Friends in High Places

This had to be done, sooner or later.

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Before I start. If that’s my first newsletter post you read, this started here, and I expanded it here, here, here, and here.

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Are there any connections between the charts of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre and St. John Paul II? What do these connections tell us?

Here are, once more, their charts.

Sister Marie’s:

St John Paul’s:

What would I do in a real synastry, in any kind of relationship, after a brief assessment of both charts:

1) identify the kind of relationship it is: love? Father/son? Brothers? Boss/employee?

2) Try to understand the patterns of these relationships in each of the charts.

3) Compare both patterns, and watch how they combine.

Only then I’d compare positions (“X’s Moon is on Y’s Sun/Venus/Saturn”, etc).

The problem here is that they didn’t have any kind of relationship. They have, if memory doesn’t fail me, never met.

So, which patterns should I try to find here?

Is St. John Paul a ninth-house person in Sister Marie’s life? A religious figure? As the pope, since she was a nun, a tenth-house person, the Boss? Well, he was those things… but that’s not what concerns us here.

Is he a eleventh-house influence? Gifts from Heaven? A friend? I think this is more likely. After all, that’s what friends do, they help each other in difficult times.

But let’see both houses.

Sister Marie is, of course, signified by Mars.

The ninth-house is ruled by the Sun.

Mars is right at the beginning of Cancer. It’s not in any dignity, or debility, of the Sun.

The Sun is in Pisces — again, not much. It’s in Mars’s triplicity.

We don’t get much info from here. It’s OK.

It doesn’t mean she in fact has no affection for religious people, or religion, or anything like that. It just doesn’t tell us much.

Let’s see if the eleventh-house is more informative.

It is ruled by Venus — that is, Mars are not in any dignity or debility of it, either.

But Venus, on the other hand, feels very strongly for Mars; it’s right in the middle of Aries.

More than that, it’s conjunct the fifth house cusp and Fortuna.

Fortuna is the part of what we long for, in a way.

But why the fifth? Well, that’s where those lovely creatures, the antiscia, come into play. The North Node is right there. And the Sun is, again by antiscion, on the eleventh cusp.

So, a connection between gifts from above/friends (the eleventh), faith (the ninth) and what Sister Marie really longs for, by an opposition — a difficult aspect (she asked for a miracle because she was dying from an incurable disease; and it is an incurable mercurial disease; I mention that because another Arabian part, the part of Necessity and Despair, associated with Mercury, is at 10 Virgo — conjunct, by Antiscion, Venus and Fortuna).

In short: gifts from above may help her, but in a difficult way, which involves mercurial and ninth-house stuff.

OK. Now, which areas of St. John’s chart we should look at?

That’s — at least to me — harder. As I said before, their relationship when they were alive is not relevant here (he was a 9/10 house figure for her; she was a 3/6 figure for him, either a “pupil” or someone lower in the Church hierarchy).

I think that considering her a “spiritual daughter” is taking an allegory as a concrete relation, so the fifth house is not adequate.

It might be a stretch, but a Saint is for everyone — for people, regardless of their position in the world. So, it might be a seventh-house issue.

Let’s check the relationship between its ruler, Mars, and Venus, the ruler of the Ascendant.

Well, Venus is in its own sign — strong, noble, but not particularly fond of Mars. However, it’s in the seventh house.

Mars, on the other hand, is in Libra. It could mean Mars “wants to help” Venus, or that it is in power of Venus… and it’s conjunct Spica, the star of gifts and protection.

Mars is also conjunct the Part of Spirit, the part of the Sun. It’s very hard not to be influenced by what I know about him — about them — here. The Sun is the light from above, and it’s also the ruler of the house of Above, the tenth.

Gifts and protection to other people… but, especially, a certain kind of people — the part of Mars (Valour and Bravery) and the part of Necessity and Despair (the Mercury part) are conjunct. People afflicted with Mercury are at the front of the line for those gifts, it seems.

This part is, I confess, a bit vague — and I will not attempt to develop it any further. But there does seem to be nice testimonies here — a proclivity to receive gifts from above, and a tendency to grant them (or to ask for them in other people’s behalf).

A good friendship, it seems.

Now, let’s take a look at how their charts match.

St John Paul’s Sun hits Sister Marie’s Descendant very closely.

His Saturn opposes her Sun (and therefore gets tangled up in that Sun/Venus/Fortuna/Nodes/Fifth-and-eleventh-cusps testimonies).

His Mars is involved in the same astrological traffic jam, being opposed her Venus.

His Jupiter and, by antiscion, his Mercury are on her ninth house.

A bit more connections than I had thought, to be honest. Let me try to break it down.

First, his Sun — which is, after all, the light from Above — is emphasized in her chart, in an angle.

The Sun-Venus-Fortuna-Necessity dynamics in Sister Marie’s chart seem obviously important, and it’s hit by Mars and Saturn in St. John Paul’s. Mars is straightforward from what I discussed above. Saturn kept me thinking.

It rules his fourth house. It might be a bit too poetic, but, if he’s in the Heaven above, she’s (we are) below him.

Mercury, too, makes sense: it rules, after all, his ninth and eleventh houses. Jupiter, however, fits best if we think of its natural significations.

The charts do seem to have some meaningful connections, after all.

I think I am done with this investigation, and I hope you found it interesting. I’ll change the subject in the next post.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

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