Birth Chart Archetypes part lll

A while ago I put up a couple of blog posts about four birth chart archetypes. To clarify and emphasis the types, I chose examples of unusual people that have several planets in one region of the Zodiac. (See previous post on Birth Chart Archetypes for more information.)

The four types are:
Harmonization-People that have a good social sense and people skills.
Equalization-People that can bring lofty ideas down into the manifest world.
Polarization-People who tend to be polarized and to cause polarization in their social interactions.
Duality-People that tend to see the world as black or white, good or bad or to have extreme religious views.

The different types should not be looked at as either good or bad. They merely show how a person is likely to behave and not what he will do.

The birthcharts below show the configuration of the planets at the time of birth and only the 7 classic planets are used. The outer ring shows the zodiac constellations and the inner ring the signs. For this exercise, the time of birth is ignored and charts all show the sign of Aries at the ascendant.

We have a wonderful example of one of the types, Polarization, in our current Taoiseach/Prime Minister. Brian Cowen took office on 7 May 2008, heading a coalition government led by his Fianna Fáil party. The coalition includes the Green Party and the Progressive Democrats, with the support of independent TDs.

The chart for Taoiseach Brian Cowan (10 January 1960) shows six of the planets in the polarization region and one in Duality. As a contrast, his predecessor Bertie Ahern (12 September 1951) has no planets in either Polarization or Duality. He has five planets in the Harmonization region and two in Equalization.

Taoiseach Brian Cowan-click on chart for clearer image


Since Mr. Cowan took office we have had a very contentious national referendum to approve or reject the proposed European constitution. It was rejected by the people and the result has strained relations with the European Community. The country is now in a financial crisis and the government has been forced to make a very severe budget. One of the features of the budget was to take away the medical card that gives full medical care to all people over the age of 70. There has been uproar in the streets and in the media. Mr. Cowan had to go before the press to modify the decision and to offer instead a proposal affecting only those that can afford to pay their own way.

Bertie Ahern Chart


As a contrast, the previous Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who is one of my examples of Harmonization, enjoyed very good relations with the European Community. Ahern succeeded Albert Reynolds as leader of the Fíanna Fáil party, the first unopposed candidate since 1959. He served in a very good economic climate and is credited with being one of the principle negotiators that brought about the Northern Ireland peace process. There were allegations of corruption but he had the reputation of being the Teflon Taoiseach which is not surprising given his Harmonization Archetype.



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Irish Politics Astrology Anthroposophy Brian Cowan

More on Birth Chart Archetypes

Continuing with some ideas from Cosmic Aspects of Birth and Death by Gunther Wachsmuth:
The position of the planet Saturn is particularly important for science and philosophy in a person's birth chart, as is Jupiter for statesmanship and Mars for art. It is interesting to view this in relation to the four archetypes: Equalizing, Duality, Harmonizing and Polarizing that equate to the position of the Sun in spring, summer, autumn and winter respectively (see previous post on Birth Chart Archetypes for more on this.) We will take a look at three well-known Irish statesmen.

Eamon De Valera

Eamon De Valera's chart shows a people-person with four planets in Harmonizing but the planet Jupiter is in the Duality segment. This indicates that as a statesman his views would have tended towards the categorical and divisive-black and white with little or no grey areas.


Michael Collins

I had always thought of Michael Collins as the soldier and De Valera as the politician. Collins' birth chart however shows that he had good people skills with four planets in the Harmonizing segment. Saturn in the same area also shows a people philosophy. Jupiter on the opposite side in Equalizing would suggest that he had some ideas that he wanted to bring to manifestation in the world. Mars and Venus in Polarization would indicate some passion and polarity on a creative and personal level.

Gerry Adams

The chart of the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams shows very good people skills with five planets in the Harmonizing segment and his philosophy, as indicated by the planet Saturn, is in the same segment. However, as a statesman he continually finds himself in a polarized circumstance and this is indicated by the planet Jupiter. Even the Wikipedia article on the above link to his name has the following notice: The nutrality of this article is disputed.

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Birth Chart Archetypes

Last year I gave a talk at Camphill Greenacres in Dublin on "Birth Chart Archetypes-how four aspects of the zodiac manifest in well known personalities." This talk was repeated several times closer to home in County Kerry. I wanted to see if I could demonstrate that there are different influences emanating from the different regions of the heavens. I started with a premise taken from Cosmic Aspects of Birth and Death by Gunther Wachsmuth. He posits that there are four distinct sectors in the heavens more or less the regions occupied by the sun in the four seasons.

The four regions are as follows: "Equalizing" (world etheric) includes the constellations of Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries; "Duality" (world astral) includes Taurus and Gemini; "Harmonizing" (world ego) includes Cancer, Leo, Virgo and Libra and "Polarizing" (world physical) includes Scorpio and Sagittarius. If a person is born with four or more planets in one of these regions they generally manifest certain traits. Please note that the zodiac constellations and not the signs were used and I used only the old or classical planets: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

I use a good astrology software program called SolarFire. The birth charts shown below were made with this program that can show both the zodiac signs (inner circle) and constellations (outer circle.) For easier comparison, all charts were constructed with Aries on the ascendant.

I did a search in my working database that has about 3000 names of well-known personalities looking for people with at least four planets in one of the above-mentioned regions and came up with 20 to 25 names for each of the regions. I gave a brief description of the personality as their birth chart was shown.

Equalization: People born with a lot of planets in this region tend to have the ability to incarnate a lofty idea and put it into the world in a practical way. Einstein is our birth chart example.
Other examples of this region are:Nicolaus Copernicus, Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci, Rudolf Diesel, Isaac Newton and Antonio Vivaldi.



Duality: Those born with many planets in this region tend to have very definite views or sometimes extreme religious views and often will experience the world as duality. Franz Kafka is our birth chart example.
Other examples are: John Ashcroft, Jean-Paul Marat, Benito Mussolini, Camilla Parker-Bowles and Igor Stravinsky.

Harmonization: Those born with many planets in this region tend to be "people" people with the ability to work out of their own individuality into the social domain. Bill Clinton is our birth chart example.
Other examples of this region are: Arnold Schoenberg, Mohandas Gandhi, Bob Geldof, Prince Charles, Jack Straw and Mother Teresa.


Polarization:Those born with many planets in this region tend to be extreme and polar. Our example is Ella Young who took an extreme position during the Irish revolution together with her friend Maude Gonne. She was a writer of wonderful fairy tales and of old Irish sagas.
Other examples of this region are: Beethoven, Humphrey Bogart, Al Capone, General Custer, Howard Hughes and Richard Nixon.

My audiences generally found the presentation amusing at first but became more engrossed and intrigued as the archetypes began to emerge. They had many questions at the end and often asked me to display the chart of someone that they were interested in.

If you have an astrology database, do a search for one of the groups, imagine that you are having a party and invite only the people with at least four planets in one of the regions and see who shows up.

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