Never menstruated ("Constant Nymph")

[Jim Eshelman]

In the January, 1973 issue of American Astrology, the following interesting chart for medical astrology research, of a 30-year-old woman, was published in the "Many Things" column. The anonymous answer was by Donald Bradley. Notice that it was written to be "zodiac neutral" for the Q&A column.

"THE CONSTANT NYMPH"
I thought my chart would reveal the reason for this particularly difficult problem I have related to my development as a woman. My birth data are May 30, 1942, 2:40 PM EWT, 43N10, 77W37.

I have never started to menstruate because of not producing enough of a hormone coming from the pituitary gland initiating the whole cycle. Could you please tell me if you see anything connected with this situation in my chart, as no doctor, psychiatrist, or my own analysis has been able to figure it out. And is it possible there is a physical cause or that perhaps my own mental and emotional state of mind is responsible? I will really appreciate any help or suggestions.

Neptune Rising, Berkeley, Calif.

Comment: We'd appreciate it if any readers having astrological experience with this subject would contribute their opinions about this interesting chart, the tropical version of which is shown herewith. Note that for the birth moment the Ascendant is precisely cuspal, 0°00' [Tropical] Libra, though we suspect Virgo is actually rising inasmuch as Virgo is traditionally classed as a "barren" and "neutral" sign, which may be relevant. [SZ Asc 6°05' Vir - JAE] The stellium in [Tropical] Gemini is striking, as is the Jupiter-Mercury conjunction at the Midheaven in square to rising Neptune, suggesting a symbolic form of juvenilism or pre-maturity orientation that is reflected in the body chemistry. Prominence of the soft planets ties in with youngishness; prominence of the hard planets is linked to early aging. The fact that Venus in the 8th [Placidus, but not Campanus - JAE] is precisely sextile Jupiter at the upper meridian is therefore implicated in your problem. The sidereal backdrop of the Sun's and Moon's placements, the latter in its "fall" in Scorpius, seems pertinent to understanding your problem, especially because the trio of Uranus-Saturn-Sun lies in Taurus, classically associated with female functions by virtue of the Venus dignity and Moon exaltation in that sign. But let's hear from others who might have some light to shed on the matter.

[Jim Eshelman]

I never considered this mystery fully resolved but enjoyed it as a great medical astrology example. I tend to lean with the main points the editor made but putting the emphasis a little differently.

Foremost, this is one of the many examples where unusual medical problems are strongly aligned with hard aspect (and especially their signs) in the cadent houses. Moon in Scorpio is not in orb of opposition to the three Taurus planets in the 9th, but the Sun-Moon Taurus-Scorpio polarity is pretty obvious - leaps off the chart - all background and along the constellation axis related to sex biology and the like.

I'm also taken with the juvenescent psychological tone mentioned about Mercury conjunct Jupiter in Gemini at MC square Neptune in Virgo rising. I'm not taken with the Virgo Rising argument itself - I'm doubt that a collection of fertility charts would show Virgo rising (or any Ascendant sign) being statistically abnormal - but the strong aspect pattern involving Neptune rising in Virgo is another matter - the rising planet gives life to the sign symbolism - and the juvenilish planets (Mercury in Gemini is stationary BTW) can't be ignored, I think.

The specific medical attributions to Mercury, Jupiter, and Neptune in mutual aspect don't necessarily point to this, though some astrologers do relate Mercury to the pituitary gland, and Mercury-Neptune leaves space for psychosomatic triggers, I think.

BTW, I checked Sedna and, though there is a 0°05' Mars-Sedna square (worth attention), it isn't very prominent in the chart as a whole. I doubt it's connected, but wanted to mention it.

Not only is natal Moon in its fall and cadent, she's at perihelion. I have no idea if this is relevant, but thought I'd mention the astronomical fact. Meanwhile, Sun is 0°06' from square Moon's nodes (and Moon broadly so), which means the Full Moon almost a day before she was born was at Moon's maximum declination. These all give a complicated picture of Moon's astronomical condition that may be relevant, but about which we have little real data. (Mythology would have a field day with all these details, though.)

Furthermore, the natal Moon at 22°39' Scorpio is closely opposed by Novien Moon at 23°56' Taurus. Does this further enhance the Taurus-Scorpio axis? A final observation about her Moon is that it is in paran-conjunction with Antares: Her Moon rose within 0°35' of when Antares rose. Individual fixed stars have been slow to show their importance, but this paran theory has been the most promising.

