Why Michael Jackson Hated the Man in the Mirror

Michael Jackson was a classic Virgo. His life, from the very start, was dedicated to serving up a constant source of catharsis for those of us that watched him dance and sing. He gave every single ounce of his energy to perfecting his art and then sending it out for public consumption. Over the last few days everyone has been talking about his precision, his work-ethic, his drive, his perfectionism. Barry Gordy, the head of Motown, remarked on Larry King that of all the Jackson Five, Michael was the most focused -- even as the youngest, he was always "studying" everything around him, trying to get it right. With his sun (life force) conjunct Pluto (fear, darkness) in his fourth house of home, his father Joseph was the demon patriarch who drove Michael to work as hard as he did, or face a beating. He literally had to dance for his dinner, or he'd be blamed for his father's failings. The immense guilt and responsibility Michael felt as an innocent child was transmuted into his relentless drive to get it right, and his drive to be the King of Pop. You don't manifest what Michael did without wanting it more than anything else in the world. The truth behind Michael's Plutonian, Virgoan striving is that he probably did it all to please his father. The unconscious is a powerful force and Michael, with his Plutonian signature, was completely driven by its longings. If it is indeed true that MJ sexually abused young boys, one can lay the blame directly at his father's feet.

Although his birth time is disputed, the Gemini rising chart seems the most accurate. Gemini is the sign of youth, the Puer Aeternus, of ambiguous sexuality, of never wanting to grow up, Peter Pan complexes, media savvy, trends, and a wiry, flexible body type. His ascendant is most evident in the videos that he made for the 1979 record Off the Wall. Check out "Rock with You", where his costume of silver sequins, with vertical stripes on his pants looks almost court jesterish, perfectly fitting the Gemini rising persona. In "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" he wears a tux, floating over a moving background of stars like a sprite. MJ bought the Neverland Ranch during his Saturn return -- an overt admission that he never wanted to grow up. This was also around the time that things started to shift for Michael after his career apotheosis with Thriller in 1983. (Note the lyrics to "Thriller" - "It's close to midnight, and something evil's lurking in the dark." This is a deeply Plutonian line.) During his Saturn return he let his freak flag fly, practically giving the finger to the media while at the same time courting it. He was rumored to attempt to buy the bones of the Elephant Man, and his addiction to plastic surgery began. When his SR was almost exact, Bad was released. People found it rather hilarious that this gentle-voiced shy singer would be compelled to tell the world that he was "Bad" as if he was trying to compete with gangsta rappers. But what he was really saying was that inside, he felt like he was a bad boy -- probably because that's what his father told him over and over again, no matter how hard he tried. "Man in the Mirror", one of the most popular tracks on that record, is in many ways an acknowledgement that Michael understood what the universe wanted for him.

The lyrics include these lines:

As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change

Everyone in their Saturn return needs to heed these words if he or she wants to survive the transition and thrive. For Michael, the Saturn return was the beginning of a downward spiral that ended in his death. Because he could not find any kind of real, personal one-to-one love in his life due to a warped sexuality and damaged trust, Michael turned to the love of his fans for succor. In the months before his death, transiting Saturn was opposing his moon, squaring his natal Saturn and opposing his ascendant. These on their own are not signatures for death, but most certainly signs of exhaustion, depression, alienation, and desperation. And in the end, as he prepared for a comeback, Michael finally succumbed to all those challenges. The quintessential Virgo can finally rest; may he do so in peace.

Neda's Saturn Return -- Meet Iran's Joan of Arc

By now we've all heard about Neda and watched the graphic, wrenching images of her death by Baseej snipers over the weekend. She has become the face of the new revolution in Iran, her bloodied image affixed to flags waving in protest all over the world. Neda was 27, born in 1982. Although her actual birthdate is still unknown, her Saturn Return would have begun this fall. The country of Iran is in the midst of a collective transformation. As Ahmadinejad's violent rhetoric increased, so did the intensity of Iran's Saturn return. Now, as the exact return of Saturn separates, the anger and hunger spills out into the streets. Neda, whose name literally translates to "the call", is no cosmic accident. If she'd lived her life would have been about justice, as her Saturn was in the sign of Libra. When Saturn moves into Libra this October, the calls for democracy will only get louder and more vehement. Neda didn't have a political candidate in mind -- she just wanted freedom for her fellow Iranians.

Father's Day Musings: Big Daddy Saturn

Saturn is symbolic of the Father -- capital F intended. That's why we call him "Big Daddy Saturn". The actual men that play the role of our fathers -- whether they are our biological fathers, adoptive fathers, or stepfathers, stand in for Saturn in our lives. In an ideal world, "good" fathers teach us about responsibility, gentle strength, and the healthy use of power. Yet many of us are damaged by "bad" father syndrome: when the men who are supposed to protect us abuse their power. Usually this is because these men are still damaged themselves, and no one taught them any other way to be. During the Saturn return women often come to grips with their father's failings. This can cause a lot of rage to bubble up, and often the urge to throw off any and all chains of authority -- boyfriends, husbands, bosses, anyone that stands in for Saturn in your life. This can be incredibly healthy -- especially if you've spent your entire life up to the age of 28 trying to please everyone in a vain attempt to get your dad to notice and love you.

