AstroMusic: Happy Twenty-first Birthday!
Astrology is more popular than ever. Individuals of all ages are moving from glancing at daily pop horoscopes to reading birth charts. Why now? Astrology has been around forever—some 3,800 years—yet it feels freshly relevant today. Fueled by the internet, new knowledge about history and culture is multiplying, and a chart can be calculated in an instant. The curious are asking important questions. How could knowing one’s individual strengths, weaknesses, affinities, and aversions—captured at the time and place of birth by an elaborate mathematical chart—give us power to understand and shape future choices? Can astrological common ground also help guide groups going forward?
Everywhere we look, the global climate crisis is un-concealing critically important connections. Meanwhile trust in all the major institutions, especially religion, is rapidly declining—especially among young adults. Is this celestial curiosity a new kind of shared introspection that is fine tuning our spiritual sense of community? While we are unique individuals, what planetary common ground can we share with others to supersede differences in race, class, nationality, faith, gender, and blood?
Moving outward from individual charts and monthly lunar cycles to the horoscopes of countries (the USA is a Cancer), then further outward to eras, epochs, and ages, can the vast cycles of astrology generate some inner peace while steeling our resolve to act now? Perhaps astrology itself has a planetary explanation for such growing interest in this ancient commingling of science and art?
Age of Aquarius
Astrology is a system of making meaning through the common understanding of twelve basic but nuanced archetypes—hidden in plain sight. Is this growing embrace of astrology predicted by our extraordinary privilege of living at the dawning of the age of Aquarius?
I have been following the celebrity Astrologer Susan Miller since she pioneered the online site Astrology Zone in 1995, at a time when you could still get a personal reading – which I did! Susan is always helpful: “When astrologers speak about the Age of Aquarius, they are describing a phenomenon that refers to the earth’s movement backward (or in “retrograde” motion) into the sign of Aquarius.” She explains that a slight wobble in the earth’s rotation was first discovered by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus of Nicaea (c. 190 – c. 120 BC). He calculated that due to the wobble a gradually changing precession of the zodiac reveals the constellation that lies behind the Sun at the vernal equinox over time. Susan continues: “There are 11 other signs (than Aquarius) of the zodiac — the earth will retrograde into each one. It will take the earth 25,868 years to visit all 12 signs. If you divide 25,868 by 12 signs, you will get roughly 2,100 years to a particular ‘age’. Thus, once the Age of Aquarius is upon us (and many astrologers, me included, feel we have reached this point) it will stay in the Age of Aquarius for two thousand years.”
A likely marker of this age was experienced globally. Susan elaborates, “The total eclipse of the Sun that occurred in August 1999 was significant because it helped get the world ready to launch into the main time of the Age of Aquarius. That eclipse occurred in the constellation of Leo, a sign that we call the “polarity” of Aquarius. This is because Leo exists at the opposite end of the spectrum from Aquarius, exactly six months away. Not all eclipses are created equal…in a way this one was the mother of all solar eclipses. Because it also fell on a new moon, it pointed to the end of one way of life and a fresh beginning ...” Miller argues convincingly that the space race that begun in 1957 when Sputnik shocked the world actually marks the new age’s advent. Computers emerged from America’s Aquarian obsession with science education and the Hubble telescope put a powerful eye into deep space in 1990. Idealism runs deep in Aquarius, the water bearer, a singular individual striving for great humanitarian goals using democratic methods of governance, mass communications, innovation, and information sharing.
Back in the Day
I am not a trained astrologer, but I became an informal apprentice decades ago when the Age of Aquarius was dawning in the public consciousness, Earth Day was reframing our planetary home, and gender politics were redefining individuality. My mentor was Timothy Troy, a serious student of astrology, a pianist, self-taught composer, and free-thinking classical music freak. Tim had researched the sun signs of every important composer and listened to LPs for characteristics in their music that illuminated the archetypes of the zodiac.
When composer’s natal charts were available, Tim discussed them with his astrological mentors Jack Fontan (a tall Pisces, former actor and model) and Ray Unger (a compact Leo, collage artist and gym pioneer) in Laguna Beach. Their house had slipped off its foundations in a rockslide from the great Orange County flood of 1969. The two halves were salvaged, rebuilt, and finishing touches were still in progress when we first met for a reading. Jack and Ray had become lovers in 1950 and were friends of writer Christopher Isherwood and artist Don Bachardy. They used well-worn volumes of planetary transits that covered 100 years at a time. Casting a chart was arduous, math heavy, and time-consuming in those days before computers. Now, an online Ephemeris can readily trace planetary transits back 3000 years. Since natal calculations are generated in an instant, an astrologer’s job is now centered on the art of interpretation.
