Jun 8: Frank Lloyd Wright & Barbara Bush

[Jim Eshelman]

Wright, Frank Lloyd. June 8, 1867, 5:00 PM LMT, Richland Center, WI (A).
Bush, Barbara. June 8, 1925, 7:00 PM EDT, Queens, NY (A).


Runners up Robert Schumann and Nancy Sinatra.

[Jim Eshelman]

Wright, Frank Lloyd. June 8, 1867, 5:00 PM LMT, Richland Center, WI (A).

Wright's 5 PM birth time is rated A because of the source (his last wife said it's what he told her) but it's not without controversy. Wright, in his autobiography, quotes his mother as saying he was born in the evening during a thunderstorm.

Some people have questioned the 5 PM based on the "evening" remark. The Astro.com page specifically says that, in Wisconsin that time of year, "evening" would have been at least 8 PM. I dispute this, though. I think that is a non-Midwest reading of the matter, that the interpreter assumes "evening" has to mean after it was dark. Indeed, sunset the day he was born was 7:38 PM, with it remaining light for at least half an hour after.

But, growing up in that part of the world, I know that "evening" often was when it was still light. It basically meant when workers came in out of the fields, and, and certainly meant the time range when the evening milking was done (which was only after dark in the winter and was certainly before supper). Therefore, 5 PM is not unreasonable.

The only real event I have for him is his death, April 9, 1959, Phoenix, AZ. It does have a transiting Jupiter-Pluto square on his 5 PM Midheaven - all partile. There is an interesting partile Moon-Sun-Pluto grand trine. His solar arc angles of the unmodified time are quite fitting for a natural death at 91, with directed Saturn square his Asc, and directed Asc square his Pluto.

[Jim Eshelman]

For his death, April 9, 1959, in Pheonix, his SLR is adequate: He had developed stomach pains, received surgery April 6, seemed to be recovering, then died quietly on the 9th.

For this birth time, the final SLR had transiting Saturn exactly on Zenith. His demi-lunar one day before the surgery had natal Mars (in Cancer for the stomach pain) 2 degrees from Dsc and transiting Pluto 12' from WP-a.

These charts are quite credible for his death - with the obviously correct planets not only being angular but quite close. So far, these and the solar arcs look like the time is essentially exact.

[Jim Eshelman]

Perhaps the moist terrible event of his life occurred August 15, 1914. He was in Chicago and the event occurred in Spring Green, WI. A servant in his Wisconsin home set fire to the house's living quarters then ax-murdered his mistress, her children, and others. One can only imagine the feelings when this news reached him in Chicago.

Progressed Moon squared natal Mars to the minute that day! This is likely all we need to confirm the 5 PM birth time. Other progressions supported the likely shock, but this one is a clean single spike nailing the likely birth time in place.

Solar arcs for this event bespoke the destructive fire and violence and the likely emotional effect: d Uranus conjoined his Mars -12' AND d Mars squared his Uranus +14 (average: 1'). Directed Neptune squared his MC -5' AND d MC opposed his natal Neptune +7' (average: 1'). Wow!

The SLR doesn't give me the Mars I expected (not closely) but does primarily show enormous emotional loss. Transiting Pluto 0°09' before Asc, transiting Venus 0°09' past IC put them in 0°17' mundane square in close aspect with natal/transiting Moon. (Wider angularities by Mars and Saturn.) Natal Uranus was most angular (0°59' before Asc. exactly tied in mundanely to the Moon-Venus-Pluto). - There's a lot more! Set up this chart in TMSA and be amazed at the aspects.

There was also an intervening demi-lunar. It wasn't very impressive, with natal Jupiter the only closely angular planet. The non-foreground partile aspects were interesting, though, with the closest being a Venus-Saturn square, another being Sun square natal Pluto, plus his natal Venus-Saturn and Mars-Saturn aspects. The aspects are right but the angularity isn't there. It's the full SLR that really shined on this one.

For fine-tuning, how were the quotidians? The worst aspects of the day were transiting Saturn at 6 Gemini, Mars at 7 Virgo, and Pluto at 8 Gemini. For noon, Wright's SNQ MC for Chicago was 5 Sagittarius, within a degree of Saturn and at the start of the nix. As already mentioned, this was the EXACT day of his progressed Moon-Mars square. It was also the exact day that PSSR Moon squared natal Neptune!

For Spring Green, WI where the fire and slaughter occurred, the SNQ Asc 28 Aquarius opposed progressed Mars at 27 Leo.

I'm quite satisfied with the 5 PM birth time.

[Jim Eshelman]

Meanwhile, the natal chart itself both confirms things we solidly know in astrology and gives some subtle insight into other things.

First, Wright was a Taurus-Leo. I can't think of a better luminary pairing for America's greatest and most creative architect, mixing beauty of form with the sense of grand structure - Leo luminaries being noted as builders of great palaces and other grand buildings. Wright's contribution was especially his contextualism, merging buildings with nature and the environment in which they were found, noble use of classic forms and other openly Taurian themes.

He also had a marital life filled with mixes of devotion, drama, abandonment, loss... all tying into a Taurus Sun behind Saturn-Venus-Pluto joined across the horizon, (Sort it out: All the pieces intertwine.) What utterly stuns me, though, is that, for the given birthtime, Saturn is ZERO MINUTES FROM ASCENDANT opposite Venus only a few minutes off Descendant. Besides his relationship patterns, this brings another way of showing is great connection to beauty and nature together with Saturn, a planet of construction and form.

I've been saying for a while that Saturn in us represents the MATERIAL needs which include not just survival and "materialism," but also the need to constructive, build, shape, etc. Usually it's easiest to see the negative, struggling side of Saturn, but this chart is a wonderful example of someone whose life was committed to bringing great beauty into physical form - to making things.

Enjoy the chart. Learn about the man. There's a lot here!

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Re: "I think that is a non-Midwest reading of the matter, that the interpreter assumes "evening" has to mean after it was dark."

I agree! I grew up in a neighboring state and to me, if you say "evening," I think of the hours surrounding 6 pm. If it was later, one would be more temtped to use the word "night" to describe it. Evening, at least in relatively rural Illinois hints at the time surrounding suppertime. Whether the Sun is over/under the horizon, ie. night or day, wouldn't play a role in whether it was evening or not.