{"id":6347,"date":"2021-04-18T11:27:13","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T11:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lanawooster.co.uk\/?p=6347"},"modified":"2021-04-18T11:44:42","modified_gmt":"2021-04-18T11:44:42","slug":"aspects-for-the-week-beginning-18-april-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lanawooster.co.uk\/?p=6347","title":{"rendered":"Aspects for the week beginning 18 April 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shirley Williams (1930 – 2021)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

a “Liberal lion and a true trailblazer” –<\/em><\/p>\n

~ Ed Davey<\/p>\n

Shirley Williams, who died at the age of 90 this week on Monday 12th April, was a member of that rare breed: a popular politician.\u00a0 She became an M.P. in 1964 when to be a female M.P. was also part of a rare breed.\u00a0 During the course of her career, she belonged to three different parties: Labour, SDP and Lib Dems.\u00a0 In her most recent years, she led the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords.<\/p>\n

Re-Post<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote in 2015:<\/p>\n

” National treasure Shirley Williams struggled to express the fine party line on Question Time this week.\u00a0 Coming close to the election, she was trying to uphold the achievements of the coalition while re-defining the individual goals of her party.<\/p>\n

Shirley has Pluto on the Ascendant, hence she changed her political afflilations a few times in her life, but never in a shallow way, always in a deeply considered fashion.<\/p>\n

The mother figure is important in her chart, with a dominant Moon in Leo and a Cancerian Ascendant.\u00a0 Her mother Vera Brittain wrote, and lived, the wonderful \u201cTestament of Youth\u201d account of a woman\u2019s life in the 1st<\/sup> World War, which was subsequently made into a TV series and now a film.\u00a0 Vera had the extremely challenging conjunction of Pluto and Neptune, one which many of her generation will have had.\u00a0 She had no personal aspects to her Sun (except perhaps her Moon, if her birth time were known), and this comes out in her life and work as a deeply held sense of service, or surrender to the needs of her time.\u00a0 Loyalty was also a theme, with Venus closely trine Saturn.<\/p>\n

So Shirley had a rich heritage, and in her later years has married an American academic.\u00a0 Shirley also has no aspects to her natal Sun, and a strong social conscience and sense of service.\u00a0 She has a brilliant mind (Mercury exactly trine Uranus) but is hampered by an exact opposition between Jupiter and Saturn, which means she is sometimes hamstrung in decision making.\u00a0 Her only cabinet post, as an Education minister under Labour, much earlier in her career, did not live up to her potential and promise.\u00a0 And yet she was born to put herself into a meaningful relationship with society, with Pluto closely trine her Midheaven, and Chiron exactly sextile her Midheaven: she aches to make a difference.”<\/p>\n

I would add<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Shirley was a lioness, astrologically, being born under the Sun sign of Leo.\u00a0 Lib Dem leader Ed Davey also picked out another Leo quality in his eulogy, that of “generosity”.\u00a0 She had the chart of a potential leader, but for various reasons held back from that role in her life.\u00a0 One possible astrological reason may have been that her natal Sun was unaspected except for squaring the Nodal Axis, so it may not have been part of her destiny to take the top job(s), although her ambition when young was to become Prime Minister.\u00a0 David Steel spoke this week about her reluctance to take pole position in the new parties.\u00a0 Maybe she did not reach her full potential, hung back a bit on it, or diversified into social causes and academia etc. instead of leadership.\u00a0 She was not a very effective Education Minister, and this perhaps knocked her self-confidence, although there were wider reasons in the educational policy of the Callaghan government which contributed to that.\u00a0 Polly Toynbee observed in the Guardian: “She never burned with the ambition that caused the bitter rivalry between Jenkins and David Owen…But some inner reticence held her back…That lack of cut-throat ambition may be why people warmed to her.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps a clue is to be find in the description in the Guardian Obituary by Julia Langdon:<\/p>\n

“In July 1981 Williams refused an invitation to fight as the SDP candidate in a byelection at Warrington, Cheshire.\u00a0 Later she wrote: ‘I did not dither.\u00a0 I quailed.’\u00a0 She recognized her error swiftly and stood successfully in Crosby a few months later, but as she acknowledged: ‘My reputation for boldness, acquired in the long fight within the Labour party, never wholly recovered.’ ”<\/p>\n

Her 2nd House of money and materiality contained the Moon (also in Leo), Neptune and Venus, so she would have had very idealistic views on the subject, and was initially a socialist.\u00a0 With such a preponderance of Leo in her chart (Sun\/Part of Fortune, Mercury and Moon) she considered an acting career, and auditioned for the part in the film National Velvet which was taken by Elizabeth Taylor.\u00a0 The North Node in\u00a0 Aries in 10th House, meant that her self-fulfilment and karmic mission lay in Politics.\u00a0 She appeared on Question Time 58 times: with Mars in Gemini, she liked verbal gymnastics!<\/p>\n

