Astrology Institute Newsletter: October 2011

By Joseph Crane

October 24, 2011

This issue takes a break from the unending stream of national and international confusion (and possibility) that are on the heels of the latest Uranus-Pluto contacts.  But now for some things completely different from all that:

Consultations, Classes, Chaos and Complexity Workshop –
Book Review: Astrology and the Authentic Self by Demetra George –
Profiles: Gustav Mahler, Leonard Bernstein

Consultations
I offer astrological consulting to a diverse group of clients, integrating modern and traditional approaches to life issues such as career and finances, relationship and family, psychological and spiritual issues, and/or relocation.  We can meet in person (if you are in southern New England) or by telephone or Skype.  If by telephone of Skype you receive charts ahead of time via e-mail.  In any case you will receive a voice recording of the session afterwards. A first-time session is $135 for seventy-five to ninety minutes; subsequent one-hour yearly sessions are $95, ongoing or periodic astrological counseling is $60 per session. However, I have always used a sliding scale for clients who have needed it. 
The Personal Consultation/Tutorial Series is a five-session program that begins with a full astrological reading that includes predictive indicators. This program is for those who want to broaden their knowledge of astrology and gain perspective on important life issues.  It’s also a chance for the relative newcomer to receive basic instructions on astrology using their own chart. One can use the Series to explore a variety of astrological techniques, including traditional (including Hellenistic) natal and prediction, relationship indicators, harmonics and midpoints and relocation.  Or we can explore personal issues in depth from an astrological perspective.  Cost is $350 for the entire series.
For further information see www.astrologyinstitute.com, or e-mail Joseph Crane at info@astrologyinstitute.com

Workshops
Click anywhere in the square!

Astrology and the Authentic Self by Demetra George
How does the astrological chart disclose one’s life purpose, one’s calling?  Demetra George looks at traditional and modern concepts of life purpose and style of natal astrology that brings together ancient and modern methods. It took me a long time to get to this book and I did like it, with some reservations.  Here’s the link from the articles page on my website: http://www.astrologyinstitute.com/Articles/Demetrareview.pdf
This will be interesting to you if you have an interest in the contrasts and intersections between traditional and modern approaches, or if you are familiar with her other work.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
You may remember, from the June Newsletter, the profiles of the dynamic musical pair of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.  Now is a different season and this month I two very different individuals from Mr. Jagger and Richards: instead they renowned conductors and composers of two different eras.   This year is the hundredth anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s death and the fiftieth year this month since the opening of the movie version of West Side Story whose music was composed by Leonard Bernstein.                  
These two men were both from nonmusical Jewish families, were dominant conductors during their own eras, and both began to write their own music on the side.  One difference between them was the public responses to them.   Mahler was often intensely disliked by his musicians, and was sometimes roundly criticized by critics and a general public who didn’t want to hear such long and strange pieces by this Jewish musician.  Yet Mahler also had many admirers and many of his symphonies were well-received.  Although Mahler’s large-scale orchestral pieces are notoriously difficult to perform and considered long-winded and over expressive by some, Gustav Mahler is one of the mainstays of today’s symphonic repertoire.  During his lifetime he was known as a great conductor, moving from small orchestras in Germany, to larger ones in Prague, Hamburg, and finally Vienna.  He conducted in New York in the few years before his death at the age of fifty-one.

Bernstein, on the other hand, spent much of his professional life at the top of the mountain, being the closest a modern classical musician can come to being a “rock star”.  Mahler left behind a set of symphonies and song cycles that form a cohesive unity; Bernstein’s musical production was across genres, from Mass to symphony to Broadway musical, and his compositional career was eclipsed by his career as a conductor, teacher, and public celebrity. 

Beginning in 1960 that was hundredth anniversary of Mahler’s birth, Leonard Bernstein began conducting memorable performances of Mahler’s works. Bernstein helped the Austrian composer achieve a comeback, although his work never quite faded from the public.  Today the best known American Mahler conductors are James Levine and Michael Tilson Thomas – both follow in Bernstein’s footsteps.

