What’s the Time, Tom?

While doing readings at Dose Market last weekend, a woman sat down and asked: What happens when people don’t know what time they’re born?

It’s a good question. And the answer is that the astrologer then has to take what he does know – the date of birth and place of birth – and try, through trial and error to figure out the time of birth. It’s important because the time determines the degree of the Ascendant, also known as the rising sign. In ancient astrology, the Ascendant was sometimes called the “helm,” because it was believed to be so important that it served as a guide for a person’s life.

To illustrate the difficulty, I’ve chosen a person we’re all very familiar with – Tom Cruise – but whose birth time has never been published or discovered. If you look on the web, the charts that are posted for Cruise use noon as the time of birth, which is the standard astrological convention when you don’t know the real time.

Before I talk about how I chose this particular time, let me just add that: FIGURING THIS OUT IS VERY DIFFICULT. There are 12 signs and 360 potential degrees to choose from, so there’s a lot of pushing and pulling the planets around the chart to see where they may work the best. Of some help is the fact that while the Moon moves at around 13 degrees per day, the degrees of the rest planets are stable. It’s just the houses and where the signs fall that we’re trying to determine. That said, below is the chart with a birth time that I’ve landed on for the actor.

So why, out of all the twelve signs, did I choose this particular time, which gives the actor Libra as the ascendant? First of all, remember that every sign has a ruling planet and for Libra that planet is Venus. When we look at Venus’ placement, we find it in Leo, which makes a lot of sense regarding Cruise’s “star quality”. Quite simply, whether you like him or not, he shines, and with both Venus and the Moon in Leo, he shines a lot. By using Libra as the ascendant, his Venus and Moon are suddenly in the 10^th house, the midheaven, the most visible placement in the chart. Does that make Libra the only candidate? Not at all. I also considered Scorpio, for his secretive qualities, as well as Leo, for the qualities I’ve already mentioned. But in the end, Libra is the sign that best puts Cruise’s star potential in the chart position in which it has the most potential for fulfillment.

One thing that must be said about the chart is that there is a lot of power. Moon and Venus in Leo, the most dramatic and royal of signs: enormous needs for attention,  love and respect. A sense of drama is high: remember Cruise jumping up and down on the couch during the Oprah show? Venus, also in Leo, reinforces the need of the Moon and adds a magnetic quality. With the placement of both high in the chart – due to the Libra ascendant – these needs are played out dramatically in the world, in full view, so to speak. With Mercury in Gemini, we can anticipate a high degree of verbosity, there are a lot of ideas being tossed around in his head. As the chart stands, both Venus and Mercury make supporting aspects to the Ascendant: the image is everything and everything that is done protects the image. Speaking of protection, the Sun in Cancer adds both a layer of protection – think of the crab – and a sensitivity. In combination with the Leo Moon: enormous pride. There’s more that could be said, of course. But let’s look at the Cruise’s natal chart for the time I’ve calculated it against his chart for the current year.

What stands out here is Saturn (circled) almost exactly on the Ascendant and opposite the 7^th house of relationship. Saturn on the Ascendant in any given year points to difficulty, a restriction, a loss, a reality check for the individual, a category in which being left by your wife belongs. How will Cruise deal with it? His Ascendant for the year is in Scorpio, a sign well known for its skill in rejuvenation, self-healing and resurrection. In other words, don’t worry too much about Tom: he’s going to be fine.

Katie Holmes, the God particle and Astrology

Last week’s newsletter forced me into a tough decision: write about Katie leaving Tom or examine the implications of the imminent discovery of the “God particle,” also known as Higgs Boson. Fortunately, it took less than a nanosecond for me to decide on Katie/Tom and here’s why.

While I was charmed by seeing a group of scientists get all giddy about the discovery of the God particle, I think their celebration is too early, or maybe too late. Too early, because I’m sure that somewhere down the road, future researchers will come up with some other particle that will become the “new” elementary widget that’s going to explain everything, including why Katie left Tom.

But really, it’s too late, because the issue cannot be decided in the manner that they’re seeking. To my mind, finding the God particle is like finding “the first brick” of the house you live in. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that the brick is going to tell you much about your life, your time, your time here and now in this place.  I wrote about Katie because in contrast to the God particle, I think she’s more significant in that her struggle to express her needs is illustrative of a struggle we all deal with, in one way or another, at one time or another, in our lives. The word “God” has become so charged and so tainted, it’s almost impossible to use. So in regard to the stars, let me put forward the idea in this manner: astrology is based on a foundation that there is meaning. No meaning, no astrology. That meaning is not given to us, but uncovered by us, like uncovering a pattern, through living. The chart helps show the pattern, the design, but it’s also part of a larger design, but to reach that larger design we all have to begin with the pattern that’s inside us.

Katie Holmes: Suddenly a Change

Katie and Tom separating? Last week’s announcement was quite a shock. But now that I’ve recovered a little bit, I thought it would be interesting to look at the chart of Ms. Holmes for some clues, some indications, and some suggestions about what might be going on and why it might be going on now. Fortunately, we have reliable birth data for the actress, a native of Toledo, Ohio.

In the past, I have written a great deal about the importance of temperament. I won’t walk through the calculations here, but the indication is choleric (Sun, Moon and Ascendant all in fire signs.) This surprised me, as the story that has been spun largely revolves around Holmes being victimized in some manner – by the machinations of Cruise, Scientology, etc. But extreme cholerics are not usually victims, they’re more victimizers and if nothing else, usually have strong wills. And to some extent this certainly seems to be true of Holmes – who, according to Wikipedia, turned down a chance to audition for the show that eventually became Dawson’s Creek because it conflicted with her appearance in a college production of “Damn Yankees”.  Instead, she submitted her audition by videotape. All of which displays a pretty high degree of fiery self-assertion.

So the temperament is choleric. What else? With the Moon in Leo (look at me!) and the Sun in Sagittarius (the hunger for experience) we can expect the ego projection to be very strong. However, even at a casual glance, what also jumps out in the chart is that nearly all the planets are below the horizon line and grouped to the east. This is highly unusual, and carries with it a suggestion of self-defensiveness and perhaps a difficulty in self-definition.

In terms of aspects, with the Moon squaring both Venus and Uranus, we can anticipate emotional (Moon) problems that have an unusual or unpredictable (Uranus) quality to them. In fact, with the Moon ruling the 12^th house (self-undoing, hidden enemies) and connected so tightly to the three outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), there’s a distinct possibility that the actress’s path is to connect with and/or struggle against larger forces, of which Scientology would provide a good example.

Above is Holmes’ chart for 2012 superimposed against her birth chart. What’s remarkable here is how much the chart for the current year reflects her birth chart, with the Ascendant, Midheaven and Mercury all returning near to their natal positions. A return to herself?

The midpoint pictures for this year (beginning Dec 18, 2011) are eloquent in regards to what we’re seeing played out on the stage of public display. Here are the keywords:

Mars/Saturn: the clash of hot and cold, action and control

Mars=Sun/Mercury: argument , quarrel, fighting

Saturn=Mars/Ascendant: the inability to develop one’s potential capabilities; a dispute, a defeat

Pluto=Uranus/Ascendant: the use of force

Uranus=Moon/Midheaven: emotional crises

Jupiter=Saturn/Neptune: tendency to be easily upset, easily depressed; weight gain or loss

There’s more, of course. In the weeks to come, we’ll return to this chart to see what else can be discovered and how it aligns with what is published in the saga of Katie and Tom.