Flu vulnerability - a Firebrace example

[Jim Eshelman]

Since everyone is understandably concerned about about flu vulnerability, I thought you'd be interested in an example I came across this morning.

Brigadier Firebrace contracted a bad bout of the flu on December 16, 1967. He was down for weeks - had a hard time recovering his strength, was feverish, very foggy-brained. It's a good example of someone being heavily debility with a bad flu, so you may want to study it to see what was evident.

I'll discuss below what I see in the charts - it's a good example. First, though, I need to address a different side of his article. (This will be a digression away from the flu topic, so jump ahead if you prefer.) When Firebrace wrote about this in the April, 1968 issue of Spica (Vol. VII, No. 3), the main point of his article was to discuss the Anlunar Return (return of Moon to its Solar Return position). His article proposed that the Anlunar should be calculated for birthplace instead of residence (even if one lived far from birthplace and the SSR occurred far from birthplace). Firebrace was born in Nova Scotia and lived in London (where his SSR occurred). - This was a highly controversial assertion on his part, and, in Leo-Aries style, he was quite willing to be controversial if the evidence in front of his face suggested an unpopular point of view. In this case, he saw a stream of four Anlunars / Demi-Anlunars covering the period of his flu that did not show his debilitation for London but showed it exceptionally well for birthplace.

However, this all came from a series of mathematical errors. The charts on which he was basing this conclusion didn't exist.

Back when nobody had a computer and every chart we calculated was by hand, we all made lots of math errors. I still come across an old example in print (or in my own files) where a calculation error led to a wrong conclusion. In this case, on top of everything else, Firebrace was working on these charts while he was foggy-brained with the flu.

He was born August 16, 1889 in Halifax, NS. There are slightly different times - his given birth time, the one he gave he in a letter, one he published in Spica - apparently he was always screwing around with fine-tuning a rectification - but they were all within a quarter hour or so of each other. The one in my files (used for this study) is 4:45 PM LMT, and it matches the calculations well enough once I discovered his error, so I'll assume the 4:45 AM time for this study.

My clue, when I redid his charts to check for myself, is that I got SSR Moon about 3° than he did. I got 16°11' Capricorn and all his examples had Moon at 19°39' Capricorn. He had miscalculated his own Solar Return and that threw everything off. Firebrace's Sun was 0°54'55" Leo with his SSR August 18, 1967, 8:34 PM GMT. However, on his 1967 birthday, Moon was at 19°39' Capricorn (his calculation) six and a half hours later when Sun was at 1°10'25" Leo. (He might have gotten the time right, but miscalculated Moon.)

So the "evidence" that Anlunars should be calculated for birthplace was all wrong evidence; but the example of his flu makes quite a good case. I'll turn to it in the next post.

[Jim Eshelman]

Birth data: August 16, 1889, 4:45 PM LMT, Halifax, NS. (Living in London.)
Contracted influenza December 16, 1967 (apparently lasting two months since he gave four fortnight charts for it). He was 78 years old at the time.

First, the natal: I don't know how often Roy got sick - I think his reputation was of being quite robust (he certainly painted that picture psychologically) and he rose to a high military rank, so I'm sure he wasn't sickly; but his natal chart does suggest tough endurance and pushing through in the face of negatively impacted vitality and perhaps proneness to feverish diseases. At least, two of his most important aspects have these themes, and these exact aspects are active for the 1967 flu: His nativity has Sun conjunct Saturn 0°15' (1° Leo) and Moon square Mars (0°02') at 13° Cancer. Remember these degrees - we will see them in what follows.

TRANSITS: Roy didn't mention transits at all, but the first thing I notice is that Neptune was 1° Scorpio. It was flu season and transiting Neptune squared his natal Sun-Saturn conjunction exactly. I haven't yet stumbled across a chart that put these on the angles, so I have to conclude that the transit by itself was a main factor. It shows weakening, debilitation, etc. When flu season came along with this transit in tow, he succumbed for a few weeks. - A simultaneous Uranus square to his Jupiter surely has nothing to do with the flu and affected him in different ways. Transiting Mars was about a degree past his 4:45 PM natal MC when he succumbed.

