s life and we see that reflected in his career: a new album which began production in September 2014 and was just released before his death this month, as well as soundtracks and songs for a television program and Broadway musical.

His personality and creative force was the reflection of a new way of living in the world – the harbinger of the Aquarian age.  He will be greatly missed by so  many.

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