Yet -- the healing balm for all of this is forgiveness. Once you move through that Saturnian rage and find out what's beneath it, you can do almost anything. No matter what your father has done, try to forgive him and see him as a human being, not a failed archetypal hero figure. The Saturn Return teaches you to be your own hero, rather than looking for someone else to save you. So honor your father, forgive his sins, and then forgive yourself.

Dark Echoes of Pluto in Capricorn

The impulse toward fear and blame of the "other" is a sure sign that Pluto in Capricorn is firmly in place. Conspiracy theory is taking over parts of our society, aided and abetted by the right wing chorus on cable news. In Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, & Scapegoating, Chip Berlet analyses what we're up against.

Mourning in Iran

Still following the brilliant Huffpo blogger Nico Pitney, who wrote last night (italics mine):

1:28 AM ET -- The mourning rally. Thursday is gearing up to be a hugely significant day for the Green Uprising. Reza Aslan appeared on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show tonight, and laid out the importance of what is going to happen:

What's really fascinating about what's happening right now in 2009 is that it looks a lot like what was happening in 1979. And there's a very simple reason for that. The same people are in charge -- I mean, Mousavi, Rafsanjani, Khatami, Medhi Karroubi, the other reformist candidate -- these were all the original revolutionaries who brought down the Shah to begin with, so they know how to do this right.

And so what you're going to see tomorrow is something that was pulled exactly out of the playbook of 1979, which is that you have these massive mourning rallies, where you mourn the deaths of those who were martyred in the cause of freedom. And these things tend to get a little bit out of control, they often result in even more violence by the security forces and even more deaths, which then requires another mourning rally which is even larger, which then requires more violence from the government, and this just becomes an ongoing snowball that can't be stopped.

That's how the Shah was removed from power, was these mourning ceremonies. And so Mousavi very smartly calling for an official -- not a rally -- but an official day of mourning tomorrow. I think we're going to see crowds that we haven't even begun to see yet, and then follow that, on Friday, which is sort of the Muslim sabbath, the day of prayer, which is a traditionally a day of gathering anyway. This is just beginning, Rachel, this is just the beginning.

Change is the keyword during a Saturn return, and if if doesn't come, there is often metaphorical blood spilled. Let us hope that in the case of Iran, it does not become too literal. There are so many ways in which we're experiencing 1979 all over again. We've got to get it right this time. Pluto returning to Capricorn play a role in this massive upheaval and revolutionary tenor as well. More on that soon...

The Revolution Will Be Digitized

I've been following the tireless and brilliant Huffington Post blog tended to by one Nico Pitney all weekend. Of all the raw sources (Twitter, Youtube) I have found that Pitney's edits are spot-on, always gripping, and full of empathy.

Tonight he posted a photograph from AP of protestors during the 1979 Revolution, again evoking the wildly uncanny astrology of this unfolding event. (Scroll down to 6 PM ET on June 16th). Saturn forces us to face our demons by shoving them into our face thirty years after our birth (and again thirty years later, if we didn't get the message the first time). Watching Iranian youth spill into the streets of Tehran, screaming, shouting, pumping their fists, using their voices, demanding to be heard -- I think of you who are now between 27 and 30 and how much you wish you could do the same. These brave souls are expressing and manifesting the absolute truth of the Saturn Return.

In Surviving Saturn's Return, we quoted Carl Jung: "That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate." Right now that quote, writ large, is resonating on every corner of the globe. Even though the tyrannical regime in Iran is doing everything in their power to stop the revolution, they simply can't win. They may have silenced all international media, but they have not been able to stop the protestors thus far.

What scares me most is that they'll be tempted to bring down the black boot of Saturn (a planet not unfamiliar with fascism) in order to end this breakthrough moment during which the voiceless have found their collective voice. One video on Youtube showed masked soldiers in black uniforms beating protestors. We know at least seven have been shot. Hopefully that number will not grow larger. Eerily, seven is Saturn's number.

Saturn's most important lesson for all of us, at any age, is to be in the moment. It's striking to see a nation under the influence of an intense Saturn return experiencing this phenomenon en masse. May their journey be safe and may their transformation be powerful.

Guess Who's Having a Saturn Return? Welcome to the New Iran.

As we mentioned back in 2007, the Saturn in Virgo years promised interesting times indeed, especially for the nation of Iran. That's because Iran's Islamic Republic was born in 1979 -- when Saturn was last in Virgo. Well, kiddies, can you figure out what that means? Iran is having its very first Saturn Return, and going through some major growing pains. Expect major upheaval in the months ahead, especially this coming fall. Will the Islamic Republic hold? In 1979 the opposition didn't have the Internet to bring their point of view to the rest of the world. Now they do.

With Saturn and Uranus in opposition, Barack Obama ushered in the "Yes We Can" revolution. Perhaps the Iranian youth can use this energy for similar purposes. It will be exact again in September, so watch this space for developments. If you were born in 1978 or 1979, you totally understand what they're feeling -- an overwhelming need for change in a world grown stagnant and oppressive. You don't just want change, you NEED it, and you need it now. If you don't address the stirrings of your soul right now, you'll likely repress them for another 29.5 years. Listen to your inner calling and live life the way you were meant to.