THE PERSONAL GALACTIC CENTRE

It is not easy having an outer planet make a hard aspect to an inner planet, as it requires us to acknowledge and integrate a dimension from outside of the ordinary personality. But it is also part of what life is about, for if we do not have such aspects natally, we will sooner or later meet them by transit. Life requires us continually to transform ourselves and to connect with dimensions outside of our immediate, perhaps narrow, interests.

We are helped in this process by the fact that the outer planets are at least part of our solar system; they are gods that we can recognise through the stories about them. They are like us as well as being ‘Other’.

But when it comes to the Galactic Centre, there is no such overlap. The GC represents the evolutionary impulse within matter-consciousness in its widest yet most direct form. It is the force within the universe that makes all forms of life feel the urge to grow and unfold. And having it aspecting a personal planet is like being directly connected to a nuclear power station, without the usual series of steam turbines, transformers etc that make its energy usable by ordinary household appliances.

So if you can work with the energy of the GC, amazing things with wide significance will be achieved – after all, it is the evolutionary energy of the whole universe that one is being plugged into, so a wider significance is inevitable. On the other hand, it is also hard not to also be driven a little bit crazy by it. I think that George W Bush is a good example. For now I want to stick to 4 degree conjunctions and oppositions, but I’m going to make an exception in the case of GWB. His nodal axis is at 20.35 Gemini-Sag, and his Galactic Centre is at 26.07 Sag.

The thing about Sagittarians is that they are prone to feel that God is speaking through them anyway, even without the Galactic Centre getting involved, so I think the GC intensifies this possibility. With Gemini (North) - Sag (South) Nodes, it is easy (South Node) to feel you are the voice of God, and the lesson (North Node) is to bring in discriminating awareness (Gemini). With the GC sitting there, the lesson is that much harder. For GWB, who has a weak Sun – in the 12th House and square to Chiron – it is very difficult for him to sustain his individuality in the face of what he feels to be God speaking through him.

Saddam Hussein was executed this morning at just before 6am (local time) in Baghdad. The ASC was at 21 Sag, straddled by Mars at 17 Sag and Pluto at 27 Sag – an appropriate signature for a violent (Mars) death (Pluto). And there is George Bush’s nodal axis running along the ASC-DESC axis of the death chart. The Galactic Centre, of course, is involved as well, sitting next to Pluto at 27 Sag – less than a day after the exact conjunction, which only occurs every 240 years. And Saddam’s death has been a direct result of George Bush’s decision, or rather his directions from God, to invade Iraq.

There is a further connection with GWB’s chart, in that both have a Mercury-Pluto conjunction just below the ASC – in Bush’s case, I have always thought that it is this that has given him his ready association with death while in office, whether as governor of Texas or President of the USA.

To give a more positive example of the Galactic Centre in a chart, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet was born on 8 June 1955, with North Node at 26.21 Sag, and GC at 26.14 Sag (he also has Mercury opposite at 28.07 Gemini). I think that a characteristic of the GC in a chart is that one’s actions are connected to the Collective and can have a profoundly progressive, evolutionary effect on a wide scale. Which Berners-Lee has achieved through his invention of the Internet.

And which Neil Armstrong achieved through being the first man on the Moon. He has Moon (of all planets!) at 25.24 Sag conjunct GC at 25.53 Sag. Note the tightness of the conjunctions in this case and in the case of Berners-Lee, and how central to our culture their achievements have been. Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, has DESC at 26.44 Sag, less than a degree off the GC at 25.53 Sag.

A few other figures with conjunctions to the GC are: Steven Spielberg (Sun 20 minutes off GC), Rupert Murdoch (Moon 1½ degrees, ASC 5½ degrees off GC), Tiger Woods (Moon 4.08 degrees, IC 2.34 degrees off GC), Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (MC 4.13 degrees off GC), Billy Graham (Moon 3.03 degrees off GC).

Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma Bomber, had DESC within 31 minutes of the GC, as well as Moon, Uranus and Pluto more widely square the GC. He was at war with the government, and seems to have lived in a fantastical, extremist way, consistent with a personality unable to handle the extremely high voltage of the GC.

David Cameron, the leader of the UK Conservative Party, has his IC within a couple of degrees of the GC. We have yet to see what he will achieve, but being one of the 1960s Uranus-Pluto generation, and with it (widely) square to his GC, he has the capacity to creatively lead the UK through the testing times that the upcoming Uranus-Pluto square seem to portend – that is, providing he doesn’t identify himself too much with the outer planet/GC energy that is working through him. (Winston Churchill, a Conservative leader who certainly led Britain through testing times, had IC within 5 degrees of the Galactic Centre).

Prince William, 2nd in line to the British throne, has his ASC and Neptune within a degree of the GC, and his Sun opposite the GC within 3½ degrees. His Moon is more widely opposite it. So, however he turns out, he seems destined to be deeply involved in the events of his time: he won’t be just an irrelevant anachronism, another perfectly feasible outcome for a British king.

Of the people I know with close conjunctions to the Galactic Centre, I have noticed in a number of them what could technically be called a wonky connection with the bigger, wider issues of life: they are strongly connected to that dimension, but they also tend to become identified with it and make pronouncements around it that are simply wrong! One person I know of has Sun conjunct GC, and has spent the last 30 years as the leading disciple within a religious group. He’ll make pronouncements about anything, and takes what he says terribly seriously, but it’s all based around quite a skewed and limited view of human nature. Another person, with GC conjunct ASC, gets grandiose visions around what she can achieve – but then, to her credit, realises what she’s been doing when she falls flat on her face. Until the next time!

So with the GC conjunction, I think there tends to be an unusually strong energy running through people that means they can achieve a lot, for better or for worse, and that at best can profoundly advance whatever collective unfoldment humanity is going through. In a personal chart, where it is strongly aspected, I think there can also be a need to separate out, and become discerning of, what seems to be the ‘voice of God’ within oneself. Because the GC can be very destructive if it is operating unconsciously.