One interesting midpoint structure is Moon = Saturn/MC 0°10'. Again, I'm not persuaded that a single factor like this is pivotal, and (of all midpoint types) I'm most skeptical of midpoints formed of a planet and an angle - but this is at least accurate symbolism.

Finally, it's interesting by itself that this issue was of great importance to this woman. I suppose it would be of some importance to most women but seems especially a big deal for this Taurus-Scorpio woman. The Sidereal sign symbolism has much more to offer than the Tropical, where the amount of mercurial androgyny and sexual neutrality symbols seems to me would have made this state seem more natural and automatically accepted by her.

[Jim Eshelman]

Besides a certain "priming" in the birth chart - the main themes being present - my preferred theory of this chart is that something significant happened (perhaps an actual event, perhaps only a psychological event) at the time of puberty that shocked her system. If American Astrology explored this with her, it wasn't in public.

This doesn't get mentioned much, so it's worth spelling out: Check her solar returns for the years she likely reached puberty. One consequence of her being born near Neptune's rise is that, for the same location, Neptune would have been angular every year - so we can't pay much attention unless it is extremely close or (more commonly) based on its aspects. We don't know when she moved from upstate New York (where she was born) to Berkeley (from which she wrote the letter at age 30), but for now I'll assume that was an adult move.

Her SSR for age 11 had Neptune widely on IC while opposite Venus close to MC. For age 12, Neptune was 0°26' from Asc (square natal Mars on MC) and Moon is 0°11' from square Pluto. For age 13, Mars is 0°23' from Dsc. For age 14, Uranus is 1°08' from IC square Saturn 5° from Dsc. Any of these would be consistent with a painful shock or blow that could have triggered a specific psychogenic crisis.

Progressed Mars squared natal Venus a few months before she turned 11. Age 10 was young for puberty in 1952, but it's hard not to take this as some kind of "sexual awakening," desirable or undesirable. (Mars was sextile her Neptune at the same time.)

I would expect that the psychiatrist(s) and physician(s) she consulted would have explored this, or her own explorations (to which she passingly alluded) would have brought this to light, so perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree. Nonetheless, this is the most obvious possibility - most obvious avenue of exploration - that comes to my mind.

[Veronica]

I speculate that her condition, while having astrology mrkers for being predisposed to sexual complications, may have been the result of the toxic environmental conditions of her home town, being in Upstate NY before people understood about chemical waste in manufacturing and its resulting ecological disasters on the total environment. Her location is near the "Love Canal" area where industry and government worked together to try and dispose chemicals that have horrible wide spread effects on the biology of life forms.

[Jim Eshelman]

Very interesting

[Venus_Daily]

I speculate that her condition, while having astrology mrkers for being predisposed to sexual complications, may have been the result of the toxic environmental conditions of her home town, being in Upstate NY before people understood about chemical waste in manufacturing and its resulting ecological disasters on the total environment. Her location is near the "Love Canal" area where industry and government worked together to try and dispose chemicals that have horrible wide spread effects on the biology of life forms.

I don't know, being a nurse, I'm beginning to believe that endocrine disruptions during puberty and congenitally are a lot more common than we think they are. I met a patient exactly my age, who had Turner Syndrome, and to me during my assessment, she really didn't have symptoms, she didn't look like the typical patient. If you think about how many embryos and fetuses that prematurely detach from the fundus for no reason at all, endocrine disruption doesn't seem that much of a surprise. Endocrine disruptors are blamed for too many things now in days.

[Veronica]

I speculate that her condition, while having astrology mrkers for being predisposed to sexual complications, may have been the result of the toxic environmental conditions of her home town, being in Upstate NY before people understood about chemical waste in manufacturing and its resulting ecological disasters on the total environment. Her location is near the "Love Canal" area where industry and government worked together to try and dispose chemicals that have horrible wide spread effects on the biology of life forms.

I don't know, being a nurse, I'm beginning to believe that endocrine disruptions during puberty and congenitally are a lot more common than we think they are. I met a patient exactly my age, who had Turner Syndrome, and to me during my assessment, she really didn't have symptoms, she didn't look like the typical patient. If you think about how many embryos and fetuses that prematurely detach from the fundus for no reason at all, endocrine disruption doesn't seem that much of a surprise. Endocrine disruptors are blamed for too many things now in days.