Jack and Ray welcomed Tim’s musical approach as a sculptor would accept a sharp new chisel. My reading began during a stylishly eccentric lunch for four. I was a bashful college student with the lithe body of a dancer, long curly blond hair that turned heads, and a personal fashion sense that stood out. Curator Paul Schimmel would later remark that when I became Patrick Marca Registrada with a radical new look, he had never before seen a more passive attention-getting person at an art opening. With the rustic bruschetta appetizer, I learned that Rudolf Nureyev, the famous ballet dancer, shared my birthday. As lunch progressed, the trio tackled my Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars in Pisces, home of composers Ravel and Mussorgsky, as well as Einstein and Liz Taylor. Tim’s Sun in Virgo (George Gershwin and Arnold Schoenberg) answered my Virgo Rising. My moon in Scorpio generated a contentious discussion about the signs three seemingly contradictory types. We followed lunch with a mad lib-style roundtable, like furiously trying on clothes in a big dressing room, assigning drag names for each of the zodiac signs—a set of twelve “camp” names that Tim and I continued to refine for the better part of the 1970s. I burnished the roster beyond Tim’s untimely death—before AIDS itself had a name. Tim shared with me his passion for composers and his big-eared listening to broad strokes and fine brushwork within musical canvasses. He transferred his knowledge and together we charted a new conceptual field—AstroMusic.
Since today is Jacaranda Music’s twenty-first birthday and the week when its name changed to Jacaranda Media, it seemed only right to look at Jacaranda’s natal chart and see what was there in the beginning and how it portends for the future. I enlisted the help of the renowned astrologer Gahl Sasson whose new Kindle Book Shedding Shadows will be your perfect companion for 2025. Gahl is remarkable. Learn more about him by clicking on the image below.
The Chart of Jacaranda Music:
Sun in Libra, Moon in Aquarius, Taurus Rising
Mercury in Virgo, Venus in Libra, Mars in Pisces
Jupiter in Virgo, Saturn in Cancer
Uranus and Neptune in Aquarius
According to Gahl, the most striking feature of the chart is that the Sun and Venus are together in Libra. Libra is ruled by Venus, the goddess of beauty, art, and social connections with people. The Moon in Aquarius is joined by Uranus, the ruler of astrology, and the mystical planet Neptune—ruler of my sun sign. Aquarius energizes communities that promote innovation and technology. Gahl remarked that there is quite a lot of air energy in the chart driving information, connections with people, and a vibrant sense of community. When the Sun, Moon and Venus are in such perfect harmony, as they are in the chart, you have the divine yin and yang gift of connection. Taurus rising rules music, art, the five senses, the voice, and throat. Venus shares her rulership of Libra and Taurus, which provides the foundation of the chart. Gahl observed that astrologers always look for Venus to see the prime motivation of any operation. Venus in Libra is located in the sixth house of work, service, relationship, and partnerships. This reciprocal kind of energy is clearly in service to music. Venus is in her perfect place! Communications ruler Mercury is exalted in Virgo! Because wary, conservative, and sure-footed Capricorn is at the top of the chart, Jacaranda is a late bloomer. It takes time to push forward and manifest success like making a fine wine. And now Jupiter in Virgo is moving into the house of resources—talent and money. There will be more funding, and more linkage to people sharing their abilities. In June and July of next year, Jupiter will move into the house of writing, marketing, and communication. By 2026 Jacaranda will find its real lodging. This is very good chart for an enterprise that makes information available about astrology, art, music, and design to people and communities. With this chart Jacaranda Media could be amazingly successful.
Our first Astro Music post wouldn’t be complete without bringing your attention to an important Libra composer deserving of more attention. Arguably America’s greatest composer, Charles Ives shares a birthday with Kamala Harris—October 20! Ives was born 150 years ago, but his sesquicentennial is being overshadowed by Virgo composer Arnold Schoenberg’s big party.
Libra is represented by the scales of justice and rigorously pursues balance in everything. Libra can balance modesty with being clearly at the forefront. Ives created the American insurance industry while composing four symphonies, two piano sonatas, two violin sonatas, two string quartets, a plethora of short works for theater orchestra, and a huge songbook. His music ranges from the truly sublime to bad-ass polyphonic dissonance. Interwoven is a nostalgia for nineteenth century Americana. A rock-ribbed liberal, Ives’s music always roots for the people and rails against tyranny. His social conscience and sense of justice informed his every move.
Ives’s signature piece is The Unanswered Question for timelessly serene strings, nattering woodwinds, and from a distance the questioning trumpet. I first heard this music at the Hollywood Bowl during the Contempo ’67 Festival conducted by composer Lukas Foss. The Unanswered Question is free of Ives’s penchant for quoting hymns, shanties, rags, anthems and popular songs of the period. Composed in 1906, it remained unpublished and forgotten until 1927 when Ives began preparing works for storage. He then wrote over photostats he had made of the piece and substantially revised it during 1930-34. For Ives the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson communicated the “greater human message of destiny…the wider search for the unknowable, unlimited in any way, or by anything except the vast bounds of innate goodness…” Through the urging of composers Henry Cowell and Eliot Carter, The Unanswered Question was first performed by Juilliard graduate students at Columbia University in 1946.
An introduction to the revised score describes the action: the off stage strings emulate “the silences of the Druids, who see and hear nothing,” the distant solo trumpet poses ‘the perennial question of existence,” and the flutes, oboe, and clarinet search in vain for “the invisible answer.” At first the flutes look around in a tentative manner, but with each successive foray they become more agitated and shrill, like the dishonored Vice President Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism.” The silence remains unperturbed.
As a taste of Ives signature and a sample of Jacaranda’s impressive Ives holdings, here is a live clip from The Unanswered Question performed April 7, 2007, by the Jacaranda Chamber Ensemble conducted by Mark Alan Hilt. The trumpeter is Dave Washburn.
I'm not a believer in anything extraterrestrial, but congratulations, Patrick, on beginning this musical conversation!