Life and Career<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Shirley’s father George Caitlin was an English political scientist and philosopher, and her mother was Vera Brittain, whose book “Testament of Youth” was a moving portrayal of love and loss during the First World War.\u00a0 Her mother was also a pioneering feminist and pacifist.\u00a0 Shirley spent some time in Minnesota during her youth.\u00a0 She was educated at Oxford (reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics), and took up journalism upon graduating.\u00a0 She joined the Labour party at the age of 17, and became an M.P. in 1964, serving in the Labour cabinet from 1974 to 1979.\u00a0 She lost her seat in 1979, and in 1981 was a prime mover in the “Gang of Four” who formed the breakaway Social Democratic Party.\u00a0 Where does the Rebel Archetype show up in her chart?\u00a0 Uranus is right at the top of the chart, exactly trine her Mercury.\u00a0 So her rebelliousness is very much tied up with her intellect.<\/p>\n

The SDP was an experiment which did not measure up to its early promise, and she was later instrumental in supporting the merger of the SDP with the Liberal Party in 1988, amalgamating to form the Lib Dems.\u00a0 After 1988 she moved her focus to academia, becoming a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.\u00a0 While there, she helped draft constitutions around the world.\u00a0 In 1993 she was elevated to the House of Lords.\u00a0 She was passionate about our participation in Europe, and Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament, among other causes.\u00a0 She said in 1972:<\/p>\n

“I am not as much a passionate European, as I am a passionate internationalist, with a deep sense of the special and unique nature of Britain.\u00a0 I see staying in Europe as being part of the price of living with reality.”<\/p>\n

Marriages<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Her first marriage was to the prominent philosopher Bernard Williams, who she met in America, and married in 1955.\u00a0 They have a daughter Rebecca.\u00a0 Shirley said of that relationship:<\/p>\n

“…\u00a0[T]here was something of a strain that comes from two things. One is that we were both too caught up in what we were respectively doing \u2014 we didn’t spend all that much time together; the other, to be completely honest, is that I’m fairly unjudgemental and I found Bernard’s capacity for pretty sharp putting-down of people he thought were stupid unacceptable.”<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Bernard Williams has in his chart the conjunction of Mercury and Mars, which is the Critic Archetype, useful though for a philosopher.\u00a0 But in their synastry his Mars was square to her Pluto, which is quite a conflicting interaspect.\u00a0 The marriage ended in 1974.\u00a0 She found love again with a Harvard professor and historian, Richard Neustadt.<\/p>\n

Maybe she had her reasons for staying out of the top echelons of her profession.\u00a0 My guess is that she was too nice!<\/p>\n

“Political life will be poorer without her intellect, her wisdom and her generosity”<\/em><\/p>\n

~ <\/em>\u00a0Ed Davey<\/p>\n

Aspects<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This week we have 3 ingresses (energy changes) and 3 conjunctions (intensity).<\/p>\n

Tomorrow (Monday 19th) the Sun will be conjunct Mercury at 29 degrees Aries, a final focus of Aries energy.\u00a0 It is a good day generally to apply your mind with clarity,\u00a0 concentrate and focus,\u00a0 and make important statements.\u00a0 The focus may be on your own growth and potential and physical wellbeing.<\/p>\n

Mercury enters Taurus on the same day, and the quality of the mental energy may become steadier and calmer than the fieriness of the last two weeks or so when Mercury has been in Aries.\u00a0 This placing is better for negotiation, which is something much needed at the moment.\u00a0 Practical ideas will be the order of the day.\u00a0 Mercury enters Gemini on 4th May, so this is a short window, \u00a0just before local elections take place.<\/p>\n

Later in the day the Sun enters Taurus, a time of the blossoming of the earth.\u00a0 Gardeners will garden, artists will paint or sculpt, and dancers will dance.\u00a0 So it is very much a cuspal and switchover day, concentrating on Aries energy, saying farewell to that initial Spring energy, and settling down and embedding into a productive Taurean period.<\/p>\n

Fast forward then to Friday (23rd), when we have a conjunction between Venus and Uranus at 10 degrees Taurus.\u00a0 This conjunction may pep up your social life.\u00a0 It is time to advantage of the new freedoms, see who’s in town, and seek out new experiences.\u00a0 Innovations can be made in Taurean activities such as gardening, financial arrangements, art and music.\u00a0 This conjunction occurs very early in the morning, so may bring you unusual dreams.<\/p>\n

In the late morning, Mars enters Cancer, which represents an energetic shift from a mental and analytical mode, to that of feeling and protectiveness.\u00a0 Mars stays in Cancer until 11th June, so it is a good time to nurture those you love and foster family feeling.<\/p>\n

The last feature of the week comes on Saturday (24th) when Mercury conjoins Uranus at 10 degrees Taurus, the same degree as the previous day’s conjunction between Venus and Uranus, so there may be some continuation in its themes.\u00a0 Mentally it could be off the wall.\u00a0 You’ll be thinking inventively and out of the box.\u00a0 There may be some interesting synchronicities happening.\u00a0 Welcome the power of surprise!\u00a0 If you had some interesting conversations or encounters the day before, there could be a continuation of those.\u00a0 If your creativity was soaring, you may introduce an additional intellectual element to your productions.<\/p>\n

The week in bullet points:<\/p>\n