Figure 3: produced at http://obamapostermaker.com/ |
As the day wore on, I got to thinking about how Baba's silence might be reflected in his natal chart which I've shown in Figure 4 with some features highlighted. The key planet to consider of course will be Mercury, the planet of communication, and this planet is prominently aspected in his chart. It is a semi-sextile aspect to Venus, sextile to Jupiter, sesquiquadrate to the Moon and quincunx Saturn. The aspect to the retrograde Saturn is especially close and reflects the limitations and discipline involved in not speaking. Mercury is in the middle of the second house (representing the body and its capacities) and Saturn is in the ninth house (representing his "philosophy" and mode of instruction). Venus and Jupiter lend support so that the handicap of not speaking in nonetheless perceived as harmonious, expressive and even eloquent.
Figure 4: Baba's chart with annotations |
Impressive as this is, the chart shown together with the transits on the day he began his silence is extraordinary and this is shown in Figure 5. I've not even added any annotations because the situation is shown so clearly. An amazing conjunction of transiting Mercury, Venus and Mars on the seventh house cusp is exactly square the natal Moon with transiting Saturn sitting atop it. The natal Sun and natal Mars are closely involved as well. The actual mid-point between natal Jupiter and natal Saturn in 9°24' of Leo. On July 11th 1925, transiting Mercury, Venus and Mars all met at this point (give or take a few minutes of arc). This was a transient but remarkable conjunction.