The characters of signs of the Zodiac are based on the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere.
Late July/August is the hottest month where everyone is on holiday so the Leo personality exudes qualities of warmth but also the entitlement to have a good time.
Virgo, the one that follows it falls during harvest time when everyone has to get back to work or school and the character is classically one that puts their own needs second to serving others.
This simple method works right through until we come to Pisces. The last sign seems to contain all different kinds of characters. It’s as if the Universe is determined to squeeze in everyone that hasn’t already been included.
There’s a similar theme around the houses. While they cover areas of life rather than personality, these still resonate with the signs.
The 4th for example is all about home and family and strongly linked to Cancer. The 7th is about marriage and relationships with the Libra connection.
The last house seems specifically constructed to contain all the characters that could only be included in Pisces.
It is classically a place of retirement or confinement and said to rule prisons, hospitals, monasteries and other places of seclusion.
With a 12th house Sun and Moon I can identify with this idea, as I spent 40 years researching astrology on my own before I even mentioned anything about my findings in public.
On the other hand, my research identified that the most common house for public figures to have the Sun is the 12th – The Capricorn Research Project.
So which is it to be, fame or seclusion? Those couple of thousand people weren’t all notorious for having been in prison.
My own conclusion is that there is something of both in the 12th house.
People who have the Sun or other significant placements are required to look within themselves. In fact they are often forced to by their own character or circumstances in their life.
They are designed to do this in order to find something of lasting, real value and then to bring that out with them into the world.
I have noticed that this coming out of the 12th house closet is likely to coincide with the progressed Sun or other planet crossing the Ascendant into the 1st house.
From that point onwards, 12th housers can become public figures if they wish to.
What if a prominent public figure has the Sun in Pisces and the 12th house?
Most impartial observers would agree that Gordon Brown was a good fit for UK Chancellor of The Exchequer under Tony Blair, but he wasn’t a natural No 1, when he finally moved from No 11 to No 10 Downing Street.
But despite having a 4 planet stellium in the 12th sign and house, it could be argued that a Leo Moon and Aries rising would naturally bring him more prominence than most of its subjects.
It could also be argued that he came to that prominence when his progressed Sun crossed his Ascendant in 1995-96 when he teamed up with Blair ahead of the 1997 “things can only get better” election.
A more typical 12th sign and house character would be Blanche Monnier, “The Confined Woman of Poitiers, France, who was secretly kept locked in a small room by her aristocratic mother and brother for 25 years. She was eventually found by police, then middle-aged and in emaciated and filthy condition; according to officials, Monnier had not seen any sunlight for her entire captivity.
She was renowned for her beauty and attracted many potential suitors for marriage. In 1876, at the age of 27, she desired to marry an older lawyer who was not to her mother’s liking; Louise argued that her daughter could not marry a “penniless lawyer”. Her disapproving mother, angered by her daughter’s defiance, locked her in a tiny, dark room in the attic of their home, where she kept her secluded for 25 years. Louise and Marcel continued on with their daily lives, pretending to mourn Blanche’s disappearance. None of her friends knew where she was and the lawyer whom she wished to marry died unexpectedly in 1885. On 23 May 1901, the “Paris Attorney General” received an anonymous letter, the author of which is still unknown, that revealed the imprisonment.
Monnier was rescued by police from appalling conditions, covered in old food and faeces, with bugs all around the bed and floor, weighing barely 25 kilograms
The unfortunate woman was lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress. All around her was formed a sort of crust made from excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables, fish and rotten bread, oyster shells, and bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier’s bed. The air was so unbreathable, the odour given off by the room was so rank, that it was impossible for police to stay longer to proceed with their investigation.
Her mother was arrested, became ill shortly afterwards and died 15 days later, after seeing an angry mob gather in front of her house. Her brother, Marcel Monnier, appeared in court and was initially convicted, but later was acquitted on appeal; he was deemed mentally incapacitated, and, although the judges criticised his choices, they found that a “duty to rescue” did not exist in the penal code at that time with sufficient rule to convict him.
After she was released from the room, Monnier continued to have mental health problems. She was diagnosed with various disorders, including anorexia nervosa, schizophrenia, exhibitionism, and coprophilia. This soon led to her admission to a psychiatric hospital in Blois, where she died on 13 October 1913, in apparent obscurity.”
What sort of chart might produce a life of this sort?
Blanche Monnier had four planets in Pisces including Saturn and Neptune and five in the 12th house including a Venus/Pluto conjunction.
In Gordon Brown’s case the other Pisces/12th house placements were Venus, Mars and Jupiter, all arguably benefic planets.
Blanche’s Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto are probably all playing malefic roles.
The Venus/Pluto conjunction points to the romantic reason Blanche’s mother locked her away, particularly as Pluto is her 7th house ruler.
But it’s Saturn and Neptune that delivered such an extreme Pisces/12th house confinement experience.
And its the transits of these two that triggered the incarceration in the first place.
Blanche Monnier was locked away in 1876 with transit Neptune conjunct her Ascendant and square her Mars.
Transit Saturn was also conjunct her Mercury/Neptune and square her Moon.
On the equator any chart would have even size houses, the further north or south you go, the more uneven they can be particularly at certain times of day.
In northern latitudes the signs of Pisces, Aries and Taurus are known of as signs of short ascension, so you can frequently have situations like Brown and Blanche where the 12th or 1st houses can be as long as 60 degrees, fully incorporating two signs.
This is one of the reasons put forward for the use of systems like Equal House or even Whole Sign House system.
However non quadrant house systems do not clearly represent the heavens as they are seen from the Earth at the moment of birth.
The problem with them is that both would place Blanche Monnier’s Sun, Saturn and South Node in the 11th and would therefore miss the crucial theme of her life.
The fact that Blanche Monnier had an extremely long 12th house is crucial because she wouldn’t be free until the age of 52 in 1901.
Which was exactly the time when her progressed Sun crossed her Ascendant.
The astrology of Brown and Blanche is definitely Black and White.
Posted 24 May 2024
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