Before looking at Mahler’s chart, here’s a sample of his music – conducted by Bernstein.  I give you three samples only; you’re welcome to find many more.  You will quickly see that Mahler’s music is some of the most expressive anywhere. To some this is a great strength.  To others, he’s rather “over the top”, and they prefer more restrained artistic fare. 
If this composer is unfamiliar to you, the one piece you may recognize is his Adigietto from Symphony #5.  His music that can be so brash also has its moments of poignancy and tenderness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAHweK524Wc&feature=youtube_gdata.  (I had the privilege of seeing Bernstein conduct this piece at Tanglewood in the 1970’s)

More representative of Mahler’s music is the opening of Symphony 6, his “Tragic Symphony”.  Mahler was famous for his intricate and sardonic funeral marches and this is my personal favorite of these kinds of movements.  If you have seen this symphony performed live you will know how piercingly loud it can be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASx1lqMZIWM&feature=youtube_gdata

Neither of these pieces, however, capture Mahler at his most grandiose; for that I supply the final moments of Symphony #2, called the “Resurrection Symphony”.  Almost as moving as this music is watching Bernstein; have your hanky nearby.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rECVyN5D60I

What was Gustav Mahler like up close?  He was short of stature, thin, and bounding with energy.  He could also be demanding and difficult, moody and emotionally expressive – we might even call him “intense.”  When we look at his chart we see Aquarius rising, governed by Saturn in Leo. Certainly this can make for a melancholy disposition and a difficult character, for in Leo Saturn is also in detriment. 
When we look at Mahler’s physical and mental energy and his penchant for long hours of hard work, we might want to look to Mars.  The red planet, however, is in the Twelfth House, a place whose residing planets tend not to manifest in one’s personality or outer character.  We might look to the fact that of his seven visible planets, five of them are in fire signs – four are in Leo and Moon is in Sagittarius.  We may add that these planets are in prominent houses: the Leo planets are in the angular Seventh House and Moon in the Eleventh House: these planets all aspect the sign of the Ascendant. 

From his chart can we determine that Mahler was a musician?   There are no planets in the Tenth and the ruler of the Tenth, Mars, is hidden in the Twelfth – Mars certainly may have to do with strong adversaries and his need to overcome man difficulties in life but Mars is not a planet of music (well, there are his funeral marches..). 

Instead we go to Mahler’s strong combination of Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus in Leo that within a few degrees of each other.  The close conjunction of Venus and Mercury does tell us about his music.  Being composed late in the romantic era, Mahler’s music had a programmatic quality: his symphonies often they told a story or could be otherwise articulated in words.  Mahler also composed song cycles with symphonic accompaniment, and songs place music and words – Venus and Mercury – together. His late Das Lied from der Erde is considered by some his best single work.  In Mahler’s chart Venus and Mercury are in sect (unlike Jupiter) and are visible as evening risers (they can be seen in the Western sky after sunset). These are strengthening conditions for his Mercury and Venus placements.  We also see Mercury’s influence in the complexity of most of his symphonies: listening to them appreciatively requires a mental as well as musical sensibility. 

The Sun, governing his Leo planets, lies hidden in the Sixth; instead Leo planets seemed to operate on their own.  Mahler didn’t have the popularity of his friend sometime-friend Richard Strauss or the personal charisma of his modern proponent, Leonard Bernstein.