SOLAR RETURN: His SSR from August 18, 1967 was enough by itself to suggest health would be vulnerable for the year - among other kinds of difficulties. In London, transiting Saturn 17°40' Pisces conjoined Ascendant 17°18' Pisces! (Saturn was really 2°37' below Asc, which is still plenty close enough; but I wanted the drama of citing in ecliptically.) Moon at 16°11' Capricorn opposed natal Mars at 13°04' Cancer. Though other things were possible, "inflammatory sickness" was certainly one of them.

Then, on December 15-16, 1967, transiting Mars conjoined Solar Return Moon, replicating the Moon-Mars symbolism of the natal and of the SSR! Transiting Saturn had backed from it's exact conjunction with SSR Ascendant to an exact conjunction with its Eastpoint. Since transiting Neptune simultaneously squared natal Sun-Saturn (which is also SSR Sun), the SSR was under simultaneous attack by Neptune (square its Sun), Saturn (crossing an angle), and Mars (conjoining its Moon)!!!

LUNAR RETURN: With this setup of natal, transits, and SSR, I normally expect the SLR to act as a main chart for fluctuating health in the same way that lunar ingresses are a main trigger of fluctuating weather conditions. - Matching the SSR, Firebrace's December 13,1967 SLR has one planet closely angular: Transiting Saturn is 4° below Descendant in London. (Natal Venus is at MC. I don't know its relevance.)

Other SLRs (including Demis) kept things going without ever landing quite as squarely as the initial "contraction" SLR. For example, the 12/26 Demi had Pluto rising - he was likely feeling impacted and withdrawn. The 1/9/68 SLR looks the most feverish (I imagine the fever came earlier, but he didn't say and, regretfully, I don't have him around to ask): Transiting Mars was exactly on EP, natal Mars set within a few degrees in a natal Mars-Neptune paran on the angles. This looks inflammatory, infectious, etc. The 1/23 Demi-SLR probably shows him starting to feel better (I'm guessing this from the chart - he didn't say) with Venus on natal Jupiter widely rising - most angular was natal Uranus nea MC so he likely was feeling antsy by then and wanting to be up and outside, back to his normal routine! (We can all sympathize at the moment.)

PROGRESSING THE SSR: SQ Moon had reached 20°25' Capricorn on 12/16, a few minutes from being within 1° of square SSR Mars. (It was in orb by 12/27.) This surely didn't make him feel better, may have exacerbated fever, but wasn't a factor in timing his contracting the flu in the first place. Ah, but wait: PSSR Moon got to the aspect faster (as it always does) and was 0°21' from square SSR Mars when the flu hit. Moon-Mars came from multiple directions all at once!

PROGRESSING THE NATAL CHART (SNQ): The secondary progressions, and SNQ in particular, were not impressive, with the (minor?) matter that progressed Sun at 17° Libra was also squared by transiting Mars the day he got sick.

Or, I should say the SNQ wasn't impressive until I switched to the Q1 variant - which Firebrace heartily endorsed! First, that square of Mars 17° Capricorn square progressed Sun 17° Libra fell with SNQ(1) MC 17° Aries! Second, SNQ1 Ascendant was 0° Leo, conjunct his natal Sun-Saturn. What a miserable-looking day! An outstanding showing for the Q1.


In conclusion, the main charts came through in a sterling way with exactly what we'd expect. For a really bad flu there were really bad aspects: Transiting Neptune square natal Sun-Saturn, a Saturn-rising SSR with Moon opposite natal Mars, progressed SSR Moon square Mars as all this hit AND transiting Mars crossing SSR Moon, coming to a head under the SLR with Saturn also angular - etc. That's solid, bang bang bang astrology any way you look at it.

[Lance]

Sounds perfectly miserable.

[SteveS]

Jim wrote:

That's solid, bang bang bang astrology any way you look at it.

Indeed!

[Stillpoint]

Extremely interesting example. I learned a lot from the interpretations above.


I use the 'Progressed MC in RA'.
For the Converse secondary progressions there was dec 1967:

Con P ASC-90-MA (0'02 orb)
Con P ASC-180-MO (aries)
Con P MC-00- con P SA (0'07 orb).

Nov 2 Eclipse opp Moon and square Mars

Transit Pl-135-MO ( in aries)
transit Pl-45-MA