I agree that they are more common ...in 1941 there were 2 billion people worldwide...we are close to 8 billion people now....stands to reason that there would be a huge increase in the number of cases simply because their are so many more people.

what I was trying to bring to light was that this woman had very clear astrological markers for "issues" with her sexual nature, markers that would have brought about certain specific manifestations physically and that because she possibly lived near cities that have been publicly exposed to have horribly polluted the areas air (via smoke stacks burning wastes) and the rivers, streams and aquifers (via flushing wastes "away") those manifestations in her particular case took form in her specific case of amenorrhea.
For example....the toxic air pollution from silver and mercury settling into local farmers crops that her mother may have eaten while pregnant.....
the polluted water that may have been used to make the baby formula that she drank....

In thinking that there were lots of people born world wide on that date and time, other people with very similiar natal charts who did not seem to suffer this condition (that we know of, maybe they all do, but only she made a very public inquiry into her condition) it is very reasonable to look at what her environmental factors were and how they may have influenced her charts unfolding.
Pollution and its toxic effects on human physiology is a very real thing, and although the people doing the polluting do not want to take responsibility for thier actions...ie..big agricultural, big pharmaceutical, big military....it has impacted and changed the lives of people and all lifeforms in horrid ways.

Now maybe I'm wrong in this person's particular case, and her amenorrhea is purely just her fate.
Yet I can provide thousands of cases of peoples lives in upstate NY whose lives were ruined in a way by the toxic practices of the big industries driven by greed and profit and selfishness. I live here, I worked in local history and I know my community and what it has gone through.

I was just reading the Smithsonian magazines article on the highly toxic levels of Mercury found at ancient Maya sites and the speculation of what that poison possibly did to the Mayan peoples physiology and civilization. It may very well be shown to have reduced pregnancy rates and increase mental illness and eventually the fall of the empire because of thier practices of using very powerful chemicals naively and improperly.

Thank you for your insights and feedback Venus, I respectfully disagree with your thought..."if you think about how many embryos and fetuses that prematurely detach from the fundus for no reason at all",.....
IME there is always a reason.

https://michiganintheworld.history.lsa. ... -pollution

[Venus_Daily]

Yes, there is always a reason. Evolution is fickle and uncaring. Statistically, nothing should be here.

[Jim Eshelman]

In thinking that there were lots of people born worldwide on that date and time, other people with very similar natal charts who did not seem to suffer this condition...

Yes, this is a correct way of looking at this. Let's break it down a bit.

Let's limit this to the U.S. for a moment - since the numbers are available and it still makes a good story. In the United States in 1942, 2,800,000 live babies were born. This (on average) is 7,621 people per day. Approximately half were female, or 3,836.

Of course, Moon (which moved 15°19' that day) would have been in different locations, most of them in closer aspect to the Taurus planets. Since the "day" reached from 0:00 Eastern time to 24:00 Pacific time (27 hours), Moon spanned about 17° in the zodiac.

Of these (approximately) 3,836 women, about one-third would have these Taurus-Scorpio planets in cadent houses (which seems to me a critical astrological factor). That's 1,279.

So something more than 1,000 women were born the same day with the same basic positions in the same segments of the chart that incline toward health issues. (This last division would also put the Mercury-Jupiter-Neptune trio near angles.)

So... your basic point... even if we limit ourselves to the U.S. (because I had those birth figures handy) and to this calendar day, and within that to women with the two main characteristics that seem most astrologically relevant, we still have over 1,000 women with the same factors.

Most of these 1,000 or so women likely menstruated. If there had been a single birthday where the vast majority of women did NOT menstruate, that would have been noticed sometime in the last 70 years. They surely all had other issues arise that expressed some of these themes differently, but surely nearly all of them menstruated.

So... we are left with the question of why this one woman (or possibly a few more we don't know about) was an exception. It could have been environmental, or something physically or psychologically traumatic could have occurred. I likely wasn't genetic since, by definition, none of our mothers and grandmothers could have had her condition! It's not hard to find articles about impact on the pituitary from toxic pollutants.

Personally, I still favor the idea of a trauma near puberty, but it might be simpler than that. We likely never will know.

[Veronica]

I would like to agree with you, that her condition was the result of trauma, yet in her own words she does not mention surviving any trauma....which I would think she would have brought up to her medical team especially a paid psychiatrist.

Yet, if she was traumatized it may very well be that the nature of her trauma paired with her own character could make it hard to talk about, something she didnt want to acknowledge. Historically women get no sympathy or understanding for living through trauma, and are shunned and outcasted for bringing our trauma to light and never given a chance to heal.

She may very well be trying to heal from trauma and reaching out to astrology to help her bring to light and integrate her life experiences, which she does seem to elude to in her first sentence. An anonymous letter in a magazine would provide a safe venue for her to say...something happened and nobody wants to talk about it with me and I feel gaslighted by the professionals I've talked to.....do you see what happened to me.....