Mahler’s Moon is prominent by house and is also the luminary of sect in his nocturnal chart.  Moon is governed by a Jupiter in Leo that also enhances its planetary neighbors Mercury and Venus.  It’s a grand and grandiose Moon.  However, Moon is applying in a square to Neptune.  Looking at this psychologically, it correlates with his disadvantages from family and heritage.  For Mahler this was a particular problem, for he lived in a culture that had increasing anti-Semitic leanings.  However, this square also corresponds to Mahler’s tendency to always feel like a victim of something.  (Like many men with Sun in Cancer, Mahler was moody and prone to complaint). Artistically Moon square Neptune correlates with his musical motifs of acceptance and resignation upon death or loss.  For him the hero’s journey would end not with triumph but some kind of spiritual redemption, at the end of life or afterwards.
With four important planets in his Seventh House, what was Mahler’s married life like?  We now discuss the love of his emotionally tortured life, Alma Schindler who became Alma Mahler.  They met when Gustav Mahler was already prominent as a conductor and composer and Alma was a young composer herself.  She was also considered quite alluring to many men who, like Gustav, were prominent and much older than she.  People who knew both people were skeptical of their marriage’s chances.
Alma, against her nature, managed to be a dutiful wife although the price was her own musical career; Gustav insisted that there could only be one composer in this family and her role as wife was to support his career.  She became more unhappy and bitter at her demanding husband and this eventually culminated in an extramarital affair, to her husband’s heartbreak.  Alma Mahler survived her husband by fifty years, later marrying well-known men. She also wrote memoir of her life with Gustav that was highly informative, somewhat self-serving and gave her a measure of revenge.

I conclude with a look at the year 1907 in Gustav Mahler’s life.  This was his most difficult year personally although it was also a peak of fame during his lifetime.  His daughter died in the middle of 1907; he was also diagnosed with a heart ailment.  The first circumstance broke his heart; the second he considered a death sentence.  Although he was not as ill as he was led to believe, the medical diagnosis exacerbated his previous hypochondriacal tendencies and cut down on the physical activity that was very important to him.  During this time he also quit at Vienna for New York.

Here is a personal and also an astrological onslaught: 1907 featured an opposition between Uranus in Capricorn and Neptune in Cancer -- both were contacting his natal Sun in Cancer.  I think that’s enough: Pluto in Gemini was in opposition to his Moon in Sagittarius, accompanied by Saturn in Pisces.  So here are all the outer planets all contacting Maher’s two luminaries.  It is to his credit and our benefit that his artistic responses were two of his greatest works, the Ninth Symphony and Das Lied from der Erde.
Other predictive methods give us more detail about this time in Mahler’s life.  By progression his Venus was in opposition to Mars in December 1906.  This could not have made for domestic harmony, considering the condition of his marriage.  Perhaps this is also when Alma began her affair with Walter Gropius.

Circumambulations (a Hellenistic method of directions) are revealing about Moon that represents domestic life.  In September 1906 the directed Moon was opposing natal Saturn; in late January 1907 the Moon entered the bounds of – you might take a guess – Saturn, again.  These all tell me about difficulties in his personal life and hints at the medical issues that would pose a problem for him.

Now let’s briefly move onto Leonard Bernstein the great American musician from the middle of the 1900’s.

Bernstein is an entirely different character from Mahler: in his astrological chart Jupiter is exalted and is conjunct Pluto in the First House and the ruler of the First is the Moon in Aries in the Tenth House.  Bernstein didn’t have the hefty body usually attributed to Jupiter, but instead had a grandness of style and generosity of spirit.  Pluto would give an edge and Mars in Scorpio gave him a tendency toward activism.  Bernstein was a philanthropist for arts education, was famous for his left-wing views and in the late 1960’s he was noteworthy for hosting “radical chic” gatherings attended by members of the Black Panther Party.  

Bernstein’s Jupiter also points to a career as an educator or advocate and he was clearly that.  His Young Peoples’ Concerts and other music educational projects were both popular and of high quality.  He was a crusader for better musical education in the schools.
When we look for music we see Venus in Leo (not far from Mahler’s Venus-Mercury conjunction) and conjunct Neptune.  That Bernstein was emotionally and spiritually transported by great music is evident from the Mahler Symphony 2 ending excerpted above. 

We look at the Moon in combustible Aries and can note that it is applying to a trine to oriental Saturn – we could call this a tendency toward controlled chaos.

Bernstein’s gifts as a musical educator are also apparent when we look at the Sun and Mercury in Virgo.  He knew how to use language to reach people of different ages and degrees of musical knowledge.  As Virgo often cohabits with Leo in a natal chart, Bernstein combined Leo’s famed dramatic edge with Virgo’s emphasis on precision and competence.  Both factors lived alongside a charismatic personality of the nature of Jupiter.  More than a composer, even more than a conductor, Bernstein was a musical impresario of the highest order.