Summer you’re so brief
in these cool northern reaches
but worth waiting for
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Author: Ciscography
Creator, Writer, Blogger.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – Astrology Musings
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s short life is the stuff of legend today.
He was born into an aristocratic family in the south of France, and fought health problems all his life. However, he could draw and paint, and this became his life’s work.
He was not only a painter, but also a printmaker, illustrator, draughtsman and caricaturist. Much of his best known work encapsulates the heady and seedy theatrical world of late 19th century Paris.
Intense, variable energy
According to the known birth data, he was born with Scorpio rising, a testimony to the intense energy he put into his life, despite ongoing health and addiction problems.
His ruler, Mars, was found in Gemini in house 8. Here we see not only the variable and versatile energies but also the ‘darker’, more evocative, imagery of Paris that he was involved with and portrayed in a lot of his work.
The printed word in art
Mars is opposite Mercury and Jupiter in house 2, which, while adding a certain mental agitation, will also encourage the diversification of his talent.
And with his prominent Mercury and ruler in Gemini linked, it is fitting that the printed word is also equally prominent in his work.
Venus in Capricorn (part of a t-square, see below) also points to practical art forms and situated in house 3, we see another link to the mind, communication and words, particularly through illustration, posters and caricature.
Impressionability
Henri was a Sun Sagittarian with Jupiter conjunct in house 2, trine Neptune in house 6 and sextile the Moon in house 12. The strong mutable quality of his chart overall, including his Sun, shows restlessness and diverse talents, which can be put to good use. He and his family were also Anglophiles, and he spent some time in London. Sagittarius is rarely satisfied with sticking to his home patch.
This may also show his aristocratic background and upbringing, with all its ‘benefits’, but also a certain impressionability along with artistic ability.
Neptune, as I’ve come to realise, is often prominent in the charts of artists, connecting the individual with more trans-personal forces, drawing on inspiration.
Sensitivity
There is a fairly tight T-square involving Venus, the Moon and Neptune in cardinal signs, in houses 3, 6 and 12.
Here we see an innate sensitivity in relationships and mentally, and although with Venus and the Moon in Libra hinting involved hinting at a resulting artistic talent, this may also be indicative of his reliance on alcohol, which became a serious health issue in chronic terms later in his life.
Life’s work
Henri’s MC or midheaven in Virgo and Leo 10th house point to his life’s work. The rulers of these parts, Mercury and the Sun, are found together in house 2 of money and security, beneficial Jupiter encouraging him to push this career.
The opposition from Mars in house 8, as mentioned earlier, certainly made it anything but plain sailing, but also acted as a spur to greater achievement.
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Haiku: A Drop
What is this world for?
I am here, that’s all I know
This moment is gone
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Pablo Picasso, Creative Tour de Force – Astrology Musings
It’s easily overlooked that Picasso was not merely a painter.
You can include sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, writer, poet and playwright to his considerable repertoire.
Even what he is best known for, Cubism, is like an attempt to solidify a two dimensional form.
With a Leo ascendant, there is a powerfully creative approach to life.
His ruler, the Sun, in Scorpio in house 4, anchors him deeply in the fathoms of psychology and in the ancestry, symbols and mythology of his and the collective genetic past.
Appreciation of beauty
So much has of course, rightly, been made of this. But he also has Venus in Libra in house 3.
Here is an appreciation of beauty (and women) and a need to express it verbally and through written form: writing and poetry.
This Venus is in a loose sextile to a house 5 Moon in Sagittarius, giving him wider creative expression for this trait.
Then there’s Mars, his sun ruler, in Cancer in house 12. Here is the emotive energy which can erupt from the subconscious through creativity, aided by the sextile to inspirational Neptune in Taurus in house 10.
Constructive transformation
But it’s his Taurus house 10 which is most interesting.
Here we have Saturn and Neptune in a loose conjunction, with Jupiter and Pluto doing the same later in the sign, opposed to Mercury in house 4.
Here is the purpose of strong physicality, the constructive approach, the need to transcend it, expand it and ultimately transform it into something else, the latter examined and inspected deeply, with great intensity.
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Haiku: Infinitely Small
See the infinite
Out there trillions of stars
Turn the scope around
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