Leo as Hunter (Garth Allen)

[Jim Eshelman]

(by Garth Allen, from 1964 American Astrology Digest)

Leo has long been called the class-conscious, oligarchic sign of the zodiac because it symbolizes those attitudes which make people think they are innately better, genetically and mentally and otherwise, than others of virtue of breeding or traditionally drawn lines of privilege. Oddly but interestingly too, Leo was anciently depicted as the constellation of the "born hunter," it being a divine prerogative of its scions to dominate the forests and fields and their simpler-living creatures.

[Jim Eshelman]

Davy Crockett
(by Garth Allen in "Many Things," American Astrology 10/55; letter dated 7/10/55)

Among the keywords which astrologers have coined for Pluto are resurrection and regeneration, while the astute Cyril Fagan once wrote that Pluto transiting the natal Luminaries often "forces the native out of retirement." An astonishing example of this function of Pluto has been the Davy Crockett craze which has not yet fully spent itself.

In his own journal Davy wrote that he was born on August 17th, 1786, "whether by day or night I know not." His natal Sun, then, is about 2 ½° of the constellation Leo. Walt Disney produced his laudable motion picture of Davy's life - launching the craze - in 1954 when Pluto by transit exactly conjoined Davy Crockett's natal Sun! Evidently, planetary influences can also have a post-mortem effect, for our hero was surely brought back to life again more than a century after the Alamo. (Incidentally, Fess Parker was born on August 16th).

Natives of the sidereal Leo have a remarkable ability to earn identifying titles. Random examples: Gentleman Jim Corbett; The Kingfish, Huey Long; King of the Hobos, Jeff Davis; Grand Old Man, Amos Alonzo Stagg; Mr. Republican, Taft; Lorenzo The Magnificent; The Sun King, Louis XIV; Ivan The Terrible; Alexander The Great; Adviser to Presidents, Baruch; Grandma Moses; Dean of American Writers, Dreiser; and, dear to all of us, Dean of American Astrologers, Llewellyn George. So, halfway through the twentieth century, that gamecock of the wilderness, Davy Crockett, is being honored as King of the Wild Frontier. A few excerpts from Manilius' poetic treatment of how Roman astrologers visualized the thoroughbred natives of Leo show how truly Davy epitomized the ancient Leo-type in an era before the telephone replaced Old Betsy as a weapon of conquest and a television camera supplanted the tree stump for politicking. Some readers will think the verse, written two thousand years ago, uncannily prophetic of the present fur-fetish of our youngsters.

"What inclinations Leo's Rays dispense
Is quickly known 'tis plain to Common Sense,
He gives his Own for he the Woods infests
The mighty Terror of the meaner Beasts;
Hence he inclines Men's Minds to Hunt, and fills
Our Nobles Spacious Halls with grinning spoyls;
Their Skins and Horns do spread a dismal grace,
And stand as certain Heralds of their race;
'This Beast was mine, and that my Father's Game,'
They cry, these are the Annals of their Fame:
He makes Men warm, their Passions quickly rais'd,
Like Boys soon angry, and as soon appeased:
But Plain and Honest, all their Thoughts sincere;
Pure as the Sun, and like the water clear."

The ingenious Walt Disney deserves an astrological word here, too. According to the late Elbert Benjamine, Disney was born at 7:30 A.M. C.S.T., on December 5th, 1901, in Chicago. One's name seems often to be ruled by one's natal Mercury. In my former article about Sir Richard Burton's horoscope, mention was made of the importance of those geographical localities where one's natal Mercury is conjunct an angular cusp. (The examples were Mecca for Burton, Mount Everest for Sir Edmund Hillary, and the English Channel for Gertrude Ederle.) Historically, one's "name" seems destined to be forever associated, in the public mind, with these Mercury localities. It is surely not a coincidence that Disney's locality charts for both Hollywood and Anaheim, California, site of Disneyland, show his natal Mercury actually on the Ascendant! It is quite appropriate that the magical name Disney should be heard currently on every hand, for Walt's June 17th Lunar Return for this area was Mercury and Venus conjunct on the Midheaven and his return for July 24th has the same two planets conjunct the horizon.
GARTH ALLEN, 10/55 A.A., "Many Things," p.5,

[SteveS]

RIP Walt, with the commercial movie industry being my bread and butter career, if not for you, my career would have been greatly diminished.