Mars square Sun

Psychology corner: The sadness of a happiness expert

New York Times

I found this article about a happiness expert who took his own life strangely compelling.  I had never heard of Philip Brickman, but as an astrologer whose Mercury (mind) is in Scorpio, I am an avid researcher of the nature of happiness and depression especially as it shows up in the natal chart.  Brickman is apparently best known for this study in which accident victims and lottery winners were compared to see who was happier in their later lives:

The study is straightforward. As the title suggests, the authors surveyed lottery winners and accident victims, plus a control group, hoping to compare their levels of happiness. But what the authors found violated common intuition. The victims, while less happy than the controls, still rated themselves above average in happiness, even though their accidents had recently rendered them all either paraplegic or quadriplegic. And the lottery winners were no happier than the controls, at least in any statistically meaningful sense. If anything, the warp and weft of their everyday lives was a little more threadbare. Talking to friends, hearing jokes, having breakfast — all of these simple pleasures now left them less satisfied than before.  read more here…

 

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Philip Brickman was born August 22, 1943 in Montreal (no birth time available – the chart shown is for noon that day with the Sun on the ascendant).  Depression shows up in different ways in a chart – there is the heavy hopelessness of Saturn, the deep wounds of abandonment with Chiron, the fear and often abusive history of Pluto.  But one often overlooked astrological […]

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By |2022-09-13T12:47:01-04:00December 7th, 2020|Life|12 Comments

Congratulations Reese Witherspoon!!!

Reese Witherspoon walked away with the Best Actress trophy at the Oscars the other night, making this the perfect time to profile her. I first saw Reese in Pleasantville, where I was struck with her presence and magnetism that seemed far too great for a person of her young years. The next film where she really impressed me was Election, where her bright beam lit up the entire movie. I had a feeling that her obsessively driven character in that film wasn’t far from the real Reese Witherspoon.

Reese Witherspoon’s birthchart shows an Aries Sun, ruled by Mars, and her Sun also squares Mars giving her energy, vitality and courage, and also making her a little reckless and headstrong. We call this a “double whammy,” which tells us that Mars is particularly important in Reese’s chart. Women with such a strong Mars/Aries influence can be perceived as overbearing, because the power of Mars isn’t well suited to traditional patriarchal views of women. In Reese, though, this power comes in a perky little blonde package that sneaks up on you before her true Xena (warrior princess) nature is revealed just as with her Legally Blonde character.

The fact that Mars is square to her Sun, a challenging aspect, reveals that she may have difficulty controlling her impulses. Anger, impatience, frustration are all hallmarks of a Mars square, but when harnessed and disciplined there is enormous drive as well. Reese’s Sun is opposed (180 degrees) by Pluto – a challenging aspect that adds intensity and a level of compulsion (Pluto) to her character, and forces her to continually reinvent and transform herself. Pluto also squares Mars, although it is “wide” (9 degrees apart). This shows an individual who never feels that she can really get what she wants (Mars) […]

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By |2019-08-26T14:06:11-04:00March 8th, 2006|People|Comments Off on Congratulations Reese Witherspoon!!!